Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 12:03, 4 August 2007

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Archives

Archive 1 (2006) Archive 2 (Jan. 2007) Archive 3 (Feb. 2007) Archive 4 (Mar. 2007) Archive 5 (Apr. 2007) Archive 6 (May 2007)

Logorrhoea

Hi there. I see you've done some work on the Logorrhoea article and was wondering whether or not you had read my comments on the discussion page there. IMHO the section on rhetoric is sub-par in many ways and actually I was considering expanding the mental health part and significantly trimming the rhetoric part, which mostly appears to be the opinion of people who don't like high-falutin' sentence structures.

Are you suggesting we split Logorrhoea into (use in rhetoric) and (use in medicine)? --PaulWicks 12:18, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Dicussion moved to direct e-mail (short version: YES. Better to split than to remove material.) --Smccandlish 05:39, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Note to self: Logorrhoea (rhetoric) should just be merged into Prolixity anyway. — SMcCandlish - 05:40, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

You managed to work the word "Logorrhoea" into an edit summary of some work I did on Labile affect. Nice. --PaulWicks 21:47, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Was vocabulary practice. I'd just been at the L. page, and thought I'd try making myself use it (and even use the UK spelling); I usually use "prolixity"; it sounds less insulting! Heh.  ;-) — SMcCandlish ツ 21:50, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Unresolved: Article still not split. — SMcCandlish ツ 08:08, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Active guideline

The consensus on the wikipedia:naming conventions (books) guideline *including notes on notability* was prior to wikipedia:notability (books) being started. There is no consensus on that new proposal. Until there is, Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (books)#Note on notability criteria is the *active* guideline on book notability. --Francis Schonken 15:44, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Out of plain curiosity, I'd like to see evidence of that, specifically that the passage in question was present and substantively identical to its current wording at the pont of transition from a draft Guideline on book naming conventions to a non-draft one. But it's a moot point. It is almost ludicrously inappropriate for a non-controversial guideline on naming conventions to have a totally off-topic rider in it that attempts to set a guideline in one of the most hotly-debate spheres of Misplaced Pages, namely "notability". If this rider was present in the original draft naming convention for books, it is entirely possible that the only reason it survived is precisely because it was a hidden rider - few who would have any reason to object would ever notice it and weigh in. If it ever represented any form of consensus at all it was only a consensus among people who a) care about book naming conventions, and (not or) b) either support the vague notability rider, didn't notice it or didn't care either way. Ergo it it not a real Misplaced Pages consensus at all. But even this is moot. The existence of an active push to develop Misplaced Pages:Notability (books) demonstrates that there is in fact no consensus at all, period, that the notability rider in the naming article is valid. If it remains, I'm taking this to arbitration, because I believe the presence of the rider to be deceptive and an abuse of the Policy/Guideline formulation process and consensus mechanism. — SMcCandlish ツ 16:23, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

• From proposal to guideline, 09:07, 25 January 2006 — no changes to the "Note on notability criteria" section.
• From the day it became guideline to today, 16:29, 23 July 2006 — no changes to the "Note on notability criteria" section.

--Francis Schonken 16:37, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. But as I said, I think this is a moot point. — SMcCandlish ツ 17:03, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Warning

Please refrain from removing content from Misplaced Pages, as you did to Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (books). It is considered vandalism. If you want to experiment, please use the sandbox. Thank you.

You reverted the *consensus* version of Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (books)#Note on notability criteria to the version you had proposed earlier today. That version of yours is not consensus, and you knew that when you reverted. For guidelines one needs a new consensus for major changes. Yours was a major change. It had no consensus. So I'm posting this warning on your user page, and will then proceed to revert the Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (books)#Note on notability criteria section to the version that had consensus when that became a guideline about half a year ago.

You're welcome to discuss other versions of that section (whether that be a temporary version until Misplaced Pages:Notability (books) becomes guideline or a more permanent solution) on the Misplaced Pages talk:Naming conventions (books) talk page. But consensus is needed before it can be moved to the guideline page. --Francis Schonken 16:24, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Cute, but a total misdirection (as to at least three claims, of consensus, my tacit agreement that consensus existed, and new edit not reflecting consensus, and possibly a forth, as to edit scope. I do in fact dispute, in more than one way, that the section in question represents any meaningful consensus, for reasons already stated and evidenced. I contend that it is someone's "pet" section and removable as such; that it is an off-topic insertion and thus subject to removal on other grounds; and that even if it had some merit at one point it has been superceded by the current Wikipedian editors' consensus on this topic (which is that the topic needs a Guideline, period, so one has been started as a Proposal; notably it is not a consensus that the rider needs editing and improvement; rather it is being replaced, to the extent its existence has even been acknowledged. To continue, I further assert that removing the rider would in fact be a consensus move. Misplaced Pages:Notability (books) would not be well on the way to becoming a Guideline if there were any consensus that the off-topic notability rider in the naming guideline already had any consensus support whatsoever. It is very notable that no one has proposed a section merger or in any other way addressed the rider as valid or worth even thinking about. It is simply being ignored. And I assert further that it is at least questionable whether it is a "major edit" to remove a small section that is more adequately covered by another article (whether that article is considered "finished" or not) that has a lot more editorial activity and interest, and replace the redundant section it with a cross-reference to the latter, as I did.

The fact that no one has even touched the rider at all since Jan. strongly supports my points that a) virtually no one who cares about notability of books is aware of it, got to debate its inclusion, or even considers it worth working on or authoritative in any way, because the topic of how to define book notability is generating quite a bit of activity on the other article; and therefore b) it reflects no consensus on the topic of book notability, period. Which is what one would expect, given that it's buried at the bottom of an article about spelling! I also dispute the notion that an approved Guideline on is also an approved Guideline on unrelated just because it happens to mention some ideas relating to how to deal with . If you are aware of another example, I'd love to see it.

PS: I'm posting most of this, with further (case-closing, in my opinion) facts, references and evidence, on the article's talk page, since otherwise the debate won't affect anyone's views other than yours and/or mine in User talk.

— SMcCandlish ツ 17:03, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Update

Months later, the points I raised were never refuted or even questioned at the talk page in question, and Misplaced Pages:Notability (books) is well on the way to becoming a Guideline, meanwhile Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (books)#Note on notability criteria was nominated two more times for removal, with the unanimous support of those who commented, and was replaced with a wordy wikilink to Misplaced Pages:Notability (books). I rest my case. One may wish to actually look into establishing what consensus really is on whatever matter is at hand before presuming to lecture others about it. PS: The abuse of {{Test2a-n}} on my Talk page (it is intended, and instructed, to be used in series with {{Test1}} or a variant thereof) was very heavy-handed. I'm leaving it up instead of archiving it, because I think it says far more about abuse of the label "vandal" than it does about me. >;-) — SMcCandlish ツ 10:12, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Eight ball

Gad what a mess eight ball is. I'm gearing up to rewrite it if I can figure out a logical way of doing so. Regarding you query on the section about the Mexican ruleset (where you wrote "Is there a name for this?"), I don't know of a name but I know the origin, and if I can get off my ass and do the cleanup I can take care of it. In short, after B.B.C. Co. Pool was invented, eight ball went through a number of distinct ruleset periods. One of them, which lasted for a number of years, had these exact rules. Once that is defined, it can be added that these rules are still used in Mexico.--Fuhghettaboutit 14:29, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. The blackball section could probably use expansion. My take on it is that it should dispense with the "possible" ruleset language, describe the intl. std. rules, and if/where they differ mention that the APA or VNEA or BCA or whatever rules differ on this little point, and continue. Amat. variations like bank-the-eight and last-pocket should remain in a "rules variations" section. Yes? — SMcCandlish ツ 14:40, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm really not sure exactly how to do it, and I agree that "possible variations" is clunky as hell, but here's what has been percolating 1) continue the history section I started, going into the variations up to the modern era. Then define the world standardized rules. Then the standard bar/recreational rules and how they differ from the BCA (with some explication of that there is no standard because no formal ruleset, but widely followed and explain that they vary). Then we can go into game variations such as last pocket, etc.. Last pocket, by the way, is apparently very, very widely played variation in South America.--Fuhghettaboutit

I'd suggest doing the WS rules, and interspersing them with Big League differences as needed (BCA/VNEA/Blackball/APA/IPT), just to keep it shorter - might be a bit frustrating to have follow-on sections like "BCA exceptions", "VNEA exceptions", etc.; then close with a section on amat./"bar rules" variations (which will need somehow to discourage additions of "in my neighborhood..." variants; I think the present HTML comment language is probably a good start). Agreed that last-pocket is huge in Latin America; was why I added it. EVERY native Mexican, El Salvadorean, Nicaraguan, etc., that I've met plays that way (and not the "magic side pockets" way detailed earlier in the article; I'd demote that to a minor variation), and without any differences (e.g. as to 2 free scratches, etc.) It seems quite uniform. There's a bar called City Club in the Mission district of San Francisco with really great players none of whom seem to speak a word of English where what I described are the house rules. The players are from all over Latin America, quite friendly to Gringos if we can figure out the rules, and they never internally argue about the rules - these seem to be the rules they've all played with their whole lives. It's a called ball-in-pocket (not called shot) game, e.g. "cinco en está lado" however way the five gets into the designated side pocket, which I forgot to mention, so it has a bit in common with the older (pre WS) BCA rules, I think. — SMcCandlish ツ 15:25, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Well maybe it's my POV, but the way I see it the article should start with WSR as the "official rules" and then in subsequent sections instead of defining the whole rulesets, siimply state how they depart from the official rules. For instance for bar'recretaional rules (which I do think need to be prominent as they are so widely played--probably the most wide ruleset for the most common game in the U.S.) all that needs to be done, is state that (in contradistinction to official rules): wins (or not) if eight ball made on break, choice of group is decided on the break, if both groups pocketed then it's choice, no foul rules but for scratches, scratch penalty is from the kitchen (and can move object ball to foot spot if none available), most but not all venues make you call every nuance of every shot (rather than "ball and pocket"), the Player loses sometimes if he doesn't contact the eight ball when it's his object ball, eight ball has to go in "clean", and the alternating racking crap. That's may not be exhaustive but there's not much more. If those distinctions follow a treatise on the correct rules, little defining should be necessary, so the section would not need to be very long.

Doing it by defining each separate ruleset's variation for each official rule would be confusing I think, and an invitation for endless parenthetical notes. Plus, the way articles evolve, people add a one-off difference from some game to one section and then go their merry way. So then we have each official rule followed by variations from some other groups of indistinct rules, with each official rule being treated separately, some getting variations some not from the same league rules. It seems to me it would lead to an organizational mess.--Fuhghettaboutit 16:06, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable to me. Just wanted to make sure that the VNEA, etc., variations get in there, and are differenced from the mess of "bar pool" variations; many of them predate the WSR by a long way.  :-) NB: "Rules variations" or "variants" seems like a good section heading, perhaps with a three-"=" subsection header for each set discussed? I'm thinking in terms of the promised but presently vaporware article "templates" at WP:CUE. I guess eight-ball is as good a place as any to start developing that. NB: Also thinking that the "rack" article could really be folded entirely or almost entirely into the articles about the various games it covers. I think this sort of opens the more general question of what to do about equipment articles. My present take is that I'm not sure we actually need articles about cues, chalk, racking, tables, etc., rather than general mentions at Billiards (side point: Should we move it to Cue sport now?) and more specific details under particular games (nine-ball, etc.) or game-type (carom billiards, snooker, etc.) articles. This is probably a better pack o' questions for Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Cue sports but I don't see any reason to not come to a two-person initial mini-consensus on the direction here. — SMcCandlish ツ 16:24, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly agree that subtopic articles should only be taken so far, but I don't think articles on specific items of equipment or specific things such as racking are too far. Let's look at rack (billiards) for example (and of course the elephant in the room is that I wrote the majority of that article, but I'm not just being protective): First and foremost, I can see someone coming to Misplaced Pages interested in how racking is done across many billiard games. Second, I can see someone coming to Misplaced Pages seeking clarity because of the confusing multi-use of the word (physical object; various types; used to describe the balls in starting position; the verb for placing the balls, etc.). Third, there is a quite limited number of specific objects and things in billiards of which racking is one. We don't and never will need an article on the foot spot--how much history can be found on that topic? How much room for expansion? It's a blackhole of content, but when it comes to racking, breaking, english, I think they can all have subarticles if someone is willing to take the time to write them (citing ulitmately to reliable sources:-). There is much room for expansion of racking, from other games, to the history of it, to primary manufacturers, to the Sardo tight rack (and the controversy that has arisen in professional play over its use), etc. Or take cuetips, they have a fascinating history and there has been much written about them. Did you known leather cue tips were invented in debtor's prison by Captain Francois Mingaud around 1823 who was later accused of sorcery for the amazing things he was able to do on a billiards table using them? Regarding cue sports, I have not really been following the debate. I'm not too concerned since if it's done or not done, the information will be retained and having been following the debate too much. If you have consensus, go for it.--Fuhghettaboutit 17:35, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I guess the info will just have to be a little duplicative (in that the details on how to rack for eight-ball specifically need to be in the eight-ball article as well, etc. — SMcCandlish ツ 05:10, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Unresolved: Actually making the eight-ball article cover everything described, and as-described, above. — SMcCandlish ツ 06:45, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Polish interwiki

OK, sorry. I thought that Irish standard pool and english 8-ball are the same, looking at the pictures. Aren't they? Can you explain me the difference between these two billiard games? Thanks for information, Maciek17 21:30, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

They are very, very similar, which is why Irish standard pool has been slated for merging into eight-ball#UK just before eight-ball#UK forks off into the blackball (pool). Irish standard pool is not quite the same as UK-rules eight-ball - different enough that the interwiki is misinformation - but similar enough that the articles can be merged, and handled with simply an "Irish variation" section, if you see what I mean. Dealing with all of that is, I think, the 2nd-highest priority on my WP to-do list, so it will be taken care of very soon.  :-) — SMcCandlish ツ 21:37, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Unresolved:: Eight-ball ⇒ Blackball (pool) split has taken place, but the Irish standard pool merge into the latter remains to be done. — SMcCandlish ツ 22:26, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

{{Resolved}}

Thanks for the reply. I think when I clicked on the template it only brought me to the image, and not the description and talk pages. The link is back now. The template's been around for 10 months or so, and I'm surprised I'm only seeing it for the first time. I was a bit doubtful about it, because I can see some users pasting it in to guillotine an argument - but it's only an indicator with nothing final about it.--Shtove 11:35, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Guillotine usage should be reverted and criticized. I think the template itself should be udpated with a note that such use would be abuse. I think it does already say that if anyone thinks a tagged topic is not resolved they should just remove the tag. — SMcCandlish ツ 17:31, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Unresolved: Better template documentation. — SMcCandlish ツ 08:08, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Welcome to VandalProof!

Thank you for your interest in VandalProof, SMcCandlish! You have now been added to the list of authorized users, so if you haven't already, simply download and install VandalProof from our main page. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me or any other moderator, or you can post a message on the discussion page. Betacommand 03:30, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Unresolved: I still need to actually install this.

Strickland pics

Hi :)

AZ Billiards replied to my request to use their photo of Strickland. Here's what they said:

>Use any of the ones that are credited to Diana Hoppe. Just make sure that you credit her as 'Diana Hoppe - Pool Pics by Hoppe'.

>Thanks, >Mike

Does that make it sound like we can source their photo? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by MichaelJHuman (talk • contribs) 18:49, 13 March 2007 (UTC).

Probably. Do you have a last name and contact info for "Mike"? If you get me the details I can take care of this at the image page (use e-mail - see e-mail link at top of my userpage; other people's e-mail addresses shouldn't ever be put into WP pages, even talk pages, since spammers can harvest them, even from article histories!) If you want to do the license tagging and stuff yourself, a good trick is do something like 'Mike Smith, contactable at the site "AZBilliards.com", with a username of "MSmith"', so e-mail address harvesters won't recognize it as an e-mail address but any human could figure it out. But anyway, I know how to source pics with the right licensing templates, so it might be easier for me to deal with it. You could just forward me a copy of the e-mail. Might be good for more than one of us to have a copy of it anyway, just in case!

Oh! Can you write back and ask him if this means we can use other photos (of other players and stuff) by same photographer? Their "any of the ones" language suggests this, but I think we should know for certain. That could come in very, very handy. Or I can do it; either way. — SMcCandlish ツ 19:12, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Unresolved: Followup: I wrote to that Mike guy, but did not hear back. Will try again. — SMcCandlish ‹(-¿-)› 01:52, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

DEFAULTSORT: Replied

at User_talk:Kingbotk/Plugin#WPBio_Listas. Summary:

• I don't like listas= either, if you want to argue for it's deprecation we're likely on the same side.
• If I can placate you by having my plugin recognise DEFAULTSORT, consider it done. If there's more to it than that you'll need to let me know.

Cheers. --kingboyk 21:59, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I think that would do the trick. And I just went and proposed said deprecation. — SMcCandlish ツ 22:49, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

How's this? Start with randomly placed talkheader, skiptotoctalk, and DEFAULTSORT template; insert WPBio, move aforementioned 3 to top, use DEFAULTSORT magic word keyword. --kingboyk 17:21, 2 April 2007 (UTC) Except, that page doesn't seem to be properly sorted... so what's gone wrong? Hmm... Can you help? See anything amiss? --kingboyk 17:25, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. Nothing is coming immediately to mind. I know the DEFAULTSORT-at-top order is important (even the docs of it say that order is important), and that this works fine with {{Cue sports project}}; the WP:CUE categories it puts articles (well, their talk pages) in are sorted by family name, as intended. Oh! One thing I noticed while testing this stuff myself a month or so ago, and just about pulling my hair out, is that it can take up to a couple of hours for the DEFAULTSORT to work! I think the DB has to "catch up". — SMcCandlish ツ 21:48, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Unresolved: DEFAULTSORT is still not working properly on talk pages, and {{WPBiography}} is still using listas=. — SMcCandlish ‹(-¿-)› 01:52, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Again, for the sake of the thread, I left a reply dealing with the DEFAULTSORT matter on my talk page, although if you would like to maintain a similar thread, please feel free to transport anything there to your own page. Romanspinner (talk) 05:33, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Noted. Good sleuthing!

Admin coaching

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

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

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

Name of WCBS

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

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

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

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

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

GAC backlog elimination drive

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

Nick Baker RFC summary

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

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

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

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

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

Kudos re: Category:Articles missing birth or death information

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Virtual Classroom

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Regarding the article "billiard balls"

Hi,

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

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

Thanks for the answer. I am not saying that the others lie. I say they use specific tradenames to avoid letting know the material is the basic polyester resin. If they used phenolic or phenolic-based resins, they would obviously say so. Instead they use a tradename and don't mention what material it is. I understand the conflict of interest, but to state in the article that "proprietary phenolic compounds are used by some companies such as Elephant Balls Ltd. and Frenzy Sports" is untrue (and not documented). Thank you.

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

User:SMcCandlish/List of ways to verify notability of articles

Sorry for not getting back to you earlier. Here you go. Just poke me back when you are done with it, to delete it again. Titoxd 05:50, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Or I'll just slap a db-userreq on it. No biggie. — SMcCandlish ‹(-¿-)› 06:46, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

"No one says apt"

I say apt. Grouse 21:44, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I am known to exaggerate. At least a thousand times a day. ;-) — SMcCandlish ‹(-¿-)› 21:52, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Dear SMcCandlish: Apt implies fitting or appropriate, and is therefore more specific than valid, in my opinion. Neither of the 2 dictionaries that I consulted after seeing your edit comment considers apt, which derives from Latin, to be informal. Fowler's does not disapprove of apt, although it only discusses its use before an infinitive. Also, why do you prefer the past perfect tense where the past tense is correct and sufficient? Is this a difference in usage between British and American English? And which is the present tense verb to which you object? I'm not going to revert war over this, but please reconsider or explain (you may reply here to maintain continuity). Thanks. Finell (Talk) 23:32, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Not a big deal really; "apt" sounds informal and slightly archaic to my ears. Something my Southern grandmother would say, along with "ornery" and "reckon". I don't find apt to be more, but less, specific. "Apt" is a highly subjective feeling, like whether a woman's dress is too short to be appropriate at the symphony, or whether a male can possibly fittingly be a teaching assistant in a women's studies course at a university. Valid is an objective (or at least less subjective) criterion, like whether the ad hominem fallacy has been invoked in an argument, or a scientific claim is actually backed up by the data that its proponents claim supports it. — SMcCandlish ‹(-¿-)› 03:18, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for replying about apt. Perhaps there is a word that is better than either apt or valid. What about your replacement of past tense with past perfect? Which was the present tense verb to which you objected (that your edit corrected)? Finell (Talk) 07:57, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Don't recall at this point; I have over 1200 pages on my watchlist. Sorry. It isn't anything personal, I just run through with a broom and move on. It's possible I swept up something that should have been left lying (if so I know the feeling; I defended a subjunctive at Godwin's Law for over a year from people "fixing" it, and finally just replaced the entire phrase with something else so the issue would stop coming up, because the bogus "corrections" from people used to nothing but 2006-2007 informal American English were incessant.) Anyway, what objection do you have against "valid"? I peferred it because it is rooted in logic, and is an analytical term with boundaries that bar (at least most) subjective nonsense interpretations (unlike "apt", which is well within the realm of whim and activism). — SMcCandlish ‹(-¿-)› 08:09, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Whether a particular comparison to Hitler or Nazis is rhetorically persuasive or is excessive (and thus weakens the impact of appropriate comparisons) is not a matter of hard, objective fact (validity, or truthfulness) but, at least in instances where reasonable minds might differ, a matter of subjective appropriateness and degree.

Several years ago the New York Times published a letter of mine, but edited out my correct use of the subjunctive case. When I questioned the editor (very politely and deferentially), he explained the subjunctive is no longer used in modern English except for an assertion contrary to fact (e.g., "If the Earth were flat, then ...")—which my subjunctive usage in the letter happened to be, although I continue to use the subjunctive wherever it is grammatically correct. Was I asleep when the subjunctive case was ripped from my language? Did the Anglos and Saxons posthumously defeat the Romans and seize linguistic dominance while I was away?

When I was in 4th grade, the teacher taught the class said that it was incorrect to begin a sentence with because. I asked why, and gave her a grammatically correct example of the usage. She acknowledged that my example was correct, but said one should not begin a sentence with because because that often leads to error (she was probably concerned about sentence fragments, e.g., "Because it rained."). To this day, probably because of my resentment of the teacher dumbing down the language, I begin a disproportionate proportion of my sentences with because.

Peace. Finell (Talk) 10:34, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I hear ya. Had similar experiences. Imagine having an English teacher who believed that "spatial" was pronounced "spattial", not "spacial". Anyway, I suspect that most cases of Hitler/Nazi comparison that some random person could feel were "rhetorically persuasive" without an objectively definable reason for it, would probably be fallacious in one way or another, most commonly argument to emotion. E.g., no matter how terrible you think your boss is, and no matter how much you can convince an emotive person you are right by sharing horror stories, a comparison of you boss to Hitler is unlikely to have any logical validity, except on a very absurd level (or one not relevant here; e.g. perhaps your boss only has one testicle.) — SMcCandlish ‹(-¿-)› 18:23, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

DAB laziness

Please do not convert articles to disambiguation pages without fixing all of the links to the orginal page so that they go to the new one you moved the content to. That's a dreadful disservice to our readers, and to other editors who are now left with little choice but to fix the mess you made. — SMcCandlish ‹(-¿-)› 07:55, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Get over yourself SMcCandish. Learn to talk respectfully to people. The page was a mess (there were several Fred Davis' and the "snooker" one was hardly world famous) so I did A SERVICE (not a disservice) to make disammbiguation. The reason you correct pages all day and don't have friends is because you need to learn social manners. I have two fists that could teach them to you---mehudson1

There was nothing disrepectful about my message to you (unlike your reply). I think you are missing the point. Making DAB pages is not a bad idea. Making DAB pages and doing nothing to clean up afterwards is a very, very bad idea. Hundreds of links that used to go to the correct place now go to a DAB page for no reason other that you simply couldn't be bothered. PS: Threats of violence do not go over well here. — SMcCandlish ‹(-¿-)› 18:45, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

apology given, however saying I "simply could not be bothered" is picking a further fight. Please watch your words as well.

Accepted, and good point, so I apologize as well. To completely rephrase: If you are going to create a DAB page at the former location of an article, which is often a good idea, please police the links to that page so that they go to the proper new article location. Better I hope! — SMcCandlish ‹(-¿-)› 19:33, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Template:CompactTOC

Hi. Your cleanup, last night, on this template, was “bad”, because after it, something as 1250 pages were showing a bad interwiki to br:Patrom:Taolenn eeun pennad 2. This was fixed a few minutes ago. Hégésippe | ±Θ± 15:05, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Good catch; sorry about that! — SMcCandlish ‹(-¿-)› 17:59, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Refactoring others comments

I must say, I am a bit surprised with how you here "upgraded" my warning to Mangrope001 on Tuesday.

In my opinion, this is not the way to do it. Not that I disagree with the actual content- I am not here to discuss that user- the user seems bad, and I was probably far to nice - but the fact you are this comfortabel with changing anything inside another users message. It would probably have been far more appropriate to also replace my signature with yours, since you replaced a level 2 warning with a blatant vandal warning. Is it really the right thing to do to sign with others name? Greswik 13:27, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Good question. I've done this before with no complaints, but I understand the complaint being made. I wasn't sure whether it would be more appropriate to refactor the template and leave the sig alone, replace the entire thing and sign it myself, or simply add a different-level warning with my sig, leave the original, and let people be potentially confused. Entirely open to opinions on the best course of action there. — SMcCandlish ‹(-¿-)› 01:40, 8 June 2007 (UTC) PS: WP:REFACTOR is quite permissive. I think it is also questionable whether its present wording actually reflects present consensus, however. I am perfectly comfortable doing some forms of refactoring, and have never had a complaint about it; the most common being fixing broken links, e.g. Billlliards. I never fix anyone else's others forms of typos, of course, only ones that actually break the functionality intended. This of course isn't particularly analogous to swapping a template to change a warning level to something that more closely matches the vandalism. PPS: No subterfuge was intended in the edit in question. I figured, article history makes it impossible to literally falsify anything, meanwhile leaving your sig on preserves your 'credit' for tagging the vandal first, as it were. — SMcCandlish ‹(-¿-)› 01:44, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Ananthabhadram needs copy edit

Please, could you take a look at the article Ananthabhadram? It needs quite some copy editing job. In case you are interested, do not begin before 10 June. I am making some improvements to the article. I hope to get the article to a GA status and eventually to an FA status. Aditya Kabir 08:19, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Just put {{Copyedit|date=June 2007}} at the top of the page when it is ready for copyediting, and someone from Misplaced Pages:WikiProject League of Copyeditors will get around to it. If there's some urgency about it, you can ask more directly at the project. — SMcCandlish ‹(-¿-)› 18:32, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

"...If there's some urgency about it, you can ask more directly at the project." - How do I do that? Aditya Kabir 19:11, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh! I forgot to mention that I am a bit impatient with the article, and can't wait to get it to GA. Too bad. Well, you haven't told me how do address the project directly yet. Cheers. Aditya Kabir 06:28, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Um, I'm not sitting at the computer waiting 24 hours a day seeking messages from you. I have a life. Have patience, eh? In answer to your question, go to Misplaced Pages:WikiProject League of Copyeditors and follow their instructions. If they have no particular instructions, post a request at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject League of Copyeditors (their talk page). Seek patience. If your article needs copyedting that badly, then it is not near GA status yet. All in due course. If it is well-sourced, the first hurdle is long since jumped. — SMcCandlish ‹(-¿-)› 07:40, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Sources; the meaning of "Wiki"

Can you please tell me what the acronym "Wiki" stands for?

I believe, it's "WHAT "I" KNOW IS".

What >>> I <<< KNOW IS.

Not "What "PUBLISHED SOURCES" know is".

This is "WIKIpedia", not "WPSKpedia".

What?!? Where are you getting this silliness? Wiki is not an acronym at all (it's a Hawaiian word for "fast"), and doesn't "stand for" anything. See Wiki.

See also WP:POLICY. Whatever you think Misplaced Pages should be but isn't, isn't for a reason, covered by Misplaced Pages policies. In particular, adding material that is not reliably sourced is not an option here. The MediaWiki software Misplaced Pages runs on is free; you can set up your own Wiki with your own rules somewhere else if you like. — SMcCandlish ‹(-¿-)› 18:24, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

en dashes

WRT to your recent edit of the Dashes pages, will you please take a look at the comment against retaining the preference for hyphens in titles, and provide a rejoinder? Tony 08:45, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Can you please centralize this discussion? You have it being discussed at Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style (dashes)#Proposed expanded version of advice on hyphens and dashes in MoS, again at Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style (dashes)#Proposal for three substantive alterations, and yet again at Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style#Hyphens and dashes in the MoS. The simplest way to do this would be to put {{Resolved|1=Discussion centralized ].}} at the top of two of them, linking to the remaining active one. I would suggest that the second and third above should be merged into the first, especially in the case of the third (it isn't really appropriate to discuss sweeping changes to a guideline somewhere other than on that guideline's talk page; discussion elsewhere generally would not be evidentiary of consensus to change that guideline, since the editors most concered with that guideline are unlikely to notice the "extraterritorial" discussion.) — SMcCandlish ‹(-¿-)› 21:13, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Alternatively, take the entire third discussion and refactor it out of Talk:MOS and into Talk:MOSDASH, then {{resolved}} the other threads there, referring to the larger discussion now in MOSDASH's talk page. — SMcCandlish ‹(-¿-)› 21:16, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject banners

Thanks for all the conversion work; you beat me to the snooker ones. :-) — SMcCandlish ‹(-¿-)› 03:26, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Hey, no problem, it's actually a calming, near-mindless task that also satisfies my borderline OCD tendencies that have arisen from continued exposure to Misplaced Pages, LOL. Plus, the bad attitude of certain Anti-WikiProjectBannerShell editors has urged me to make as many templates compliant as possible and thus eliminate their ability to use that in an argument.

Sorry about the snookers. ;) TAnthony 14:56, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Admin coaching

Greetings. Are you still interested in having a coach? Majorly (talk) 10:10, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I am, but I don't presently have the real-world time to devote to the endeavor. Perhaps in the fall. I'll return to the admin coaching pages and sign up again when the time comes. :-) — SMcCandlish ‹(-¿-)› 22:58, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Link to updated response from CBDunkerson (eom)

Noted. — SMcCandlish ‹(-¿-)› 22:56, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

DEFAULTSORT and PAGENAME

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

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

February 31

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

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

Sale, Greater Manchester FAC

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

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

too little...

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

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

MOSDASH

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

July 2007 GAC backlog elimination drive

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18th century vs eighteenth century

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

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

AfD

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Virtual classroom, admin coaching, etc.

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

Resolved – Fixed as requested.

Resolved – Found it; engaged in discussions there.

Resolved – Non-issue.

Resolved – Self-resolving FYI.

Resolved – Self-resolving note.

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

Resolved – Self-resolving FYI.

Resolved – Replied in e-mail as requested.

Resolved – Self-resolving FYI.

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

Resolved – Just a misunderstanding.

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