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March 2017

WikiProject Genealogy - newsletter No.2

Newsletter Nr 2 for WikiProject Genealogy (and Wikimedia genealogy project on Meta)

Participation:

This is the second newsletter sent by mass mail to members in Wikipedia:WikiProject Genealogy, to everyone who voted a support for establishing a potential Wikimedia genealogy project on meta, and anyone who during the years showed an interest in genealogy on talk pages and likewise.

(To discontinue receiving Project Genealogy newsletters, please see below)

Progress report:

In order to improve communication between genealogy interested wikipedians, as well talking in chat mode about the potential new wiki, a new irc channel has been setup, and you are welcome to visit and try it out at: #wikimedia-genealogy ^connect

(In case you are not familiar with IRC, or would prefer some info and intro, please see Wikipedias IRC tutorial)

At m:Talk:Wikimedia_genealogy_project#Wikimedia_user_group is discussed the possibility of creating a genealogy-related Wikimedia user group: please submit comments and suggestions, and whether you would like to be a member in such a group. Prime goal for the group is the creation of a new, free, genealogy wiki, but there is also a discussion weather we should propose a new project or support the adoption of an existing project?

Read more at Meta; Wikimedia genealogy project where you also can support the creation with your vote, in case you haven't done so already.

Future:

The future of the Genealogy project, and creation of a new Wikimedia Genealogy Project, is something where you can make a an input.

You can

discuss on the projects talk page how the project should be developed
sign as member or supporter at the projects member list
put the User box on your user page by inserting the Template:User WikiProject Genealogy with the following code: {{User WikiProject Genealogy}}.
develop or update the Portal:Genealogy?
in case you haven't read Wikimedia genealogy project take a look
support that project with your vote.

Don't want newsletters? If you wish to opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself from the mailing list or alternatively to opt-out of all massmessage mailings, you may add Category:Opted-out of message delivery to your user talk page.

Cheers from your WikiProject Genealogy coordinator Dan Koehl.

To discontinue receiving Project Genealogy newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list.
Newsletter delivered by MediaWiki message delivery

Please comment on Talk:Sebastian Gorka

Done

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Sebastian Gorka. Legobot (talk) 04:23, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Complete disambiguation

I seem to recall a previous discussion of the underlying issue raised at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2017 February 28#Robert Brown (botanist), where I seem to be in a minority of one, so it seems that I'm wrong in my understanding of disambiguation. Since you know more about this that I do, is there any more guidance anywhere that you know of? If not, it seems to me that the issue needs to be clarified. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:33, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead: Ah, the thing here is that WP:PRIMARY applies to the base name, i.e. Robert Brown, not to the disambiguated form. I'm not sure this is adequately explained anywhere, as such. It's a hierarchical interplay between WP:CRITERIA and WP:DAB. Disambiguation is not reached until after the criteria have been satisfied, other than WP:PRECISE which is what requires disambiguation to happen in the first place. We know that "Robert Brown" is WP:RECOGNIZABLE / WP:COMMONNAME (no one calls him "Bobby"), it is WP:CONCISE (we're not inserting middle name for no reason), it is WP:NATURAL (being his actual name), and it's WP:CONSISTENT (it's our normal approach to naming bio subjects). The only issue is the PRECISE criterion – there's lots of Robert Browns, and more than one botanist by this name. For better or worse, PRIMARY is increasingly interpreted as applying to the real-world name itself, not the entire article title with the disambiguation attached. This didn't used to be the case, and I sometimes still see exceptions skate through at WP:RM (almost always for pop-culture topics like hit songs: "Imagine (song) just must go to the John Lennon song article, or else!" – that kind of argument), but this has been decreasing. Just in the last month I've seen three such attempts to redirect a "(song)" title to a specific song among several get rejected.)

I think the rationale is that pretty much only editors understand our disambiguation system; readers don't come here and type in "Robert Brown (botanist)", so having that be a redirect to this Robert Brown serves no reader purpose, but only editor-to-editor "recognitionism" of that Robert Brown as more important. An actual reader will probably just enter "Robert Brown" and sort through the DAB page they get, or something like "botanist Robert Brown" or "Robert Brown in botany" or "Robert Brown plants" or whatever, and get there eventually.

What would make sense here, I think, is for Robert Brown (botanist) (with a Robert Brown (botany) redirect to it) be a short disambiguation page for all three of the botanists, if all three are notable. If only two are, then they just get disambiguated by hatnote, per WP:TWODABS. If you're thinking something like "this sure is a bunch of anal WP:CREEP", I agree; I have as much distaste for DAB-related nitpicking as others have for the style matters I care more about. I've just absorbed a lot of "how it works" through osmosis, and tried to inject some common sense and flexibility where I can (e.g. consistent naming in animal breed articles, including avoidance of parenthetic disambiguation in favor of WP:NATURALDIS, something I've been working slowly at for about four years, with great resistance from certain wikiprojects who care more about writing for other dog or livestock or whatever people than for a general audience). The most powerful argument against "disambiguation nuts" is that their demands for utter consistency have to take a back seat to WP:COMMONSENSE and WP:ENC if the readers' interests are not being served, since there are five criteria, and CONSISTENT is arguably the least important of them (PRECISE and RECOGNIZABLE are the most). That said, it is a criterion, and we should be consistent when we can. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 09:08, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, that's very useful background. When the article on Brownian motion links to the person that it's named after as Robert Brown (botanist, born 1773) it seems to me that commonsense has gone out of the window, and if this is now within guidelines there's definitely been WP:CREEP. It will be hard to resist those who want to use this ultrafine disambiguation approach in other cases. I had hoped that this could be somewhat ameliorated via a more sensibly named redirect, but it seems that this doesn't have good support in policies and guidelines. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:28, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Erika Lauren Wasilewski

Done

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Erika Lauren Wasilewski. Legobot (talk) 04:23, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Maksim Chmerkovskiy

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Maksim Chmerkovskiy. Legobot (talk) 04:25, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

On closing RfCs

I will confess right off that I haven't searched the various archives to see if this has been discussed. (Otherwise it would be a couple more weeks before I could get to this.) Nonetheless, in the light of our recent comments it seems to me that better RfC closures would result if the closers had a checklist of things to look for or do, like summarizing the various positions, or clarifying the terms used. Do you have any thoughts on this? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 00:25, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Does sound like good essay material, at least, though it might be better integrated into the main page on closing discussions, if it were concise enough. I'll think on it some. Out of wiki-time today. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 21:22, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Tiffany

Done

– I closed that one.

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Tiffany. Legobot (talk) 04:25, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Genealogy project need your vote for creation of an email list

Disregard

– Hatting projectspam, as I have no pro or con position on the matter.

Extended content

Newsletter Nr 3 for WikiProject Genealogy (and Wikimedia genealogy project on Meta)

Participation:

This is the third newsletter sent by mass mail to members in Wikipedia:WikiProject Genealogy, to everyone who voted a support for establishing a potential Wikimedia genealogy project on meta, and anyone who during the years showed an interest in genealogy on talk pages and likewise.

(To discontinue receiving Project Genealogy newsletters, please see below)

Request:

In order to improve communication between genealogy interested wikipedians, as well as taking new, important steps towards a creation of a new project site, we need to make communication between the users easier and more effective.

At Mail list on meta is discussed the possibility of creating a genealogy-related Wikimedia email list. In order to request the creation of such a list, we need your voice and your vote.

In order to create a new list, we need to put a request it in Phabricator, and add a link to reasoning/explanation of purpose, and link to community consensus. Therefore we need your vote for this now, so we can request the creation of the mail list.

Read more about this email list at Meta; Wikimedia genealogy project mail list where you can support the creation of the mail list with your vote, in case you haven't done so already.

Future:

in case you haven't read Wikimedia genealogy project take a look
support that project with your vote.

Cheers from your WikiProject Genealogy coordinator Dan Koehl.

To discontinue receiving Project Genealogy newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list.
Newsletter delivered by MediaWiki message delivery

Please comment on Talk:Natalie Portman

Disregard

– Moot – RfC already closed.

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Natalie Portman. Legobot (talk) 04:24, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

Don't correct punctuation?

Resolved

– The RM in question is already closed (in the direction I suggested).

I notice this edit of MOS:TM saying "Do not 'correct' the spelling, punctuation, or grammar of trademarks", and I wonder whether that guidance is intended to prohibit the elimination of decorative punctuation, as in the examples of "macy^★s" and "skate." and other examples such as Anderson Paak, Bakuman, Fun (band), Gangsta (manga), India Arie, Janet (album), Kobato, Lovestrong, Mad Love (JoJo album), Melody (Japanese singer), Moon (visual novel), Shakira (album), The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard, and Okay (album). You may wish to comment in the RM that I just submitted at Talk:Panic! at the Disco. ... and then there's P!nk, Ke$ha, etc. —BarrelProof (talk) 19:30, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

@BarrelProof: It's definitely not intended to prevent cleanup of decorative character mess, which is explicitly covered at MOS:TM as undesirable stylization. Use of "P!nk" and "Ke$ha" in particular were rejected by previous RfCs or RMs. It is permissible for the lead to include a "stylized as ..." statement (as at Client (band)), showing the stylization, but otherwise the normal style should be used. There are very few exceptions, agreed by consensus on the basis that reliable sources overwhelmingly prefer the stylized version; some of these cases are Deadmau5, iPod, and k.d. lang. I can't think of any others off the top of my head (other than obvious variants like iPad, iPhone, etc.). Actually, I think Mötley Crüe may be another example, but mostly "metal umlauts" are also verboten (see, e.g., Spinal Tap (band)).

However, Panic! at the Disco should not be moved; that's the actual band name (presently, in most sources, and for almost all of the band's history, just not on one album). The "!" isn't a decorative character substitution, but an additional character. See also the band À;GRUMH... (just general typographic weirdness) and the website Yahoo! (another added punctuation mark). While annoying to some of us, they are legit by consensus. Various things are not, like all-lowercase and all-caps to mimic logos/trademarks (e.g. it's Sony, not "SONY"). Same goes with color, as in eBay's logo (and we use "eBay" per their actual corporate name, not the "ebay" or their current logo, or the "eb^aY" of their old one). It's impossible to be 100% consistent on this stuff, since it's based on usage in mainstream sources, not editorial community preference. Anyway, I see that the Panic! At the Disco RM has already closed, against the proposed move. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 23:32, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for responding. BTW, you might be interested in the list of examples I've collected at User:BarrelProof#Unusual article name styling. —BarrelProof (talk) 00:20, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

@BarrelProof: Definitely of interest. Many of these have been previously discussed and settled, but some have not, and a few need to move. I think you'll find consensus against moving many of them, on the same basis as identified above – follow the sources, and if the sources say the company name is 2Wire not "TwoWire" or "Two Wire" or whatever, then them's the breaks. We also take the titles of published works as given, as long as they're presented consistently (which, e.g., Alien³ was not, being primarily a logo stylization on movie posters, with most sources and even the studio referring to it as Alien 3 in running text; exact same story with Se7en versus Seven, and I think inconsistency by the publisher and by sources is also why skate. didn't, well, skate here.). Many if not most of the work titles you've flagged will never be moved, because they are the actual titles of the works, though case might be normalized is some of them. Trying to move M*A*S*H again, for example, is probably a waste of time.

If you want a real challenge, try cleaning up the rampant overcapitalization in dance-related article titles (East Coast Swing, or worse yet, canter Waltz, aping the German capitalization of nouns). It's about 50/50 compliant with MOS:CAPS and WP:NCCAPS versus mimicking dance-industry publications' overcapitalization, a specialized-style fallacy we've already fixed elsewhere in similar topics (e.g. method acting, not "Method Acting"). Aside from specific compositions of dance performance with known authors (like particular ballets, not genres of ballet), a dance is not a proper name except where it contains one like "Boston" or "Azerbaijani". This goes double for genres/styles/types of dance; those are common nouns by definition, just "mountain" and "river" and "sisters". Last time I approached the issue, I tried to mass-RM too many at once and got screamed at. I haven't touched it since, but it begs for clean up, one style/genre/country at a time. Common related problems are a) capitalizing the names of cultural folk dances (other than a few that actually contain proper names like those of holidays, places, or deities), and b) tacking on "dance" or "(dance)" as an unnecessary disambiguator to non-English names which don't pertain to anything but dances and which are thus not ambiguous, a bit like writing "Dachshund dog" or "Paris city". One bit of extremism I encountered was the insistence that all Native American dances must be capitalized simply because they're Native American and religious/spiritual in nature, a logic we do not apply to anything.
— SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 03:18, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the additional comments. Inclusion in my list doesn't necessarily mean I disagree with something. It's just a collection of cases that seem unusual – partly for self-education purposes. Dance names do seem difficult – and any names where the last word might be considered an ordinary word rather than part of a proper noun – e.g., Penn station/Station. (Train stations have been showing up a lot lately in WP:RM.) I hadn't noticed dance names before. Drink names have been on my radar – before 21 October 2015‎ we had whiskey sour inconsistent with Pisco Sour. Animal breeds seem difficult to me as well – see, e.g., Talk:Rhode Island Red. —BarrelProof (talk) 20:04, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Notability (people)

Disregard

– Moot – there are no open RfCs at that page.

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Notability (people). Legobot (talk) 04:24, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

WikiProject Genealogy - newsletter No.4: Mail list created!

Extended content

Newsletter Nr 4, 2017-03-24, for WikiProject Genealogy (and Wikimedia genealogy project on Meta)

Participation:

This is the fourth newsletter sent by mass mail to members in Wikipedia:WikiProject Genealogy, to everyone who voted a support for establishing a potential Wikimedia genealogy project on meta, and anyone who during the years showed an interest in genealogy on talk pages and likewise.

(To discontinue receiving Project Genealogy newsletters, please see below)

Mail list is created:

The project email list is now created and ready to use!

Please feel free to subscribe at https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-genealogy

Future:

Discuss the next step, the creation of a meta Genealogy user group, list yourself as m:interested participant and vote on which name should be used for the user group.
in case you haven't read Wikimedia genealogy project take a look
support that project with your vote.

Cheers from your WikiProject Genealogy coordinator Dan Koehl.

To discontinue receiving Project Genealogy newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list.
Newsletter delivered by MediaWiki message delivery

Please comment on Talk:American Pekin

Disregard

– Moot – already closed by the time I looked at the RfC.

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:American Pekin. Legobot (talk) 04:24, 27 March 2017 (UTC)