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May 2007

So who's going to clean up 10,000 articles...?

Resolved

– Larger discussion is at MfD and Wikipedia talk:Fromowner.

I think this dreadful idea has some level developer buy-in. (Gmaxwell trying to nudge me is a big clue :-P). So like... a lot of your objections are based on mediwiki issues and database issues, right? O:-) --Kim Bruning 01:50, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Huh? Not at all. It's about spewing non-encyclopedic visual vomitus over thousands, probably tens of thousands of pages, annoying everyone, editors and non-editors alike, to the breaking point by showing them the same in-yo'-face exhortation again and again and again (when the absence of an image at all already conveys, quietly, the same message), all just to arm-twist people into uploading stuff 90+% of which aren't going be valid uploads. And without a shred of evidence that this plan has WP community consensus. I think what happened to WP:ATT is very instructive. Silence does not equal assent. Silence in WP usually means "This idea is so half-baked it isn't worth commenting on" or "Huh? This is so unclear there's nothing meaningful to say about it." I have no concern whatsoever for the server load issues and other engineering stuff (there's a WP:SOMETHING link to a page about that; I forget what the shortcut is). And I don't think that 1 or two developers' buy-in means much of anything here. The developers want to know that whatever someone is planning to try isn't going to break the system, which has never been an issue in this discussion. :-) I see what the proponets of this idea are trying to accomplish, and understand the goal, I just don't think that the goal (which wouldn't actually be reached anyway) should be striven for with a hideous, obnoxious kluge that is going to cause more problems than it solves and make the encyclopedia borderline user-hateful for readers. A lot of people have raised serious, logical concerns at the MfD, while the supporters' arguments largely consist of "I like it" and "me too", "it doesn't actually violate policy" and "I think it's a good idea so normal process doesn't apply". I think that says something. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 03:16, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Spewing non-encyclopedic vomitus?

Hmm, rather than merely making sure it doesn't kill the servers, one wonders if perhaps something could pro-actively be done by the developers to make things rather less intrusive? O:-)

There are also related projects currently occurring at foundation level to help reduce the amount of invalid input. Also, commons seems to be clamoring for some sort of functionality like this, so it might be that local consensus on en.wikipedia will need to bow to a wide consensus indeed. ^^;;;;

--Kim Bruning 03:56, 1 May 2007 (UTC) Note that the ATT result was exactly what I had predicted at the start of the poll, and also for the reasons I predicted, so I am rather unsurprised, as you might guess. ;-) ATT was a rather expensive form of instruction, so I hope folks continue to study it and extract as many lessons from it as possible. :-)

I don't know what could be less intrusive than:

|image=

No image present? Yep, one is needed, and yes it needs to follow WP image rules just like all of them do.

Anyway, I have no objection at all to whatever nifty codework may be happening in the background, only to plastering placeholder images all over the place.

ATT: Yeah, I think it will be a solid example of a whole lot of things for some time to come...

— SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 04:17, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

And ATT is the canonical example of what not to do, of course. :-) --Kim Bruning 05:42, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

And then some. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:58, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Specifically polling was a bad idea. :-P --Kim Bruning 06:01, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, a number of us said that, and I thought your point early on in its lifespan that it might as well just be closed now as "no consensus" was spot on, but oh well.

PS: I'm not entirely in agreement with you that making something a proposal is its death knell. If it were, no one would ever make proposals, and nothing ever proposed would now be a guideline. I have several things in draft/evolving state (WP:FLAGCRUFT, WP:CUESPELL, WP:CUENOT) that I plan to run through the process, so I guess we'll see...

PPS: On a radically different topic, I'd appreciate your take on how well my first attempt at informal mediation in WP went. Short version: World Snooker Championship 2007 was subject to a two-editor increasingly tooth-gnashy editwar, so I went to RFPP and had it locked down, then it went like this: Talk:World Snooker Championship 2007#Dispute. Not 100% resolved yet, but it seems pretty close.

PPPS: Shorter sig. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 06:29, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

AIV report of User:WilliamMelvin

Resolved

– Was dealt with at WP:AN/I.

I've removed this report from Administrator Intervention against Vandalism as it looks like a more complex case of editing problems from a user than the normal simple vandalism which AIV deals with. This case is more suitable to be raised at the administrators' noticeboard where it can be looked at in more detail. Sam Blacketer 22:24, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Please see this thread. Sam Blacketer 22:28, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Will do! — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 22:29, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Shared IP

Resolved

– Not my problem.

I just received a message telling me to stop editing on ridiculous pages I haven't viewed (e.g. on snooker players). It also says I'll be banned from editing ever again if I continue. This is a shared internet connection with many many users, so the threat should not apply to all of us. I've also found that when I HAVE edited a site correctly due to reliable information I have on certain topics, it gets deleted some days later anyway - BY WHO?! Who thinks they have all the knowledge available to edit these pages? Thanks for listening to my semi-rant anyway!!

That's just how it goes if you don't create an actual user account; you'll simply be tarred and feathered along with the abusive users of the same IP address (which will probably get blocked eventually, if the abuse doesn't stop.) Accounts are free and can be a pseudonymous as you like. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:38, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Re: Warning template?

Resolved

– Self-resolving chat.

What warning template did you use at User talk:71.103.69.176? Looks pretty handy. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:51, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

None, I write my own warnings; you are free to copy it, however – Gurch 05:52, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Ah so. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:56, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Steve Davis

Resolved

– Explained WP:V better.

Fair enough, Wikipedia is based on verifiability not truth, but it is true that Davis is considered one of the greatest players of all time, just in a very unverifiable way. Imo an article about him should mention it, as the likes of Björn Borg, Roger Federer, Don Bradman and Jack Nicklaus do. Any thoughts on how this can be done? SteveO 16:39, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

This is actually a very common problem for editors here. See WT:ATT and other ATT-related talk pages (Wikipedia talk:Attribution/Poll, Wikipedia talk:Attribution/Community discussion, etc.), and you'll see that the WP requirement of attributability/verifiability over alleged truth comes up again and again. The only solution I'm presently aware of is to either a) cite (as I changed Steve Davis to do) an "authority" of some sort as saying so-and-so is X (the greatest or whatever), and specifically note who is saying that; b) cite an award of some kind (Hall of Fame induction, Player of the Decade according to thus-and-such magazine), simply state that fact, and let the readers draw their own conclusions (see Mike Sigel for examples, though the "Player of the Year" one needs to be sourced to the awarding entity - maybe BCA, maybe one of the magazines); or c) cite a poll of some kind, e.g. "According to a Billiards Digest 2008 poll[ref citation here], Stanton McCandlish is considered the best player alive". Heh. That latter sort of case is the only one I'm aware of where a "broadly considered to be X" kind of claim can actually be sourced. Per WP:OR, someone else, like a magazine or institute or whatever, has to do the research, such as a poll, to demonstrate the "widely believed" type of claim that the WP article wants to put forth. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 21:55, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Billiard Balls

Resolved

– Edits made to article as outlined here.

I agree that using Saluc's own site as a source is bad (even though that is the only source), however, you are wrong about Elephant Balls. They use a DAP-Resin, from the Phenoplastic family, NOT phenolic resin. I can't find a source, however I did call and inquiry through Elephant directly, Steve Maresea 1-800-840-8833. He will confirm that they DO NOT use phenolic resin.

A simple fact is, Phenolic Resin Billiard Balls are a like a trademark or patent. Saluc is the only legal entity that can manufacture or distribute "Phenolic Resin Billiard Ball". Think about it, they can't false advertise right?

So, you are either just making it up that Elephant balls are phenolic, or, you read something that claimed such in error, since the company itself denied being phenolic. If you can find even one other ballset online or anywhere else that claims to be phenolic, then I will drop it. However, if not, I plan to build a consensus and re-write the article to include Saluc/Aramith.

P.S. Brunswick Centennial balls are manufactured private label for Brunswick, by Saluc. Donny417 18:33, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I believe I got the Elephant-phenolic connection from a Billiards digest article, ca. 2003, when their "Beautiful" line were used in some televised tournaments; BD could indeed have been incorrect. According to the article on phenolic resin and related articles on such compounds there is no trademark or patent issue at all; this stuff has been around for quite a long time. If Saluc competitors are not using (exactly) phenolic resin, it is probably because they believe they have developed something related but better. Saluc's own claim is actually false - if they used 100% pure phenolic resin, none of their balls could have numbers or stripes, and all would be a translucent off-whitish color with no markings. The markings and colors and opacity are created with dyes that are mixed with the resin. This isn't an utterly trivial note, either. I have noticed through long play that despite being hit more than any other ball, cue balls (the purest) do not wear out faster than other balls, meanwhile the heavily colored 1 ball, which is hit more often than any other object ball in pool, on the break, and at the start of a game of nine-ball if it was not pocketed on the break, wears out more quickly than the others. The only conclusion I can draw is that the more dye the ball has, the less resistance to wear it has, otherwise the cueball would absolutely wear out faster than the rest, probably several times faster. This makes perfect sense to me from experience with dye-mixed hard plastics in other areas. For example, serious skateboarders and roller-bladers opt for natural-colored wheels, while the kiddies are the ones who want the neon green or black or whatever colored ones. Experienced skaters know that colored wheels wear much faster than uncolored ones (very noticeably).

Anyway, to get back to Wikipedia: If you've been following the evolution of WP:ATT at all, and WP:V before it, you'll note that just because something is (allegedly) true doesn't mean it can be included in Wikipedia articles. It still has to be reliably, independently sourced. This is ultimately probably possible with Saluc, but hasn't happened here to date.

— SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 22:12, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I just thought I'd show you something. This isn't for me to "prove a point" or anything. You obviously have interest in the billiard industry, so I simply think you'd find this information interesting. Here is the reply that was sent back to my e-mail asking if Brunswick Centennial balls were made in Belgium...hmmmm...if they were made in Belgium...I wonder by who? *wink wink*

Subject: Brunswick Billiards
From: Username:joan.ledanski
      Site:brunswickbilliards.com
      [These lines modified to prevent spammer address harvesting]
Date:
Thu, 3 May 2007 13:37:19 -0500
To:Donny 

Yes, they are manufactured in Belgium.

Joan Ledanski
Administrative Projects Manager
Brunswick Billiards

______________________________________________________________________
This e-mail message may contain confidential or privileged information.
If you are not the intended recipient, please delete the message and
any attachments and notify the sender by return e-mail.  You should not
retain, distribute, disclose, or use any of the information on this message.
______________________________________________________________________

Donny417

Yeah, I figured as much. Setting up an all-new plastics factory would probably be a bit much for a narrowly-focused company like Brunswick. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 22:12, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

And one more thing

Resolved

– Self-resolving chat.

Don't bite the newbies[[1]]! I do like your user page though. It's probably one of the best I've seen. Whould you mind if I used some of your boxes? If not thats cool, I just don't know how to make them yet. And actually, even if you said yes, I don't know how to post them to my user page :) I'm still new and I did read some of the guidelines and policies you left, sorry about the disruptive edit posts. I am very familiar with the billiard industry, I've worked in it forever. Donny417 19:03, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

No bite intended. Sometimes after a long day I am probably a bit too "short" with people; I try not to do that. If I came across as attacking, I apologize. Oh, and feel free to plunder my (or anyone else's) user pages for features. Installing them is mostly a matter of copy-paste, though it can take a little while to figure out which {{User foo}} template is doing what userbox. My page makes a fair amount of use of wikitables. HTML tables also work here, if you know those better. As for your background, you'd probably make a valuable member of the Cue sports WikiProject. It is mostly User:Fuhghettaboutit and me, with a 3-5 other fairly active editors. If you dig around in there you'll find lists of needed articles such as at WP:CUEBIOS, a big to-do list, templates, etc., etc. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 22:42, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

RE: Changing other people's posts

Resolved

– Self-resolving chat.

Hi,

Sorry, I did not know I was not allowed to correct peoples' grammar in talkpage posts? i am just curious, why is that?

Also, Yes, I signed myself up to Cue Sports Wikiproject. I forgot to log in first though.

Have a good day.

Psdubow 00:52, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

It's considered disruptive editing. Basically, it is a thinly veiled insult ("your spelling and grammar suck, and I'm smarter than you"), and often also leads to US vs. UK English fights. Just not worth it. A commonly recognized exemption is fixing something that is functionally broken, such as a typo in a link that makes it not work at all. Fixing indent levels so that who is replying to whom is clear, and fixing typos or unclarities in topic headings is cool too.

Anyway, welcome to WP:CUE by the way. :-)

— SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:58, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! :)

Psdubow 01:41, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Wikipedia:Fromowner

Resolved

– MfD closed.

Your repetitive point by point bickering with every respondent on the page is really going beyond the bounds of reason and fairness. There are roughly 10,694 words on the talk page (some error induced by not stripping out markup) and of those 5,026 are in your comments. So you are personally responsible for about half the discussion yet you are just one person out of thirty-eight participants. We can not have a fair discussion if a single party monopolizes the floor to such a great extent, and victory-through-exhaustion is not an acceptable debate style here. If this continues I will be opening an RFC on your behavior. --Gmaxwell

If one does not respond to invalid, illogical, emotion-based or incomprehensible arguments with clarity, then how are they to be addressed? If they weren't snowballing into more and more of these vacuous "me too!" responses, I probably wouldn't have bothered. But they are. I'm not sure what tactic you would recommend instead. And please don't exaggerate ("every"); I specifically did not comment on some of the recent "Keep" !votes and skipped them entirely, because (for a change) they actually provided rationales (that were actual rationales, that were actually understandable, and not emotive but substantively empty chatter or "keep per whoever, the end" hollow comments). Follow my activity at CfD, UCfD, SfD, AfD and elsewhere, and you'll see that I'm generally one to state my piece and move on. I just haven't ever seen such a brazenly substance-free set of "keep" !votes in my life as in this case. Not to mention that most of the respondents seem to think this is just a keep/delete debate, when it is clearly and has always been a keep/userspace/formally propose/delete debate. I'm sorry that we don't see eye to eye on that particular discussion, but I hope you can understand how mindboggling and frustrating it is to see an XfD go this far off the rails. If that's made me too debatory, I'm sorry about that. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 03:02, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

PS: I was asked (I think by you) to give others a chance to talk. I walked away for two days and came back and found nothing but WP:AADD. Many XfDs don't even last two days. I acted in good faith, even if the end result has been to irritate you personally. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 03:11, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

First, WP:AADD is not a policy, only an essay. Second, I know you acted in good faith, but good faith sometimes produces bad results. The new image mechanism may be flawed, but here you seem overzealous to delete it. Let the community and the closing admin decide, and if it's not deleted it wouldn't even do any harm to Wikipedia. Wooyi^{Talk, Editor review} 03:15, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough, with the caveats that a) I think it's already doing harm (as do several others who've commented there), b) I've argued for userspacing not deleting (though the nomination also allows for deletion), and c) WP:AADD doesn't have to be policy to be right (cf. WP:RS and many other useful shortcuts.) Anyway, I don't think I have anything to say at that MfD that I haven't already so I'll just stay away. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 03:23, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

DEFAULTSORT at Talk:Mohammed Yousuf and Talk:Alex Pagulayan pages

Resolved

– Not discussed here.

To retain the thread, I responded to your posting on my talk page. Romanspinner(talk) 03:13, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

To Do List

Resolved

– Self-resolving chat.

I'm going to start working on the Cue Sport Bio's. I can see why you've been struggleing with this. There is almost no reliable information online. I do think I have some good stuff at the store that I can find, and take pictures of without too much threat of copyvio. Also, I know of a site that has some good info on some of the older Hall Of Famers [[2]].

I'd like to join your project if that okay. I think I can make some good contributions. Donny417 04:15, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Certainly. You'll be our second new recruit today! I think that's a record. As for bios, I think Shamos's books and a couple of Byrne's are useful in that regard. See my Gallery page (off my user page) for a means of keeping track of your own image upload; might be helpful for you. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 04:21, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Consider yourself duly admonished

Resolved

– Addressed at WP:AN/I.

I think I'll treasure this, actually. If if takes refusal to bow to utter nonsense arguments to get people to show their true colors by way of highly visible personal attacks instead of substantive arguments, then I'm doing Wikipedia a service by drawing you out. I'll happily feature this "un-award" on my user page so others can be sure to avoid you. Thanks! — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 13:19, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Patronizing content of some replies

Resolved

– Self-resolving chat.

Hi, I would just like to make you aware of some of the content in your replies, which I personally find patronizing.

Latest example in question: your beginning of a response with a 'definition' of ad infinitum, in dismissive reference to my usage of the term. I explained the context in which I was using it – implications of simply repeating again and again, with no definite conclusion established. This is a perfectly valid usage of the term; such non-rigorous usages of terms and phrases are commonplace in English as I'm sure you well know, and the Latin translation bears little weight in this case. Another example, and I'm quoting the OED now, might be "Registration is for seven years and may be renewed ad infinitum". Yes, until the Sun goes into its red giant phase and destroys the registration office. Sophism is something I find humour in but it doesn't belong on talk pages! Well, not all of the time anyway.

Using the literal sense of ad infinitum to describe something tending to infinity is probably less common than the looser 'indefinite continuation' sense I employed, and we're not speaking Latin are we (sorry, had to include some counter-patronizing at some point for effect).

I like to think that I use terms which I know the definitions of, and am proud to use a very broad vocabulary which I am always keen to expand – but I certainly don't need anything defining back to me once I've used it. Nor do I need wikilinks for terms as basic as onomatopoeia, I find that sort of thing quite irksome, but that's just me. I'm sure you don't mean to patronize, and I am certainly not 'having a go', I respect your intelligence and I know your intentions are always only for the benefit of this project. I would just like to improve the sentiments of any future discussions on the basis of debating points, not being clouded by any annoyance. I also appreciate that the majority of users would benefit from your clarification of things in these ways, however I am not one of them and I would like you to respect that in the future. I'm sure we will discuss things again, since we often fail to find immediate consensus.

On the flip side, please let me know if the nature of my replies are ever in any away cutting a bit close to the bone, it is a common trait amongst people who are used to being smarter than those they speak to, and I'm certainly not immune to it myself.

Cheers, Kris 15:43, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

PS: Congratulations on your latest award, a proud day for you I'm sure. Kris 15:43, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't being patronizing, and apologize if it came off that way. I simply don't agree with your use of the term. Ad infinitum means "to infinity". It doesn't mean "a bunch of times", "we don't know how many times", "to near-inifinity", "to an indeterminate number of times", or anything else. Using the Latin version of the phase doesn't change its meaning. I do recognize that lots of people use it imprecisely like that, and on, say, a web-board I don't think the usage would be notable in any way. This being an encyclopedia, I think it does actually matter here. But I don't feel strongly about that phrase, and wasn't trying to get into a serious argument with you. What I felt strongly about was including "this could go on to infinity" stuff in the article, because I think it is directly misleading, and even if it weren't it's stilly and trivial, i.e. non-encyclopedic. That's all. If I provide links to words like onomatopoeia please consider that it's not necessarily for your benefit, but rather that of others reading later. I don't know you at all other than our fairly minimal interaction here so far, so I have little basis on which to judge your vocabulary, much less insult it! I do know that not every single Wikipedian will know a word like that, especially given that plenty of en.wikipedia.org editors are not native English speakers. I don't believe that I use excessive Wikilinking of this sort, and it's certainly not intended as any form of slap. I will attempt to remember to not do this with you in particular, but honestly I may deal with 100 WPians in one day and it may not be plausible to always remember how to write to whom. I guess the gist is, I'm not after you or intending to pick any fight with you at all, even if as you note we don't always see eye to eye. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:46, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

It's alright, no need to apologize. I suspect our minor ad infinitum issue may stem from a dichotomous prevailing usage between the US and the UK, since the New Oxford Dictionary of English, based on the British National Corpus and with the core sense being "again and again", can confirm the main usage here in Britain as I used it. Enough digressive logomachy anyway, no hard feelings. Probably "see" you on the cue sports glossary talk page. Kris 12:00, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm surprised that NODE would go with a loose definition, but if they did then I guess they did! — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 20:00, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Y'see, I don't think it actually is a "loose" definition. Some of us (like, apparently, you) subscribe to the prescriptive approach to linguistics, while others a descriptive one. Since the vast majority of uses of "ad infinitum" in English intend the so-called "loose" meaning, then according to those of us who like to think that words mean what we mean them to mean, that's actually the most correct definition. If you really think about it, when, in English, would you ever actually need ad infinitum to mean what you consider the "correct" meaning of the term? That is, what, anywhere, goes on forever? Heck, come to think of it, I can't imagine that the term was really used "properly" in Rome, either. Do you have a reference in a classical text which uses it in its "correct" way? Lexicon (talk) 21:00, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually using terms by their accepted definitions isn't being prescriptivist.

infinitum Wiktionary
Dictionary.com & Am. Heritage Dict.
Webster
"ad in•fi•nī’•tum [L., to infinity.] without end or limit." Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary of the ENglish Language, Unabridged. New York: Simon and Schuster. 1979.
"ad in•fi•ni•tum (ăd ĭnˡfɘ-nī’tɘm) adj. & adv. [Lat., o infinity.] Without limit or end: FOREVER." Webster's II: New Riverside University Dictionary. Boston: The Riverside Publishing Company/Houghton Mifflin Company. 1994.
"ad infinitum/æd ˌınfıˡnaıtɘm/ adv. without limit; for ever^[sic] [L.]" The Oxford Encyclopedic English Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1991.
and so on.

Please note that none of these definitions are (or are similar to) "lots", "a whole bunch", "for a long time", "until the players tire of the game" or any other such looser definition.

It's interesting that The New Oxford Dictionary of English apparently documents the looser definition now, but it seems terribly outnumbered. I thus stick with the position that this apparently newer, broader usage is vernacular and perhaps even colloquial, and is misleading in an excyclopedic context, no less than describing something coincidental or merely unforunate as "ironic", calling someone "more unique", or using the alleged word "irregardless". All of these do happen a-plenty in everyday usage, but they don't belong in Wikipedia aricles. I hope that explains my position at Highest snooker break a little better. Now that the gist of the idea in question has been sourced (somewhat), I've argued to include it, but not with ad infinitum language (or worse yet directly stating "potentially infinite number of times" as the original did). The most that can honestly be said is that it could hapen more than once in a row, though this would be highly unlikely. Anything further is just silly, like stating in an article that the sun could explode tomorrow. Theoretically possible but so unlikely it would not be at all encyclopedic. That's all.

I don't see any support for the assertion 'the vast majority of uses of "ad infinitum" in English intend the so-called "loose" meaning'.

Most Latin phrases in English do not date to great Antiquity at all; Ancient Rome isn't likely relevant here. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 21:51, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I wish I'd never used the phrase now! But this is fun. The difference for me here is that NODE uses the British National Corpus, i.e. it is a reflection of current usage, acknowledging newly emerging shades of diction and even spelling, in the process archiving the organic of process of language evolution. Just read something written 100 years ago, it's nothing like how we speak now. To my knowledge the employment of corpora in this way is relatively new, as the art/science of lexicography has begun to adopt a flexible approach to account for this linguistic evolution. Terms are changing or becoming outmoded, archaic, obsolete, etc. all the time, about a quarter of the OED's entries must have the †dagger in front of them. Ad infinitum must be another term that is more recently coming into this mould. There's no denying that the phrase means forever per se, and there's definitely a place for it as a subsense, there is a responsibility for dictionaries to represent modern usage though. A lot of dictionaries defining it will simply be adhering to previous definitions, instead of really looking at current usage like NODE does, and I personally can see a lot of reference books in the future starting to follow suit in this way. Definitely leave it out of the highest snooker break article though, I would have to agree that it would be a dubious usage in this instance, I only used it in an informal discussion in the full belief that it was used in the correct modern-day context. Kris 10:16, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

No particular argument with any of that. My only concern is that in an encyclopedia context, where language is more formal, the looser interpretation is problematic, because in an encyclopedia it is expected that when we say or imply "infinity" that actual infinity is meant, while in a coversation over a pint, it is generally understood that "infinity" is an exaggeration and really just means "quite a lot". — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:53, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I think a helpful way of looking at it is to compare the term to the use of the (sometimes interchangeably-used) ad nauseam. Literally it means "to the point of nausea". But unless you're talking about, say, oh, riding a roller coaster ad nauseam, the phrase would never be used literally. It's generally only really used to mean "to the point where we're all just tired of the argument." And even that usage can be watered down to "to the point where there are just too many replies" (without really implying that anyone is actually tired of the argument).

Just to add regarding what dictionaries say, my Oxford Canadian Dictionary does use "without limit, forever". Interestingly, however, it does not italicize the term like many (most?) other Latin terms, indicating that it is now considered to be truly English (at least in Canada). So even if its meaning hasn't yet changed, it is open to change in a way that it normally wouldn't be if it was still considered a borrowed word.

Now it's back to studying for my evidence exam tomorrow. <sigh> It's my last law exam, though (well, excluding bar ads), so I'm actually looking forward to it. Lexicon (talk) 13:14, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Hope your exam went well! As for the OCD, I suspect the lack of italicization to simply be a typo. The entire concept of a Canadian English dictionary is a fairly new one. I was just in Canada for a year and half until until Sept. of last year, and noted such dictionaries in bookstores. I don't remember any of them (I think there were three) being beyond second editions yet, and when I mentioned them to Canadian friends, they laughed, surprised that there was any such thing as a dictionary of Canadian English. This suggests to me that that projects for producing such dictionaries are new, understaffed, and have some kinks to work out. Then again, if you see evidence in that dictionary that various other Latin (and other foreign) phrases are not italicized, and they are consistently ones that have been adopted wholly into English (cul de sac, etc.), it could well indicate that the editors of that dictionary intended to assert this about ad infinitum as well. I'm just skeptical this is the case. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:53, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikisoap discussion page

Resolved

– Self-resolving chat.

How can I get a barnstar like yours? LOL Donny417 17:51, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Easy: Don't run away when people make heated but empty arguments. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:35, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Ronnie O'Sullvan

Resolved

– Edit history speaks for itself.

I have no idea what you are talking about re the Ronnie O'Sullivan article - I did make one edit, I did NOT make a mass-revert. Are you sure it's not something you did? Thanks for telling me I don't OWN the article, nor do you or anyone else. [The previous unsigned comment was posted by 81.157.151.149 (talk · contribs), 05:51, 5 May 2007 (UTC)]

Yes, you did actually. That or someone else using your current IP address did, before it was yours. Consider creating a real user account, and such confusion (if that's the case here) won't happen to you in the future. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:59, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Work via Wikiprojects

Resolved

– Self-resolving notice.

Hi, I'm trying to clear my backlog of jobs. Sorry it took a while - managing the release of Version 0.5 has eaten up a lot of time latel. I've set up Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team/WPEverydaylife as requested. I hesitated on this because I was unsure how best to set this up, since most projects now use the bot-assessed assessment scheme. If you want to record assessments the "old-fashioned way" you can now do that on the new page, and we will make sure that we check this page when compiling article collections. Please let me know if we at WP:WVWP can help you further - I should be able to devote a little more time to these things again now. Thanks, Walkerma 04:09, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

The Template Barnstar

Resolved

– Self-resolving comments.

Many thanks for the barnstar. I hope the Userbox is useful to the community Adam McCormick 18:38, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Keen.

Biography template update

Resolved

– Article is stable.

Haven't hard from you in a while. Anything new? Since you added the WPBiography template to Jean Balukas. I was wondering if you'd take a another look, assign a class and priority based on my recent expansion, also showing her massive and historic importance to the sport. I'm not really sure how seriously self-involvement is seen with assigning with these template, but it would probably be a confict of interest for me to fiddle with it.--Fuhghettaboutit 18:47, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Will be do. Just because it's a pool bio it'd probably also be a c.o.i. for me to rate it above a B/Mid. PS: I think I added something the other day to Talk:Irving Crane/Comments I still think it's destined to be an F.A., probably before any of the others we have so far.— SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 19:08, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Maybe (and i'm taking that as a compliment!) but have you looked at what I did to Jean Balukas yet? I think it's better than Irving Crane, because I was able to find more sources, and there's a bit of soap opera to work from, challenge of the sexes, chauvinism, controversy, her quitting the sport, plus the child prodigy aspect inherently interests people. A big problem is appropriate images. Just nothing to work with with bios such as these.--Fuhghettaboutit 21:37, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, it looks very good. I was in the process of writing /Comments for it, but the more I look at them, the more they are just grammar twiddles. I think I'll just edit it, and then for anything I think is more substantive (i.e. might cause it to fail WP:GA), leave comments about those. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 22:08, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

PS: Done with that stuff. Talk:Jean Balukas/Comments is there too.— SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:29, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Agree with many of your changes. Thanks. Stream of consciousness notes on a few things and some quibbles. Not sure if I can find sources for what exactly was done at the Grand Central Station exhibition. Prowess is the wrong word. Second quote from NYT in lead doesn't need detail on that it is from NYT; seems awkward. Lead is exact length of most FAs. Averages of other players not being in same class is straight out of Billiards Digest entry, so not OR. First woman inducted into hall of fame was Dorothy Wise. I think the detail on her appearance/dress at six years of age should be restored, emphasizes that this is a little girl. Why a fact tag after according to her mother: nap and doing her homework? Right out of NYT's article which was cited. How is it POV to state she was an all around good athlete when the next sentence reveals that she came in second in Superstars competing at a host of other sports among other top athletes? You're right, it should be Mieko Harada. Fact tag for Steve Mizerak's four wins is again out of the sources I cited for that paragraph. What made you tag this? Yeah gotta fiddle with those tenses. Stranglehold is a far more common and works much better than lockdown. The name of the Newspaper is "The New York Times". Is it convention to not capitalize the "the"? (I'll look into that and get back to you). Oh yeah, "Grady seasons"! Why is it better to use coding like & #93; (spaced to not propagate) than the symbol itself? (not a rhetorical question),; is there support for this in the MOS?--Fuhghettaboutit 03:39, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Lots to cover!

Grand Central: OK but the word in place, I think it was "spectacle", doesn't sound encyclopedic, more like what a magazine or newspaper would say (they're always looking for fancy words - "gambit", "slaying", "debacle", etc.) I think "exhibition" would suffice.
Prowess - something else then other than "powers" which sounds mystical or comic-bookish.
2nd NYT quote in lead: it's more a problem overall I think - NYT is being directly quoted too much. Several of them could be converted into sourced paraphrasals. As /Comments said, all that NYT-sourced WP:PEACOCK in the lead is a bit too much anyway; so maybe just excise one of them completely.
Lead length: Agreed, but there isn't enough main prose (i.e. we're not average FA length overall yet, I don't think) to support an intro of that length, to me. Not a big deal though. Not a "fault", just a preference.
Wise: Should be mentioned by name then so readers not left wondering.
Average of players not in same class: The numbers are sourced but the claim that one is in some undefined "class" from the rest is an WP:OR/WP:NOV issue. I.e. a journalistic vs. encyclopedic etitorialization.
Little girl: Really nothing has been stressed in the article at all up to that point other than the fact that she was a little girl prodigy, and we even have a pic from the event. It doesn't really tell us anything salient about her, and I think some readers would be annoyed at being "led" that much. Compromise idea: Move it to the caption! Would be an accessibility kindness anyway.
Fact tag after "according to mom...": Preferable to directly attribute quotes or near-quotes in the prose. It's not clear to the reader that the source at end of para. is same as the source for the statement (better an extra ^[7] than reader doubt).
"Good athlete" PoV: Because "good" is a subjective value judgement; the facts can speak for themselves. If for some reason they can't in this case or that, there are other ways to say it that don't imply that WP has an opinion, e.g. "Her performance had attracted the attention of producers at CBS" or whatever (not looking at it right now, so I doubt those specific words would work there, but the idea ought to come through okay).
Harada: I think I was saying the opposite. If she is really from Japan, family name comes first. I don't know oodles about Japanese names, but Harada looks like a family name to me, and Meiko like a given name.
Mizerak: I don't remember. I think it may have been the phrasing, like maybe there was an "only" or "never before" in there. Would have to look again to be sure. Something looked like "novel synthesis" from sourced simpler facts.
Stranglehold: Not wedded to "lockdown", was just the first that came to mind. In the case of "stranglehold", it sounds violent/negative (and isn't it a barred hold -unsportsmanlike conduct - in real wrestling, which is the source of the term?), and newspaperish.
NYT: "Initial "the" in periodical titles. When newspapers and periodicals are mentioned in text, an intial the, even if part of the official title, is lowercased (unless it begins a sentence) and not italicized." - Chicago Manual of Style 15th ed., 2003. Been taught that since I was a kid, though, so it's not a new one. :-) The old practice of leaving the city out of the italics - "the New York Times" - appears to be long dead, probably because newspapers have settled on only a few monikers of that sort (a few "Picayunes" here and there notwithstanding), making it pointless, and magzines often have the city name too fully integrated into the title - "the New Yorker" just doesn't work. Heck, the local "city" rag of that sort here is just called Albuquerque. Under the old rule, nothing would be italicized! %-P
Grady: I thought it was kind of goofy that they had the real Grady Mathews in there, and couldn't come up with different first name for the "nemesis".
Entity codes for square brackets: I just do that reflexively; I doubt at all that the MoS mentions it. I just do it as "insurance" - escaped like that, no matter what anyone changed the content to between [ and ], it could never be misparsed by the wiki code as a URL to link. I do the same with < and >.
Verb tense: I didn't want to correct that in situ myself, because I wasn't sure if it actually implied something.

All that said, definitely a WP:GA candidate right out of the gate, and I agree it may well make WP:FA before Irving Crane.

Working on it, Most I'm leaving in or fixing. A few Things I had to revert like breaking out the first paragraph regarding Frank McGown' Left the paragraph unreferenced. I checked and every source I look at names the paper the "The New York Times". I can't see how to put Wise in lead. Maybe a footnote? All the billiards sources, NYT, billiard digest, etc name her as Mieko (which may, neverthless, be an anglification). Not sure why but Template Frac was breaking. The 2 in the denominator was going to the next line.--Fuhghettaboutit 05:55, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm entirely unwilling to editwar with the only other editor I agree with almost all of the time! If I restored the para. break in the McGown section that was an error; I was just trying to retore the twiddles in there ("billiards" DAB issues and the possessive fix.) That {{frac}} thing sounds funky. Never heard of that happening before, but I don't Watch that template so someone could have intro.'d something boneheaded in it. Wise: Agree about the lead. I think the fix is to simplify the current mention, and then more fully go into it (with source to the BCA HoF pages), probably near top of the "Break from the sport" section. Like, "Despite being inducted [details, including Wise]...[all this stuff happened]..." I think it might even make the break-away story more poignant. It (BCA HoF) seems kind of conspicuously absent from the timeline narrative (anything in the lead should also be discussed in more detail in the main body, I say); that she left the game shortly after being HoF'd is pretty amazing. I think that the timeline needs to flex a tiny bit to move the McCready episode into the "playing-against-the-dudes" section, too, just for continuity of thought. The details of that general part, anyway. Like, all the details after the "she played in the men's division anyway, the dress code issue aside" line. Anglicization: I'd bet on it. BD and P&B do that with remarkable consistency, which I find annoying, but I guess it's "sensible" to the bulk of the readership. NYT: All I can do is cite style guides. The The/the is pretty inconsistently treated. I've been taught since jr. high to leave it out of the italics and not capitalize, and CMoS, which is the most comprehensive at just short of 1000 pages, says it's outside the italics and lower-case. Strunk & White, 4th ed. (2000) is wishy-washy on the matter (some do, some don't). WP:MOS doesn't address this detail at all. I won't sweat any of this stuff. If WP:GA and WP:FA review say what I do, then cool, if no one nitpicks these matters again, then I guess I smokin' crack. >;-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 08:57, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Editwar? What you talking about Willis? Well the fact tags have all been taken care of by placing the references right next to where they appear. Need all those to go away because up for DYK today. Regarding the very valid criticism that the lead shouldn't mention something not given in more detail in the body, how about a new section called achievements or something? By the way, she wrote a book in 1980 which I don't have; fodder for more material. Won't be able to touch the article for many hours though. Almost time to leave for work. Regarding The New York Times, certainly there is evidence of usage either way, but doing both Google web, book and news searches reveals that the "t" is capitalized about 80% of the time (and of course I'm not counting when it appears at the beginning of a sentence!). It looks very wrong to me, and I think the opposite to you.--Fuhghettaboutit 12:23, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Not that there is editwarring; just saying I won't be going here over nitpicks like these! :-) "Achievements" section could work, but as with Crane, I like the very narrative life history feel it already has. It seems to work mostly-chronologically. Tags & DYK: No prollem. NYT: Yeah, just a usage difference I guess. My only other bit to add there would be the flexibility of a "separated 'the'": "As revealed in a The New York Times article..." doesn't work. Shrug. I'll see what I can do with the HoF and McCready bits. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 22:37, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Admin coaching and virtual classroom

Resolved

– Finally done!

Are you interested in joining the Virtual Classroom for admin coaching? --Dweller 08:41, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea! — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 19:09, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Great. I've just created a section for you at User:The_Transhumanist/Virtual_classroom/Coaching. Pop along, say hello and get accustomed to the way the page works (it's a transclusion-fest) and the kind of tasks that get handed out. You can kick off by responding to some of The Transhumanist's general comments. --Dweller 10:04, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Hi. Are you still interested in joining this project? If not, I'll take down your section for you. --Dweller 10:20, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh, yes! I just got swamped with other stuff. Tomorrow, ironically, I'm re-enrolling in the Univ. of New Mexico (finishing my degree is 14 years overdue). I'll guess I'll be getting educated on both sides. >;-) Sorry for the delay; I didn't realize it was interactive or time-limited in anyway. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 10:45, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh, it's certainly interactive, but not at all time-limited. I just wondered if your lack of interaction <grins> was due to changing your mind! --Dweller 10:55, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

No, no; there's all sorts stuff I still need to learn about the inner workings. In my year-and-a-half+ I've picked up a lot, but sometimes still put my foot in my mouth or trip over myself; see my last archive page and look for the "f.u."-image anti-barnstar I got from someone. While the message attached to it isn't entirely accurate (the MfD itself wasn't the problem, my extensive over-argumentation in it was), I did get the point. On the technical side, I've spent literally hundreds of hours DEFAULTSORTing biography articles' talk pages so that the embedded categories in the WikiProject tags on them would sort the names by family name, only to learn two days ago that (due to an apparent MediaWiki bug; this only happens on talk pages) the DEFAULTSORT magicword must come after any such project tags (and will then work as intended, despite the docs at meta suggesting that it would not; go figure). Neither of these are particularly adminnish of course. I don't right off-hand recall any serious misapprehensions of policy or procedures any time since last year. I guess that's a good sign. I just need to learn to let irrational arguments have their 15 minutes instead of trying to stomp on them, and actually research the effectiveness of what I'm doing before blowing incredible amounts of time on it. <sigh>. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 11:30, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Heh, it's a learning experience round here all right. The VC will mostly help by grilling you on your understanding and application of policy relating to the most adminnish stuff, like deciding on notability, POV issues, AfD arguments etc --Dweller 11:34, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I look fwd. to it. I suspect I'll be a "star pupil" on that stuff since I've already aborbed much of those areas (though I never pretend I have nothing to learn.) Perhaps an Advanced Course would be in order at some point, on things like the exactitudes of closing XfDs, and how exactly "consensus" is determined, especially if a plain "vote" count would appear to countermand it overwhelmingly; how to challenge a seemingly incautious or inattentive and clearly wrong closure of "keep" (by head count, 8 of 10 said "keep", but it was all "I like it" and "me too!" b.s.), and the rational consensus was clearly "delete", without getting into an adminfight; whether or not and how to respond to plaintive demands for userspacing of a deleted-with-overhwhelming-prejudice-I-mean-consensus >;-) article when it is at least somewhat likely that the user will just repost it under a diffent name, but could just as plausibly sit on it for a year working on it until it is properly sourced; what to do about a previously deleted article or category or whatever that has been restored in roughly its same form, but consensus may have changed as to the nature of that particular beast or its overarching classification; what to do with a repeat "eat my (expletive)" and "cripples are stuppid (expletive)s" vandal IP which may not be the same person but 2-8 dorks from the same school, and there is plenty of evidence of constructive edits from the same IP address in the same time frame (I confess now that I lean toward Zero Tolerance; this is not the WP of 2003 any longer...); how to archive, and set up for the next day, CfD or some other XfD page; what to do with quasi-vandals who never quite cross the line such that they can definitively be declared at least disruptive - just RIGHT on the edge, perhaps for weeks, backing off seemingly at the last moment and being real nice, but then jackassing again 6 days later; what to do about a fellow admin who keeps calling others "disruptive" or otherwise trasgressive simpl for disagreeing with or challenging him, and then dominating a discussion or revert wa<cough> I mean editing session (in a non-admin space, like Chocolate or WP:MASTODON or WP:BIOGRAPHY or whatever, rather than somewhere like WP:AN/I where other admins would notice (I mean, I'm not a party to the dispute, I just see it happening); how to avoid falling for a very plausibly presented (i.e. studiously engineered) "I've been wronged" story, where someone has "clearly" been blocked for insufficient reasons... until 5 admins ream you for so-and-so diff you didn't see, where "poor little" blocked kid made 15 death threats; how to deal with a blatantly obvious sockpuppet (even a metapuppet of another sockpuppet of another, ultimately of a real user who was community-banned 18 months ago), who is @#$%ing up RfAs, and seems to live for it, but you don't quite have enough proof, perhaps in part because checkuser was declined, as it sometimes is; or...

Those are the kinds of questions that come to me the most. The weird stuff, in a sense, but all of those are based at least in part on Real Stuff; they're not entirely hypothetical, though some are conflated with each other or sillified to get to the point faster.

Anyway, nap-time for me. I hasta' goto skool tumorrogh. Wish me luck. I haven't been to college since 1993! Or was it '92? Gah... Time flies when you move all over the continent, I guess... <ping-pong!>

— SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 14:19, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

A link to your coaching page has been added to the Virtual Classroom box above. There are assignments waiting for you there. The Transhumanist 18:27, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

There's also a quiz for ya. Hope to see ya soon. The Transhumanist 22:44, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for the delays; I am swamped with summer university courses and "real work". I will try to get to this as time permits, and I have in fact been reviewing the material. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:28, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Cool. We've got a classroom collaboration going. It's developing the article meaning of life to featured article status. Keep tabs on us, and jump in and help when you find yourself with some free time. The Transhumanist 20:54, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Still out-standing: I need to, um, do this. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 03:57, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

The Transhumanist 00:24, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Still out-standing: Need to actually do this. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 03:57, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I've restored the Virtual classroom's main discussion area. The previous one got chopped up into student coaching pages.

The current topic of discussion is Trends on Wikipedia and where we are heading. Please come and join us.

The Transhumanist 22:24, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I will when active again; I have decided after a lot of thought on the matter that I probably will go for a second RfA at some point, so the VirtClass is back on my radar, as it seems that any evidence of admin mentoring and other forms of training are helpful at RfA in ensuring that people think you'll make a good admin. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 17:37, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Still out-standing: I need to do this still. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 03:57, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Overuse of flags in election templates

Resolved

– Responded as seemed appropriate at talk page in question.

Could you have a look at this if you get a chance, Template:British elections, Template:Irish elections where User:Number 57 is repeatly reverting any attempt to remove the over use of flagicons from these templates, which he created, there is a discussion on the issue on Template talk:Irish elections.--padraig3uk 09:04, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

That was pretty hideous, yes. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:13, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Name of WCBS

Resolved

– Not our problem.

You maoved the page of WCBS form "World Confederation of Billiards Sports" to "World Confederation of Billiard Sports". I wonder what the true name is. As what I find at the official homepage, the haeding is "World Confederation of Billiards Sports".

However, in the constitution of WCBS, it states that in article 1.1 "The name of this controlling sports organization shall be the WORLD CONFEDERATION OF BILLIARDS SPORTS (WCBS), which was inaugurated on January 25, 1992 at Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland". So, which name is true?

As the constitution shall be the founding document of an organization, I would say "WORLD CONFEDERATION OF BILLIARDS SPORTS" should be the true name. Do you agree with me? Salt 11:16, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

It's an odd case. I got the singular from their website (and I think you meant the singular in your first example). They aren't even consistent on their own site, though. Next, the International Olympic Committee (pretty much the only reason the WCBS exists) actually refers to them as both, in the same IOC document! I don't really know what to make of that. I guess the organizational constitution is the best countervailing evidence there is, and could plausibly be said to outweigh their cheesy website. But on the other hand, their site is by far their most public face, and the name change may both be intentional and not be reflected in documents available at the site (organizational founding documents get modified by board quorum all the time with addenda and so forth, that the webmaster may not have thought to post copies of in this case; in the US at any rate, the original documents never change, just have appendices added to them showing changes made by board resolution; the resolutions are separate documents.) The only way to resolve the matter may be to actually call them up and ask. GHits for the singular form are around 1500, and for the plural form over 2000, but that doesn't really mean much. If the name change is for real and was semi-recent, we'd expect the numbers to be skewed in precisely this way. <ponder> For the interim, no harm is being done - both names work here. I think I consistent-ized all WP mentions to the same spelling (or at least linked ones; I forget if I used "Search" or "What links here"; it's been a busy day...) I tend to lean toward changing it back to the plural form, but there are plenty of organizations that do things like this on purpose. For silly example, the Jehosephat Foundation might consistently use that name, in every way, with the sole exception of their foundation documents, tax records and other government paperwork saying that the legal name of the entity is the Ebenezer and Gertrude Jehosephat Memorial Endowment Foundation and Trust of New York, Incorporated. Best for us to find out for sure what the real name is. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 11:45, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Update: I have sent WCBS an inquiry about this matter. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:45, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

They never replied. The article now lists both names, and sources them, so this really isn't Wikipedia's problem. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 14:53, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Nick Baker (prisoner in Japan) Request for Comment

Resolved

– Responded as requested.

A RfC has been started regarding the use of sources (including Metropolis) as "exceptional claims" on the above article. As an previously interested party, your input would be most valued. Comment Talk:Nick_Baker_(prisoner_in_Japan)#Request_for_comments. Thank you. David Lyons 05:50, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

I would also appreciate your comments. We have had two comments so far, and your advice would be most appreciated, particularly regarding claims 2-4 on the RFC. Thank you. Sparkzilla 04:34, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Done. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:15, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your balanced and well-reasoned contribution to this Baker RfC. Although it doesn't appear so at first sight now, this RfC got quite messy, so I have withdrawn from comment on this topic there, as I find Sparkzilla's aggressive and dictatorial tone and the ease with which he tries to bully and intimidate opposing editor's stances with threats of "I'll report you to an admin" incondusive to creating a reasoned agreement. I feel there are more issues at stake to explore here, although I hesitate to broach them as the parameters of this particular RfC are clearly defined. For the record, I have a good faith belief that Sparkzilla is intimately involved with the sources he is trying to promoting for inclusion, and feel that with the many, many neutral mass-media comments on the case, that only two "negative" articles (plus one merely rehashing Devlin's position) should not, in the general balance of things, be afforded the weight with which it is currently being pushed. I would appreciate your advice upon how to proceed. David Lyons 10:30, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I guess it depends on the evidence. If you can clearly show a pattern of PoV pushing, always in the favor of a few particular publications, that could probably be brought to WP:AN/I; otherwise, it's probably a user WP:RFC|RfC]] matter (assuming addressing the issue with the user on their talk page and on the affected articles' talk pages can't resolve the problem.) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 02:05, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

To SMcCandlish: Thank you for your comment. However, would you mind reading the RFC again. There are actually TWO articles as sources. The first claim (1) is the op-ed and the second set of claims (2-4) come from a feature article round up of the case. Your comment appears to deal only with the op-ed.

The Metropolis feature article is the only article that has two important claims about the case: That Iris Baker actually did have translations of the original trial documents (but did not release them) and that the Belgian dupes had been set free. This information is not in any other source, mainly due to the article's timing as a round up of events after the appeal process.

The policy question then is: do we need multiple sources for EVERY item on a BLP? For example, say someone is accused of being a murderer in source 1. Source 2 then reports that he is a murderer. We have multiple sources so we can say he is accused of murderer in WP. Now say that source 3 says accusses him of committing the murderer with a knife (and say that source 3 is the only one that says he used a knife). Is it acceptable to say that the murderer used a knife in WP, even though only a single source says so?

I appreciate your time in coming to grips wuith this, and look forward to your answer. Sparkzilla 12:54, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I did address the other sources; I mentioned that at least twice. The core questions as I understand them are whether the "inconsistent story" theory is notable enough for inclusion and whether it is being given undue weight, and whether the op-ed can be used to source anything at all other than that the theory exists and what one person has to say about it; the other sources may well source other details of the theory (or closely related theories); I'm offering no opinion at present whether they help demonstrate that the theory is notable and that it is not being given undue weight. As to the hypothetical: I don't think there would need to be two sources for the knife detail, only for the accusation; there isn't anything cognizant at WP:BLP that requires multisourcing for minor details, but rather for potentially controversial claims about a living person. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 02:05, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply regarding the knife detail. I should just point out that the major Metropolis claims that Baker was deceiving the public are backed up by the defence documents themselves. Much of the article is given over to Baker's story, which to my mind, appears to be giving undue weight to his claims of innocence. In fact, the claims of innocence are the minority opinion. The court thought Baker guilty, the defence documents say the sotry was not what it appeared, his own MP doesn't believe him and, in the only poll about this issue, most people though Baker was involved in the crime [3].

This article is notable (barely) because it is a disputed conviction. Do you think it is fair to say that in a disputed conviction that it would be not undue weight to present sources to point to his involvement? Are you more concerned about the actual sources, or the way the section is written? Thanks once again for your help. Sparkzilla 02:52, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

In non-savage legal systems, the accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty (under reasonable standards of "legal proof"), so any plausible weight on the side of innocence is not undue, while weight on the side of guilt is presumptively undue until proven otherwise. Whether a minister of parliament or any other legislator believes him or not is of no relevance whatsoever. I've dealt with U.S. Congressmen and Senators personally for many years in my "former life" as a policy analyst, and their actual grasp of issues is usually quite tenuous (their key staffers are the ones who really know what is going on, when they actually do have that level of understanding themselves, which is itself rare). Public opinion polls are of zero, and sometimes less than zero, validity when it come to determining the facts. I agree with your assessment of why the article subject is marginally notable, but that doesn't say much of anything about the sources. I'm concerned more about the seemingly strong urge to overwhelm any question about his conviction than about either the sources or the nitpicks of the wording. If there is a reliably sourceable question about his trial, it should be in the article. To dwell excessively upon it would be undue weight (PoV-pushing, in other words). Dwelling upon discrediting that question is at least equally a form of PoV-pushing. Just source the facts and let them speak for themselves. In particular, avoid "novel systhesis". — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:51, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. I agree that the facts should stand for themselves. I appreciate your comments, and the time you have taken to reply. Sparkzilla 05:56, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Minor talk edits

Resolved

– Agree to disagree.

Hi SMcCandlish,

Over at Template talk:Dubious, you posted an answer to someone else's question, and marked the edit as minor. Wikipedia policy seems to be to only mark edits as minor when other editors wouldn't want to review the change, because it's just formatting or grammar or similar.

Just a heads-up in case you hadn't realised/whatever. me_and 18:15, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

In my view, the only such thing as a non-minor edit to a talk page would be a major refactor, like archiving all of last year's posts, that actually needs the review of other editors to make sure that it was done properly. Talk pages are not articles. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 19:52, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. I'm not convinced, but fortunately Wikipedia works even when people don't always agree :D me_and 22:29, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:16, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

PS: I exaggerated slightly. I do occasionally mark major talk page posts as non-minor, but usually only when a) introducing a proposal, serious dispute, or major news in a new section; or b) when making what I consider an unusually major/important response to an extant thread. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:18, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

No it doesn't

Resolved

– Discussion as moved to Wikipedia talk:Service awards.

And you know it. Guy (Help!) 22:16, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Huh? — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 22:21, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh, nevermind; I see who you are now and understand the context. Can you please either use "JzG" or "Guy" instead of both? Without reading the wikisource it's hard to tell who you are. ~~Anyway, I don't agree with you. Just because a user has been around a while does not mean that destructive, non-consensus action by said person does not constitute vandalism.~~ — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 22:23, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

PS: ~~I've brought this up at WP:AN/I~~ Tony Sidaway's brought it up at Wikipedia talk:Service awards; further discussion on this page is probably moot. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 22:25, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

PPS: I rescind the above struck text in my original reply. I'd call it disruptive instead. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 02:00, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Template talk:Irish elections

Resolved

– To the extent it needs follow-up, it can happen there, unless it gets more personal.

Please see my response on Template talk:Irish elections. Scolaire 08:04, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Done. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 08:39, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

AAJ and such

Resolved

– to mutual satisfaction.

Those are rather old threads and I'm not one to bear a grudge. I don't really see a reason to dig them up again. >Radiant< 08:15, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Okeydokey. Just making sure they don't get archived before their time. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 04:03, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Kudos re: Category:Articles missing birth or death information

Resolved

– Was going to do more cleanup, but lost interest.

It's my turn to give kudos---and they're definitely called for. What a monumental task---standardizing all thirteen existing "Year/Date/Place missing/unknown" Categories and, to top it off, recreating the unfairly-singled-out-for-deletion Category:Date of birth unknown and creating the previously-never-existing, but also needed, analogous Category:Date of birth missing (living people). While it's a somewhat controversial Category, I can certainly argue that well-known actors, newscasters, sports stars, top business executives and other indisputably public personalities whose dates have not been provided, may be listed. I will, undoubtedly, be challenged on this point, but the basic idea stands, and each matter can be resolved one individual at a time. As to the four-day-old "outsider" Category:Year of birth uncertain, it theoretically overlaps the other three "Year of birth" Categories, "missing", "missing (living people)" and "unknown" but, if it survives, it might have a specialized use in biographies of individuals whose age is stated in a newspaper article, but the year of birth is unavailable, so that it can be either, for example, 1948 or 1949 (in the case of Nora Astorga) or 1975-76 (in the case of Cynthia Ore). But to return to your solo achievement, it is an act which cried out for completion since the "missing/unknown" Categories were first created. No one, myself included, fully stepped up to the plate and brought to pass an overarching consistency to the project. It was all being done piecemeal with varying introductions and elucidations. In addition, you properly brought Category:Living people, Category:Possibly living people, Category:Disappeared people and Category:Dead people into the mix and annotated the discussion pages for all those Categories (another herculean task) to examine every point raised and suggestion made over the past (nearly) two years. All in all, a living (people) example of creativity and an illustration of be bold philosophy. —Roman Spinner (talk) 21:18, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Just getting started really! The actual text of all those things needs lots more consistentizing. Will take some time...

C:Dobm(lp) — I think that the cited policies are pretty clear on what is and isn't permissible, and abuse should be handled on an article-by-article basis. Getting rid of the category won't do anything at all to stop people from adding too-personal info the articles of non-public figures. Please let me know if anyone attacks either of these categories in a substantial way (I have them watchlisted, but my WL is over 1200 pages...), or any of the others. I see them all as necessary (though only a tiny handful as necessary on the article page rather than talk page).

C:Yobuncertain — Didn't even notice it! Will have to have a look at it and think on it. At first blush, I don't see that C:Yobunknown doesn't entirely cover it (even if more commonly used for "we have no idea at all and never will"; the difference appears to only be a matter of degree. If people are using it for "there is an editor dispute about the YoB" or "I wrote this and I'm not sure", that's probably not good enough to justify the category. It should either be removed and discussed on the talk page, or tagged with {{fact}}, {{dubious}}, or {{disputable}}, as closest fits the issue. For any case where the sources aren't specific enough, or two sources disagree, or a source and a statement by the person disagree or whatever, there is an appropriate inline template (see WP:WPILT).

Thanks for the kind words and encouragement; I will continue (at some point; working on something that will ease a lot of U.S. major topic (states, congress, etc.) WikiProject consistency headaches right now, and have other stuff in the pipe. I do go on a "tear" of activity in areas like the year/date/place of birth/death stuff where I see the need from time to time, but often take a break of a few days. I half feared someone from WP:BIO would get upset with me and revert it all. Heh.

— SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 21:29, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Hello, SMcCandlish ... I noticed a bot putting Category:Place of birth missing on Discussion pages (although apparently not removing it from the articles, at least not yet) and tracked you down from your comment on the category's Discussion page ... I was trying to locate the CFD discussion so I could find out exactly what the current consensus view is, but thought that asking you would be easier than trying to manually search the archives, and then I discovered that it was already linked to the edit summaries. (D'oh! :-)

My interest has to do with my draft Protocol to minimize friction from proposed and speedy deletions in which I recommend adding "Year/Place of birth missing" to stubby biographical articles that lack WP:A to satisfy WP:BIO ... I use it as a benchmark for WP:N on the assumption that there should be enough WP:RS available to provide that information in the opening sentence of an article, otherwise there has not been enough "ink" about the subject to WP:V the assertions of satisfying WP:BIO ... please see User talk:72.75.70.147#Request for comments on protocols and templates for proposed and speedy deletions where I use Don Fernando (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) as an example that may not satisfy WP:PORNBIO. (FYI, I didn't know about C:Yobm(lp) and C:Pobm(lp) until reading this thread, or else I would have been using them instead of C:Yobm and C:Pobm ... I'll go back and modify my draft protocols and essays to use them instead.)

Anywho, I would appreciate any comments you may have on my draft protocols like User talk:72.75.70.147/Warn-bio (note particlularly 3rd Step: Tag the article) and the boilerplate templates I have created for the first two steps ... BTW, I have not yet pinged the admins listed in my request for comments, so you would be the first to respond.

Happy Editing! —72.75.70.147 (talk · contribs) 08:45, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

GAC backlog elimination drive

Resolved

– Don't have time for it, sorry.

This form message is being sent to you either due to your membership with WikiProject Good Articles and/or your inclusion on the Wikipedia:Good article candidates/List of reviewers. A new drive has been started requesting that all members review at least one article (or more, if you wish!) within the next two weeks at GAC to help in removing the large backlog. This message is being sent to all members, and even members who have been recently reviewing articles. There are almost 130 members in this project and about 180 articles that currently need to be reviewed. If each member helps to review just one or two articles, the majority of the backlog will be cleared. Since the potential amount of reviewers may significantly increase, please make sure to add :{{GAReview}} underneath the article you are reviewing to ensure that only one person is reviewing each article. Additionally, the GA criteria may have been modified since your last review, so look over the criteria again to help you to determine if a candidate is GA-worthy. If you have any questions about this drive or the review process, leave a message on the GAC talk page. --Nehrams2020 00:26, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Too swamped to deal with this, for months. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 02:09, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Nick Baker RFC summary

Resolved

– Done.

I wonder if you could have a look at this and give me your comments...[4] Sparkzilla 15:27, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

And I would look forward to your opinion about Sparkzilla's use of your comment ""I lean slightly toward saying that, as long as the "inconsistent story" theory is identified in the prose as to the nature of its sources, it is probably okay to include it", but he edited out the end of the sentence where you concluded "BUT I REMAIN ON THE FENCE ABOUT THAT" and then used his edit to claim that you were for inclusion of the contentious material. Many thanks.David Lyons 15:55, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Done. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 15:57, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I am in agreement with you that that David Lyons, myself and Heatedissuepuppet (a disruptive sock/meatpuppet that did David Lyon's COI complaint for him) should completely back off from this article and let other editors get on with it. I would prefer just to leave the artcile as-is, but I don't know if Lyons will agree. Could you try to help us mediate this process, if necessary? Sparkzilla 16:30, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

As I said, I'm not available for informal mediation right now; WP:MEDCAB is there for a reason. :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 16:59, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Regarding the article "billiard balls"

Resolved

– Needed edits were made to the article in question.

Hi,

I work with the company Saluc, and we test all kind of balls that are in the market. We know for sure that the Aramith balls are the only one produced in phenolic resin. There is no other pool balls made in phenolic or phenolic-based resin. Beside Aramith balls made in Belgium, virtually all pool balls are produced in China and in polyester ("virtually" because there are very few quantities produced in accrylic. these balls are transparent and they don't even reach the weight specifications). The distributors of such polyester balls try to hide the material by choosing a trade name. FYI, Saluc produces the Centennial balls for Brunswick. Thank you.

[The previous unsigned commented was added by Aramith (talk · contribs), 16:18, 29 May 2007 (UTC).]

The article as it stands now is correct as far as the third-party sources to date have been able to provide facts that we can cite. I've added the fact that Saluc also makes the Brunswick balls (I knew that already, but for some reason the article didn't say so.) Saluc's own marketing materials are not a reliable source, and using them as references would be a conflict of interest. I was also aware of the acrylic balls (and their problems), but again the article hadn't mentioned that yet, so I also added that. We cannot add anything to the effect "only Saluc uses a phenolic compound, and everyone else is lying and are really using polyester". We simply have no reliable source for such a claim, much less that all of them are produced in China. I'm sure that reps from Elephant, Vigma and others would take issue with some of your statements. :-) That Saluc does its own testing is interesting, but not of any use to Wikipedia (conflict of interest again; the testing is not independent). That some companies make polyester balls but use tradenames instead was already covered in the article. Anyway, the article already states that only Saluc uses phenolic resin, per se. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:14, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the answer. I am not saying that the others lie. I say they use specific tradenames to avoid letting know the material is the basic polyester resin. If they used phenolic or phenolic-based resins, they would obviously say so. Instead they use a tradename and don't mention what material it is. I understand the conflict of interest, but to state in the article that "proprietary phenolic compounds are used by some companies such as Elephant Balls Ltd. and Frenzy Sports" is untrue (and not documented). Thank you. [The previous unsigned commented was added by Aramith (talk · contribs),14:37, 31 May 2007 (UTC).]

There's generally too much unsourced material there, overall. I will pare it down, since no one else has bothered. PS: I have definitely seen other companies claim to be using phenolic compounds, but I can't use such claims as a reliable source for them any more than using Saluc's "we're the only" claim as a source either. Elephant is not presently making any such claims (that I can find) on their website, but I've seen them elsewhere, I think in Billiards Digest ca. 2003. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 22:53, 31 May 2007 (UTC)