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December 2020

Discussion of guidelines for short descriptions

Done

There’s a new proposal to add dating recommendations to the guidelines for short descriptions. Short descriptions are a prominent part of the mobile user experience, but the discussion so far has had relatively few voices. Since you are a top contributor to one or more Manual of Style pages, I thought you might be interested. Cheers —jameslucas ^{▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄} 01:45, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

@JamesLucas: Thanks, I will definitely look into it. I have seen some really daft ShortDesc instances .... — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 03:04, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Template:R to project namespace

Moved to Template talk:R to project namespace

Hello! I'm not really into arguing about this edit, but just to make it clear: doesn't the template currently say "a redirect from any page inside or outside of project (Wikipedia: or WP:) space"? I'd be happy with anything as long as it stays consistent, so as to know what to use the next time. — Mike Novikoff 03:50, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

@Mike Novikoff: I'm not sure who put that in there. In practice it's not normally used on WP:FOO shortcuts, and I've been consistently removing it for years. It would serve no purpose whatsoever to have an rcat for every redir "to" project namespace that includes from-project-namespace-already. That's not to project namespace, but within it. The reason to keep track of these thingsis for examining the appropriateness of cross-namespace redirects. Similarly, we do not have tracking of mainspace-to-mainspace redirs. If we really wanted to track redirs to pages where both are already in the same namespace, some toolserver tool could do that; we have no reason to have it be a category. There is no maintenance need that such a relationship triggers. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 04:30, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

I see. Thanks for explanation and good luck in resolving the matter! I'm always against the redundancy just like you are, and that's what I most appreciate the MoS for. — Mike Novikoff 05:09, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

I had thought this was resolved a long time ago. I've re-re-raised the matter on the talk page of the template again, in hopes of seeing it get resolved. Maybe we need to do an RfC. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 06:08, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Behavioral issues with an extremely niche MOS topic

Moved to WT:Manual of style § MOS:EPONYM

I've seen several people mention that you do not mince words, so I assume you'd prefer I not do so either. I'm happy to discuss the finer points of capitalizing eponyms at the appropriate pages. But I feel your behavior has been problematic, so I'll bring my perspective here. Do with it what you will. Allow me to briefly summarize our interactions as I've seen them. I've tried to strip this of the MOS stuff, to make it more clear what I see as a problem:

In October 2017, You appear at Gram-positive bacteria to make a change. In brief, it's a stylistic change that goes along with some (probably most) style guides, but goes against others. Your change is reverted with the message "unwarranted reversal of styling".
You start an RfC claiming people have been "editwarring about [this capitalization matter] since 2004", a claim that is a stretch. The topic has come up at the talk page once or twice over nearly 20 years.
Regardless, the RfC doesn't receive much input. Your proposed wording is not accepted. We all go back to what we were doing.
Three years later, this June, you return to the article to make the same change that was reverted in 2017. You use the edit summary "typographic consistency" (you did the same at two other articles). Iztwoz again reverts. I revert the other two instances with a note to remind you of the past RfC. You don't respond.
Now in November you start responding to a 2014 thread in the middle of a talk page, drowning us in lengthy monologues to the effect (I think) that you believe the MOS already requires your stylistic preference be used (if true, why did we have an RfC about it in 2017?). Throughout you drop ridiculous-seeming lines like "[the] analysis that [editor] presented above... appears to be original research" (followed by a paragraph of your own original research) and "We have learned the hard way that... linguistic hair-splitting causes more problems than it solves on Wikipedia" in the middle of your linguistic hair-splitting.
I point out that this is not required by the MOS; your 2017 RfC text had not been accepted. You respond with the same. Again you don't link to any such guidance.
You leave several long messages in quick succession that include your analysis that your preferred style is more commonly used (is there a guideline that Wikipedia's in-house style shall be whatever style is most commonly used?). Iztwoz pleads with you to leave well enough alone.
Here's the kicker: you, unbelievably to me, respond by adding text to the MOS enshrining your preferred style. You use the disingenuous summary "adapting material from MOS:CAPS to create a new list item here (+footnote) on eponyms. It's hard to track down this advice in the MoS pages, and it's common enough a question to be in main MOS." Hard to track down indeed! You leave a message at WT:MOS to the effect that you're doing some routine cleaning up and summarizing what's already at MOS:DOCTCAPS. Looking at MOS:DOCTCAPS I see nothing of the sort. I truly don't know if you just believe yourself to be right so strongly that you can't see that you're blowing hot air. Or if you know you're blowing hot air and are hoping if you blow harder, no one will notice.
I asked for clarification, but you didn't respond.

Now as I said above, the question of whether our house style should mandate adjectival eponyms be in the uppercase is truly unimportant, and I don't wish to discuss it here. The thing I found objectionable was you bringing an issue to an RfC, not getting the answer you wanted, waiting 3 years, making the change unannounced with a misleading edit summary, getting reverted again, pontificating about how the MOS commands us to make this change, and then—when asked where the MOS makes this command—you write it up yourself, again leaving a misleading-at-best edit summary. If I'm severely misunderstanding your thinking here, then please enlighten me. I think you've behaved obnoxiously here, but I can see that many in the community hold you in high esteem, and I truly want to do the same. So please help me understand. Otherwise, I'd ask that you stop with this. Either take the question to some broader audience again for a discussion, or just leave well enough alone. My apologies for such a long message. Best, Ajpolino (talk) 05:23, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

I appreciate your candor (actually). It's better to just have the details of concerns and go over them than to have wondering and assumptions and so forth. However, per the WP:TALKFORK principle, it will be pointless to address this long version here in great detail when the gist of this has been posted in short form by you at WT:MOS#MOS:EPONYM. My short answer here (which is recyled there, and will mark this thread closed with {{moved discussion to}}) is that you're making a lot of noise and casting a lot of aspersions (some of which are mutually contradictory), but the important facts of the matter are this:

An RfC that had too little input to reach consensus doesn't equate to a decision in your favor, much less a rejection of the view you don't like. It simply didn't do anything at all.
Meanwhile MOS:ISMCAPS has evolved to directly address this gist of this (and regardless of your pet style issue, is something that should be summarized on this point in main MoS page because it also has implications for MOS:BIO and other matters that don't pertain directly to ISMCAPS's doctrine-focused concerns.
Ironically, the MOS:EPONYM material you reflexively reverted included a footnote for recording consensus-accepted exceptions, and I added it mainly because the question you care so much about has not been properly RfCed yet and could actually go your way (very unlikely as that may be), resulting in another entry in that footnote.
You and a few of your wikiproject friends want to do something weird with style on a particular topic – which has repeatedly been challenged by other editors since 2004 – because you really like how CDC says to do it, or how AMA says to do it (though their two sets of "rules" on it don't even quite agree). But WP has its own style guide and doesn't follow either of the style guides of those other organizations.
Nor does most of the rest of the world, even in the same fields. It's easily provable (already proven) that neither the specialist literature in the relevant fields, nor general-audience books in which these terms appear, prefer either of the quirks some of you want to force other editors (and worse, our readers) to have to deal with.
Those quirks are not an arbitrary, doesn't-matter style issue, but are directly confusing to the average reader for at least three reasons.
The fact that DOCTCAPS already addresses this entire class of things (just without using the word "eponym") has escaped you, but it remains true nonetheless.

— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 07:28, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

PS: I'll address something thing here that's not covered over there: You listed a series of events as you saw them, and concluded with: "If I'm severely misunderstanding your thinking here, then please enlighten me." Okay, but this stuff really is tedious to keep rehashing, and it doesn't matter much. What matters is the fact that WP already has had a general principle to capitalize eponyms except under certain circumstances, and your pet peeve will likely not be among those exceptions because the real world very clearly doesn't agree with it. You were pointed directly to it, but feign inability to see it.

Timeline nit-picks and whatnot

Like various other editors since 2004, I've tried to bring the material in that article and related ones into compliance with our style guide. I (et al.) have met resistance, including from editors no longer a part of the project, but there always seem to be one or another of you holding out on this.
I'd actually completely forgotten about these discussions. I WP:GNOME all over the site, in every topic; it's not possible to memorize all of that. If you think I have some plan to drop by this article and make related changes every few months or years, you're imagining some huge "database of nit-picks" in my head that I assure you I don't really have the long-term memory for. I regularly do "mega-GNOME" overhauls like this one today. I do these so frequently I probably won't even remember this one in a month or two. So, the kind of one- or two-glitch cleanup at a page like this one you care about so intensely is something I forget even more quickly, unless people draw me back to it.
I'd even forgotten about the RfC from a few years ago, despite caring about the outcome at the time. I do F-loads of minor proposals (RfCs, RMs, etc., etc.). They go one way, or they go the other, or sometimes they come to no consensus. I annotate the third kind for later re-proposition, but I usually never get around to it.
In this case, the RfC attracted virtually no input. You keep characterizing it as a WP:WIN for your viewpoint, but it was not. It was simply completely meaningless, having no effect whatsoever on anything.
Years later, I gnomed that article again, and got reverted. As with most such matters, I shrugged and went on to other things, figuring someone would get around to it later. It seems to have somehow been a mistake in your view, to have not dived into a protracted argument about it on the spot. I can't agree. Let's people simmer down, move on to something more productive. If it comes up again, it will in its own time.
Now you're simultaneously complaining that I didn't engage in an argument about it at that time, and that I've been engaging in one about it now; that's self-contradictory.
Someone else drew my attention back to that page, so I reviewed all the arguments over the last few years, and did some verification. I found that your style claims are not supported at all by the real world. I've suggested you RfC this again more properly. But you don't.
I noticed then that we already have a guideline showing how to write such things (it focuses almost entirely on eponyms, and even says when not to capitalize them). It has been missed because it's not in the main MoS page, and it doesn't include the word "eponym".
So I put it there, with that word, and with a footnote on exceptions that has room for yours, if consensus ever agreed it was a good idea (and I noted exceptions we make that were not mentioned at the DOCTCAPS section, because they were not pertinent to that section, further proof we need a general version in main MoS page).
I'm not Nostradamus, and included that footnote with this dispute in mind, in large part – frankly to appease you and you friends. But you didn't get that, apparently. While I firmly predict that consensus will be against the style quirks you want to force on all other editors (and more importantly the readers) in a topic you are holding onto a bit too tightly, it was a good-faith attempt to account for your position and the fact that it's not settled.
You appear to be angry with me simply because I didn't pre-include your pet peeve as an already-vetted exception. It isn't one. It's a WP:FAITACCOMPLI being stonewall-enforced by you and something like 2 or 3 other editors who are still active. You also come across as angry that I'm posting arguments now, not several months ago The difference is my old, forgotten arguments about the matter (which I could have been expected to recycle several months ago) were fairly subjective. The new ones are not. They demonstrate that the scientific literature, like the general book-publishing market, strongly prefer Gram-negative over Gram negative, gram-negative, or 'gram negative. There is no way around this. You can blame me for this if you like (my skin is thick), but it won't change the facts.

— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 09:42, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Ah, I see, you do indeed misunderstand me. Briefly:

RfC... anything at all - I've never claimed to the contrary. I see the 2017 RfC as "not taking up your favored position" but have never claimed, nor do I currently think, that in enshrined the lowercase.
MOS:ISMCAPS has evolved to directly address this gist of this and The fact that DOCTCAPS... I continue not to understand what part of MOS:ISMCAPS addresses this issue. Could you quote out the text you're referring to? We don't seem to be seeing this text the same way.
You and a few of your wikiproject friends... - give me a break. I doubt I've ever interacted with Iztwoz or Quercus solaris outside of the gram-x bacteria pages. Believe it or not, there is no anti-capitalization cabal that you're fighting here.
Nor does most of the rest... - that's really beside the point. No one is asking "which style is most common?". The only question here is "Should Wikipedia's house style recommend X?" (Or I suppose you see it as "Can't you all see that Wikipedia's house style already demands X??).

I'm disappointed by your response. I had hoped to see some reflection on behavior rather than MOS content. The two truly are distinct. Instead you seem to have cast me as a hysterical capitalization-focused nut, which ironically is how I've at times seen you. Ajpolino (talk) 15:49, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

After reading your collapsed additional commentary I'll add two things: (1) I fully understand that you're not spending all of your time thinking about capitalizing Gram. After your June change was reverted I left a message gently reminding you that an RfC hadn't concluded in your favor (not, of course, that I had "won" some RfC). (2) Let's dispense with the misconception that this is my "pet peeve". I've never changed an article to the lowercase style. I've always interpreted this as a stylistic difference, and only reverted folks when they come by an article I happen to be watching to enforce their style preference over the existing one. You'll find articles I've worked heavily on that have both styles. I didn't comment at the 2017 RfC because I don't much care what the outcome is. This grabbed my attention because of the talk page activity, not because you dared cross my preferred capitalization quirk. Ajpolino (talk) 16:24, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

It appears to me that your involvement in this is some kind of WP:POINT exercise, a generating of dispute and debate for its own sake, since you are now explicitly disavowing any actual interest in the outcome of the two questions (capitalization, hyphenation) at issue in the long-running disagreement over how to write these articles, and clearly are not absorbing anything at all about the substance of the discussion (effects on readabilty/comprehensibility, provable usage dominance in RS, etc.); you only want to go over and over again your perceptions of process and whether your (increasingly irrelevant-looking) involvement is being understood from your exact vantage point.

It's also becoming clear that further detailed response is a waste of time, and seemingly a trap. I don't mind long and detailed posts and critiques, but this is a Gish gallop [note: not a "gish gallop"!], a firehose of disparate claims and statements and insinuations and complaints and accusations, going off in all directions, such that each attempt to address one of them both results in falling behind on answering the rest of them (which you then use as an "I didn't get an answer" excuse to take actions like reverting material you self-professedly have not substantive only processy questions about), and generates a new re-reply which simply injects another 20 points to try to address. This is not productive discussion, but a FILIBUSTER technique. It could literally go on for years without resolution, and I think we have better things to do.

The substantive matters have been brought up at WT:MOS#MOS:EPONYM. Your attempt to manufacture a behavioral problem out of my having gathered eponym-related material from MoS subpages and put them in clarified form in the main MoS page – with a footnote on exceptions specifically designed to encompass cases like the one at issue iff the community decides they are valid exceptions), is clearly a non-starter. Other respondents (e.g. Dicklyon) at the WT:MOS thread are already observing that you don't seem to have a substantive objection to the MOS:EPONYM material, that sources prefer "Gram-negative", and that you're being unclear enough that you seem to be in favor of "Gram-negative" in the first place, though that seems (on a deeper review of your input here and in article-talk) to be the opposite of the case. This is, basically, a bunch of noise. It has turned into a combo BATTLEGROUND / SOCIAL / FORUM thing: WP talk pages do not exist for "the sport of debate" as a form of entertainment. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 21:53, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

I'm sorry that you feel that way. I'll keep it to the WT:MOS page then. Thanks for your comments. Ajpolino (talk) 23:22, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Precious anniversary

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:28, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Maybe the 4th anniversary icon can be a gold ring with Elvish on it. Pre-e-e-e-cioussss .... — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 10:20, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, I won't remember, - feel free to change to an image of your liking. At least one user changed to the gold ring mentioned, but again, I don't remember which user and which image. - Here, same question for all arb cands: what do you think of Hippolyte et Aricie? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:31, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

I'm just making nerdy jokes. The image is fine as-is. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 18:31, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

How about an answer to the question? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:48, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

I gave it a minor cleanup pass. The overall article seems quite good, though it has a MOS:OP-ED problem fairly early on: "Even at this stage, there were problems .... This was just a foretaste of the difficulties to come ...." That's patently editorializing (magazine-style writing), and doesn't even make sense in the context (this was not a production riddled with problems and difficulties, just one that provoked critical consternation. I don't think the sidebar material dwelling on the author is helpful. That spot is where we expect to find summary (infobox) material about the subject of the article. Should be using a page-bottom navigation box instead. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 00:43, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

I gave it an infobox, I was reverted, and am not in the mood to even go to the article talk about that. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:52, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Refactored comment

Resolved

– to everyone's satisfaction, I think.

If you are going to move Perryprog's response to your comment, then I think you should move your two side points in that comment to the "extended discussion" as well or else move back Perryprog's response to where it was and instead leave your response in the "extended discussion" with a diff to his initial response. I don't think separating just Perryprog's response from the comment it is responding to is beneficial, and the other editor may have desired to have his response to your comment available below it rather than in a separate section. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 04:31, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

@Wallyfromdilbert: Huh? My 2 points are part of my !vote. Perryprog's response material to it involves detailed discussion and even more detail in reply. Several other !votes there have also attracted long-winded replies and re-replies that should probably also be refactored into the extended-discussion section. This is pretty normal WP:REFACTOR stuff, especially in RfCs that are complex and are expected to attract large numbers of comments from heated parties. And that will definitely be anything touching on DEADNAME/GENDERID. I think the record longest-running and largest-byte-size RfC ever held at VPPOL was on this topic, and it was an awful trainwreck largely because no one worked on refactoring it into a division between !vote comments (and maybe short responses to them), versus large threaded argumentation.

If Perryprog wants to un-refactor their reply post about my !vote back into the !voting section, I won't re-revert, but I do not believe this will be a good idea. Given that RfCs run typically for a full month, and this is a hot-button topic, we can expect this to get huge. I think it's great you've started this RfC (and it's interesting who's being smoked out as ... rather unfriendly to TG/NG/GQ concerns of any kind), but trying to "police" refactoring on the behalf of others who haven't even raised any objections is unlikely to be helpful (nor good for your own blood pressure, LOL). PS: One option is adding a "This !vote has followup comments regarding it in the [[#Extended comments]] section below" hatnote. I think there's even a template for that somewhere.
— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 05:45, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

I put an inline hatnote there (with shorter wording). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 05:49, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Part of my concern is that you refactored their comment after they were done editing for the night, and that it will be harder for them to refactor or even just copy it back to where it was by the time they come back on. Additionally, you copied it without the content they were responding to (when they also seemed particularly to be responding to you and your comment). Obviously in a contentious discussion, moving other editors' comments may be seen as prejudicial to their views, and given your other comments in the RfC, I thought you would want to be aware of that. I will leave it to Perryprog for how they would like their response reflected on the page, and they can feel free to ping me if they would like any help moving or copying their response to its original location. Thank you for your help with notifying additional talk pages as well. Take care. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 06:04, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

If Perryprog wants, I can just un-refactor it myself. I don't keep track of what times of day people are editing (or other aspects of their habits). Without the content they were responding to: Well, it's obvious from the context that they're responding to the two points in my !vote. Not seeing a problem here. No one is moving other editors main comments (their !votes) and prejudicing again their views. But chatter in an RfC like this needs to be refactored to a section for it or it could get out of hand quickly. You can believe me or not. :-) There's a big difference between someone's views on the question posed by the RfC, and their views on someone else's views. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 06:16, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

I understand your point, I just don't agree it was the appropriate action in this particular case. I think that the whole point of an RfC is the discussion, not just the casting of votes. Considering the concerns you expressed over misunderstanding my use of the word "update", I imagined you would have been more sensitive to how your actions may affect or be perceived by others, which is why I left my initial comment here. (Obviously moving actual votes would be something an editor could be sanctioned for doing.) I'm still not sure why you don't feel that you could have left their comments where they were and then just made your much more extended response in the "extended comments" section, but it's certainly fine if you don't agree with me regarding it. I only offered to move it myself because I want to avoid burdening anyone else's time as much as possible, and I also don't want you to think that you have to provide any further explanation to me since you do a lot of great work here that is far more important. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 06:54, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

I know what you mean, but we're getting plenty of discussion (some quite interesting). Two-section RfCs (a good format for any expect to be non-trivial) helps incoming people get the gist of the discussion without having to wallow through tons of material, and it is a real boon to the closer[s], who can more easily work through the material step-wise (see if there's a WP:SNOWBALL first, then look for overall support/oppose patterns and the basic arguments for them, then pore over the nitty-gritty to see whether various rationales have been debunked or bolstered. It's difficult to do that if the whole thing is big jungle of unstructured ranting. This is one of the reasons ArbCom and AE (and some other noticeboards like ANEW) impose some much structure, and are so orderly compared to the ANI "deathmatch". >;-) — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 08:48, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

I don't think it's fair to describe Perryprog's response to you as "unstructured ranting", and that is the only comment I was referencing here. I have no problem with an "extended discussion" section, although I do not agree that should only permit a survey of opinions at the top that cannot be discussed, especially when someone is responding directly to a point made by someone else in a limited fashion (for example, no one else has continued that discussion between you and Perryprog in the "extended discussion" section). I believe that discussion should take place in both sections, with limits on the long comments in the top section, and I agree with the sentiments in places like the essay Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Example formatting that separating votes from the discussion can be less beneficial when the RfC is not a more straightforward yes/no, such as by fracturing discussions and making them harder to read (I doubt many are going to search through the top section to find what Perryprog was responding to, or remember your initial comment when they get down to the extended response section). I think the approach for something like an RfA is more appropriate than ArbCom, AE, or ANEW (where things are already at a very bad place if they are at that point, which I don't think is the same presumption we should make for an RfC, even a contentious one). My concern that I posed as a question for you was specifically why you decided to move the other person's comment rather than simply starting your own response down in the "extended discussion" section that you created because I felt that it would make more sense to just start that with your own response rather than moving someone else's if your concern was with excessive discussion in the top section. I mean I'm not trying to give you a hard time or anything with this, but I hopefully what I am saying does make sense. I certainly appreciate this discussion, as I have learned a lot from it as well as from the interesting and informative comments being made in the RfC. I definitely learn the most by talking things out, and so thank you. (Please don't hesitate to let me know if I should just shut up though.) – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 09:45, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Argh. I'm not talking about Perryprog's comments in particular (I thought they were interesting, and needed serious and detailed response). Rather, I mean interleaved threaded commentary in general, in RfCs that turn out to be thickly populated, complex, and emotional. Anyway, time being precious, we needn't get too much into the detail of stuff like this. I agree there are various different "kinds" of RfCs, with different approaches that work better for them. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 09:51, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Hopefully my next RfC will be much improved! I also just saw your comment about BLPN on the MOS image discussion, and I realized I had never put an RfC notice there, and so I just did that. Thanks, and take care!– wallyfromdilbert (talk) 10:09, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Heck, I forgot that one, too. And misread that as being about WT:BLP, not WP:BLPN. Coffee... running... low.... — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 10:42, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Well, I have clearly been on here too much today and need some caffeine as well because I definitely misread that your comment as talking about BLPN, probably because I have made some comments there the past few days. Thank you for already getting to the BLP talk page with the RfC notice! I will make sure to keep that page in mind in the future as well. Now I should probably take a break for a while cause I think I probably need it. – wallyfromdilbert (talk) 11:12, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Know the feeling. My eyes are buggy from all the text I've had to wade through today, what with the invective a thread or two above this. [sigh]. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 11:27, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish and Wallyfromdilbert: I'm a little late, but I have to agree with the importance of talk page refactoring, especially in an RfC that will inevitably turn into the Wikipedia equivalent of a reply-all email server crash. I already feel bad enough for anyone using a screenreader that has to deal with the inane amount of incorrectly formatted multi-paragraph list items, let alone LISTGAP violations, so any amount of refactoring to separate !votes from discussion is probably a good thing. I think the current state with the note directing to the respond under § Extended Discussion is fine, although an ideal solution might be for a two-way {{anchor}} link, to and from the !vote and its corresponding discussion. Perryprog (talk) 16:42, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Oh—and it's also worth mention that I already can be much more (ahem) loquaciously verbose than necessary, so I value any improvements to my posts in that regard. Perryprog (talk) 17:20, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Will do that. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 19:05, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Done. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 10:18, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Appreciated!

Hi SMCc. Appreciated the encouraging words on Gerda's T/P. It's the little things..Cheers! Si Simon Adler (talk) 04:16, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

:-) — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 04:28, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Help me

Moved to Talk:Khes

Greetings! I would sincerely be obliged if you can spare some time to review a page Khes. Thanks and regards RAJIVVASUDEV (talk) 08:25, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

@RAJIVVASUDEV: Review in which sense(s)? Is there a particular process you're seeking to pass or get prepared for (WP:GAN, etc.)? — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 08:33, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

SMcCandlish Thank you so much for your prompt reply; I removed a template; hence i am seeking this page's approval. Regards RAJIVVASUDEV (talk) 08:38, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

I've given it a quick cleanup pass for style, clarity, citation cleanup, layout logic, etc. There are some open questions. The three major ones: Why is this changing back and forth between present and past tense? The article mostly sounds like this is a former, historical cloth and folk-art, not something that is presently made. What is the mention of women about? I think the implication is that it was mostly produced by women, but this isn't what it says, it just says women made it (i.e. some women made and some men did, and ... why does this matter? If you see what I mean.) Third, the article was mostly talking about khes as a mass noun (a substance, like wheat or cotton or granite), but sometimes also using it unexpectedly as a count noun (an object, like a donkey, my cat, three children). If the term is used both ways with distinct meanings, then this will need to be explained, and sourced as to the explanations. Anyway, I hope the cleanup pass helped. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 09:23, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

@RAJIVVASUDEV: Added a source. Also marked the page "Reviewed", if that's what you were mostly seeking. :-) — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 09:39, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

SMcCandlish,I appreciate your time and advice; I am grateful for your help and efforts in correcting my erroneous editing. Some of the parts are trimmed in a rush and kept remainders meaningless now. For instance, the women were used to weave for the dowry. It was an essential item..^[1] ^[2] And the past present is another failed attempt because it is still in use in rural areas.^[3]. Thank you so much for everything. RAJIVVASUDEV (talk) 09:50, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Moving over to article talk page. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 09:52, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

References

^ Gill, Manmohan Singh (2003). Punjab Society: Perspectives and Challenges. Concept Publishing Company. ISBN 978-81-8069-038-9.
^ Gill, Harjeet Singh (2002). Signification in Language and Culture. Indian Institute of Advanced Study. ISBN 978-81-7986-015-1.
^ "Past-Continuous: Craft, Heritage & Community in India - Craft Revival Trust". Google Arts & Culture. Retrieved 2020-12-04.

OPED

Ah, interesting, thanks for this! Took me a moment to understand what was going on (slow brain at the best of times + insufficient coffee) but I followed it back from the redirect to the RfD and I now absolutely see the point – all very sensible! Cheers DBaK (talk) 10:12, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

@DisillusionedBitterAndKnackered: Yeah, it was just a tedious bit of page-by-page link repair so that archived threads and such would not become incomprehensible. WP:GNOME drudgery. :-) — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 10:17, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Ah yes, tedious but useful! That's the stuff. :) Have a good day. Cheers DBaK (talk) 10:20, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Shocking

Hey man. I was shocked to learn about the indefinite block of Koavf, one of the most prolific editors of Wikipedia, at 09:28, 2 December 2020 (UTC). Did that appear in the Wikipedia news? Because I think that is big news. I am still digesting it. Geeze. Thinker78 (talk) 19:56, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Hmm, I had not seen this myself yet. I've had my nose buried in various WP:GNOME stuff like cite cleanup, overhauling someone's draft for MoS compliance, cleaning up after a shortcut retarget, etc. Will go take a look. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 21:09, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

@Thinker78: I caught up on it. The observation "promises or commitments just sort of mean nothing after a while when [an editor keeps getting, in a short span] reblocked for the same thing again." Given Koavf's general productivity, aside from flareups like this, and the nature of the ongoing discussion at this talk page, I'm pretty certain this will blow over with a 1RR restriction or something like that. "Indefinite" doesn't mean "forever", just "until there's clearly going to be a solution to the issue". — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 22:04, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

...which will, no doubt, work just as well as the previous 1RR did.

Previous administrators who believed promises to stop:

06:41, 11 August 2006 AmiDaniel unblocked Koavf (Per email discussion, user has agreed to persue other avenues, such as AfD, to bring attention to his concerns, and he has made clear he did not intend to disrupt Wikipedia.)
08:21, 25 September 2019 Joe Roe unblocked Koavf (Agreed to stop edit warring.)
13:45, 23 July 2020 Ivanvector unblocked Koavf (Per talk page discussion; user commits to various methods of dispute resolution instead of revert warring)
17:33, 23 August 2020 Newyorkbrad unblocked Koavf (reducing to time served per detailed explanation on user talk)

I'm just saying. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:56, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Hmm. I'm not sure what if any 1RR stuff he was under before, and when. I've not dug around in the guts of this, I'm just noting that if he's subject to a 1RR henceforth, that's a bright line to easily re-impose a block, and for longer each time (or just indef and with more skepticism). This latest time, he wasn't under 1RR, and was trying to stay within 3RR (either out of reasonableness or system gaming – I don't read minds). If it's a topical pattern, then maybe a T-ban should be considered instead? I'm just loath to see indefs or site-bans applied if there's still room to try another remedy. Maybe this makes me a "pushover". — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 00:04, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

I feel kindda sad that such a prolific editor is banned and kindda disappointed about the edit warring situation. Personally, I have adopted a personal 1 revert rule. If someone reverts my revert, I go to the talk page and if nothing happens, I just let it be. Thinker78 (talk) 01:07, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

@Thinker78: If I recall correctly, Gerda Arendt has done likewise. Maybe its a movement! (Insert "Alice's Restaurant" reference here.) — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 18:23, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

I try. See #vision 2020. I usually do not even go to the talk, see the above-mentioned opera. I don't like the result, but think it's a waste of to time to fight it. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:50, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

A movement! That wold be nice.Thinker78 (talk) 01:59, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Questions at ArbCom

Robert_McClenon and I have left new questions for you at Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee_Elections_December_2020/Candidates/SMcCandlish/Questions#Questions_from_David_Tornheim. I look forward to your responses. --David Tornheim (talk) 02:16, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

@David Tornheim: Thanks for the note. I have answered there. Didn't expect any more questions at this point, and was buried in other goings-on. :-) — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 03:15, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. --David Tornheim (talk) 06:50, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

List markers on Talk:Transsexual

Greetings. The addition of collapse templates is what is causing the stray bullet to appear. If you want the list format to be both MoS-compliant and aesthetically pleasing, then you could move your 1:53, 3 December comment along with the collapsed portion to the end of the thread, which would also put it in chronological order. I'm fine with it where it is, but please don't use it as a reason to disrupt the proper formatting of the page. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 02:48, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Nope. I've already address this at your talk page. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 03:14, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

See my reply here. You can insult me all you like, but don't try to make me doubt the evidence of my own eyes. Thx. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 04:05, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

I'll try addressing this one final time; no more.

A simple technical demonstration:

Original thread

Yak yak.
Yakkety yak.
Blah blah.
Noise.
More noise.

As we were saying ....
Yep.

Refactored with a collapse box

Yak yak.
Yakkety yak.
Blah blah.

collapse box (div+table) inserted
Noise. More noise.

As we were saying ....

Yep.

The resulting code:

<ul><li>Yak yak.
<dl><dd>Yakkety yak.
<dl><dd>Blah blah.</dd></dl></dd></dl></li></ul>
<div style="margin-left:0">
<table class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="background: transparent; text-align: left; border: 1px solid Silver; margin: 0.2em auto auto; width:100%; clear: both; padding: 1px;">

<tbody><tr>
<th style="background: #CCFFCC; font-size:87%; padding:0.2em 0.3em; text-align:center;"><div style="display:inline;font-size:115%">collapse box (table) inserted</div>
</th></tr>
<tr>
<td style="border: solid 1px Silver; padding: 0.6em; background: White;">
<dl><dd><dl><dd><dl><dd><dl><dd>Noise.
<dl><dd>More noise.</dd></dl></dd></dl></dd></dl></dd></dl></dd></dl>
</td></tr></tbody></table></div>
<dl><dd><dl><dd><dl><dd>As we were saying ....
<dl><dd>Yep.</dd></dl></dd></dl></dd></dl></dd></dl>

The important part is ...</ul><div ...><table ...>...</table></div><dl>...: The insertion of the block element terminates any ongoing list, and starts a new one if that block is followed by more list code. (Not because HTML demands this; list items can in fact contain block elements. It's because MW's list-handling code is extremely brittle and not very "smart". If you want a list that has block elements inside list items, you have to build the list manually with explicit HTML elements, not wikimarkup.)

For this reason, if you insert a block into a talk thread, list markup that comes inside and after the block should not begin with d-list markup (<dl><dd>...</dd></dl> markup, i.e. :, ::) that is nested inside <ul> (*) or <ol> (#) markup, or the results will be even more confusing for screen readers than they already are, because they'll be told that an all-new list of bulletized or numbered items is beginning inside, and another one after, with no relationship to the material above it, which is not the actual situation. (And it'll be confusing for sighted readers, too, due to misplaced bullets in <ul> and incorrect numbering in <ol>.) Users of screen readers can already tell that material which our talk pages put into nested <dl><dd>...</dd></dl> markup (i.e., :, ::) is continuation of previous discussion, whether or not it all began with a regular paragraph or with an ordered or unordered list (even though that d-list markup is technically invalid, and not what such markup is really intended for). Strictly speaking, the material inside the collapse box would be best "de-indented" (in the above example, to "Noise." followed by ":More noise."), because the inserted block element has already indicated to the reader (including the screen reader) that it is a discrete block following on whatever was last said in the list material just above it. But, in practice, people often do not bother.

The real solution here is obviously for the MW devs to stop treating :, etc., as list markup at all on talk pages, and to instead treat them as <div> or <article> with IDs and CSS that build a threaded discussion with contextual links between posts so that they are tied together logically, and without throwing annoying list-open/close announcements at screen readers. But we'll get that when Hell freezes over. People have been asking the devs for a fix like this for over a decade, with zero traction.

I'm not particularly inclined to continue going over this stuff with you, at this page or anywhere else, because your WP:BLUDGEON habits, of picking pointless sub-sub-sub-arguments about every single point anyone ever raises and recycling your same viewpoints over and over as if they have not already been addressed, are infuriating. We all have better things to do than engage in such circular argument for its own sake. I don't know what else anyone can say to you if you continue to refuse to notice and accept that when a list going *::: is bisected with a block element, it resumes without the bullet (e.g. as ::::), both to avoid stray bullets and to avoid falsely announcing a new, unrelated bullet list to screen readers. In over 15 years on WP, you are the only person I have ever encountered who keeps reverting it back to *:::, and it's pretty unimaginable to me that anyone else would continue to do it even after it's explained to them why they're making a mistake. If tens of thousands of WP editors are not doing things your way, then odds are that your way is the one that's wrong. WP:1AM was written more with sourcing-and-content disputes in mind, but the philosophical gist of it is applicable here. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 19:30, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

PS: This technical matter aside, please reconsider your WP:BLUDGEON and WP:GREATWRONGS approach to the sort of topic at which this arose. See in particular User talk:GPinkerton#December 2020 for where that tends to lead. I warned that editor (see above) about the likelihood of getting blocked for it, and it happened much faster even than I expected. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 20:06, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

MOS:LISTGAP gives methods to include block elements within lists, but you didn't use those methods. You did what the guideline explicitly says not to do: Definitely do not

attempt to use a colon to match the indentation level. This also creates a separate (description) list. Perhaps you and the tens of thousands of other WP editors could try to get this changed. Until then, I'll stick to what the guideline says. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 18:48, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

I don't think you're looking at the code correctly, and I see you reverted what you posted at WT:MOSACCESS about this, specifically because you did not correctly read the example code. I'll repeat: "I'm not particularly inclined to continue going over this stuff with you, at this page or anywhere else". In short, please do not post on my talk page unless it has something to do with encyclopedia work. Cf. WP:NOT#FORUM; Wikipedia is not a webboard for endless "argument for sport" and we all have better things to do. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 03:45, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Orthopedic → Orthopaedic

Hello, it seems like you raised this issue on the Orthopedic surgery talk page with mixed results. If you want to raise the issue again, I will support you in this effort as it is silly that the article is still named using the minority spelling. Getsnoopy (talk) 23:19, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

@Getsnoopy: It's not something I feel all that strongly about (despite having been precise about it in the WP:RM discussion). An RM can be opened by anyone; it needn't be me re-RMing it. Two-and-a-half years is plenty long enough to let a no-consensus RM sit before RMing it again, so have at it. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 18:29, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

New Page Patrol December Newsletter

Hello SMcCandlish,

Year in review

It has been a productive year for New Page Patrol as we've roughly cut the size of the New Page Patrol queue in half this year. We have been fortunate to have a lot of great work done by Rosguill who was the reviewer of the most pages and redirects this past year. Thanks and credit go to JTtheOG and Onel5969 who join Rosguill in repeating in the top 10 from last year. Thanks to John B123, Hughesdarren, and Mccapra who all got the NPR permission this year and joined the top 10. Also new to the top ten is DannyS712 bot III, programmed by DannyS712 which has helped to dramatically reduce the number of redirects that have needed human patrolling by patrolling certain types of redirects (e.g. for differences in accents) and by also patrolling editors who are on on the redirect whitelist.

Rank	Username	Num reviews	Log
1	DannyS712 bot III (talk)	67,552	Patrol Page Curation
2	Rosguill (talk)	63,821	Patrol Page Curation
3	John B123 (talk)	21,697	Patrol Page Curation
4	Onel5969 (talk)	19,879	Patrol Page Curation
5	JTtheOG (talk)	12,901	Patrol Page Curation
6	Mcampany (talk)	9,103	Patrol Page Curation
7	DragonflySixtyseven (talk)	6,401	Patrol Page Curation
8	Mccapra (talk)	4,918	Patrol Page Curation
9	Hughesdarren (talk)	4,520	Patrol Page Curation
10	Utopes (talk)	3,958	Patrol Page Curation

Reviewer of the Year

John B123 has been named reviewer of the year for 2020. John has held the permission for just over 6 months and in that time has helped cut into the queue by reviewing more than 18,000 articles. His talk page shows his efforts to communicate with users, upholding NPP's goal of nurturing new users and quality over quantity.

NPP Technical Achievement Award

As a special recognition and thank you DannyS712 has been awarded the first NPP Technical Achievement Award. His work programming the bot has helped us patrol redirects tremendously - more than 60,000 redirects this past year. This has been a large contribution to New Page Patrol and definitely is worthy of recognition.

Six Month Queue Data: Today – 2262 Low – 2232 High – 10271

To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here

18:16, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

User:Paptilian

Wow, Kudos. I am Paptilian. Thank you generously for coming to my aid. I am impressed with your user page, and a few others I've visited. I want a professional user page myself. I learn something every time I use Wikipedia. I won't waste your time here. Thanks again, and I look forward to yet more interactions.Paptilian (talk) 23:29, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

@Paptilian: Happy to help. This place has a steep learning curve. :-) — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 23:52, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Just like my beloved mountains. PPaptilian (talk) 00:43, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Naming query

Hi SMcCandlish, I have a guess that you may have some insight into this as I've seen you around various move requests.I'm looking at Notker the Stammerer and am rather confused by his name. I've only ever heard him reffered to as simply "Notker" (which wouldn't work for WP's purposes) or "Notker Balbus". Indeed "Notker Balbus" is how various books of medieval music I have do so (Hoppin 1978, Yudkin 1989, Reese 1940 for instance) and it seems the most common by far in VIAFF. I'm assuming the reason it has been at "the Stammerer" is because "Balbus" is the Latin word for "the Stammerer" – but is this really a viable reason to have such a name? I would move it myself but I just want to check if perhaps there is a policy or preference for english translations that I'm unaware of. Best - Aza24 (talk) 18:50, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

@Aza24: The process is WP:RM. You'll need to be familiar with WP:COMMONNAME and the rest of the article titles policy. Be aware that WP:IDONTKNOWIT is not a valid argument – and easy to contradict, anyway: for me, this subject is most familiar as Notker the Stammerer, and I have never until today seen him referred to as "Notker I", though I have seen "Notker Balbulus" (which isn't spelled "Balbus") as a parenthetical before; meanwhile simply "Notker" by itself is ambiguous, so it seems unlikely this is what sources would usually do, unless in a specialized context no other Notker could possibly be meant (WP is not a specialized context). A requested move will mostly come down to a COMMONNAME analysis, which for a subject like this is probably best demonstrated with a Google Ngrams comparison, and a comparison of searches in Google Scholar. If usage is close to tied, we would use the non-Latin version per WP:USEENGLISH. The Latin name will need to be markedly more common in English-language reliable sources for it to become the WP article title. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 21:33, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Yes that was a typo on my part. So an Ngram viewer gives this, and interestingly enough, the trend changes right at around when the article was created – so... I don't know what to do here. Looking at the data though the percentages are extremely close, I'd assume this wouldn't fall under the "markedly" more common guideline by WP:USEENGLISH? Aza24 (talk) 22:50, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

I don't entirely agree with your analysis. "Notker the Stammerer" was vastly increasing in sources from the 1980s onward, while "Notker Balbulus" was simultaneously decreasing precipitously since the 1960s, though the latter was fairly stable during the former's period of sharp increase. This demonstrates a general decline for a while in interest in this figure, followed by renewed interest in him later, but using the longer, plain-English name, while some (presumably older) writers continued to prefer the Latin name. The two names reached parity in book sources around 1999–2000, which is before WP existed. Our article was created in late 2004. While there has possibly been a WP:CIRCULAR effect since that time, this is dubious, and nothing in the ngram suggests that. The trend was clearly already well-established: "Notker Balbulus" has been fairly stable since around 1980, after a big decline from ca. 1960, while the increase in "Notker the Stammerer" has been about a 45-degree upward slope since around 1980, a slope that did not steepen after 2004, and could even be leveling out from about 2017 onward, though the last couple of years in Google Ngrams (in any of its data sets) are not very reliable due to being less complete. If the red and blue lines in the chart were exactly opposite each other, I think that would be good grounds for a move. But what we have is clear proof that while all sources in the aggregate have preferred the Latin name, modern books prefer the English one, starting around 2000. You could still propose a move, on the basis that perhaps sources dating back to the mid-20th century are still mostly reliable for a subject that is so old-history (i.e., sources we'd consider reliable on it probably in total prefer the Latin name). But I think this is a hard sell, because unless the current trend flips itself, we would just have to move the article back later, as older sources fall out of what we'd consider reliable and more and more modern replacements use the English name. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 23:14, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

These... are good points. I suppose now I'm left with a different dilemma, in the current format, I don't think the only mention of the "Balbulus" name being in the parentheses is ideal especially since it's far more common than Notker I or Notker of Saint Gall (according to this at least). Would you have any ideas on how to format the alternate names Notker I, Notker of Saint Gall and Notker Balbulus so that it's clear that the later is by far the most common of them? Perhaps something along the rough lines of Notker the Stammerer (c. 840 – 6 April 912 AD) also known as Notker Balbulus^[a] (From Latin: Notcerus Balbulus) was... ? Or maybe the Latin name should stay where it was; gosh who knew a medieval monk's name could be so annoying! - Aza24 (talk) 23:31, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

^ Less commonly referred to as Notker I or Notker of Saint Gall.

That seems reasonable, though I think I would move the other names to the end of the lead instead of in a footnote; the MOS:BOLDSYN thing is to help people be sure they're at the right article, and most of them don't read footnotes (esp. on mobile). Yeah, medieval and especially latinised names are a pain, especially when they just went by rough phonetics without any regard for where a name came from and what it meant, e.g. Galfrid/Geoffrey/Gottfried/Godfrey/Gofraid, and Gruffudd/Gruffydd/Griffith, and Goraidh/Godred/Guthred, often all latinised as Galfridus or God[f]redus, sometimes with different spellings for the exact same person. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 02:03, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

Geez – I suppose the "dark ages" designation has a new-founded meaning... :) Aza24 (talk) 02:27, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

It must've been like: [Anglo-Norman baron:] "Go ask Geoffrey." [Hiberno-Norman cousin:] "Who? Do you mean Gofraid?" [Scottish wife:] "I think he means Goraidh." [Original speaker:] "Argh. Just go ask the balding, big-armed fellow with G and f in his name, the one who always smells of onions." [Passing friar:] Oh, that's Galfridus. If you'd just use Latin, this would be so much easier." [Fellow priest, from the Continent:] "Except it's Godfredus; get your Latin right." The person they were talking about was around the corner and heard all of this – [Welsh archer:] "I am here, and my name is actually Gruffydd, which isn't related to any of those other names in the first place. But you're all hostile to Welsh and refuse to learn to even say a word of it properly. A pox on all your houses. And leeks aren't onions." — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 01:44, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

Oh my gosh just seeing this, I love it! Reminds me of Trebor and S Uciredor whom I thought had some of the coolest names for medieval composers, but at some point realized that they were just Robert and Rodericus backward :( Aza24 (talk) 19:57, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Trebor in some other case could easily be a variant of Trevor, but it wouldn't make sense for that Iberian composer, since Trevor is Welsh (Trefor, earlier Trefawr or something like that) and Irish (Treabhar). I see at least one Welsh (and another British) entry at Trebor (disambiguation). "Ciredor" would be a pretty cool game-character name though. I may have to steal that. Godfrey backwards doesn't work out so well: Yerfdog. Worth a laugh, though. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 20:14, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Flyer22 and WanderingWanda arbitration case opened

The Arbitration Committee has accepted and opened the Flyer22 and WanderingWanda case at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Flyer22 and WanderingWanda. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Flyer22 and WanderingWanda/Evidence. Please add your evidence by December 30, which is when the evidence phase is scheduled to close. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Flyer22 and WanderingWanda/Workshop, which closes January 13, 2020. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. To opt out of future mailings please see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Flyer22 and WanderingWanda/Notification list. For the Arbitration Committee, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:03, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

Blech. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 08:06, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Beethoven 250 years

The birthday display! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:43, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

About titles, honorifics and appeal to popularity

Done

Hello and greetings,

This is just for your kind info. Since previously you have participated in an inconclusive RfC discussion at this RfC in year going by, and since some related aspects are under discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Titles, honorifics and appeal to popularity may be you want to join in to share your inputs or opinions.

Thanks and regards

Bookku (talk) 05:46, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
	Thank you for keeping the Nithyananda page clean! I intended to fix all the poor grammar, but you beat me to it. It must've been quite a ride for you, to see the man's antics unfold over the past three years. Happy editing! Kind regards, Wilhelm Tell DCCXLVI ^{converse \| fings wot i hav dun} 09:33, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

@Wilhelm Tell DCCXLVI: Thanks! It has indeed been strange. I know someone who became a follower of this guru), though this did not color my approach to the content. I've tried hard (before giving it a rest and letting others do it for a year or so) to keep it pruned of both ranty and insufficiently sourced attacks by detractors, and wild promotional/miraculous claims by adherents. Given the state of the media in India, it's difficult to ferret out exactly what is going on legally. The fact that he's been accused of various things doesn't make him guilty, but fleeing the country as more charges pile up doesn't look good either. I'm a bit reminded of John McAfee (and I'm not sure our article on him even covers all the stuff he's allegedly gotten up to). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 19:53, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Yo Ho Ho

★Trekker (talk) is wishing you Seasons Greetings! Whether you celebrate your hemisphere's Solstice or Christmas, Diwali, Hogmanay, Hanukkah, Lenaia, Festivus or even the Saturnalia, this is a special time of year for almost everyone!

Spread the holiday cheer by adding {{subst:User:WereSpielChequers/Dec16a}}~~~~ to your friends' talk pages.

★Trekker (talk) 17:42, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

Merry December

Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} is wishing you a Merry Christmas! This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Happy New Year!

Spread the cheer by adding {{subst:Xmas2}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

Thank you!

I'm grateful that you ran for ArbCom, Mac. I wish you had been elected but it was encouraging to see that you had a very respectable showing of support despite not being an admin. That's huge, and I hope you'll try again. Happy Holidays to you and yours! Atsme 💬 📧 19:51, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. It was indeed interesting to get sufficient support (minus opposition) for a 1 year term, had there been enough seats. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 19:54, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: I've never before bothered to vote in an ArbCom election since I'm not a fan of the site's bureaucratic core, but when I saw that you were a candidate, I put a vote in for you. I've been aware of you ever since you put the kibosh on the Sovereign Citizen crap happening at US Dollar (is it really a fiat currency?), after I had no success and even tried reaching out to several people for help. In general, you seem to have a level of common sense which can be lacking on this website, and I think that you could've been a good influence on the committee. I think it's noteworthy that you received more Support votes than someone who was successfully elected, but I also think it's understandable why you got the third-highest number of Oppose votes. I encourage you to try running again in a later election, if it still makes sense. Regards, BirdValiant (talk) 22:20, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

@BirdValiant: I appreciate the kind words. One thing I will propose for next year's ACE RfC is that the election intro material contain a clear statement that lack of adminship tools in no way would impede an ArbCom member (the only admin tools they need to do the Arb "job" are available via CheckUser and Oversight, which are not limited to admins and which are expressly available to all Arbs for their ArbCom tenure).

I also got a lot of opposes this year, as in 2017, because of my WP:MOS work. Just about everyone has a bone to pick with the MoS, and if you are one of the tiny handful of people who shepherd it and prevent willy-nilly changes to it, you will inevitably earn the ire and spite of a lot of other editors. No way around that other than by not doing MoS stuff any longer, and I decline to walk away from it. Someone has to do it. (Volunteers for that very thankless work are few – it's a lot like ArbCom in several ways!) The other down-vote reason this year was that lame humor essay from almost two years ago. It was less of a factor than I expected, so I think within a year or two it won't be much of one. I think if I ran in 2021 I would also not quite make it, but 2022 seems more plausible.

For my part, it will come down to whether I project that I'll have the time and willpower to do it for 1–2 years, a decision I'll have to make in Dec. 2021, Dec. 2022, etc. If I do, then I will run for ArbCom, regardless what I think my chances are. The body does need non-admins and it does need more people who understand WP policy as a system, as an organ in the WP creature. I think we mostly got a good slate of electees this year, and most of the still-sitting Arbs are also pretty reasonable (with maybe 2–3 exceptions, depending on the issue at hand). The number of them intent on overhauling the WP:AC/DS system is encouraging, as that was to be my no. 1 priority as an Arb, aside from any ongoing case. PS: It's actually faintly feasible that I would seek adminship anyway before then. That'll only happen if I feel a burning urge to do tech stuff that requires the bit, like WP:Interface-admin work. I have no desire to be an admin for the usual "cops on patrol" reasons. Heh.
— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 15:12, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

Changing your opinion

Fixed

Hi, I'm puzzled by your comment at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2020_December_24#Fiction_about_astronomical_locations, reversing what you said at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2020_November_23#Category:Astronomical_locations_in_fiction. Would you care to expand on your rationale? – Fayenatic London 21:04, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Derp. It was an instance of cerebral flatulence. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 16:53, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Season's Greetings

X

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

X Hey SMc! Have a good holiday and may you and yours stay well and safe. From Simon Adler (talk) 00:00, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, and well-wishing to you as well, Simon Adler. However your post had markup in it was was invalid in a least three ways, and it boogered the display of the rest of the page from that point onward. %-) I have repaired it above, and you might want to copy-paste this fixed version to any other talk pages that received one of these. The biggest issue was mis-nested elements, followed by an unclosed one, then font markup that hasn't been valid since the 1990s. For more information, see Help:HTML, WP:HTML5, and WP:LINT. PS: I wasn't sure what the point of the white Xs was; were they supposed to be visible on a different-colored page background? If they're just intended for spacing, you can do that with   (non-breaking space), and insertion of blank lines, and so on, without having to "white-hide" alphanumeric characters to make them effectively invisible. That'll also be better for MOS:ACCESS purposes. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 16:18, 27 December 2020 (UTC); PS added: 16:21, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!

@SMcCandish Sir, Wishing you good health, prosperity, happiness on this Christmas. Merry Christmas! RAJIVVASUDEV (talk) 04:07, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Merry Christmas

File:Christmas tree in field.jpg	Merry Christmas SMcCandlish
	Hi SMcCandlish, I wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas and a very happy and prosperous New Year, Thanks for all your contributions to Wikipedia this past year, like this tree, you are a light shining in the darkness. – SD0001 (talk) 15:03, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Natalis soli invicto!

		Natalis soli invicto!
		Wishing you and yours a Happy Holiday Season, from the horse and bishop person. May the year ahead be productive and distraction-free. Ealdgyth (talk) 15:21, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Happy 2021!

The best and happiest imaginable and unimaginable 2021 to you and yours (insert picture of money, drink/andorother, maskless faces, cake and Indian food here). I'll let you know I voted for you on that arbcom thing because your language and thought-process would have or will raise its issues and deliberation style to new levels (haven't looked for selection results). Since giving year-end yays is the chance to say good things without sounding too sappy, Wikipedia is so much better for you being here than it even knows. Enjoy the New Year. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:52, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

@Randy Kryn: Thanks, and happy holler-days to you as well. I'm almost relieved I didn't pass WP:ACE2020. (Well, I did, for one term, if there had there been enough seats! That's closer than I got in 2017.) I also value your work here, even if I grouse at you about various bits of style/titles trivia. I think this month was the first time I felt compelled to do that in about a year. :-) Oh, speaking of that specific thing, I saw a common thread in your argument and that of a couple of others, which matched previous "Isn't this a proper name?" debates. They're of a type which are recurrent but always seem to end the same way, going way back to the mid-2000s on WP – a confusing commingling of the proper name (linguistics) and proper name (philosophy) concepts, only the former of which has (in English and other case-sensitive languages) any connection to orthography. Responding to that as a general matter resulted in a new essay, at WP:PNPN. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 16:10, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Glad to partly inspire an SMcCandlish essay, and to get your thoughts in one place. Curious, how do you explain the many style guides who lower case such obvious proper names as 'Sun', 'Moon', 'Earth', and 'Solar System'. Wikipedia upper-cases them, extremely rightly in my opinion and I wish the other style guides would follow us in these cases. If you have any contacts or influence in these outside-site universes maybe you can give them a nudge to get on board the obvious. That'd be nice. Yes, if you weren't all in on the arbcom position I'm glad it wasn't to be (this time), as your time is too valuable on policy discussions in the real (Wikipedia) world. To clarify my praise of your work in my note, I've often said that the only person who can possibly know a good portion of the extent of an editor's contributions and content-flow and development here is the person themselves, and even we individuals get an overview feeling and not a computerized systemized exact look at what influence we've made in either the overall project or in the segmented blocks involving topics. One of the things I'm proud of here are my probably thousands of pedia "fixes" of the abovementioned words to Wikipedia style, and hoping that off-wiki writers and editors come to the realization that that bright unimaginably large nuclear furnace in the sky maybe does deserve a proper name. Come to think of it and to round out this reply, that it, Moon, etc, are upper-cased here as deserving exceptions to the oft-argued "consistency" guideline maybe could find mention in your clarifying essay? Well, too long of a ramble, enjoy. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:27, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, if I were at RfA, my answer to the "your best contribution" question would also be along the lines of "years of WP:GNOME cleanup". It's work that's under-appreciated but important, so WP reads like an encyclopedia instead of like a crappy blog with 30,000 inconsistent (and often poor-skilled) writers.

For a long time it wasn't conventionalized to capitalize "sun", "earth", and "moon", in any context. This is one of numerous classes of things that are proper names in the philosophy sense (according to some but not all philosophers) yet about which linguists would argue ("But it starts with 'the' ..."). The orthography has just come down to publishers' house styles. It's becoming, slowly, conventionalized to capitalize them in an astronomical context, because we capitalize all other such bodies (places): Mars, etc. Retain lowercase for figural usage. Thus, "When the moon hits your eye / Like a big pizza pie" would still use lower case, because the Moon did not literally come out of orbit and strike someone; but "the Apollo missions to the Moon", where the Moon is an astronomical place. "The moon" in the song really means "moonlight". The caps convention was introduced by IAU and similar organizations, and is one that WP has adopted for clarity and for consistency within the class of names (just as we've picked up various nitpicks from ISO and other bodies in MOS:NUM, like putting a space between a measure and its unit; it's not more "correct" in an objective sense, just reader-helpful). The "Sun" and "Earth" style was introduced so we don't bop up and own from upper to lower case in a list of bodies in the Solar System (or Solar system; I forget which is preferred for the system of our star, Sol; not to be confused with "the solar system of Alpha Centauri", a generic usage).

Exactly what to capitalize seems to be in flux; we don't have an entirely self-consistent system deployed yet. I see that we have an article at Kuiper belt and I would think it would be at Kuiper Belt (it's the, i.e. our, Kuiper Belt, not any Kuiper belt around any ol' star). And we're doing "the asteroid belt", which seems completely wrong. This is where simplistic but conflicting approaches to "proper name" really break down. Here we have a descriptive term that is a just non-proper descriptive label when used generically ("a binary star system with three asteroid belts") but which is serving in the capacity of a proper name when it has the one particular referent that refers to our home system ("the Asteroid Belt is between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars"). These are basically homonyms, as they have different definitions (albeit the latter is a one-member subclass of the former). Same kind of case: If I name my cat simply "Cat", that's a proper name for that specific cat, and should not be lowercased. Cf. names that just mean 'girl', 'boy', 'man', etc.: Mädchen, Cailín/Colleen, Chico, Andre/Andrés/Andrew, capitalized when used as individuals' names, including in the originating languages (Mädchen is unfortunately common as an actual name in German; I met a German young woman named this, who hated it and was planning a legal name change). So, it may take a while to settle out. At least doing "Earth", "Sun", "Moon" is just one of those 1000+ style choices a publisher can select from, and we selected that particular approach. And not everyone is happy with it. So, I would expect push back in advocating for the Asteroid Belt and the Solar System (and more so for the latter than for Solar system, though the article is perhaps surprisingly presently at Solar System). I'll need to go over the guideline language and discussions behind it again to figure how why we're seeing these inconsistencies.

I don't presently have any influence over editors of CMoS, Hart's, etc. I have started to try establish a little. I participate (slightly) in the American Dialect Society's mailing list, which is populated by some big-name pros in English dialectal study, orthography, etc. (Ben Yagoda and his ilk), but it will probably take years. Almost a decade ago, I pointed out a related pair of clear errors (not matters of subjective opinion, but flat-out objective mistakes) in CMoS 15th ed., both directly to one of its editorial people and on their forum/blog, and those errors remain in the 17th ed. So, not only do I not have direct influence, I get the sense that they just DGaF about such matters. They seem unwilling to make any changes at all except for things about which they receive thousands and thousands of messages, and even then it seems to mostly be in the hands of Bryan A. Garner, who wrote the majority of CMoS grammar and orthography material, from the 15th ed. at least. And then it would have to get approval of chief editor Carol Saller, and who knows who else.
— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 16:46, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Would think that you'd be more respected now among other style guide editors after many more years of shaping much of Wikipedia's guide (which has now evolved into quite the stand along guide - maybe the foundation should publish a hard copy of a date certain guide for libraries, college courses, and other places style guides gather. It should now be able to take its place among the others with much unique language and worked-out discussion points. Toss in a group of backstory and advisory essays and it would be something to let loose on the outside world. Given the example of the effect Wikipedia has had on Britannica, other guides may be keeping on eye on the advancing prowler though. Yes, I've kept my wits about me enough to know the differences between the real Sun and sunshine (although sunshine is a physical Sun tossoff at some level), etc., and have actually changed a few lower case 'sun' to 'sunshine' for further language accuracy). One I'm not sure of even now are things like 'Moon goddess' (I like upper case because it's like someone looking at or praying to the goddess and pointing at the physical Moon to say "she's goddess of that"), but I usually leave those lower-cased. Kuiper Belt/belt a good point. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:32, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Something I work on periodically is a style guide intended for book-form publication, based in part on MoS, but without oddities that are particular to WP (usually for technical reasons). WMF could do that officially, I suppose, but they also would have to go through that winnowing process, as well as add material (the "basics" stuff that MoS leaves out), so the book actually answered a lot more style questions. MoS is constrained to just the matters that become recurrently contentious at WP, and either have a clearly encyclopedically preferable answer or (when there's no encyclopedic reason to prefer one option over another) an arbitrary one that gains sufficient consensus to be imposed to end the cyclical dispute. That's kind of a different rationale than for a guide that people use as a desk reference. :-) The one I've been working on is intended for multiple genres/registers, multiple mediums, different ranges of audience specialization versus generality, and especially a globalized approach to English comprehensibility. The biggest point it borrows from MoS is MOS:COMMONALITY. It's been slow-going, but I also don't really focus on it. I'll see a good (or terrible) example of something and add it, then build some advice around it and work it into a section, then go back to what I was doing before. I haven't sat down and spent hours on it in months. At some point, I should put it into some kind of database, so I can do things like auto-generate keywords and indices, and be able to separate "rules" (advice), explanatory material, examples, etc., and generate different versions (quick-reference, CMoS style numbered sections, or a more stepwise approach that goes from simple to complex.)

Anyway, to return to your first point, it's not that I'm being disrespected, I just don't have a rep with them yet. I'm just one of many kind-of-faceless editors at a project, rather than a tenured professor or the managing editor of a big-name paper style guide, so I'm not on their radar. I'll try submitting to CMoS a fix for that pair of errors again before the 18th ed. If you're curious, in the section on capitalization and organisms, they cite ICZN as an authority for common names of animal breeds, but it is not one (it only standardizes the scientific names of species, not vernacular names of them, and no names of any kind of breeds); and they say to capitalize breed names, then in the example list include two breed names, one capitalized and one not, so they confusingly contradict their own advice. CMoS needs some other work, but it's more subjective, like consolidating its scattered advice on when to use logical quotation into one place.

We do "moon goddess" lowercase for consistency with other such terms ("war god", etc.), and because the ancients understood the moon as a mystical thing/force, not as a large sphere of rock in orbit around a planet; the moon in that sense is a religio-mythical concept not an astronomical body per se. (It's one of those things that some philosophers would argue is a proper name – and some would not, because "moon" can take a "the" in front of it), but it has no orthographic significance since it hasn't become conventionalized to capitalize it in that context.) More people will resist "Sun", "Moon", "Earth" the more that the capitalization is extended beyond a strictly scientific astronomical convention. It reminds me of the "capitalize vernacular names of bird species" thing. People largely went along with it when the argument was that it was an ornithology convention (which it really isn't, though it gets close to being one) and that it wouldn't be applied outside that context. Then the very people making that argument/promise started applying it to primates and cetaceans and felids and plants and amphibians, which led to 8+ years of fighting, and then a return to across-the-board lowercase. We don't need a repeat of anything like that, ever. It's best to avoid specialized style, but if we're going to adopt it in narrow cases (usually only for reader clarity and/or for consistency with something else), it has to be restrained to where it contextually belongs, or the exception will just get eliminated later (with a lot of drama and bad blood).
— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 19:10, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your long detailed reply. You have the patience of a waint (a Wikipedian saint). Knowing only a small portion of what you have accomplished here justifies my thought that this place would be a lot different if you hadn't decided to hang your hat in its foyer. Again, nice work. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:44, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

It would definitely have some shorter talk pages, ha ha. I appreciate the sentiment, though! — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 16:30, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for December 29

Fixed

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Silvery salamander, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Clone.

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Help!

The apologists have arrived! I go on a Wikibreak for three days and they're already all over the place Wilhelm Tell DCCXLVI ^{converse | fings wot i hav dun} 14:06, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Also, see this, just before yours. What do you think of my revision? Also, thanks for the quick response :) Wilhelm Tell DCCXLVI ^{converse | fings wot i hav dun} 15:36, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Can we have a discussion on the talk page first before reverting referenced content? Ik.Kaluha (talk) 15:42, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Should have thought of that before you started revertwarring. At this point, and given the nature of what's happening, I think this should go straight to a noticeboard. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 15:45, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @Wilhelm Tell DCCXLVI: Blargh. I would suggest opening a noticeboard action. These are obviously WP:SPAs from within Nithyananda's operation trying to whitewash this. They're all new editors with no editing history aside from this page and a couple closely related to it. And they are now revertwarring to re-insert WP:POV material with too-weak sourcing for use in WP:BLP material or to get around WP:PROMO and WP:FRINGE concerns, so that's probably enough for blocking. I don't have the blood pressure to deal with this. If they're all coming from a specific IP range (i.e., within Nithyananda's "Kalaasa" compound, then a range block might help, though he uses so much social media, on a global basis, it is likely that there are devotees coming in from all over the place. This might be worth taking directly to WP:AN. These are WP:NOTHERE actions, so an ANI discussion isn't likely to be useful, nor one at WP:RSN, etc. It's not a dispute between established editors, but defense of an article from an organized offsite PoV-pushing attack. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 15:45, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Sorry for so many messages, but just to tell you - no one knows where Kailaasa is. If they did, then the Interpol blue notice would actually be worth more than the paper it's written on. Edits are going to pour in from across USA and India. I don't think he's stupid enough to allow his location to be leaked by directly using an IP. Wilhelm Tell DCCXLVI ^{converse | fings wot i hav dun} 16:21, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

PS: I twiddled with the lead a little, but the entire article is such a trainwreck I gave up doing anything else with it. This just isn't a good day for me to get involved, I think. Other stuff has me irritable and distracted. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 15:46, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

It is expected that Indians are upset about Nithyananda approaching the United Nations against their country. But that should not allow them to denigrate him or be abusive. The News Companies are equally parties in the allegations raised by hin. As such much discretion and restraint is required in the part of the editors. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.95.3.61 (talk) 15:49, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Oh look, another SPA. Speak of the devil... Wilhelm Tell DCCXLVI ^{converse | fings wot i hav dun} 16:17, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

And this isn't logically sound thinking. The fact that people have filed civil lawsuits against him and that prosecutors have filed criminal charges against him, has nothing to do with whether India or its people are upset about him allegedly asking the UN for protection, which happened later. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 17:02, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

[1] Gill, Manmohan Singh (2003). Punjab Society: Perspectives and Challenges. Concept Publishing Company. ISBN 978-81-8069-038-9.

[2] Gill, Harjeet Singh (2002). Signification in Language and Culture. Indian Institute of Advanced Study. ISBN 978-81-7986-015-1.

[3] "Past-Continuous: Craft, Heritage & Community in India - Craft Revival Trust". Google Arts & Culture. Retrieved 2020-12-04.

[4] Less commonly referred to as Notker I or Notker of Saint Gall.

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[2]

[3]

[a]