User talk:Martin of Sheffield/Archive 10

Citation concepts?

Hi, Martin. I wondering if you might like to comment on some work I am doing at Draft:Basic citation concepts towards facilitating future citation discussions. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:19, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

Hi, I've had a quick glance and it looks good. We need a well thought out essay to clear up the ambiguities, so I'll start with a big pat on the back for you. At first glance though, I may have a number of points to make, but it is 23:30 here in the UK and I've just been enjoying a rather nice strong ale, so I'll wait until later to reply! I'd ask you to be patient though, I have another round of chemo-therapy tomorrow so may be somewhat under the weather for the next few days. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 23:33, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks! Take your time, this is a long-term project. I hope you're feeling better soon. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:34, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Thank you!

Thank you so much for removing the inaccurate information on the aquagenic urticaria page, it is very much appreciated! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.78.86.98 (talk) 10:44, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

A Day at the Races (film)

Actually, A Day At The Races | 1937 was the title of the reference web page, but I should have left vertical bar out of it, it wasn't intended to be another parameter. Thanks for seeing my error, I substituted a "–" --rogerd (talk) 22:03, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

No problem, I was working on the list of pages with cite errors and trying to knock them into shape. Regards, Martin of Sheffield (talk) 22:34, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks re: Can I use crappy networking equipment with 4K IP camera?

Just wanted to say thanks for the response to my question "Can I use crappy networking equipment with 4K IP camera?" 78.149.180.132 (talk) 00:05, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Referencing of the article on the Rev. Nathaniel Bartlett

Hi Martin - The references look great. Your assistance in this respect is sincerely appreciated. There is, however, an error message attached to end note # 11 - to wit: "Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; name "FOOTNOTEGrumman1904121" defined multiple times with different content (see the help page). Please see 'https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Nathaniel_Bartlett'. Also, the link to the Revolutionary Soldiers of Redding, Connecticut... is 'https://archive.org/details/revolutionarysol00grum/page/n139', in case that might be helpful. More than one end note references the same page in Grumman, because - obviously - each page contains assorted info. Could you please resolve the error?

The following advice appears to define the problem and solution, but it's beyond me how to execute this mechanically:

"If you are going to reference the same source multiple times, Wikipedia allows you to name those sources so you can just refer to a source named "foo" rather than having to recreate all of the details about the citation (the author, the title, etc.) over and over. The name is created like this:

Then, to invoke that footnote you have named foo, just type this:

The content (the details of the citation) of the reference that has been named "foo" is thus defined only once but can be reused over and over."

Thanks again, and, Best regards - Gary Bartlett

 Fixed. I was aware of the errors, hence my final edit summary of "Two technical fixes yet to do, but it is midnight here. I will resume in the morning". The rest of the household was in bed with early starts, and I was keeping them awake! I'm on UK time.

Please remember to sign all contributions to talk pages with four tildes thus: ~~~~ – it generates the signature and timestamp so that we know who we are talking to. Thanks. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 06:35, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

References

Rev. Nathaniel Bartlett article

Sorry Martin - The text of the Roberts citation was not exactly correct, so I attempted to fix it. My correction took OK, but messed up the Russell citation. I'm not sure what I did wrong, but I would be grateful if you could fix it. I am appreciative of all your assistance assistance. I promise to do no more fiddling around with the final product. Thanks again, and Best regards - Gary Bartlett Connecticut Puritan (talk) 20:36, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

You'd introduced a space before the Russell citation so WP thought it was literal text such as code. Don't worry too much about fiddling" around. The article is in draft, not main space. If you don't fiddle you'll never learn. Do use the "Show Preview" button freely, it enables you to check what you've done without letting others see your mistakes! I use it all the time. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 20:43, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

A word of thanks

Martin - Despite the fascination that writing holds for me, I am at a loss for words to express my sincere appreciation for all the assistance you rendered in preparing my article for review. It’s probably the only article I’ll ever submit to Wikipedia, and now it has a good chance of being accepted. The supreme irony is that you as a Brit, assisted so admirably with an article about a rebel against the British Crown. Nevertheless, I am indeed grateful for all your effort.

Cheers & Best regards – Gary BartlettConnecticut Puritan (talk) 13:49, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

Ah, but he was British (1727–1776) longer than he was American (1776–1810)! :-) Seriously though, don't give up now. Your article is better than many on WP and an excellent first attempt. Your research is good, and now you know one way to cite sources in WP (there are other ways) you have all the makings of a valuable contributor. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 14:45, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

Connecticut Puritan, in case you are still watching this page - I've left you a notice on your talk page. I'm afraid there's a lot of copyright violations in your draft at the moment, which will have to be sorted out before it can become an article. Cheers --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 01:07, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Teamwork Barnstar
	Thank for the input, Martin! THX1136 (talk) 13:45, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

Thank you very much. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 14:06, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

Precious anniversary

A year ago ...

Recorder (educational uses)
... you were recipient no. 1944 of Precious, a prize of QAI!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 05:28, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Jack (flag)

Thanks for a reasonable explanation of the origin of the term. I didn't believe it was King Jacques, but didn't have the facts in hand. J S Ayer (talk) 00:39, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Teahouse problem

I see that you have reinstated my comments in one of the sections. I thank you for it. When I went back a while after posting that comment, the whole thing looked all messed up. It looked like I had been a latecomer to a party of 20 people who'd been discussing for hours and I had inserted my random, non-constructive comment in the middle of someone else's comment, probably yours. I tried refreshing and purging but nothing worked. I realised that there were two threads by the same user on the same issue and it looked like sometimes my comment was flying up into a previous discussion, randomly in the middle of someone else's comment and sometimes it looked like it was perfectly alright as a first friendly hello to an entirely new section. I couldn't figure it out and deleted my comment figuring it wasn't that helpful anyway. So, I'm curious. Did you find out what had happened there? I am very interested to know. Never seen anything like it. Thanks! Usedtobecool ^✉️ ✨ 16:01, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

Definition of 'incept'

Thanks for your fuller definition(s) of 'incept' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Duncan.france. I note that none suits the previous usage - that I replaced by 'began'.

re. 'my' page that times out: As it times out I am not sure what is involved and consequently what to do about it. If you are a thorough 'denizen' of Wikipedia, perhaps you could contact the requisite Wikipedia 'authority' so this problem can be rectified.

Ways to improve STAMPEDE (clinical trial)

Hello, Martin of Sheffield,

Thank you for creating STAMPEDE (clinical trial).

I have tagged the page as having some issues to fix, as a part of our page curation process and note that:

Links from other articles are needed to integrate this page into Wikipedia.

The tags can be removed by you or another editor once the issues they mention are addressed. If you have questions, leave a comment here and prepend it with {{Re|Lineslarge}}. And, don't forget to sign your reply with ~~~~. For broader editing help, please visit the Teahouse.

Delivered via the Page Curation tool, on behalf of the reviewer.

Lineslarge (talk) 23:41, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

@Lineslarge: When I created the page I linked to it from prostate cancer but the medics there wouldn't accept the link as the trial is ongoing, even though results have been obtained and are in clinical use. Please see talk:Prostate cancer for the discussion. I'm not aware of any pages in the normal WP that would benefit from lining to it though. Regards, Martin of Sheffield (talk) 09:28, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

That’s fine, there’s no obligation to add links in yourself. I’ve had a quick look and can’t see anything obvious to add. Now it’s tagged someone else may well come along and add a link in. Lineslarge (talk) 14:19, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not have a user page with this exact name

Hello, Thanks for your quick answer, well noted. Best regards, Louis/Llouest

Bishop of Dover

I have reverted your partial reversion of my edit. It is not "appropriate" to include gender terms for positions which are open to males and females regardless of who is currently in office. The article is primarily about the position, not the current bishop, and should be rendered in gender neutral terminology. Anglicanus (talk) 14:20, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

@Anglicanus: Then please sort out the grammar errors you have created: "and is empowered to act almost as if the diocesan bishop of Canterbury" is not English, neither is "The arrangements by which the Bishop of Dover acts as if the diocesan bishop dates from 1980". As regards "gender terms", see this diff from 13 May when a woman was appointed. Prior to that "he" was employed which, whilst correct and normal, will attract criticism from certain quarters. I'll leave it to you to find a suitable rephrasing. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 14:43, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Please inform me how my editing has created "grammar errors" and "is not English". The phrasing could be improved but there is still nothing grammatically incorrect about the current phrasing - and is certainly an improvement on the previous version which suggests that all the bishops of Dover have been and always will be women. Anglicanus (talk) 05:31, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

Let's start with the first part sentence. As originally written it said: "[The Bishop of Dover] is empowered to act almost as if she were the diocesan bishop of Canterbury". Now you may not like the use of a pronoun here, but leave that issue asside for the moment. The sense is that "[The Bishop of Dover] is empowered to act" in a particular way. The way is "almost as if she were the diocesan bishop of Canterbury". When you deleted the the words "she were" you changed the particular way to be "almost as if the diocesan bishop of Canterbury" which doesn't make sense. Indeed, reading it would one would expect "almost as if the diocesan bishop of Canterbury <did or said something>" which is exactly the opposite of what was originally written. The second example is worse since it almost makes the wrong sense. Consider "The arrangements by which the Bishop of Dover acts as if she were the diocesan bishop dates from 1980". The structure is fairly simple: "The arrangements [by which the Bishop of Dover acts as if she were the diocesan bishop] dates [sic] from 1980". Missing out "she were" changes this to "The arrangements by which the Bishop of Dover acts as if the diocesan bishop dates from 1980" is close to implying that "the Bishop of Dover acts as if the diocesan bishop dates from 1980", when of course the archbishopric dates from 597!

The problem really stems from the requirement to value political correctness over linguistic accuracy and as such using the normal "he were" will be unacceptable to certain editors. I've corrected the two offending sentences using the noun rather than a pronoun. I hope you'll find this meets your requirements. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 21:46, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

Adding signatures to unsigned entries

Hi, I see your recent edit here: special:diff/927267628. Please note that {{unsigned}} creates a link to the user's page based on the supplied user name. However, anonymous IP users do not have their user pages. In such case a link to the user's contributions should be created instead. For this purpose please use the {{unsigned IP}} template, like this: special:diff/927269699 or, even better, this one: special:diff/927270321. Best regards, --CiaPan (talk) 11:13, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Google Code-In 2019 is coming - please mentor some documentation tasks!

Hello,

Google Code-In, Google-organized contest in which the Wikimedia Foundation participates, starts in a few weeks. This contest is about taking high school students into the world of opensource. I'm sending you this message because you recently edited a documentation page at the English Wikipedia.

I would like to ask you to take part in Google Code-In as a mentor. That would mean to prepare at least one task (it can be documentation related, or something else - the other categories are Code, Design, Quality Assurance and Outreach) for the participants, and help the student to complete it. Please sign up at the contest page and send us your Google account address to google-code-in-admins@lists.wikimedia.org, so we can invite you in!

From my own experience, Google Code-In can be fun, you can make several new friends, attract new people to your wiki and make them part of your community.

If you have any questions, please let us know at google-code-in-admins@lists.wikimedia.org.

Thank you!

--User:Martin Urbanec (talk) 21:58, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Maltese lira decimalisation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Maltese_lira#Decimalisation%20rounding

Do you have any resources about decimalisation in Malta? I posted a question on the Maltese lira's talk page recently, but haven't received a reply from anyone yet. mdkarazim (talk) 14:58, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but my knowledge of decimalisation is entirely UK based, having lived through it. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 22:55, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Stokoe

I think it is reasonable to classify it as an English surname. America and Canada are full of people with surnames that originated in England. Valetude (talk) 10:44, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

@Valetude: You also need to consider Wales, Ireland and Scotland before making such an assertion. Have you any citations to support this? Martin of Sheffield (talk) 10:50, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

MS Herald of Free Enterprise

Hey, I don't know all the ins and outs of that RfC and "harvesting", but that the other editor is an admin shouldn't matter! Fortunately it was easy enough to find some decent sourcing. Drmies (talk) 15:38, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

I tend to assume that admins spend more time learning the rules than a mere hack, so I backed off pretty sharpish. Thanks for sorting out better sourcing. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 15:41, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Haha we do like to swing our sticks around. I remember that ferry sinking; it was terrible. Drmies (talk) 15:46, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Just came here to say that me being an admin makes no difference, if you think I've made a mistake by all means please do call it! - David Gerard (talk) 15:50, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Cocktails all around then. That article needs some cleaning up; it has suffered from factoid accretion. But I should REALLY do what the boss pays me for right now instead of Wikipediaing, so I'll go find out what it is I'm getting paid for. Drmies (talk) 15:51, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

lol. My original thought was that the article Ferry Aid existing was sufficient, though actually that article's really badly referenced too. There's fragments of a Smash Hits article which is about the best documentation. (Smash Hits would definitely be a vastly more reliable source for what The Sun did with a pop record than The Sun saying stuff about itself.) - David Gerard (talk) 15:53, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Bose

Hi, your edit summary here was uncivil [1]. I doubt whether the inclusion of the book complies with MOS:FURTHER. Graham Beards (talk) 20:17, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Well I'm sorry you found it uncivil, but to be honest deleting something from a bibliography with the curt "this source is not cited" and no examination of the usefulness of the source seems a little unhelpful. As I said, far better to stick it in the further reading if its presence there is so worrying to you. If you want to research the book and come up with a judgement on it, then please feel free to do so. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 20:28, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Shishi High School has been in continuous operation since 143 BC

Hello,

The English version of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shishi_High_School -> "In 1661, early in the Qing Dynasty, the Chengdu Fuxue was reestablished on the site, and became a leading school in Sichuan." is misleading. It means the building of the school had been rebuilt in 1661 due to war. However, Shishi High School has been in continuous operation since 143 BC. Rebuild some buildings does not mean the school got cancelled.

The Chinese version of https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%88%90%E9%83%BD%E7%9F%B3%E5%AE%A4%E4%B8%AD%E5%AD%A6 has the accurate meaning: "也是世界上最古老的地方官办学校" -> "the oldest local government-run school in the world."

If you google "shishi high school", you will see various sources, eg: #1 https://www.dipont.com/our-services/international-high-school-programs/partner-schools/chengdu-shishi-high-school/ -> Chengdu Shishi High School was founded in 141 B.C. and has operated on the same site for more than 2,150 years. #2 https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/08/25/oldest-school-world-founded-143-141-bc-rule-han-dynasty-chengdu-china-still-use-today/

Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Flyingosprey (talk • contribs) 23:58, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

@Flyingosprey: (Please remember to sign your posts on talk pages by typing four keyboard tildes like this: ~~~~. Or, you can use the [ reply ] button, which automatically signs posts.) The best place to discuss this is on the list's talk page as I indicated in the edit summary. The history has been debated there several times in the past. Furthermore, a list such as this relies upon the underlying articles for citations to back up statements and so you need to start with a discussion at the talk page for the school's WP article. I've run the Chinese WP article through Google translate and the sentence "In 1661, the government established a government school at the old Wenshi Stone Room" seems to corroborate the gap in the school's functioning. You don't need to convince only me, but to achieve consensus amongst interested editors – hence the suggestion to start at one of the above talk pages. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 09:04, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

Cobblestones

I felt the image of setts on the Cobblestone page was appropriate where inserted because there is an entire paragraph devoted to them, plus several other mentions in the section, instead of simply a link to the Sett (paving) page. n-gio (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:01, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Given the common confusion between setts and cobbles I think the image had undue prominence. Depending upon your reader it spans several paragraphs and might mislead. If you want to raise this at the page's talk page and seek other opinions please do so, I'd never be offended at reasoned discussion! Regards, Martin of Sheffield (talk) 20:19, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for your note. I understand your reasoning. n-gio (talk) 02:07, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

References

Hi Martin, thanks for turning the textual long references at Hearts (card game) into templated references. However, please be aware that not all books state the name of an author or editor, especially older ones. Hence why "_" is used, if there isn't one. Cheers. Bermicourt (talk) 16:51, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Using an underscore for an unknown author is a new one on me, it looks suspiciously like "repeat of the author above"; see the documentation on author-mask on the page {{citation}}. IME looking closely at the book will always find an author or editor, even if it is sometimes a company or society. I'm aware that 17th C or 18th C books (and occasionally 19th C) can make it difficult ("A Society of Gentlemen" for instance), but late 19th or 21st should be clear. Have you tried the BL or LoC for bibliographic details? If there really isn't an known author then "anon" would be much clearer. Regards, Martin of Sheffield (talk) 17:16, 28 March 2020 (UTC)