User talk:JMF/Archives/2021/March

Donough MacCarty, 1st Earl of Clancarty (MHA)

Dear John Maynard Friedman. Greetings. I am in trouble with the Military History A-Class (MHA) Review of the article "Donough ..." that you know well. I have added 41 citations since the start of the review. Not that I do not see the need for more citations. The big difference between GA on one hand and A-Class or FA on the other is that GA needs citations only for statements that have been challenged whereas A-Class and FA must have citations for all statements. But I feel sometimes it goes too far. Please look at Buidhe's latest edit, which is in response to BlueMoonset pinging him from the page "Template:Did you know nominations/Donough MacCarty, 1st Earl of Clancarty". He just moves his {{cn}} from the end of the sentence where I added a needed citation to the middle of the same sentence, where I feel a citation is not really needed (or should I repeat the citation from the end of the preceding sentence?). - For the rest, the discussion has gone dead. Should I ping Buidhe or Gog the Mild whenever I write something in the discussion? They surely have the A-Class review page on their watchlists(?) I feel it can be slightly irritating for a (senior) reviewer to be pinged by a novice nominator. - I wonder a bit whether they do not expect me to retract the nomination. With many thanks, Johannes Schade (talk) 10:03, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

@Johannes Schade: Are you aware of Wikipedia:Citation overkill? Put simply, if you have a paragraph of five sentences and all are based on the same source, you don't need to (and should not) repeat the citation for every sentence. So it does seem as though Burke (1866) is certainly good enough for both sentences. Nevertheless, wp:citing sources says that any statement capable of being challenged should be cited, well it has been challenged so repeat the citation. Leave it to the next reviewer to delete it again, as wp:OVERCITE!

May I make a more general comment? If somebody tags as {{cn}} a statement in an article where I have such a citation to hand, I would simply provide the citation and remove the tag. I don't understand why you leave them in place pending approval? It is up to the reviewer to Compare Versions to see what you have done and confirm that it is satisfactory. My guess in this case is that Buidhe simply saw the cn tag following a valid citation, decided that it should have gone after the comma, and just moved it there - an 'adminstrative move' rather than a considered move. So I strongly advise that you delete any/all satisfied citation requests. So long as the article still has open CNs, don't expect anyone to come back to resume the review.

Beware of the trap that we all fall into: don't expect someone reviewing the article to have the same knowledge of the subject as you do, let alone the holistic grasp of the article as a unit. Equally, don't expect them to give it the same priority as you do. It is barely seven hours since Buidhe last edited the article, I would feel that I would need to let three days pass before feeling that a nudge is appropriate. Anything more and you risk irritating your reviewers away completely.

I hope this helps. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 11:26, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Dear John Maynard Friedman. Of course you are helpful. You gave me the courage to write a note to Buidhe about his edit on the A-Class review page. Besides, I recently found out his user name is Scottish Gaelic and pronounced [ˈpujə]. His last edit on the review page is from 19:42 3 March 2021. I hope he will react. He is of course a very influential and experienced user. He obviously takes the policies WP:V and WP:NOR (including WP:SYNTH) at a quite strict level. Gog the Mild wants more recent sources and recommends to apply at The Wikipedia Library (WP:TWL) It seems they can give a better access to JSTOR. Have you ever explored that way? - Of couse I wonder why Donough needs so many citations when others got away with much less? For example the FA Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough has 5952words 99citations = 60w/c and was promoted on 25 Aug 2007. It has several paragraphs without any citations. OK, that is a bit old and might not pass any more now. But e.g. John FitzWalter, 2nd Baron FitzWalter 4005w 87c = 46w/c - FA 12 Oct 2019; whereas poor Donough 5293w 358c 15w/c. Best regards, Johannes Schade (talk) 18:40, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

@Johannes Schade:, I suspect a significant factor in the demand for citations is how complex the character and their background is. DMacC and indeed the whole Carty/McCarthy clan is a mass of intrigue that would outplot the Scottish Play. It is difficult to answer one question without raising three more. Also, given where you live, you will know that Wars of Religion still have the capability to raise passions. So if it is to achieve FA, it can't offer hostages to fortune. And yes, the standard even for GA is higher now: I'm not convinced that my first GA (History of Milton Keynes) would pass now, even though I revisited it last year to give it a good going over before anybody else noticed. Having a tough reviewer like Buidhe at this stage is a good sign: they wouldn't waste their time on it if they didn't feel it had merit; they will identify issues before the full blast of critical response (I suspect the author of the one I questioned is still in shock, mine was not the only critical voice). Yes, I have used JSTOR just as an ordinary joe using my google credentials, but depended on Google search and existing citations to find what I needed: I have no idea how to turn up relevant material online if you don't already know that it is going to be relevant and have search criteria for it. People do "search the literature" but presumably they have better tools that google. (I've never tried Google Scholar, perhaps that is better?)

Best wishes, --20:40, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Dear John Maynard Friedman. It is probably also the way I write: I seem to be unable to write a sentence that is based on a single source, not to mention a paragraph. - I tried TWL. It seems, all one needs to do is to sign a user agreement (or something like that) and you are in. I seem to see more articles now in my JSTOR searches. What is painful in JSTOR is that one cannot search inside articles. - Have you seen, Buidhe answered; a bit short and enigmatic, but he allowed me to remove the {{cn}} that blocked the DYK. As I understand, he had difficulties with the abbreviations used in the genealogical sources and therefore just disregarded the given source, so I added explanations lihe "h. and s." -> "h. [heir] and s. [son]" in the quotes from Cokayne etc. What is that "author still in shock" I do not follow. Greetings, Johannes Schade (talk) 21:21, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

JSTOR: can't you use the search function of your browser or PDF reader?

"Author in shock": I meant the nominator and prime contributor of the FA (where I and others found numerous silly errors in an article that was little more than one side of A4). I'm sure he was glowing with pride to achieve FA only to have his laurel wreath turn into a briar patch. I exaggerate of course but it is to make the point that it is better to have a hard reviewer sooner than the derision of one's peers later. Or maybe I was just jealous, which would have to be true. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 23:26, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Yes, but which FA is this? – The TWL (The Wikipedia Library) gives access to more articles in JSTOR and to the online version of ODBC (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, which I had never been able to see before. Try it. Navigate WP:TWL -> Request access to sources -> My Library -> JSTOR. Greetings, Johannes Schade (talk) 22:34, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

DYK for Calendar (New Style) Act 1750

On 25 March 2021, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Calendar (New Style) Act 1750, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that until the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750 was passed, the new year began on 25 March in England, Wales, Ireland, and Britain's American colonies? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Calendar (New Style) Act 1750. You are welcome to check how many pageviews the nominated article or articles got while on the front page (here's how, Calendar (New Style) Act 1750), and if they received a combined total of at least 416.7 views per hour (ie, 5,000 views in 12 hours or 10,000 in 24), the hook may be added to the statistics page. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Cwmhiraeth (talk) 00:02, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

ENGVAR

@"It is not acceptable to change the variant of English used in articles unless there is a convincing reason to do so and after consensus has been reached at the talk page." Policy said nothing about talk pages or consensus, it does say: "use the variety found in the first poststub revision that introduced an identifiable variety" which is what I did per the Kingdom's own usage (below), since there was no "common style" (it was fairly mixed, even though the kingdom itself uses American spelling, below. Ex: financial center, defense subsections had different spellings). I literally did the exact thing Budapest guy or any other person here does: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Budapest&type=revision&diff=611653883&oldid=611649882

I added (was reverted), per the "Official tourism-website of the Principality of Liechtenstein," as it would be awkward to have multiple variants of center": "The "Liechtenstein Center" also serves as the official tourist office in Vaduz. Visitors can purchase unique postage stamps as well as a wide range of other Liechtenstein souvenirs there; a replica of the [[|km 0|kilometer zero]] stone, which marks the point from which all road distances in Liechtenstein were first measured in 1864, is located next door. <ref name="MyUser_Https:_March_29_2021c">{{cite web |url=https://tourismus.li/en/lie/place/Liechtenstein%20Center%20in%20Vaduz/ |title=Liechtenstein Center in Vaduz |newspaper=Https: |date= |author=Official tourism-website of the Principality of Liechtenstein" The Center also serves as a rentable private event venue": https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g190371-d1700060-Reviews-Liechtenstein_Center-Vaduz.html

In addition, unlike me, no proof of poststub engvar or existing on the ground usage was cited, much less conensus was reached before both users added in lots of date/spelling changes, sometimes even when an article used an entirely different format. This happens all the time on wikipedia.

Ex: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gaius_Appuleius_Diocles&diff=prev&oldid=995749805

Or: was changed first in violation of your engvar, as well as the poststub rule: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=T._S._Eliot&type=revision&diff=564350682&oldid=563131295

then, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=T._S._Eliot&type=revision&diff=572035049&oldid=571607142 despite him being an American.

Or: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Huang_Xiaoming&type=revision&diff=935187609&oldid=934344878 despite China not using British or those dates (I can find you examples from legal documents). Also, my bad for copypasting conversions. Hope you understand. I was going to do a major addition on its tourism industry (especially VR experiences), so reverting my first additions of that was rather disappointing.

@75.85.185.153: you are confusing a few distinct issues here. The policy says

1. let the variety of English already used in the article stand: if it is unclear, refer to the first variety used unambiguously post stub.
   1. this also applies to units (SI, USCU)
2. as with every article, the variety may be changed if there is a consensus at the talk page to do so. Feel free to make a case at talk:Liechtenstein to have the current setting changed.
   1. in articles about the US, the default assumption is EN-US and USCU; in articles about Europe, the defaults are EN-UK and SI. These are not rules but they are weighting factors.
3. local names should be given and translated or transliterated as needed. Obviously this makes more sense for somewhere like 重庆市 (Chongqing) than the Liechtenstein Center, but the principle is the same: there is nothing wrong with saying that "the 'Liechtenstein Center' is in the centre of Vaduz", indeed it probably avoids a visual stumble.

so it is entirely irrelevant which style an external website uses. Bear in mind that, if the site is clever enough, it will detect where the visitor is coming from and adjust the return accordingly. So you may see EN-US, I will see EN-UK and someone in Berlin will see DE-DE. What matters is the Wikipedia Manual of Style. The rules exist to try to avoid these silly flip-flops. You may have noticed that I didn't revert other ENGVAR changes you made where you had identified that {{use}} tags are in place and that you were (re)applying them.

WP:Other stuff exists is not a justification to break policy. I will have a look at T. S. Elliot (as per above, it is irrelevant where he was born or where he grew up: what matters is the ENGVAR policy).

I'm sorry if you lost anything important but since you already know how to do diffs, I suspect that you know how to recover it from the history. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 17:47, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

1. let the variety of English already used in the article stand: if it is unclear, refer to the first variety used unambiguously post stub.

That's what I just said I did (and did), per the Budapest or Gaius Appeius users above: cite poststub, the end. There is no "current setting at all"; in fact some sections have entirely different spellings before I standardized it per poststub. (even the article's section headings: financial center vs defense), but it was majority American. Same with Budapest (mostly british) or Gaius (no consensus or poststub because "talk page first for formats" isn't even in the rules you linked to me--unless you can provide a direct quote), go check. In both cases, just cite poststub as well as the Principality's official usage and current page usage (mostly American). Or do you prefer Liechtenstein royalty? "ABOUT US Chartered in the Principality of Liechtenstein, the European Center of Austrian Economics Foundation (ECAEF) is an independent academic institution designated to research in the scientific tradition of the Austrian School of Economics and the advancement of its seminal ideas. The ECAEF is an innovative European think tank that firmly stands for self-responsibility, individual freedom, and limited government.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS H.S.H. Prince Michael of Liechtenstein (LI) – President H.S.H. Prince Philipp of Liechtenstein (LI)" https://ecaef.org/about-ecaef/

The engvar policy, again, said nothing about talk pages or consensus, go quote where in engvar policy it says that. People let loose the engvarb/date format bot to establish those formats where there isn't one all the time, ex: the people I cited (marek69, Maxiewaxie, literally everyone British here) without talk page first because you have no direct quotes to back up "talk page first before estlablishing" from the policies you linked.

And go check the Liechtenstein Center's physical name on a giant sign, it's the same in person (picture provided by the "Center" itself). This should be clear enough? https://www.google.com/maps/uv?pb=!1s0x479b315da0bf74e9%3A0xca02cc8bce5eeb83!3m1!7e115!4shttps%3A%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipPK3Pc6OjW_PQ5yVHH9SgyjK4_HEnZRokGKQbo%3Dw320-h213-k-no!5sLiechtenstein%20Center%20-%20Google%20Search!15sCgIgAQ&imagekey=!1e10!2sAF1QipPK3Pc6OjW_PQ5yVHH9SgyjK4_HEnZRokGKQbo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjAsIeRytjvAhUhL30KHf4UAXIQoiowFnoECBoQAw The German word is Zentrum, by the way. Not just that, the tourist attractions/education institutes here use American English (I can cite actual sources if you'd like, I remember clearly all these things I wrote above/below from experience so I know what I'm looking for.) I studied and traveled in Germany as well as been to all German speaking countries and visited my friends who studied here (Liechtenstein) as well, the "research "centers" and "PhD programs" there are officially American, go check wikipedia if you don't believe me. Would you like me to share the Ministry of Education or actual university's official English documents? (brochures, forms, policies, etc) Now: Have you been there before??? Have you filled out a bilingual "PhD Program" application in a German speaking country?) And there is no "European English" in the rules as well as in person, go look at Czech Republic or Serbia articles, which I just checked to see if your assertion stands. And TheGuardian(UK) has papers/charts showing how your assertion doesn't stand, German countries are definitively American per its data. Yes, I cite British newspapers, fair? https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/13/american-english-language-study "Abstract: We find that American English is !the! dominant form of English outside the UK and that its influence is felt even within UK borders." I am repeatedly backing up my claims with sources and direct quotes. In fact, the german word is "Dr. phil," yet German language colleges like Liechtenstein's exclusively call it a "PhD" on their official English websites. Ex: https://www.uni.li/de/thema/architektur/architekturvermittlung-1/research-by-design "The ERASMUS+ project contributes to an understanding of design-based PhD programs...,"--University of Liechtenstein, literally the entire page has no british equivalents, same with its documents like application forms, etc on paper as well as pdf, it doesn't "change based on your locale." Would you like to undergo my experience and fill them out? So now we need to have "PhD programs" and other official American tourist or government sites/companies (per official translation) sprinkled in with British, that makes no sense. It's itself a policy violation because PhD is inherently not British. Can we agree be respectful and respect the Principality's actual usage, simple yes or no. The "Prince's English" I cited for Liechtenstein is literally American, since you believe in the "King's English" for UK. Just like nonBritish colonies who don't speak English nor were colonized (European) get weighted, but not Asian countries that were colonized for 100~ years? China, for example, has a ministry of labor/defense despite british colonization. I can cite legal documents as well. So: That sounds racist.

On the other hand: I can refer you to good Michelin-starred restaurants in Liechtenstein after we finish understanding each other. Is it ok to put them on the page? (I noticed that people were banned for even posting these links.)

@75.85.185.153: as I already said, use talk:Liechtenstein to propose the change. This rule (about making controversial changes through consensus) applies to every article on Wikipedia for a whole host of reasons, not just the ones being discussed here. [I suggest you ask about the issue at Wikipedia:Teahouse, where someone will give you a better explanation that I can. They may even tell you that is I who has misunderstood the policy!] There is no point in trying to convince me, I have no authority to make or refuse change. Your points are good ones but they wasted on my personal talk page. But I can and will continue to apply the ENGVAR policy in the meantime and if I don't, someone else will (see the first message on your own talk page).

I recognise your good faith in wanting this change and it is just that you didn't know about Bold, Revert, Discuss (you make a bold change, if someone find it problematic they can revert it, then all interested parties discuss). You may not be aware that the Liechtenstein article has been subjected to a frequent attempts at vandalism and disruption over the past year, and also that there is continuous background in many articles of people trying to change spelling conventions, replace SI units with USCUs, CE to AD or vice versa, and so on. So your edits got shot down first and questions asked afterwards: given the background, I don't apologise for that.

You are not obliged to get a user name but it will make problems less likely to arise and easier to resolve when they do.

Sorry, but no, you can't put the restaurants in the article unless they are notable in their own right, like the one in Copenhagen that was named the best in the world. See Wikipedia is not a guide book. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 21:43, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

I'll do that later because I'm busy right now. But the reason why I thought it'd be best to just standardize based on poststub AND its own usage by royalty, colleges, businesses/legal documents, etc is because someone recently tried to impose British spelling on this page, but haphazardly, which is why I'll only revert that because it, too, is a violation of RETAIN, and also since most spelling on this page was already American. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Liechtenstein&type=revision&diff=1008755272&oldid=1008437022 So I think it's best if we compromise by taking off any engvar banners or whatever right now, and I'll readd the" tourist center." Hopefully, I convinced you to onboard with my standardization plan (especially given its own usage) @"Your points are good ones but they wasted on my personal talk page." Also, in the spirit of compromise, I abbreviated the mountain heights even though China (especially Macau)'s businesses/legal documents clearly prefer American. Also, why was Liechtenstein's dates added by bot without controversy?

M.Bitton reverted my reverting of that recent user's violation of RETAIN. Can you please revert M.Bitton for me/explain that we agreed to keep the page as is, thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.85.185.153 (talk) 22:25, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

@75.85.185.153:, sorry but we haven't agreed anything about that article, because this is not the forum where consensus can be reached. Let me repeat yet again: you need to open a discussion at talk:Liechtenstein and make a case for EN-US to be used. M.Bitton was acting entirely correctly, for exactly the same reason as I had when I reverted your change. If you try to reinstate it again without discussion, one of us will revert it again and if you keep it going you will get blocked for edit warring, so please don't waste your time and our good will. My advice that you use the article talk page is standard and applies to all contributors (including me). --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 23:04, 30 March 2021 (UTC)