User talk:Mabuska/Archive 42011/June

GOCE drive newsletter

Guild of Copy Editors May 2011 backlog elimination drive report Greetings from the Guild of Copy Editors May 2011 Backlog elimination drive. Thank you for participating! Participation GOCE May 2011 backlog elimination drive progress graphs There were 63 signups for the drive; of these, 45 participated. Although we did not award a bonus for articles from the Requests page this drive, we are not experiencing lengthy delays in getting the articles processed. Many thanks to editors who have been helping out at the Requests page and by copy editing articles from the backlog. Progress report During the month of May we reduced the backlog by approximately 10%, and made remarkable progress on eliminating articles tagged from 2009. There are now only 15 articles left, down from the 415 that were present when the drive started. Since our backlog drives began in May 2010 with 8,323 articles, we have cleared more than 54% of the backlog. A complete list of results and barnstars awarded can be found here. Barnstars will be distributed over the next week. If you enjoyed participating in our event, you may also like to join the Wikification drives, which are held on alternate months to our drives. Their June drive has started. Coodinator election The six-month term for our first tranche of Guild coordinators will be expiring at the end of June. We will be accepting nominations for the second tranche of coordinators, who will also serve a six-month term. Nominations will open starting on June 5. For complete information, please have a look at the election page. Please feel free to contact any coordinator if you have any questions or need assistance. Your project coordinators are S Masters (talk), Diannaa (Talk), Tea with toast (Talk), Chaosdruid (talk), and Torchiest (talk).

Sent on behalf of the Guild of Copy Editors using AWB on 08:24, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Infobox updates

Re: removal of flags, I think you are right about that. I based all of the changes so far (a couple of hundred I think) on the sandbox example that Dr. Blofeld had provided. It wasn't really a conscious choice on my part. I don't want to remove the flags in all boxes I have done so far as a chore; I would rather concentrate on continuing to update the remaining articles. So, if you see any others trust that I am in agreement with the removal. I am removing the "settlement_type = County" parameter from the ones which have "County" in the title, as redundant. You will probably want to look at County Down et al., I have just now updated the six counties of NI en masse. Sswonk (talk) 17:01, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

The only thing i have to say about the NI county ones is why not just simply use "Country" for the UK bit? I know there are editors who argue over it at the actual UK article, but i think for all intents and purposes "Country" would do fine, and instead of "Constituency" it could state "Region". If editors disagree i'm more than sure it'll be raised or reverted. Mabuska ^(talk) 22:14, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

A short answer here. I live in Massachusetts. To be clear, it is difficult to imagine Northern Ireland as a "country" for the majority of English speaking Americans. We, and I understand the weasel and o.r. nature of this statement, but we think of "countries" as places with armies and passports and presidents or prime ministers, i.e. the United Kingdom, Argentina, France, Vietnam, Australia, Nigeria, etc. So using "country" there would be a bit confusing to a large chunk of the readership. "Region" would be better than "country", but "constituency" is used in adjective form in the lead of the linked article Countries of the United Kingdom: "The alternative terms constituent countries and home nations are also used, the latter mainly for sporting purposes." That's where I got it, and I ran it by you to see what you thought. I don't think "country" is the answer. As I stated earlier this year, in the infoboxes of nearly every EU capital, the word "country" means what I say so many of us Americans describe it to mean: sovereign state. That's my answer to the why not? above. Sswonk (talk) 05:19, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

I never said above about using country for NI. I said we could use it for the UK bit. In regards to NI i suggested "region". Mabuska ^(talk) 20:31, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

I missed that, apologies for going on. I was confused about something I remember reading about other UK articles where Country was the second parameter for example "Country England". As I wrote, "Region" is fine with me. Sswonk (talk) 00:22, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

FYI, Sarah777 is removing the phrase "is one of the administrative counties of the Republic of Ireland and" from al County articles. I've been restoring them. Laurel Lodged (talk) 22:19, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

There was an agreement for its removal i thought? Mabuska ^(talk) 20:31, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Have a look at my talk page. The situation was a bit confusing, but I think that it's on a good path now. Laurel Lodged (talk) 20:38, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

I noticed and have responded over there. The agreed lede isn't being properly implemented. Someones trying to have their cake and eat it. Mabuska ^(talk) 20:46, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

C. S. Lewis

Apologies. I hadn't seen your addition to the conversation made some minutes before your article changes. We've been playing ping pong with this nationality question for months if not years. It seems necessary to find a consensus by discussion and stick to it. It have no strong feeling one way or another - only an agreement is sensibly found and held. Best wishes Span (talk) 23:45, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

I guess my feeling is that in areas of question or contention we should take the point out of the lead and info box altogether and have a short para on it in the body openly discussing the different view points and Lewis' own feelings. Because nationality/ethnicity is often used as a political football changes only last a few days, it seems. In my opinion we should ban info boxes as they are too often over-simplifying, reductionist and misleading. But there you go. Best wishes with the resolution. Span (talk)

Problem with that is, what if the person never made an issue out of their nationality/ethnicity for us to detail it in an article? It'd leave that idea out in the water. Mabuska ^(talk) 10:39, 28 June 2011 (UTC)