I'm not yet in a mood where I can reliably offer constructive input, but I will say that my sarcastic outburst above stems largely from my disappointment at your timing for this delist nom. You know there is a discussion about styling and you still pick the very same day that The Rambling Man has gone riding through every Middlesex village and farm in the FL community starting centralized discussions about how bad the WP:ACCESS changes are. This FL is quite clearly one of the early adopting pages and is part of the discussion about what WP:DISCOGSTYLE should contain. Your decision to sprinkle kerosine around the bonfire is frustrating.
I would frankly be glad to address your points one by one, but I'm still feeling too grumpy and pouty. Further, the one item where we've had a substantive exchange is already beyond me; Ref 55 should be separate, you say, but I don't know why. You want the German ref links to pile up separately as they are in the Canadian and US columns, then? This artist is probably just at the beginning of a long career, and refs for single appearances as a featured artist will only multiply. Perhaps you've got a guideline somewhere where it says refs must be separate, but if so, I don't know about it (not being an FL kind of guy). If that's the case, though, you'd better scurry over to Mariah Carey singles discography for delisting or urgent repair. It was just promoted yesterday, and it uses the ref combination technique extensively. (Likewise Mariah Carey albums discography promoted in the last two weeks.)
Enough for now, except to say that I would rather not be called a "patronising little wanker"; I much prefer "sarcastic bastard", or "petulant jerk" (your choice). — JohnFromPinckney (talk)13:10, 5 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Actually JohnFromPinckney, the reason I started so many discussions was because it was simply unclear what the ACCESS people were up to. It spread from Wikiproject guidelines, to MOS, to Mediawiki .css pages. So I centralised it at FLC because none of your group had the courtesy to let us know what you had all decided. And it's clearly gained some interest from our community, which may have been constructive before you rolled out these changes to half a dozen featured lists. Not that any of that is pertinent to ungodly mess this list has become. The Rambling Man (talk) 13:38, 5 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry you think there was some deliberate plot to close you out of discussions. The big frustration for me in this matter for the last several weeks has been the disappointing lack of feedback and input. We knew it might be controversial to change the look so dramatically, but getting people to comment was difficult, even among editors I knew were active in music & discog articles (with personal invitiations, even). Eventually we decided the best thing was to stick our toe in the waters and see how long until the piranhas got active. As it is, it still took about three weeks.
But please stop with the complaints about a lack of courtesy; to accusations of ignorance I will (and do) plead guilty. And, Your Honor, I still don't know how to know what projects to contact and when. So maybe no chance of parole for me. — JohnFromPinckney (talk)04:11, 6 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
John, you know that I raised my concern with this page here, and that was before TRM initiated any discussions. You replied to me almost immediately, and you've been involved in the discussions, so you know the timelines. Even though the ACCESS and DISCOGSTYLE related edits to this article were what made me start this FLRC, they're not actually a part of the nomination. There are still countless more issues that need addressing. Re multiple cites in one ref, all I know is that I've been asked to separate them at a few GAs and at least 2 FAs. But if it's not against citing guidelines, then well done, you've refuted a point and it can be stricken as taken care of. Matthewedwards : Chat 17:00, 5 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Not that it matters, Matthew, but I don't know what point you're trying (unsuccessfully) to make about who started what discussions when. I do know the timeline, and if you click again on the diff link you provided, and proceed to the Next edit, you'll see that The Rambling Man has already started another discussion elsewhere. The next edit on that page is me responding to his moaning and a mis-indented non-sequitur. About 3 edits later, I replied to you, 52 minutes after the edit you point to, which doesn't seem so immediate to me, whatever that may have to do with anything. Meanwhile The Rambling Man had already posted at FLC Fantasia Barrino (where I think this all started), RexxS' Talk page, MediaWiki_talk:Common.css (mentioned above),WikiProject Accessibility, and elsewhere on the WT:WikiProject Discographies/style page.
But the concerns you raised there at that diff (and the one two edits before, with TRM's comment in-between) are purely about how awful the WP:ACCESS mods are. And that was all 12 hours before you nommed the page for FL-delisting. The appearance to me was (and remains) that you and TMR got all worked up about the new ugliness being forced down your throats; TMR went around wailing about the impropriety of it all, starting several centralized discussions and inviting multitudes of editors because Something Must Be Done; and then you whacked a delist nom on the barbie. That's how it looks, anyway, even if you had your nom draft in a sandbox for the last three weeks.
Your nom still has complaints about the recent changes. You struck some, but left others. In particular, the comment in your "FL?#6 Stability" is rather disingenuous, IMO.
Finally, having never nominated an article for GA/FA, I am perhaps too unawed by the process and status of it all. You say you were asked at some GA/FA review to separate refs. I say, respectfully and sincerely, "so what?" In other words, what value do such requests really have? Apparently, any bozo, even I myself, could stop by and make comments at an FA review. Would you suddenly just do whatever I asked, no matter how goofy or unhelpful, just because I asked in the Holy Chamber of FACs? You didn't say who asked you to separate refs, or what reasons they gave, so I can't really argue against that reasoning. Except to say (as I did above) that taking up more space is less helpful than combining into one link. — JohnFromPinckney (talk)04:11, 6 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
