User talk:Ravenpuff/Archives/2023/August

Revised MOS:Organisms

Please note that the Manual of Style/Organisms now calls for lead scientific names to be in bold italic. Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Organisms#Lead section 108.18.207.147 (talk) 02:20, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks! — RAVENPVFF · talk · 00:17, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

DYK nomination "Reconquest of New Netherland"

You edited the proposed hook in the template of the nomination for DYK of Reconquest of New Netherland by deleting the addition "N.S.". I had added this qualification because in most of the Anglophone literature the Old Style date of 30 July 1673 is used, simply because England used O.S. at the time. But the point of the hook is primarily to point at the 350th anniversary of the reconquest (though that has been edited out by others already) which should be 9 August, as we are now all on N.S. dates. So I'd like to keep in the addition, though I won't insist on the embedded wikilink. I hope you'll revert the edit yourself, as I don't want to create a controversy as we almost are at the anniversary date already. Ereunetes (talk) 18:35, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

@Ereunetes: Sorry for the delayed reply. I'd certainly be happy to reverse my change, although the hook has now been moved to the queue and thus I no longer have edit access; you could get an admin to edit it at WT:DYK. Thanks! — RAVENPVFF · talk · 00:17, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

upcoming blurbs

Ravenpuff, i had a few questions to ask and points to raise regarding some blurbs soon to appear on the main page.

• archaeology, anthropology, and interstellar communication (blurb):

  i had hesitated to state that the image was the actual cover for the essay collection because the pdf file hosted on nasa.gov linked to from the infobox does not appear to use it as a cover image, and the description of the image on commons does not state that it is the cover to the collection. i think arguments could be made for either case, but i ended up going for the more conservative option. i'm mentioning this only in case you were unaware of the above.

• battle of dupplin moor (blurb):

  what is the difference between "King of Scotland" and "King of Scots"? i am admittedly not that familiar with the nuances of the two appellations.

• wood river branch railroad (blurb):

  i think you may have introduced a dangling modifier with your edit. to me, the blurb now appears to say that the remains of the railroad were abandoned in 1947.

• cherry valentine (blurb):

  i think "Clapham Grand" tends to be preceded by a definite article, possibly because the theatre is often simply referred to as "The Grand", so i had just left the definite article that was already in the caption alone. i've never quite understood what our standard is regarding the use of articles in captions, though. do we have one?

• chandralekha (blurb):

  how were you able to figure out that the image was of a poster? i had wondered whether or not it was, but was not able to deduce it myself.

dying (talk) 07:35, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

@Dying:

1. I admittedly didn't look too closely, but "cover art" is a more restrictive term than "cover", and it seems to me that the image, which includes the title and editor's name, fulfils the role of a cover more so than just art. The first page of the PDF looks like the title page (inside the book), which differs from the front cover anyway.
2. "King of Scots" (not "King of Scotland") is/was the title of the Scottish monarch: more information at Popular monarchy. Usage probably varied historically, but I believe "King of Scots" would have been used in Edward Balliol's time (see John Balliol). I've made the same change in the FA.
3. Reword attempted – thanks!
4. Main Page captions are conventionally very short owing to small image sizes. Often it's just a name, which may match the title of an article, and in that case WP:NCTHE has us omit definite articles – cf. Clapham Grand. Keeping them could be useful in some cases, though.
5. I guess the distinction's a little subtle. It does look superficially like a poster, which could still have been used as an advertisement, e.g. in a magazine, without affecting its genre as a poster. I don't object to changing it back, but maybe other opinions on it could be solicited.

— RAVENPVFF · talk · 12:02, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

1. oh, that's interesting! i had interpreted "cover" as the more restrictive term, given that the image obviously contains art. to me, making an unqualified statement that something is a "cover" of some published material suggests that it was used as a cover for the primary release of the material. the feeling i got from the article was that most people obtained a copy of the essay collection by downloading the pdf file, which was released without a cover. "cover art", on the other hand, to me, doesn't even imply that it was ever used in any official release of the material. for example, i think fan art could be considered cover art. in my mind, i don't think a cover (or cover art) is required to include any information such as the title of the work it is intended to cover, so had not seen its inclusion in the image as dispositive. in any case, as i mentioned before, i think an argument could be made for either option, so was happy to leave it as is when it ran.
2. oh, i had not known that we had an article addressing this form of title, or that there was even a term for it! thanks for pointing this out. i had noticed that the article on john balliol uses the term "King of Scots", but it also uses the term "King of Scotland", so i couldn't conclude anything from it. in fact, under the article's "Accession as King of Scots" section, it states that balliol "was inaugurated accordingly King of Scotland", so the article appeared to me to treat the two titles as interchangeable. i wasn't sure if the title that a scottish monarch actually used during their lifetime would be dispositive; many monarchs we now refer to as byzantine emperors were not referred to as such during their time.
   my main worry was whether or not there were any political undertones involved with the usage of either title that i was unaware of. i had also noticed that it seems like a number of monarchs were labelled as "King of Scotland" until one now-blocked editor changed many of their articles so that they were labelled as "King of Scots". (it's quite possible that another editor has done the reverse before; i haven't really looked into it.)
   personally, if i think anything in the blurb is already correct, i don't change it to something equally correct without good reason, so i was surprised at your edit and wanted to understand if i had missed anything.
3. may i ask why the "of it" appears to be necessary? i'm wondering because it puts the blurb over the 1025-character limit, and i was originally hoping to use the 3-character margin for an edit i was planning to suggest to the fac nominator.
4. wp:ncthe appears to be focused on article titles, so i wasn't sure if its guidance also applied to captions. in any case, i haven't kept track of how we use (or omit) articles from blurb captions, so am happy to let you decide if any of them are appropriate.
5. i had also thought that the image featured was a poster at first, but upon closer examination, i had my doubts. the advertisement appears to bear markings made by pen and pencil that suggest that the advertisement is no larger than a sheet of a4 paper, and might have been more akin to a b5-sized flyer. the advertisement uses an image of the logo for gemini studios, which makes me wonder if it might have been an announcement by the studios that this film was being made, rather than a poster for the film-going audiences. (this is just speculation, though; i cannot read tamil myself.) in addition, i think indian film posters of the time tended to be more colourful and feature the image of at least one of the leads, and the advertisement in question exhibited neither characteristic. i don't know if you had noticed the same, but if you did, and think it is a poster, i'm fine with leaving the caption as is.

dying (talk) 22:30, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

to follow up on this discussion, my current understanding, following this discussion, is that the tfa coordinators are currently trying to respect the character limits, and i am trying to do to the same in order to adhere to best practices. i think this discussion has pretty much given you the green light to violate the limits if you deem it necessary, so i normally won't question it when you do.

however, with this specific blurb, because i am suggesting a copyedit after yours and wish to respect the character limits, i am stuck with trying to figure out how to shave off a few characters without losing any meaning or nuance, which is difficult because the blurb was already over the limit when i first copyedited it, and i think i already cut out most of the characters that were easy to remove. the second change i had suggested to Trainsandotherthings changes the nuance of the sentence slightly, and i did not want to make the change if it turns out that you had not thought that the addition of " of it" was necessary. that's the reason why i raised this point with you this time. i have seen you violate the character limits before, but didn't mention anything because i didn't think it was an issue. i hope this clears everything up. dying (talk) 21:43, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

@Dying: Thank you, that's very clear – no offence taken. Admittedly I don't keep myself very up to date with the coordinators' business, and I should also say that I don't have the habit of checking character limits at TFA, so any "necessary" edits I make like expanding numerals to words might very well take it over the limit without my own realisation. But feel free to reverse the edit in this case, if you need to do so to make a different change to the blurb. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 04:37, 12 August 2023 (UTC)