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November 2017

Manual of style proposal

Done

Ok, I think we're ready for voting here. You indicated in the discussion that you may of changed your stance, so I just would like to see if you wanted to update it. --Deathawk (talk) 00:05, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

@Deathawk: Is this the TV one or the film one? — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 07:55, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

The movie one a link can be found here.--Deathawk (talk) 08:44, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

@Deathawk: Done. I would suggest implementing the "impacted" → "affected" change someone else suggested. Then closing the RfC as something that wandered into re-drafting too many times, and open a new RfC with the new wording. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 08:59, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

PS: more copyediting [1]. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 09:02, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Time for a break?

Just a quick note: I have noticed you getting a bit annoyed with some other editors recently. From personal experience, I know how crap it can feel to be on the receiving end of you when you feel like people are not understanding your points. I would probably avoid replying to FC on the current MoS thread. I have not seen them before, and—judging by their contributions—they are not especially familiar with P+G talk pages. They are clearly passionate about the discussion taking place, as demonstrated by the additional effort of contacting Microsoft. I am sure there are plenty of MoS regulars who will be happy to take over dealing with them. –Sb 2001 20:08, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

It's already at ANI. I'm actually in a good mood; any annoyance I'm experiencing is fleeting (and people often think I'm annoyed when I'm not simply because I'm debatory by nature). The very fact that the editor is on a WP:TRUTH / WP:GREATWRONGS mission about a matter of style trivia (against overwhelming reliable-source evidence) is itself problematic, but I trust that ANI will deal with it. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 20:41, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

@Sb2001: I've given some further thought to the "non-native" issue. First off, no one in the thread in question said anything about anyone being a non-native English user (at that time). Various things were said about "native English usage", etc., but they had nothing all to do with particular editors, but with whether it's permissible to use "the" in front of a construction like "Mac App Store", which of course it is. [Except in a particular type of construction: if the app and the e-shopping service have the same name, "Mac App Store version 2.0" (an upgraded application) means something different from "the Mac App Store version 2.0" (an upgraded Web service).]

That detail aside, let's get to the alleged civility issue. WP has a tension between WP:CIVIL and WP:CIR. It's been there the entire time CIR has existed, and even longer, ("competence is required" was said at ANI, AN, AE, etc., long before it was codified). CIR really is true. Part of the competence to edit productively here is competence with English, well above middling ESL level. When it comes to editing MoS (or trying to ensure compliance with it), an even higher level of competency is required – beyond mere fluency, into detailed knowledge about the finer points of English usage and style. So, there's not automatically a civility issue with questioning someone's English competence, given sufficient evidence. (In your case, I did not have it, and apologize again. I did not do due diligence, since a dictionary did actually have the term in question after all, and one case is never enough to assess someone's language skills anyway.) Having the civility to collaborate here is also a CIR matter, so it makes the tension between CIVIL and CIR kind of recursive.

However, the appearance of "native" somewhere in a thread does not necessarily mean a civility problem is happening, even if it's about an editor not an inanimate bit of language. After your post here, someone in that WT:MOS thread has in fact questioned whether another editor (a different one) is a native speaker of English, based on how they write and what assertions they've made about grammar. This actually appears to be on-point to me, given the nature of the debate – whether an alleged rule defended by that person, added without broad consensus, actually reflects linguistic reality about English (which consensus so far says it does not). This is kind of a case of life imitating art, I guess, in that the accusation that someone questioned whether someone else is a native English speaker was false, then became true post hoc.

In the end, I'm not sure that "native" is the right word, since plenty of native speakers have terrible grammar and spelling, and plenty of advanced ESL learners do better than they do at it. It's more a matter of fluency. But "native" still has a linguistic meaning, and that's what was originally being used in the thread. E.g., the abilities to split infinitives and to end sentences with prepositions is a native feature of English, and has been for centuries; both will be found in the works of the best English-language writers. The "rules" to never do either are non-native impositions (from other languages or from theories about language "improvement") by prescriptive grammarians, back in the Victorian era.
— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 06:28, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

I think it I often the case that when people 'show off' their linguistic skills, it starts to sound odd. This leads some to question whether one is applying grammar from another language. I am generally only against the 'invasion' of English when is involves moving away from the quirks we have, and like to see people breaking the rules in an intelligent manner (bravo on the 'to never do'). That said, many of the more thorough writers and speakers of English do pay careful attention to the rules, and choose only to break them when it is a necessity. I am fairly meticulous, and do not like splitting infinitives and preposition stranding, but recognise that not doing so sounds odd to many people (so take the piss out of my language whenever possible—I doubt anyone says, 'Up with that I shall not put' in complete seriousness).

The issues the MoS has encountered recently are, as you said, to do with a lack of competency. The editors in question are showing a lack of willingness to break the rules. I do not care whether one chooses to stick an article in front of a trademark like '.NET Framework'. Personally, I would rather the capital 'F' on 'Framework' goes at the same time as 'the' going on the front, but recognise your point about editors changing it. I also know that I am somewhat of an 'undercapper', so am probably not the best person to involve in this specific issue. I should not have assumed that it was you who used the term 'non-native' (although, I am sure you can understand why I did; thanks for your further apologies—consider that finished). EEng's decision to fire this in the direction of another editor was a little tactless. FC—however—should not have raised it on that page to strengthen his case, or weaken that of others. I have done the same in the past, though, as part of a 'last attempt' to persuade editors that they are being unreasonable. I hold nothing against him, and am sure that he will be back soon enough, hopefully in a more laid-back frame of mind. –Sb 2001 00:34, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

@Sb2001: "Starts to sound odd". Oh, I quite agree. On "to never do": I'm sure you already know that "you can't split an infinitive", like "can't end a sentence with a preposition", was made up by Victorian prescriptivists who believed that Latin was "a more perfect language" and thus that its rules must be imposed on English. But of course Shakespeare and all the rest used both "wrong" things, because they're natural features of English. I tend to favor avoiding them (when doing so isn't awkward) in our articles; there are people still convinced they're "wrong". But the results can be really awkward indeed, and it can come across as snooty or something in a talk page discussion; better to just rewrite completely.

".NET Framework" is a proper name, like "Hypertext Markup Language"; both of these are also of a descriptive structure, like "JPEG image format" (not a proper name), but that's true of a lot of proper names, like "Pacific Coast Highway", "Central Park", "the Wikipedia Manual of Style", etc. If it's published as the .NET Framework, it just is (as the Linux kernel is that and not the "Linux Kernel"; "Linux" is the proper name, "kernel" is a descriptive disambiguator distinguishing between that and the Linux project, Linux as a family of GNU/Linux complete OSes, etc., etc.). There's a usage distinction (though rarely arising in this particular case): one might write "A comparison of the features of the .NET and Oracle Application Development frameworks demonstrates that ..."; we'd do this for the same reason we'd say "Adkazian has taught at both Oxford and Cambridge universities". This lower-case-when-genericized-as-plural style is not universally recognized, but has become the dominant usage since ca. the 1980s. Because there are still some old people who object to it (and I'm pushing 50, so I'm not mocking), it's best written around when possible. I've discovered through trial and error that people are less likely to "correct" it to an upper-case plural if there are three or more, but still – just take away the temptation. Similarly one could in theory write something like "In the handling of data arrays, the PHP, Fortran, and .NET frameworks are confusingly different", using "framework" in completely different sense, about the syntax of parsing (PHP and Fortran are not software frameworks at all), but this would be confusing and anyone would be sensible to rewrite it to use a different word; it would be like using the word "case" in the generic sense of "instance" in a legal context, where it would be confused with the term of art "case" meaning "lawsuit or prosecution". "Framework" in the software context is a term of art with a specific contextual meaning (or rather a range of such meanings, related but not synonymous).

"Non-native" – Not just EEng; CT did, too, and they're not necessarily wrong, though it runs up against what I was getting into above. When are we digging at people to "WP:WIN" versus trying to assess whether someone is actually competent to be trying to affect our style guide and its interpretation? Is there a more tactful way to do the latter? I'm not really sure of the answer to the last question, and it applies to all WP:CIR concerns. E.g., "you don't yet know enough about deletion policy to meaningfully participate at AfD; your last ten posts there have just clouded matters and inflamed other parties" will be accepted by one person as "Oh, I guess I'd better read up on the policies in more detail" but by the next person as a vicious personal swipe that questions their mentality. I don't see a clear path around this human-nature obstacle. I've addressed it the best I could at the time at WP:HOTHEADS in the two sections on avoid commenting on contributor rather than contribution, but this is hardly failsafe; some are apt to treat criticism of something they said or did as criticism of their person. I've tried to AGF about FC and CL's misinterpretation or alleged misinterpretation that "This is normal in native English usage", etc. (clearly about strings of words) was somehow about an individual's English-language competence; but since the misinterpretation is actually unlikely, and it happened with those two and only those two back-to-back, and they have a tag-teaming history, and both were engaged in a three-day-long pattern of incivility against someone for daring to disagee with them about something in MOS:COMP, it really strains AGF to the breaking point.
— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 09:53, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elections and Referendums

Done

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elections and Referendums. Legobot (talk) 04:25, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

Notice

Resolved

– The ANI was retracted.

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Codename Lisa (talk) 09:04, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

I apologize

Hello, my esteemed colleague.

It has been pointed out to me that up to this point, I have interpreted your behavior erroneously. People whom I deeply respect are of the opinion that your behavior so far can only be interpreted as patient and well-meaning.

As such, I am here to do what every mature person should: to own up to his or her own mistake and apologize. Please accept my apology.

With respect to making amends, I offer you the following remedial courses of action:

I will strike my comment in the survey section of Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style, and will write a new one. The striking will happen pronto, but the re-write will happen when I have time.
I will encourage FleetCommand to do the same, or better yet, fully withdraw from the discussion.
I will encourage FleetCommand to apologize as well. (I don't know if I succeed though.)
What I will do is not being done in the spirit of quid pro quo. You are still at liberty to maintain your opinion on the subject matter and carry out with you ANI complaint as you please.

Best regards,
Codename Lisa (talk) 19:44, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

Hello again

I did as I promised. My verdict is withdrawn, pending a re-write that will address our concerns properly (and will not have the word "madness" which you deemed uncivil.

I also withdrew the ANI case I filed against you and have no ANI contributions since 19:44 3 November 2017 (UTC). You can consider anything before that point null and void.

Finally, I communicated with FleetCommand. He didn't say yes, and he didn't say no either. He won't be here for a while though. Let's hope for the best.

Best regards,
Codename Lisa (talk) 04:47, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

Argh. Just wrote a detailed reply to this and lost it in a browser crash. Short version: I appreciate and accept what you wrote above, which I did not see until after my recent ANI. And I said in my own e-mail to you that this disputation isn't what I want, either. But I am not fishing for contrition, I'm trying to address disruptive editing. I'm not angry at you and do not demand apologies and retractions.

The concern to me is that in one topic I'm aware of (English-language usage and style), your editing exhibits civility and AGF problems, a TAGTEAM, and WP:CIR issues, as well has serious PoV problems. Not a value judgement about you, but a problem statement about editing behavior, which is rectifiable. Even the accusations and aspersions against me are not a big deal to me at a personal level (they're easy to disprove, and my skin is thick). The concern is that this is a pattern you'll engage in at all, which may affect others if you continue to do so. Another concern is that it's being pursued in furtherance of a linguistic position that multiple editors have already clearly disproven.
— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 05:42, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

@Codename Lisa: I forgot to ping above. Anyway, if I said something you feel needs an apology or retraction, let me know. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 06:00, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

Well, there is one thing you can do. (And I won't take it against you if you said no.) I need to clear my head and, so to speak, put a mental version of the {{disputed}} tag in front of everything I have though of you. And about my relationship with FleetCommand, and the influence it had over me. (Forming a Cabal with him wasn't what I was going for.) If you believe the ANI case needs to remain open, please postpone it until I came back from wiki-vacation.

Best regards,
Codename Lisa (talk) 09:43, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

@Codename Lisa:

Done. I just closed it (with a reply). Some kind of "public trial" fiasco is hardly desirable (I really hate drama boards; the fact that I've been to ANI more than once in a year is pretty aberrant for me.) The main point of ANI is to get people to re-examine what they're doing (despite some people's untoward treatment of it as a wikibloodsports arena), and you already are.

PS: Tiny clarification about the above: I don't think "madness" was uncivil, exactly, since it doesn't seem to be about an editor(s); rather it is a description of English usage you don't like, thus an indicator of a PoV problem. It wouldn't be any different from someone describing Hinduism as insane, or a preference for dogs over cats as some form of lunacy. We really have to avoid thinking like that about style and grammar, or everyone would be fighting style holy wars all day.

PPS: I would suggest not encouraging FleetCommand to apologize or retract anything (not in my direction, anyway). It's not something I need, and I'm honestly uncomfortable with "extracted" shows of contrition. For some people (self included sometimes) it can take a lengthy period of post hoc reflection to realize on one's own that one has misstepped. My memory for this stuff is generally short, and I don't bear grudges I can divest myself of.
— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 12:27, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

Hi again. Thanks for everything.

I just have an update for you before going back to "vacation". FleetCommand has gone dark. Knowing him, he won't show his face anytime soon; maybe after a day, maybe after a week. And again, knowing him, he won't do anything to make his presence noted by any means other than watchlists and contrib logs.

But now that I am here, I might as well clarify a couple of things. "Madness" is a word used in a certain group I am a member of. One of our linguist members (right now the only one; I only have a linguistics minor) kept using "method in his/her madeness" phrase and so, "madness" became the opposite of "method". As for writing or supporting simple and all-catching rules, yes, I have an agenda that I never tell anyone: I believe doing so paves the rocky road to Wikipedia's Hell: WP:FA! I have one FA under my belt!

Did you know I actually have twice supported the use of "the App Store" in reference to Apple's mobile app store? The editors were persistent and I thought: It's a guideline; occasional exceptions are allowed. Civility is more important.

Right now, the most distressing issue at hand for me is the allegation of tagteaming with FleetCommand. Although not deliberate and malicious, I think it might be true. When I came to Wikipedia, I was constantly accused of being a sock or meat of other editors. Eventually, I think those accusations became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Reading WP:All socks didn't help either. I am starting to think FC might be having strong unhealthy pro-Codename Lisa PoV. Scary, scary, scary.

Best regards,
Codename Lisa (talk) 15:20, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

Changing approach: One thing I've tried assiduously to do is read and formulate my response to whatever proposition, idea, question, request, edit, or revert is at hand on its own merits, trying to skip over the username of who posted it. Look at the username(s) after the fact (needs to be done before saving, to make sure one isn't attributing one editor's idea to someone else due to mis-threading). This has had a marked effect. If you dig back into my 2005–2012 history here, you'll see me in frequent trouble. It's because I was thinking about WP as a pack of individuals I had to play politics with rather than a project I needed to build consensus in en masse (without treating them personally as cogs in a machine, of course). It took a wake-up call to make this shift; an admin proposed indeffing me for too much "comment on contributor", back when, and I also took the long break I mentioned. Another helpful technique (which I have still not entirely mastered) is to review what one has written before saving it (and even again afterward), to ask: Is anything readable as being about the editor's personality, mental capabilities, protected class, mental state (including motives), or other personal characteristics? Remove it or rewrite it to be properly about the content, pattern, or effect of the edit(s). Takes practice, and any criticism of an edit can still be taken personally, but this approach reduces the likelihood that it will be. If every editor used this approach, WP interaction would be much smoother. The method can even be brought to bear on things that often do have a personal component, like COI. "This edit seems promotional, and is maybe too close to the subject's interests." It's actually way more common for a PoV or outright promotional claim to be made by a fan rather than an employee. A corollary of this approach is to try hard to react to what seem like highly personal digs as fumbled attempts to just criticize an edit, and not take them too personally unless they're particularly attack-y or they just keep coming at you. Hopefully this all is a general enough approach it will work for you, too. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 07:16, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

Style: @Codename Lisa: Agreed that simple and consistent style rules help produce better content (though WP:FAC has a rather strained relationship to MoS, due to pro-WP:VESTED-editors and anti-WP:MERCILESS-editing prejudices in that clique). However, the WT:MOS discussion has made it pretty clear that most of the RfC respondents don't consider MOS:COMP#Definite article a "simple and all-catching rule", but a made-up oversimplification that doesn't match reality. It might be nice if English were that programmatic and regular, but it's not. Trying to force it to be so on WP just tends to piss everyone off and breed new MoS haters. Eroding of respect for WP's policies and guidelines is an increasing problem that threatens the stability of the whole project, so we should avoid anything that increases that effect.

Us pesky hominids: FC isn't being "creepy" (unless I'm not privy to something), just cantankerous, and exhibiting human nature: seeking allies, defending territory, advancing personal preferences and perceptions as rules and truth. These are instincts we have to resist here, but it takes work and practice. Sometimes people have to be separated from topic areas in which they have difficulty reigning in these impulses. With regard to the urge to be part of an us in particular, we do need to collaborate, but it's really easy for it to turn into an insular clique or aggressive gang. The best defense against this is to try to expand any given us by making it more inclusive, and to be in as many "uses" as you can manage, and have them cross-communicate. You understand different perspectives and wants and rationales better that way, and it helps prevent "us versus them" thinking and behavior. E.g., it's hard to side with WikiProject A against WikiProject B if you're participating in both and understand their viewpoints; the person who can is in a great position to mediate the dispute and find compromise.
Hope this helps. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 12:43, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

Third-party comments

I have been watching this issue. In my opinion we are seeing a rare thing nowadays on WP. A colleague with the moral courage to attempt to build bridges after an unpleasant incident, and the humility of maturity, that of apologising. SM, I do hope that you take this as the ultimate sign of good faith that a colleague can offer, and that you in turn, reach out. Regards to both of you. Irondome (talk) 05:09, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
Entirely agreed. I've never questioned CL's faith (I just didn't agree with much of what CL was saying.) I already tried to be conciliatory in e-mail but that didn't work. I nevertheless hope that conciliation mutually continues. That may be unlikely in the very short term, because I was writing an ANI while CL was writing the above, and I didn't notice this thread until after I'd posted the ANI. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 05:47, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

Can you provide your opinion and support or opposition in a page move request?

Done

It is at Talk:Diccionario de la lengua española. I am confused about the English titles policy of Wikipedia and its application. I tried to move the page from Diccionario de la Lengua Española to its English translation as the author of the dictionary (the RAE) uses but I got opposition to it. Your input is welcomed. Thinker78 (talk) 19:02, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

Should the lang template be used also for proper names, like names of people?

In the article Association of Academies of the Spanish Language I added lang templates, and some of them were for Spanish names of people because I thought that the screen reader then would pronounce the names properly, but another editor deleted the templates from the names of people. I disagree with him because as mentioned above I thought the screen reader would pronounce them properly with the template but I'm kind of new using those templates so I don't know if I was mistaken in the use I gave to the template or the other editor was mistaken in deleting them. Can you provide some guidance? Thinker78 (talk) 00:34, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

@Thinker78: Generally no. We'd do that when something has multiple names in multiple languages, and we're giving multiple of them with English first. E.g. Berlin but Munich ({{lang-de|{{noitalic|München}}) or Munich ({{lang|de|München}}) – the {{lang}} and {{lang-de}} template families don't behave consistently with regard to italics, which are not used around proper names except for titles of works that would take italics anyway. For a book title like the Spanish dictionary at the RM, I'd be inclined to put that in a language template ({{lang|es}} not {{lang-es}}), since it's an entire non-English phrase. We don't do it with personal names; while I agree with your rationale for wanting to do it, the consensus seems to be that it's too much template cruft in the wikicode. An exception is when dealing with names that natively are not in the Latin alphabet. Sometimes there's a common westernization, followed by the original name, and a stricter Romanization (or multiple of them if there are multiple systems); examples to follow. In simpler cases, just the non-Latin is templated: Vladimir Putin {{lang-rus|Влади́мир Пу́тин}}. Some of the templates for Asian languages wrap the English name too, as in {{Nihongo|Utada Hikaru|宇多田ヒカル}}, which produces Utada Hikaru (宇多田ヒカル). However, this same template can be used differently, to give a rough Westernization, Japanese script, and a more technical Romanization: {{nihongo|Showa|昭和|Shōwa}}. That template is not required; for the simple case, one could also do Utada Hikaru ({{lang|ja|宇多田ヒカル}}). The complex case is used when the Western name order is used in English: {{Nihongo|Hikaru Utada|宇多田ヒカル|Utada Hikaru}}. A really complex case is found at Mao Zedong:

'''Mao Zedong''' ({{zh|s=毛泽东|w='''''Mao Tse-Tung'''''}} {{IPAc-en|audio=Zh-Mao_Zedong.ogg|ˈ|m|aʊ|_|d|z|ə|ˈ|d|ʊ|ŋ|,_|z|ə|-|,_|-|ˈ|d|ɒ|ŋ}}; December 26, 1893{{spaced ndash}}September 9, 1976), [[courtesy name]] '''Runzhi''' (潤芝)，also known as '''Chairman Mao''', was ...
Mao Zedong (Chinese: 毛泽东; Wade–Giles: Mao Tse-Tung /ˈmaʊ dzəˈdʊŋ, zə-, -ˈdɒŋ/ ; December 26, 1893 – September 9, 1976), courtesy name Runzhi (潤芝)，also known as Chairman Mao, was ...

This could actually have been more complex still, giving additional Romanizations with additional parameters, but we've started moving that stuff into a sidebar template, {{Infobox Chinese}}, which you can see at work under Mao's personal infobox.

Hope this helps. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 07:09, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains

Done

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains. Legobot (talk) 04:25, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Elf cat Follow-up

Thank you for re-phrasing my comment on the AFD at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Elf cat, you are correct that I was proposing to merge and redirect. However, I also equally believe that simply deleting the content would be an acceptable alternative. Is there a specific way I should phrase that on AFD discussions in the future? Randomeditor1000 (talk) 13:37, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

@Randomeditor1000: Just as "delete", I guess. Or you could so do something like "Merge and redirect, as first choice; just delete as second choice". Can help closer assess consensus when what to do isn't clear-cut. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 13:52, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

Talk:Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections

Resolved

– This is now a WP:ANI thing.

Hi, When you closed the discussion over there were you aware that there were changes in the article being discussed? --Bob K31416 (talk) 17:18, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

@Bob K31416: Is there a way to refactor them out into a new thread cleanly, while hatting the conspiracy theory OR stuff that people at both the page and at Jimbo talk (including Jimbo) want hatted? If so, go for it. Or just revert me, and put up with continued disruption I guess. I don't have a dog in the fight, was just trying to shut down a mess in the interests of peace and productivity. :-) — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 17:22, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

Also, [2] I pinged your doppelganger username there by mistake. SPECIFICO talk 20:54, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

Links to Wikicommons and Wikispecies

The left-hand margin of the desktop site has started to show links to Wikidata and through it to Commons and Wikispecies, just as it previously started showing links to other language wikis via Wikidata. Look at Aloidendron as an example.

I didn't see this advertised as a change; did you?
I'm not sure why the "Wikidata item" appears under "Tools" whereas Commons and Wikispecies appear under "In other projects".
Presumably the templates currently used to add links to article content, like {{Commons cat}} and {{Wikispecies}}, should be deprecated/removed, just as were language links in articles when "Languages" showed up in the margin.
The poor design of Wikidata in relation to organisms continues to be a problem: their entities are confused between taxa and names; thus although Aloidendron dichotomum is the newer name for Aloe dichotomum, there are two entries in Wikidata: Q42729505 and Q161263, both claiming to be an instance of taxon. I asked for ~~these~~ a similar pair to be merged (see d:Wikidata:Project chat#Merge required), but it seems not to be possible for reasons I don't understand.

I'd value your comments and opinions. This should presumably be discussed somewhere – at a Village pump page perhaps? Peter coxhead (talk) 10:53, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead: I can comment, but there's a bit of politics in this and a little research here I have to double check. --Izno (talk) 13:04, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

Took the liberty of numbering these:

I did not, though that may not mean much. And, WP editors may not have much control over what WMF wants to do with regard to cross-project connections anyway.
That does seem weird. It's not a "tool" in this sense (i.e., for doing something on WP, with WP data).
I sure hope so. I hate those things. At least the ones you mean; there are specialty-use ones we should retain, but not the "advert mini-banners".
Argh. There must be a way to treat one as an alias of or pointer to the other. If not, then WD is not fit for purpose in many ways beyond this "little" (huge, but topically-specific) problem.

— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 13:51, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead and Izno: pinging so you know I replied. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 11:35, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

You mean you don't think I obsessively watch your talk page?? I'll be interested to see what Izno has to say if his research works out. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:57, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead: This change was advertised in or about February 2016 when the interproject links were taken out of beta. Reference phab:T103102 which has the "User notice" project tag off to the right.
The Wikidata item links displays in a different location because there may be a Wikidata link also, e.g. WP:AN has an interproject link to d:WD:AN, which is entirely separate to the Wikidata item linking the two (at d:Q4580256). There's an "ancient" basically-declined task at phab:T66315 on this specific question but which remains open for some reason I do not know.
This is a socio-political question for Wikipedia. Yes, those could be removed, but people like their boxes.... (phab:T127230 is relevant, and perhaps declined too hastily, but ultimately the decision to have boxes isn't one that can be changed on the Mediawiki side, so it was rightfully declined....)
This is the one that actually needs some explanation.
1. Exactly two editors have an opinion that, because the names of the groups differ, that the groupings are inherently different. This is thus a partially political problem. (GerardM, of all people, made the point most succinctly for me in the above linked discussion--that the groupings have different associated literature, or at least the names of the two groupings--but I still do not think this fits into the 1 item = 1 concept methodology of Wikidata. Many other things have multiple names, and perhaps the more obnoxious objection, that taxa change over time and are thus impermanent, is also true of other notions e.g. countries.)
2. Because these two data items are linked via the basionym property, there is also a technical problem: the Javascript which merges items will not, by design, merge two items which are linked to each other. Thus, this is also partially a technical issue (which could be fixed were 4.1 to be resolved).
3. These particular two editors have almost exclusively been driving the bus regarding biological taxonomy on Wikidata. I have personally stopped contributing to Wikidata due to three things these editors have influenced (and there may be one or two other things, but these two editors take the cake): the modeling choice regarding these groupings; their stalwart defense of bio-specific properties where generic would do (taxon rank =~ instance of; parent taxon =~ subclass of); and the toxicity of one of the two editors (in the realm of "civil POV-pushing") that no-one does anything about even though the editor in question has been dragged to WD:AN on a regular basis. (The other editor isn't much better and has seen his own share at WD:AN.)

I am available to answer other questions, of course, and to clarify if desired. --Izno (talk) 04:55, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

Hmm...

That does sure sound like its going to make WD essentially incompatible with WP on these matters. I can't see WP (at least en.WP) abandoning its approach to handling taxonomy just because WD won't play ball. Are they also in conflict with WS? Or is WS pulling everything from WD? I haven't really used WikiSpecies for much of anything. More on the politics below.
I'm not clear on the basionym links Javascript comment's relationship to "WikiData" appearing under "Tools".
If this is a TAGTEAM problem, perhaps an "advisory RfC" sort of thing on en.WP can be used to influence WD:AN that there's a real problem to address, that two WD editors are OWNing in a way that is breaking cross-project compatibility and it's just based on their opinion/preferences, which the WD community must make them set aside. Assuming the RfC wasn't itself enough to get those two to see the light or at least come to the table to work stuff out instead of filibustering through local control and refusal to budge.
And, yeah, resolving this alias/pointer/redirect/merge thing seems to be the key. I'm also curious what the "explanation" is, but it may really be implicit already in the TAGTEAM/OWN issue in #1 and #3.

— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 08:37, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

@Izno: thanks for your detailed reply. The 1 item = 1 concept methodology of Wikidata is a deep problem. As I have noted elsewhere it causes serious problems when one language wiki splits/forks an article and another doesn't (examples are that we have Berry and Berry (botany) and most other wikis have only one article; we have only one article for a monospecific genus, many other wikis have an article for both the genus and species). However, even within this approach, the current situation muddles the concept 'taxonomic name' and the concept 'taxon'. Yes, taxonomic names are indeed concepts in their own right, with their own literature, etc. but so are taxa. Correct data modelling shows a 1:N relationship between taxa and taxonomic names. Since articles are about taxa, not names, they should be linked via the taxon entity with different entities used to connect taxonomic name (synonyms) to their literature, if this is appropriate for Wikidata.

Entrusting issues like inter-wiki links to Wikidata, where there are few active editors (far fewer than here, even with current numbers) seems folly to me. (And there are editors who were blocked here for non-cooperative editing who promptly went off to Wikidata, although some seem to get blocked there too.) Peter coxhead (talk) 11:24, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead: Brya is one of the two editors I had in mind with all of the above, so your comment, although entirely coincidental, is not unexpected. (The other is Snipre, a French editor in good graces with that community--he has other issues mostly related to a misunderstanding of basic taxonomy outside biology.)

I don't see any issue with interwiki links being on Wikidata. Where before it was one editor on a specific wiki having a change ripple through the others because of bots, now it's one place to go and see (and [dis]agree) with changes to the linkages--the changes for which are much more trivial to undo.

The Bonnie and Clyde problem is well-documented. I have actually moved from my previous position, that Wikidata should support redirects, or anchor links, to the idea that the problem really shouldn't be "solved". I can elide if you want, but I don't think that's the point of this discussion.

Yes, indeed, it muddles names and concepts. No argument from me. :) (CAVEAT: I may have a wrong understanding of all of this though and would thus be miscommunicating; reference d:WD:WikiProject Taxonomy for biological taxonomy stuffs.)

SMC: Most of the mess unrelated to stuff that looks like duplicates is resolved in the best way that Wikidata can, and I don't think it should be abandoned just because of Wikidata's current mess of duplicates (in biology). Baby, bathwater, etc.

I am not aware of the current Wikispecies integration; I vaguely recall some stuff about how both communities would/could benefit... but that was a presentation a year or more ago. It took pulling Lydia's (the product manager) teeth to even get Wikispecies included in the interproject linking system on Wikidata--apparently there were some office politics that she would not discuss in public (and I assume that was WMF office politics, but it may also have been her contract with the major donors to Wikidata... I haven't spent a lot of time speculating).

Your comment on item 2: It looks like you jumped from my comment 2 to my comment 4.2. Suggest re-reading each separately. :)

An RFC here probably wouldn't help too much and would look too much like the battleground that is being driven here by a certain editor who shall not be named. What is mostly needed is people who are familiar with the subject matter to influence discussions there (or perhaps to integrate with how Wikidata does it--I'm really not knowledgeable enough to say). The tag teaming control mostly stems from people without subject knowledge observing "these people must know what they're talking about because they talk a mean game"--and this is largely true across many of the domains on Wikidata. Biology is just the one that annoys me because I see the pushing there--unlike the other domains (maybe modeling of works, but the solution for that modeling is livable to me). If enough people here would invest a little time there, the matter might fix itself (though it might come with a million or two bot edits... Wikidata is more than equipped for such).

--Izno (talk) 16:28, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

Regarding #3, I got the least used of three Wikispecies link templates deleted earlier this year (Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2017 February 25#Template:WikispeciesCompact), while suggesting that perhaps all three of them should be deleted. The discussion only attracted two other people, one who supported deleting all, one who didn't.

I pay attention to Wikispecies. Wikispecies put all the vernacular names they had onto Wikidata, with Wikispecies as a reference. Then they deleted the vernacular names from Wikispecies and are now pulling them from Wikidata. There was never any referencing of the vernacular names when they were on Wikispecies, and there is a lot of garbage. "Translations" of scientific names into random languages, and POV pushing by a long-blocked former en.Wiki editor who insisted that certain vernacular names are incorrect (e.g. Juniperus virginiana can't be called a "cedar"). Aside from vernacular names, Wikispecies hasn't provided anything to Wikidata and doesn't pull anything from Wikidata. Wikispecies missed the boat in terms of providing much taxonomic content to Wikidata. Wikidata's taxonomic content is ultimately driven by Lsjbot's articles created for the Cebuano Wikipedia. Lsjbot uses Catalog of Life as a source; CoL has some garbage entries, and the principal taxonomy editors on Wikidata aren't very pleased about using CoL. A year or so ago, some Wikispecies editors finally noticed that CoL existed and started harvesting data from there. This didn't go over well with the Wikidata editors, but it didn't matter much since this was duplicating content Wikidata had already dealt with due to Lsjbot. Plantdrew (talk) 17:34, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Neologistic pronouns

Just an FYI: You mentioned you were concerned about them, but not which page is riddled with them. So I wondered if you were referring to this page, and if not, now you have two of them. Mathglot (talk) 11:01, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

FML. @Mathglot: I was referring to Genesis P-Orridge (I'd mentioned it earlier in the page somewhere). I just fixed it [3] (and improved in a couple of other ways in passing, though getting rid of the "s/he" and "h/erself" nonsense was the main point), within the hour. It many need further work to patch up poor examples of singular-they that result in confusing sentences; I haven't pored over it top to bottom, was just searching for stuff like s/he. Not sure I have the patience for doing Gopi Shankar Madurai right now. Just to make a point, I also wrote User:SMcCandlish/It yesterday, though have not had opportunity to use it. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 13:57, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

Out of the blue...

Ever consider running for adminship? North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 11:22, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

I did, back when I wasn't ready for it. Since then, I've concluded that I don't want the shackles that come with the "job", though I could certainly do it. I'm fine with template-editor, page-mover, etc. I can get done most of what I need to, and edit-protected requests deal with the rest, meanwhile we keep unbundling admin tools, so the backlogs get dealt with, without my mop. Appreciate the vote of confidence, though. :-) Another consideration is that I've been around long enough and been strident enough that various admins and factions with anti-MoS leanings hate my guts; I stand no chance of passage, because various people from the WT:CITE and WT:FAC crowds would dogpile against me, as would various self-appointed "leaders" of wikiprojects that want to make up their own rules against site-wide norms. Pretty much all of WP:BIRDS would show up against me, for example, as would substantial numbers from various sports and transportation-related wikiprojects (mostly over their desire to overcapitalize everything "important" in their would-be content fiefdoms). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 11:34, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Just thought I'd ask; seen you around for awhile and you come across as having a complementary temperament for adminship, and you provide well-reasoned prose/responses/ideas etc. in various discussions. An RfA can be arduous (not implying that it would be for you), as evidenced in my two, the second of which closed as successful, but I was not affected personally or emotionally by them (not implying that you would be). Jokingly, an RfA could be a means to combat potential ennui (not implying that you are in this state), or to obtain constructive criticism (not implying that you need this).

At any rate, even though we are not personally acquainted, particularly since I have decided to not reveal my real-life identity on-wiki, I think you should keep the notion of an RfA it in mind for the future, or for potential future consideration. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 12:37, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

My temperament has admittedly gotten better over time and with a great deal of effort, though you're perhaps being over-charitable here. >;-) Adminship's just not a practical consideration at this time, or probably in the next 5 years for that matter. I don't want the additionalpressure and scrutiny anyway. I'm hard-pressed to think of anything I actually need the tools for in the work I do here; at best it would be a convenience and efficiency boost, and at worst a self-trap in which I'd inadvertently do something allegedly WP:INVOLVED (e.g. block someone for MOS:ENGVAR-related disruption in a bunch of articles, then get keel-hauled at ArbCom because I've substantively work on ENGVAR itself). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 13:01, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Aah, catch-22s and paradoxes. Well, I guess I'll leave it at that, other than adding the cliched, "where do you see yourself five years from now". Perhaps I'll bother you about it again five years from now. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 13:11, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Five years from now, I'll be leading my robot cat army on a conquest of the Western Hemisphere. Just don't tell anyone. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 13:24, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Actually, I'd probably support you if you had an RfA. I might take a bit of ironic glee in using your own reasoning for pointing out concerns I might have with you, but I actually don't think you'd be a problem as an admin. Ealdgyth - Talk 14:19, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for saying so. But, RfA's a popularity contest not a competence meritocracy. No one can be popular whose main non-mainspace work is keeping a zillion wikiprojects from trying to unilaterally impose the weird stylistic quirks of each onto everyone else; such an editor will inevitably piss off large numbers of people in a whole lot of wikiprojects, while actually properly serving reader and Wikipedia-stability interests. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 14:31, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

PS, @Northamerica1000:: I figured I might as well throw my hat into the larger ring. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 01:39, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

Well, that may be the fit for you. Good luck, and better you than me... North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 03:13, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

Booches

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Booches. Inre: content restored. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 14:11, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Coolio. That one's on my watchlist. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 14:13, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Booches in 1884, Booches now, and Booches forever! North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 15:22, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Snoochie booches? — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 16:11, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Haven't seen that one. There's Cheers, though... North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 16:21, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Dive bars are becoming rarer in the U.S. Now it's all about corporate establishments dressed up to look like old fashioned brew pubs. Erm. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 16:30, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

I know. My favorite San Francisco pool bar turned into a yuppified joint almost over night. The SF Hollywood Billiards (a branch off the original in, well, Hollywood) got completely wrecked by new owner taking out half the tables and turning the empty half into a dance club. Not sure if it's even still open, but what a stupid idea. Twenty-somethings don't want to flirt and party down with a bunch of geezers with pool cues 20 feet away, and people working on their banking and kicking system can't concentrates with a bunch of 120 dB MPH-cha-MPH-cha-MPH-cha club music pounding their skulls. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 16:42, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Ha ha. I've always been a fan of the Massé shot and the Jump shot. I've been at some halls where they have signs stating "no jump shots". The best one I've ever found was years ago, somewhere in the vicinity of the Bronx area of NYC. I was rolling around and happened upon it, so went inside; wish now that I had noted its name, but probably findable on Google. It had something in the area of 50 or more tables. Old school awesome. I was at a biker bar one time years ago and a confrontation occurred among some patrons, with one guy menacingly yielding a pool cue toward some other people (I wasn't involved). It was like something out of a movie. Good times. Well, I've made my weekly contribution to historical preservation here. Nice music typing, I personally like, "ba-thoompth-thoompth-thoompth, ba-thoompth-thoompth-thoompth". North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 17:15, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Forgot to mention another gripe, San Francisco has become so gentrified, it is a complete f-ing joke now. It's no longer the SF that I used to love. Erm. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 17:22, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Most places with no-jump rules will let skilled players do them; just got to get to know the powers-that-be there. They're mostly concerned about illegal scoop-under jump shots where the cue digs into the cloth and can tear it. Booches: Are you around there? I see some stuff worth photographing in there for Glossary of cue sports terms, like getting a good shot of a scoring string/wire. The halls around here don't use them, except for some place that's about an hour drive from me. A pic of a talc ("hand chalk") cone would be good, too. That glossary needs way more (small) images. SFX: I was going to call it "BOOTS-n-cats-n-BOOTS-n-cats-n-BOOTS-n-cats" music, but not everyone gets that one. SF: Yeah, it's a wreck. I left in 2005 and came back in 2012, and it was unrecognizable and awful, so I just moved to Oakland instead, which is like SF was in '95, kinda-sorta, but with its thick layer of Oaklandishness. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 17:32, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

PS: If you work on any pool articles, we have a convenient template, {{cuegloss}} for linking to glossary entries: rack, the wire. Pool, billiards, and snooker are insanely jargon-heavy, even for sports, so we've made extensive use of this at articles like Nine-ball. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 17:37, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, they even have a sign on the scoring wire stating "do not use" (image). Never been to Booches. I may work on the glossary article at a later time. Also, thanks for informing me about the cuegloss template. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 21:53, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Thank you.

Just wanted to say that I particularly appreciated the comment you left at the thread I started at WT:RFA regarding RfAs and canvassing (sorry for the delay, I hadn't reviewed the thread in awhile). It does vex me a little that I'll never know how my RfA might have turned out if that issue hadn't subsumed the entire process, and I do think it's a little ridiculous that one (IMO relatively minor, though stupid) lapse in judgment derailed the entire process, but I suppose it is what it is. Nobody's approached me to try again, and I'm sure as hell not going to self-nominate. Anyway, thanks again. DonIago (talk) 14:30, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

@Doniago: Yeah, just wait it out. You won't keel over and die not being admin for a while, and the project won't fall apart either. :-) I'm actually fairly controversial and people keep telling me (see just above) I should do RfA again. (I have no intention of doing so, for reasons I said up there.) The pseudo-canvassing crap will be forgotten, and if you avoid drama and do good work, you'll be tapped again soon enough. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 14:36, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Funny thing about that is that I'm not even sure these days what kinds of work I do where having the bit would be particularly useful...possibly because I don't have as much time here as I used to, so I'm not doing as much poking around? I'm not sure I actually care whether I'm ever an admin in any case, though certainly if people felt I'd be an asset to the team, I'd maybe be willing to paint the bulls-eye on my chest again. Anyway, if someone did tap me, I'd definitely want to discuss with them the specifics of where they felt I'd be useful...at least in part to ensure it was an informed nomination. Cheers! DonIago (talk) 14:45, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Similar boat here, and I've been here 12 years. Not everyone wants the bit. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 16:13, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Draft talk:Brian Clifton (composer)

Done

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Draft talk:Brian Clifton (composer). Legobot (talk) 04:23, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

National Geographic Channel

Resolved

– ... as best I could.

Would you mind splitting your move request at Talk:National_Geographic_(magazine)#Requested_move_10_November_2017 ? There's several issues to discuss regarding the channel move, and I wouldn't want them to conflate with the very obvious and probably uncontroversial move for the magazine's article.

Regarding the channel, use of "channel" as a disambiguation phrase is inaccurate as it is actually a television network. Also, since there are clearly several versions of the network in various countries, we should preserve the "U.S." part of it. Also, as you mentioned, "National Geographic Channel" is a potentially viable natural disambiguation method to explore.

Like I said, I just don't want to muddy an obvious move for the magazine itself. -- Netoholic @ 19:30, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

@Netoholic: D'oh! Too late; someone's already !voted. I modified the proposal and pinged the editor who already commented in support of the original proposal. I'm not worried about the outcome; I think the first two will happen regardless, even if people don't come to consensus on the third and it has to be re-done at the TV network/channel/station/thing's talk page later. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 19:39, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

PRIMARY vs PRIMARYTOPIC

Vive la difference! WP:PRIMARY vs. WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. --В²C ☎ 23:28, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

@Born2cycle: Did I mistakenly use PRIMARY to refer to PRIMARYTOPIC somewhere? I've probably done that before. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 15:42, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, I forget where. It's a common error. I fixed it. --В²C ☎ 04:03, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

Very good. PS: This kind of thing is one of the reasons I so strongly opposed the "anti-interleaving" putsch at WT:TPG a month ago. Any "don't you dare touch my posts" bullshit from that weird little branch of WP:OWN obsession increasingly discourages even technical fixes to posts, like fixing broken links. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 04:21, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

Alexis Reich listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Alexis Reich. Since you had some involvement with the Alexis Reich redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. Mathglot (talk) 08:52, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Patriot Prayer

Done

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Patriot Prayer. Legobot (talk) 04:23, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

Invitation to the Tip of the day WikiProject

Hello SMcCandlish, You are invited to join the Tip of the day, a WikiProject and resource dedicated to providing useful daily advice on how to use or develop Wikipedia more effectively. To join the project, just add your name to the participants list. We're so glad you're here! –

Thinker78 (talk) 05:39, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

Want to join discussion on a page move?

Done

It is @Ice cream headache. Thinker78 (talk) 22:42, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

Please sign

Fixed

I think you've screwed up and broken something (why/how:) by not signing this. TIA

How's it going apart from that? Andrewa (talk) 13:02, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

Not so urgent, since I decided to post that it's been sort of fixed. Andrewa (talk) 13:07, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, bots will generally fix unsigned posts. I manually "repaired" it after the fact. Things okay I suppose. Been busy for a few days. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 04:47, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

It was in fact another of the RM regulars who posted the unsigned template. I prefer to first give heads-ups. The bot does fix some, but unfortunately the (excellent IMO) conventions it follows in deciding what is unsigned do not have consensus support recently! Andrewa (talk) 20:14, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

Well, it's been fixed. I'm not sure why this was alarmingly flagged as "screwed up and broken", though. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 20:20, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Islamic terrorism in Europe (2014–present)

Done

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Islamic terrorism in Europe (2014–present). Legobot (talk) 04:23, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

A beer for you!

Hi, Just wanted to apologise for accusing you on the RM - I'm still confused by it all but hey ho anyway just wanted to apologise for getting rattled with you, Happy editing :), –Davey2010^Talk 20:05, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

@Davey2010: No worries. Asking a question, for an explanation, is hardly an accusation anyway. :-) I'm not sure what was up with that; I think Appleyard just listed the wrong RM and at the wrong page, in a hurry. No big deal. He does go through a lot of RMs, so a glitch here and there is to be expected. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 20:09, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

Your signature

Hi.I am not sure, but I think your signature has some code that creates a new line. I relisted a move discussion initiated by you, and the relist comment was in the new line. special:diff/811022083. :) —usernamekiran(talk) 01:19, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

It doesn't (there's a manual <br /> in front of it in that case). But your relist comment was on a line by itself because you put it after a </p>, which ends a paragraph block. It's okay if it's on a line by itself; no one will care. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 01:29, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

lol. See you around. :) —usernamekiran(talk) 01:41, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

I suggest creating primary sources notification template, or let me know if one already exists

I noticed an edit by the seemingly new editor Dr. Bob in Arizona in the article Ice cream headache, where he seems to synthesize a primary source, in contravention with Wikipedia:No original research#Primary,_secondary_and_tertiary_sources. I looked for a template to notify him about that, but I didn't find any. I don't know if any exist; if one does exist, please let me know, and if not, I suggest creating one. Thinker78 (talk) 02:52, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

{{Primary source inline}} exists. However, I'm not sure this needs to be flagged rather than cleaned up. It's permissible to use a primary source with attribution (rather than using assertions from it "in Wikipedia's voice"), and ~~the data reported in our material and attributed properly appears consistent with the abstract of the paper being cited. Did I miss something?~~ [I did miss something; see below.] I didn't read it all that closely, nor find the entire full text of the paper. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 02:57, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Thinker78: or, alternatively, you could think of your own words and write it out like the rest of us. That avoids the issue of Twinkle templates being deemed offensive by some. Anyway, sort out the problems with your own editing before you start criticising others. –Sb 2001 02:59, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure what that's about; I haven't been following Thinker78's edits in any detail. It did not appear to me that the material in question was plagiarism; it was thought out and in someone's own words, not a direct quote from the source material. But there was one issue with it (see below). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 03:09, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

I am reviewing every contribution at the moment to leave a comment at T78's talk page. I think they should back off from having a go at others when there are problems with their own edits. –Sb 2001 03:14, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

I actually did find an error in it (236 seconds isn't "several hours", it's four minutes. I corrected that, and rewrote it to put the better-supported facts first anyway [4]. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 03:09, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

@Sb2001:Yes, I could think of my own words, but then, does that mean that you oppose the existence of templates? Because their purpose is to just insert a simplify code instead of thinking your own words. And, I sort out the problems with my own editing, and then I relay my recently acquire knowledge of my own mistakes or of information to other editors. Thinker78 (talk) 04:31, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

@Sb2001:I welcome your oversight, I believe in checks and balances as a matter of principle, let me know of mistakes I may have committed so I can become a better editor. But I don't agree with you that editors shouldn't correct or give their opinions to other editors just because there are problems with the first own edits. It is a learning curve, and really, we are editors in Wikipedia to contribute to it, so if one sees one mistake, one is here to try to correct it. Thinker78 (talk) 04:31, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish:I wouldn't use {{Primary source inline}} in this case, because primary source as a citation is ok in this case in my opinion. I was thinking more of a template {{subst:uw-primarysrc}} that says the following -or something like the following: "Thank you for your contribution. Please note that, on Wikipedia, per Wikipedia:No original research unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia; however, please do not analyze, evaluate, interpret, or synthesize material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so. Thank you!" Thinker78 (talk) 04:49, 19 November 2017 (UTC) edited 06:42, 19 November 2017 (UTC) Edited again 07:19, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

@Thinker78: Try {{subst:uw-nor1}}, and just follow it with a sentence about primary sourcing and WP:AEIS. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 17:01, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Wrong guy?

Fixed

Hi. Maybe I'm misreading the indents, but over at Talk:Race (human categorization), I think you may have mistaken my reply for someone else's reply. I was saying (albeit not explicitly) that Wikipedia is quite properly biased in favor of science. I would comment over there, but I don't want to complicate things further. Rivertorch^FIRE _WATER 20:23, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

@Rivertorch:Ah! Yes, I was skimming too fast. I revised it to make better sense in the context. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 20:48, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Arbcom

Seriously, good luck, but if you do succeed, please please please please please try to work on the TL;dr aspects of your communications. Arbcom is rife with over-the-top bullshit and self-promulgating nonsense, as evidenced with the first third of every case finding, don't make it even worse than it already is. I have utmost respect for your capabilities but if new Arbcom members could do one thing, it would be to reduce the nausea. I won't question you extensively on this aspect because I think it's a little rude to quiz fellow contestants but really, that would be my only critique. When I see you've added 4.2KB to a discussion where in essence you've said "yep", I turn off. The community will do the same... The Rambling Man (talk) 22:27, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

I have different writing styles for different contexts. Talk pages are a conversation (and sometimes a debate), so I'm conversational (and sometimes debatory). I don't take this approach to encyclopedic text, nor to policy and guideline wording (where concision is more important even than in encyclopedic prose), and I wouldn't bring it to ArbCom motions or (where necessary) sanctions. Those are much more likely policy crafting, and call for the same quasi-legal style. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 22:31, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Yep, your answer was probably "yep, I agree", but it turned into nearly 1KB of text. I'm concerned, and will share that with others. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:32, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

My answer was exactly what I wrote. If you're going to have a negative reaction when someone tells you they understand the concern you've raised, that they share it to an extent, and then make it clear where they diverge from your viewpoint, I don't know what to tell you. If you'd rather do byte calculations than pay any attention to the meaning of what you've just read, well, ditto. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 22:40, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

You know it's not about byte calcs, it's about losing your audience. You do it all the time, drowning them in text. That's the absolute last thing an Arbcom member should do. That's all I'll say now, you have my feelings, and they're simply that. They're in good faith too because I think you'd do an ok job, just reduce the overhead by, say, 75% and we'd have a winner. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:47, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Follow the diff Gerda posted [5] at my "Questions" page, and you're led to this. If your concern is that I'll post things like that, please be assured I will not. It's a radically different proceeding than venting one's spleen in user talk, and I know the difference. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 22:58, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Usually, I don't talk about candidates' replies until after the election, just keep them here. Why I make an exception? Because I was sure I had declared you Precious long ago, but failed, - please forgive me and my bad memory. Stanton, you are precious, like every other member of the cabal. - Thank you for your reply. I left the question wide open intentionally, to see what each candidate would pick to react to. So far nobody mentioned the word "irony". You have a nice cat image in your edit notice, - I chat about cats with Opabinia regalis all the time ;) (Joe was mentioned, btw.) - Did you ever see my dangerous thoughts about arbitration? - Precious will come, probably after the election, but I will make a note of that. - I picked a cat after Alakzi left us. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:12, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the kind words. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 22:12, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on WT:WikiProject Elections and Referendums

Done

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elections and Referendums. Legobot (talk) 04:24, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

Reign

Fixed

– and then some.

Hello, SMcCandlish – I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving. I was just looking at the Template:Reign documentation page, and I think there might be a mistake in the Augustus example in the Parameters section. I think there should be a close parentheses instead of double curly brackets. Can you take a look at it? – Corinne (talk) 23:30, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

Fixed. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 00:07, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

Thanks! – Corinne (talk) 00:33, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

I just looked at it, and I saw where you changed it in Template:Reign/doc, but on the actual template page it still looks the same. This is the page where the background is a light green. – Corinne (talk) 00:38, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

This often happens with transcluded material; just need to flush the cache (purge the page). If you go to Special:Preferences, the second item under "Appearance" is a script that puts a UTC clock at top right of all pages here, and clicking on the clock will purge the current page. This is easier than trying to remember what key combo or menu command works in which browser on what OS. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 00:44, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

By the way, would it be possible for you to add another option to the list? The first one in the list of examples says the line can break after the "r.", and the space between "r." and the years is a regular space, and I can see that the two years are separated by an en-dash with no space around it. In the second option, the line cannot break after the "r." and the space between the "r." and the years is a thin space. I can see in the example, though, that the years are separated by an en-dash with a bit of space either side of it. What I'd like is a template like the first one, with a regular space between "r." and the years, it cannot break between the "r." and the years, and the en-dash between the two years has no space around it. – Corinne (talk) 23:37, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

Will look into it as time permits. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 00:36, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

@Corinne: Done what I could with it. If we want it to auto-detect when {{{1}}} and {{{2}}} are not complex and thus need no dash spacing, the entire template will have be redone in WP:Lua. A request to do that can be made at WT:Lua. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 04:00, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

Request made, at Wikipedia talk:Lua/Archive 6#Probably-simple conversion. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 06:09, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

@Corinne:. I had a lot of coffee, and {{Reign}} is now super-badass. May have to purge the page again to see the new documentation (unless you go directly to Template:Reign/doc). With some minimal meta-templating effort, the new features can also be made available to {{Circa}} and {{Floruit}}.

Happy Thanksgiving!

TheDoctorWho (talk) has given you a Turkey! Turkeys promote WikiLove and hopefully this has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by giving someone else a turkey, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Happy Thanksgiving!

Spread the goodness of turkey by adding {{Thanksgiving Turkey}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

Thankee. I actually just ate a bunch of turkey, ha ha. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 05:51, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

Happy turkey day

Thanks. My belly says "ouch, I wish it wasn't turkey time." I always eat too much on this holiday. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 06:10, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

My apologies.

I feel like I owe you an apology for sort of publicly "making fun" of the term "Wikipedia's voice", which you used some time ago in a discussion. I've since then seen other editors use the term, and feel somewhat foolish that I attempted to make you look odd, while only embarrassing myself with my own ignorance. I still think the term is odd, but whatever, I'm sorry for both of us about my behavior. Huggums537 (talk) 23:14, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, no worries, and I do look odd anyway (see photo). People use other phrases for this, e.g. "as a statement of fact by Wikipedia", etc., but "in Wikipedia's voice" seems to be the compressed version (though the even shorter "in Wiki-voice" is pretty silly). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 23:31, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

Wow. Just when I thought it couldn't get any more weird, you go and pull out "in Wiki-voice" on me. Sheesh! What a weird Wiki-world... Huggums537 (talk) 23:47, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

[Ahem] That's "Wiki-weird". — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 00:21, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/The World Contest Suggestion

Women in Red World Contest

Hi. We're into the last five days of the Women in Red World Contest. There's a new bonus prize of $200 worth of books of your choice to win for creating the most new women biographies between 0:00 on the 26th and 23:59 on 30th November. If you've been contributing to the contest, thank you for your support, we've produced over 2000 articles. If you haven't contributed yet, we would appreciate you taking the time to add entries to our articles achievements list by the end of the month. Thank you, and if participating, good luck with the finale! Create women biographies in any field with a requirement of readable prose containing 1kb. Abishe (talk) 14:43, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Cubism

Aside from our disagreements, I love things like you caught on one WP style page which mentioned cubist art existing in the 15th century. Makes me wonder if anyone has done a satire about famous artists from other eras painting in cubist, fauve, or impressionistic styles (they must have?). Would be nice to see a da Vinci or even a van Gogh cubist work. Van Gogh didn't miss the emergence of cubism by much, and right in his old neighborhood (I was able to visit Paris this year, and loved exploring Montmartre on a daily or nightly basis)! Randy Kryn (talk) 15:36, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

We have a few lingering pretty bad examples (I think I'm responsible for some silly ones, but not ones that crazy!). I've seen some digital stuff like you mention. Some of the Illustrator and Photoshop "painterly style" plugins are so badass these days, you can run good-quality pics of extant artworks through them and get "rebooted" results, e.g. the Mona Lisa as Von Gogh would have done it. I would love to go to the Louvre. My closest brush (pun intended) with "famous artist locales" was the little museum at the house where Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo lived for a while in Guanajuato (Museo y Casa de Diego Rivera). PS: Wish we disagreed less, and less frequently on the style stuff. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 16:09, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

And I would love to go back to Paris and the Louvre, only put a few hours in there on a very humid day. The d'Orsay and the de l'Orangerie are my favorite museums in Paris, both within a block or two of the Louvre (that entire relatively small area is undoubtedly ground zero of the world's collected artwork) and I did get to Monet's home, where I discovered they've converted his large studio into the gift shop without even any "here's where it happened" signage. Didn't go into Rodin's museum there, although I was right next to it, and am glad I didn't because then first learned the tale of Camille Claudel after my return home. Must go back. Funny you mentioned Kahlo and Rivera, reconnected a few weeks ago with a friend from 20 years back who's really into Kahlo and other Mexican women artists, and I've been nudging in style and information-distribution edits on her and on Mexican art and the Mexican muralists on-and-off since. The home you mention doesn't have a page, if I recall correctly (and should), although their Blue House in Mexico City has one. And I do agree with you, on almost everything except the changing of what I see as iconic names (and one main reason is that I truly believe doing that is not good for the overall project), and some of the Jr. comma-wars. You have done amazing work on Wikipedia policy and guidelines, and I recognize and respect that you are in many ways the glue that holds those together (and, with all the recent changes, are also the only one who really knows what's in there!). And anyone who's a friend of the bot named Checkingfax... Anyway, yes, Paris! No place like it. Randy Kryn (talk) 17:46, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Haven't been to France since I was a child, which kinda doesn't count. Still on my "go there someday" list, on that technicality. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 03:34, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

So-called "technical request"

This seems pretty dubious to me. It certainly a unique and well-known object, and probably a proper name - there are plenty of sources that treat it as such, another, though the picture is mixed, and I admit the majority don't. I won't re-open the matter, but it should not have been put through as a technical. Johnbod (talk) 17:09, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

@Johnbod: Antikythera mechanism. Gundestrup cauldron. How many other examples would you like? Uniqueness isn't what determines capitalization. All of the many thousands of people named "John David Smith" in the world are unique, yet they have proper names (all the same). There is only one tree in my yard, and it is not exactly like any other tree on earth (thus is unique), but it has no proper name. There is only one species to which it belongs, and that species is unique, but "Douglas fir" is not a proper name (though it contains one, an eponym), neither is Pseudotsuga menziesii (though the genus is capitalized in a binomial by convention, just to mark that it's a genus).

I have no issue at all with that particular WP:RM/TR move going to a full WP:RM; the outcome will be the same either way. :-) I don't list things at RM/TR unless I'm absolutely certain.

Sources do not consistently capitalize this, or even consistently give it a particular appellation; "Duenos inscription" is just one of many descriptive titles that article could have. To the extent this is a work rather than an artifact, that name also happens to be a form of incipit (i.e. a designation that is simply repetition of material in the work, not a title assigned by the author, nor an evocative rather than descriptive name made up after the fact, e.g the "Grand Vase of Quirinal" or whatever); incipits are sentence case. And so on. I really do think these things through. Not sure how many thousands more RMs it's going to take before people realize that MOS:CAPS says something and that what it says means something, and that people's idiosyncratic ideas about what a proper name or proper noun are don't overturn it. <shrug> Presumably it will take thousands more because it's not been sinking in very much yet. Or maybe it's just a matter of churn: as one editor comes to grok this with fullness, another new one arrives who has not considered these matters yet.

PS: (post-EC): The very fact that sources are not consistent in capitalization and (!) the majority of them do not capitalize, does mean, in fact, that it can be speedily moved. The entire point of RM/TR is that if there is a clear-cut WP:P&G reason for a move, such that no amount of opinion-shouting is ever going to get around that fact and the sourcing, then the move should proceed without wasting the time arguing about it, because the conclusion is already predictable by anyone who properly understands policy and its application.
— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 17:40, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Gundestrup cauldron is certainly wrong - see the owning museum. Unfortunately I can't move it myself. I'm sure you "don't list things at RM/TR unless I'm absolutely certain", but unfortunately you being "absolutely certain" by no means precludes many other people disagreeing, and often being right. Such cases are NOT what RM/TR is for. Please stop doing this! What MOS CAPS actually says is "Proper names of specific places, persons, terms, etc. are capitalized in accordance with standard usage" - it by no means endorses your extreme and prescriptivist view of what should and should not be a proper name. Johnbod (talk) 17:55, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

How are you not getting this? See WP:OFFICIALNAME. WP does not care how some "official" source likes to write in its own house style. WP does not capitalize unless an overwhelming majority of independent reliable sources do so consistently. I'm not a prescriptivist at all. I don't think you know what the word actually means. "Do what the majority of the rest of the world does" is linguistic description, by definition. "Do it this way because some authority, like a particular museum, says so" is prescriptivism, by definition. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 17:59, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

That link to Prescriptive grammar says exactly what I would expect it to say, but I see it carries a "worldwide" tag. Perhaps on Planet McCandlish it has a different meaning. Johnbod (talk) 03:26, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

If you and I can read the same article and come to opposite conclusions about the intent and ideas of the other party, this discussion cannot progress any further. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 03:33, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Lurker here. I've got a similar conversation going at my page about a couple of particular railway lines. Same answer, basically, which is to respect WP style and WP's way of determining proper name status by consistent capitalization in independent English-language sources. But Johnbod, I find it amusing the you've edited Gundestrup cauldron extensively, and that it has always been uncontroversially at that lowercase title since its creation in 2004, and now you say it's "certainly wrong". Perhaps it is you who is out of step with WP style? Dicklyon (talk) 03:38, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Nothing amusing there - I'm sure I've tried to move myself it in the past and failed, as I did yesterday. WP:RM/TR used to have rather confusing/inaccurate instructions, as I remember it, & I generally avoided it. Now it seems quite easy, so equipped with McCandlish-style self-certainty, I may start using it more. God knows there's plenty to do. Johnbod (talk) 12:51, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Also note book stats. The capped version of the inscription is too rare to appear. The cauldron is about half and half, so again, no caps in WP. Dicklyon (talk) 03:43, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Strong and weak proper names; proper nouns; uniqueness; following the sources

Another lurker. The relevant grammatical material is covered at Proper noun#Strong and weak proper names, although sadly not entirely correctly. Misunderstanding the difference between strong and weak proper noun phrases (NPs) in English and their relationship to capitalization underlies much of the confusion in relevant discussions. Here's my take on it, for what it's worth.

Strong proper NPs are normally marked by the opposite rule to that used with common NPs. Common NPs normally require a determiner when singular, but not when plural. Thus The cat sits on the mat, Cat sits on mat, Cats sit on mats. Strong proper NPs normally do not take a determiner when singular, but must when plural in form. Thus Jane lives in London, The Jane lives in the London, The Smiths live in the Hebrides, Smiths live in Hebrides. (As always there are some exceptions and oddities!) Strong proper NPs are (?always) capitalized in contemporary English.
Weak proper NPs typically have a common noun as the head of the phrase which is descriptive of the entity named by the weak proper NP. They follow the same rules as common NPs as regards determiners. Capitalization varies in contemporary English. Some weak proper NPs are consistently capitalized (e.g. the White House, the University of Birmingham), others are not (e.g. I wouldn't capitalize "the Cuban Missile Crisis", whereas the article Cuban Missile Crisis does). We're always going to have debates over the capitalization of weak proper names, simply because contemporary English is inconsistent, and varies somewhat by country. (This leads to inconsistencies, since weak proper NPs with a strong tie to a particular country will show up with more or less capitalization than if they had a tie to a different country.) The consensus here has been to de-capitalize weak proper NPs unless the great majority of reliable sources capitalize. Whether we as individuals like the outcome in particular cases is irrelevant (for the record, partly because of my age, I often don't).

Peter coxhead (talk) 07:40, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Re: exceptions. Yep; Most pre-modern McCandlishes were from Ayrshire, Wigtownshire, and Glasgow is both correct English and a true statement. :-) I agree with this summary, and have been thinking of trying to address this in terms along these lines in MoS's own wording, but it's not clear how to do so with the "follow the sources" thing so strongly in play (especially for cases where, e.g., a US-centric topic has almost all-US coverage, and so forth; the sourcing itself will skew the results). Probably the best that can be done is something like "For cases of weak proper names, lowercase them by default, as the majority of RM discussions have gone this direction, and the increasing trend in most off-WP RS is to lowercase them." Or whatever. Probably a footnote. However, I've done some side reading, and the whole linguo-philosophical approach to proper names has been stirred up quite a bit, with a lot of interdisciplinary discussion (or cross-talk, as you like). There are entire books on this in the last decade that are trying to merge the "abstractly prescriptivist" philosophy definitions and with linguistically descriptive approaches, and it's a bit of a mess. Kind of headache-inducing.

At any rate, and regardless of these concerns, there is a strong prescriptivism current (two, actually: a nationalistic one and a traditionalistic/preservative one) at play, in direct defiance of where the language is going. Ironically, many of the same people who were all ranty-pants about MoS needing to be "sourced" and to bend toward WP:COMMONNAME's approach (i.e., the reason we now have the "permit a stylization if a strong majority of RS do it consistently" rules) are also often those pushing a pet peeve of some kind, usually a WP:SSF-based one. In my own personal writing, I'm also a bit preservative of various style stuff. I just have learned to sharply divide what WP needs from what I prefer (e.g. I loathe sentence case for headings, table headers, etc., and I personally capitalize more stuff than WP does, and I hate "c." for "ca.", and ...).

Clearly if you and I are in complete agreement, we must be right. ;-)

I would try to avoid using the term "proper name", precisely because this raises tricky semantic issues about which there are deep disagreements. For example, in the philosophy of biology, there are many who are happy to treat species as "philosophical entities" which have proper names. Semantically/philosophically there's a big difference between "the White House" meaning the building and "the White House" used metonymically to mean a branch of the US government. (A professor in my department has spent a lot of his career working on computer processing of metonymy; it's not a solved problem by any means.) Let's keep to "proper noun phrases"; linguistics isn't free of disagreements, but is less so than philosophy! Peter coxhead (talk) 10:25, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Works for me. Might actually be able to reduce disputation by searching for the phrase "proper name" in all the MoS pages and replacing it where practical. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 10:54, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

I don't entirely see the relevance of this here, as the type of PN concerned is one that, by definition, has no plural - Gundestrup Cauldrons is meaningless. That's entirely the reason why they should be treated as PNs - to alert the reader that Gundestrup Cauldron is a unique thing, not a type like Dutch oven. Since such individual objects are generally not very widely known, it is helpful to alert the reader that a specific thing is being talked about, which is exactly why proper names exist at all. Perversely, the better-known an object is, and so the less necessary this marker, the more widely capitalization is accepted. Even McCandlish would presumably not insist on Rosetta stone, Lindisfarne gospel etc. But metalwork seems fair game for some reason. Johnbod (talk) 12:51, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

By that reasoning every single thing of which there isn't an exact duplicate would be a proper noun no matter what we called it. E.g. the hairball – not quite the same as any other hairball – that my cat coughed up on my second step would be Stanton's Cat's 2017-11-27 Second-step Hairball. Again: what you want to do is a form of emphasis – of "signification" – by misusing capital letters to emphasize what you think is something's specialness. Maybe it is special, but a designation that's simply descriptive (i.e. object type and where it was found, which is exactly what "Gundestrup cauldron" is) isn't a proper name for it, just a classifying label. WP doesn't do that sort of ting unless the real world does it with remarkable consistently for that specific label for that specific thing.

If the Rosetta Stone were just an artifact, I would have no problem with "Rosetta stone" (more to the point, the real world wouldn't and thus WP wouldn't). But it's a document, albeit a stone one. The conventions for written works are different, so both of those things get title case (for as long as title case is around for documentary works, and it's definitely eroding!). That convention isn't entirely consistent – incipits get sentence case, and after-the-fact labels for documents and similar works (musical compositions, etc.) often do as well, but generally within particular confines that do a lot of their own typographic standards-setting, e.g. classical music, where names like "Foo's xth symphony" are common in sentence case, being modern classifiers not actual titles. And with that stuff, too, WP just follows the dominant source usage. We have "Lindisfarne Gospels" because the real world says so.

A key thing about proper names is they are not merely descriptive, when descriptive at all. When they're not just abstract or arbitrary (like "Stanton") they're metaphoric, evocative, a step removed from the literal. The Rocky Mountains is a proper name because it's suggestive of unusual rockiness (all mountains are, of course rocky, being made of rock). The Grand Tetons is a proper name because they are not really some big teats. The Pacific Ocean, likewise, isn't really a sea of peace. The Duenos inscription really is an inscription that says "Duenos"; the Gundustrup cauldron really is just the cauldron found there; these labels evoke nothing non-descriptive.

Anyway, it's a shame you're not German; you'd be really happy with the capitalization of all nouns (and compounded noun phrases) in that language. English ditched it for a reason: it's not helpful. German's retained it for a conflicting reason of traditionalism, of resistance to simplification shifts. It's the same kind of argument you're making, though yours is just narrower and more nuanced. You're basically arguing for a return to the capitalization standards of ca. 1850–1950.
— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 13:37, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Complete OR nonsense, except in the last para, where you repeat my arguments without apparently realizing it. The Rocky Mountains are, as you say, a NAME, not just a descriptive phrase. One couldn't just invent and use some new adjective in place of Rocky, and expect people to understand its meaning. I'll just note the strangeness of distinguishing between the Rosetta Stone as a "document", and the Duenos Inscription as not. Johnbod (talk) 14:09, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

I never suggested the Duenos inscription is not a document; of course it is, for the same reason the Rosetta Stone is. However, "Duenos" is an incipit (in the broad sense), so it gets sentence case (the Rosetta stone doesn't have wording in it that reads or translates to "Rosetta"). That's just how it's done. I didn't make up these rules, WP didn't make them up, and they're used in the real world – from ancient manuscripts to untitled sonnets to modern political material. And sometimes it's not consistent (e.g. the "I Have a Dream" speech is almost always given in title case by RS, so WP does so as well. For everyone who howls about inconsistency, at least as many (probably you among them) would howl about normalizing it to "I have a dream" in proper incipit style. Welcome to English. It is a mess, and everyone is unhappy about something in it. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 07:31, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

It's actually not helpful to compare "Duenos [I/i]nscription" with "Rocky Mountains". The latter passes the test for a strong proper noun phrase (it's plural in form and requires a determiner: I saw the Rocky Mountains, *I saw Rocky Mountains). By contrast "Duenos [I/i]nscription" is a weak proper noun phrase (it's singular and requires a determiner like a common noun phrase: I saw the Duenos [I/i]nscription, *I saw Duenos [I/i]nscription). Nor is it helpful to use "Pacific Ocean" as an example, because rivers, seas and oceans are known exceptions (compare I saw Lake Ontario with *I saw Pacific Ocean).

Weak proper noun phrases used to be treated the same as strong proper noun phrases, and capitalized. However, there is a trend in English not to capitalize some weak proper noun phrases. See e.g. the discussions at Talk:List of mayors of Birmingham, which illustrates the point that the MoS says to capitalize when used as a direct title (e.g. "Mayor Smith", although we wouldn't say this in British English) but not when used as a job description (e.g. "Smith is the mayor of Birmingham"). The consensus so far in the English Wikipedia has been to de-capitalize weak proper noun phrases unless the preponderance of sources does otherwise. So the default is "Duenos inscription"; then it's for those wanting to capitalize to show that almost all sources do so.

Please note that I have no vested interest in de-capitalization; in writing where I control the style I would always capitalize "Duenos Inscription". I'm just setting out what the discussion should be about, given the previous consensus.

I do have to agree that SMcCandlish's argument that the Rosetta Stone is a document is implausible. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:34, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

The only reason it's notable is because of the words on it, and virtually all attention paid to it in RS has been about the textual content. Similarly, the Epic of Gilgamesh comes to us from clay tablets. As far as we know, most early writing was done on durable media. It's obvious that if the Rosetta Stone were simply a decorative object, that the sources that lower-case things like Gundestrup cauldron would also do so with it. They don't, though, and it's because people in the actual fields that deal with them conceptualize them differently, one primarily as a documentary source and secondarily as an artifact, and the other as just an artifact. Otherwise, the n-grams for them would have roughly the same shape, and they definitely do not [6][7]. A complication is that style can shift on a seemingly national level; e.g. most named artifacts from Ireland are given in title case [8], [9]; however this could also be a "use caps for national treasures" thing; most of the Irish artifacts we know by name of that class.

And yes, Johnbod, this is of course original research. This is a discussion, not an article. Every time we internally deliberate about and try to interpret WTF is going on with style in the real world and what implications this should [or not] have for our own MoS and AT policy, we're engaging in a form of OR, it is not forbidden OR, and it's a necessary part of the process. Our internal rule systems and the consensus discussions that arrive at them and (in this case) question them are not part of the encyclopedia content, any more than a book about how to oil paint is itself an oil painting. We write them based on our own analyses (supplemented by sources of course), so this is always an OR process.

There is unlikely to exist any published, peer-reviewed (much less secondary, literature reviewed) research on why capitalization differs, in the aggregate, for one particular class of terms like artifacts studied mostly as sources of written material versus those that are merely functional or artistic, or events of one sort but not of another, or movements of one sort but not of another. The only practical ways around this real-world problem are a) just impose a no-exceptions rule (people didn't like that) or b) follow the majority of the sources and just let it be rather arbitrary (the system we have now). No one's come up with an alternative, other than sporadic attempts to follow the style, for any topic, found in specialized works about the topic, which proved to be nightmare and is why we have a centralized MoS and AT policy in the first place, and arrived at them very quickly, in the life span of the project. (WP started in January 2001; MoS existed (as a page directly offering style and titles advice) by August 2002 [10] (it existed earlier as an index of pre-existing material in other pages; e.g. what is now MOS:JARGON dates to at least October 2001 [11]), and AT forked off of it the same month.
— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 22:55, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

How about Nebra sky disk. It is unique, but only the first word is capitalized. I really like WP's style where – if I understand it correctly – unless the words are capitalized in the preponderance of reliable secondary sources, only the first word is capitalized. I think excessive (and unnecessary) capitalization is distracting and makes article titles look like book titles. – Corinne (talk) 19:31, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

It also impedes regular-prose readability. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 22:55, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

To repeat myself, the reason why they should be treated as PNs is to alert the reader that Gundestrup Cauldron is a unique thing, not a type like Dutch oven. Look for example at Category:Ancient Egyptian palettes, where you can tell at a glance which are types, and which individual objects. There are of course some exceptions, and perhaps certain national differences. WP:VAMOS (that's the one about "decorative" "artefacts", ie art) notes that, rather oddly, it is usually Berlin Gold Hat but Mold cape. You are entirely delusional if you think that major ancient artefacts are not normally capitalized; I doubt you spend much time reading about those, as I do. Johnbod (talk) 02:37, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Not compelling reasoning. To repeat my own self, there are bazillions of unque things in the world, and we do not write stuff like "The Elm Tree to the East-southeast of Mac's Diner in Chicago" to distinguish them from other things.

Also, our titles are not definitions or explanations as a matter of WP:AT policy; it is not their job to explain to readers what something is or how it differs from other things or classes of things, other than (when ambiguous) just barely enough to ensure readers arrive at the correct article (per WP:AT#DAB, WP:DAB). There is nothing with a name similar to "Gundestrup cauldron" or "Duenos inscription", so capitalizing in the title will serve no purpose. From the very first sentence of each article it's instantly clear that neither is a category of objects, so capitalizing it in running prose in that article serves no purpose. Because such objects (weak proper names, as Peter_coxhead has it) require a leading "the", they cannot be confused with a class of objects (depicted on the Gundestrup cauldron not *depicted on Gundestrup cauldron; usually cooked in a dutch oven not *usually cooked in dutch oven); so the capitalization serves no purpose in other articles either. [And "dutch oven" is increasingly decapitalized, like "french fries", because they're not particularly Dutch; cf. english in American billiards jargon, and scotch doubles in sports generally, and many other examples.]

Even when either sort of label doesn't conform to this "Gundestrup cauldron" vs. "dutch oven" split (there are always exceptions in English), no one is actually confused frequently enough that anyone cares, or style guides throughout English would have additional rules in favor of capitalization, but you won't find "capitalize anything that's unique" in any style guide anywhere. Your "capitalize for disambiguation" is a solution in search of a problem, and if there were consensus to do it on WP, it would be listed at WP:AT#DAB as a disambiguation type, and much of MOS:CAPS, MOS:TM, NC:CAPS, etc., would not exist.
— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 06:23, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

It's not reasoning, it's trying to explain to you what the English language actually does, which you refuse to see, preferring your Platonic image of what it ought to do, according to you. This is clearly pointless. Johnbod (talk) 15:45, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

I said this was pointless already. The one in a fantasy bubble here is you. I'm applying our policies and guidelines as-written and as interpreted at RM and various RfC, following actual source usage. (We have no problem with article titles like Tara Brooch and Gundestrup Cauldron where title case is predominant in the RS; no one is advocating lower-casing these.) It's you that trying to impose "what [English] ought to do, according to you" (specifically, following the house style of art history publishers with whom you're familiar, a.k.a. cherrypicking to push a typical specialized-style fallacy). As I predicted at 03:33, 27 November 2017 (UTC), this has in fact turned circular, because you refuse to see. To come full circle to the original discussion point, it's already been proven that Duenos inscription is almost invariable spelled without a capitalized Inscription in RS [12], and that Gundestrup Cauldron with a capital C is less than 50% usage in modern sources, ergo MOS:CAPS's rule to lower-case applies. You can spend another two weeks of "It's not reasoning, it's trying to explain" with more hand-waving of the same sort, and I'm going to continue repeating the actual facts of what the WP:P&G say and what the RS usage until it sinks in. This is exactly what played out in your tendentious opposition to actually implementing the MOS:JR RfC's result, and various other cases were you WP:BATTLEGROUND and WP:SOAPBOX against WP's style and titles rules applying to your pet topics. Please just drop the stick and find something more productive to do. Surely you're familiar with the aphorism about doing the same thing and expecting a different result. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 03:06, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

SMcCandlish Are you saying that even if an object is referred to in the preponderance of scholarly works (say, for example, works of art history) with all the terms capitalized, you would de-capitalize all but the first term in WP titles and articles? How about the Winged Victory of Samothrace, often called just the Winged Victory? (In a glance at the article, I saw that the word "Victory" is in italics throughout the article for some reason; I don't think it has to be italicized, but it is capitalized.) I think it would look very strange as "the Winged victory". Perhaps Nebra sky disk should be written "Nebra Sky Disk". I think there is a difference between the many ordinary unique things in the world (like the elm tree in Chicago you gave as an example) and famous, extraordinary unique things like the Winged Victory of Samothrace, the Rosetta Stone, and, perhaps also the Gundestrup Cauldron. Before you answer, I think you should pause and think about this a little. With Johnbod's background in art history, it behooves us to carefully consider his opinions. – Corinne (talk) 16:09, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Covering the policy points in subsectoin below. Winged Victory of Samothrace is the conventional title of an artwork; it is capitalized (in the English-language version of the name and goes in italics). That's a separate guideline, MOS:TITLES. Nebra sky disc is just one of at least six descriptive designations of that artifact (in English), and sources mostly do not capitalize it outside of title-case headings [13]. Of those that do, most of them are unreliable blogs. The capitalization is a bit more frequent in archaeology journals, because its fairly common in that context (WP:NOT#JOURNAL, remember) to use capitalization to signify major artifacts. Approx. 35 out of the first 100 search results at Google Scholar capitalize it in mid-sentence, so no WP would not capitalize it. This is consistent with our and RS treatment of another ancient astronomical object, the Antikithera device. Sources primarily treat the Nebra object as an artifact of uncertain purpose rather than as a work of fine art, so MOS:TITLES doesn't apply (RS virtual never present it in italics as an artwork). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 03:06, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

Summary of years of repetitive policy debate about this stuff, which has not shifted at all

Let's just cover the larger issue (again) in fine policy detail: The entire point of this whole discussion (and every prior discussion similar to it over the last decade) is that (while some people don't like it) Wikipedia capitalizes when a substantial majority of reliable sources do so consistently for the specific topic in question. This does not mean "when specialized sources all following essentially same insular house style do so", or virtually everything on WP would be capitalized, because specialized works capitalize for emphasis (including insider-ese signification) in virtually every field (pop-culture works capitalize genre names, theatre and film works capitalize methods and techniques and other jargon, ornithology works capitalize common names of species, government works capitalize government job titles even when not used in front of individual names, military writing capitalizes equipment names any time they match official designations, pop music journalism tends to mimic marketing stylization of logos and album covers – insert 1000 more examples here). The failure of various people to absorb the fact that WP prefers general-audience secondary sourcing over specialist primary sourcing – and that names are not magically exempt – is the cause of virtually all capitalization debate on Wikipedia.

I does not behoove us to consider specialists' opinions when it comes to capitalization and other general writing-style matters (only for strictly-encoded designations like biological binomials and ISO unit symbols) because almost all fields overcapitalize within their topical materials. WP would have no manual of style at all, but a one-line rule to follow the style most used in specialist works on a topic-by-topic basis. This is how WP was first written, by default, and it was abandoned in less than a year, because is presented serious comprehensibility problems for anyone other than specialists who write but don't need to read "their" topic's articles (plus, of course, for any topic where two+ specializations intersect, which is most topics, a style conflict resulted). Capitalization as jargonistic signification is a style that works very well in expert-to-same-kind-of-expert communication, but it is disastrously awful on Wikipedia, causing many problems, including first and foremost reader confusion, plus a profusion of overcapitalization of other things (in the mistaken belief that it's actually Wikipedia style to capitalize "important stuff" in any given context), a constant source of pointless conflict, and inspiration of further attempts to impose specialized jargon and usage, as if each WP article category were a technical journal with its own independent style guide.

WP permits plenty of specialist-preferred style – when it is consistently used in the real world, is the subject of a field-wide standard, and does not confuse readers. Much of MOS:NUM (maths usage, ISO stuff, etc.) qualifies. Another example is that genus and species are presented in the format Felis chaus and that format only, even though some newspapers and such get either the italics or the capitalization wrong. But "capitalize everything that's unique in my field because the journals I like tend to do so" doesn't qualify. This is not a new debate; it was settled – against this idea – in one of the biggest RfCs in WP's history.

There's a clear WP:CIR problem when someone fails to understand or refuses to accept, after an initial short adjustment period, that WP has its own stylesheet, just like all professional-grade publishers, and that those who write here are expected to write in that style or (on WP in particular) write as they like, within reason, and just not impede the work of others to clean up the material to be compliant, and also to not forum-shop until the end of time one's unhappiness with a particular style quirk here. The idea that various academic specialists are having trouble with this is silly posturing by a handful of tendentious, topically prescriptive individuals. They are in reality entirely professionally familiar with the fact that the journals they write for have differing style guides; e.g. every ornithologist knows that the species capitalization habit they love in orn. journals is not permitted (even in orn. articles) in broader biology journals, and so on. This extends beyond academics; e.g., everyone who's actually in or formerly in the US Marine Corp knows full well that the US military habit of writing "John M. Doe is a Marine" and "When the Marine's tour of duty was over ..." is not reflected in everyday writing, where it's "marine".

Can we please just drop this now? Everything in this entire thread is rehash of the same stuff we've all already been over innumerable times before (other than Peter's idea of having us address a distinction between strong and weak proper-noun phrases more clearly). We have a simple rule to follow: Use simple, plain style unless for a particular case a strong majority of sources consistently do something different. This is entirely in agreement with the core content policies, and it isn't going to change to push the particular pseudo-linguistic PoV of any camp of topical specialists. Trying to get that result just has to stop. It's abuse of WP as a topical language-reform advocacy playground, and it wastes an insane amount of editorial productivity on re-re-re-arguing about the style trivia ad nauseam.
— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 03:06, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

By you and others wanting to take something as iconic and definable as the Civil Rights Movement and lower case it, literally demote its name on Wikipedia, shows that something is wrong with the guideline. The Civil Rights Movement means something to America and the world, its status as a proper noun has been accepted on Wikipedia for many years, and actually stood up against a determined and serious attempt to change it three years ago. And now you guys are attempting to lower-case it again. Why? Because the term is lower-cased in many books and articles, enough of them to make a good case for this guideline applying, even though it is very easily argued that the Civil Rights Movement is a proper noun in every sense of the word. And you also want to change the name of The Open Championship, the most honored name in golf and arguably the most honored name in sport.

So yes, there is something wrong with holding to a guideline so strictly that you act to use it without exception. Because that attitude does not honor the fact that exceptions are encouraged. Actually encouraged by Wikipedia as a common sense tool. This is outlined on the front-and-center template at the top of every guideline page. If the Civil Rights Movement and The Open Championship don't get a pass from the lower-case crowd, if they don't make the bar, if the bar is set so high that nothing can be an exception, may I suggest that there's the hole in your reasoning about this guideline. That you can't compromise even a little even as drooling-idiots like myself argue that the template at the head of every guideline page actually exists and that it should count for something, that the wording on it is in some ways as important to Wikipedia as the Bill of Rights is to American constitutional freedoms. And if exceptions are never supported by the group of policy-creating regulars and the by-the-book guideline experts who show up at major move discussions, and if your combined influence sways the closers who, as far as I know, have never applied a common sense exception (although the pardon for the Civil Rights Movement three years ago may be close), yes, in my opinion, that does hurt the encyclopedia. Because changing the Civil Rights Movement to civil rights movement, and The Open Championship to Open Championship (golf) would lessen, in perception, two events held dear by a large section of humanity. Two things which Wikipedia has accepted as proper nouns for well over a decade.

Maybe you don't think anything is exception worthy, even though, and here's the crux of this post, Wikipedia asks us to make exceptions! Asks us to do so right off the bat, even before we come to the guideline. That is the hole I see, as a more-often-than-not outside observer, in your perception of the guidelines. That because the formula usually decides the names, case, and style of things correctly that it should be followed each and every time. To follow the letter of the law, well, not law, guideline, even if others reasonably argue that it may not always get it right. That's why common sense exceptions are pretty much demanded by the wording at the top of each guideline page. I ask you, as a recognized and well-earned Wikipedia policy-guru, to please consider supporting a few. Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 05:23, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

Randy, how do you reconcile your position with usage in sources? I can't see how to justify an exception here. Dicklyon (talk) 05:29, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

An equally important point, and central to the entire matter is the sentimental and melodramatic idea that using lowercase "literally demotes its name on Wikipedia ... [and] would lessen, in perception, two events held dear by a large section of humanity". The only person who'd made such an argument is the one with an inaccurate perception of what capitalization and other style are used for in formal writing (namely clarity); professional writers clearly have very few such people among them [14], and WP style is based on the output of professionals who write formal English, not how random people write on Facebook, full of emphasis caps. I've raised this issue before with you (both Randy and John) before, and various others (e.g. the one who shall not be named who got topic banned then indeffed): this "demotion" thing is by its very nature a subjective advocacy viewpoint about language (i.e. it's non-neutral prescriptivism, a WP:TRUTH and WP:GREATWRONGS campaigning notion). It is a "capitalize out of respect" position, which is by definition non-neutral.
Capital letters in encyclopedic writing never serve a "promoting" purpose; the is the central, unmistakeable message of MOS:CAPS. So lower-casing the inappropriate use of capitals isn't "demoting", it's just normalizing promotional over-stylization back to neutrality (capitalizing "the Rocky Mountains" isn't non-neutral because it's 100% conventional, while "Gundestrup Cauldron" is only found in about 40% of sources, "Nebra Sky Disc" about 35%, and "Duenos Inscription" 10% or less. Capitalizing them is taking a stand, using capitals to assert an implication of unusual importance against real-world consensus (so it's also a form of WP:OR; we've been over that before, too). Everyone with even rudimentary English skills already knows that capitalization is not used consistently, is frequently encountered simply for visual effect in signage and marketing, and in regular prose it varies by writer and context even for the same subject. We figure that out around third grade, and no one is confused by "the Players Championship" (vs. "The Players Championship" or "The PLAYERS Championship"), just like no one is confused by "the Duenos inscription" not having a capital I. Anyone who cannot understand (or refuses to accept) that capital letters are used here for pre-defined conventional things and in accordance the dominant usage in RS needs to stay out of style matters at Wikipedia. The very nature of the argument they're presenting is based on an emotive belief (not supported by real linguistics); this belief system (a form of ipse dixit) does not respond to logic or evidence; such persons consequently turn tendentious and circular-reasoned; and they waste many editors' time forum-shopping the same rejected thing over and over and over.
In its belief-and-tradition roots, depth of feeling, resistance to reason, and central motivation, this urge to capitalize out of respect is precisely the same as the also-rejected demand (coincidentally re-re-re-raised at WT:MOS just now) to use a special post-nominal phrase or abbreviation after Muhammad's name at every occurrence ("Muhammad S.A.W."); that fact that one is about a religious figure and the other is about a broader class of topics is just a difference of degree.
— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 07:08, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
PPS: Randy, all your "holding to a guideline so strictly that you act to use it without exception", "the bar is set so high that nothing can be an exception", "you can't compromise even a little", "exceptions are never supported", "have never applied a common sense exception", "Maybe you don't think anything is exception worthy", "followed each and every time", etc. hyperbole is a mile-high straw man. No MoS regulars ever suggest such a thing, and the very post you wrote that in response to has a paragraph beginning "WP permits plenty of specialist-preferred style", which outlines the general rationales that have been well-received for exceptions (and of course "do it because almost all the RS do so in this case" is the general one – the very notion you and John are fighting against with your right hands is the one you're trying to depend upon with your left). A strong sense of traditionalism or a personal feeling that topics you consider important must be signified as important with capital letters, despite the fact that our central rule about capitalization is to not do that, are not rationales for making an exception, especially one not supported by the sources.
How many more ways can this possibly be said before the light bulb goes on, guys? If you already understand this and just refuse to accept it, please stop pestering my talk page about it, or recycling the same stuff tendentiously in RM discussions. Open an RfC to require WP to follow the majority style in specialist writing rather than the majority style across all reliable sources.
The closest thing to a "no exceptions" rule being advocated by anyone in this discussion is that presented by Johnbod: that everything that is "unique" has a proper name and that this must be capitalized, no matter what the reliable-sources analysis shows to be real-world usage. Unless I'm missing something, you're presenting the same argument, except yours is dressed up in a "and do it to be respectful" tuxedo, while John's is wearing a "do it because my colleagues and I do it when we write stuff for each other" academic labcoat.
— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 07:11, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

One wall of text from me on this is enough to explain my position, which you've dismissed out of hand. Exceptions are both allowed and called-for by the template on the top of every guideline page. I'm asking for one here. Upper casing Civil Rights Movement is not promotion, it is pointing out a factual event which is a proper noun. And of course lower-casing something on Wikipedia is demeaning it in the public sphere. You know that, or if you don't you are further entrenched in the never-an-exception mindset than I thought. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:55, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

[I chose not to respond further because Randy is correct that circular text-walling isn't constructive. Any rely I did make would recycle points already made. I certainly have to object to mischaracterizing my previous very detailed rebuttals as "dismiss[ing] out of hand" Randy Kryn's position. It's the opposite of out-of-hand dissmissal. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 10:48, 10 December 2017 (UTC)]

Please comment on Talk:Marlon Brando

Done

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Marlon Brando. Legobot (talk) 04:23, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Colon before multi-sentence quote

Regarding your edit of 21:01, 29 May 2016 of Wikipedia:Manual of Style, in which you inserted

It is clearer to use a colon to introduce a quotation if it forms a complete sentence, and this should always be done for multi-sentence quotations

I couldn't find anything on the talk page archive around that time on this topic. Apparently you made this bold change, and nobody complained. Is that right?
Is this in line with published sources, or where did you get it from? (I am kind of raising an eyebrow.)
I think that in most Wikipedia articles I've seen, editors are using commas, not colons, most of the time before multi-sentence quotes. If I'm right about that, we have a guideline that is mostly ignored. We should either change the guideline or promote it better.
As you may have noticed, I write detailed edit summaries. As soon as I get fully behind this proviso, I'll make a habit of looking for it and I'll put "colon before multi-sentence quotes" or something like that in my edit summaries. But I'm not 100% convinced yet.

—Anomalocaris (talk) 11:44, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

I can dig into it later, but don't have time right now. I think off top of head that it was from New Hart's Rules and some others, but can look into it later. PS: WHen it comes to quotations, editors are doing completely random things, from putting three-word quotations in block quotes, to putting legit block quotation in pull quote templates, to putting citations inside the quotation to using round brackets for editorial insertions, to italicizing quotations just for being quotations (I fix that one almost on a daily basis), and a zillion other errors. We should not stop offering good advice just because the average editor doesn't read MoS, which is primarily for gnomes. No one has to read MoS at all to edit at en.WP; only cite reliable sources, have marginally functional English-language skills, and not add their own opinion to the material. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 18:50, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

Link to ARBCOM

I'm very interested in the desysop case to which you referred here... can you provide any pointers to help me find it? Andrewa (talk) 20:56, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

[Answered in e-mail. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ< 10:48, 10 December 2017 (UTC)]