User talk:Gene Nygaard/2006Aug-2006Oct

Needing Gene Nygaard's Help

Hello Gene! Sorry to bother you. Can you help Anglicize the article Oltarz Wita Stwosza?Thanks. Dr. Dan 17:45, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

It looks pretty good to me. I changed the decimal point to the English standard dot used in Wikipedia, and lowercased the currency. Will look again when I have more time. Gene Nygaard 17:06, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

When you find the time, do you think the title is appropriate in the English Wikipedia? Dr. Dan 04:10, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Meaning of Symbol

In Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Symbol v. abbreviation you gave a very cogent explaination of the difference between a symbol and an abbreviation. It's too bad none of the authors at NIST never bothered to put that in their publications. Do you have a source for this explaination? --Gerry Ashton 18:00, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Moves

You moved those articles from the actual names of the subjects to Anglicized versions, saying for each there "wasn't any redirect". If you're having trouble figuring out how to create redirects, please let me know and I'll be glad to show you how. It's not that hard, and soon you'll be able to do it on your own. --Calton | Talk 13:40, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

See Aquilina's discussion above that there is no consensus on which of the choices is the proper one for the name of the Wikipedia article. What is clear is that there should be at least a redirect from all the variant spellings.

In most of the moves I have been making, no such choice has yet been made--the proper English alphabet spelling hasn't yet been considered, so I am making my choice, as well as insuring that at the very least a redirect remains. Like I said on your talk page, it really isn't that hard for you to get out and do something to improve Wikipedia yourself. Doing so will make it less likely that I will bother moving it. Have you looked at the articles in that category and done anything about them yet? Gene Nygaard 13:46, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Gee, Gene, like I said, making redirects isn't all that hard. If you were too proud to ask, you could have asked discreetly. See, all you have to do is first copy the name you're aiming for, create the redirect page, paste in the correct article name, select the name, and then click the rightmost tab at the top of your edit screen. It's that easy!

If you want a more detailed step-by-step, just let me know! That way you can do things properly yourself, without requiring someone to clean up after you. That way, the encyclopedia is actually improved for everyone! --Calton | Talk 14:53, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I've likely created more redirects than you ever have. I'm perfectly capable of doing so when it is called for; something else is called for in these cases. Gene Nygaard 12:28, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Articles for Deletion: Magnetic Accelerator Cannon, Plasma Rifle, and other articles

Hey,

I've seen that you've been editing some of the Halo weapons pages. I would like to inform you that they are being nominated for deletion.

If you want to partake in the discussions, just go to their respective pages, and hit "this article's deletion entry" link.

I'll be on vacation, and will be unable to contribute to these discussions.

Cheers,

RelentlessRouge 12:57, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Rivers of Serbia

Hello. Thanks for the corrections on the subject. Just one thing, Đetinja should redirect to Djetinja as that would be correct English spelling, not Detinja. It is totally different letter (and sound). Đ or Dj sounds like softer G in Gene and not like D (in David, for example). If in the 1990s English didn't switch to South-Slavic Latin it would be something like Dyetinya I gues :o) PajaBG 19:55, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Accents

Could I ask why you are changing articles with Spanish accents on lettering? Is this a policy?--Zleitzen 01:10, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

It has nothing to do with Spanish, per se. The sort keys need to strip the accent marks from any non-English letters, so that they are properly indexed according to English rules, since this is the English Wikipedia. Note that without doing so, they are also not properly sorted according to any other languages rules; rather they are just sorted in accordance with the Unicode numbers of the letters. See Wikipedia:Categorization.

Note that the sort key in categorization, though it looks similar, doesn't work the same way as piping in ordinary links.

To keep the information from being hidden away, you also need to have either the article itself named without the accents, or a redirect or disambiguation page linking to the article. If I find articles without these, obviously no choice has yet been made as to the best name for the article, so I generally make this fix in the easiest way, and make my choice of the name. Gene Nygaard 05:58, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh I see, thanks for your help. --Zleitzen 09:00, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Page moves

Hi! Just to add to what I said above; if there is no diacriticless redirect to a diacriticalised title, please could you consider creating the appropriate redirect, rather than moving the article? This improves consistency (i.e. Víkar became pretty much the only Faroese placename not to lie at the diacritic title after your move), and in the case of Faroese at least this move has major semantic implications; vík means bay, whereas vika means week, completely changing the name of the place. If double redirects need fixing, it's better for future editing just to bite the bullet and do that, rather than move the article to a less accurate title.

Many thanks for all the work on the indexing though - it's a very useful stop-gap until the software becomes sophisticated to handle multilingual indexing. See you around, Aquilina 22:37, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

You seem confused. Just because a word can be written with diacritics, that is not determinative of whether or not it should be written with diacritics in an English Wikipedia article page name.

Obviously, if the unadorned version has not been created as a redirect or linked from a disambiguation page, the issue of the better article name hasn't even been addressed yet.

Just creating redirects does nothing to call the attention of the people who could avoid it in the first place in future articles, by creating the necessary redirects from the get-go.

Etymology of place names is a dicey issue at best in most cases, and you likely don't even have anything like Oluf Rygh's Norske Gaardnavne[1] to start with here. Gene Nygaard 16:30, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

1. I'm not confused in the slightest. I know there has been no authoritative decision on what to do with a diacritisable title - but surely you can see that in areas where all the articles have been named with diacritics, it is far more consistent and encyclopaedic just to create the redirect than make that article a random odd-one-out? If one article is to be transliterated differently to the rest, it should be for a more encyclopaedic reason than "well, someone forget the redirect for that one".
2. There are better ways of calling attention to this than moving the odd page. It's better to do the awareness-raising on the talk-pages and policy-making pages than the odd isolated page move that lowers naming consistency.
3. Etymology is not the main argument towards using diacritics, but it is something to bear in mind. In the case I used above, bays is definitely the correct stem for the name - just see the article. But there are more pressing arguments on both sides. Aquilina 18:22, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

You have now been asked to stop by myself, User:Freakofnurture, User:Renata3, User:Palthrow, User:DragonflySixtyseven, User:Calton and other edits of this type you have made have been reverted by User:Juro and User:Sjorford.

If eight editors raise concerns about your actions, there is probably a case to answer - it seems there is a consensus against your actions. Please stop moving these articles, and just create the redirects. I know you are trying to raise awareness, but there are better ways to do that - and these moves are creating unnecessary work and disrupting normal editing. Aquilina 22:52, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

If you ever start doing anything to fix these problems, any suggestions you have might carry more weight.

Only a couple have raised any concerns. You read too much into a simple revert--and it is quite important to note that in this case, a revert doesn't put things back to the status quo ante. The situation is quite improved--at least now, someone who runs across a name or other word in an English-language newspaper has a chance to find the Wikipedia article when one exists.

Just creating redirects only addresses one article, not the overall problem. It doesn't alert anyone to the opportunity to determine what is really the best article name in each case. Just because a word can be written with diacritics, that most certainly does not mean that the English Wikipedia article name should include diacritics, rather than being written in the English alphabet. Gene Nygaard 14:32, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

All the editors mentioned want to get to the same situation; but to get to the same state with your method, you need other editors to check all your edits, clean up your mess and sort out requested moves if there is an existing talk page involved - and any pages that don't get caught by the other editors are named inconsistently. You are creating unnecessary work to make a point.

As you have continued your actions, despite a firm consensus against them, I have brought the matter back up at AN/I. Aquilina 16:54, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Your page moves are disruptive and violate WP:POINT. Please stop. If you continue, you may be blocked for disruption. JoshuaZ 17:17, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Gene, you are just causing more work for others. It is a well-established convention that foreign-named article titles should include diacritics; the correct thing to do is to create the redirect from the unaccented version, not to move the page. — sjorford++ 17:49, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

This is not the best way

Gene: while I believe you have the best of intentions, I don't believe this is the best way to go about things. You know full well that this is a controversial action; your decision to go ahead, damn-the-torpedoes, makes it an aggressive action. Be bold, sure - until someone complains, or you know that your actions do not have consensus. THEN, you should talk, negotiate, attempt to build a plurality.

Since you state that you could just create the missing redirects but choose not to do that, since it will not teach other editors a lesson - this implies to me that you're violating the spirit of "Don't disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point" quite well. Your editorial actions should not be done to teach other editors a lesson. That is against the spirit of good faith and reasonable behaviour. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 17:42, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

It's not just the redirects that is missing. That is just one part of it.

But fixing one article doesn't do the trick. What we need is for the people making these articles to realize that they are wrong not to include the unaccented form from the beginning.

What is also missing is any consideration of the proper title for the Wikipedia article. There can have been no consideration of that, when the unaccented form is not yet linked from by either a redirect or a disambiguation page. There has been no determination in these cases that the article title should be as it is rather than an unaccented form or some other form (perhaps with some but not all of the diacritics--some are more likely to be used in various English language publications than others are).

It is most definitely not true that just because a title could include diacritics, that it should include diacritics. Consider, for example, München.

The only way that you can claim that my only option is to create redirects is if you falsely assume that, even though it hasn't yet been considered in the particular article, that including diacritics in the title is always correct, and that the diacritics currently used in the title are the proper ones to use. It is not. Sometimes, one diacritic is much more likely to occur in usage with the English language than another one that can be used in the same word.

Since no choice has yet been made in the articles in question here, I shall continue to express my choice in my way. If a discussion develops on a particular article, I may well join in to express my views on that particular article. Gene Nygaard 02:17, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Gene, this is patently false. It is a well-established convention of Wikipedia that articles should generally be at their native names complete with all diacritics, unless the anglicised name is overwhelmingly more common (so Munich not München, but Schwabmünchen not Schwabmunchen). It may be true that no discussion has taken place about many of these articles, but that's because we don't decide every single article individually, we try to create a consistency policy so that the title of each article doesn't need to be discussed unless it's contentious. What you are doing is against Wikipedia conventions, and so it is up to you to start a discussion if you think the policy should be altered. — sjorford++ 08:50, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Category sorting

please be aware that piped category tags are sorted case sensitively: your edit here places the article at the end of the list, under p, not P: please fix it :) dab (ᛏ) 08:14, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

re Pointless revert

Thanks for your message. To be honest I did not look at the category because I know the names of all metro stations by heart (I was born in Mexico City and heavy subway user for many years) so I know full well that there is no other station with a similar name and that probably there won't be one at all. Hence my edit summary. Regards. -- Rune Welsh | ταλκ 11:40, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Iyari Limon

Sorry, I was a bit hasty on that one. However, if the article is to be at that title, can you please update the article text to be consistent? If you're going to criticise others for leaving a job half done, this is the least you can do... — sjorford++ 14:31, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Sometimes I'll do that, either way. My opinion is that the text should not be uniform when there are variant spellings--including the variants in text also increases the chances that someone will find the article in a search engine search. Some search engines might find the variants if they are included only in a redirect, but others will not, and those that do will give more weight to those including it in the text. Finding the right balance is the goal. Gene Nygaard 14:38, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I completely disagree, I think being consistent is the goal. It's not our responsibility to help deficient search engines, particularly when it means we have an unprofessional looking article. — sjorford++ 14:59, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." --Oliver Wendell Holmes

We're peddling information--the goal should be to make it as accessible as possible. Gene Nygaard 00:05, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

And what information is given by an article that spells someone's name two different ways without explanation? This is a confused message, surely? There are other ways of making our articles accessible. — sjorford++ 08:16, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Category sort keys

Hi. Could you tell me what you mean about pages I have moved? How do you mean you'll do it the easy way? If I am doing something wrong let me understand so I can get it right. Your message was a little cryptic. May it be that the real problem lies with how Wikipedia sorts macronised letters, and maybe a good way to approach this might be to ask Meta or whoever deals with such things, to have macronised letters like ā sorted to appear immediately after a, as most other software sorts it?

Also re Takuu, the English name is little used as far as I know, and is ambiguous in any case since there is another island group (in another country) called Mortlock Islands. Kahuroa 19:32, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

They were sorted correctly before your moves. The easy way is to undo that. And the ā should not be sorted after a, but rather with a--this is the English Wikipedia, with English indexing. Gene Nygaard 20:17, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean about moving Mortlock Islands and Takuu and Tauu double redirects, it wasn't me as you could have seen with a look at the edit history. But I am glad someone did move it back, as you seem to think you are in charge, as someone else has commented Kahuroa 00:17, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

After all, I don't seem to recall anybody putting you in charge, either.'

The diference between us is that you act as if you believe it. The sudden desire for feedback -- given your history of ignoring any that doesn't fit wihin your narrow preconceptions -- tells me how sincere your request was. To quote John Vernon from The Outlaw Josey Wales, "Don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining." Wipe that smirk from your face and I might believe you, but not before then. --Calton | Talk 00:37, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Categories and External Links

Hello. I don't mean to sound rude, but is there something I am missing with regard to your edits in the Urumqi Airport website? There is only one external link so the singular would be more appropriate, unless there is a ruling here in Wikipedia that the index should always be in the plural. I also do not understand why you insist in putting the name of the airport in the category tag, but since it's a category, it doesn't change how the tag appears in the page. Thanks for the clarification. Elektrik Blue 82 03:12, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't care so much about "links" being plural, but there is a Wikipedia standard, I think spelled out somewhere in that regard. The biggest problem with starting out with a singular is that nobody ever changes it when a link is added.

It is the name of the airport with the English alphabet letters, or at least that's what it should be, without the diacritics, so that it sorts properly in the categories. In this particular case, it involves the initial letter, so it is especially important. It used to sort correctly without any piping, of course, before somebody moved the article. Gene Nygaard 03:25, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:External links says there is currently no consensus on the "Exterior link" vs. "Exterior links" issues, and goes into some of the reasoning, but I know from experience of seeing a lot of changes pages that there are many people who will change it to a plural even if only one is currently listed and very few who will change it in the other direction. More pages with one link have it in the plural form than in the singular form, but as I said even before looking it up, I don't care that much and won't argue about it, don't remember if I reverted that part or not in conjunction with putting the indexing sort key (see Wikipedia:Categorization) back in. Gene Nygaard 03:33, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Cynna Kydd

Please be a bit more careful with edits to articles on the main page. The article makes clear in the first sentence that her maiden name was Neele, and (since she only changed her name in May), it was still categorised under Neele, something which is now fixed. I'm not quite sure what you thought you were doing moving it to Cyanna Neele, a move which I've now reverted. Rebecca 03:40, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Erm, no, she has never been called Cyanna Neele. She was previously known as Cynna Neele, and there has been a redirect there ever since it was moved when she changed her name in May. Moreover, in the circumstances, moving an article to a name that is clearly no longer used is not very bright. The sensible thing to do would be to create a normal redirect, although that wouldn't have been much use here anyway, seeing as Google turns up approximately zero hits for this misspelling. As I said, please be more careful. Rebecca 03:44, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. Sorry for being a bit rude with this. Rebecca 03:48, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Do you know what's going on with the look and feel of Wikipedia? Somebody changed everything and I'm getting lost, and if it still gives me a notification that I have new messages on my talk page, I don't have the foggiest idea where that notification would be, and my tools for working with links don't work any more, and I'll probably continue to stumble around until I figure out what is going on. Gene Nygaard 03:55, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Bedelia

Hi, I just created a Bedelia disambiguation page and was about to move the article about the car to Bédélia when I saw in the page history that you had done the exact opposite only yesterday. Should I do it nevertheless or should we create Bedelia (car) or something like that?

All the best, <KF> 20:39, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd say the disambiguation page should be in the more generalized, English alphabet form (with links from one or more accented forms as appropriate, either as a redirect or a disambiguation line on some other page). Bedelia is correct English alphabet usage for the cars, but Bédélia is probably not correct for the novel. But you will have to restore the info about the cars somewhere. As it stands now, we only have a self-redirect to the same disambiguation page.

I'll revert you change on Bédélia. That will fix that part. Then, if you want to make Bédélia go to the disambiguation page at Bedelia (I think it is fine as it is, especially since there isn't actually any article yet on the use being disambiguated), you would first use the "Move" tab to create the new article name, then go back and change where the old name redirects. Gene Nygaard 20:54, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I didn't quite understand what had happened. I've reverted your change at Bedelia. I don't care too much if you want to move it back to Bédélia and then make the disambiguation page at Bedelia. It's just that before my move, the redirect at Bedelia didn't even exist. So change it to a disambiguation page, if you like. Or, since this is probably all confused now, I'll see if I can accomplish that. Gene Nygaard 20:58, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't have any idea how prevalent the unaccented Bedelia for the cars is in English, other than that the intro says this is normal. If that is so, then Bedelia (car) might be a better name for the article, but as long as now we have the disambiguation page, I'll just add a disambiguation line on it for now. Another possibility is renaming the disambiguation page to Bedelia (disambiguation) and the car page to be the default disambiguation at Bedelia and keep Bedelia (novel) for the redlink or the article if you or someone else creates it. Gene Nygaard 21:10, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for not replying earlier. For some reason, I was waiting for your answer on my talk page. Sorry. The way you've done it now is exactly what I had in mind. Thanks. <KF> 22:32, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I just strung together a few messages because I didn't get it right the first time; it's only been an hour or so since the last so no problem about you not replying earlier--if it had been a day or two I might have contacted you on your talk page. Gene Nygaard 22:35, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I know you're probably sick and tired of hearing pagemove complaints, but...

On Cezar Bădiţă, for example, would you mind next time you perform such a move, moving it back to the original title? That way the redirect is created, but people don't have to revert you. Thanks. —Khoikhoi 23:25, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, but what makes you think that Cezar Bădiţă is the best title for this article? I don't think it is. The standard is how the person (or place, thing, etc.) is best known in English. In this case, the person is best known for being in the Olympics. Most English coverage of the Olympics doesn't use either of the two letters involved here. Furthermore, and this is probably the clincher, it is "Cezar Alexandru Badita" even on the Romanian Olympic Committee bio which is linked to at the bottom of this article. [2] So I'm going to move it back again. Gene Nygaard 01:52, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Because that's the correct spelling of their name. The Romanian website you showed me doesn't even spell Romanian with any diacritics, see here. That's probably because their computers don't have unicode and are unable to write the language properly. Generally, the reason why people don't use diacritics is because they can't, not because they want to. —Khoikhoi 04:23, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

There are no diacritics in the name of the WIkipedia article Romania, either, and it isn't likely that there ever will be. Clear proof that the spelling with diacritics is not always the proper one for the English Wikipedia article name. Gene Nygaard 12:30, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Please stop

Please stop moving pages just to make redirects. You can make redirects by starting the article and then typing #REDIRECT [[Article name]]. This is the preferred way to do it. Please only move pages if you need to actually change the name. Otherwise, make redirects the normal way. pschemp | talk 03:26, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

It's not just to make redirects. As the discussion just above points out, many times the proper article name is the one being moved to. Furthermore, just making redirects is invisible to anybody with the article on his or her watchlist; it does nothing to call attention to anyone of the problem involved, and it doesn't create the opportunity for those with the knowledge of actual usage to make additional, appropriate redirects as well. Gene Nygaard 03:30, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

In that case use the proper move reason. Many of your title changes only mention that there was no redirect. Your summaries are misleading as they are. Moving as a way to call attention to a page is an impoproper use of the tool also. Get a peer review or something, but making moves for that reason is not acceptable. pschemp | talk 03:32, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't always have that reason. I don't always know enough about it to know which is better. What I do know is that it needs to be considered, and that it hasn't yet been considered. But if I meekly just make the redirect, it still isn't considered.

Nobody got any peer review in creating the name in the first place, nor in making some of the unexplained moved which I have reverted. If you are going to insist on that, I'll just start reverting every change along these lines but in the opposite direction, adding diacritics, which has been done without a peer review. Gene Nygaard 03:38, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Gene, stop it.

I mean it, Gene. I know that you mean well, but this is not helpful. In fact, not only is it not helpful, it's actually harmful.

Not very harmful, true, but harmful nonetheless.

You are, to put it very bluntly, fucking things up. The correct spelling of a name depends on the native language of the individual whose name it is. And if the spelling in that language has diacritics, then the article name should damn well have those diacritics.

The non-diacritic version should be a redirect to the diacritic version, not vice-versa. This is because not all keyboards produce diacritic output easily. If someone goes to the trouble of making their keyboard produce diacritic output so that they can have the correct URL, it's annoying as hell to have it be a redirect to the non-diacritic version.

Stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it, and also stop it.

We-the-administrators do not want to block you. Of all the possible misbehaviors that people get into, this is an exceedingly minor one - but you just keep doing it.

Do you understand why you should stop? DS 03:49, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

It is fucking absolutely nothing up. Everything works as well as it did before my moves.

What is fucked up is the situation which occured beforehand, before

1. Entering the proper English alphabet spelling in the Go box wouldn't find existing articles.
2. Redlinks appeared in many articles, even though the appropriate article existed.

Because no keyboard produces diacritic output easily for every one of the thousands of possible diacritics used on Wikipedia, it is essential that entering a proper English alphabet version (there may be more than one) will get you to the article. It doesn't matter much whether that is the title of the article, or if you get their through a redirect. That factor is irrelevant to the choice of which is the better English Wikipedia article name, unlike your confused logit above.

There is no presumption as you state, that the non-diacritic version should always be a redirect. When the proper title hasn't yet been considered, I'm free to go with my choice.

It also has nothing to do with any "language" per se. It has to do with the names in English.

I'm also getting damn sick and tired of people slapping diacritics on names of people, some of whom have always lived in an English speaking country and rarely if ever use their names with diacritics, such as that seen on WP:RM#23 August 2006 and Talk:Ricardo Sánchez. What, exactly, is the "native language of the individual whose name it is"? Do you know? Does it matter? No, that is irrelevant and immaterial to the question of the proper title of the article.

And, what happens when, as in the article discussed above, the Romanian Olympic Committee, writing in the Romanian language, spells the name of that athlete as Cezar Alexandru Badita. So why in the hell, even under your fractured logic, should that article be at Cezar Bădiţă rather than Cezar Badita?

Remember also that is isn't just personal names, nor personal names and place names, but many ordinary terms as well--things which don't have a "native language"; though they may well be borrowed from one or more languages, that doesn't always determine their spelling in English. Gene Nygaard 04:13, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Note also that you mischaracterize the issue by talking about "The correct spelling of a name". The overriding principle of Wikipedia:Naming Conventions is not some silly notion of "correctness", but rather "what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity". Gene Nygaard 04:23, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

"Sort Keys"

The absence of sort keys is not a legitimate reason of removing the categories altogether. If they were necessary then why don't you add them yourself? You know how, you have been doing it all day long! Stop reverting unless there is a legitimate reason. --Inahet 02:12, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Yuvraj Singh

Just a note that I've reverted you because in the case of this chap, he is indexed by his first name. Indian cricketers use their last name generally on their shirts but in cases with common surnmaes like Khan and Singh like Harbhajan Singh, Yograj Singh, Zaheer Khan, Yuvraj Singh, they all have their first names on their shirts and are always referred to by their first name. Thanks, Blnguyen | BLabberiNg 03:22, 4 September 2006 (UTC).

That doesn't matter; that isn't what sorting is about, and India isn't one of the cricket categories using first name sorting. Furthermore, it isn't relevant at all in non-cricket categories, nor in cricket categories not India-related. Gene Nygaard 03:27, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Ferhat Çökmüş

Hi Gene, i moved Ferhat Cokmus to Ferhat Çökmüş again, as it's his full name in Turkish. Cheers --Ugur Basak 19:05, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Shāhnāma

Since you are not a native Persian-speaker - I think - I guess it is not your fault that you do not know how to use the coorect Persian-English transcription. The way it is spelled right now, is pure Tehranian slang transcription ("a" instead of the correct "ā" and "-eh" instead of the correct "-a"), and it is not used in any reliable source. The Encyclopaedia Iranica uses "Shāhnāma" and that's why I moved the page. Instead of reverting to a false version, you should have instead asked me to correct the links.

But I guess it has become Wikipedia tradition to replace correct spellings and information with trash.

Tājik 10:45, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Stop messing up indexing (part 2)

Whoa, it looks like somebody has woken up on the wrong side of the bed today! But there's nothing a cup of coffee and a bit of fresh air can't fix. Anyways, sorry 'bout the tremendous mess I caused (which are the other articles I messed up by the way?), I hope my sins will be eventually forgiven (do you have by chance an indulgence for sale?). Regards, Mentatus 14:58, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

You can look in your contributions list and find the others. Gene Nygaard 15:03, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your hint. I would have never ever thought of that. Kind regards, Mentatus 16:37, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Grand Cities Mall

Hi, Gene. I was wondering if you could help us out with this AfD on the Grand Cities Mall in Grand Forks. Matt created the article the other day, and I was really rather surprised to see the nomination. --15:05, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks a bunch! --AlexWCovington (talk) 18:25, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Article needs diacritics

After your move to Kedzierzyn-Kozle County the article lacks correct diacritics, which are standard on Wikipedia. Please fix this. Balcer 19:16, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

No, it isn't "standard"; there are many articles which do not have them. It is a case-by-case determination. Make your point, but just be sure that if you do move it, that you fix it so that it sorts properly. Gene Nygaard 19:20, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

And, if you don't like my way of fixing the problem and think you have a better way of doing it, you'd better go back and fix any others you've messed up the same way. Gene Nygaard 19:22, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I certainly don't like your way of fixing the problem. Geographical articles which do not have accepted English names do have diacritics. Anyway, you could have equally well have fixed the sorting yourself instead of moving the article, which I consider a mean-spirited action. Next time, take a few deep breaths before you act rashly. I will go back over my edits and add correct sorting, so don't move anything else in the meantime. Balcer 19:23, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Improperly indexed categories

A quick suggestion: Instead of getting excited about improperly indexed categories as happened at Talk:Păuleşti, Vrancea, why not go to WP:BOTREQ and fix the problem everywhere forever? It's a computerized world! —Wknight94 (talk) 02:09, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Stop being so simplistic, and just keep your eyes open for opportunities to help fix this problem.

Sure, that's a possibility, but I highly dislike bots run amok. That is a serious risk, plus the fact that any such bot request will likely not fix everything.

A better choice would be a software change, but that also isn't simple, and I've heard some people suggest that possibility but don't know of any active proposals. But even if you could get some agreement on exactly how any such scheme should work (always case insensitive or not? index any spaces punctuation marks or not? how many "fields" such as last name, first name, and how are they separated? what does each character outside the English alphabet map to, and for some characters do they map to different things depending on the language from which the word comes? yes to that last one, lots of other things the casual user doesn't even think of), you still have the problems that many articles should not be indexed in the word order that they appear in the article name, and that all categories for the same article are not necessarily indexed the same.

Furthermore, a misindexed article also is sometimes useful in finding a misnamed article, one in need of moving, whether it is something I can accomplish myself or something I need to ask you at WP:RM to help with. It would be hard to get a bot to flag those cases. Gene Nygaard 02:29, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and one more thing--the bot would be totally useless with respect to future articles, unlike the situation with my requested move which means there are now a number of people aware of the problem, and with respect to the limited field of cities in Romania especially, such future problem will be less likely there. Gene Nygaard 02:31, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Please refrain from making moves such as this one in which you do not fix the indexing sort key. The people working on the implementation of WP:RM ought to be well aware of the existence of this problem, and ought to take action when they make moves in response to these requests. Gene Nygaard 02:38, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

First, my supposedly being "simplistic" is certainly preferable to your calling people "fools" on talk pages. Second, your next skirting of the personal attack policy with this edit summary is unlikely to gain you any assistance in your crusade. Third, a bot can clearly be made to run more than once, thereby covering future articles. Fourth, if you don't like bots, you're free to fire up WP:AWB. Cool the jets there, killer. I see you've made over 22,000 edits and I'm sure there are some in there that some would consider mistakes. Whether you agree that those are mistakes or not, I'm sure being called a "fool" or "simplistic" is not how you'd prefer those mistakes to be brought to light. —Wknight94 (talk) 02:54, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

WP:NC(GN)

I apologize for spamming your talk page, but since you had contributed in the past to the WP:NC(GN) proposal, which is currently ready for a wider consultation, I thought you might want to give it another look now and, hopefully, suggest some final improvements. Thanks. --Lysy^talk 22:56, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

otherpeople disambiguation tag

Reference your reversion reinstating the tag {{otherpeople|John Gilbert}} to John Gilbert (bushranger) - given disambiguation is already part of the article title, I don't believe a disambiguation header is appropriate;I think it is only appropriate for an article where no other disambuguation occurs and it is possible that the reader has come there by accident and may be looking for another person - if they have come to an article with bushranger in the title, they are unlikely to be looking for the Baron Gilbert (ie John Gilbert, Baron Gilbert), similarly those looking for the bushranger are unlikely to be accidentally at the actor article. If you type in John Gilbert you end up at the disambiguation page.

I think that unnecessary headers distract from the article content and are a form of instruction creep - hence I htink they should be avoided. Somebody has come to read about the actor - actor is in the title of the article and the very first thing they are told is that there are other people in the world called John Gilbert, some of whom may be written about on the wikipedia - doesn't seem the most important thing to know about the actor quite frankly.--Golden Wattle ^talk 21:17, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

You don't even have to start out in Wikipedia to get to the article. You might get there from a search in AltaVista, Google, Yahoo, whatever. Or, even coming from within Wikipedia, maybe you were actually looking for the one with "comedian" (an actor of sorts) in his disambiguation article name. Or, you might be looking for a different actor, who doesn't even have a Wikipedia page at this time.

I agree that this isn't as necessary as in the case of a primary disambiguation page. But I disagree on the points about it being obtrusive and unhelpful. Gene Nygaard 21:29, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

It would also be possible that someone primarily known for something else, and thus disambiguated in some other way, also dabbled at acting. Gene Nygaard 21:37, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Gene, you may be intersted in my reply to Golden Wattle on this subject. I'd be intersted in your thoughts on that. --BrownHairedGirl ^{(talk) • (contribs)} 22:24, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

corvette unit conversions

In the article corvette, I fail to see the point in including metric conversions at all (of 400 and 600 tons) if these aren't going to be representative conversions of the imperial. Would it not be best therefore to remove them, or to put "(circa 400 to 600 metric tonnes)"? Emoscopes ^Talk 14:29, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I'd say it is still important to know. Too many people get screwed up in the whole conversion process, and believe that just because there calculator shows a whole long string of digits, those digits really mean something. Note that the article also contains other conversions where the numbers do differ (between 540 and 2,750 tons (550 and 2,800 metric tons)), to the precision to which the original numbers were stated. Including them here makes it clear that to the precision stated, it does not matter in this case, and it is a simpler way to do so than some long-winded explanation and clearer than just leaving a totally unresolved ambiguity. And, since even you didn't make the "long" visible in your link, it is also something that might be expressed differently if the "tons" without an adjective were short tons instead, as the person making the original conversion had treated them (which I changed just because of my belief that it is highly unlikely that the original measurement would have been in short tons, since long tons are routinely used for this purpose even in the United States). Gene Nygaard 14:37, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I completely agree, I just saw the figures of 300 tons / 300 tonnes and realised that wasn't right and quickly fixed it without looking at the context. I still think "circa" would be useful though as it's just a ballpark conversion of a ballpark figure; and it may avoid future editors being as overzealous as I was. I always pipe ton to long ton as force of habit, as the short ton is never used in expressing displacement of ships. Emoscopes ^Talk 14:53, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Flight planning

I see you've recently made some minor changes to Flight planning - fine (though I have reworded one of them). Do you by any chance have the knowledge/experience to check the article for technical accuracy? If so, I would be very grateful for any comments or corrections you care to make (I work for a major flight planning vendor, so I'm a bit nervous about POV). Murray Langton 05:41, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Error you inserted in SL-1 article

Please review the edit history of SL-1 and note my correction of an inaccurate temperature conversion you added, which then resulted in someone else removing the correct value and the article retaining your error for the last ten months. As time allows, please revisit similar changes to check the accuracy of your additions. No reply needed - I trust that you hate inserting errors... :) Jamesday 09:07, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Good spot! Thanks.

If that were the case, it would be a good argument for using &minus; (the − sign, close to, but not quite the same as, an en dash) rather than a hyphen. Actually, I might not be able to blame my eyesight (which is reasonably good) for this, that might not have been my error. Yes, I could have rounded the minus 6²⁄₃ to −5, but it is more likely that I confusedly did a backwards conversion and converted as if the original were −20 °C, and thought I was rounding −4 to −5 °F. Gene Nygaard 11:42, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Dissent with Micrometre --> Metre redirect

I don't think micrometer should be redirected to metre, and posted my explanation on the Micrometer talk page...I'd appreciate your input.Erudy 14:38, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

En dashes

What's wrong with en dashes? I like them because I think they work better
when a hyphenated word pair appears at the end of a line; the two-
word combination doesn't get wrapped (like I just illustrated). Is there some
downside I don't know about? Greg L 01:24, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

It's too obtrusive and nonstandard. En dashes can be conventionally used when it is a two-word phrase on one side, but not in normal hyphenated words. Furthermore, it generally should break at the hyphen. See Wikipedia:Manual of style (dashes) and the hyphen and dash articles for more information on when various hyphens and dashes are used. Gene Nygaard 01:33, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I did. Here's what the Wikipedia article on the en dash says:

The Guide for the Use of the International System of Units (SI) recommends that the word "to" be used instead of an en dash when a number range might be misconstrued as subtraction, such as a range of units. For example, "a voltage of 50 to 100 V" rather than "a voltage of 50–100 V".

The en dash can be used instead of a hyphen in compound adjectives in which one part consists of two words or a hyphenated word: * pre–World War II period * anti–New Zealand sentiment * high-priority–high-pressure tasks (tasks which are both high-priority and high-pressure).

However, some authorities disagree with this usage.

The en dash is used instead of a hyphen in compound adjectives for which neither part of the adjective modifies the other. That is, when each is modifying the noun. This is common in science, when names compose an adjective as in Bose–Einstein condensate. Compare this with "award-winning novel" in which "award" modifies "winning" and together they modify "novel". Contrast "Franco-Prussian War", "Anglo-Saxon", etc., in which the first element does not strictly modify the second, but a hyphen is still normally used.

En dashes that are used instead of hyphens to connect words normally do not have spaces around them. An exception is when excluding them may cause confusion or look odd (e.g., 12 June – 3 July; contrast 12 June–3 July). However, when an actual en dash is unavailable, one may use a hyphen–minus with a single space on each side (" - ").

As far as I can tell, its a matter of style and certainly may be used in word pairs. Again, what's the downside? Does it look ugly or something? Greg L 01:36, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I changed some of them to "to" as the first part says, didn't I? I know I recently did that in some articles.

The second part is expressed more succinctly at hyphen: "Traditionally an en dash ('–') replaces the hyphen in hyphenated compounds if either of its constituent parts is either already hyphenated or contains a space." That would apply to something like "Bose-Einstein condensate" if the two constituent parts were "Bose" and "Einstein condensate". They are not. The two constituent parts are "Bose" and "Einstein", combined to make as single adjective modifying condensate. Different meaning with the hyphen, than what it would have if an en dash were used. Gene Nygaard 01:48, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

BTW, in the article we've been editing, I'm almost certain that I either left an en-dash, or changed a hyphen to an en-dash, in one case like that. Don't remember which one, just remember doing it and could find it, but would rather have you look for it. Gene Nygaard 01:52, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Furthermore, in what you've quoted, the people who "disagree with this usage" of an en-dash would use the hyphen there just as in other cases. Gene Nygaard 01:54, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Gene. The manual of style: dashes article states as follows regarding the en dash:

The en dash can also be used as a hyphen in compound adjectives in which one part consists of two words or a hyphenated word: for example, pre–World War II period.

So isn't "black-body radiation" just such a case? My question is this: is there anything about my usage of the en dash that is contrary to permissible usage as outlined in manual of style: dashes? Greg L 02:07, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

No, it isn't. You aren't connecting together "body-radiation" and "black". You are talking about an object known as a black body and the radiation it emits. There isn't any hyphen when "black body" is used as a noun, but the hyphen is used to connect them together as an adjective modifying radiation in this case. Gene Nygaard 02:09, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Now, go back to thermodynamic temperature, the article we've been editing, and I'll tell you what to look for; as I discussed above, there was one place where I changed what was a hyphen to an en dash. That was in the term "bell curve–like", because the term to which the "-like" suffix is applied is "bell curve" which has a space in it. Do you see the difference yet? Gene Nygaard 02:18, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate all your contributions. Seriously. The article is better off for our effort. I think we're talking cross-purpose on punctuation. It appeared to me that a bunch of en dashes were converted to hyphens. Maybe it's because you use a PC and imported the whole article into a word processor bebore cutting and pasting it back. What I would like to do is to change instances of "black-body radiation" to "black–body radiation." "Black body" is a two-word noun. When it is used in "black-body radiation," "black-body" is being used adjectivally to modify the noun "radiation" and the en dash is entirely acceptable for this purpose according to Wikipedia's manual of style: dashes. This whole issue of en dashes v.s. hyphens seems to be a matter of style and preference, not an issue of right or wrong. Greg L 02:37, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

No, I intentionally changed en-dashes to hyphens or en-dashes to minus signs, because the en-dashes were incorrect. Changed em dashes to en dashes, too. Not just according to Wikipedia's MoS, but according to standard English usage as expressed in many other style guides as well. There should be no en dash in black-body radiation. That's standard hyphen usage, go read the hyphen article. You still don't understand the difference between "bell curve–like" and "pre–Civil War" on the one hand, and "black-body radiation" on the other hand, do you? Until you do, don't be messing with it again. Gene Nygaard 02:42, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Your "corrections" still need to be re-corrected. The history section shows multiple places (like the last sentence in Note 1) where there used to (properly) be an en-dash separating the page numbers. Where it used to say Citation: Derivation of the classical electromagnetic zero–point radiation spectrum via a classical thermodynamic operation involving van der Waals forces, Daniel C. Cole, Physical Review A, Third Series 42, Number 4, 15 August 1990, Pg. 1847–1862. it now has a hyphen. According to the Wikipedia Manual of Style: Dashes, this is precisely what the en dash is for. There are other places thoughout the article that have been wholesale fouled up because, perhaps, whatever computer platform you are using is apparently changing lots of hyphens. You know, I may not know everything about typography on the planet, but I have actually done white papers and technical writing for many years as an engineer. You should try to tone down your arrogance. Things are now screwed up on the "thermo" article that I'm going to have to clean up now. Greg L 03:02, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

You'll be cleaning up a whole lot less than I did. Gene Nygaard 03:04, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I understand your point now. I carefully read the en dash article and see that I was using it too much in order ot avoid end-of-line word wraps. So you're right, I won't have to clean up too much. If you go in and edit, I suggest you edit from within the Wikipedia editing window as I suspect import/exports change unintended things. Greg L 03:12, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

OK. Thanks Gene. Your edits on punctuation were good ones and you were correct. Because some links had hyphens in them, I had to create “|written as” versions for Teller–Ulam and Hertzsprung–Russell. I also corrected "Pg. 1847–1862." And in order to keep X-axis and Y-axis from doing end-of-line word wraps (which looks awful and reads worse), I en dashed a handful of those too even though that is technically cheating. Greg L 03:42, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Oscar Nuñez

Since Oscar Nuñez is the correct spelling of his name, why shouldn't it be the main article? --DrBat 15:14, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

That's a case you'll have to make; since the "speedy" tags have been removed. The burden is on you, not me. I doubt you can meet that burden. Gene Nygaard 15:18, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

It explictly says not to remove it if you disagree with it. --DrBat 15:23, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Quite the contrary. It explicitly says that removing it stops the "speedy" process, meaning that you'd need to use the normal route. Gene Nygaard 15:24, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

It meets the criteria because it is "reversing a redirect". The template says "If you created this page and you disagree with this page's proposed speedy deletion, please explain why on its talk page." --DrBat 15:29, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Do you understand the word "if"? What does it say before that? I didn't create the redirect at Oscar Nuñez, did I? I didn't create the article at Oscar Nunez either, did I? Gene Nygaard 15:33, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

And where does it say you can remove the notice if it meets the criteria (which it does; "reversing a redirect")?--DrBat 15:41, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

That's not a criterion, or at least not the whole criterion. It's obviously not "non-controversial", is it? Just go look at the standard procedure and the discussions at WP:AfD. Removing the tag is routinely and explicitly a standard method to stop the "speedy" process. Gene Nygaard 15:47, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

And pray tell, how is moving Oscar Nunez to Oscar Nuñez controversial? --DrBat 15:49, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Degree Celsius

Gene: While writing the thermodynamic temp article, I had researched old papers (such as the language that Lord Kelvin used in his paper On an Absolute Thermometric Scale,) and saw that historically, scientists referred to temperature as “degree centigrade,” “centesimal degree,” or simply “degree.” I did not see that “degrees Celsius” was used between 1744 and 1948. Of course, historical information is still relatively poorly available on the Web and it is easy to overlook something. Now, I can see from the 9th CGPM that they considered three names and finally made the following decision: “From three names ("degree centigrade", "centesimal degree", "degree Celsius") [that had been] proposed to denote the degree of temperature, the CIPM has chosen "degree Celsius" (PV, 21, 88).” Note however, that it’s very possible that in 1947– 1948, the CIPM looked at the historical record for those who made significant advancements to the measurement of temperature and chose "Celsius" to bestow an honor upon Anders Celsius (as they have done in the past with other units of measure such as the Tesla). The CIPM’s decision doesn't necessarily mean that "degree Celsius" was in common use between 1744 and 1948. I found this Web article stating that "Celsius" was used but the Web site immediately talks about how Celsius was adopted in 1948 and may be making an incorrect assumption. I've found plenty of incorrect information on the Web that keeps being repeated from probably one original goof, such as the 32 or so Web sites that tell how "Joseph Lambert" worked on issues pertaining to absolute zero (which is why none could cite this fictitious fellow's birth date). In the article’s history section, it is addressing how scientists at the time referred to the unit of measure. Did you find an an actual historical usage of "degree Celsius"? Greg L 17:57, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

No. Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition (and the current Eleventh, and earlier editions too, I'm pretty sure) list a circa 1850 date for the first use of that specific meaning in English. Furthermore, I have a book published in Chicago in 1906 using degrees Celsius, though since it isn't in English but rather in Swedish, the actual usage is "grad Celsius" or "grader Celsius" or something like that. Add that to the CGPMs wording clearly implying already existing usage. Gene Nygaard 18:04, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Awesome. Greg L 18:09, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Referring to comments made here

I've responded to your claims at the AfD listing, but I'll repeat it here:

• I accept that I should have checked the page history before adding the second speedy tag to the article. The fact that I did not was unprofessional on my part.
• I've never seen any indication that adding a Prod tag to an article which had been de-speedied is out of line in any way. My justification for doing so is that, in this case at least, the anonymous editor had clearly objected to the speedy tagging but hadn't added anything new - hence this gave him a clear timeframe to do so. If there's a specific policy or guideline I'm not following, I'm more than happy to be pointed in the right direction.
• Asking for someone to "slap a speedy on it" was not in fact a request for someone to add yet another CSD tag, although it was clearly interpreted as such. It was actually a request for an admin to speedily delete the article despite its appearance at AfD, something which has frequently occurred when a patently non-notable contested Prod has appeared there. In a perfect world, the article would have been long dead before it had to gum up the works at AfD, but in a perfect world it probably wouldn't have been written in the first place.
• Making comments such as "live with it" and "just play by the rules" are coming remarkably close to personal attacks, in that they assume that I am not doing the latter and can't abide the former. As I've explained above, what you interpreted as not "playing by the rules" was in fact quite the opposite - if perhaps poorly expressed. Therefore, I think it's at the very least an assumption of bad faith on your part. BigHaz - Schreit mich an (Review me) 11:22, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I was wondering about the legality part of adding a prod after a speedy tag failed, but I was more questioning the wisdom of someone who would think that a prod tag would succeed after a speedy tag had failed, especially when that was done without any talk page discussion with, or at least addressed to, the one who had done the removing.

But let's look at the rules, too. Wikipedia:Speedy deletions says "For articles that do not meet the criteria for speedy deletion, please use Wikipedia:Proposed deletion (for deletions likely to meet no opposition)". Obviously, if the speedy tag has been added and removed, it is not a deletion likely to meet no opposition". Thus that option is not available to you, according to the rules. Therefore, you need to go to the next clause, "or Wikipedia:Articles for deletion (for potentially controversial deletions)."

Warning you not to violate the rules is not bad faith. It wouldn't be, even if you hadn't violated any rules. Gene Nygaard 14:30, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I respect your claims, but disagree. Regarding the addition of prods to contested speedies, it's certainly worked in the past (the adding of a prod to an article which was formerly listed as a speedy candidate). The effect seems to be one where the/a user reacts to the imminent deletion (the speedy) by removing the tag and then sees the new one saying "you have five days to make this notable" (in essence) and promptly does so. The fact that either tag was removed without comment on the part of the remover doesn't seem to be here or there, since I've noticed that many newer users remove whatever tag is there first and then later on do what was needed - whether that's adding information asserting notability, cleaning up the article, adding sources etc etc. In the event, of course, none of these things were done.

I've always interpreted the concept of "opposition" as "reasonable opposition", myself. That is to say, the author of a vanity article is always going to say that he or she is notable, even when this patently isn't the case. The only opposition which was being encountered to the removal of this article was that of an IP which may or may not have been that of the original author removing whatever tags were placed there - no extra information was being added to make the player notable, no comments were added on the Talk page and no explanation was being given in edit summaries. I find it hard to see an equivalency between the actions of someone who (for all we know) is a 15-year-old kid trying to write up a biography on his best friend and the actions of someone adding serious and well-reasoned arguments regarding the notability of a public figure in a niche area of society. That said, if your view of what is meant by "opposition" in the policy you've cited above is that which is borne out by consensus, I'll happily change my ways.

Warning me not to violate the rules may well not be bad faith. However, assuming that I had deliberately set out to do so is. My reasoning for doing what I did was made clear in my response at that AfD listing, even had it not been made relatively clear in the deletion rationale in the first place. I know that process is important here, which is why that patently non-notable article made its way to AfD in the first place, but surely you can agree that slavish devotion to it is pedantry for the sake of pedantry. In cases like this, surely WP:SNOW applies. BigHaz - Schreit mich an (Review me) 21:13, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Even if I had reason to believe that you had deliberately set out to violate the rules, making a complaint about abuse of admin powers (which is what I likely would have done in that case) would not in any way violate Wikipedia:Assume good faith.

But I didn't do that in this case. I didn't seek any sanctions against you personally. I didn't want to do that. I merely asked for the restoration of the article (presuming, even if I didn't state so, that it would be renominated for deletion), to preserve the integrity of the process. That, of course, is one reason your WP:SNOW is not a guideline.

This isn't a patently non-notable article, especially given the looseness applied to notability of all sportspeople. Leaving it on AfD for a few days would have a side benefit as well; it would remind people that we do have some limitations when it comes to the notability of sports figures.

Your statement "many newer users remove whatever tag is there first and then later on do what was needed" is the most puzzling and baffling of your whole reply. It would seem to me that it would be more likely to be experienced users who are smart enough to realize that it is essential that the first thing they do is to remove the tag--which is supposed to stop either of the speeded up processes. Furthermore, it is highly illogical to think that it is fair play that someone removing a notice that they have five days to fix things up would be in jeopardy of shortening that period by stopping the speeded up process and requiring it to go through normal channels. Gene Nygaard 21:52, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

In relation to your first paragraph, I still disagree. My actions were, as I've said, in good faith and based on what I've observed over several months. You're welcome to have observed other things, and clearly you have. Nonetheless, by saying "live with it", you implied that I was unprepared to do so, which is simply not the case. That said, the AGF side of this discussion is never going to get us anywhere so I suggest we leave it for now.

I have nothing against the integrity of the process, and never let it be said that the reverse is true. If the article gets restored after deletion review, I'll either re-AfD it through the appropriate channels or indeed let someone else do that. While WP:SNOW is not a guideline, it's a specific branch of WP:IAR, which is a policy. As the player has only played for a high school team in his chosen code (high school rugby league being covered only in the most exceptional of cases in the media, unlike what I believe to be the case with high school American Football on the other side of the Pacific) and whatever assertion of notability there was in the version of the article I initially came to (at various stages it was reduced to just his birthdate or a discussion about his ability to hold his drink) was based only on his potential to do well in later years lends considerable credence to my argument that it was a patently non-notable article subject. He certainly doesn't pass any aspect of WP:BIO's guideline criteria, even the very loose one specifically devoted to sportspeople, although if the predictions made in the article come to pass he will one day.

As far as my comments about the behaviour of new users, again this is based on my experience. It may not hold true overall, but I've certainly seen a number of CSD and Prod tags removed some time before any extra information is added. In the case of this particular article, though, we come back again to the fact that there was no assertion of notability which came anywhere near WP:BIO. As I said earlier, had the CSD tag (either of them, for that matter) been removed and information about the player's notability been added, there would have been a viable claim that this was a controversial deletion. Both of these - and the prod - were removed and the player was still non-notable. Had the article been listed for AfD instead of listed for a speedy by the first user who came across it, it would almost certainly have been speedily deleted shortly thereafter anyway. I don't see why advocating this for an article which had arrived at AfD through a longer process is a problem. BigHaz - Schreit mich an (Review me) 00:28, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Preševo

Regarding your edits in Preševo article, the infoboxes in the articles about Serbian cities do not contain English names, but native Serbian names for these cities. If you edit Preševo article, you will notice that this part of the infobox say: "native name = Прешево/Preševo" (and English is certainly not a native language in this case). In Serbian, Cyrillic is a first script, and Latin script is the second one, so if we write native Serbian name there, Cyrillic name should be first. PANONIAN (talk) 02:52, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Don't be trying to claim a convention which does not exist. Just go look at the infoboxes for

• Shanghai
• Athens
• Cairo

for just a few examples. And whatever anybody's specific template might say doesn't change normal usage on Wikipedia. Gene Nygaard 03:07, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

"That abomination"

Hi Gene, I just stumbled across your comments regarding Image:Atmosphere model.png and fixed a few typos. I would have done it sooner had you dropped me a note. Do you have any specific suggestions regarding the logarithmic grid to make the graph more clear? Also, I can send you a program to generate NRLMSISE-00 output if you would like to {{subst:sofixit}} yourself. Let me know. --Duk 06:16, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

How about this -- remove the logarithmic grid (but retain logarithmic scale for density) and add colored zones to indelicate atmosphere layers, like this rotated. --Duk 06:33, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

How about just making two graphs. What's wrong with that? Gene Nygaard 11:03, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Because it's not an improvement, that's why. It doubles the amount of images to say the same thing less effectively, IMO. If you have your heart set on this can I suggest you keep the two graphs on one image, sharing a common horizontal axis and scale? It shouldn't be too hard to improve on my formatting, which was just a quick data plot. --Duk 15:20, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Doubling the images on all the pages using that graph will take up zero extra space on any of them, will it? (2×0 = 0)

Yes, if you can get two graphs on one image, in a manner that presents itself well, you might have something worth putting on a page. Gene Nygaard 15:26, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Nygaard, you're a hoot :) Doubling the images certainly will take twice the room. It's just plain stupid. Of course, I may be wrong -- show me. OK, Uff da. --Duk 23:58, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Nygaard, you're a hoot :) Doubling the images will say the same thing less effectively. It's just plain stupid. Of course, I may be wrong -- show me. OK, Uff da. --Duk 23:58, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I just went and looked at it again. So, what did you change for "typos"? It still said "degrees Kelvin", didn't it? Still Km? Still g/cm^3? What did you change

But when I was there, I wasn't paying attention and clicked on a <rev> button not knowing what it would do, and probably reverted it to an earlier version. I didn't look to see if the grid lines had been removed before I did that, had you changed that part? Gene Nygaard 20:01, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Looks like you accidentally reverted to the older version w/typos. I've re-uploaded the latest. If you still see "degrees Kelvin" then try purging your browser cache. I haven't done anything with the grid lines yet (really don't have time at the moment) --Duk 20:17, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Sorry about that, I'll try to be more careful about the buttons I hit. Gene Nygaard 20:20, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Please comment on talk page

Gene, can you please explain your revert here? Thanks in advance. -GTBacchus^(talk) 22:49, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

I posted a reply on the talk page there. I remain confused as to why you think my edit was a bad one. -GTBacchus^(talk) 18:00, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Your comments needed 'tractive effort'

Your comments needed on units for 'tractive effort'. Please see Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)#tractive_effort:_.27lb.27_or_.27lbf.27.3F.
Regards bobblewik 21:03, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Reverting Bobblewik

Bobblewik, to get around the fact that he keeps getting his edits in contravention of the MOS reverted, has resorted to openly deceptive edit summaries so it is impossible to tell without checking every individual edit which is which. As he regularly makes more than a hundred of these edits a day (sometimes up to three or four hundred), such checks would result in an absolutely unnecessary outlay of wasted time to keep his damage in check. Bobblewik can, at any time, stop using the deceptive edit summaries, and problems like the one you highlighted will cease immediately. Rebecca 06:10, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Pay attention to what the other editor told you on your talk page; he was much more polite about it than I would have been. Gene Nygaard 15:07, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Alkyl nitrites

Please see Talk:Alkyl nitrites why I feel that your merge proposal (with poppers) is a bad idea. Regards, Dr Zak 19:16, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Year in baseball ranges

Regarding this edit, is that your opinion or a guideline somewhere? Just curious. (Not saying I agree or disagree - just wanted to know how official that is). —Wknight94 (talk) 02:49, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

What use is it going to be to anyone? There are policies against overlinking, and this was way out of line. I just threw out the most egregious ones so far, just needlessly cluttering up the articles with links, and Easter egg links at that (people just get surprised if they click on the link and that's where they end up. In both WP:DATE and some other guideline dealing with linking, don't remember where, maybe that's part of the Wikipedia:Manual of Style too.

Another problem with the "year in baseball" links is that they screw up date preferences when they are used in conjunction with a day and month. With those links used in that context, you can either get an extraneous comma or will not get a comma you should have, depending on your preferences setting.

They are, in any case, some of the more useless links in all of Wikipedia. They are most useful when used in backwards order--by someone trying to fill out a page about significant things which happened in the sport in that year, by using the "what links here" feature. In most cases, the run-of-the-mill statistics about any individual player uselessly clutter up the What links here so it isn't nearly as useful as it would be if the links are limited to something that is significant with respect to the sport as a whole, not merely the individual player. Gene Nygaard 03:03, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, something to ponder. Thanks. —Wknight94 (talk) 03:47, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

AB Magnitude

Did you read the talk page? (we've been here before). Bob aka Linuxlad 20:29, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Sure, and nobody has done anything about it. So it isn't helpful, if it isn't fixed. It has simply been too long, so if something isn't done, come up with a better example because this one is out the window. Gene Nygaard 21:27, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Bald assertion doesn't help - the redlink fulfils the role, which, as an ex radio-astronomer I can help recognise - I'm just not SQEP in otical astronomy Bob aka Linuxlad 23:03, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Pi

On the Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages), you recently accused me of being "sore about losing out on the article naming issue." Please avoid any personal judgements, particularly untrue ones such as this one -- I was not involved in the article naming issue, so I can hardly be sore about losing out on it. -- JHunterJ 12:35, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Please don't turn dashes into hyphens

According to Dash, two people's names used as attribution for the same thing should be separated by an en-dash, not a hyphen, e.g. Erdős–Straus conjecture. Please don't turn them back into hyphens. Especially in the case of page names involving Erdős, as in that case you can't even use the argument that the url looks prettier with a hyphen. — Preceding unsigned comment added by David Eppstein (talk • contribs) (oops, sorry for no sig —DE)

No, please don't use dashes where they don't belong. The hyphen is the proper character here. Gene Nygaard 03:57, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Grammatically, a dash is correct, as Dash clearly explains. Perhaps there is a WP policy to use hyphens anyway? If so perhaps you could point me to it. —David Eppstein 03:59, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, for the usage within an article, it is actually Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dashes) which is more applicable than the dash article. But I see that they do agree with you on this point, and I may have misread that before.

However, for the article's name, that is a different story. That's covered under Wikipedia:Naming conventions which has about a zillion subpages. If you find anything about it before I do, let me know. I know that earlier, the use of en dashes in article names was strongly discouraged, for various reasons, but I don't know if that is still the case.

I'll stop moving them for now, as long as you make sure that there are redirects from the current article's name with a hyphen instead of a dash. That's also covered in a different part of Wikipedia's guidelines, the making of redirects like that. Also, if the article's name includes diacritics, make sure there is a redirect from the form without diacritics. Gene Nygaard 04:21, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

I see that now, the main naming conventions defers to the MoS (dashes) page, which has a specific section dealing with page names:

For page names:

• Hyphens and dashes are generally rather avoided in page names (e.g., year of birth and death are generally not used in a page name to disambiguate two people with the same name).
• If hyphens and dashes are needed to write a page name correctly (e.g., Piano-Rag-Music, Jack-in-the-box, Nineteen Eighty-Four), prefer simple hyphens, and avoid hair spaces, even in the odd case of a range forming part of the title, e.g., History of the Soviet Union (1985-1991).
• If for greater precision another type of dash is used, always provide a redirect from the variant with simple hyphens and without hair spaces. Note however that using less common types of dashes in non-redirect page names can easily break Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names), for the reasons given in the Rationale section of that guideline.

So I think it is fairly clear that you should use a simple hyphen in the page names. Make a redirect from the dash form instead. Gene Nygaard 04:41, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

That's not my interpretation of the MoS dash page. It links approvingly to Poincaré–Birkhoff–Witt theorem (with dashes) as its first example of dashes involving people's names, and the third bullet you quoted says that dashes may be needed for precision (which I read as applying to this case so you can tell from the page name that it's multiple people instead of hyphenated names). I agree that a redirect should be provided, though. —David Eppstein 04:46, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, I don't agree with your interpretation. Rather, that is far more likely a result of a failure to make a distinction between the page naming usage and the text usage, since the page naming info was not contained on the MoS page when that example was added to it. It probably was still on the naming conventions pages and hadn't been consolidated yet. Gene Nygaard 04:57, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

If so, that seems evidence to me that en-dashes have long been used for pagenames in this context. But anyway, since we seem to be continuing to disagree, how do we get this clarified? —David Eppstein 05:14, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

That they have been used is quite likely; that that usage is proper is a different question. In this particular case, the article was at one time moved from a hyphen form to dashes, perhaps just in misguided preparation for the use as an example for dashes, without anyone at WP:MOSDASH even being aware that the question of what to use in article names had been discussed on the talk pages of either various articles or naming convention pages; I know that I had run into such discussions long before the article naming section was added to the MoS page. Gene Nygaard 05:24, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

In an attempt to break the deadlock here by getting a broader sample of opinions, I took it to the MOSDASH talk page. —David Eppstein 05:56, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Revert?

I made this edit after your suggestion. So why are you then reverting it? >Radiant< 15:08, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Zentner

(Re your message on my talk page) I've been semi-automatically tagging all articles within Category:Physics stubs as physics articles, under the assumption that all of the articles within that category will be physics-related. Out of over 900 articles, Zentner is the second non-physics article I've found in there, and hence is the second article I've subsequently removed the physics template from, and changed the stub template to something more appropriate. Thank you for bringing it to my attention; if you spot any others like this, then please let me know (preferably a little more politely, though...) Mike Peel 22:09, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I understand your point about the complicated hierarchies within Category:Physics - I've spent a fair amount of time traversing through them, so I know how unrelated some of the sub-sub-sub-(etc.)-categories can be. I'm going through each category separately, and will generally be checking each article before tagging them as physics articles. An exception to that's the stub-template categories (Category:Physics stubs and sub-categories)]], where I'm tagging all of them (but still checking dubious-looking ones) as they should really only be used for physics articles.

Unfortunately, a few non-physics articles will slip through my methodology (as demonstrated by Zentner), and doubtless numerous physics articles will be missed as well. Hopefully those errors will be corrected over time (the shorter the better). My main aims - of letting people know that WikiProject Physics exists, both to hopefully get them to become members and work on other articles, and give to them a method of support for physics articles, as well as to help provide a focus for improving physics articles - are completed regardless, and I think that that is worth a few errors along the way. Mike Peel 22:38, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out the essental physics articles I've missed - who can do physics without a bottle of Jim Beam? Oh, wait, wrong way round. ;-)

Crushed ice is no longer tagged as a physics article (either by a WP template or stub template), and the person who tagged it as a physics stub has been poked. Thanks. Mike Peel 16:49, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Lack of references for Metrified English unit

There is a discussion on the Metrified English unit Talk page which points out that there's nothing to back the article up. Is the article's mention of William Huskisson's Royal System just phantasy? Do you know of anything to back the article up? Should the article be split/merged/deleted as suggested on the Talk page? Jimp 09:13, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Nice work on Plan for Establishing Uniformity in the Coinage, Weights, and Measures of the United States. I'm just letting you know that I have listed the redirects Metrified English unit and Metrified Imperial system. Jimp 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I commented there (one page, right), but I don't find any listing in the articles for deletion logs, so you probably didn't finish all the step for WP:AfD. But somebody would probably object anyway and say that as things stand now it belongs instead at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion. Gene Nygaard 12:14, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Japan prefecture cats

Hi. I just read your comment on the Japan prefecture categories renaming page, where you said "Keep all". Do you really mean Keep All or Rename All? Bobo12345 04:54, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

I think I meant keep all, but I will double-check. Gene Nygaard 05:19, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Serbian names

I noticed that you moved article Prva vojvođanska brigada (school) to Prva vojvodanska brigada (school). Please do not do this with other articles in the future. Serbian later "đ" is not same as "d". When native Serbian speaker use keybord without Serbian letters, he usually use letter "dj" instead of "đ", but he never use "d" which is completelly different sound. Please have this in mind. If your intention was to write this name with English letters, the correct name would be "vojvodjanska", but not "vojvodanska". However, since English Wikipedia can use Serbian letters, I do not see why we should use "dj" instead of "đ". PANONIAN (talk) 00:22, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

In another words, Serbian "d" is same as English "d", but Serbian "đ" (or "dj") is more like "g" in Genova. PANONIAN (talk) 00:26, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

There wasn't any redirect from Prva vojvodjanska brigada (school), either, was there? So don't be preaching to me. There still isn't. Both need to be there. So I'll move the article there, and let Prva vojvođanska brigada (school) be the redirect.

Furthermore, you moved the article but did not fix the category sorting. Don't do that. Gene Nygaard 00:52, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Do you know how to make redirects at all? If you want to create redirect you do not have to move article name (in fact you should not to move article name). You simply start redirect like you start any new article and write to what you want to redirect it. PANONIAN (talk) 03:46, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

"So don't be preaching to me." Please remember to be civil and assume good faith Gene. Bobo12345 07:37, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Names in general

I just noticed your other edits and the moves of the names of some articles that you performed are disruptive for Wikipedia. Please do not do this. English language use native letters from other languages to writte native names. I have Collins mini atlas of the World in English and it use native non-English letters to writte non-English names. For example Romanian town Rădăuţi is written exactly like this in that atlas, not as Radauti. So, I suggest that you discuss the moves that you want to perform on the talk pages of the articles before you do this. PANONIAN (talk) 00:46, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

In one atlas. Big deal. Show me a newspaper or magazine spelling that town that funny. And tell me how in the hell somebody who does read about it in one of those magazines or newspapers is going to find a Wikipedia article on it, even if one does exist. Why in the world do you want to put information here, then hide it from view? Gene Nygaard 00:54, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Listen: it is generally accepted on Wikipedia that names are written in native languages if English name for the subject does not exist. I gave you an example, so I will speak about it. Rădăuţi is native name of that town and English name for it does not exist. We can write Radauti, but it is nothing, it is neither English neither Romanian. English could use form Radauti only if there are no native Romanian letters for Rădăuţi. But since Wikipedia have native letters for many languages, then there is no reason to use Radauti form (that is why these letters exist in Wikipedia). PANONIAN (talk) 03:52, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

You might want to take a look at this. --Dijxtra 08:57, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Diacritics

Creating redirects from non-diacritic versions of names is good. Doing this by moving the articles wholesale is bad and disruptive. Creating a redirect is a trivial act, moving an article is not. Please stop moving articles in order to create redirects. If you strongly feel that an article should be moved in order to conform to MOS or whatever, then initiate a discussion. Mass unilateral page moves pisses people off and will likely get you blocked. Thanks, Guy 10:55, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Creating redirects from diacritic versions of names is good. Doing this by moving the articles wholesale is bad and disruptive. Moving an article is a trivial act, creating a redirect is not. Please stop moving articles in order to create redirects. If you strongly feel that an article should be moved in order to conform to MOS or whatever, then initiate a discussion. Mass unilateral page moves pisses people off and will likely get you blocked.

The point is, there is no rule in Wikipedia that whenever there are variants in spellings with and without diacritics, that one particular choice with diacritics (and tthere may be several possibilities with diacritics) is the proper one to choose for the one slot available for an article's name. Romania and Ho Chi Minh and thousands of other articles prove that false. So does Oscar Nunez, one that I moved.

It is no more disruptive to move one way than it is to move the other. Gene Nygaard 11:08, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Cesar Romero is another example that had once been wrongly moved to a name with diacritics. Gene Nygaard 11:13, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Joint Task Force Guantanamo is another. Gene Nygaard 11:22, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Chemical name indexing

I noticed that you fixed the indexing of a couple of chemical compounds. Thanks. This is a problem that Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemicals is aware of, and since there are many fixes necessary, User:Beetstra has been working on a script that will fix them automatically. So I just wanted to let you know that others are aware of the problem and working on a solution that hopefully will be easier than fixing each one by hand. --Ed (Edgar181) 13:36, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. I wasn't even too sure of them, outside of the numbers, because "bis" isn't one of them listed with "cis" and "tert" on some project page that discusses capitalization and indexing. Gene Nygaard 13:39, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Another proposal to move Los Angeles, California

Another proposal to move Los Angeles, California is being debated. You particpated in a previous discussion and may be interested in giving your opinion. Talk:Los Angeles, California#Requested move #3. Cheers, -Will Beback 18:58, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

You are banned from non consensual article moves until further notice

(per consensus at WP:AN/I as discussed here: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Is_this_disruption.3F)

Please refer to Wikipedia:Community_probation#Gene_Nygaard_is_banned_from_non_consensual_article_moves_until_further_notice. You are, by community consensus, banned from moving any articles unless there is clear consensus for the move, until further notice. Failure to comply may result in a short block by any admin. Repeated failure may result in lengthening of the block. ++Lar: t/c 19:09, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Hello Gene Nygard. I read the AN/I thread about your article moves. I agree with this community sanction and the method used to determine and impose it. If you disagree you can appeal to the community on AN or AN/I, Arbcom or Jimbo. Take care, FloNight 20:54, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't be any surprise there, should there? After all, you were the instigator who put Lar up to this.[3] It's not like you tried to fake it here, as some disinterested party who just came along after the fact and agreed with it. What do you think I am, stupid? Gene Nygaard 21:13, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that's a very productive attitude. A number of uninvolved admins and editors have agreed here. Guy 21:42, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

The point is, FloNight is not one in that category. Gene Nygaard 21:52, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

FloNight is also one of our most respected and trusted admins. So, are you going to accept that you've been causing trouble, or are you going to keep arguing about the motives of other people? Guy 21:56, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Stop riling up trouble, why did you even come to this talk page, to instigate a fight? Gene said the user shouldnt front liek some uninvolved party when appearing on his page and proved they weren't. Please do not dramatize the situation. --NuclearZer0 16:02, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

You've said that unlike other editors (which I agree need looking into) you've only done a relatively few moves. Seeking consensus on moves first thus should not pose an undue hardship I don't think. We value your contributions and would encourage you to continue creating redirects and addressing category misalphabetision issues... ++Lar: t/c 21:53, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Just stop and think about it for a minute. This is a problem best solved if more people are aware of it. I'm basically lazy; I shouldn't have to go through and fix all these problems myself. Rather, if those who created the problems can be made aware of them, they are the ones who ought to be going out and doing all the routine legwork to finish the job. But it often isn't just one editor involved, many hands make small work, and it isn't always clear whether the editors involved are still active on Wikipedia, so discussing it on someone's talk page is often not very effective at all. Sometimes, of course, it is appropriate, and I have often done that as well. It would, however, be self-defeating for me to go through and change all of the problem articles myself. That's why I haven't engaged in any mass flurries of moves, unlike many of the problem editors who have moved articles with total disregard to the need to fix indexing and things like that.

Note further than many of my moves remain intact today, and properly so. Some after subsequent requested moves, too. Gene Nygaard 23:04, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Except consensus is that (even if some of your past moves stuck) we don't want you doing page moves any more unless there is consensus. The place to seek that consensus is on the talk page of the article, not talk pages of any particular users, so that addresses that issue. As for being lazy, if you don't want to do a particular class of thing, don't do it at all. Doing page moves is not the best way to address the issue. As has been explained to you multiple times. So now we come to this. Wish it weren't so. There are lots of other things to work on though, besides page moves. Hope that helps. ++Lar: t/c 23:55, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Please note Gene, Lar's attitude is not representative of the entire community, many editors on Wikipedia do not believe you shouldnt do something unless you do every part of it completely. Then there wouldnt be a project for AfD tagging talk pages since the closing admin would do it, or fixing double redirects, etc. I think what you did helped, and some people are just too lazy to help cleanup, they rather leave everything in the wrong place. --NuclearZer0 15:39, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry if my post annoyed you. I posted here because I wanted to make sure that you understood that you could appeal the sanction. Doing a community probation instead of community bans or arbcom sanctions is new. I was pointing Lar toward the correct page to log the sanction, nothing more. Again sorry if posting here added to your frustration. Take care, FloNight 22:02, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I just saw this, Gene, and I share your frustration. A "community ban" for putting article titles in the English alphabet on the English Wikipedia? Whatever happened to the use English page name convention? I know you can come across as gruff, sometimes, but you've done a ton (metric, short, and long) of good work here. Please let me know if someone does try to ban you, and I'll do my best to see that reason prevails. Jonathunder 17:15, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

No, a community ban from moving articles to create redirects, against consensus in some cases and without discussion in all. See the Great Road War (User SPUI) for how disruptive this is considered to be. There is nothing to stop Gene proposing a move, with reasoning, where that makes sense, or form appealing via WP:RFC or WP:RFAR. Guy 17:47, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

1969 English Cricket Season

Thanks for pointing out its lack of content which I've rectified. If you find more of these can you send me a similar reminder as the intention of the cricket project is eventually to have a record like this for every English season: we already have several and we do intend to address all of them. Regards, --BlackJack | ^{talk page} 20:37, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Minnesota Roads Template

May I ask why you saw fit to put kilometers into the MN route box? Kilometers are never used in anything regarding these highways. I saw how you tried to change individual highway articles to put kilometers first. --Sable232 21:14, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Kilometers are the units most Wikipedia readers are familiar with. It is entirely appropriate to include them. It isn't just Minnesotans who read about Minnesota roads, either. It might be read, for example, someone from Selkirk planning a trip across the border whose odometer is only in kilometers, not in miles. See WP:MOSNUM: "Conversions should generally be included and not be removed." Gene Nygaard 21:22, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Names of units in Soyuz launch vehicle

Ok, not trying to start a fight here or anything. But seriously, you don't use the metric system in the U.S., so why do you care how the units are spelt? It's not like they're common words like 'colour' or 'humour' that we all use. It just seems so odd to me. --Imroy 22:18, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

The rules here are to generally leave them spelled as they were and to follow the existing language when adding. Furthermore, we do use the metric system in the U.S. But the silly use of a French word doesn't fly (especially when it is the generic word in French for any "ton" in English). Actually, "ton" and "tonne" should both be thrown out the window when it comes to metric units; we already have the unambiguous words to use instead, megagrams and gigagrams and teragrams and the like, which also avoid the clumsiness of using "millions" and "billions" and whatever. And, of course, for those uses of either "metric ton" or "tonne" which are not acceptable for use with SI, we have meganewtons, though in this case the conversion involves more than moving a decimal point. The other ton(ne)s as units of energy and power should be thrown out, too. Gene Nygaard 08:43, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

User talk:Phil Boswell

Your demands in the talk page listed appear to assume bad faith (Characterizing the edits as deliberately messing them up). If there's something broken, you're more than welcome to fix it yourself, but if you need Phil_Boswell's assistance because you don't know how, then I advise you to be WP:CIVIL and ask appropriately. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 14:40, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Your continued incivility on the above listed talk page is unacceptable. First, you accuse someone of deliberately breaking things, now you describe another editor as looking at the subject with their "eyes half open" just because they disagree with your interpretation. If you continue this, you may be blocked. Please reconsider the nature of your interactions. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 15:41, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Abelardo Fernandez

He is known commonly as "Abelardo" during his playing days, including the 94 and 98 World Cups, and when he played for Barcelona. Do a google search and you'll find tons of articles calling him just "Abelardo". It's extremely rare to call him just "Fernandez" for footballing purposes. Chanheigeorge 20:32, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Indexing

Hi, Gene. Just curious: What is the difference between having an article index with diacritical marks versus indexing it without? For example, what will happen if Yaoundé is placed into a category with the acute accent, versus indexing it like this: [[Category:Cities in Cameroon|Yaounde]]? Thanks, — BrianSmithson 22:35, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Not much for Yaoundé right now, but that could change in the future. But that's not a reason not to do it right. It matters most, of course, when the first letter is misindexed, and you can see that in many categories such as Category:Districts of Gaziantep or just go to Category:1880 births and try to find José María Álvarez de Sotomayor who was born in 1880.

You can also look at categories such as Category:Cities, towns and villages in Hungary which still has over 20 articles misindexed, despite the fact that I've been through it before and others have also worked on the indexing of this category, and Category:Mathematical logic which also has a large number of entries misindexed. Gene Nygaard 04:55, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

What exactly does it do? Does the Wiki software treat characters with diacritical marks as coming after Z? Before A? And just so I know how to do it right: Should any entry with a diacritical mark be placed into categories as if the marks weren't there? Thanks, — BrianSmithson 05:22, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

It just sorts them in accordance with their Unicode numbers (note that all the small letters come after all the capital letters in the English alphabet, too. In other words, it is the space (yes, that's indexed too), asterisk and some other punctuation, numbers, A-Z, then some punctuation marks, then a-z, then a few more punctuation marks, currency symbols, superscripts, fractions, ÀÁÂÃ etc., then the Greek alphabet and everything else in various little clusters.

So it isn't just the English sorting rules on this Wikipedia, but any other language as well, that needs to tweak its sort keys to get the indexing to work.

Some of that is explained at Wikipedia:Categorization and also at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (standard letters with diacritics) and some other places such as WP:MOS-JP.

Yes, strip the diacritics. Strip most of the other punctuation too (if something article starts with parentheses or a title with an initial Spanish question mark or something like that). Make sure the initial letter is uppercase, as in indexing Wehrner von Braun as Von Braun, Wehrner. There haven't been any good rules set for hyphens, apostrophes, etc; ideally, they should probably be stripped out as well, and it should be totally case-insensitive, but nobody's taken the time to get any consensus in all those areas. But also remember the last names first stuff, and there are many situations where article starts with the name of the category (e.g. Museum of Agriculture in category Museums in xxx) where it is best indexed by dropping that word and indexing it under Agriculture. Gene Nygaard 05:50, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. I do a lot of editing on Africa-related articles (where there are all sorts of strange symbols used at times), so this is all very pertinent. — BrianSmithson 06:02, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

It is also a Wikipedia convention to sometimes use either a space or an asterisk as the first sort character (their unicode number is lower than the numbers and the letters of the English alphabet, so that puts them at the top of the listing), for the article(s) which are the main articles for a category–especially one with the same name as the category (ignoring plural/singular and otehr minor differences). For example, Nurse uses a space for the sort key in Category:Nursing but the default article name for indexing in other categories. Adding something after the space could be used to order the ones indexed under the space in that category, but that hasn't been done there. Gene Nygaard 06:05, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Olessi

There is currently an admin nomination for Olessi, at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Olessi. I'd noticed that there had been some history, where Olessi had been reverting page moves that you did. Did you and Olessi ever talk about those moves? Do you think that Olessi would make a good admin? --Elonka 17:57, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Just checking, have you had a chance to review this question? I wasn't sure if it had been missed on your talkpage. --Elonka 06:14, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I've been looking up some of the history, I suppose the deadline is close approaching so I'd better act soon if I'm going to do anything. Olessi seems to be a mixed bag, sometimes reasonable and sometimes not so reasonable, not prone to discussing himself what he expects others to discuss, etc. Gene Nygaard 06:26, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Is there anything that I can help you look up? --Elonka 08:10, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Units in USS Missouri

In USS Missouri (BB-63) you changed the metric equivalents in the text. I reverted it because your conversions weren't right for statute miles. I just realized you were converting nautical miles. Do you have a citation or some reason to believe the units are nautical miles? The original DANFS does not specify, and I would expect an explicit "nautical miles" if that's what they meant. --J Clear 21:02, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Just as in a non-shipping, non-aviation, non-meteorological, and non–polar exploration context, I'd expect nautical miles to be identified if they are used, the standard miles here are nautical miles so it would be the statute miles that would be identified if for some strange reason they were used here. The U.S. Navy, or any other navy, just doesn't measure distances on the ocean in statute miles.

Furthermore, just look at some of the other articles, such as HMS Euryalus (42), in which a range in miles is expressed together with a speed in knots. Ask yourself, why would anybody specify the speed in nautical miles per hour, and the distance in statute miles? Distance = rate × time. Doesn't make any sense to use anything other than nautical miles in that context, does it? Once again, the miles are the normal ones in the context.

In other words, even if in these particular cases the miles were intended to be statute miles, it then would be an error not to identify them as such. The safest assumption is that they are the normal miles used in the context.

I'd be very surprised if DANFS ever uses any miles other than nautical miles in connection with ocean distances, and even more surprised if they ever used statute miles without identifying them as such. And they rarely bother specifically identifying any miles as nautical miles; they apparently just assume their readers will know that much. I only find two mentions of "statute miles" there (and only 14 of "nautical miles"), out of 1180 Google hits for "miles"; one of the statute miles distances is "new international distance record for seaplane flights—3,281.402 statute miles" in the 1930s, when airspeed indicators, etc. in aircraft were still normally in statute miles. The other one is the foolishness I dismissed above, an unnecessarily convoluted and unexplained calculation of r = d/t: "She covered the distance of 728 statute miles in 38 hours for an average sustained speed of 16.6 knots, at one point making 17.75 knots." Gene Nygaard 22:02, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Victor Williams

Did you remove Victor Williams from the List of famous tall men? Lieutenant Dol Grenn 17:43, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't think so; check the history, and click on last to compare each edit with the previous one. I added some spaces before cm, and I'm pretty sure that's all I did. Gene Nygaard 23:03, 31 October 2006 (UTC)