User talk:Wavelength/Archive 2

IMHO though

re: I missed one detail. If I had mentioned to you that I had already provided (at the bottom of Talk:Mathematics#Making mathematics articles more accessible to a general readership) a link to the archived discussion, then you probably would not have deemed it necessary to provide a link at the top. -- Wavelength (talk) 16:47, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

LOL... IMHO, any false link should be fixed when archived... otherwise wastes folks time, n'est pas? Among other things, one cannot safely assume (the hubric pov) that someone passing by will read to the bottom... or predict when they will traverse the link... which they cannot see... (yet). Ooops! <g>Think on it. Cheers! // FrankB 16:52, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The preceding message by FrankB followed my message to 20 Wikipedians (User talk:It Is Me Here, User talk:Celarnor, User talk:Pseudomonas, User talk:Shereth, User talk:Grey Knight, User talk:Tango, User talk:.:Alex:., User talk:JackSchmidt, User talk:Kevin Baas, User talk:CBM, User talk:Gnevin, User talk:Fabartus, User talk:Deamon138, User talk:RayAYang, User talk:Arydberg, User talk:Ozob, User talk:Loisel, User talk:Michael Hardy, User talk:Algebraist, and User talk:Stca74) and my subsequent message to one of them, FrankB (User talk:Fabartus).

All of them (and I also) had contributed to a discussion, now archived at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 35#Easy as pi?, about making mathematics articles more accessible to a general readership. A related discussion is archived at Talk:Mathematics/Archive 12#Making mathematics articles more accessible to a general readership. Another one is archived at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Archive 41#Making mathematics articles more accessible to a general readership.

I am posting this information here, mostly for my own convenience. -- Wavelength (talk) 04:21, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Desynchronization

Hi, I followed the link out to Desynchronization from your recent edit to LHC, and the article is just so devoid of content that I proposed it for deletion. If you (or somebody you know) can beef it up, that would be great (I think 5 days is the nominal period before an admin might delete it), but it has been there for 4 years as an orphan with nothing to offer, so I think it needs to go if it can't be improved. Best, Wwheaton (talk) 04:58, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, my recent link to it was from Special relativity. Anyway, maybe Special relativity and Desynchronization can be merged if the latter is not expanded. -- Wavelength (talk) 05:31, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Creation-evolution controversy table

Hi,

Just to let you know, I've removed the link you placed to the table, basically for the reasons I detail in my edit summary - the table is not in mainspace, it's not regularly maintained, there's no sources and it currently reads like original research. I think it's of moderate use to wikipedia editors, but I don't think the readers are done a service linking to the page as it is now. However, as I am not the boss of wikipedia, I could be wrong. If it were sourced and put in mainspace then I could see it being useful, but ultimately I see it as something that should be redundant to one of the mainspace pages already extant (and perhaps is, I'd have to dig). WLU (t) (c) ^{(rules - simple rules)} 17:01, 22 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your message. -- Wavelength (talk) 17:10, 22 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

For my own convenience, this is a record of the four articles to which I added a link to Wikipedia:Creation-evolution table.

Evolution [1] (16:01, 22 October 2008)
Creationism [2] (16:02, 22 October 2008)
Intelligent design [3] (16:04, 22 October 2008)
Creation–evolution controversy [4] (16:06, 22 October 2008)

-- Wavelength (talk) 04:16, 9 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki globe

Hi! As I'm not sure that you are checking the language ref. desk everyday, I leave my message here. As for the ja, I think the balance of ウ and ィof this image is very good. Regards. Oda Mari (talk) 16:44, 25 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. It is on my watchlist and I check it every day or almost every day. Katakana#Table of katakana shows a dakuten on ウ in this combination. (The adverbial phrase "every day" is spelled as two words. The one-word form is an adjective.) -- Wavelength (talk) 17:03, 25 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for my poor English and thank you for pointing it out. ヴィ is used for v sound like Visconti/ヴィスコンティ and ウィ is used for w sound like Windows/ウィンドウズ. I happened to find that image at the ja Village pump and the last one in the section is the one I showed you. BTW, your user name in ja is 波長. Oda Mari (talk) 18:14, 25 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for all the information. -- Wavelength (talk) 19:00, 25 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WP essay FPO

Hi Wavelength. I'm going to yank the link to the essay Wikipedia:Facts precede opinions, which has been cast by the authors as "FPO", a corollary to WP:NPOV. IMO, it's not an adequately developed essay to merit a link. Further, Wikipedia:FPO currently is a shortcut to [Wikipedia:Featured portals]. Hope that's OK with you. WP:FPO could of course be redesignated in the future if there's an adequately developed FPO essay to shortcut to, one that enjoys some consensus-- but plainly it's not there yet. ... Kenosis (talk) 06:04, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A lack of links promotes a lack of awareness, and a lack of awareness promotes a lack of development.

Linking promotes awareness, and awareness promotes development.

-- Wavelength (talk) 06:19, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough. But, IMO, this sort of development is not generally expected to be fostered by linking from WP:NPOV, a core content policy page, to a completely undeveloped and very debatable essay, as was the case in this instance. I left intact the link you inserted from WP:NPOV to WP:FRINGE, a well developed guideline page. ... Kenosis (talk) 18:24, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Your recent contributions

Wavelength, I had to revert one of your See also links, and I came over here to look at your contributions. I'm surprised. I'm really not the expert on these things, but this looks like a case of WP:POINT to me (specifically, point 6). Can we talk this out over at WP:ANI? - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 17:35, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dank55, I am surprised by your message. I have been working through Wikipedia:List of base pages in the Wikipedia namespace, to bring more attention to as many pages as possible (especially, orphaned pages, whether or not they are tagged as such). I actually thought that my efforts would be appreciated.

I checked your contributions, and it seems that you are referring to my editing Wikipedia:Explain jargon by adding a link to Wikipedia:Federal Standard 1037C terms. I was not trying to illustrate a point. According to WP:POINT, point 6 is: "Attempting to force an untoward interpretation of policy, or impose one's own view of 'standards to apply' rather than those of the community". Maybe I have misinterpreted policy. If that is the case, please explain it to me (as clearly as you can) so that I interpret it correctly. In what way was adding that link inappropriate?

(By the way, are you an administrator? Your link to WP:ANI seems to suggest that you are, but I could find no indication of that on your user page.)

-- Wavelength (talk) 19:49, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not an admin, which is why I'm bringing up WP:ANI. You're making rapid additions to policy and guidelines pages, and as one of the guys who keeps track of these things, it's frustrating when one person creates so much work for everyone else, but I'm really not the guy to be making the call whether it's "too much". All I can tell you is, it's frustrating. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 20:02, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, if you find it frustrating, I apologize. I am guessing that "so much work for everyone else" refers to reverting my changes (or, at least, examining them). Can you see my perspective in anticipating people thinking, "Oh, I am glad that someone brought that page to my attention. I did not even know that it existed."?

On some (but not all) occasions when I have added links to these pages on article pages, they have been reverted with the explanation that the links were not to other article pages.

One reason for my proceeding rapidly from A to Z is to avoid forgetting related pages which I have already seen, when I see other related pages later in the alphabet.

In summary, I am perplexed as to how best to bring attention to those pages. Maybe I should abandon that plan.

--Wavelength (talk) 21:16, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

More information is at (permanent link) Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) (section "Adding links to Wikipedia namespace pages"). -- Wavelength (talk) 00:04, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia's Expert Peer Review process (or lack of such) for Science related articles

Hi - I posted the section with the same name on my talk page. Could you take part in discussion ?

User: Shotwell suggested (on my talk page) "I would endorse a WP:EXPERTADVICE page that outlined the wikipedia policies and goals for researchers in a way that enticed them to edit here in an appropriate fashion. Perhaps a well-maintained list of expert editors with institutional affiliation would facilitate this sort of highly informal review process. I don't think anyone would object to a well-maintained list of highly-qualified researchers with institutional affiliation (but then again, everyone seems to object to something)."

We could start with that if you would agree ... - could you help to push his idea through Wikipedia bureaucracy ? Apovolot (talk) 16:32, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, thank you. -- Wavelength (talk) 17:04, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hyphens - thanks for the ref

By comparing your edits with the MOS section (WP:MOS#Hyphens, section 3, point 4) I can see they follow policy, and are a good illustration of the point. Now if I just felt comfortable so many other places, where I think a hyphen is _needed_.

BTW: How are you finding the -ly situations? Shenme (talk) 02:07, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Recently, I followed Special Pages to Pages with the most revisions, and, starting with number 1, I opened one page after another, and searched on each page for "ly-". Most occurrences required correction; on one page, I encountered "family-friendly" (where "family" is a noun which happens to end with "ly") and that hyphenation does not require correction. I chose those pages (including many in which I have very little interest in the topic) to maximize attention to this mistake which is running rampant on Wikipedia, on the Internet in general, and in print media. -- Wavelength (talk) 03:10, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

See also: (temporary link) Talk:Hyphen#Adverbs and/or (permanent link) Talk:Hyphen (section 20 "Adverbs")

-- Wavelength (talk) 15:55, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please stop. The question of English usage is more complex than you appear to allow for, and differs between the national varieties of English. You are being disruptive and unhelpful, although I appreciate your taking care over family-friendly. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:51, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You have just changed the wording of Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Hyphens, section 3, point 4. Unfortunately, you did not provide any source to support your view. I followed the link which you provided in your message, in addition to subsequent links, and I was unsuccessful in my search for such support. Which national varieties of English have which differences regarding whether or not to use a hyphen after an -ly adverb? What support is there for the view that they have those differences?

-- Wavelength (talk) 08:24, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Your change (to Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Hyphens, section 3, point 4) has been reverted.

I have checked the first 200 pages listed at Pages with the most revisions.

I have checked the pages listed at Wikipedia:Most frequently edited pages (permanent link: here), as far as Dwight Howard, with a rank of 1942.

I bypassed about four pages because of their subject matter.

On some pages, I found occurrences of "ly-" where I was not sure of what to do, so I left them unchanged for now, but corrected occurrences that were straightforward if I found them on the same page.

Eventually, I reasoned that someone seeing my corrections to some occurrences might conclude (not necessarily correctly) that my not correcting other occurrences on the same page was an endorsement of those other occurrences. Therefore, when I found pages with occurrences causing me uncertainty, I eventually tended to bypass such pages altogether.

-- Wavelength (talk) 18:43, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

[I wikified the word "reverted". -- Wavelength (talk) 21:36, 11 November 2008 (UTC)][reply]

Because of the foregoing challenge to my corrections, I started these five discussions, listed here in the order in which I started them.

-- Wavelength (talk) 17:54, 24 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Your edit to the Golf article

Wavelength, I was busy rewriting the the types of shots section in the Golf article as you made your edit. So for convenience sake on my end, I undid, and subsequently redid your edit of a misused hyphen. I figured I should give you a heads up. Happy editing, Eaglebreath (talk) 03:45, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the explanation. -- Wavelength (talk) 04:32, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Courtesy visit

Wavelength, I'm just dropping in to say hello, and to let you know that I appreciate your recent work at WP:MOS, and especially its talkpage. Discussion there is perennially difficult. Editors have a hard time adjusing to the task at MOS, which is not the same as at normal articles. This matter of prescriptiveness is such a confusion, and so politically mixed up! It needn't be, of course: if people would only step back and make a fresh appraisal of MOS in its context. They should reflect on the kind of work that is useful there, and the critique of MOS's role that is essential from outside, but not helpful if carried on relentlessly from within.

I do what I can, but sometimes it's most productive to hold off and let others take on a "tour of duty".

Good to see you also at the language reference desk. Myself, I am not committed to zealous work there. But I contribute in depth and detail where I find I can.

Best wishes to you.

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 21:05, 26 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your appreciation. I appreciate your work too. When I started my little project to remove incorrectly placed hyphens, I neither anticipated nor wished that I would be involved in a long discussion about the guideline. Generally, I find it to be more difficult and more time-consuming to prepare thoughtful messages than to perform simple editing tasks. That is why I prefer to stay with the latter. However, it happens from time to time that the usual "business" of editing is interrupted by a "court case" because someone else has a different "view" of how things should be. When that happens, I prefer to have interchanges with editors who discuss disagreements with straightforwardness, rather than with those who selectively dodge comments and questions, practice self-contradiction, and carry on filibustering. Such a waste prevents Wikipedia from being as good as it can otherwise be.

I do not know how much or for how long I will be contributing at the language reference desk. If I provide only one or more links in answer to a question, and maybe a brief comment, I hope that the questioner accepts that as better than nothing. I am preparing myself to become more involved in translating articles.

-- Wavelength (talk) 19:41, 28 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Barn star of Bethlehem

		The Reference Desk Barnstar
		to Wavelength for diligence above and beyond. When I see that Barn Star of Bethlehem above the shed, I'll think of you! shiny one. Julia Rossi (talk) 08:32, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for this kudos. -- Wavelength (talk) 17:32, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Adminship

Hello! My name is Gopal81 and I would like to nominate you for adminship. According to your edit history, it seems you are not already an administrator. If, however, you do not wish not become an admin, you can decline by leaving a message on my talk page requesting so. And before I forget:

Gopal81 would like to nominate you to become an administrator. Please visit Wikipedia:Requests for adminship to see what this process entails, and then contact Gopal81 to accept or decline the nomination. A page will then be created for your nomination at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Wavelength. If you accept the nomination, you must state and sign your acceptance. You may also choose to make a statement and/or answer the optional questions to supplement the information your nominator has given. Once you are satisfied with the page, you may post your nomination for discussion, or request that your nominator do so.

Thank you for considering me for the position of an administrator. However, I do not wish to become one at this time. Also, I do not wish to do so during the next twelve months.

-- Wavelength (talk) 22:20, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wavelength, I think that's a great pity. I'm very impressed with your work at WP, and I'd certainly support your candidature. BTW, I see you don't have email enabled; I wonder whether you will consider enabling it .... Tony (talk) 11:57, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Tony, for your comments about my work and about my candidature. One reason for my not wishing to become an administrator is explained by the Peter Principle, and one reason is the cost in time. If I enable e-mail, is an exclusive whitelist possible? Even if it is, I still might not want to enable e-mail. -- Wavelength (talk) 16:40, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I believe a whitelist (blacklist?) is not possible, but your email server should be able to syphon or block any sources you don't want after the first time (the user's name is in the title). Can I say that in my nearly four years here, I've never received a single unwanted or negative email (and not many unsolicited in toto)—and I'm a reformer, hanging around controversial places. You could always try it and flick it off if you don't like it. PS If you want your own log-in email address to remain confidential, you need to reply via the correspondent's "Email this user" button, not directly. That guarantees anonymity on both sides. Tony (talk) 09:41, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Wikipedia adminship contains pages about being a Wikipedia administrator. -- Wavelength (talk) 02:19, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Your questions about MOS and hyphens

Wavelength, best wishes to you for the season.

As I foreshadowed, I have now stopped editing WP:MOS and discussing at WT:MOS. I think you can see why. Recent developments make the prospect of useful dialogue that respects Wikipedia norms even more remote. But I will respond here to the questions you pose. (Note Dank55's refactoring to make a new section starting at your questions. For clarity and independence in major headings, especially in archiving, the heading would be better as "== The original problems with -ly adverbs (specific and general) ==". I advise making that change.)

Now: "Specifically, if I were now to correct again the hyphenated expression in Electric guitar#Sound and effects, paragraph 4, to 'specially designed sound cards', would I have the support of the Manual of Style?" The short answer is yes. And no long answer is necessary! Our guideline and examples certainly cover the case you mention.

As for removing the "under discussion" tag, there are no strong precedents for when to do it. I was waiting for the section to be archived first, but that was delayed by new additions to the section. I think discussion has effectively stopped, and I advise removing the tag. If it resumes, the tag can easily be re-applied for the duration of new discussion.

Feel free to contact me, at my talkpage or by email, if you would like to pursue anything in which we have a mutual interest. You are a translator? I am. Which languages do you prefer to work with?

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 00:50, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for answering my questions. I intentionally posted those questions before the preceding subsections were archived, with the purpose of maximizing attention to the problems. Maybe that was a wrong decision on my part.
The English Wikipedia's Manual of Style is at the intersection of two relative "anarchies". Firstly, English has no official language regulator. Secondly, Jimmy Wales has (to a large extent) left it to Wikipedians to work things out together, to the best of their collective abilities. In each case, there is more freedom (than otherwise) to make individual choices, and perhaps more likelihood of disagreeing with the choices made by others. Your decision not to waste more time in editing WP:MOS and in discussing at WT:MOS reminds me of the decisions of others not to waste more time in contributing to Wikipedia. I hope that those two pages will become more attractive "workplaces" for you in the near future.
Yes, I am a translator, both on Wikipedia and elsewhere, but in neither case to any large extent, so far. I prefer to work with the languages indicated in the language userboxes on my userpage, and approximately in the order of their being listed, which is also approximately the order of my proficiency in them. I did not include a userbox for Simple English because I have not had enough experience with it to give myself a rating.

-- Wavelength (talk) 21:28, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My experience with Wikipedia is in accord with your analysis. For me, it is not so much a matter of what is congenial (though MOS has not been congenial) as of what is feasible. There are inevitable limits to what can be achieved at the MOSpages, because there is no clear brief from the community that MOS is supposed to serve, and no centralised discussion that could steer us to such a goal. Not only do editors come in with varying competence and insight into their own competence (which we could cope with, as we do everywhere in the project), there are not sufficient boundaries within which to work, or to appeal to so that discussion will be orderly, productive, and enduringly consensual. (For a start, there is no system for establishing and recording well-founded consensus decisions.) These things matter more at MOS than elsewhere. And then, attempts to fix these higher-level problems, or even to raise them systematically, are greeted with suspicion and perhaps accusations of anti-Wikipedian motives. The wonder is this: we do have a pretty good set of guidelines at WP:MOS, unique on the Web as far I can determine. The worry is this: it cannot endure as a respected resource, or much improve, without a change of protocols. I'm pessimistic, so far.

As for the anarchy of English itself, that is more familiar and even more inevitable. Style guides proliferate despite it, or indeed because of it. The task such anarchy sets for all style guides is exciting and of great linguistic interest: psychological and sociological interest, also.

I do some translating from Romance languages (mainly French) into English. We could compare notes sometime if you like.

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 21:29, 27 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, I did not follow your advice (above, at 00:50, 25 December 2008) to change the heading at WT:MOS, and I am puzzled that I did not do so. Maybe I was preoccupied with so many things that I simply overlooked it. -- Wavelength (talk) 04:25, 9 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Reference desk regulars

Hello, Wavelength. I added your signature to this list. I hope that's alright. Happy Holidays! ---Sluzzelin talk 13:37, 26 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

new WP:RDREG userbox

This user is a Reference desk regular.

The box to the right is the newly created userbox for all RefDesk regulars. Since you are an RD regular, you are receiving this notice to remind you to put this box on your userpage! (but when you do, don't include the |no. Just say {{WP:RD regulars/box}} ) This adds you to Category:RD regulars, which is a must. So please, add it. Don't worry, no more spam after this - just check WP:RDREG for updates, news, etc. flaming lawye r^c 07:10, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks

Wavelength, I want to thank you for your supportive discussion around 'limen'. As you can tell, I am not an experienced user, and have never entered into such a deep discussion around a very small point. While I was interested in pursing my point, I have no underlying motivation in this topic. I am very grateful for your support in sorting all this out. I have learnt much more than I expected. —F^red ¹1⁴ 07:33, 7 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

At Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2009 January 6#Latin origin of the word 'limen' still relevant today?, the discussion is archived.

-- Wavelength (talk) 05:05, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Request Referrence(?)

Thanks for referring the article translation request to the appropriate authority. I didn't know that type of service was offered on Wikipedia, therefore I would never have placed it there. I've been sporadically editing WP lately and haven't checked the page I originally posted on, so I wouldn't know what to do, sorry. My dearest thanks to you for what you have done for me and the public as a whole. Mattokunhayashi 20:43, 19 January 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mattokunhayashi (talk • contribs)

The discussion is archived at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2009 January 11#File Translation Needed. More information is at User talk:Mattokunhayashi, section 7, "Translation of text for a map (from Spanish to English)". -- Wavelength (talk) 05:19, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Collation at WT:MOS

Good to see that you have set things in motion at WT:MOS. Army makes some interesting points, but he is not right about the redirect from Thortharson being pointless. Even if it is a "mere" patronymic, most people don't know that: and many who read a full Icelandic name will search for it under the "surname", mistakenly or not. While native Icelandic alphabetisation is keyed to the first name, not the patronymic or matronymic, this does not necessarily mean that English-language practice must follow.

I did not know that Þ comes after Z in the native Icelandic version of the alphabet, as I now see that it does. But again, if the transliteration is with Th, then it should surely be sorted in a list as if spelt that way in a multilingual list. Compare indexes that mix Greek words with non-Greek: you will surely find Θαλῆς sorted between Thackeray and thaumaturgy rather than between Eric the Red and iatrogenic diseases!

There are genuine difficulties to be sorted out.

This Google book search on "Thórbergur" shows that it is usual in an international context to treat it as a normal given name: to shorten it to an initial, and to index by the "surname" rather than by "Thórbergur". See the treatment of "Thorvaldson, T", for example. This source is interesting; it does repeatedly refer to Þórbergur Þórðarson as "Þórðarson", even when the Icelandic spelling is retained. See, by the way, our article List of Icelanders for further possible leads.

See also our article Gunnar Gunnarsson, which regularly refers to its subject as "Gunnarsson"; other articles like Einar Benediktsson do not follow this practice (we have a note at the start about patronymics, telling us that the subject is to be referred to as "Einar"). Perhaps Gunnarsson is more internationalised and appropriated as a figure in world literature, and so subjected to the norms of international naming; or perhaps it's just the luck of the draw in Wikipedia articles. Britannica consistently indexes by the patronymic, by the way; and it refers to the subject by the patronymic.

As for Italian, sure: the conventions have to be worked out for that, too. They do seem to differ from those for French, and Spanish may be different again.

I can see we're going to have difficulties if I don't respond directly at WT:MOS; but I fear it must be that way for now.

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 03:42, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How can I ask this question without sounding derisive? Are the difficulties which caused you to leave WT:MOS worse than the difficulties of this discussion there without your direct participation? I hope that you will change your decision, at least for discussing collation. In either case, you may be interested to know that I have invited comments from two groups of Wikipedians.

-- Wavelength (talk) 19:22, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Don't worry about how you sound; we have a good working relationship, and I for one will not be over-sensitive. Remember that it was you that started our conversation about collation. While I remain interested to pursue it, I will not waste time at MOS; nor will I endure any more the vapid deliverances of certain editors there, or the unwarranted abusiveness of some others. I have too much else to do; and as I have said before, it is sometimes good to get out of the way and let others deliberate.

That said, I think your efforts to be clear about these issues have not met with the same from other editors. A pity, because these matters are complex and call for careful, clear exposition. Already the waters are muddied, it seems to me. Too soon people lapse into jargon, and the conversation becomes cliquey and labyrinthine.

I have thought about this, and I can offer a solution: shift the whole thing to the talkpage for WP:LIST (which needs a shortcut: WT:LIST; surprising that so little about collation is apparent in WP:LIST, after so much discussion there!) or some other better-focused forum than WT:MOS. It is in lists and tables that collation is most salient as an issue, after all. If you do that, I will join in. But I will not engage with time-wasting or obscure process.

I value your work, and I don't want to see it wasted by the incompetence of others!

Note that I am away from my usual haunts for a few days, and may not contribute much till I return.

Meanwhile, it is good that you have invited comments form those two groups of specialists. Keep in mind, though, that there is a sharp divide between British and American practice, with ordering by first word first versus ordering by letters in the whole string without regard for divisions between words.

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 04:02, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for offering that solution. I used two navigation templates, but when I open the second one, the text is too wide for the screen. Do you know how to fix that?

-- Wavelength (talk) 22:22, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for the delay in responding. I am not able to do much at WP until about 5 February, as it turns out.

I use Firefox, and only if I make the window very narrow do I have any problem with that second navbox. What browser do you use? Such a problem might be caused by those long unbroken strings, like the Google-books address given by Kmzundel at the end. Two solutions, in that case: 1) edit the markup so that the string itself is not what is shown; or 2) use the markup <small></small> around the offending strings (iterated as necessary).

Interesting that there has been no response to your posting. And there's half the problem! Sorting order appears to interest few editors, or to be too hard to come to terms with. If things continue like that, we will have grounds for taking the initiative or forcing the issue, perhaps drafting a guideline of our own devising and giving notice that we will include it if there are no reasoned objections. How do you feel about that? My difficulty with it is that you and I have not yet reached any agreement on what would be best. If we could somehow do that, then make an RFC, we might get some action. It shouldn't be just set aside. Too important.

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 09:24, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

When I tried your second solution, I saw no difference. When I tried your first solution, with Kmzundel's comment after the template, the template had normal width even when opened, but his comment had extra width. Also, I noticed that his comment at WT:MOS has extra width, which I had not noticed before. I had first noticed the extra width of the template when I had decided to close it. After some reflection, I decided to leave the template as it is, and to refrain from publicizing my choice of web browser.

I am willing to take the initiative with you in drafting a guideline. We can let the discussion at WT:MOS lapse at the end of 10 days. I am unsure of how easy it will be for us to reach an agreement, but I am hoping for the best. If you are ready, please respond, below the second template, to elements in it, including, if possible, (1) links to archived discussions, (2) my Google search results, (3) my favored system, and (4) subsequent comments by other Wikipedians.

-- Wavelength (talk) 20:52, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

[I changed points to elements. -- Wavelength (talk) 21:42, 5 February 2009 (UTC)][reply]

Yes Wavelength, I will respond where you ask me to. I may not respond to all of the archived discussion nor to all of the Google search results, because that would be inefficient. I will respond to your own favoured system. All of this I'll do a couple of days from now. Myself, I want a system that is simple, practicable, easy to gain consensus for, and suited to English-language practice (with, for example, Þ treated as if it were Th – in ordering if not in transliterating, though I also strongly prefer doing that too).

I'm sorry that there is a problem with the navboxes. I don't see it, myself. Many elements of this sort are clunky at WP, but they remain useful.

More later. (I am still away from my major resources.)

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 23:17, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wavelength, I have not forgotten about any of this. Some more has been said at WT:MOS, though the discussion is slow and haphazard. I have approached one other editor to join in some concerted action, and I am waiting for a reply. Meanwhile, I watch developments with interest.

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 23:46, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Librarians have seen every possible system. The standard handbook. "A Manual of European languages for librarians", for Icelandic says. "In some lists every letter has a distinct place,....but often the accents are ignored, and d and ð are treated as one." In other words, there is in practice no standard. (Its pretty much them same in all accented languages--there are multiple standards, and the reader and searcher must be prepared to adapt. When librarians write their own, they at different times and places show an equal variety. Obviously, for a list we need a single one, and we could justify almost anything. DGG (talk) 03:52, 26 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Manual of Style

Thanks, I'll see if I can get to that later today. --Taiwan boi (talk) 03:54, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Peak water

Wavelength, you wrote: "I have requested these articles (22:24, 16 October 2007)". I saw your earlier contribution. Thanks. Could you please review the article once more. It's much closer now to complete. Kgrr (talk) 02:50, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your contributions also, and for visiting User:Wavelength/Articles requested.

-- Wavelength (talk) 22:43, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Alphabetization / collation

Thanks for drawing my attention to this discussion. Seems a useful and needed addition to WP:MOS. --Bookgrrl ^holler/lookee here 04:27, 7 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Saw your request to copy my comment but am not sure where exactly you want it -- the code there is kind of confusing to me (I'm not familiar with the expandable boxes and the border around some of the paras). Can you go ahead and copy it wherever it should go? --Bookgrrl ^holler/lookee here 00:54, 16 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Rhyming pairs

Thanks again for the massive work you did in locating candidates, Wavelength. Do you still have it on your To Do list for a new article? I'll naturally defer to you if you plan on getting to it fairly soon, but if not, I've done some work on it and I could create a stub too. Cheers. -- JackofOz (talk) 05:27, 19 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for asking, but it has never been on my list of things to do. Please go ahead with it if you want to start that article. If you want to prevent its deletion, I advise reading WP:BEEF. I anticipate that, after it has been started, it will receive contributions from Angr, Julia Rossi, Kwami, Noetica, and me.

-- Wavelength (talk) 19:12, 19 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK. Thanks. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:29, 19 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am adding this note in order to remind myself that the idea for this article sprang from the discussion at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2009 February 13#Words with exactly one rhyme.

-- Wavelength (talk) 20:02, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Do you speak French?

All the more reason to send readers to a more useful page! It was edited in late 2004/early 2005, about a half dozen times, then abandoned. We need more attention at the translation project that actually has participants. Calliopejen1 (talk) 00:27, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Lists of environmental topics

Thank you for your message. -- Wavelength (talk) 03:54, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Alphabetization and collation

Hi Wavelength, Thanks for asking me to comment on the above Wikipedia Manual of Style talk page. My apologies that I'm just getting to it now - I've had a busy semester! Best, Walshga (talk) 16:44, 22 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion has been archived at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 107#Alphabetization and collation, with the instruction "Do not edit the contents of this page." The discussion is still open for comments at Wikipedia talk:Lists#Alphabetization and collation. Thank you for your interest. If you have comments to add, please put them at the very bottom of the section. Please do not edit the navigation templates. -- Wavelength (talk) 16:40, 24 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The work on lists is important, and needs sustained discussion from interested editors.

Wavelength, thanks for your note at my talkpage. Please see my response there.

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 12:41, 27 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks!

		The Reference Desk Barnstar
		Thank you for the link regarding Chinese Romanization on the Reference Desk! --Ye Olde Luke (talk) 22:35, 2 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for this kudos. -- Wavelength (talk) 23:15, 2 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just a suggestion

(Regarding [5] and [6]) As far as I recall, there is consensus that it is alright (even a good thing) to change generic ref desk headings ("Question 1", e.g.) to meaningful titles. I'm assuming you added a note in order to inform the original poster or anyone else who might be confused when searching for the original title. My suggestion is to leave the generic part and merely add the meaningful part. Example: "Question 2: Opposite of a word in context" or "Question 2 (Opposite of a word in context)". I've seen both. That way the original title even appears in the table of contents, and you don't have to add an explanation. Just my two cents. In any case, thanks for the helpful modifications. ---Sluzzelin talk 08:31, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for recalling a consensus that it is all right to make those changes.

The information at the top of the page (Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language) includes the following.

Include a meaningful title. Do not write "Question" or "Query", but write a few words that briefly tell the volunteers the subject of the question.

...

Don't edit others' comments, except to fix formatting errors that interfere with readability.

I interpreted readability to include informativeness in a heading.

I asked about such matters at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2009 April 17#Choosing e-mail subject lines and Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2009 April 17#Choosing section headings on Wikipedia talk pages and on Wikipedia Reference Desk pages. In the first discussion, I was provided this link (Microcontent: Headlines and Subject Lines (Alertbox)), which I provided with the first change which you mentioned. At the bottom of that linked web page, under "Additional User Research and Design Guidelines", the fourth link is to First 2 Words: A Signal for the Scanning Eye (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox), which has a link to F-Shaped Pattern For Reading Web Content (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox). On the language reference desk, the F-shaped pattern would be less effective with a heading which retains the word "Question". I removed the word "Question" because I understood it to be lacking in informativeness. Also, it does not stand out from similar headings. In the second discussion which I cited from the Archives, the last message (by User:JackofOz) says: "if the OP just writes 'Question' (which happens all too often), there should be carte blanche for any other editor to convert it into something meaningful."

[By the way, the heading of this discussion could be changed from "Just a suggestion" to something more informative, such as "Changing headings: a better way (just a suggestion)".] -- Wavelength (talk) 15:57, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

lol, you crack me up :) ---Sluzzelin talk 16:20, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hyphens

Nicely-done. A greatly-needed campaign. Tim Vickers (talk) 22:28, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the compliment (--> "Nicely done. A greatly needed campaign."). Readers of your message [7] should be aware of Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Hyphens, sub-subsection 3, point 4. -- Wavelength (talk) 23:25, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

From 05:34, 11 May 2009 (UTC) to 06:38, 13 May 2009 (UTC), I visited articles listed at Wikipedia:Featured articles, searching for the character string ly- and removing incorrectly placed hyphens. I checked 12 categories in the following order, and recorded the names of the following articles, which still need attention because of certain complications.

FA Biology: Amanita phalloides; Blue Whale; Daspletosaurus; Dinosaur; Edmontosaurus; Gorgosaurus; Hawksbill turtle; History of biology; Iguanodon; Ring-tailed Lemur; Sea otter

FA Education: ---

FA Geography and places: Blyth, Northumberland; Bratislava; Death Valley National Park; Hamersley, Western Australia; Providence, Rhode Island; Sale, Greater Manchester; Waterfall Gully, South Australia

FA Geology, geophysics and meteorology: ---

FA Health and medicine: Race Against Time: Searching for Hope in AIDS-Ravaged Africa

FA Language and linguistics: ---

FA Mathematics: ---

FA Chemistry and mineralogy: ---

FA Computing: Delrina

FA Engineering and technology: Shuttle-Mir Program

FA Food and drink: ---

FA Physics and astronomy: Johannes Kepler; Pluto

Here is a permanent link to an old revision of Wikipedia:Featured articles, as edited at 18:46, 12 May 2009 (UTC).

During this two-day period, the Main Page was displaying a banner thanking contributors for over 2500 featured articles.

-- Wavelength (talk) 13:43, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks

Thank you for your recent help with the list of skin-related conditions‎. Much appreciated! ---kilbad (talk) 20:02, 22 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You are welcome. -- Wavelength (talk) 20:54, 22 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps if you have a moment, could I get some overall feedback from you regarding the list? I am working to make it feature status someday and would appreciate your review. Regardless, thank you for your work on wikipedia! ---20:46, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

A study on how to cover scientific uncertainties/controversies

Hi. I would like to ask whether you would agree to participate in a short survey on how to cover scientific uncertainties/controversies in articles pertaining to global warming and climate change. If interested, please get in touch via my talkpage or email me Encyclopaedia21 (talk) 19:31, 31 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Removing hyphens from Wikipedia namespace

I have begun systematically searching through the project pages in the Wikipedia namespace and removing incorrectly used hyphens. (See Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Hyphens, sub-subsection 3, point 4.) Whenever I was unable to edit a project page, I left a comment on the discussion page. I have completed this procedure for all unredirected pages beginning with a non-alphanumeric character or a digit, Including pages indexed before Roman letters and those indexed after Roman letters. -- Wavelength (talk) 03:38, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Nice; wish more people were MoSgnoming like this. Tony (talk) 09:46, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have completed this procedure for all undirected pages (including subpages) beginning with A, as far as and including the project page Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RRArchive85. I have discontinued, and visitors to this talk page can read the subsequent section #Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard/3RRArchive85 etc. for more information. -- Wavelength (talk) 06:48, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

[A discussion about correcting or mentioning English errors on discussion pages is archived at
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 109#Purview of the Manual of Style. -- Wavelength (talk) 14:51, 7 July 2009 (UTC)][reply]

I could help by doing another letter ... except that I'm concentrating on removing what is almost always a redundant little urchin, "in order to". Tony (talk) 08:41, 16 June 2009 (UTC) PS no success using the searcher function. How does one efficiently list the articles that contain ly-? Tony (talk) 08:44, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

From the Prefix Index, I opened each page (one at a time) in a new window tab, and searched on that page for ly-. If I saw at least one instance of an adverb ending in ly hyphenated with a following adjective, I made the necessary correction(s). I disregarded expressions like July-August and willy-nilly. In the case of discussions in the non-discussion part of the namespace, I left messages on the actual discussion pages. I did likewise in the case of archived project pages. Eventually, to save time, I pasted the same message: This project page has one or more incorrectly used hyphens, which editors can find by searching on the page for "ly-". See Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Hyphens, sub-subsection 3, point 4. Soon the routine was easy and I was able to process almost any page in only a few seconds. -- Wavelength (talk) 16:58, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

MOS matters

Dear Wavelength,

Thank you so much for your patient posting at my talkpage in recent weeks. I have been pleased to receive all that you have written, and felt some guilt for not responding. But I have done little at Wikipedia in the last few months [as you can see], except have my say on a couple of important political fronts, intervene to rescue Diatonic and chromatic (which stands in need of WPification, but not of incompetent piecemeal meddling), and address a couple of quotidiana. I would like to take up some of the matters you raise at my talkpage, but not just yet.

I write now because I am both delighted and dismayed to see your latest contribution at WT:MOS. Let's start with the delight. I agree with you entirely on the distinction between form and function, and am irradiated with noetic pleasure to see the matter so well put in the case of the period (or full stop). "M'illumino d'immenso" as Ungaretti has it: or perhaps in this case "M'illumino d'impegno". Yes, I agree entirely on the general point, and want to participate in working out its consequences. I have had essentially the same idea for the last couple of years, about several matters of punctuation. But I have never yet thought the time right (see how we segue into dismay?) to throw it into the mix at WT:MOS. Too fine a pearl.

I have kept away from all MOS activity for just short of six months. The self-exile is almost over; I have been waiting only for the ArbCom delinking case to come to its end, and its sanctions against certain editors to be in effect. But I do not want to discuss here my thoughts about that case or MOS. I have invited you to email me, and I am still hoping that you will decide to do so, at this crucial stage for the development of WP's style guidelines, which are by far the most influential on the web. I also have in mind an experimental collaboration that goes beyond Wikipedia; but I cannot discuss it with you here either.

Meanwhile, I offer a response concerning your latest MOS submission. I don't mind if you quote me at WT:MOS.

Period starts as a word indicating function, just as full stop does. As OED points out, the primary senses of period (before we get to analysis of text) concern first a duration (" I. A course or extent of time") and then, derivatively, its termination ("II. Completion, end of any course"). And so in the analysis of text. First, the sentence considered as stretched out in time:

10. a. A complete sentence. (Cf. Aristotle Rhet. iii. ix.) Usually applied to a sentence consisting of several clauses, grammatically connected, and rhetorically constructed. Hence, in pl., rhetorical or grammatical language.

And then, derivatively, the termination of the sentence:

11. a. A full pause such as is properly made at the end of a sentence.

Both of these senses are current, though recherché. The second leads immediately to the most common meaning in analysis of text:

b. The point or character that marks the end of a complete sentence; a full stop (.). Also added to a statement to emphasize a place where there is or should be a full stop, freq. (colloq.) with the implication 'and that is all there is to say about it', 'and it is as simple as that'.

(There. With anyone other than you, Wavelength, I would have felt impelled to show the etymology of period within Greek also; but you have it at your fingertips already, I think.)

A similar history could be given for comma (OED: "1. In Greek Rhet. and Prosody: A phrase or group of words less than a colon (q.v.). Hence, †A short member of a sentence or period"), and colon ("∥1. In Gr. Rhetoric and Prosody, a member or section of a sentence or rhythmical period; hence in Palaeography, a clause or group of clauses written as a line, or taken as a standard of measure in ancient MSS. or texts. pl. cola").

Four factors might bear on one's perception of period as more to do with typographical form, and full stop as more to do with textual function:

The functional character of full stop is more perspicuous because of the primary meanings of its component English words.
Full stop is more obviously compound than period, which invites analysis of its prior meanings. Period is compound also, but this is masked for English readers.
Analysis of full stop reveals less multivalence (or polysemy) than analysis of period does.
Our cultural and idiosyncratic predispositions might incline us to find full stop more functional, or alternatively as more purely denominative.

Similar analysis of function and form is interesting in the case of ellipsis, parentheses (cf. the arguably less functional and more formal brackets), and so on. (Note especially the formal inverted comma, in British usage traditionally preferred to the functional characterisation quotation mark. This is the reverse of the way with full stop and period, if we take the British full stop as more functional than period is.)

In the light of all this, I cannot agree that period is the "natural" term for the dot on the page or screen, and full stop for one of the functions served by such a dot. Even if the case were compelling in the abstract, it would not be in practice. Consensus would be unlikely. Many do in fact call the elements in an ellipsis mark, or in a longer string forming a veritable line, "full stops"; and they have almost as good reason to do so as those who call them "periods". Alternative formal terms are available: for example, I myself like dot; and stop has been used, as attenuating the semantic force of full stop. There is a lot to be said also for point, or full point, both of which have support from authorities in print.

This is emphatically not to diminish the importance of the distinction we both want to make between form and function. It is to extend that distinction, and to exhibit the complexity and (I hope) the utility of applying it. I would willingly discuss with you how I see the distinction playing out more generally; but I will not do so here.

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 02:18, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You may be interested in Wikipedia:WikiProject Tunings, Temperaments, and Scales. -- Wavelength (talk) 22:03, 11 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion is archived at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 108#Periods and full stops. -- Wavelength (talk) 15:54, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The word period is one of several cognate words where the second element is derived from a Greek word meaning "way": anode, cathode, episode, exodus, method, period, and synod (besides others). The element peri means "around". -- Wavelength (talk) 04:42, 9 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard/3RRArchive85 etc.

Instead of creating hundreds of useless talk pages, please consider fixing the errors yourself. Nobody will see the pages you are creating. Nakon 23:56, 15 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I had the understanding that one should not edit another person's comments. -- Wavelength (talk) 00:01, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well then what's the point of leaving a notice that nobody will be able to take action on? Nakon 00:02, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I see two points: firstly, anyone reading about the error can be alerted so as not to be influenced by the example, and, secondly, someone who notices one or more errors in his/her own comments can make the correction(s).

-- Wavelength (talk) 00:08, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The first sentence of the MOS page states that "The Manual of Style, often abbreviated MoS or MOS, is a style guide for Wikipedia articles" (bolding mine). Making MOS changes outside of the article namespace is not necessary. Nakon 00:15, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In the light of WT:MOS#Purview of the Manual of Style I would like to add that I guess most people consider portal space and category space (correctly) to be article space in the sense of MOS, and that it's unlikely that many will object if you bring policy pages in line with MOS. But pointing to others' misspellings which they made in the course of a discussion, perhaps even an archived one, is perceived as rude. --Hans Adler (talk) 08:10, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I second Hans's post. What perplexes me is why anyone would not regard the Manual of Style as showing the way towards a more readable, more consistent project. It is our readers who count, not us. Tony (talk) 08:37, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I interpret Nakon's post as being specifically about calling attention to misspellings in a discussion. I am not seeing PMA around (yet). --Hans Adler (talk) 09:11, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ding dong. Tony (talk) 11:58, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

[A discussion about correcting or mentioning English errors on discussion pages is archived at
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 109#Purview of the Manual of Style. -- Wavelength (talk) 14:53, 7 July 2009 (UTC)][reply]

generic boilerplate links on Language Ref. Desk

If you know the answer to a question, then tell us what it is, or if you can find the answer, then post a link to it -- but the constant posting of generic boilerplate links (which are neither answers to questions nor links to answers to questions) is growing rather tedious and tiresome. AnonMoos (talk) 02:04, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What is tedious and tiresome to you could very well be refreshing and enlightening to someone else. Please see my comments here. -- Wavelength (talk) 20:48, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Whatever -- if you have some specific cogent to-the-point information in response to any one particular question, then by all means hasten to share it with us; however, repetitively redundantly rehashing the same vague generic boilerplate meta-links time and time again accomplishes very little meaningfully useful, as far as I can see; and when you add them to almost every question, then their annoyance value starts to outweigh their information value. I don't want to unnecessarily insult you, but it seems that while you have some detailed applied knowedge of proofreading, and the technicalities of editing to fit the requirements of different stylebooks, you have relatively little knowledge of linguistics, or the details of various languages. That being the case, your legitimate role in answering Language Ref. Desk questions will necessarily be somewhat limited. When you go beyond that valid role, introducing material which doesn't answer the question or very directly point towards answering the question, then in most cases you're not really helping too much... AnonMoos (talk) 01:25, 19 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wavelength:

As someone familiar with your work, and as your colleague, I propose to comment on this exchange. I invite you to take note of AnonMoos's points, about what he or she sees as "mechanical" input at LangRefDesk. While I understand something about your motivation, I also understand how those contributions could strike editors as sometimes oblique and unhelpful. I urge you to take this exchange as valuable information about how your style affects others with a different modus operandi than your own. We all must do that from time to time. I for one have learned important lessons in my time at Wikipedia, sometimes painfully. (Yes, old though I am! It is dead dogs that cannot learn new tricks, not old ones.) I would advise you similarly about drawing attention to "errors" in writing outside of article and project pages. You and I (and Tony, I should add) might revel in the wholesome sport of picking up such lapses, in a frenzy of censorious exuberance; many others do not. The same obsession with detail that makes us master editors of MOS guidelines can estrange us from other editors, of a different but equally fine cast of mind.

AnonMoos:

As I have said to Wavelength just now, I understand the cases for and against his style at LangRefDesk. I acknowledge your concern. Personally, I see little harm in such links. When I compare them with the lightly considered answers many people post there, I often find them at least indirectly useful. We don't always know what will help the enquirer, or others who silently monitor our RefDesks. Sometimes (as I know from personal experience) a search of the archives will turn up invaluable material and leads: a use not predicted at the time the original question was addressed. As for your aspersions concerning Wavelength's skill with languages, apart from the fact that they appear gratuitous I know them to be incorrect. As one who has worked with Wavelength on a number of fronts here at Wikipedia, I know that he has enormous skill with languages. His general style is decidedly unusual (so is mine); but his competence with languages is as solidly established as his dedication and superior ability as a copyeditor.

Both of you:

Having enjoyed and learned from your postings at LangRefDesk, I am impressed with the contribution both of you make at Wikipedia. I hope that the exchange between you, and involving me now, will be used positively. And then we can move on. Talkpages are ideal for this sort of healthy monitoring and "mutual correction", and I see no harm at all in this episode.

With my best wishes,

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 10:38, 19 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe Wavelength should have started by asking himself/herself whether adding an "I speak language X" tag to your user page really means that you have an interest in being asked random questions about that language by random people. What a "Babel" infobox really means is "If you have questions to ask me, you can ask me in language X", which is something rather different. Anyway, not all native speakers of a language actually have the sophistication or educated meta-knowledge to be able to fruitfully discuss technical details of their language.

I agree that adding such links does no real "harm" -- however, posting brief snippets from the Brainerd, Minnesota telephone directory to the Language Ref. Desk would also do no real "harm", but people might soon start to grown tired of them... AnonMoos (talk) 23:04, 19 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Noetica, after I read your message, I found Wikipedia:Old dogs and new tricks. -- Wavelength (talk) 22:07, 11 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment on talk AN

Regarding [8], um what? It is a page full of people talking. Of course it isn't going to fit in perfectly with MOS. JoshuaZ (talk) 03:27, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

[A discussion about correcting or mentioning English errors on discussion pages is archived at
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 109#Purview of the Manual of Style. -- Wavelength (talk) 14:53, 7 July 2009 (UTC)][reply]

Good resource

I've bookmarked it; thanks. Tony (talk) 10:53, 19 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Template

A template you created, Template:Adjectivals and demonyms for constellations, has been marked for deletion as a deprecated and orphaned template. If, after 14 days, there has been no objection, the template will be deleted. If you wish to object to its deletion, please list your objection here and feel free to remove the {{deprecated}} tag from the template. If you feel the deletion is appropriate, no further action is necessary. Thanks for your attention. R'n'B (call me Russ) 21:29, 19 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

After I created it, I was unable to transclude it, so I added the information to Adjectivals and demonyms for astronomical bodies, which was already transcluded in List of adjectival and demonymic forms of place names. I have no objection to the deletion of the template; I almost deleted it myself. -- Wavelength (talk) 22:59, 19 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Monocyte and macrophage-related cutaneous conditions

Do you think we could get passed a speedy rename of this category to Category:Monocyte- and macrophage-related cutaneous conditions? ---kilbad (talk) 14:59, 28 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I added it at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Speedy#Add_requests_for_speedy_renaming_here. Thanks again! ---kilbad (talk) 15:08, 28 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

colour

Hi Wavelength. I saw "Link color" from your addition to WP:LINKING. Please check this addition. Also, do you think it would be appropriate to add a little "how to" to that page? I'm referring to a very brief version of the how-to explanation on my own user page here. Tony (talk) 04:42, 6 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, I am unable to check different operating systems or different browsers, and I am reluctant to change my settings just now. I have studied Wikipedia:Link color and your instructional guide, and I am not sure of how much you could add that is not already mentioned. I suggest that you discuss your ideas at Wikipedia talk:Link color, and possibly also with one or more editors of your choice from Category:Wikipedians.

The expression "gaudy" in a description of the default color of unvisited internal links can be controversial for someone with a different ophthalmological point of view. Please see Color Vision - by Cal Henderson and Colors for the Color Blind. There are links to both of them at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 107#Green text color can't be seen by the color-blind.

-- Wavelength (talk) 15:36, 6 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, so why did they choose green for that xl template used to mark off examples at the style guides?brown might have been better? And tell me, is the colour coding in the solutions in my tutorials a problem? I've mostly used green and red. Tony (talk) 17:52, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(1) I do not know why, because I did not follow closely the discussion about it, but it seems to me (according to my memory) that Noetica might know. (2) For me, brown might have been neither better nor worse than green. (I was able to read the guidelines satisfactorily before the template was implemented, but I am not bothered by its use.) (3) For me, the color coding in the solutions in your tutorials is not a problem. -- Wavelength (talk) 18:57, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy deletion nomination of Food Inc.: A Participant Guide: How Industrial Food Is Making Us Sicker, Fatter, and Poorer—And What You Can Do About It

A tag has been placed on Food Inc.: A Participant Guide: How Industrial Food Is Making Us Sicker, Fatter, and Poorer—And What You Can Do About It, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under the criteria for speedy deletion, because the article seems to be blatant advertising that only promotes a company, product, group, service or person and would need to be fundamentally rewritten in order to become an encyclopedia article. Please read the general criteria for speedy deletion, particularly item 11, as well as the guidelines on spam.

If you can indicate why the subject of this article is not blatant advertising, you may contest the tagging. To do this, please add {{hangon}} on the top of Food Inc.: A Participant Guide: How Industrial Food Is Making Us Sicker, Fatter, and Poorer—And What You Can Do About It and leave a note on the article's talk page explaining your position. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the article that would help make it encyclopedic, as well as adding any citations from independent reliable sources to ensure that the article will be verifiable. Feel free to leave a note on my talk page if you have any questions about this. Ladyof Shalott 04:40, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

DYK

Thx for those links, Wave. Tony (talk) 17:49, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

List of cutaneous conditions

I have been working to improve the alt text found in the list of cutaneous conditions, and have expanded the alt tags for a little over half of the images. With that being said, I wanted to know if you would be willing to review the alt tags I have worked on, and help me finish with the rest? Regardless, thank you for your help in the past. ---kilbad (talk) 16:20, 11 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think that I will skip the alt tags for now. -- Wavelength (talk) 18:21, 11 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Rio de Janeiro bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics

Thank you for your contributions on the article Rio de Janeiro bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics! Cheers; Felipe Menegaz 17:13, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

History of monopoly

Hello--I noticed you linking to History of Monopoly. Since that's a bitty stub, should the article just be dropped/merged to Monopoly instead? CRETOG8(t/c) 03:44, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You evidently intended to refer to History of monopoly, with a lowercase "m". It can remain as it is (stubs can grow) or be merged under a heading "History". -- Wavelength (talk) 04:02, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

boids

Just so you know I moved the List of bird genera link you added to the template (where there was a good spot for it). Sabine's Sunbird talk 03:32, 20 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for doing that and for telling me. -- Wavelength (talk) 03:42, 20 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For my own convenience, here is a link to my addition of that link. -- Wavelength (talk) 19:29, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The Walt Disney Company

Hi. I looked at the page you added to the "See also" section of the article for The Walt Disney Company. It does not appear to be referenced in the article, and there is no reason given as to why it is notable to the article, outside of being written about the company's founder. Further, when reviewing the WP:O tag in your edit summary, it gives the appearance that the sole reason for adding the link was to de-orphan the book's article. If you could provide your reasoning for its addition to the article on the article talk page, I'd appreciate it. Thanks, and happy editing! --McDoobAU93 (talk) 17:46, 20 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

PS I noticed you added a link to the book to the page for Magic Kingdom. Same request, if you please, to its talk page. Thanks!

Motion blindness and Alzheimer

As far as I know they are only tangentially related. Most published cases on motion blindness are due to stroke. Of course, since Ad is a cortical dementia it can produce such symptoms, but they are quite rare. Much more common are for example agnosia symptoms. I have reverted your edit.Bests.--Garrondo (talk) 07:38, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For my own convenience, here is a link to my addition of that link. -- Wavelength (talk) 19:38, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Melanocytic tumors of uncertain malignant potential

Give me a day or so to look into this condition/term, and I will see where it belongs in the list. Thanks for finding it. ---kilbad (talk) 13:01, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For my own convenience, this is a reminder that the preceding message followed my message now archived at Talk:List of cutaneous conditions/Archive 1#Melanocytic tumors of uncertain malignant potential. -- Wavelength (talk) 19:47, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

language orphans

I appreciate that you're trying to clean up the orphaned articles. However, adding minor languages like Phula etc. to the 'see also' section of language families with hundreds of languages will quickly make those articles unmanageable. All they really need is a link from the next level up in their family. kwami (talk) 07:41, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your advice. -- Wavelength (talk) 13:33, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, a lot of these minor languages are very obscure. Especially when they're only a minimal stub, they're not of much interest. If a language links to a superior clade, like Pongu language already did at Kainji, then I personally would just delete the orphan tag without doing anything more, even if that's the only link. It should be enough to enable the language to be found by anyone looking for it, and prevent a duplicate article being created, which AFAIK is the point of orphan tags.

The link really should be in the list of member languages in the body of the article, not in a 'see also' section (unless, of course, there's something notable about the article, such as it being well developed). That said, I can understand you not wanting to figure all that out, since you're taking care of so many orphans, and who knows how long it would take to figure out if the language is maybe listed but under a different name. If you want to drop me a line when you do this with language articles, I'll try to follow up. (No need for where you put them, just a list of the orphans.) kwami (talk) 22:03, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I have already been thinking of searching again through the list of orphaned articles (searching on each page for the character string "language"), then compiling a list of orphaned language articles and posting that list on your discussion page. -- Wavelength (talk) 22:35, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For my own convenience, I am providing a link to a subsequent discussion at User talk:Kwamikagami, section 155
("Orphaned language articles") of 160 sections. -- Wavelength (talk) 20:05, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It is now archived at User talk:Kwamikagami/Archive 8#Orphaned language articles. -- Wavelength (talk) 01:38, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

De-orphaning

I notice the consistency in your edit summaries (great job btw!). Are you using some kind of de-orphaning script that automatically fills these in for you? I'd be interested in using such a script. I came across User:Manishearth/orphantabs.js but i can't seem to get it to add edit summaries.. at least i don't know how to make it do that. -- œ ^™ 23:42, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am not using a script; the most automated functions that I perform are copying the title of an orphaned page and pasting it to the page(s) of one or more articles and to one or more edit summaries. The edit summaries mostly involve very repetitious keyboarding.

-- Wavelength (talk) 00:07, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ahh, same here. Well perhaps maybe you can benefit from Manishearth's de-orphaning script. If you can figure out how to use all its features. -- œ ^™ 00:15, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I neglected to mention that, in each case where I had already added a link to an article page, and where I then added the same link under the same heading ("See also") on another article page, the computer automatically finished the edit summary after the first two keystrokes. Usually, I adjusted the presence or absence of a space after the asterisk, to conform to the style on the relevant article page. -- Wavelength (talk) 01:57, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Guideline/policy stats

Thanks, WL—interesting. Tony (talk) 08:04, 27 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For my own convenience, I am providing a link to my preceding message. -- Wavelength (talk) 20:14, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Orphans

Sometimes it's better to leave orphans as orphans. Or fix the articles if you think they have merit. Or propose deletion. Just linking to garbage is not productive, I think. That's why I took out your links to secure digital camera and proposed its deletion. Dicklyon (talk) 05:20, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The information does not appear as garbage to me, and the references indicate some degree of notability.

-- Wavelength (talk) 05:30, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The references are all by the guy who wrote the article. Notability requires references independent of the primary sources. If you want to rescue the article, see if you can find anything written about it other that by its originators. Dicklyon (talk) 05:38, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It has a relatively low priority for me, so I will let it go if it has to go. -- Wavelength (talk) 05:45, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't necessarily have to go. The point is to look before you link. Don't link things with no evidence of notability, or unsourced things like shaving oil; if you're worried about orphans, spend a minute to see if they can be turned into something useful. Dicklyon (talk) 05:56, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Semen (anthroponym)

Hiya, sorry about the edit comment regarding your addition to the Basque language page. I still think though that that's the wrong place. I've added it to Basque surnames though, a much more appropriate place for such a link, I think you'll agree. Akerbeltz (talk) 11:40, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you; I agree. I missed that one in my search for an appropriate article. -- Wavelength (talk) 13:52, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome. Mind you, it seems to be in complete contradiction to the Jiménez (surname) article. Akerbeltz (talk) 14:27, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

WP:DERM

Thank you for finding those orphaned articles, and I will try to link and categorize them into the other existing dermatology content. Also, if you find any additional articles, or have any other feedback related to dermatology content, you may find WP:DERM a helpful resource, and another place to post your threads. You could even consider joining if you have a particular interest in dermatology. Regardless, thank you so much for your help! ---kilbad (talk) 17:33, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Orphaned articles

Could you clarify why you are linking orphaned articles from the "see also" sections of related articles? Often I find the links rather tenuous. Wouldn't it be more useful to generate reports to the relevant WikiProjects to ensure they are properly assessed? JFW | T@lk 16:54, 30 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am simply following the instructions at Wikipedia:Orphan in the best way that I can. I realize that there might be some people who disagree about the relevancy of some links, and it is my hope that anyone with expertise in a specific field and in the managing of that field on Wikipedia would make any necessary improvements. I do not see your proposed alternative as being necessarily more efficient for proper assessment. -- Wavelength (talk) 17:22, 30 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you ever mount a campaign for a more nuanced policy at Wikipedia:Orphan, then please let me know. It should be plain that the tag belongs on the Talk page and not on the main page, where it gives the impression that the article itself is somehow deficient. —SlamDiego_←T 20:47, 30 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, oftentimes it is, of course. JFW | T@lk 23:04, 30 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

…but not by virtue of being an orphan. If it is deficient is some other manner, that can be conveyed with an appropriate tag, instead of altogether spuriously. —SlamDiego_←T 06:18, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Please be more careful with this activity. I've reverted several of your additions to articles in the past week or two because they just don't fit. It also makes the see also sections much less useful when irrelevant information is dumped there. NJGW (talk) 19:36, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you tell me which ones were reverted, I can look for better places for those additions. Maybe you found better places for them.

-- Wavelength (talk) 20:02, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry to see a response that ducks the issue of you just posting links in articles that they don't belong in, passing blame on to others. NJGW (talk) 22:27, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I did not intend my comments to be taken in an accusatory tone. In my first sentence, I invited you to help me to identify the reversions, because I figured that it would take me more time to search in your recent contributions than it would take you to tell me. If I had said "Please", then maybe my request would have been better received than my invitation was. I have now searched and found two reversions.

In my second sentence, I acknowledged that you might already have applied your wisdom and helpfulness (WP:AGF) in de-orphaning articles in a more appropriate manner than I had done. Anyway, I apologize for any inconvenience arising from my errors. -- Wavelength (talk) 00:50, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wavelength. I commend your efforts at de-orphaning as this is an often neglected area of maintenance, so I want to help you. You mentioned earlier that you are "simply following the instructions at Wikipedia:Orphan in the best way that I can". There's a bit at the section What if I can't de-orphan it? that states: Additionally, it may be the case that some articles currently just cannot be de-orphaned. In that case then please do not try to 'force-fit' by adding unrelated links to articles where they don't belong just for the sake of de-orphaning. Remember that our primary goal is to improve the encyclopedia. Your priority when adding links should be to maintain quality by adding relevant and useful links wherever possible. Also remember that you can use the att= parameter to note an unsuccessful de-orphan attempt, this also helps out the effort for the future. -- œ ^™ 03:36, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your encouraging message. I estimate that 2200 of my 2300 edits from July 17 to the present time were de-orphaning edits. I have checked, in reverse chronological order, the first seven months of 2009 at Category:Orphaned articles, including the very long list for February. I still intend to check those lists again, more quickly, searching for "language" (see #language orphans) and a few more times for a few other character strings. After that, I may or may not proceed to check the lists for 2008 at this time, because I have many other plans in mind.

You referred to the section "What if I can't de-orphan it?" of Wikipedia:Orphan. I read that section before I embarked on this series of de-orphaning edits, but I found it to be confusing. What constitutes an unsuccessful de-orphan attempt? Does an unsuccessful search for an article from which to introduce a link constitute an unsuccessful de-orphan attempt? Also, I previewed today the result of the att parameter on one of my sandbox pages, and it showed the orphan message, something which these pages already have.

One reason for my style of edit summaries is to make it easier for me to revisit some of those interesting pages which I discovered, and for anyone else interested to visit them for the first time.

As I looked at the lists of orphaned articles, I generally visited an article only if it seemed interesting (or possibly interesting, by having a title similar to a topic of interest to me). I saw many species pages listed, often one species after another, and often twenty species listed consecutively. I probably will not search for those again, but someone in the corresponding WikiProject(s) might wish to do so. Also, I saw many molecule pages listed, and someone in the corresponding WikiProject(s) might wish to search for those. However, I probably saw more articles listed about individual people than articles about any other type of topic.

Of the articles which I did visit (a very small percentage of the total), some were in a poor condition (with inconsistencies of capitalization between title and text, or lacking sources, or needing corrections in spelling and/or grammar, or being difficult to de-orphan). If I bring attention to a page by de-orphaning it, so that someone can improve it, I do not want it to be pounced on for deletion. In that regard, please see my comments at #WP essay FPO. -- Wavelength (talk) 18:42, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ok there definately ought to be a better, more complete, guide written up on de-orphaning articles. There's an art to this, there are many factors and nuances that come into play, this is what led me to write at the Orphanage that de-orphaning articles is a great way to learn a wide variety of useful skills. It was in fact the way I learned my way around Wikipedia. But it has to be done the right way, first you have to make a determination whether the article is even deserving of your efforts because there are many low-quality articles out there with the orphan tag that will likely be either merged (as most orphaned stubs are actually duplicated or better covered in another article) or deleted in the future and your efforts would be wasted, leaving behind redlinks in articles (I see Zombie chicken that you added to Euthanasia has already been Prod'd although maybe it should've went to AfD instead). Anyway, it's important to pick the right quality articles that will last, and de-orphaning these will leave a lasting improvement on Wikipedia in our efforts to build the web. That is the main point of de-orphaning.. to build the web, enable readers to find relevant information on other pages, please read WP:BTW carefully.

An unsuccessful de-orphan attempt is just that, obviously if you are unsuccessful you have not found any useful incoming links from other articles. So in that case you add the att= parameter to the orphan tag with the date you tried to de-orphan and what this does is place that article in a separate category called Category:Attempted de-orphan for that date. Later someone can go back and try these orphans again, this is all explained at the section Wikipedia:Orphan#What if I can't de-orphan it? Please go back and reread this section. Another thing is, once you've added two or three useful incoming links to an orphaned article, why aren't you removing the orphan tag?? That is the goal.. to remove the tag.. I briefly browsed through your contributions and unless I didn't look well enough I saw that all you're doing is adding links but not removing the orphan tag once you've de-orphaned it (got at least 2 or 3 links) added. -- œ ^™ 03:00, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed none of the orphan tags, partly because it is still possible that someone with more specialized knowledge can find additional articles from which to link to the orphaned articles, and partly because someone with a different perspective of these matters might decide to remove some of the links which I added.

The orphan tag says, in part, "This article is an orphan, as few or no other articles link to it." Before I looked for articles from which to link to an orphaned article, I often checked "What links here", and sometimes I found that one or two articles already linked to an orphaned article. It was not a complete orphan, but it was still an orphan.

I understand that sometimes there may be limits to what can be expected. [9] -- Wavelength (talk) 19:35, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes there are exceptions to the criteria, you don't have to follow it so strictly, sometimes it's enough for an article to have only one or two incoming links, it IS okay to remove the tag and you SHOULD be doing that using common sense and good judgement. Our main priority right now should be focusing on articles with absolutely NO incoming links, those are the TRUE orphans and are the ONLY case where the tag deserves to stay.. we already have much opposition to the tag being on the article and not on the talkpage so that's enough for our priority to be removal of the tag! -- œ ^™ 02:51, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone who wishes can remove the orphan tags from some or all of the orphaned pages which I de-orphaned. They can be found easily by a search in the edit summaries of my contribution history.

If someone removes the orphan tag from an article, and someone else removes the link(s) to that article, which I added to one or more other articles, then possibly there will be a need to add the orphan tag again. I do not wish to be involved in any of those activities.

There used to be an article List of environmental sustainability topics, but it was deleted (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of environmental sustainability topics). At this time, there are the articles Sustainability, Sustainable development, and Sustainable living, each of which has a "See also" section. I think of the possibility of someone coming along and "pruning" some of those links, perhaps making orphans in the process. (Incidentally, the word sustainability is ambiguous, because there are environmental sustainability, economic sustainability, ethical sustainability, and legal sustainability.)

I see no problem with an orphan tag being on the main page of an article, and it does not indicate to me any deficiency in the article itself, because I can read and understand what the tag says. Apparently, different editors have different judgements about the matter. (If it is going to be on the talk page, de-orphaning is going to be more time-consuming, and the orphaned status is going to be less likely to be noticed. Sometimes, a page is found from the search box or from the general index or from a category, and not from a list of orphaned articles.)

(In the final paragraph of a message to another editor, I stated the following: "People speak about reasonableness, intuition, and common sense, but perspective is an individual phenomenon." [10]) -- Wavelength (talk) 04:55, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I re-examined Optimum water content for tillage and Quality infrastructure, each of which I had de-orphaned with links from seven articles, and I discovered that their orphan tags had later been removed by the bot User:JL-Bot.

-- Wavelength (talk) 05:51, 15 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See an example of another way to de-orphan, on the same article you added links to. It's more than just adding links, sometimes you have to actually expand the article and add content in order to de-orphan. -- œ ^™ 04:25, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I used that method with at least one of my recent de-orphaning edits. [11]

In 2006, after I added a link to the "See also" section of an article [12], another editor added related content including the same link [13] [14], and later the link in the "See also" section was removed. [15] -- Wavelength (talk) 18:21, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Afterwards, in 2007, the linked article was deleted. -- Wavelength (talk) 05:38, 15 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject Cannabis

You are invited to join WikiProject Cannabis, a WikiProject dedicated to improving articles related to Cannabis. You received this invitation because of your history editing articles related to the plant. The WikiProject Cannabis group discussion is here. If you are interested in joining, please visit the project page, and add your name to the list of participants.

No, thank you. I edited Medical cannabis by adding a link to the orphaned article Veterans for Medical Marijuana Access. [16]

-- Wavelength (talk) 02:01, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Noun phrase

I see you added a link. Have you seen Nominal group? Tony (talk) 02:19, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I have seen it. You told me about it in November 2008, in a discussion recorded at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 106#Explaining hyphens after -ly: "Response to Wavelength on the taxonomy". -- Wavelength (talk) 04:48, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Link junk

Please stop linking unsourced junk. If an article says it's unsourced and disputed, that's enough reason to let it stay an orphan. Dicklyon (talk) 03:32, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A lack of links promotes a lack of awareness, and a lack of awareness promotes a lack of development.

Linking promotes awareness, and awareness promotes development. -- Wavelength (talk) 04:31, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What about your awareness of bad articles that should probably be deleted? The only thing your making other editors aware of by linking to these types of articles is the fact that they should be deleted. You don't have to leave it up to other editors to decide that for you. We've had this discussion already not long ago. Not every orphan is worth linking to, you must make that judgment call and decide if the article just needs to go, whether through merging, deletion, or tagging it for cleanup, which btw also promotes awareness and development via the maintenance categories. -- œ ^™ 05:35, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As I mentioned already in relation to making judgements, perspective is an individual phenomenon. Where some people see a hopeless situation, other people see a situation with a potential for improvement. Please see Deletionism and inclusionism in Wikipedia.

-- Wavelength (talk) 06:57, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK well I can't stop you from doing what you think is right. -- œ ^™ 18:00, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Article which you are linking

Can you tag articles that you come across with appropriate templates such as expand, cleanup, notability, unreffed etc? Or better still improve the article by expanding, adding refs, adding infoboxes etc. Wikipedia doesn't improve much by simply linking bad orphaned articles. I use a handy two click javascript tool for adding template messages. See User:Alan Liefting/tags. Cheers. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 02:52, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My experience with adding tags is negligible, and I have been concentrating on de-orphaning articles while mainly hoping that others would attend to related editing functions as they found them necessary and within their abilities. I have now completed checking all the months listed at CAT:O, as far as and including July 2009, which I checked first in July itself and a second time in August. I have spent six weeks at this series of de-orphaning edits, much more time than I had intended, and I am about to turn my attention to other projects. I might perform some de-orphaning edits in the future, but I am less keen about it if I am going to be distracted by other decisions along the way. -- Wavelength (talk) 19:46, 29 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Page names

Can you move any pages that incorporate full name and abbreviations to a better name? I have come across two pages today that you have linked which were of this type. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 03:12, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have occasionally moved (renamed) pages, both before and during this series of de-orphaning edits, and during the latter I moved an article to Myrmecological News at 02:08, 24 August 2009 before de-orphaning it by adding to Ant a link to it. I started the discussion "Article title with full name and its abbreviation" at WT:MOS (permanent link here), I read your responses there, and I re-examined WP:NAME, which I had examined before starting that discussion. I hope to make good decisions in the future, about moving pages of the type which you mentioned.

-- Wavelength (talk) 19:49, 29 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your previous edits to 350 (organisation) 350 (organisation). They were helpful.

Thank you for your previous edits to 350 (organisation) 350 (organisation) 350 (organisation). They were helpful. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.184.229.92 (talk) 06:31, 1 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

At this moment, I have made one edit to that article. [17] -- Wavelength (talk) 20:10, 1 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

MoS can be anybody's

Hi, thanks for your post about the sudden and apparently unilateral elevation of the French-related guide to MoS status. This looseness with which anyone can declare a page part of MoS really needs to be addressed, don't you think? Tony (talk) 12:00, 2 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My post pointed to related information, without advocating what should or should not be an MoS page. I do not know about whether there is or has been consensus for such status, but there are some fundamental abstractions which need to be decided and clarified.

-- Wavelength (talk) 15:19, 2 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Some concerns about this link

First Nations Seeker - Indian Tribes - Native Americans. While some pages of this site have solid info, linking only to official websites of the Nations in question, the Cherokee page, for instance, looks quite problematic, listing what appear to me to be heritage groups who masquerade as "Nations" and "Tribes" (There are only two federally recognized Cherokee Tribes). This is regrettable, as other pages on that site are very good. However, with the problem of fake tribes, I'm not sure we should include it. I lean towards removing it, but wanted input. - Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 22:08, 4 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for asking. I was unaware of that problem. Maybe those groups are subdivisions of nations or tribes, or have official status in a different way. Maybe the words "tribe" and "nation" have multiple meanings. On the other hand, I notice that, on the Cherokee page which you have linked, the first link is to Sovereign Amonsoquath Band of Cherokee, on which page the fourth link in the large pane is to another page (with the same web address and the same title, but with different text), which discusses the problem of "pseudo-Cherokee" tribes. (The topic of unauthentic tribes itself seems to be worthy of a Wikipedia article.)

In the case of an external link to a website with some content which is problematic but other content which is very good, I recommend including the link but adding a cautionary disclaimer explaining the situation in enough detail for a reader to distinguish between the two kinds of content. The disclaimer might include a link to the article which I suggested. I am not about to debate in favor of my preference, but I leave the decision to you and any other interested Wikipedians, as well as any relevant policies and guidelines. -- Wavelength (talk) 23:12, 4 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'll have to go through the site and see if the preponderance of good or bad links win out. There is a huge problem with fake tribes, and most of them tend to be "Cherokee". The problem is so bad that the Cherokee Nation now has a task force dedicated dealing with the problem, and last year the Cherokee Nation and the Eastern Band issued a joint resolution about it:pdf. "Tribe" and "Nation" don't have multiple meanings when it comes to the legal definitions for these groups in America. (Here's a resolution from this year that goes into it a bit more:[18])Some of the "Cherokee" groups on that page are up-front about being only heritage/hobbyist groups (which are generally made up of non-Natives with some distant Indian ancestor, or family rumours of such an ancestor; some don't even require that much "connection" to the culture), but others are fraudulently claiming to be tribes, and are among those on the fraud-watch lists. Unless I can find a preponderance of good links for the other cultures, it may be best to remove the link, as I'm not sure how to concisely word a warning that would serve for those totally unfamiliar with the problem. - Kathryn NicDhàna ♫♦♫ 20:26, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For my own convenience, I am providing a link to each of the two articles to which I previously added a link to the questionable website.

Indigenous peoples of the Americas [19] (16:36, 4 September 2009)
Native Americans in the United States [20] (16:39, 4 September 2009)

-- Wavelength (talk) 03:21, 9 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

hi

WL, pity you don't have email enabled; I'd send you a link. Tony (talk) 14:12, 7 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am curious to know why you can not tell me the link here, but maybe there is a reason that you can not, and maybe there is a reason for that reason. -- Wavelength (talk) 14:27, 7 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]