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Requested move 07 November 2014

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The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: consensus to move the pages, per the discussion below. The objections to the move here are not related to the merits of the request at hand, and one of the editors in opposition actually expresses support for the change. The assumption of the opposing editors that there is no consensus for the moves is not borne out in the discussion here. It is important to clarify that while moves based on guidelines are preferable to moves based on local consensus, move requests listed at Wikipedia:Requested moves are seen by a broad cross-section of editors. Further, while WikiProjects do contribute significant work to articles within their purview, WikiProjects are not intended to create guidelines that conflict with broader consensus; see Category:Style guidelines of WikiProjects Category:WikiProject style advice for more. In the absence of more specific guidelines, our existing guidelines and policies should be used to determine the locations of these articles, and it is along these lines that the move requests engendered support. Finally, if another move request is needed in order to assess the support for moving Istriana goat to Istrian goat, please proceed. Dekimasuよ! 00:02, 14 November 2014 (UTC) [Category link updated after CfD in 2016.][reply]


– Per WP:NATURAL policy. Of 135 articles in Category:Goat breeds (over half of which required disambiguation), only an even dozen were still using parenthetic disambiguation. See large number of recent RMs, all closing in favor of natural vs. parenthetical disambiguation: Talk:Teeswater sheep#Requested move 25 August 2014 (a large mass-RM), Talk:American Sable rabbit#Requested moves, Talk:Strasser pigeon#Requested moves, Talk:Corsican cattle#Requested moves, Talk:Flemish Giant rabbit#Requested moves, Talk:Dutch Landrace goat#Requested moves, and some recent individual ones, e.g. Talk:Bronze turkey#Requested move, Talk:West African Dwarf goat#Requested move, Talk:White Park cattle#Requested move, Talk:Australian Pit Game fowl#Requested move, etc.  –  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  12:23, 7 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This is a contested technical request (permalink).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  14:50, 7 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speedy?: If there's a provision for speedily closing this, let's invoke it. There's no point in running a long RM on an issue that only just recently was already settled in multiple RMs that concluded in favor of the exact same sorts of moves (of animal breed articles, from names using parenthetic disambiguation to names using natural disambiguation).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  14:50, 7 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sources: As an exercise, I proved the usage of natural disambiguation in real-world sources, across a range of breed names in previous RMs of this sort: Talk:Teeswater sheep#Reliable sources regularly use natural disambiguation for these breeds (also used at Talk:Asturian Mountain cattle#Reliable sources regularly use natural disambiguation for these breeds; both RMs concluded against parenthetic disambiguation). The same holds true of goat breeds: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]. The demonstrable fact is that natural disambiguation of animal breed names is simply an in-built feature of the English language. PS (not a WP:RM matter): The lack of almost any search results, other than blogs and those clearly derivative of Wikipedia's own articles, for the Ciavenasca, Istriana and Sempione breeds suggests that they fail WP:Notability and may be good WP:AFD candidates. Not every purported breed is an encyclopedic topic.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  15:30, 7 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support no one else that I have seen uses brackets. Gregkaye ✍♪ 15:59, 7 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • See also Talk:Dutch Landrace goat#Requested move 07 November 2014 moved to WP:Requested moves#Goat moves 2, opened by same contestor.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  16:45, 7 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. While it is true that many animal breed articles do not at present have parenthetical disambiguation, in many cases (around 250, I believe) that is because they were moved without consensus or discussion by SMcCandlish. Some of those are listed at Talk:Teeswater sheep#Requested move 25 August 2014, a discussion that closed (if I've understood correctly) as no consensus, which means that those articles will be restored to their previous titles. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 18:01, 7 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Look again; that RM, which was to belatedly revert WP:NATURAL-compliant moves after ~2 months (and now about 5 months) of stability and no problems, closed as "no move". It was closed by Anthony Appleyard who writes closures pretty carefully, and was the same admin, as I recall, who observed when the issue was first opened by you at RM that there would be no point, and a lot of wasted work, in doing a status quo ante revert of hundreds of articles to parenthetical disambiguation, on the "revert undiscussed moves" technicality (questionably applicable at that late a date) without a clear consensus in favor of that parenthetical style, because the eventual result under WP:NATURAL policy would be to move them right back to natural disambiguation as soon as the same articles were nominated for RM again, on the merits instead of on the status quo ante technicality. This was clear from the outset, and it's been mentioned repeatedly in that RM and all the ones that ran parallel to it, so there can be no room for surprise. Insisting on a procedural revert we predict will be re-reverted, simply to follow procedure to the letter for its own sake, is not what we do.

      In several months of breed RMs, you've relied entirely upon a bogus argument that the renames must be bad because of who it was who previously moved some articles back in June (me, in many cases). It's irrelevant; this is Wikipedia, which we all edit. Articles do not move themselves, we move them, and which one of us moved what article almost half a year ago has nothing to do with WP:Article titles policy or the relative merits of one article name over another. The consensus in a long string of RMs has supported these moves as has, simply, time. I feel that you have confused ANI's criticism of my now-abandoned "just move them boldly" tactic (about which behavioral questions were addressed almost four months ago) for a consensus against my rationales for the natural-disambig moves, which has not materialized at all (in fact, many critics of the tactic agreed with the rationale, and just thought it should have gone to RM discussion, which has now happened in spades). There has been no mass uprising to challenge WP:NATURAL and its applicability here. It's the exact opposite of WP:FAITACCOMPLI, with RM being unnecessarily mired in discussions that are not actually controversial and simply happening for procedure's sake, just in case you can muster some kind of support. You've had months, and it hasn't happened. Re-re-re-raising the same challenge, after it's already been overturned several times, is contraindicated, and smacks of "asking the other parent".

      Request for an actual opposition rationale – I ask you again, as I do at all of these things: Please provide a fact- and policy-based rationale why WP:NATURAL policy is somehow not applicable to some animal breed articles you don't want it to apply to, such as the ones in this case. I now add: please also provide such a rationale for why the precedent of all the recently cited breed article RMs favoring natural disambiguation (and there were none that did not, either explicitly or implicitly) somehow doesn't apply to this small handful of articles. The case against parenthetical disambiguation for this sort of article is today several times stronger than it was a little over a week ago before those RMs all closed against parenthetical.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  19:55, 7 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Smc, there is NO CONSENSUS for your RMs and you know it. Different animal species have different issues. While I may prefer natural disambiguation, I know that others have legitimate arguments in the opposite direction, at least for certain species. Discuss these issues and stop trying to create a one-person "consensus" by sheer walls of text. Montanabw(talk) 05:10, 8 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: I will state once again that I do not like mass moves. HOWEVER, these listings, lacking clear individual exceptions, are in direct violation of Wikipedia policies and guidelines. The policy on article titles does not give any exceptions for certain naming conventions to be exempt from parenthetical disambiguation to be used when at all times and not If natural disambiguation is not possible or to denote two different meanings of the same name with the same spelling. It does give an example of use to disambiguate the country of Turkey from the bird Turkey and not individual breeds. It is clear that this type of disambiguation was not intended to extend to animal breeds in general as that would negate any need for WP:NATURAL. Some common sense has to be used but ignoring any type or form of consistency that creates confusion only hurts Wikipedia. If mass listings are required to appeal to the broader community for some form of consistency then I guess that is what is needed. Since I do not care for mass moves I will visit each of the 12 listed here to see if there are exceptions.
  1. Aspromonte (goat): In the Italian Wikipedia is listed as Capra_dell'Aspromonte, is the common breed name, and the Google translation of that is Aspromonte goat which does need disambiguation to differentiate from Aspromonte.
  2. British Alpine (goat) or British Alpine: is not as easy. The use of British in the name, not only is the actual name, also shows a difference between it and Alpine goats. The breed originally came from France and were crossed with the Toggenburg (goat) that probably was missed when listing the others. Whereas disambiguation is certainly needed to denote the country Turkey from a general bird name (not specific breed) the goat from the region of Toggenburg is a specific breed. Is "British Alpine goat a made up name? A Google search indicates that it is common to refer to the British Alpine as the British Alpine breed when referring to breeds of goats and and the British Alpine goat when referring to the individual breed of goat.
  3. Ciavenasca (goat): There is the article Ciavenasca, that is about sheep, and Ciavenasca (goat). One could justify the parenthetical use of goat to justify the vague naming of "Ciavenasca" or simply naturally disambiguate. There must be, by reasoning of consistency, accident, or mistake, why we use goat meat in lieu of meat (goat). We could use "Ciavenasca (breed of goat)" if that would make sense.
  4. Garfagnana (goat): We have the same issue with inconsistency as with "Ciavenasca" and "Ciavenasca (goat)". There is the article Garfagnana, that is about cattle, and Garfagnana goat using parenthetical disambiguation.
  5. Huai (goat): is a Chinese breed and there does not appear to be a lot of information but there is the use of goat in Chinese breeds such as the Huai goat and the Haimen goat from the Jiangsu province (information not in the stub) to support the name.
  6. Istriana (goat): Istriana is a breed of sheep and also a breed of goat. We have the same naming issue that can be solved with natural disambiguation.
  7. Laoshan (goat): Another Chinese provincial breed. No known reason why natural disambiguation would be argued.
  8. Napoletana (goat): A goat breed from Italian region of Campania. No known reason against natural disambiguation.
  9. Sempione (goat): Another Italian breed and no reason against natural disambiguation.
  10. Roccaverano (goat): Another Italian breed from the Piedmont region where Roccaverano is located. No known argument why natural disambiguation can not be used.
  11. Russian White (goat): Very short stub. No reasoning why natural disambiguation can not be used.
  12. Sarda (goat): There is Sarda the goat breed and Sarda the cattle breed. Parenthetical disambiguation is used on both when natural would not only suffice but would be in line with the policy on disambiguation.
  • Conclusion: There is overwhelming reasoning why parenthetical disambiguation should not be used that includes policy. Deviating from policy for confusion or to disrupt is not clear reasoning to argue against a mass move to correct issues. Using such parenthetical disambiguation is the exception when natural can not be used and not because an editor, or even naming convention, decides it is better against Wikipedia wide consensus. Otr500 (talk) 16:05, 9 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support There has to be a very good reason to use parentheses in titles. In all of these cases there is no such very good reason; natural disambiguation works perfectly well and is much more obvious to readers who should be our main concern. (The disadvantage of dealing with a batch of this size is that it's time-consuming to check whether disambiguation is needed at all; I'm assuming that in every case it is.) Peter coxhead (talk) 20:08, 9 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support except Istriana. Assuming we have the correct common names, it seems pretty well settled that we should use natural instead of parenthetical disambiguation. However, I suspect "Istriana" should be "Istrian" instead (Google Scholar: no results for "Istriana goat" vs. 19 for "Istrian goat", and the FAO lists Istrian as a synonym). —Neil P. Quinn (talk) 02:40, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose:The main reason is that we have a group of articles, but none of this has been resolved at the relevant wikiprojects; the end result will be some articles with one set of title styles and others differently- titled. The issue of natural versus parenthetical disambiguation has not reached consensus, and consensus across multiple animal species may be quite difficult to achieve. We have a single editor who has proposed moves of dozens if not hundreds of articles across multiple individual article pages, as here, and it is creating chaos. The overall projects (WP:Agriculture, etc.) need to sort out what to do and if a consistent policy can be created. (Full disclosure: I personally lean in favor of natural disambiguation, but I have also heard compelling arguments for parenthetical disambiguation for some animal articles, notably domestic fowl) Montanabw(talk) 07:08, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Italian does not capitalize capra dell'Aspromonte as *Capra dell'Aspromonte

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The only Italian sources cited so far give this breed name as capra dell'Aspromonte in mid-sentence. Direct quote: "I soggetti di popolazione capra dell’Aspromonte devono:..." [10]. All other cases are titles/headings given in title case or all-caps. Italian (like Spanish, French and other Romance-family languages) does not follow the same capitalization rules as English. This would only be capitalized in Italian if it were the formal name in a Protected Designation of Origin, and we have no source suggesting this. We have no source that this has been assimilated into our language as the breed's name in English (if it had, a case for capitalization might be made then).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:01, 19 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

And if it were German, they'd capitalize everything. @Justlettersandnumbers: on this question, he speaks fluent Italian. In fact, I'd state with some assurance that he is probably wikipedia's foremost expert on Italian and other western European rare animal breeds. I'll defer to his views on the matter. Montanabw(talk) 03:01, 19 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Credentialism has no place here, because no credentials or identities, or even claims of them can be proven. We rely on sources, period. If you don't like this arrangement, try Citizendium instead. Also, German does not capitalize everything, it capitalizes nouns and noun phrases, and (like English) proper names in derived forms. Romance languages do not captitialize derived (e.g. adjectival) forms of proper names (thus italiano not *Italiano), and the qualification for something being a proper name is much narrower than it is in English. But this is not the place for a linguistics lecture.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  12:44, 19 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Italian, like French, generally uses fewer capitals than English and, like most other languages including most notably English, does not have firm capitalisation rules. In English Wikipedia we follow our own capitalisation practices, among which are that animal breed names are capitalised, and that proper names are capitalised. Thus our article on the French national dressage team is at Cadre Noir (because I moved it there) even though that organisation calls itself "Cadre noir", and our article on the famous pig of Siena is at Cinta Senese (because SMcCandlish moved it there) even though it is invariably called "Cinta senese" in Italian. If there is some desire to adopt foreign norms of capitalisation in this wiki then please seek a project-wide consensus before making changes here. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 08:54, 19 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
That's conflating assimilated names with non-assimilated ones. English language sources often adopt names like Cinta Senese as a foreign breed's formal breed name in English, rather than a translation or other alternative, and most breeding-related sources capitalize such formal, recognized-in/as-English breed names, in running prose. Nothing of the sort has happened with the Italian phrase capra dell'Aspromonte; it is subject to all the normal MOS rules regarding foreign language words and phrases, because it's just a foreign language phrase. You're welcome to open an RFC on the matter if you disagree. More to the point, I'm digging up sources, and they outweigh assumptions and preferences (WP:OR). Every reliable source I can find in italian lower-cases capra in this name, except when they are using title case in titles, headings, lists and captions, where they capitalize other words like raza ('breed'), etc. They do nothing at all to support your claim that the Italian phrase is capitalized. I've already got three reliable sources, found on the first page of search results, demonstrating that the capitalization you want is simply not done when the phrase is used naturally, e.g. in mid-sentence. It's not even done with caprino dell'Aspromonte cheese (which I've also added to the article, along with a lot of other sourced material; this is a C-class article now. So much, again, for your claim that I don't really work on these articles; I don't do it as much as I'd like, because working around hostile interference is tedious and annoying).

Names of standardized breeds of animals that are or have been assimilated into English are capitalized here, by WP:FAITACCOMPLI early on and because I and some others have been normalizing them that way, as it best fits WP:COMMONNAME policy, though only marginally (most general-audience publications don't capitalize, but the gap is closing. There's no rule for it, and it took some effort on my part to prevent the MOS:LIFE overhauls in 2008 and 2012 from requiring lower-case for them (you're welcome). In drafting MOS:ORGANISMS, my assumption has been that standardized breed names would end up capitalized, though I wrote an alternate take if some RfC goes the other direction. I would support a "MOS:BREEDCAPS" section being part of our formal style guideline, for various reasons I've outlined elsewhere; it's dissimilar to species common names for several reasons. But that doesn't have anything to do with pushing English style much less Wikipedia English style on foreign phrases; we don't even do this titles of published works like films and novels. I guarantee you such an idea of making a special exception for foreign breed names will never fly, because I've already been in enough RFCs and RMs and MOS-writing debates where this issue has arisen in vary disparate topic areas.

Anyway, all the sources I can find that are in Italian and capitalize Capra in this breed name in running prose, not just headings, are blogs, travel portal sites, and other sources that are either categorically unreliable or not reliable sources for breed names and their proper handling. If you want, we can dig up more and more sources pro and con, and what that will prove is that majority usage is lower-case, so we'd go with lower case anyway, per MOS:CAPS (see it's first sentence). From another angle, it's a WP:COMMONNAME matter. Anything that is or could plausibly become the title of the article will be examined in that light, and the majority of reliable sources do not capitalize the Italian name of this breed. There's just no way around that.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  12:44, 19 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Minor hyphenation issue

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Resolved

SMcCandlish is invited to refresh his understanding of how compound adjectives are used in English – there's guidance specific to this project at MOS:HYPHEN - and to refrain from introducing grammatical errors with the edit summary "grammar". Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 08:54, 19 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I actually agree with you on the hyphen, and self-reverted on that. I'd forgotten we only hyphenate well when it's attributive or alters the sense of what it modifies, but in this case, it just intensifies it. See? That wasn't difficult, though you were unnecessarily snide. Simply providing reasons for why you think your view is correct and what authority you're relying upon is how to make progress in disagreements here, instead relying on ad hominem antagonism.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  12:44, 19 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Citation details

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I can't believe that WP:CITEVAR was ever intended to cover anything so unbelievably childish and trivial as pointlessly fucking about with the names of named references, but cover it it does: "Editors should not attempt to change an article's established citation style merely on the grounds of personal preference ... it is normal practice to defer to the style used by the first major contributor". Since in this case that happens to be me, let me make clear that I prefer, for the sake of simplicity, not to use the quite unnecessary quote marks round reference names, and that that style was established in the article at its creation.
Is this really the best possible use of our time? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 08:54, 19 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
No, the hours of sourced, major work on the article I just did is. I'd do a lot more of that given a lot less pointless strife from certain quarters. Actual ref names have nothing to do with citation style. I changed them because they were not helpful. E.g.: "dad" is a word for "father", not an acronym. One of the acronyms did not appear to even relate to the source. It's disrepectful to women researchers to refer to them by their first names as if they're little school girls, and it's insanely disrespectful to do so by the short form of that name (e.g. "Barb" for "Barbara"). Two sources from same site were number "2" and "3" without there being a "1" from the same publisher. And so on. There is nothing "childish" about cleaning up such a mess, and labeling it that is yet another personal attack. What's petty here is revert-warring against me over stuff that you yourself characterize as "trivial [and] pointlessly fucking about". Simple solution: Don't. If someone changes things like this, assume good faith; they are doing it for a reason, usually editorial utility. Rather than bicker with you about it that trivia in any detail, I've cleaned up all the citations entirely, with complete (sometimes corrected) data, and proper citation templates in the footnotes, even provided translated titles, etc.

Proper XML is not a CITEVAR matter, or any kind of style matter, it's just correct coding that reduces the work the server has to do, and time it has to take, to turn the entered wikicode into HTML read by the browser; it's totally unrelated to citation style. I really don't care if you won't properly format them as <ref name="Foo" /> instead of <ref name=Foo/> without the quotation marks and space, but anyone is free to fix them, under the Five Pillars and WP:BOLD; there are AWB scripts for doing precisely that fix, some of us fix that in article after article. There's probably at least one bot that does it, too. See Help:Citation Style 1 and Help:Citation Style 2 for what "citation style" refers to. In short, CITEVAR means not changing Harvard referencing into another format, and other major changes to the approach to citations (e.g. the citation warring someone else here engaged in at Landrace to try to change the simple Citation Style 1 usage there to something unnecessarily complicated).

We can have an RFC on that, too, if you want, and anything else you want to try to blockade me from editing. I can handle as many concurrent RFCs as I can RMs. I'm good at process. Dropping the adversarial nonsense entirely would probably be much more productive. I would have been fully justified going to the editwarring noticeboard about your tagteam mass-reverts, and thought about it, but instead I devoted hours to improving the article because it's the more productive thing to do. If I can de-escalate, so can you. Good for your blood pressure!  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  12:44, 19 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sources

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Two new sources were added to the article. www.formaggio.it is clearly not a reliable source by our standards (it's run by an internet marketing company); it was also being used to support a statement it does not make (that Caprino dell'Aspromonte cheese is named for the goat breed). I've removed it. If anyone wants to write a page on that cheese there plenty of more reliable sources, such as Luigi Cremona, Francesco Soletti (2002). L'Italia dei formaggi: 490 formaggi Dop e tradizionali, 360 produttori con vendita diretta, 517 negozi specializzati, ristoranti ed enoteche con degustazione. Milano: Touring club italiano. Agraria.org is a slightly more interesting case: in general, it is certainly not reliable; however, some pages are written by noted experts and can thus be relied on. In this particular case it is certainly reliable, as it reproduces verbatim the breed standard, which was already listed as a source; I've replaced it with that reference. It's likely that both have a common origin and were written by Floro De Nardo; the RARE site is down, so I can't check. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 13:43, 20 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • This should be an RFC. You're making assertions about reliability and unreliability of various sources without any evidence or rationale, and it seems to fit your pattern of opposing virtually all edits I make to any animal breed articles. Due to this interminable personal dispute, its better for the project if other eyes examine this issue.
  • Not all of the information sourced to Agraria came from the section that reproduces the breed standard, so it's likely that by substituting one source for the other you've introduced falsified citations.
  • Have I interpreted you correctly, that you replaced working links to the breed standard to ones that go to a dead site, even though you know they're the same content by the same author?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  19:18, 21 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

RFC on Italian dairy & farming industry sources

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The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
There is no consensus as to the reliability of the source, which means it should not be used for now. Further discussion is not precluded, and editors may wish to consider WP:RSN if that has not already been tried. It might produce an answer more quickly, too. Formerip (talk) 13:20, 24 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The about-us page at the two sources in question (in Italian) indicates that the site is developed and published by by internet site/marketing firms, hired by consortia of Italian dairy and agribusiness companies. Are these a reliable primary sources for basic facts about Italian cheeses and farm animals (sans anything of a promotional character), or are they unreliable source, and if so, on what grounds?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  19:18, 21 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • My take on this is that virtually all such sites are operated at the production level by Internet web development and marketing companies; I know this, since I'm a web developer who actually produces sites of this sort (though not agricultural ones in particular so far). The fact that the site itself is not being managed by source-matterial experts would rule out probably over 9/10 of presumptively reliable online sources if we used that as a rubric. Outsourcing of online resources is increasing, not decreasing, because it makes more sense to hire a firm with a lot of collective experience and costs distributed over numerous clients than the have an in-house webmaster as an employee.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  19:19, 21 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • These are just as reliable as similar websites produced directly by industry groups. I cannot imagine why the website of an industry group like Dairy Council of California, which says whatever that industry group wants it to say, would be considered basically reliable but as soon as they hire a professional to post the same information, then it somehow quits being reliable. The method of getting the information posted online is not what makes something reliable. What matters is who is deciding what information to publish, and how they're deciding it. Any industry website, regardless of whether they hire a firm to run the website or hire the staff directly, is more or less reliable for certain basic statements of fact about their industry, especially statements beginning "According to The Big Industry Group..." WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:39, 21 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not Suitable -- 'Called by the 'bot. When any source is a hire sourced, the text they offer and the links they offer should not be used. Look at real published paper encyclopedia of past decades, they did not use marketing text, they employed editors that researched subjects, reworking materials supplied by many sources (including marketing / advertising companies and the manufacturers / industry thaemselves) to eliminate undue bias and promotion.
When it comes to for-profit, money-making entities that are in effect engaged in propaganda to sell or describe their goods or services, anything they offer should not be allowed, only non-biased, un-involved editors should piece together text which describes the subject. Wikipedia seeks to be encyclopedic, obviously, so carefully-tailored corporate propaganda should be avoided. Damotclese (talk) 16:15, 3 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Acceptable per WhatamIdoing. In this case, they may well be for evidence of the breed existing, its name and such. If they claim it is "the best" or "cheese is healthy" or something, a more skeptical eye can be applied, but here the sources work. And trust me, I have "paper encyclopedias" of agriculture from back in the day, and they sound just as biased, you should read the really old stuff about DDT if you think they were truly neutral... Montanabw(talk) 22:51, 5 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Unreliable due to their unreviewed content and promotional purpose. I'm sure we can find reliable sources to verify that the breed is notable and to explain its agricultural importance. [I was asked randomly by a bot to participate.] Jojalozzo 01:41, 12 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    @Jojalozzo: If you can find better sources we are all ears. Rare livestock breeds are difficult to locate accurate info and in some cases, industry sources are all there are. But without understanding the big picture here, or at least a careful review of the article, I'm afraid you are not looking at the context. For the material cited, an industry source can be verifiable in some circumstances. You have to look at what is being cited and for what purpose. Per WP:BIASED, "reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information." In this context, a group like a national dairy board would be reliable for identifying breeds of goats that produce milk used in cheese-making, for example.
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Reference conflict Spelling/grammar correction

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I am not up on time zones and how they affect edits. I see that there are edits/reverts with comments and edits/reverts without. I am going to assume a lot of good faith that the time zones is the issue. I will also assume that reverting the edit concerning the number of breeds maintained by the Associazione Nazionale della Pastorizia, that apparently was forgotten to be listed (it is NOT a "Citation detail" issue) in the edit summary, was just something overlooked. I have started a discussion at Talk:Associazione Nazionale della Pastorizia#Number of breeds this authority maintains for anyone that wants to work this out. Otr500 (talk) 16:39, 20 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, this and many other breed articles are experiencing what seems to be a noteworthy WP:OWN problem, with two editors in particular who mass-revert changes by editors they don't approve of. They were administratively warned about WP:OWN/WP:LOCALCONSENSUS only a couple of days ago at WT:RM, but keep at it anyway. Their recent spate of incautious reverts reintroduced other errors at this article, too, e.g. the skin being "grey-black or pink according to coat" (sources actually say it is usually according to coat, but may vary from pink to grey-black, which is a completely different statement ("grey-black or pink according to coat" means that the coats are either grey-black or pink, which is absurd).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  19:32, 21 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'm afraid that SMcCandlish has little idea what he is talking about.
  • Where exactly in this passage:

    "Pelle morbida, fine ed elastica, dello stesso colore e tonalità del mantello, ovvero, di colore grigio-nero nelle zone a mantello eumelaninico, rosa nelle zone a mantello feomelaninico"

does it say that skin colour "usually matches the coat, though may range from pink to grey-black"? (the passage reads roughly "Skin soft, fine and elastic, of the same colour and tone as the coat, that is to say, of greyish-black colour in areas of eumelanic coat and pink in areas of phaeomelanic coat" – I hope that Alessandro57 will excuse me for pinging him, as the first Italian editor who came to mind, for confirmation of that). Or is it from some other source? If so, which?
  • I'm curious also to know where "the hooves are long, with thick, dark soles" was fished up from – it certainly isn't in any of the sources I have consulted. Is this WP:OR, or just incompetent translation (Google is not your friend!) combined with poor understanding of the topic?
  • What exactly is "Their wool is also used for its 'unique qualities of hardiness and frugality' " supposed to mean, and what is the source for it?
  • Where in the sources does it say that "Reproductive productivity is 148–159%, depending upon how calculated", and what does that mean? What I read is that the fertility is 98%, the prolificity is 159% and the annual fecundity is 148%. Clearly there's something wrong here, as the maths does not add up; it might have been better to omit this data rather than trying to fudge it with a term that isn't used in this context. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 03:15, 23 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Hallo Justlettersandnumbers, nice hearing from you again! What are you doing in Calabria? Last time you were eating artichokes along the shores of Tiber :-) I confirm your translation: the only correction is about "grigio-nero", which translates "grey-black". Greyish in Italian is "grigiastro". Cheers, Alex2006 (talk) 08:32, 23 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, well, if you hadn't mass-reverted so much of my editing here, including deleting sources because you question the reliability of agribusiness industry websites for unstated reasons, all in a rush to revert most everything I do at breed articles, maybe the answers to these questions would be clearer to you? The summary answer for much of this is that you seem to be looking at the wrong passages in the wrong sources. I'll have to get back to this later; my editing time today has all been spent dealing with the other items of obstructionism here. May have room for it some time late on Sun. Re: translation – At least I got "grey-black" right! I'm hardly fluent in Italian (I get by in Spanish, but I know how to correct machine translation and don't need to rely on it too heavily for Romance languages. I do apologize for the "frugality" awkwardness; I knew that wasn't the right word, but forgot to get around to figuring out a better translation on that one. The quotation could be truncated in the interim, perhaps. I'm not sure why you ask what the source is, since it's given right there.

Look, one of the main roles of a subject-matter expert, which you seem to claim to be about certain groups of domesticated animal breeds, is helping other editors get the niceties of the terminology correct, and helping expand and improve the accuracy of the relevant articles for the benefit of readers. Wouldn't it be more productive, in several ways, to begin work on a Glossary of animal husbandry terms than just criticize? I guarantee you it would be. Our billiards/pool/snooker articles are as consistent and intelligible as they are, even to people unfamiliar with the topic and its huge shipload of jargon, because of Glossary of cue sports terms, about 1/3 of which is my work.

Re: "148-159%" – I don't feel strongly either way. My intent was to summarize for lay readers that the reproductive rate is about 150% per year. If you think its important to distinguish in a WP article between prolificity and fecundity, go for it. If you think it's too breeder-nerdy to get into at all, I have no issue with not including anything about it (I omitted a large number of other stats from the sources).

One thing I think you're missing is that I'm concerned that many of these stubby breed articles that have seen little improvement since they were created (mostly by you, and I realize that's a lot of work) may be easy deletion targets. Few of them even have any assertion of notability, and no demonstrable evidence of notability because they rely entirely on primary sources that tell us little but that the breed exists and has characteristics. I added material about wool, cheese, etc., for a reason, since it demonstrates that the breed matters to the human world, and it gives us additional things to find more sources for than just the breed as a ding an sich in a contextual vacuum.

I'll get to the rest later, since I'll have to dig up and reanalyze those sources in detail.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  14:49, 23 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

RFC on citation formatting

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The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Does WP:CITEVAR, which is about changes from, e.g. WP:Citation Style 1 to WP:Citation Style 2, also very narrowly permit one editor to prevent other editors from changing any/all aspects of citation formatting and coding, such as proper XML (<ref name="foo" /> vs. the incorrect <ref name=foo/> which wastes server processing to correct it on the fly), ref names that are easier to understand, ref names that do not disrespectfully refer to women researchers by short forms of their first name, etc.?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  19:32, 21 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Clarification: This is about scope and applicability of CITEVAR to what is usually considered noncontroversial citation coding maintenance, not about the technical issues behind the coding.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  13:09, 23 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I can't find anything at WP:CITEVAR that even vaguely implies this level of personal control over routine citation cleanup.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  19:32, 21 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reference names are visible to the reader, as they are built into the URLs for the links back from the footnotes to the text. When I hover over the first "^" at Aspromonte goat#References, my browser displays a URL ending in #cite_ref-barb_1-0. So, yes, I think guidance such as WP:BLP, WP:TONE must apply to reference names. -- John of Reading (talk) 21:43, 21 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • The list of questions appears to be:
    1. Is it permissible to produce proper XML (<ref name="foo" /> vs. the incorrect <ref name=foo/> which wastes server processing to correct it on the fly)?
    2. Is it permissible to change ref names to something that is easier to understand (perhaps using an all-caps acronym for a source's name rather than all lowercase)?
    3. Is it permissible to change a female author's ref name to use her last name rather than a nickname (i.e., name="Rischkowsky" rather than name="barb")?
  • And, of course, the real question is whether you can do all of this over the as-yet unexplained objections of other editors.
    My take on this is that proper XML is desirable and permissible, even though it produces a dirty diff. I think that "easier to understand" is subjective, and that should be settled in consensus. Finally, since John points out that the ref names are visible in URLs now, I'm inclined to avoid informal nicknames for authors. However, I wouldn't object to other styles; ref name="br", which would be much easier to type, would also be acceptable to me. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:52, 21 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The question was whether CITEVAR provides a basis for declaring any of these things impermissible, which is what has been alleged above and in the edit history, in lieu of an other rationales. It's a policy question, not a matter of the particulars, as the three things enumerated above are just the examples at hand, while the question is general and could apply to any minor changes to technical details of citation formatting, such as converting untemplated citations to references useing {{cite}}-family templates, or making access dates consistent, or whatever. I think case, no principled disagreement was offered as to why any of these changes might be objectionable; rather, I was simply reverted and ordered not to make such changes on the basis of CITEVAR and for reasons that amount to deletion of my changes per WP:IDONTLIKEIT. See the edit summaries. (Although it's an issue I already addressed when making the edit, I'd be happy to engage in a discussion of why, e.g., the "dad" ref name in this article is a poor choice compared to "DAD" (or something else entirely), But the idea that "dad" and "br" are better than "DAD" and "BR" isn't a suggestion raised by either reverter, only the don't-you-dare-touch-this demand predicated on the idea that CITEVAR applies to every tiny aspect of citations.)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  13:09, 23 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why is <ref name=foo> "incorrect"? It's correct as far as I'm concerned, and works perfectly. The only time quotation marks are needed is when for some reason someone unnecessarily chooses to use two terms separated by a space as a ref name. Softlavender (talk) 23:19, 21 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The original RFC post itself already answers this question: it wastes server processing to correct it on the fly. The fact that you have to use quotation marks in wikicode if the ref name has a space in it, and MediaWiki produces no visible error if you do not other than a citation silently failing to appear under <references />, is a second reason that using the quotation marks is an uncontroversial best practice and has been for a decade+; not all of our editors are technical experts, and we cannot safely presume that no one will ever change a <ref name=foo> to a <ref name=foo bar> and break it, meanwhile the proper code formatting to begin with, <ref name="foo">, makes such a change harmelss, as well as speeding up processing.

Geeky details: The citations with quotations marks are definitely more efficient, because leaving them out triggers extra work in the parser and its extensions, which has to determine where the ref name begins and ends, before it proceeds to transform the XML, Lua, and wikicode into the HTML it sends to the browser. When it doesn't begin with <ref name=", and end with "> or " />, or when the space before the / in the second case is omitted, those are additional fall-back cases that have to be tested for.

While it wouldn't matter much at the reader level in a single short article, it adds up across millions of articles. These are two of the reasons why conforming to proper XML syntax in ref code has long been routine maintenance (it's sometimes included in WP:AWB scripts along with other general fixes).

On the efficiency point, it's an aggregate matter. I've been engaging in a lot of testing, the preliminary results of which incate that MW is about 4% slower at parsing citations without the quotation marks around the ref names, and this does add up when you think about how many pages WP serves and how many citations there are in all of them; I'll post the results as a user essay when I'm done. It involves having a test site, for webpage loading speed, repeatedly load two WP article sandboxes with around 2,000 citations, in versions with and without the quotations marks, and average their compared load times. It's a good test because very little is required to serve up the page other than processing citation after citation after citation, but it's an actual article, so the density of citations to prose in any given chuck of it is reasonable.

The issue raised in the RFC isn't any kind of question about this technical process and what code is more efficient and harder to break (we already know that answer), but whether WP:CITEVAR permits one editor to prevent another from engaging in basic cleanup simply because it happens to touch citation code. The general principle, more importantly, can be applied more broadly. We've already had many years of site-wide consensus against pointless reverts of minor cleanup, including XML cleanup (correcting <br> to <br /> is another common example), but evidently this isn't clear enough, so an RFC reaffirming this can't hurt, and may be useful in (or to prevent) later diputes, and discourage mis-reliance on CITEVAR as a rationale for such nit-picking.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  13:09, 23 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • A slightly different way of phrasing the question would be "If an editor has without consensus three times (1, 2, 3) changed the reference format (not the overall referencing system) in use in the article, the third time knowingly against consensus after being very clearly asked not to by two separate editors (1, 2), is there any reason to consider that anything but WP:DISRUPTIVE?".
I just cannot believe that anyone would think this worth edit-warring over, let alone starting an RfC about. But since we're here, it might be useful to establish whether this text:

Editors should not attempt to change an article's established citation style merely on the grounds of personal preference, to make it match other articles, or without first seeking consensus for the change. As with spelling differences, it is normal practice to defer to the style used by the first major contributor or adopted by the consensus of editors already working on the page, unless a change in consensus has been achieved. If the article you are editing is already using a particular citation style, you should follow it; if you believe it is inappropriate for the needs of the article, seek consensus for a change on the talk page. If you are the first contributor to add citations to an article, you may choose whichever style you think best for the article.

applies to the detail of reference formats as well as the overall citation style. For the record: I was the first major contributor to this page; my preference, reflected in the references I used, is for WP:LDR, manually formatted, and, for the sake of simplicity, without unnecessary quotes round the ref names. As Softlavender says, and as Help:List-defined references makes clear, "Quotes are optional if the only characters used are letters A–Z, a–z, digits 0–9, and the symbols !$%&()*,-.:;<@[]^_`{|}~".
I must admit I was not aware of the hover feature mentioned by John of Reading, mainly because I don't have it – if I hover over the caret I see no text at all. I'll change that reference name. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 00:25, 22 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Addressing these points separately:
  1. If one doesn't consider it worth editwarring over, then why editwar over it, especially with mass reverts that clobber other, unrelated edits in the process?
  2. The question before us in the RFC is whether the community considers technical details of the formatting of citations to be covered by WP:CITEVAR; its circular reasoning, assuming the conclusion as a premise, to proceed from the assumption that it does as an argument for one's position that it does.
  3. No objection was raised to my edits in question or rationales given for their deletion other than WP:IDONTLIKEIT commentary and a CITEVAR claim, while clear rationales for the edits were provided. This is a frequently repeating pattern.::#Nothing in the CITEVAR quote above supports the notion that it can be used to control every single character of citations. It's about "citation style", of which we have two major ones, identified in the original RFC post. WP:ENGVAR naturally works on the same principle; it covers a general, overall variety of English, but cannot be used to categorically prevent another editor from changing an unclear or unhelpful word just because the objecting editor prefers the original he/she inserted. One's personal preferences for a particular word or citation coding detail are neither a personal ENGVAR nor a personal CITEVAR. See also WP:OWN.
  4. The first major contributor to an article matters for a handful of very limited contexts, but does not constitute a magical one-person "consensus" that others are violating when they edit the article in ways that contributor doesn't prefer. WP:BOLD is policy, and being edited mercilessly is an important part of WP:Five pillars. While the quotation marks are technically optional, there's no exemption from these policypages and related ones like WP:EDITWAR for someone who wants to prevent others (or more the point here, someone in particular) from using the more efficient code or making other basic cleanup tweaks, nor adding or changing other material. Normal process applies. That includes discussion, so it seems counterproductive and contrary to process to be objecting to the discussion itself, which seems to be half the point of the post above.
  5. Furthermore, the fact that one cannot oppose changes on the basis that they're undiscussed and don't have consensus, while in the same breath objecting to or avoiding consensus discussion, was already administratively pointed out at WT:RM to the same pair of editors (proprietarily opposing edits by me at animal breed articles, not coincidentally, and in ways that raised WP:OWN and WP:LOCALCONSENSUS concerns among the same admin pool), shortly before their spate of mass reverts here. Cf. WP:IDHT. And one having some kind of personal animosity against another editor does not excuse one from the responsibility to try to objectively address edits they make on the merits of the edits and their rationales, instead of reflexively reverting in ways that have the effect of just blockading change for the sake of doing so.
  6. While it's nice that the WP:FILIBUSTER has ended against fixing one citation to stop using a short form of a woman researcher's first name in a inappropriate manner, I have to point out that the rationale fixing this was already given twice before this RfC opened, and should not have been editwarred against to begin with. WP:BRD process only works when valid objections are made and can be discussed. Reasoning that amounts to "you can't change anything, ever about any citation here because I was here first and I said so" is not a valid objection.
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  13:09, 23 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • <ref> tags are not HTML/XHTML, they are parser tags added by Cite, thus formatting is not really an issue to worry about. All content is parsed by Sanitizer.php, and fixes applied such as quotes and spaces, thus there is no extra processing overhead. Bottom line: This sort of thing is a trivial edit. It is nice to aim for consistency within an article, but there are more pressing issues to work out. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gadget850 (talk • contribs) 00:27, 22 November 2014
I didn't suggest they were HTML/XHTML; they're XML embedded in MediaWiki code. I've noted above where the extra processing overhead comes into play. If one had time to kill, one could find the specific tests in the piles of source at https://git.wikimedia.org/tree/mediawiki%2Fextensions%2FCite that do this parsing (I already looked in sanitizer.php's source, and that's not what handles <ref> at all; as it's name suggests, code passes through sanitizer.php before being sent to the browser, and the ref parsing happens at an earlier stage – it has to, since citations contain content that santizer.php has to sanitize). But the question here isn't about such server-side code details, it's about whether WP:CITEVAR permits one editor to "lock down" an article against minor edits to citation coding details.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  13:09, 23 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Whatever citation style is used, it must be used correctly. Fixing inconsistencies or errors is appropriate and desirable. The rule is about not changing the basic style. We fix references all the time. I always normalize them in any article I work on, to whatever the style for that article might be. But for the particular question, it is incorrect to use <ref name=foo/>, it should be changed to <ref name=foo />. The style without a space is recognized, but is non-standard and deprecated. But I usually don't bother changing them, unless the whole reference structure is a mess. On the other hand, it is my understanding that quotation marks are needed for the name only if it is a compound word, or if it is a number. At least, I never use them, but its equally correct to use them. I do not regard it as one of the things that needs to be consistent. DGG ( talk ) 00:42, 22 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
We agree on the general principle here, then. For reasons I've covered above (efficiency, and prevention of accidental citation breakage later), it's a best practice to include the quotation marks regardless, even if the parser will usually work around their absence. While it's optional for editors to include them, it should not be an option, I suggest, to thwart other editors from including them, and I don't think that WP:CITEVAR provides a guideline-sanctioned excuse to do so.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 
  • I was curious to see if there was actually a processing time difference between <ref name="foo" /> and <ref name=foo/>, so I did some quick sandbox speed tests with 1000 references. I didn't notice any significant difference between the two styles - the page took about 1.5 seconds to parse for each of them, which is consistent with Gadget850's explanation above. It's not going to make any difference to the page unless someone produces a ref tag that can't be parsed properly. However, using quotes around attribute values is generally preferred for HTML (see e.g. this explanation), so if we're going to argue about which style to use, we should probably use the standard one. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 01:07, 22 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Certainly agreed on using the standard (though technically, it's XML not HTML, and XML is actually more strict about requiring them than HTML is). Speed: I've addressed this above.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  13:09, 23 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
See edit history. Heh. I opened the RFC because this minor cleanup was being WP:TAGTEAM mass-reverted by a pair of editors who habitually oppose virtually everything I do in animal breed articles, and they were using CITEVAR as the excuse this time (a guideline ignored by at least one of them when the existing citations don't match their preference, BTW, as happened at Landrace). The only procedural way, short of unnecessarily legalistic action like ANI, to discourage this disruptive behavior is community input against the actions they're taking. I.e., disprove the notion that CITEVAR can be abused to micro-manage every tiny detail of citation coding. If someone is using a fork to pet the dog, take away the fork. An RFC that can be cited against such needless, effort-sucking combativeness in the name of CITEVAR should have useful application outside this particular article/dispute. I've occasionally encountered similar attempts to mis-rely on CITEVAR, e.g. to attempt to prevent properly formatting manually written citations into {{cite}}-family templates, and other such antics.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  13:09, 23 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • If this is an RfC about CITEVAR in general, it would be better to hold it on WT:CITE. The point of CITEVAR is to stop editors who aren't otherwise involved in an article arriving to change the way citations are written. Writers shouldn't be left to cope with styles that someone else has decided to impose. This edit from SMcCandlish really wasn't helpful (quotation marks aren't needed in ref names when just one word is involved, and they're annoying when searching for ref names if you don't expect them). As for the name, I can't see anything wrong with ref name=barb. SlimVirgin (talk) 00:27, 23 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I agree on what CITEVAR's intent is. As the edit history shows, I arrived to do significant work on the article, and keep getting mass-reverted on the basis of misapplication of things like CITEVAR, the baby being thrown out with the bath water repeatedly. Why quotation marks around ref names are a best practice is addressed above. It's unclear to me how one can "expect" to not find quotation marks when anyone can add them at any time, and many of us do. We don't have any "no one can change my article" expectations, after all. Wikipedia only works through incremental change, mostly addition.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  13:09, 23 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

comment I just skimmed the above conversation because I'm short on time, so hopefully I got the gist correct. In all the conversation above, nobody has yet posted obvious points that need to be made. First, although it is sometimes worth it, editors shouldn't be worrying too much about performance (a al Wikipedia:Don't worry about performance). Also, I didn't notice any argument that mentions how leaving the quotes off makes the source easier to read. That's a big advantage to not using them when necessary, and likely far offsets worries about performance. In fact, the advantage might be more so than it might first seem because quotes in named ref's are just one of the things that start making the wiki-source look more like "computer code" and that is off-putting to many potential editors. In some quest for "proper XML", don't forget the impact change to policy (like require quotes, etc.) would have on readers of the wikisource. Simplicity and flexibility have their value. After all, that's the idea of wiki markup in the first place. The idea that we have to worry about errant spaces messing up a named ref seems far-fetched to me. Sure, it could happen now and again (it's doesn't often though) but so could an errant double quote also mess up a named ref. Jason Quinn (talk) 16:02, 23 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment: The use of LDR is entirely appropriate. When in doubt, the primary or lead editor's style and structure should be granted some respect and have a discussion. Here, JLAN's decision to use relatively simple formatting style instead of the citation templates is consistent. The formatting used is acceptable within CITEVAR. (If this article were to be nominated for GA, I'd recommend adding templates, but if not, no real need) I think it is important to keep the same NAMES for the citations (ref name-foo) while the article is being constructed, and that the first editor to add those names generally should have their style respected unless there is a discussion (i.e. some people prefer titles, some authors, some source etc...) about a pressing need to change something (for example, multiple articles by the same author). At this point, the article has been changed around so much, I cannot determine what the last "stable" version was to comment other than in general terms. I am concerned that a user who has an ongoing issue with JLAN is going in wholesale and changing things without consensus and immediately opens up an RfC prior to any serious dispute resolution troubles me. Montanabw(talk) 04:03, 24 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"I am concerned that a user who has an ongoing issue with JLAN is going in wholesale and changing things without consensus and immediately opens up an RfC prior to any serious dispute resolution troubles me." I have to agree with that, and I had no idea that that was the case here. Since there was nothing wrong or prohibited in the original form of the citations, they should be left as was. I for one am really tired of editors making massive amounts of either semi-automated or "cleanup" edits, some or even many of which are unwarranted or unneeded (or even flat-out wrong), and then fighting to the death with anyone who dares revert any of them. Let's please move on to content generation and building an encyclopedia. Thank you. Softlavender (talk) 04:40, 24 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I find statements like "Since there was nothing wrong or prohibited in the original form of the citations, they should be left as was" very problematic. Isn't there equally nothing "wrong or prohibited" with the changed forms? Insisting that things should be "left as was" sounds like article ownership. Part of putting content on Wikipedia is the expectation that others may change it in good faith. {{Nihiltres|talk|edits}} 19:03, 24 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
To repeat, I for one am really tired of editors making massive amounts of either semi-automated or "cleanup" edits, some or even many of which are unwarranted or unneeded (or even flat-out wrong), and then fighting to the death with anyone who dares revert any of them. Let's please move on to content generation and building an encyclopedia. Thank you. Softlavender (talk) 02:58, 26 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I find CITEVAR's potential for ownership-like control over citation structure problematic. CITEVAR is analogous to the similar ENGVAR in that it serves two purposes: a) internal consistency at the article level and b) defusing stupid "bikeshed" arguments. We should be careful that it is not used in other ways, because using it to enforce control over style is an abuse. Referring to the questions mentioned by WhatamIdoing at the top of the thread, here are my opinions:

  1. Quotation marks in XML-like reference structures like <ref name="foo">Bar</ref> are an extremely minor point. While they work with or without quotes, and there's not a significant performance difference, I'd say that the XML-like syntax sets expectations that the syntax is XML-compatible, making it a practical point to include the quotation marks (since reusers may end up assuming XML compatibility from XML-like syntax). It is so minor that I find it hard to imagine that an objection to their inclusion could be any more valid than an "I don't like it" argument. It's not a problem if they're not included, but reverting an edit that adds quotation marks is the exact kind of silly style argument that CITEVAR ought to prevent.
  2. Changing ref names is an editorial change, not a style change. There's an interesting argument for internal consistency of ref names, but CITEVAR is not so specific. This is probably best handled on a case-by-case basis, again with a strong aversion to ownership-like control.
  3. As with the previous point, changing ref names is an editorial change, not a style one. CITEVAR is not specific about this, and should not be.
  4. To answer the implicit fourth question—whether these changes can be made over objections—is the simplest issue: we defer to consensus, and within consensus to good arguments. If a single editor tries to block another single editor from making some reference-related change, they have a responsibility to resolve the conflict—and abusing CITEVAR is not the way to do that.

To reiterate myself: CITEVAR covers the big, common-sense picture: don't be a dick and change citations to a different style without a good reason or without maintaining/improving consistency. We should not allow it more prominence than that. {{Nihiltres|talk|edits}} 18:46, 24 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • Not appropriate for RFC or dispute - The bot sent me. This is five minutes of my life that I'm not getting back, and it pisses me off. Both of the disputing parties are wrong to have made an issue of this, and they are both equally at fault for not backing down. Nothing at all will be lost if either or preferably both of them back down, close this RFC, and never mention it again. Any other course of action is a disruptive and disrespectful waste of other editors' time. EllenCT (talk) 02:39, 26 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
SMcCandlish is correct though; if an early, involved close is objected to, the RfC needs to run its course and be closed by an uninvolved admin, and/or needs to be requested at the link he gave. Softlavender (talk) 02:48, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Borrowing from Whatamidoing, The list of questions appears to be:
    • Is it permissible to produce proper XML (<ref name="foo" /> vs. the incorrect <ref name=foo/> which wastes server processing to correct it on the fly)?
      • Yes, but it is virtually useless. I would consider this on par with other invisible fixes that are generally ok to make, but frowned upon if it's the only change
    • Is it permissible to change ref names to something that is easier to understand (perhaps using an all-caps acronym for a source's name rather than all lowercase)?
      • idem
    • Is it permissible to change a female author's ref name to use her last name rather than a nickname (i.e., name="Rischkowsky" rather than name="barb")?
      • @Martijn Hoekstra: LOL! Which is why I hope someone will just close this RfC. The bottom line is simple, the person doing the bulk of the work needs some deference until they are done. Then stuff like changing ref names or whatever can be raised in a spirit of collaboration and cooperation. When ref names and style get changed mid-article, without consensus, it can really screw up someone's writing if you suddenly have to start changing all the abbreviations, it introduces errors. A RfC was so unnecessary here! Montanabw(talk) 23:50, 9 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I tend to agree that this is a problem—I've seen people beat off attempts to bring CS1 citation usage in line with documentation by invoking CITEVAR—but this is a poor venue for it, if for no other reason than that people are likely to misconstrue the results of the RFC as a judgment as a whole on edits made to this page. I suggest closing this RFC but would encourage the author to raise the issue at the CITEVAR policy page and develop a consensus there. Choess (talk) 01:51, 10 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Since we have an unambiguously higher utility reference format, regarding name=foo -> name="foo", I'm wondering if this isn't the sort of thing that should just be added to the general formatting fixes that WP:AWB and other bots use. If it can get added to the genfix toolbox that the more productive bots use, it would probably propagate through to convert a good majority of articles with the less functional format in a timespan on the order of days, even if you didn't make a bot or run off a report specifically targeting those articles. VanIsaacWScont 07:20, 10 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Please excuse me a moment so I may LOL -- LMAO -- and LMFAO (F=frigging). Alright I am better now.
WAIT!! I am not laughing at any editors here or the comments. I am laughing because I have absolutely no idea what the difference between the foo's (and Barb) are all about, and possibly because such a long discussion seems to me to have long passed not being transferred somewhere other than here as this "seems" to be more than about this goat, AND- surely a bot solution would be too easy.
Usually, in my world, when someone wants me to rush something through, especially when so much is written about foo (any of my nerd friends care to do an edit count?), then I have to take note. I do not know a lot about all the special details concerning Wikipedia, but I have had to "battle" so much over what I feel are things that should be a given, and that causes me to need another laugh break.
Try this out (but it may make sense and that may mean we would need to extend this a month or so to argue the fine basics of making sense); I will break this down to a less than computer knowledgeable back-woods country boy point of view;
I like things simple (Simplicity and flexibility) B-U-T! I want them as correct as possible. If I make an edit (I am allowed to do this regardless of my ignorance) and it is not "exactly" right then I have ZERO problem with someone making any "corrections" that might make improvements. That does not complicate things for me as long as I do not get a message that "I" am in the wrong. Wikipedia tells me that if I screw up--don't worry about it because I can not mess up anything that can't be fixed.
"IF" there is a reasoning to make a change in some formatting (I assume to attain the "proper XML") and it does not violate WP:CITEVAR then there is no problem and no reason for reverting. Does changing Mr. foo to Mr. "Foo" (laugh time) do this? If it does then edits to change some formatting style are unnecessary and could violate citevar. If it does not then "please" do not follow behind and correct a correction that can enhance Wikipedia. I tend to lean towards the latter because of this statement (from above: 04:03, 24 November 2014), (If this article were to be nominated for GA, I'd recommend adding templates, but if not, no real need), and this tells me a couple of things.
  1. An article nominated for GA "might" need some template (still thinking this is dealing with foo v "foo")
  2. We can not nor should not "assume" that any article can not ever make it to GA status.
  3. IF an edit would be an enhancement that might lead to, or be reasoning or expectation for a future GA nomination, then the edit can not be bad, in error, or in violation of a policy or some guideline. At least I have not read that there are instances when we should not seek to enhance an article. We do not have to "wait" for the probability or possibility that an article "may" be reaching a certain point so OMG! lets add templates. Would this make sense; I am reverting these ref edits because this article is not being nominated for GA yet.
  4. If it makes no difference (foo v "foo") then it IS personal preference but that is NOT how this discussion has headed.
This can not be hard to figure out. If Mr. "foo" does not hurt Wikipedia (bad editing or violating "rules"), yet can be considered improvements at a point (and maybe even necessary) and considering However, using quotes around attribute values is generally preferred for HTML (01:07, 22 November 2014), then I think this too should be considered.
Of course taking into account the speed of the trajectory (about 1.5 seconds to parse) and the size (I guess XML or HTML) of the bullet, then reverting such "enhancements or improvements" are uncalled for, and several thousand bits (or whatever count) has thus been wasted contemplating the far reaches of the galaxy when the mud we are stuck in is under our feet.
Editors should not attempt to change an article's established citation style merely on the grounds of personal preference does not mean that a "style" can not be changed (or I would offer improved) for article enhancement, especially if consensus agreed (generally preferred), and it does not hurt, then consensus has already spoken. If someone wants to make an improvement, and it helps in conforming to proper XML syntax in ref code, then breath in- breath out- (maybe go take a crap) and close this as:
    • It is acceptable for basic cleanup to conform to a Wikipedia-wide standard for formatting, not a personal ref preference, and not reason to revert.
I WANT AN ANSWER to this crap and and not be left awaiting some cliff-hanger (is it relevant or not, is it important and does improvements constitute violations?), as either I has assessed this correctly or we need to transfer this somewhere for a lot more discussion as I may have to learn more about foo or "foo", "IF" we can get Barb out of Rischkowsky, and inquiring minds want to know.
Also, ref dif edits that would lead to a "mixed" group is NOT a good idea. IF just changing a ref (not new article contribs that uses a different style) to conform to some helpful standard --- but leaves others in the same article different then NOT GOOD. Change one--- change all --- OR leave alone because then it will be a personal edit choice.
    • Note: I DO NOT even know how to do the reference tied to notes thing and don't like it as it seems complicated as apposed to just having all references listed in one "References" section and a "Notes" for well, notes on the article, but it may be easy so my ignorance can be overlooked (or we have a serious problem) and if someone wants to improve Wikipedia; knock yourself out with as few hassles as possible just don't forget all the other ignorant editors like me. Some of us just may have to add a ref that is styled different (please change it as I will leave a talk page note) as this does not mean I am being difficult (assume good faith) but just don't know how.
If this makes too much sense to need another week or so to consider I will jump into my learning helmet, crash course study Mr. "foo" or foo, and his apparent relative (I did not forget Ms. Barb), and grab my verbiage machine gun, because I want to be able to connect the dots from all this to goats. Can't we all just get along. Otr500 (talk) 15:26, 10 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Otr500, I think it's fair to say that the individual who filed this RfC has an agenda far beyond this particular goat article. And that's all that really needs to be said here. I am sure he will explain further if he wishes to. In great detail. And at length. And will somehow list me and the individual who is the lead editor of this article (aka the poor guy who did most of the actual work) as those amongst the forces of evil arrayed against him. Montanabw(talk) 07:36, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@ Montanabw: I did notice there might be some animosity. I would think that experienced long term editors would actually be able to figure out that there are issues and work on some solution to find some sort of compromise. Since I have not looked where it began, and I would prefer to stay out of it, I suggest grown people work out a compromise.
I am not sure about "an agenda far beyond this particular goat article". It would seem this discussion would have been better at an appropriate place like WP:CITE (not sure) as it involves more than goats and even breeds. I do know that I see several editors that would have the knowledge to effect this and would wonder if there was some agenda as to why not.
I am sorry to hear that JLSN is having financial difficulties just as I am to read about the equally poor editor that lost 5 minutes of life concerning this. I suppose not replying was not an option. Some of the other comments just make me wonder. If there was not "some" issue why is there "Much Ado About Nothing" and some editors with feathers ruffled?
Some things I do know: Take all the editors involved out of the picture and just looking at the issue would be logical. I have read over this page, as well as crammed some ref learning, and also see that I did miss some things. I read pros and cons and would have made comments concerning those made by Nihiltres, that made a lot of sense, but missed it.
I think, putting it simple and taking all the BS out, that it does boil down to a detail of reference formats as well as the overall citation style. I think that just using that sentence (posed by the major contributor) I could successfully debate that changing an aspect of a format, within the parameters of a style used in an article by the first major contributor, does not constitute changing the style. I don't even think this could be logically argued with. I will submit that the use of quotes are not "unnecessary" because it seems they have a specified need and they work either way in a lot of cases, but limits are in place if exceptions are used, multiple uses of the same reference, or even an added space. Use of quotes are optional and I don't think the use in some and not others in the same article would even be be considered "dirty refs".
This is my take: The editors involved in petty fights should chill. The use of an optional formatting, and fighting over it, is just as stated and that would be trivial. I ALSO understand that to those involved their work may be important, so maybe we could keep that in mind, and see if we can overlook personal issues.
I can not even see why it would be a cause for reverting and "IF" there was reverted article content involved, that was not contested but just the use of quotes, then that is a major issue. I can not see where the changing of the stated format would complicate anything for a contributing editor but someone please actually explain how it might.
It seems to me that there are likely nine editors in support that a minor format changing does not constitute a style change, five directly opposed (various reasons), and three that could be considered unknown. I think that using "Barb" falls under "keeping names simple" and should "have a connection to the citation or note". Since the refs link to the notes I don't think (have to study more) it would create any confusion. Maybe someone would care to point out anything I missed.
    • I did take a headache break and expanded a goat article (I hope for the better) that had been a stub and tagged for no references since 2009. Is that not a better use of time? If I screwed the ref part up someone please go fix it (and any errors and needed improvements) and review the title name. I also removed the stub classification rating for review if any warriors would care to do that. --- Can't we all just get along? Otr500 (talk) 18:13, 14 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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