User talk:Ravenpuff/Archives/2020/May

Wigwag hook

What ever possessed you to make this change to the wigwag flag hook? That's not just a copyedit, as claimed in the edit summary, it added a substantive fact. A fact that turned out to not only be incorrect, but does not even appear in the article. Changes like that require the hook to pulled from the queue and sent back for review. Or at the very least, run it past the editors of the page first. SpinningSpark 08:09, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

@Spinningspark: I wrote that edit summary in relation to my copy-editing of multiple hooks in the set, not just the wigwag one. My intention was to add some context to the hook, as readers might not be familiar with Pickett's Charge being part of the American Civil War. It's obvious that I read the article incorrectly; this was a mistake on my part and I apologise. I will indeed run potential changes past editors if there are changes about which I'm unsure.

Hooks are meant to hook the reader into reading more, they are not intended to explain everything. A better way of adding that, if you insist, would be to introduce the Civil War directly, such as "...during Pickett's Charge in the American Civil War". But that still doesn't tell the reader that it was a Confederate charge and a Union signal station. Nor does it give the location, the year, the campaign it was in, the name of the officer... You see my point – to tell the reader everything relevant starts to become a summary of the article rather than a hook. SpinningSpark 10:35, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Regarding "contiguous links", by the way, I don't mind your revert, but I decided to include that link because it provides some additional contextual information for readers and because the phrase "wigwag flag signals" isn't actually the article title ("flag signals" is a disambiguator in this case). MOS:SEAOFBLUE doesn't really apply in this case either, as the links are easily distinguishable. Cheers. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 08:55, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

If that is all you had done, I would have let the linking stand, but I decided the simplest and most neutral thing to do was revert the whole thing to the approved hook. Although I cited contiguous linking, I also had in mind that DYK is supposed to be about the new article. Having too many other links detracts attention from it. I thought WP:OVERLINK applied because not many readers will fail to understand what flag signal means and it is linked in the first sentence of the target article. SpinningSpark 10:35, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

@Spinningspark: Yeah, I agree with your sentiments; what we probably don't quite agree on is where exactly to draw the line regarding how much information goes into a hook, not that it's a major difference to begin with. I usually aim to allow a reader to grasp a general idea what the hook conveys, so context and links may in some cases be useful for a brief explanation. In general, I don't really add much linking to hooks beyond that which was already present; there are also other editors who may have their own opinion on the matter, of course. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 14:02, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Ravenpuff, if you are going to add any new facts to a hook in prep, it is important that you make sure they are both in the article and supported there by a reliable source—all DYK hooks are supposed to have been reviewed and checked in this way before being approved and promoted to prep, so edits while in prep also need to be made on this basis. In addition, many nominators feel that blue links other than the bold one distract from the article being nominated, and I've noticed that your edits tend to the opposite point of view, with added links being more the norm. Please consider redrawing your line so fewer new links are introduced. Many thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:23, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

dyk hook tweaks

Ravenpuff, I'm concerned about the number of edits you're making to DYK hooks after they're already in prep, some of which are purely personal preference and occasionally are introducing actual error. In this diff for instance, you've changed 'which' to 'that' and 'among' to 'between'. Which > that is personal preference. Among > between is actually incorrect; between is for two, among is for three or more. You also in the same diff tweak five other hooks, which have all already been approved by at minimum three other editors, and then you go on to make six more edits in that prep, each time changing multiple hooks. This is the final tally. I think this it too much editing of hooks. This level of change after a prep set has been built needs to be brought to talk. —valereee (talk) 16:56, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Valereee, I fully appreciate your concern; you can notice that I rarely add any additional substantive facts to hooks, which I respect as consensus from the nompage discussions. The tweaks I make are, in most cases, to improve the tenor and front-facing display of DYK's content – things such as adding unobtrusive non-breaking spaces and fixing other grammatical flaws. Any significant changes that I think would benefit a hook will be brought up at talk, but I don't think that other alterations that don't change the subject matter in a substantial way strictly need to be discussed. If anything, we can follow the bold, revert, discuss cycle in resolving any disputes. I will readily concede that I'm not infallible and do make occasional missteps, whether that's flagged at ERRORS, the talk page, or elsewhere.

Regarding the two examples you pointed out above: "which" and "that" are used for non-defining and defining clauses, respectively. In this case, the alternation between the GIFs is a characteristic of this particular green screen, not of all green screens in general. Also, concerning "between" vs "among", it's apparently an oversimplification that "among" is for three or more; "between" should actually be used when talking about distinct alternatives, such as the "food, farms and bouncing anime breasts" addressed explicitly in the hook. I hope that this clears up some disagreements. Kind regards, — RAVENPVFF · talk · 18:08, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Excuse me for butting in, but I forgot to take this page off my watchlist. I don't think BRD cuts it here. Once a hook is moved to prep, it is no longer visible to the key editors who are best placed to spot errors. That is, the nominator and page editors. Unless they actively follow it through the queues changes are completely invisible to them. Copyeditng post-promotion should be kept to the minimum necessary. SpinningSpark 19:34, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Ravenpuff, the examples you give from Grammarly are American English distinctions; I don't believe that British English treats these distinctions in the same way, and since we are a multi-English platform, we should be very careful in what we change. SpinningSpark makes a good point: once nominations are in prep, changes are rarely spotted by the original nominators, and that means edits that cause meaning changes are not likely to be caught by the people who would know best—BRD is not feasible. A lighter hand would be welcome; there have been enough errors to be concerning, though I haven't seen any hooks lately that were made longer than the 200-character maximum, something that used to happen on occasion. (New hook facts should be avoided since you don't have anyone to check your interpretation, and never added unless they are supported by an inline citation by the end of the sentence where they appear and have been checked to be sure the source actually does so.) BlueMoonset (talk) 02:16, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

@BlueMoonset: Being a British English user myself, I believe that these rules could generally be used for any variety of English – perhaps less so for the "that" vs "which" distinction, but "between" vs "among" can certainly be applicable not just for American English. I have indeed been checking character limits to make sure they don't exceed the limit! I understand why BRD might not practicable here, so I'll try to be a little more careful in the future regarding copyediting; cheers. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 04:09, 26 May 2020 (UTC)