This is an archive of past discussions about User:SMcCandlish. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

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July 2007

DEFAULTSORT and PAGENAME

Resolved

– It's more complicated than this; some of it's being discussed at Template talk:WPBiography.

I noticed this and thought of this. Possibly a PAGENAME thing in the WPBiography template (and similar talk page templates) is over-riding the DEFAULTSORT function? Carcharoth 14:44, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I have noticed this, and will look into it further; sorry for the delay. I've been taking summer university courses (i.e. 2pm to 9pm every weekday! Aiieee!) so my time here has been very limited and I've been working on fixing articles. I'm sure I'll get back into metapedian mode eventually and look into this. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 08:54, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

February 31

Resolved

– Issue responded to

Hi, SkierRMH has tagged the February 31 article you started, I am assuming that the article is useful, and that it was an oversight on the part of the tagger that they did not advise you as suggested by the template. (Don't shoot the messenger) --Drappel 19:30, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I removed the prod, and more recently provided some sources (not enough to make this a good article - I don't mean Good Article, but "article that doesn't suck" - but enough that it will probably survive AfD. Appreciate the heads-up. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 08:51, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Sale, Greater Manchester FAC

Resolved

– Decline due to extenuating circumstances.

Hi. I'm sorry to bother you, but as a LoCE member, I just wondered if you would be willing to have a look through the Sale, Greater Manchester article. It is currently a Featured Article Candidate and needs a copy-edit for grammar by someone who hasn't yet seen it. Any other ways to improve the article would also be welcome. Thank you very much, if you can. Epbr123 08:14, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

In this case I have to decline, because my WP time is very limited for the nonce, and just repairing the recent-ish damage to my watchlisted articles is absorbing all of the available time. When my status (see page top) changes back to "active" I'll be quite happy to honor requests of this sort, as I think copyediting is important. Summer university courses are a killer... — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 08:49, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Too little...

Resolved

– Self-resolving chat

...too late. Thanks for your polite words of warning, but I was already blocked for 12 hours for those reversions from a report by User:Calton. He did not also report the IP. VanTucky ^(talk) 03:23, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry to hear that. Any action taken on that issue should have been 100% mutual. I'm actually rather shocked that it wasn't; admins who deal with 3RRs almost always investigate the incident and hand them out evenly when, eh, "earned". Oh well, at least it was just a half-day. The good news is that the editor is question seems to be a stable IP address and has enough warnings than any more shenanigans of that sort will almost certainly involve a block, of probably considerably longer duration. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 08:46, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

MOSDASH

Resolved

– To the extent any issue remains open, it's at Wikipedia talk:Manual of style.

You OK about Carl’s recent moves to delete this? I know that Noetica will favour this, and I do too. Need to know of any problems you see. Tony 02:46, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh, nothing much, other than I radically disagree with much of what the new "integrated" version says. <grumble> I don't have any particular problem with trimming the material down and integrating it, but I think a lot of the assertions made in the variant presently installed into the main MOS are highly questionable. Especially, I think that the claim that space-endash-space is a good substitute for nospace-emdash-nospace is rubbish. The issue behind that, in the now apparently mooted-by-move-and-integrate debate, was whether to "permit" spaced emdashes (which I favor strongly for readability and accessibility reasons), not whether to fake spaced emdashes by abusing endashes as substitutes. I do not believe the claim in the new text that several major publishers do this; I have seen, rather, the use of spaced emdashes. The non-spaced emdash is nothing but a typographical convention, like enforced use of curly quotes or the illogical use of "internal quotation punctuation," like that, versus "external", like that, both of which WP has dispensed with for good reason. Paper typesetting conventions rarely have any relevance for online materials. Anyway, I have other issues with the new text besides that one (I'm not happy that the preference for using &-entities instead of the Unicode characters has been lopped off - it's important because to most people's eyes and fonts and monitors, about the only way to tell, in many cases, what dash-type character has been used is to see the entity code), but I grow increasingly weary of WP "politics" about such things, so I'm not entirely certain I want to get reinvolved in the MOSDASH fray. Maybe, maybe not. Have been busy (summer university courses are pretty time-sucking)... — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 08:42, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, if it's any comfort, I don't like spaced en dashes either as a substitute for em dashes. But the facts that (1) this has strong—almost passionate—support among some WPians (including my collaborator, Noetica), and (2) the substitute is already widely used in WP, made me back down. I've since become used to the idea. However, I really draw the line at spaced ems. Your protestations have resulted in a dilution of what would have been a ban.

Did you insert the tag at the top of MOSNUM as some kind of protest? If so, I'm disappointed, because I'd like to have your expert input during the process of revamping both the main MOS and MOSNUM. Will that be possible? MOSNUM looks as though it needs a thorough massage.

Can you reply on my talk page, otherwise I'll have to put a watch on yours. Tony 09:20, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Wasn't any form of protest; just a stilly mistake on my part. I brainfarted, and thought I was "Historical"ing MOSDASH (which I now note redirs to MOS anyway). I think I was just too tired to be editing! Will copy this to your page as well. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 22:32, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, S. All fixed, anyway. Tony 00:19, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

PS: I've gotten used to space en-dashes myself. Weird. I used to hate it. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 03:16, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

July 2007 GAC backlog elimination drive

Resolved

– Too swamped with other things.

A new elimination drive of the backlog at Wikipedia:Good article candidates will take place from the month of July through August 12, 2007. There are currently about 130 articles that need to be reviewed right now. If you are interested in helping with the drive, then please visit Wikipedia:Good article candidates backlog elimination drive and record the articles that you have reviewed. Awards will be given based on the number of reviews completed. 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 drive's talk page. Please help to eradicate the backlog to cut down on the waiting time for articles to be reviewed.

You have received this message either due to your membership with WikiProject: Good Articles and/or your inclusion on the Wikipedia:Good article candidates/List of reviewers. --Nehrams2020 23:43, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Not time for this, this time around. Maybe next time. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 03:16, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

18th century vs eighteenth century

Resolved

– Any serious discussion of this will be at WP:MOSNUM.

I want them to bit the bullet about this by slanting it more towards the numerical: "two-digit centuries are normally expressed as numerals", or something like that. Tony 00:37, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm not feeling warrior-strongly about this one. "Centuries are spelled out and lower-cased." (Chicago Manual of Style 15th ed., at 9.36). Fowler's Modern English Usage (Burchfield's revised Oxford ver.; there are several modern editions) uses both. Strunk and White's Elements of Style (4th ed.) does not address centuries in pariticular, but prefers using numerals generally unless in dialogue; as with much else in S&W, no rationale is provided, and their dialogue recommendation is actually against common practice. This conflict of "reliable sources" on style is why I edited MOS to expressly permit both styles; there is no consensus, even off of WP. More complicated yet, it was formerly the standard practice to use Roman numerals ("the XVII century")! Ick. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:04, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

AfD

Resolved

– Just a little chat.

I caught your edit regarding civility before you went and reverted it. You've not brought the issue up again since but since I saw it I figured I would address that real quick. Please not that while I used the word "wikilawyering" I did not cite WP:LAWYER in any way because I do not particularly agree with the essay itself. I do not mean to insinuate that your edits were disruptive in any way. For what it's worth when I use the term "wikilawyering" I am referring to what I percieve is an overly strict interpretation of policy and that's all - just a methodology that I personally do not agree with. The comment was not meant to disparage in any way and if it seemed that way then I offer my sincere apologies. ɑʀкʏɑɴ 17:19, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

No worries. I would encourage you to come up with a new term; because "wikilawyering" is only covered by one document here, WP:LAWYER, it pretty much automatically means that to most editors. Maybe use "wikinitpicking" or something. I fully admit that I am persnicketty about this sort of stuff; I am a staunch supporter of WP:PROCESS, so I'm not insulted by the criticism that my interpretations may be overly picky or literal. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:12, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Categories Date, Place and Year missing (living people) up for merge/deletion

Resolved

– The real meat of this issue was at WP:CFD.

All three categories (see Category:Date of birth missing (living people)) were today singled out for deletion, i.e., merging with their parent categories. I added my votes and arguments to keep them and, after all the effort you put into creating and elucidating them, you're in a position to present your own view on the matter. Afterwards, I suppose it'll depend on the vote count. —Roman Spinner (talk) 22:53, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

It should depend on the logic, not the vote count, but oh well. Anyway, I'm not sure I feel that strongly about the issue. I just want it to be consistent. Either we do or we don't use "(living people)" variants, but we don't use them sometimes and not other times. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 07:42, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

It should, indeed, depend on the logic. Your comments in each of the three nominations were precisely as needed — succinct and to the point. Judging by the previous voting patterns regarding deletions of these types of categories, I suspect that, other than you, hardly anyone will even bother to read my overly-detailed recapitulations of the matter, preferring already-held preconceived notions. In the final analysis, however, while it's desirable to have specific, detailed categories, it's the articles that are emblematic of Wikipedia and, whatever the outcome here, the creation of those is the prime goal. —Roman Spinner (talk) 09:48, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah... I am (barely) beginning to learn that verbosity in XfD backfires. It has bitten me in the backside almost every time I've tried it, including quite recently. Anyway, did what I could, but as you say the articles are the important part. If WP:BIO more collectively in a year demands these categories they will return and survive. PS: A few of them appear to be missing already, apparently due to CfDs we didn't notice. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 11:04, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

The soul of wit notwithstanding, I would have felt that my efforts were inadequate had I not fully laid out the background details and merits of the case. Few (if any) editors, including myself, will take the time to research each matter under discussion, especially since most of those may seem, on the surface, to be obvious. As we know all too well, with the potentially hundreds of articles and categories discussed for deletion, merge or what-have-you, there is a comparatively tiny number within the potential population of editors who know, care, take the time to scan each entry, and quickly vote, most frequently with a brief sentence or phrase (we also know that many (or most) of those user names are already familiar). The exceptions, of course, are the special interest topics (politics, religion, geography, etc.), which attract single-issue voters. If there's an editor whose vote may be swayed by some of my words, then it wouldn't in vain. In order to have any hope of affecting the debate, one needs, apparently, to be among the first voters and, it appears, at this early stage, there is at least one ally, who referred (apparently to us) as "The Men Who Know". This particular editor, however, didn't need to be convinced by our arguments, having cast the first "keep" vote in the opening hours of voting on Category:Year of birth missing (living people). Finally, regarding seemingly-missing categories, that impression was created by an early comment among those in the Category:Date of birth missing (living people) nomination. The editor listed 14 of the 16 entries in the comprehensive alphabetically- and thematically-sorted list in Category:Articles missing birth or death information. Missing from the list (but still extant) was one of the 15 which you sorted, Category:Place of birth missing (living people) plus the "orphan" Category:Year of birth uncertain. —Roman Spinner (talk) 21:09, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Erm... difficult issue (RFA advice)

Stale

– Clarification query wasn't answered.

Hi. Hope you've seen my "quiz" at the VC. Meanwhile, hope you don't mind if I raise a delicate issue with you. Presumably, you're considering a run at RfA at some point in the near future. I gently suggest that if you tone down your user page it might remove one reason for opposing. I've seen many oppose !votes based on peoples' user pages and I've always felt it's a shame. Anyway, forewarned is forearmed, although sadly not four-armed (that'd be useful) and at least now that I've mentioned it, you have a heads-up. --Dweller 19:18, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Something I'll consider and keep in mind. I'm unlikely to try an RfA again until some time next year; my WP:PROCESS stickling in the WP:ATT debate made me too many unfriends in the pro-ATT camp. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 21:05, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

OK, fair enough. Though I might try changing your mind in a couple of months, lol. --Dweller 07:32, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Someone else just offerred to nominate me, too. I suspect I can count on 5 admins to oppose as a bloc, so when I have 5 admins proposing to nominate me, I'll probably try RfA again. I'm at 3 now (perhaps 4, if the nominator in my original RfA would re-nominate). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 18:58, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

With multi-party support, I might try it again, but the "unfriends" (along with a proven sockpuppet) buried my last attempt, and it was a frustrating waste of time for everyone involved. I think I'd make a very good admin, actually, but there are some entrenched types who do not like boat-rockers, or conversely and often more significantly do not like boat-stabilizers when they are the ones trying to rock the boat, and these individuals have more wikifriends than I do, so it's been a losing proposition. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:27, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

PS: In what way do you mean "tone down" my user page; I can think of at least three implications: 1) userboxiness; 2) self-revelation; 3) wikipolitical mini-essaying. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:31, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Disambiguation page formatting

Resolved

– Fixed as requested.

Please read and follow the manual of style for disambiguation pages when changing disambiguation pages. In particular these pages should not use "piped links" such as [[Demo game|a type of computer game]]. Would you like to return Demonstration and Demo to the correct format? Thanks, Rich257 10:10, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Done. WP:DAB has changed a whole lot since I last actually read the thing, over a year ago. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 15:35, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Australian and New Zealand punting glossary

Resolved

– Just a chat.

was a lot closer to being deleted, only the fact that the first three random terms I chose to check werent on Wiktionary, it took two more before I found one that was clearly defined in relation to the subject. The opinion gave me the impression that transwiki had occurred, even the talk page of the article siad it had already happened in Jan/Feb.Gnan garra 15:32, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

The problem here is that just because something has been transwikied does not mean it must be deleted from Wikipedia. WP:CSD is often mis-read on this matter. In order for CSD to apply, there has to be a pre-existing consensus at AFD that the glossary should be transwikied and that it is not of any encyclopedic value (i.e., it is just a list of dicdefs) and should be deleted after transwiki; and that the transwikiing actually took place and was done properly; and that this happened recently and the WP version of the article has not grown and become more encyclopedic in the interim. The deeper, gaming-the-system problem here is that certain people who simply don't like glossaries (including the nominator of the WP article in question, and a prominent Wiktionarian who transwikis WP glossary-ish list articles and has strongly pushed a WP-deletionist stance in the transwiki templates, which I note has been resisted by other Wiktionarians/Wikipedians such that the templates no longer push this PoV) can pre-emptively, even maliciously (I make no such accusation, I only observe that such abuse would be easy) transwiki WP material to WK, whether it would actually be appropriate at WK or not, and then take action against the WP article. It is basically a nasty loophole in WP deletion process, and one that is clearly being exploited from time to time. Another related loophole is that transwiki to WK is sometimes performed by people who believe that WK would be interested in having a copy of the material for its own purposes (and which will generally result in the two copies diverging sharply in content and tone and format over time), without any sense that the material is not also appropriate for WP. The act of transwikiing does not imply any position, pro or con, on the question of whether material is WP-appropriate or not, but most Wikipedians engaged in AfD and related processes do not seem to understand this very clearly. And to return to the point you raise (and which I mentioned also in passing), the fact that something was transwikied months ago often has no relevance to the current state of the content. For example, if you compare the WK copy of Glossary of cue sports terms with the version here you'll find them to differ quite markedly, as our copy is expanding more and more in encyclopedic vs. dicdef content, and in the number and reliability of the sources. I'll be keeping an eye on this issue henceforth and if it really comes down to it, I'll push for clarification of the issue at WP:CSD, WP:AFD, WP:SAL and elsewhere. In the interim, I just hope that reason prevails. I'm watchlisting WP:AFD/T again for the first time since Nov. 2006... — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 15:51, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

there also another point in that WP:DICT is referring to a word versus encyclopedic subject it is not about a collection of related terminology where the subject matter is focused on its singular usage of various words not the various usage of a singular word. Gnan garra

Indeedy. Maybe we need either a new draft guideline, or a wikiproject on this topic (or the latter with the partial goal of creating of the former). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 16:23, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Template:Who?/Who

Resolved

– The meat of this discussion is happening at the templates' talk pages and WT:ILT.

Hey - just to let you know I was the creator of Template:Who? - and I just saw your merge proposal and wanted to say a few things and get feedback on one thing if you have the time. First of all, I support the merge - I didn't know about Template:Who when I created Who?, and once I did discover the former I assume the latter would probably be deleted, however I'm glad that instead it is merely being merged. But I could use some feedback on one thing: I think the wording instead of ^{[attribution needed]} or ^[Who?] should be ^{[Such as?]}. I was thinking about it - and I realized that when I used the Who? template I would use it in statements like this: "Critics point out ..." - however it's not really clear to other readers now that I think about it. The answer to the who? question would simply be "Critics", so the average-joe wikipedia editor would not be able to realize what was needed without clicking on who?, finding out what weasel words are and so on. But "such as" is obviously asking for specifics. I brought this up on the merger talk page- but should you disagree with me (preferably on my talk page) then I would gladly withdraw my notion. Thanks in advance!--daniel folsom 23:54, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to be neutral on that until I ponder it more. I think a good experiment would be to use "What links here" from {{who}} and see if you could swap in the word "such as?" at every occurrence on a whole bunch of pages. I suspect that there are more subtle weasel-words usages, such that this wouldn't work. Then again, it may mean that we need two such templates a "such as" one for clear cases, like "many critics say", vs. something else for more subtle instances, like "it has been claimed" ("such as" doesn't work here but "who?" seems a bit awkward as well), and there are surely even more subtle ones. My take for now is to merge who? and who, and then look at this new question later. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:01, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree that it might not work in every situation - however I also agree that it would work in most. I think the best solution to these weasel-inline templates would be this: Have two templates - {{who}} and {{weasel-inline}}. Weasel inline is to be kept the same, but template who would have the "Such as?" remark. In situations where who cannot be used, weasel-inline can be. Then delete the following templates: {{Who?}}, {{weasel word}}, redirecting {{Who?}} to {{who}} and {{weasel word}} to {{weasel-inline}}. What would you think of this?--daniel folsom 14:30, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm leaning in something like this direction myself. Since you care about the issue, I suggest that you join WP:WPILT, and add the gist of what you've just said here to the WT:WPILT#Weasel words debate (in particular the subtopic under it which is addressing precisely this question). However, please do note what I added to the Template talk:Who#Merge discussion last night, with regard to there being an unsettled consensus issue - should or should not these inline templates every directly exhort the reader, or only make dry observations? The jury is still out on that, and if it settles on the latter, then "such as?" won't fly. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 15:54, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Haha, I wouldn't say I REALLY CARE about the issue, I probably care as much as you, but I have added my comments in the WPILT talk page- I'd really appreciate some feedback / suggestions on improving anything (wording or plan) if you have the time--daniel folsom 18:31, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Right. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 18:38, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Your edit of MOSNUM

Resolved

– Found it; engaged in discussions there.

Instead of [this], could you comment on the proposal at talk for replacing these sections with a new, short one? Tony 00:39, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Which one is it? That talk page is huge... — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:16, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

PS: I don't feel strongly about the passage as a whole, I just clean up redundant examples with extreme prejudice. :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:17, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Requested move comments

Resolved

– Noted.

Wikipedia:Requested_moves is not the correct place to offer your opinions about possible moves. Please limit your comments to the talk pages of those pages suggested for moves. Noel S McFerran 04:08, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Darn. Noted. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 15:54, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Re: Disruptive use of prod

Stale

– Discussion just died out.

[This was originally posted on the other editor's talk page.]

Please refrain from prod'ing articles simply because they are of a particular format. This is blatantly disruptive editing. See WP:POINT for further guidance, and please note that it provides several examples of robotically destructive behavior, closely akin to your beginning at the top of the alphabet and working your way down, prod'ing every glossary-style article you can find. Your third attempt to push your overbroadly anti-glossary personal agenda (after failing at WP:VPP and again with WP:PROD) constitutes blatant forum shopping. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 15:10, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I think you have misunderstood the situation. I brought the issue up at the village pump because I could not find definitive policy either way. I was advised that the glossaries should be deleted, so I PROD'd a few of them. These PROD tags were removed by other editors who disputed the deletion. The first two times this happened, I opened AfDs so that we could reach a consensus on the issue.

I do not have a personal agenda against glossaries, and in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Australian and New Zealand punting glossary I stated:

“	If the consensus is to keep glossaries in Wikipedia, that would be OK, but it looks to me like they're better suited for Wiktionary.	”
—Remember the dot ^(talk) 03:52, 20 July 2007 (UTC), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Australian and New Zealand punting glossary

No one other than Radiant! commented at the discussion at WP:VPP until you left your comments there on the 23rd, so this discussion didn't exactly "fail". I placed the PROD tags and opened the AfDs on the 18th, five days before you (or anyone for that matter) commented there. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 04:24, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Radiant commented on your VPP post on the 17th, so I'm not sure what you mean by "five days before you (or anyone...) commented there." Besides that point, I think I follow what you are saying overall. The problem I have is with your basic premise: "If the consensus is to keep glossaries in Wikipedia, that would be OK, but it looks to me like they're better suited for Wiktionary." There already is a consensus to keep glossaries in Wikipedia: See WP:SAL#Format of the lists. There is also a consensus, at WP:CSD that glossary lists that have been determined at AfD to be unencyclopedic should be transwikied and deleted. The issue is more complex than you (among many others; I'm leaning toward believing this to be a documentation problem) appear to grok with fullness just yet, and I cover this in more detail a few topics above. I apologize if I've misunderstood and mischaracterized what you've been doing, but it did appear the way I understood and characterized it. It had an alarming (i.e. disruptive) effect, especially due to the "let's start with 'Aa' and work down to 'Zz'" methodology you chose, the VPP+prod+AfD forum-shopping-like approach, the reliance on a single "go for it" !vote at VPP, and the seemingly willful misinterpretation of WP:DICT, which does not address glossaries at all. Another way of looking at this is that Wikipedia does not need Wiki Warrior R.t.d. to swoop in and save the day. If the community thought that glossaries in general were a problem, it would have already dealt with them long ago, and they certainly would not be listed as one of the main types of valid list article in the Manual of Style at WP:SAL. :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 15:54, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

"or anyone for that matter" was a poor choice of words. I meant "or anyone other than Radiant! for that matter". My approach to this was:

Ask for clarification at WP:VPP.
As suggested at WP:VPP, PROD the articles.
Open AfDs for a more thorough discussion.

I do not view this as forum shopping, nor was I trying to "save the day". I did not take the fact that the glossaries exist as evidence of consensus to keep them. At the time, it seemed to me entirely possible that the community simply hadn't thought about it. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 17:08, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. I think we just have widely divergent views on the entire issue. :-/ — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 18:38, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Template:Dubious

Resolved

– Done.

Just FYI, I have a quick question about one of your proposals before I fully vote on it, and if you have the time I'd really appreciate the clarification (again, assuming you have the time) - Template_talk:Dubious#Merge --daniel folsom 14:32, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I'll go have a look at it. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 18:38, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

(Long delayed) reply

Resolved

– Just an FYI.

I really only cared that there was a consensus for delete; whether the WP:NOT#DICT rationale is indeed valid can only be determined by consensus. Your argument does have merit: glossaries are not dictionaries (though they may be synonyms), and glossaries are permitted under WP:SAL. —Kurykh 06:12, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Good enough for me; thanks for the reply. If the nom'r tries to claim that the article was deleted (as even I agree it should have been, for other reasons) because it was a glossary, your comment here is history-citable as evidence that the AfD wasn't actually closed on that basis, ergo it is not precendent for a glossary deletion spree. That's all I wanted, really. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 06:23, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Trick shot

Resolved

– Too old for further relevance, as of 09:01, 21 January 2010 (UTC); archiving.

So do you have any ideas on Trick shot? I noticed you cleaned it up alittle and I want to say thanks for that, but what do you mean by "outright b.s. statements? lol, anyway so do you have any major ideas on how to improve the article?Vandalfighter101 08:12, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

There were several nonsensical things said in it, four that I recall (the two I recall in detail right this minute after several beers at the Bob Dylan concert tonight <burp>) were that no one but Massey has ever made the boot shot - I've seen one of his competitors do it on TV over a year ago - and that trick shots evolved from artistic billiards, which is actually a comparatively new discipline (if anything the inverse is true; people have been doing trick shots for hundreds of years). No offense intended; sometimes my edit summaries are more grumpy than intended. Anyway, the two main avenues of improvement I see are using Shamos's New Illustrated Encyclopedia of Billiards as a quotable source for a number of things (I was actually working on that, but my browser crashed and I lost a good 20min. worth of well-sourced edits. D'oh! I did manage to save {{Shamos1999}} to make citing it easier), and finding documentation for the Trick Shot World Championship and adding an entire section about that, with a (sourced) list of the events and the winners and runners up (both men and women for years in which two divisions exist); and there might have been more than one such event run by different sanctioners/sponsors over the decades (I'm not really sure). Also needs coverage of the Snooker Trick Shot Championship (may or may not be the actual name of the event; I misremember). And some discussion of who the most legendary players are. Later on, expanding the notable shots section would be in order, with actual illustrations of the shots ~~(I think that CueTable.com's webware billiard table diagramming software may be useful for this).~~ It isn't; I tried. Further down the line some home-made (i.e. copyright-unencumbered) videos illustrating a few trick shots would be cool. If I can master a few of them and figure out how the video-recording function of my new digital camera (mostly intended for still pictures) works, I might be able to pull that part off myself. Anyway, within a day or two I should have (re-!)contributed some sourced facts to the article, without my machine crashing in mid-edit. PS: Are you in WP:CUE#Participants yet? — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 08:23, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

ok im gonna organize this so I dont miss anything.

ok my mistake about the boot shot.
When I say that trick shot evolved from artistic pool I say that because while people have actually been doing trick shots for a long time, artistic pool was the basis of actually competeing.

Snooker trick shot championship should be covered I agree, but we should have a separate section for that.

having a section on the most legendary players would be a good idea but might cause some people to think that the article is expressing POV.
I definetly agree with what you said about us having illistrations of trick shots and also vid recordings.
yes I am in the oarticipant section.

<fontcolor="red">Vandal<fontcolor="black">fighter101 08:43, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Your sig seems to be busted, unless that was intentional. (I've broken mine plenty of times in experimenting with it!). Looking at it more closely, I think the problem is that it says "fontcolor" instead of "font color". Anyway:

No worries; stuff happens.
That would need to be sourced; I remain skeptical. Artistic billiards is almost totally unknown in the US except among the most hard-core billiards nuts, and the US fields hardly any professional competitors in it (most of them are European, Asian and South American); meanwhile trick shot exhibitions in the US date to at least the late 1800s, and by the 1920s were one of the main sources of additional income for US pool pros, between championships (and remain so today; many pros do trick shot exhibitions for special events all the time, aside from the championships). The relationship between pool/snooker-style trick shots, artistic billiards and finger billiards (which has no article yet) is a complex one. The evidence I've come across to date seems to suggest that finger billiards (practitioners of which can achieve amazing english) was the main inspiration for artistic, while pool/snooker trick shots were their own animal, but in the last 2 generations there has been a lot of crossover. Documenting any of that reliably, however, will be a real challenge. Note: I also was not aware that you were drawing a distinction between artistic pool and artistic billiards AND trick shots. The clear facts are that trick shots have been around for hundreds of years, artistic (carom) billiards has been around for several decades as an organized sport, and artistic (pocket billiards) pool is comparatively quite new, an adaptation of artistic billiards to pool tables via the influence of classic trick shots. 03:57, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
Agreed; the US/pool and UK/snooker world championships should have their own subsections under "Competition" or whatever that section is called right now.
POV: I see what you mean; the way around that would be to profile world champions (and really in brief; if it's more than 2 sentences we're really talking about a stub player article instead).
Keen. I'm sure that will take a while. It would probably be more productive in the short term to document (televised competitions can be cited as sources with {{Cite episode}}) some of the more frequently used shots. I don't think we should go nuts here; probably ten very-well-described shots is more than enough. Per WP:NOT (Wikipedia is not a game guide, Wikipedia is not an instructional manual, etc.) we can't get too far into the detailia of how to set up these shots, just describe the basic layout, the desired result, and what makes it challenging).
Welcome aboard! Please check out WP:CUETODO if you have spare time; a lot of really basic work remains to be done, much less pushing things to Good and Featured Article status.

— SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:20, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

PS: I wasn't aware of APTSA and Rossman's ArtisticPool.org, and their use of the term "artistic pool" in a sense distinct from "artistic billiards" (which is played on pocketless carom tables). I created a thoroughly-sourced overview at Trick shot of this "movement" based on those two sources. It definitely post-dates and was obviously inspired by artistic billiards, which is a couple of generations older. Because a.p. involves more than trick shots per se, I suspect that it will eventually need to be split into its own article. For now, I will ensure that Artistic pool redirects to it, and will also go update the artistic billiards article to mention it. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 16:41, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

My edits to Template:WW

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– Non-issue.

Sorry about that. This was more a case of an apparently simple fix being not-so-simple, then digging myself out of the hole I dug, than it was a case of experimenting. (But yes, I would have been much more conservative about my edits if the template as I found it weren't already leaving brokenness out there; also, I had checked in advance and seen that the template is currently being used on a grand total of three article pages.)--NapoliRoma 00:33, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Works for me. :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:36, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

My RfA

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– Self-resolving FYI.

Hey there. I've answered your questions on my RfA. — Coren ^(talk) 01:47, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Keen. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:53, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you

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– Self-resolving note.

		Thank you
		Thank you for your opposition of my recent unsuccsessful rfa, which concluded today with a final tally of 22/15/3. The comments and suggestions from this rfa, combined with the comments left during my first rfa, have given me a good idea of where I need improvement. —TomStar81 (Talk) 05:32, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

WP:GRFA: "Consider not posting "thanks for voting" messages to the voters' talk pages. This is unneeded and probably not a good use of your time. Consider posting a thanks message instead on your own talk page and/or the talk page of your RFA page instead." Not a huge deal, but if it looks like you didn't pay attention to WP:GRFA some editors may remember that next time you are up at RfA. :-/ — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:37, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Q5 to my RFA

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– Self-resolving FYI.

I've chosen to answer #5 of your two questions that you put to me as that involves the least amount of surfing - I'm currently visiting my Dad for the weekend. You can read it here. Question #6 will have to wait until I get back home. Tabercil 14:51, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

One will probably do. They're very similar excercises. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 15:09, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

RfA questions

Q11 at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Elonka 2 seems useful but a little convoluted - any chance you could simplify it a little, and / or suggest a suitable discussion for Elonka to evaluate? Deiz talk 09:06, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

User:Coren [among 5 others now! 15:09, 28 July 2007 (UTC) Versus one more detractor, now 2-5 odds... 17:13, 28 July 2007 (UTC)] today had no real trouble with two questions of this sort. They were intended to be challenging. If an admin hopeful can't handle them, they are not going to be able to handle real-life XfD closures. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:21, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

[Next post copied from Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Tabercil; discussion moved here because off-topic at that RfA page. Any references to things like "this RfA" or "the present nominee", etc., refer to Tabercil's RfA.]

Support I've been watching this RFA for a few days now but never quite found the time to review the candidate - until now, that is. And, not that it matters, on the issue of Q5 and Q6, I'm very much with Ryan and I think it's missing the point. This isn't a pop quiz - it's a non-scientific way to gauge community trust and consensus. I don't think that making candidates jump through an arbitrary number of hoops is really helping in that regard and I think it certainly doesn't make the RFA process more accurate or, if you prefer, less broken. If you ask me, it's way too arbitrary to accurately judge someone's ability to make sound administrative decisions anyway. You're obviously entitled to ask any questions you see fit, SMcCandlish - I just don't think it's all that helpful. No offense. S ^up? 13:58, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry you don't find it all that helpful, but it's not your set of questions; and it's disappointing that you are misinterpreting the nature of the questions. That latter is almost certainly my fault (and the former no one's; just a preference/mode that works for some and not others). I will try to revise the questions substantially before I do another round of RfA. Their purpose is much like the Kobayashi Maru test in Wrath of Khan: a test of character, and there is no right or wrong answer, per se, there is a human result of grace (or lack thereof) under pressure that mirrors what someone in the position of the (maybe) upcoming responsibility will actually face for real on a regular basis (though you don't have to cheat to escape death at the end an XfD. Heh.)

In particular, I use questions like this (along with registering what others report, after digging through edit summaries, or raising old dirty laundry for airing) to gauge quite a number of things (and I'll probably give away too much here, but oh well), among them: a) whether the candidate understands the XfD processes at all, really b) whether they actually know the relevant policies and guidelines well enough to handle XfD without making a DRV mess; c) whether they understand that when closing an XfD they need to be dispassionate and guage consensus objectively rather than make themselves a silent party to the debate; d) how resourceful they are in figuring this stuff out; e) how flexible or dogmatic they are on scales with two known extremes (balance being desirable), on several levels: e1) subjective perception of article/topic "importance" or "triviality" being defining vs. irrelevant to their approach, e2) nitpickiness to sloppiness in range of linguistic interpretation, e3) WP:PROCESS vs. WP:IAR balance, e4) "consensus" utter unanimity vs. majority tyranny balance, e5) whether they display a strongly inclusionist or deletionist bent, instead of an even keel on the matter, e6) and similarly, immediatism vs eventualism, eN) I'll keep to myself for now; f) ability to detect nonsense in XfDs quickly and decisively (more on that in a sec); g) very firm grasp of logic, including abilty to recognize fallacies and willingness to dis-count fallacious arguments (pro or con) even if they are heated and popular; e N)... I'll keep those to myself too. Trust me, there is method to this "madness". I'll just try to make it clearer next time. It's not intended to sound like some kind of scavenger hunt, I assure you, and do so further that I am registring that it can be interpreted that way. Revise, revise...

Ability to rapidly nail a logical, policy-cognizant assessment of an XfD (or any other consensus/debate issue; XfD is just the "basic training" proving ground; dispute resolution with genuinely agry parties, and settling of disputes over what policy says [WP:ATT, April-May 2007, anyone?] rather than how it applies here or there, are both far more touchy), with a high (not "perfect") accuracy rate (everyone blows that every now and then; I did just yesterday at an AfD, in fact; so it goes) is important. Admins who cannot do this do more harm than good on one level (their XfD mis-activities, aside from whiners who simply don't like the outcome, and I was once, only once, is a large part of why WP:DRV is so busy). This is the part that "gets" me about the "SMcCandlish's awful questions" complaints; on two RfAs now I've had random commentators (not the candidate or their nominators; many of the candidates totally went for it and came back with great stuff) get upset about these questions I'm asking, and they don't seem to realize that it should take less that 5 minutes, barring really bad luck, to arrive at a likely test case, and under 20 minutes to report back here with a solution if you know your policy. In my first RfA when I got asked a version of the first of these 2 questions, I was much more sketchy on CSD than I thought I was, and it took me 2 hours to produce a result to report. Very good learning experience, and I don't mean in the "ouch" way, I mean in the "geez, I know CSD matters 10x better now than I did 2 hours ago!" way, because I had no choice but to internalize it all better. These excercises are beneficial for more than just the RfA !voter, I assure you.

NB: I say that the ability to assess the rationality of an XfD needs to be able to be excercised quickly for two reasons: 1) There's simply too much to do, as well all know, and 2) it's been observed by many before me that more often than not if you are not within the first 3 to 5 commentors on an XfD (or similar process) your comments, however cogent, are unlikely to have any effect on the debate. A sharp admin can neutrally ask for policy-aware clarifications of faulty arguments before they inappropriately WP:SNOWBALL into an excremental cascade of "me too!" blather. And XfD closings aside, a large proportion of XfD commentators are admins, and when intending to get into the thick of a debate rather than stand back and close it later, are in a better position to help steer the result toward a valid consensus instead of a mess destined for DRV. Ability to just see the issue immediately is a talent/skill that is a boon to the process, regardless what role and admin will be playing in that particular XfD.

I apologize for the length of this, but I've been challenged by multiple parties on two different RfAs, and now they've made this a curiously inter-RfA debate ("Ryan" never commented at Tabercil's RfA at all, Sup) to address this. I'm a little mystified that I'm being put in a position to effectively have to "justify" having "dared" to ask a challenging question, which any RfA nominee is free to ignore. The worst that would happen if I got no answer is that the nominee would get a "Neutral, pending answer".^‡ I am not a punitive !voter; any WP debate for me is dealt with on the core merits of the issue, not of the personalities or anyone's pride, or other emotive nonsense. I strenously request that any further discussion of any/all of this remains on my talk page, rather than soak up more bits'n'bytes on Tabercil's RfA.

^‡ In Elonka's case, I went with an oppose, on numerous grounds. Unusual case. 02:17, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

— SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 17:14, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I think the idea of these questions are great, and that most of the candidates have no trouble with them. But perhaps you could simply the wording: Can you find a recently decided at AfD that might perhaps be sent to DRV--either direction--but hasn't been, at least not yet, and discuss the policy issues involved? Personally, I think it's a fair supplement to looking for dubious policy arguments in the edit summaries, that may have been made a lot earler. DGG (talk) 02:21, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I am definitely going to trim it! I'm not sure your (DGG)version quite gets me what I want, though I think it is a great question in and of itself (and if I saw you ask it I wouldn't add mine to the same RfA since they'd be pretty redundant). My version of the AfD question (admittedly in bad need of cleanup) is intended to get the candidate looking at something live and contentious, which they might well be doing tomorrow as an admin, suss out the situation on the fly and come to a conclusion (not necessarily about how to close the XfD - it might change radically in an hour - but about the arguments being presented. I guess maybe the distinction is subtle, or maybe even only important to me. I arrived at both of these questions when I got asked one of them (in more brevity!) in my own RfA back when, and it was a good challenge, and actually fun. It wasn't another "explain how the licensing tags work" kind of "recitation" question, but a little project requiring analysis and deduction. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 03:11, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Support As a relatively recent successful RfA candidate I would have been happy to answer these questions. For a good faith candidate who will act responsibly as an admin, they should be, and would be, a breeze to answer and give yet another opportunity for people to see they are worthy. You wouldn't give someone a driving licence without a practical test. Agree that the wording might need simplifying but that is tinkering at the edges, not a problem with the concept being espoused. Orderinchaos 02:44, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Sankyubeddymush! <bow> That's what I thought too - I have a total of three people get on my case about the questions being dreadfully hard (not RfA candidates, mind you). Makes me think that people who think these questions are hard should perhaps not be hanging out in RfA. ;-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 03:11, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

As the person who had the questions, I didn't mind them in general and would cheerfully answer them again. My primary issue with the Speedy Deletion one was that the category by nature has a high degree of churn so I wasn't sure others would be able to fully see the basis for my reasoning. As for the AfD topic, the problem was that question needed time to properly research which I didn't have over the weekend (visiting my dad who does not have unlimited broadband) and I still don't (my own personal system is currently in the shop awaiting repairs after a motherboard BIOS update went sour; I'm currently stealing a copy of minutes at work to answer this). I will say this - I think the concept of trying to get inside a given person's head on how they would handle a given AFD is nice... you might need to feed them a specific case or two for them to look at (e.g., take a look at the AFD for article FOO or XDRIVEL). Tabercil 18:46, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

No worries, and yeah, I'd been thinking fo the provide-an-example tactic, but I think it might be too leading. The goal isn't to see "will this candidate do what I would have done about this dreadful AfD", it's "will this candidate demonstrate knowledge of policy, ability to think fast, and an adminly, neutral demeanor". :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 18:59, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Hi SMcCandlish, I feel I owe you an apology. First of all though, please let me thank you for taking this to your talk page. It's something I should have done to begin with and, thinking back on it now, I realize that commenting in the RFA wasn't particularly helpful and somewhat rude. For that, I would like to apologize. You were also correct in assuming that I got a little sidetracked. I'm also sorry for my tardiness: I had been out of town rather unexpectedly and, frankly, I'd been so busy that Wikipedia was the last thing on my mind. Since I'm the one who started this, I'm afraid that's hardly a valid excuse though and I'm sorry.

In any case, it looks like missed all the fun while I was away (always nice to be gone for a few days and have a gazillion articles greet you as you open your watchlist ;)). I feel that I did misread your questions to some extent and, like I said at the time, you're obviously entitled to ask any reasonable question as you see fit. This point is somewhat moot now and since I'm late to the party, I'll avoid beating a dead horse, but my beef, essentially, was not that the questions were too hard - my problem was that the results would at best be arbitrary. Just to make that perfectly clear: I have no problem with asking a candidate who has stated that he or she wants to work with XfDs to evaluate one. It's just that a smart candidate times it just right to pick a no-brainer and, that aside, I still feel (although less strongly) that the test has a somewhat limited usefulness for weeding out the bad apples as those who seek adminship for the wrong reasons(tm) can easily just copy a (seemingly) thoughtful answer from a successful RfA, wait for an obvious mistagging case and be done with it. That's why, in my opinion, it's not very useful as a litmus test. Since you were asking several candidates the same set of questions, my reply was more of a general comment (and, as you probably noticed, I was to some extent echoing what Ryan had remarked in Elonka's RfA which, I have to admit, took a very interesting turn).

Well, anyway, I mainly wanted to apologize for my previous error in judgement and for the lack of a reply on my part and I hope you'll accept my apology. :) Cheers S ^up? 00:40, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

No worries. I'm not mad at anyone, or whatever. In response to your concern about the questions being too gameable, that's actually already worked into the logic. It's not like I don't go examine the example case that the admin candidate chose. If I see that they've picked a no-brainer, or otherwise "cheated" (e.g. plagiarizing comments already extant at the XfD), which will generally be self-evident, then I can discount their answer, and look at other evidence instead. It's not intended as a be-all-end-all litmus test, but rather one more question among many. The bulk of RfA commenters are digging around in edit history for bad behavior, and sometimes asking questions about that behavior, but few ask "test" questions of this sort. It's just another data point. I generally give a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" remark after the answer provided, so lame but not obviously lame answers aren't likely to spur inappropriate "support" votes. I really have thought this through pretty well. Per all the discussion above, I will be refining the questions to be less blathery and less open to interpretation. More focused. Thanks for the response, of course, and I wasn't expecting anyone to apologize; reasonable people can reasonably disagree on all sorts of things. :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:52, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Help with parser functions

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– Replied in e-mail as requested.

I'm just taking a random shot to see if you might be able to help me out with "parser functions" since you're on the list of Wikipedians_who_understand_ParserFunctions @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedians_who_understand_ParserFunctions.

If I'm a bother, I apologize in advance. If not, I'd love some advice. I installed my wiki 2+ weeks ago & have been having problems with the templates because I think I lack parser functions. I'm not sure. Thanks,

Brandon username cdibrandon at the sitename @gmail.com -- if you wouldn't mind emailing me here, I'd sincerely appreciate it. I do like 2000 things a day & might not remember to come back here. I hope I remember, but an email would be very appreciated. p.s. I went through this page, http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/ParserFunctions, added the 3 .php files & added the line of code to the localsettings.php file & got lots of errors -- tried both lines of code.

Just e-mailed you (short version: I just use this stuff; no idea how to install it in a personal wiki). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 03:51, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Calliopejen1

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– Self-resolving FYI.

Did you get distracted? Hint: One vote to a customer! I took care of it for you. -- But|seriously|folks 08:04, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I must have! — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 08:06, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Template

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– Replied at proposal as requested; discussion should probably remain at WT:ILT.

Hey, do you have any feedback on the specify tag proposal - I thought you might like that one since it's a combination of the two styles of templates.--daniel folsom 16:42, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Where is this? I check my watchlist pretty closely, but I don't recall seeing this. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 18:29, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

It's here (at the bottom): Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Inline_Templates#Two_Template_Solution --daniel folsom 18:44, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh, that one. Consensus on direct address is still needed before we "go there". — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 21:01, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Well Excuse Me

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– Just a misunderstanding.

Sorry, I was fiddling with the automatic spell checker in Firefox. Your edit summary was not really appreciated. [1] At least my mistake wasn't intended to antagonize another editor. Unfortunately, I can't say the same about your edit summary. Jehochman ^Talk 18:42, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry if you felt that way, but altering others' !votes is a pretty major transgression when it is done intentionally (I've seen people blocked for it), and almost certain to get you a "cut it out" comment from someone, whether it was intentional or not. I'm not sure why you are taking umbrage at this. It's not like I left an angry note on your talk page. You should have self-reverted that change yourself, so there is no reason to be upset when someone does it for you. The edit summary wasn't intended to be "angry" or anything, more ironic, really. (There are people who go around changing "judgement" to "judgment", and so forth, on purpose, and often with certainty that they are fixing typos. Such people are pretty amusing in their own way, even when annoying.) My purpose in the edit summary was not to "antagonize another editor" it was to point out that another editor is doing something that there is an overwhelming and very long-standing consensus that they should not, and why they should not, and parenthetically to point out that one of the "corrections" was bogus. I'm curious what objection you would have to any of those. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 18:56, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Upon re-reading, I need you to retract this accusation. "Jehochman, do no modify the content of other's votes." I didn't modify the content (meaning) of anyone's votes, and these aren't really votes. You've made a serious, false accusation. Jehochman ^Talk 18:46, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I'll have to decline that request (and it wasn't an accusation, it was an observation). Your understanding of the word "content" appears to be much more narrow than general usage. Content and meaning are not synonymous except in rather unusual constructions with narrow applications. Also, votes at RfA are votes, as they are in RfB and a few other situations on WP, in contradistinction to XfD !votes, which are discussions toward forming a consensus. Please stop being upset over spilled milk and move on. This is not a personal matter for me, so why make it one for you? PS: Testing potentially destructive editing features of your software in a live RfA strikes me as not the safest of ideas. :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 18:56, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for clearing that up. Your responses make sense. Yeah, I meant to spell check my own, and kind of went overboard. Sorry again. Jehochman ^Talk 19:03, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

No problem, and sorry myself for upsetting you, which was not the intent. If I'd thought it were a big matter, would have raised an objection on your talk page. PS: It may also be a simple style thing; I tend to use clipped language in edit summaries because they're short (e.g. "Use en-dashes in date ranges, not hyphens", instead of "Please remember to use en-dashes in date ranges instead of hyphens, as their purposes differ (see WP:MOSNUM for more info", if you see what I mean.) I have no interest in irritating fellow editors. :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 19:09, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

So you want to be an admin. Your understanding of Wikipedia is quite good. What are you waiting for? I think you are ready. Jehochman ^Talk 19:41, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. It's a timing thing. I have a lot of projects on the plate (on-wiki and off). I'll do an RfA when I get a lot of that stuff done and find myself thinking, "hmm, what could I be doing that's useful around here instead of twiddling my thumbs?" Heh. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 20:13, 30 July 2007 (UTC)