I will reply to messages wherever they are posted. If you write something here, my reply will also be here. If I have written something on someone else's talk page, I will be watching it for at least 5 days. Any article I have contributed to recently will be on my watchlist.

The Status Bot has been blocked.
See my last edit here.

• Please sign your posts using four tildes (~~~~).
• Please add all new threads at the bottom of the appropriate division; either P or non-P.
• Please note that I do not respond to every comment. I only respond to the comments I feel I need to respond to.
• Personal attacks, uncivil comments, and comments which don't follow the conventions of this box may be either immediately archived or removed.
• Please post comments relating to the contents of our articles on the relevant page's discussion page, and not here. That way all interested parties (including you and I) can participate and reach consensus. (All articles I edit are automatically added to my Watchlist).

Archives

/Archive 1 /Archive 2 /Archive 3 /Archive 4 /Archive 5 /Archive 6 /Archive 7 /Archive 8 /Archive 9 /Archive 10

This page has archives. Sections older than 100 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 4 sections are present.

Welcome

Hello. Welcome to Misplaced Pages! I created this account for you. I hope you like it here and decide to stay. There are lots of ways you can help with the encyclopedia; check out Misplaced Pages:Contributing to Misplaced Pages to find out how. If you have any questions, you can ask on my talk page, check Misplaced Pages:Questions, or leave {{helpme|your question here}} on this page, and someone will be around to help shortly. Again, welcome, and happy editing! WODUP 03:46, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

That was very thoughtful. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alice.S (talk • contribs)

You're welcome. It's absolutely okay to correct things now. Again, if you have any questions, feel free to contact me on my talk page, check Misplaced Pages:Questions, or leave {{helpme}} and your question on this page, and someone will be by to help. You might also want to take a look at the Misplaced Pages:Introduction, Misplaced Pages:Tutorial, and Misplaced Pages:Contributing to Misplaced Pages. Cheers, WODUP 04:17, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Wow! What a quick and helpful reply. I see that there is a very great deal to learn. I'll try and do a bit of reading before I bother you again. Thanks again. (signed Alice from Singapore). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alice.S (talk • contribs)

There is a lot to learn. It can be a bit overwhelming at times, but we do not require absolute perfection from our editors, so it's okay to make honest mistakes and learn from them. Also, to "sign" your posts on talk pages (like this one), you can type four tildes (~~~~) after your message, and to customize your signature, you can change what's in the "signature" box at Special:Preferences. Cheers, WODUP 04:26, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm glad to hear that since I'm nowhere near perfect (grin). I'll have to study my signature when I get some turnaround leave after this next flight. It's been a bit of a struggle finding the right keys to press to find the tilde. I guess your keyboard's a bit different. Thanks again for being so helpful and patient with me! Alice.S 04:32, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Welcome! (We can't say that loudly enough!)

Hello Alice and Welcome to Misplaced Pages! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. If you decide that you need help, check out Misplaced Pages:Where to ask a question, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Please remember to sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. You may also push the signature button located above the edit window. Finally, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field. This is considered an important guideline in Misplaced Pages. Even a short summary is better than no summary. Below are some recommended guidelines to facilitate your involvement. Happy Editing! -- Huaiwei 02:35, 9 October 2007 (UTC) Getting Started Misplaced Pages Tutorial How to edit a page The five pillars of Misplaced Pages Manual of Style What Misplaced Pages is not Be bold in editing How to write a great article WikiProjects Getting your info out there Cite your sources Neutral Point of View Point of View Verifiability Uploading images Image use policy Getting more Misplaced Pages rules Policy Library Getting Help New contributors' help page Where to ask a question Help Desk Frequently Asked Questions Getting along Wikiquette Civility Sign your posts Wikipedians Conflict resolution Getting technical Cleaning up vandalism Pages needing attention Peer review Utilities Village pump Find the rest of the Singaporean community! Singapore portal SGpedians' notice board Singapore-related topics Complete to do list Misplaced Pages IRC channel There are two ways to indicate that you are a Singaporean editor on your user page: Add ], or If you like userboxes, add {{Template:User Singapore}}. Do leave your name at the notice board, and thanks again for making Misplaced Pages your online abode! ;)

Wow! That's a really big welcome. Aren't I a lucky person?

There's a lot to read there but I get some holiday soon and should be able to plough into it then. I don't know much about creating a user page - perhaps you could do that for me and put the template whatsits on the right place there? (I'm not much good with technical things like computers as you probably guessed...)

Thanks everyone for making me feel welcome. Isn't Misplaced Pages a wonderful place? Alice.S 02:55, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

How can I make my name appear in red again?

{{helpme}}How can I make my name appear in red again?

Before, when I didn't have a user page, my name appeared in red in my watchlist. Now, even though I've deleted my user page, it is still the same old boring blue. How can I get it back to red again?Alice.S 03:37, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

And my signature has changed from red to blue as well!!!Alice.S 03:37, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Hello again. Links to pages that exist appear as blue and links to pages that do not exist are red. Blanking your userpage doesn't delete it. You can request that your uerpage be deleted by adding {{db-user}} to it. Alternatively, if you just want your signature on talk pages to appear red, you can add ] to the signature box in your preferences (remember to check the raw signature box. That code will make your signature look like this: Alice.S . Hope this helps. :) WODUP  04:12, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Wow, you must be the most helpful person on Misplaced Pages, WODUP!

That's done the trick for my signature (on this page at least) but how do I get my name to appear red in my Watchlist? Is the only way to do it the {{db-user}} trick? Alice.S 04:55, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Sadly, the only way to do that, short of possibly writing some CSS, is to delete your userpage. WODUP  05:13, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, as you probably realise, that is beyond my capabilities, so I've placed the code you suggested on my user page, WODUP. Thanks again for your very prompt help and assistance! Alice.S 06:10, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Okay. I found something that may work: User:Ais523/highlightmyname2.js. This script highlights your username on pages (including your watchlist). If you want to try it, you can add

importScript('User:Ais523/highlightmyname2.js');

to User:Alice.S/monobook.js. If you decide against it after you add that to your monobook.js, you can just remove it, and it'll be back to how it is now. WODUP 11:20, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

That works wonderfully - I've changed the code to show my name with a background in a fetching shade of Coral Pink - you really are the cat's whiskers, WODUP! Alice.S 07:47, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

recent edits at de facto

Your recent edits at de facto appear to have changed many non-italic text bits to italics. This is in contradiction two principles. (1) If it's in an English dictionary, it's appropriated and should not be italicized (this is the Chicago manual of styles definition of appropriation, but Misplaced Pages does not have one to the best of my knowledge and it's a good rule of thumb), and (2) the exclusion for the topic of the article in WP:ITALICS#Foreign_terms. Would you mind fixing the article so that neither de facto, nor de jure is italicized? Pdbailey 13:54, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for taking the time to explain your point of view.

My reasoning was as follows:

1) a) Is "de jure" a phrase or a word? I decided that it was a foreign phrase (in latin) that did not (yet) have everyday usage (other than in legal and constitutional, etc, circles) and, therefore, that "Misplaced Pages prefers italics for phrases in other languages...". Adding weight to this argument was that de jure is usually italicized in legal texts

b) an additional consideration was that, throughout our article, de jure is contrasted with de facto and it is helpful to italicise to emphasise the distinction.

2) I did not italicise de jure in the title of the article as per WP:ITALICS#Foreign_terms but think that in the body of the article the italicisation is clearer and thus trumps any style preference but realise that this is a fine point.

I have, therefore, copied this passage to our article's discussion page for further input from other editors. That being the case, I would prefer not to self-revert until consensus has been achieved but do feel free to revert me if you are utterly convinced I am wrong since I am very new here!

I also think it might be worth you starting a discussion on the Chicago manual of style's definition of appropriation at Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style (text formatting) which, I'm sure, would benefit from your erudite input? Alice.S 21:35, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Alics.S, in your post regarding this same topic on the talk page you mentioned interest in WP:IAR. You may find that the WP:IAR? an interesting read. My interpretation is that there is no reason for a rule to make Misplaced Pages not all that it can be. I hope you enjoy editing Misplaced Pages.

BTW, I generally put comments not about a article on the talk page, and comments to an editor, or unrelated to a specific article on the user's talk page. However, I generally request what I consider to be clear candidates for reversion on the talk page if the edit appears to have been made in good faith--but with a misunderstanding of the rule or policy in question. I'll admit right off the bat that i don't always know the policy as well as I think, so it's fine to challenge me, and it was fine but not necessary (in my opinion) to move that challenge to the talk page of the article.

Finally, thanks for being courteous throughout this conversation.Pdbailey 02:34, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm very sorry if I did something wrong by trying to discuss things on the article's talk page - I really don't wish to challenge you in any shape or form and please forgive me as a newbie if that's how it appeared. I just assumed it would be OK to have a public discussion since I didn't think it right that just some of the occurrences of de jure should be italicized but not others.

I really don't wish to fall out with anyone on Misplaced Pages and, as I said before, feel free to just make the changes without further discussion if you feel The Economist`s Style Guide is clearly wrong at http://www.economist.com/research/styleGuide/index.cfm?page=805685
Alice.S 02:51, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I think we are poking at the underbelly of this particular policy. Usually when I do this I get one short response from one other editor over at the guideline page and it's often not all that well thought out--but sometimes I get a gem. BTW, you are far from falling out with me (quite the opposite), I was trying to say thank you and give you a tip as to how things usually proceed because you appear to be new and curious about how Misplaced Pages works. Pdbailey 06:07, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I do really apologise for the misunderstanding - it may be a gender thing or the fact that I am very new to online argumentation - it's quite difficult when there are no smiles or tones of voice to give you a clue.

Thank you very much for being patient, tolerant and understanding with me. Please feel free to correct my howlers - I'm trying to learn as much as I can as quickly as I can. Alice.S 06:17, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Vanuatu

Sorry, it's easy to forget that jargon and abbreviations are not easy to recognize by the new. "rv" just means revert, which I did because I think "European ethnic groups" is not an appropriate place to direct readers to. Ethnic groups did not colonize Vanuatu, it was European nations, and "Europe" is what most readers will expect to find when they click that link. If there's anything else you need, feel free to ask.--Cúchullain /c 21:05, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying both the abbreviation and the reason for the revert that I queried at your user talk page.

I would slightly disagree with you that these were all national government sponsored and organised expeditions - some of the very first landings were by privateers that would have been executed by their respective (European) governments if they had been caught- but no matter. There was also a distinct feeling of ethnic superiority and solidarity amongst the colonisers which many Vanuatuans feel is still relevant. Alice.S 21:21, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Replied...

to you here NoSeptember 01:31, 29 October 2007 (UTC)]]

Re:Thanks again for the good advice

You are most welcome, and please do feel free to do modifications as you please. This is your talk page afterall, and a beautiful one at that! Meanwhile, I notice you still appear to have some problems with the signature part. You only need to insert --~~~~ behind your comments. No need to manually type in your name and timestamp. Hope this helps!--Huaiwei 01:48, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

That's exactly what I do, Huawei, but because I do not (and do not want a user page) a bug in Sinebot thinks I haven't signed. Sinebot's owner was kind enough to respond to my concerns here: http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User_talk:Slakr&oldid=167995998#Sinebot_signs_after_my_signature

Please keep up your mentorship - it's much appreciated! Alice.S 08:42, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

P section

Tokelau

Hi, and thanks for your message. I agree with you on the issue of dates and spellings, although I sympathise with User:Perspicacite as it can be very difficult to keep that rule in mind. Two suggestions for you; next time there would be no harm in dropping the other editor a polite and friendly note reminding them about ENGVAR, and also by reverting all Perspicacite's changes out you may have lost a number that were good. Rather than reverting, consider a compromise version which uses the best of both versions. I may have a look at doing this if I have time, or else you might want to. Best wishes to you --John 17:51, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your interest and whatever assistance you can offer, John.

Perspicacite has now reverted to his earlier version (for the third time, but over an interval of several days) and reintroduced the US-English spellings and date formats in our article about a Commonwealth territory. (The dates do matter a little since the majority of our readers are folks who either do not have a user account or who are not logged in).

I was intrigued by User:Perspicacite's last (reverting) edit summary: where he stated "Bots will take care of national-spelling issues."

Was he correct?

There are also the matters of

1. losing the picture by changing ].]] to ].]] :

   

2. losing conversion templates such as {{convert|500|km|mi|0|lk=on|abbr=on}} - paradoxically meaning that the non-metric measurements which most Americans are most comfortable with now do not appear in our article.

These two concerns are in addition to my concerns about changing (without consensus or discussion) to spellings and date formats to those prevalent in the USA, whereas Tokelau is a non self-governing colonial territory of the Commonwealth country of New Zealand and, therefore, the article has a strong connection to an WP:ENGVAR in addition to non US-English being the current variant.

I have tried to assume good faith here but the other changes that Perspicacite made did not, in my opinion, improve the article and, consequently, are not really susceptible of incorporation. Indeed it could be said that some of the changes he made were contrary to the sources.

The conclusion I have drawn after this third revert is that either these reverts are entirely careless of the efforts of other editors or that he is staking ownership of our Tokelau article.

I really do not feel that I have enough experience as an editor to reprimand him effectively if it turns out his edit summary is also mendacious. Alice.S 03:09, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Alice.S you have now violated a number of policies. Your talkpage posts violate WP:CIVIL and WP:STALK. Following me onto the Frank Gaffney article and WP:AN/I qualifies as stalking and is a blockable offense. You have also violated WP:OWN through your persistent reverting on Tokelau without discussion. If you continue to violate Misplaced Pages's policies so blatantly I will have to contact administrators for assistance. Perspicacite 05:30, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Perspicacite, you were wrong about the Engvar issue. No big deal and it has been fixed. Can we all just leave it there? This issue was never very important in the first place, has become unduly personalised, and is now over, resolved, finished. Please don't start throwing alphabet soup around; I can't see any evidence of anything but misunderstanding between two good-faith editors here. These things happen. I suggest letting things cool off a little and addressing any further stylistic disagreements at Talk:Tokelau after a few days have passed. Let it be, and get on with something useful, please.--John 05:42, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

That seems like good advice! See you over on the discussion page of Talk:Tokelau, Perspicacite? Alice.S 06:03, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

No. I suggest you do a thorough reading of WP:OWN and WP:STALK. You do not follow users to other pages. You do not "own" Tokelau. Perspicacite 07:28, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I see that stalking "does not include checking up on an editor to fix errors or violations of Misplaced Pages policy, nor does it mean reading a user's contribution log; those logs are public for good reason. Using the edit history of users to correct related problems on multiple articles is part of the recommended practices both for Recent changes patrol (RCP) and WikiProject Spam. The important part is the disruption - disruption is considered harmful. Wikistalking is the act of following another user around in order to harass them."

I also note that, at the time of writing, there does not seem to be support for your position at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents, Perspicacite: Stalking and Perspicacite/Frank Gaffney

However, I shall try and draw something positive from this unpleasant little exchange; at least I got to read some interesting policies about civility and ownership and stalking and no personal attacks that I might have missed otherwise.

I will continue to follow Misplaced Pages policy in editing articles that Perspicacite might have edited before since, judging by his history, he seems to spurn all efforts at reconciliation and I formally withdraw my offer not to edit articles which Perspicacite has previously edited. Alice.S 18:54, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

UPDATE: Our perspicacious friend is now trying to get me blocked for two weeks!!!???!!! Alice.S 09:22, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

STOP PRESS: But failed! Whew... Alice.S 12:49, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

User:Perspicacite

I guess some users are just incorrigible. I give up. Alice.S 20:31, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

No, that's what he is probably trying to engineer.

Note to self: Ignore him and neglect the articles he messes up but prepare your powder for an immediate Arbcom if things do not drastically improve after the unblock.

And please stop talking to yourself! Alice.S 00:21, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

WP:3RR

You are on the verge of violating WP:3RR, making more than three reversions to an article in a 24-hour period. A fourth reversion will result in a 24 hour block. Perspicacite 10:06, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

I think you have completely misunderstood several points (leaving aside the fact that you are not an administrator):

1) I have never made a simple revert to any article (exxcept to revert simple vandalism). Please provide diffs to show where you believe I reverted to my version (as opposed to making progressive edits)

2) By contrast you have already made 3 successive (and I believe rash and unconsidered reverts to our Rhodesia article within a 24 hour period: 1 and 2 and 3

3) If you consider this important enough, please report yourself to an administrator for blocking. Alice.S 10:18, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

UPDATE: You've now made a fourth revert: http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Rhodesia&diff=170069743&oldid=170068988

Please consider giving yourself a voluntary block for a short period to try and encourage yourself to actually incrementally edit rather than revert your colleagues. Alice.S 10:23, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

No, actually my last edit was not a reversion. See, none of your four reversions were "simple." They restored vandalism. That's generally looked down upon by the community. See, what you fail to understand is that while you escaped a block on WP:AN, it's much harder to do so on the 3RR noticeboard. Spamming WP:AN/I allowed you to avoid a block previously, but I doubt it will work with the 3RR violation. There's really no way you can talk your way out of this. Perspicacite 10:29, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

I hope I've learnt some more from this interaction with you, Perspicacite: http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Misplaced Pages:Administrators%27_noticeboard/3RR&diff=next&oldid=170077535 I need to be more careful in my edits in future since, when the admin dismissed your complaint, it seems he did find that I had reverted once: "(User:Alice.S reported by User:Perspicacite (Result: ) - Querulous complaint, most of the diffs are not even reverts.)"

I assume that you will also quickly remove your 24 hour block from your talk page, too? Alice.S 12:32, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

For maintaining civility under stress

NeilN has smiled at you! Smiles promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling at someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Happy editing!
Smile at others by adding {{subst:Smile}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

Provoking

While you might not think of it that way, posting on the talk page of someone who you are in a conflict when they're blocked can be seen as provoking. I recommend you in the future to refrain from doing so until the block expires, since it may just work the other party up. - Penwhale | 18:33, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

I endorse that, and suggest that you refrain from interacting at all with the user in future. I'm not saying you meant to make the situation worse, just that that was the net effect of your posting there. --John 19:33, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Penwhale: I can see the sense in your position.

However, one of the reason's I've been interacting with Perspicacite is that I believe that ours is a co-operative project and we need to be able to discuss things with one another; I understood that, since he could only post on his talk page during a block, that would be the best place to address him.

Do you think that there are some policy, guideline and essay pages that need updating with this particular piece of advice so that other newbies don't inadvertently aggravate the situation, when a user has been blocked?

John: I'll do just that on talk pages, but I suspect that I will need to address Perspicacite directly on article discussion pages and (given his track record) on noticeboards, etc. To do otherwise would be to change his (anticipated) reverts without explanation and I genuinely feel that nobody is beyond redemption (if that doesn't sound too pompous). Thanks for the good advice, Gentlemen! Alice.S 20:15, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi, Alice. I agree with John and Penwhale here. Perspicacite has been, no question, very difficult to deal with. I think that has led you (and a few other people) to do some things that you never would have done in dealing with somebody else's edits. That compounds the problem. Before he had no reason to be grumpy beyond some misunderstandings, but now he'll have to overcome that plus the additional history.

He's clearly not so good yet at handling his emotions on Misplaced Pages, so let's not give him any more to deal with right now. Please give him a wide berth, so that both you and he have time to cool down. A month of not editing the same articles would be great, and definitely do not follow him to any articles. I expect that in a year's time you both will look back and say, "Oh, if only I had known then what I know now, that wouldn't have blown up." But for now, we've got two million articles, so there's plenty of room for you to both be good contributors separately.

Thanks, William Pietri 21:12, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

That's the odd thing about these episodes, William. I genuinely think that (with one significant exception) I have treated Perspicacite the way I would like to be treated and the way I (misguidedly?) intend to treat anyone else's edits: I analyse the changes he makes and leave intact the good ones and correct any mistakes; if there is a pattern in the mistakes I would normally take it up directly with the editor but, in this case, because of the history of grumpy and bitey behaviour that I saw, I went to two separate admins to ask them to point out the problematic behaviour since
a) as a newbie I was not sure that my edit analysis was correct
b) I did not want him to lose face by being corrected by a newbie.

I will ponder for a while on all the good advice I have received.

Can you answer the question I have posed above: Do you think that there are some policy, guideline and essay pages that need updating with this advice so that other newbies don't inadvertently aggravate the situation, when a user has been blocked? Alice.S 21:59, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I don't. I think we have a zillion policy and guideline pages already, and if anybody sat down to read them all before trying things, I don't think they'd ever make an edit. I'd rather we focused newbies on something short and sweet like WP:5P, as I'd rather them spend their time thinking things like "Am I staying cool?" and "Could the other person mistakenly see my comment as incivil?" If instead they worry, "Gee, have I complied fully with WP:EIEIO, WP:WTF, and WP:OMG?" then they risk missing the forest because of all the trees in the way. Others may differ on this, though; not everybody is as worried about instruction creep as I am. William Pietri 00:03, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

How wise!

(and how useful, since I'm a fundamentally lazy person, to get a carte blanche to cut down on my wikireading. I do so agree that it's a very steep learning curve, William!)Alice.S 00:09, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Your offer

This no longer interests me. I am willing to accept your original offer of you "keeping" Tokelau and not following me onto other pages. If you agree to stop harassing me then as far as I'm concerned, at this point, you can go wild with Tokelau. Perspicacite 10:44, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

That is a perversion of my proposal. I do not concede that I have ever harassed you. I have encouraged you to work in a more collegial manner and to eschew reverts other than for simple vandalism. Please take care to quote editors correctly or provide the relevant diffs in future. Alice.S 02:50, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Civility

I remain deeply concerned about your civility in talkpage posts. As you know, civility is a code for the conduct of editing and writing edit summaries, comments, and talk page discussions on all Wikipedias. Wikipedians define incivility roughly as personally targeted behavior that causes an atmosphere of greater conflict and stress. Our code of civility states plainly that people must act with civility toward one another. Our Misplaced Pages community has by experience developed an informal hierarchy of core principles — the most important being that articles be written with a neutral point of view. After that we request a reasonable degree of civility towards others. "Civility" is a principle that we can apply to online conduct, and it is a reasonable way to delimit acceptable conduct from the unacceptable. Misplaced Pages invites visitors to improve its text. But often there are differences of opinion on whether a change in text is an "improvement". When editors weigh the pros and cons of whether a change is an improvement, it may be difficult to criticize text without being subjective about the situation. Editors, in trying to be clear, can be unnecessarily harsh on the giving end. Conversely, on the receiving end, editors can be oversensitive when they see what they wrote replaced by something that claims to be "better", despite it being the opposite of what they wrote. Again, thanks for the note! Perspicacite 11:23, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree.Alice.S 11:29, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

3RR

Also, I am concerned about your recent violation of the WP:3RR rule on Rhodesia. You see, in consideration of the harm of reverting, Misplaced Pages policy states that you may not revert any article more than three times in the same day. This is a very strict limit, not a given right; you should not revert any one article more than three times daily. When a revert is necessary, it is very important to let people know why you reverted. This helps the reverted person because they can remake their edit, but fixing whatever problem it is that you've identified.

Explaining reverts also helps other people. For example, it lets people know whether they need to even view the reverted version (in the case of, eg, "rv page blanking"). Because of the lack of non-verbal communication online, if you don't explain things clearly people will probably assume all kinds of nasty things, and that's one of the possible causes for edit wars. If your reasons for reverting are too complex to explain in the edit summary, drop a note on the Talk page. A nice thing to do is to drop the note on the Talk page first, and then revert, rather than the other way round. Sometimes the other person will agree with you and revert for you before you have a chance. Conversely, if someone reverts your change without apparent explanation, you may wish to wait a few minutes to see if they explain their actions on the article's talk page or your user talk page. Perspicacite 11:26, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

incivility bad?

I dont think we've truly delved into why incivility is bad, together, as a team. I've found it makes people unhappy, resulting in discouragement and departure from Misplaced Pages, resulting in non-constructive or even uncivil behavior themselves, further escalating the level of incivility. It puts people on the defensive, closing their minds to other ideas and preventing a consensus from forming. It's bad because people lose good faith, resulting in even less ability to resolve the current conflict — or the next one, because in the end, the content to be edited is not improved.

A few good ways to prevent incivility:

• Prevent edit wars and conflict between individuals (the project sets editing constraints — essentially a community answer)
• Force delays between answers to give time to editors to calm down and recover and to avoid further escalation of a conflict (protecting pages)
• Use positive feedback (praising those who do not respond to incivility with incivility)
• Apply peer pressure (voicing displeasure each time rudeness or incivility happens)
• Solve the root of the conflict between the offender and the other editor(s) or the community — or find a compromise.
• Use negative feedback (suggesting that an editor involved in conflict should leave a conflict or even temporarily avoid all controversial areas in Misplaced Pages). It may be worthwhile making such suggestions to both sides of the conflict.
• Have certain users refrain from editing specific pages that often trigger incivility.
• Filter emails by the offender, or filter mail based on certain keywords and reject emails to the Misplaced Pages mailing list with those words
• Accepting that incivility and rudeness can't be entirely avoided in such a project, and not responding in kind.
• Giving awards for good edits.

Ways to reduce the impact:

• Balance each uncivil comment by providing a soothing or constructive comment
• Do not answer offensive comments. Forget about them. Forgive the editor. Do not escalate the conflict. (an individual approach)
• Alternatively, respond to perceived incivility with greater civility and respect. Many editors will rise to the occasion and moderate their tone to match yours.
• Ignore incivility. Operate as if the offender does not exist. Set up a "wall" between the offender and the community.
• Revert edits with a veil of invisibility (&bot=1) to reduce the impact of the offensive words used in edit summaries (the comment box)
• Walk away. Misplaced Pages is a very big place. Just go edit somewhere else for a while and return when tempers have cooled.
• Please. Thank you. I'm sorry. You're welcome. You're a good person and I know we'll work this out. Treat your fellow editor as a respected and admired colleague, who is working in collaboration with you on an important project.
• You do not have to like an editor as a person, to appreciate that they are also working for the good of the project. If you do not like a fellow editor, try not to hold that fact against them.

Users may also remove comments.

• Strike offensive words or replace them with milder ones on talk pages (this is often seen as controversial, as is refactoring other people's words)
• Remove offensive comments on talk pages (since they remain in the page history, anyone can find them again or refer to them later on)
• Revert an edit with &bot=1, so that the edit made by the offender appears invisible in Recent Changes (do-able on ip contributions, requires technical help for logged-in user)
• Delete (entirely and permanently) an edit made by the offender (requires technical help)
• Permanently delete an offensive comment made on the mailing lists (requires technical help)
• Replace a comment made in an edit summary by another less offensive comment (requires technical help)

If it is a clear case of ongoing incivility, consider making a comment on the offender's talk page. You may also wish to include a diff of the specific uncivil statement. In extreme cases (of heavy or repeated incivility), a user conduct Request for Comment may help resolve the matter. Parties sometimes attempt to negotiate an agreement while one party is not ready to negotiate. For example, if the source of the conflict is a specific point in an article, an uncivil discussion may impair a dispute resolution. It is best to clear up that issue as soon as possible, so disputants can regain their balance and clarity when editing. Some editors are badly shaken by uncivil words directed towards them, and cannot focus on the source of the conflict itself. It may help to point out to them why unpleasant words were used, and acknowledge that while incivility is wrong, the ideas behind the comment may be valid. The offended person may realize that the words were not always meant literally, and could decide to forgive and forget them. It can be helpful to point out breaches of civility even when done on purpose to hurt, as it might help the disputant to refocus on the issue (controversial).

During a mediation, a third neutral party is in contact with disputants, ensuring communication between them. Mediators also promote reasonable discussion between the disputants. Therefore it is helpful to remove incivility voiced by User A, in rephrasing comments to User B.

For example, if User A and User B are flaming each other by e-mail through a mediator, it might be best if the intermediary turns "I refuse to allow Neo-Nazi apologetics to infest the Misplaced Pages" to "User A is concerned that you may be giving too much prominence to a certain view." Perspicacite 11:55, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Again, I broadly agree.Alice.S 12:13, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Archiving

Thanks for creating the subpage, I will link to it from my talkpage. I'll put the link right next to my own archive, where I've kept a longer list of comments starting from my first talkpage posts. The "past activities" refers to my previous accounts on Misplaced Pages. Every year or so my interests change so I get a new account to match 'em. Regarding the policies, I would probably get rid of ENGVAR altogether and require American spelling on all pages. Perspicacite 12:04, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

It certainly is more consistent (and a little simpler in most cases). If the spread of Microsoft's spell checker continues that will probably become the default anyway. Until then we all need to follow the existing policies and guidelines.

Can you point me to your previous accounts so that I can track your development and progress as an editor? Alice.S 12:13, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

This

Um, what is User:Alice.S/Deleted from User talk:Perspicacite's "Archive" about? I'd say it was time to nuke it. Guy (Help!) 12:22, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

The text block in blue, there, explains: "All user's have a right to delete comments they are uncomfortable with from their user space (see: Don't restore removed comments) but this means that both admins and editors new to interacting with a particular individual may not be able to detect a consistent pattern of behaviour before they have "awoken the dragon".

This page is not designed as an attack page but as a handy reference I can point to when warning other editors that may be unaware of the (rapidly deleted) history of User talk:Perspicacite's "Archive" and the first unfounded allegation of "Wikistalking" dating from 05:30, 22 May 2007 (UTC). If the situation does not improve when User:Perspicacite returns it will also provide evidence and be a source of diffs for an Arbcom or Misplaced Pages:Arbitration Committee hearing. This archive deliberately excludes the first 4 threads/sections completed before 22 May 2007 Singapore time.

(Because of the rapidity of User:Perspicacite's deletions, comments may not be in strict chronological order. Please do not edit or make corrections here but instead alert me (Alice) on the talk page for this project!" Alice.S 12:30, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Rhodesia

Last edit was quite good, but partly unnecessary. SmackBot automatically dates the fact templates every 24 hours or so. On the issue of linking years, I agree with you but there is significant support for linking all years. The issue came up recently in the FAC for Governor General of Canada. For now it's fine if they're delinked but at some point one may be asked to re-link them. Perspicacite 19:52, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Noted.

(As regards the better fact template, you are partially correct, and this is yet another reason why it is better to progress with incremental and co-operative edits rather than unilateral and un-discussed reversions.

As regards linking isolated years (for no good reason other than it is possible), we will have to agree to disagree until and unless the guidelines at Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Autoformatting and linking are changed:

• "Full dates, and days and months, are normally autoformatted, by inserting double square-brackets, as for linking." and
• "Do not autoformat dates that are:"
  • "in article and section headings,"
  • "on disambiguation pages,"
  • "within quotations (unless the original text was wikilinked)."
  • "in date ranges" and
• "Misplaced Pages has articles on days of the year, years, decades, centuries and millennia. Link to one of these pages only if it is likely to deepen readers' understanding of a topic.") Alice.S 02:46, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Non-P section

Interesting essay

a note to myself (and anyone lurking, of course). Alice.S 12:26, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Re:Category:New Zealand-Pacific relations

Hm... good question. To be honest, I didn't have a specific definition of Pacific in mind when I made the category. I initially used it for articles relating to the history of NZ in the Pacific islands, but articles on NZ's relationship with countries like Japan do make some sense being in there (but not - as Gadfium says - articles like Japan itself). Thanks for the comments on the paintings - I should take that banner off my talk page, the exhibition finished a couple of weeks ago! It went well, though with fewer sales than I would have liked. Lots of good comments and a couple of good reviews, though. I have quite a few on my paintings up at my website here and follow the links to the "by year" pages :) Grutness...wha? 23:43, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I do like Liz and the reiteration of the Sydney Harbour Bridge is wonderful, James. "Life's a long song" is really poignant, too. Have you ever shown any stuff in Singapore - there's lot's of folk with high disposable income here now...

I'm going to try and make the category description a bit more explicit - just correct me if I do anything you don't like.

I'm also going to take a look at some articles (beginning with Samoa) to see if they can be appropriately added to your category (which looks a bit on the sparse side...). Best wishes! Alice.S 07:07, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Sounds fair. As far as I'm concerned, any articles directly connected to NZ's links with Pacific Island or Pacific Rim countries are probably suitable. Any articles on Samoan links are definitely woith putting in there, since Samoa was a New Zealand territory at one time, though again, the category would be more for things like History of Samoa than for Samoa itself. I'm glad you like my art - no, I haven't exhibited outside New Zealand yet, though several people from other countries have bought my work either through my website or through seeing it in galleries while visiting New Zealand. Oh, and it's "Kia ora", BTW, though it's normally used more as a greeting than at the end of a message :) Grutness...wha? 23:51, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks very much for your prompt and helpful reply, James. I've already added the History of Samoa to your category (that article seems like it could really do with some knowledgeable editors - I'm certainly not one) and I'll watch out for any others.

Sorry about the "Kia ora" (maybe now you understand the "Bimbo" stereotype about beauty pageant queens...) What would be a good thing to say at the end of a message to someone from New Zealand? Alice.S 23:57, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

:) That's ok. Other than the standard English sign-offs, I'm not really sure what you'd use. "Haere ra" is used when you've been talking to someone in person (sort of the equivalent of "farewell, be seeing you"), but I'm not sure whether you'd use it on a written message. I have seen "Na tou hoa" used, but it's a slightly different sign-off (literally "from your friend"). "Kia ora" does work, but it's less common as an ending than as a greeting (confusingly, it's also an affirmation - you can use it to interject and show your support for what someone's saying, like the old "hear, hear!"). Grutness...wha? 00:54, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

It's really lovely of you to help me with this, James. I'd love to come and visit your wonderful country one day and "Kia ora" sounds like a very useful word for a forgetful person like me.

Is there a place on the web that I can learn to pronounce it properly? Hopefully Maori is not an intonal language like Chinese where slight changes are crucial. I suppose the weather is wonderful now on your southern island? Alice.S 01:04, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

It's not intonal (thankfully! I've been trying to learn the basics of Mandarin Chinese, and the tones are thoroughly confusing me, as is remembering the difference between ch, sh, q and x!) I don't know anywhere on the web which has Maori pronunciation guides. Very approximately, Kia ora is pronounced KEY-uh AW-ruh (key as in door-key, aw as in saw), though it's often pronounced KEY-AW-ruh - and there's a very slight trill on the r, like in French. As for the weather, it's typical spring here - warm sunny days alternating with cold wet days. Today was sunny but windy. Hopefully it'll soon settle down into long warm periods as we get nearer summer. Grutness...wha? 08:35, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Wow, you sound like such an interesting fellow, James. Are most New Zealand people like you - we tend to lump you in with Australians but I guess you're very different and probably a bit more cultured - if that doesn't sound like an offensive stereo type. Isn't Misplaced Pages wonderful that we get to meet and co-operate with people from right across the world to make a better information source!

Thank you very much for the pronunciation guide - I'll try it out on the first guys I meet who I am sure are from New Zealand (off to check the differences in the Flags... ah yours has red stars).

It must be nice to have the weather to talk about - Singapore weather is so reliably predictable - even when we have those dreadful smogs from Indonesia. Thank you so much for being helpful - as you might have noticed from the section above, I was beginning to think that Misplaced Pages is not really the place for me! Thanks for brightening up my afternoon! Alice.S 08:59, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

any time :) Yup - four red stars - the Aussies also have the big extra star under the Union Jack canton which we don't. Grutness...wha? 09:10, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

No harm done

I realize you're a (relatively) new user, and I probably should have worded my reply to reflect that. SparsityProblem 01:55, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for being so gallant.

And no need to pull your punches - it was pretty stupid of me not to have read the whole debate before I commented and your succinct and accurate summary of the process jolted me out of my laziness. Sorry again and thanks for the "wake-up at the back" comment! Alice.S 02:00, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

KSB's revert

It's already been reverted back to your newer, changed version by another editor. Cheers! Gwen Gale 02:19, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Yup, I'm a slow typist and folks seem to be very quick on the draw. Thanks for keeping an eye on things, Gwen! Alice.S 03:03, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

It was my mistake Alice, and I deserve no congratulations for reverting it, though I appreciate your kind words at my talk page. I apologize for not looking closer at what you were actually doing, and you have my sympathies in your current dispute with Perspicacite. I've watched the dispute a bit, and it appears you're on the side of angels there, so-to-speak. Keep up the good work of encyclopedia building! Best regards, K. Scott Bailey 06:07, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Looking closer, I realize Encyclopetey beat me to the revert, so it wasn't actually my undoing of my mistake. Again, though, I take full responsibility for not looking closer at what you were actually doing. K. Scott Bailey 06:09, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, dragons are busy creatures and it can be hard to spot the detail sometimes when you're flying at such dizzy heights (grin).

P has been actually showing distinct signs of editing rather than reverting recently - I do hope I'm not grinding him down (wan smile). Alice.S 06:30, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

If the Manual of Style does not specify a preferred usage, discuss your issues on the talk page of this manual. The menu to the right contains links to Manual of Style pages that explore topics in greater detail.

When either of two styles is acceptable, it is inappropriate for an editor to change an article from one style to another unless there is a substantial reason to do so (for example, it is acceptable to change from American to British spelling if the article concerns a British topic). Edit warring over optional styles is unacceptable. If an article has been stable in a given style, it should not be converted without a reason that goes beyond mere choice of style. When it is unclear whether an article has been stable, defer to the style used by the first major contributor.

Article titles, headings and sections

Article titles

• Article titles generally comprise nouns or noun phrases (Effects of the wild, not About the effects of the wild).
• The title should be short: using more than ten words may defeat the purpose.
• Only the first letter of the first word, letters in acronyms, and the first letter of proper nouns are capitalized; all other letters are in lower case (Funding of UNESCO projects, not Funding of UNESCO Projects).
• Unless part of a proper noun, a, an and the are normally avoided as the first word (Economy of the second empire, not The economy of the second empire).
• Pronouns (you, they) are normally avoided, except when they form part of the title of a work.
• Links are never used, in favor of linking the first occurrence of the item in the text.
• Special characters such as the slash (/), plus sign (+), curly brackets ({ }) and square brackets () are avoided; the ampersand (&) is replaced by and, unless it is part of a formal name.

Note: This guidance also applies to Section headings below.

First sentences

• If possible, an article title is the subject of the first sentence of the article; for example, "The Manual of Style is a style guide" instead of "This style guide is known as ...". If the article title is an important term, it appears as early as possible. The first (and only the first) appearance of the title is in boldface, including its abbreviation in parentheses, if given. Equivalent names may follow, and may or may not be in boldface. Highlighted items are not linked, and boldface is not used subsequently in the first paragraph. For example: "Vienna (Template:Lang-de , see also its other names) is the capital of Austria and one of that country's nine states."
• If the topic of an article has no name and the title is merely descriptive—such as Electrical characteristics of a dynamic loudspeaker—the title does not need to appear verbatim in the main text; if it does, it is not in boldface.
• The normal rules for italics are followed in choosing whether to put part or all of the title in italics ("Tattoo You is an album by The Rolling Stones, released in 1981").

Section headings

• WP:HEAD
• WP:MSH

Note: The guidance in Article titles above also applies to section headings.

• Unspaced multiple equal signs are the style markup for headings. The triple apostrophes ( ''' ) that make words appear in boldface are not used in headings. Nest headings correctly. The hierarchy is as follows:
  • the automatically generated top-level heading of a page is H1, which gives the article title;
  • primary headings are then ==H2==, followed by ===H3===, ====H4====, and so on.
• Spaces between the == and the heading text are optional (==H2== versus == H2 ==). These extra spaces will not affect the appearance of the heading, except in the edit box.
• Spaces above and below headings are optional. Only two or more line-spaces above and below will change the appearance by adding more white space.
• Avoid restating or directly referring to the topic or to wording on a higher level in the hierarchy (Early life, not His early life).

Section management

• Headings provide an overview in the table of contents and allow readers to navigate through the text more easily.
• Change a heading only after careful consideration, because this will break section links to it from the same and other articles. If changing a heading, try to locate and fix broken links; for example, searching for wikipedia "section management" will probably yield links to the current section.
• When linking to a section, leave an editor's note to remind others that the title is linked. List the names of the linking articles, so that if the title is altered, others can fix the links more easily. For example: ==Evolutionary implications==<!-- This section is linked from ] and ] --> . Italicize the section name only if it otherwise requires italics (such as the title of a book). Linking a term provides sufficient indication that you are using a term as a term, which requires italics.
• When referring to a section without linking, italicize the section name; for example, the current section is called Section management.
• The standard order for optional appendix sections at the end of an article are See also, Notes (or Footnotes), References, Further reading (or Bibliography), and External links; the order of Notes and References can be reversed. See also is an exception to the point above that wording comprises nouns and noun phrases. For information on these optional sections, see Misplaced Pages:Guide to layout#Standard appendices and descriptions and Misplaced Pages:Citing sources.

Capital letters

There are differences between the major varieties of English in the use of capitals (uppercase letters). Where this is an issue, the rules of the cultural and linguistic context apply. As for spelling, consistency is maintained within an article.

Within articles and other wiki pages, capitals are not used for emphasis. Where wording cannot provide the emphasis, italics are used.

Incorrect:	Contrary to common belief, aardvarks are Not the same as anteaters.
Incorrect:	Contrary to common belief, aardvarks are NOT the same as anteaters.
Correct:	Contrary to common belief, aardvarks are not the same as anteaters.

Titles

• When used as titles (that is, followed by a name), items such as president, king and emperor start with a capital letter: President Clinton, not president Clinton. The formal name of an office is treated as a proper noun: Hirohito was Emperor of Japan and Louis XVI was King of France (where King of France is a title). Royal styles are capitalized: Her Majesty and His Highness; exceptions may apply for particular offices.
• When used generically, such items are in lower case: De Gaulle was a French president and Louis XVI was a French king. Similarly, Three prime ministers attended the conference, but, The British Prime Minister is Gordon Brown.
• For the use of titles and honorifics in biographical articles, see Honorific prefixes.

Religions, deities, philosophies, doctrines and their adherents

• Religions, sects and churches and their followers (in noun or adjective form) start with a capital letter. Generally the is not capitalized before such names (the Shī‘a, not The Shī‘a). (But see also the style guide and naming convention for the Latter Day Saint movement.)
• Scriptures are capitalized but not italicized (for example, the names of the Qurʾan, the Talmud, the Granth Sahib, and the Bible). When the is used, it is not capitalized. Some derived adjectives are capitalized by convention, some are not (biblical, but normally Koranic); for others, check a dictionary appropriate to the topic, and be consistent in an article.
• Honorifics for deities, when used alone in reference to a specific figure of veneration, start with a capital letter (God, Allah, the Lord, the Supreme Being, the Great Spirit); the is not capitalized. The same is true when referring to major religious figures and figures from mythology by titles or terms of respect (the Prophet, the Messiah, the Virgin, a Muse). When used generically, descriptively or metaphorically, such descriptive terms are not capitalized; thus the Romans worshipped many gods, many Anglo-Saxons worshipped the god Wotan, Jesus and Muhammad are both considered prophets in Islam, biblical scholars dispute whether Mary was a virgin for her entire life, and her husband was her muse.
• Pronouns and possessives referring to figures of veneration are not capitalized in Misplaced Pages articles, even when they traditionally are in a religion's scriptures. They are left capitalized when directly quoting scriptures or any other texts that capitalize them.
• Broad categories of mythical or legendary creatures do not start with capital letters (elf, fairy, nymph, unicorn, angel), although in derived works of fantasy, such as the novels of J.R.R. Tolkien and realtime strategy video games, initial capitals are sometimes used to indicate that the beings are regarded as cultures or races in their fictional universes. Names or titles of individual creatures are capitalized (the Minotaur, the Pegasus) as are those of groups whose name and membership are fixed (the Cherubim, the Magi or the Three Wise Men). As with terms for deities, generalized references are not capitalized (cherub-like, the priests of this sect were called magi by some, several wise men were consulted).
• Spiritual or religious events are likewise capitalized only when they are terms referring to specific incidents or periods (the Great Flood, the Exodus, but annual flooding or an exodus of refugees).
• Philosophies, theories and doctrines do not begin with a capital letter unless the name derives from a proper noun (capitalism versus Marxism) or has become a proper noun (lowercase republican refers to a system of political thought; uppercase Republican refers to one of several specific political parties or ideologies, such as the US Republican Party or Irish Republicanism). Physical and natural laws and parodies of them are capitalized (the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the Theory of Special Relativity, Murphy's Law; but an expert on gravity and relativity, thermodynamic properties, Murphy's famous mock-law). Doctrinal topics or canonical religious ideas (as distinguished from specific events) that may be traditionally capitalized within a faith are given in lower case in Misplaced Pages, such as virgin birth, original sin or transubstantiation.
• Platonic or transcendent ideals are capitalized (Good, Truth), but only within the context of philosophical doctrine; used more broadly, they are lower-case (Superman represents American ideals of truth and justice). Personifications represented in art, such as a statue of the figure Justice, are capitalized.

Calendar items

• Months, days and holidays start with a capital letter: June, Monday, the Fourth of July (when referring to the U.S. Independence Day, otherwise July 4 or 4 July).
• Seasons, in almost all instances, are lowercase: This summer was very hot; The winter solstice occurs about December 22; I've got spring fever. When personified, season names may function as proper nouns, and they should then be capitalized: I think Spring is showing her colors; Old Man Winter.

Animals, plants, and other organisms

Scientific names for genera and species are italicized, with a capital initial letter for the genus but no capital for the species; for more specific guidelines for article titles, see Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Tree of Life#Article titles. For example, the tulip tree is Liriodendron tulipifera, and humans are Homo sapiens. Taxonomic groups higher than genus are given with an initial capital and are not in italics; for example, gulls are in the family Laridae, and we are in the family Hominidae.

Common (vernacular) names of flora and fauna should be written in lower case—for example, oak or lion. There are a limited number of exceptions to this:

1. Where the name is the first word of the sentence, it should be capitalized as any other word would be. For example, Black bears eat white suckers and blueberries.
2. Where the common name contains a proper noun, such as the name of a person or place, that proper noun should be capitalized; for example, The Amur tiger may have a range of over 500 square kilometers, or The Roosevelt elk is a subspecies of Cervus canadensis.
3. For specific groups of organisms, there are specific rules of capitalization based on current and historic usage among those who study the organisms. These should ordinarily be followed:
   • Official common names of birds are normally capitalized
4. In a very few cases, a set of officially established common names are recognised only within a country or a geographic region. Those common names may be capitalized according to local custom but it should be understood that not all editors will have access to the references needed to support these names; in such cases, using the general recommendation is also acceptable.

In any case, a redirect from an alternative capitalization should be created where it is used in an article title.

Celestial bodies

• Sun, earth and moon are not capitalized generally (The sun was peeking over the mountain top). They may be proper nouns in an astronomical context but only when referring to specific celestial bodies (our Sun, Earth and Moon): so The Moon orbits the Earth, but Jupiter's moon Io.
• Other planets and stars are proper nouns and start with a capital letter: The planet Mars can be seen tonight in the constellation Gemini, near the star Pollux. Where a name has multiple words, it is treated like other proper nouns where each leading letter is capitalized: Alpha Centauri and not Alpha centauri.

Directions and regions

• Directions such as north are not proper nouns and are therefore lowercase. The same is true for their related forms: someone might call a road that leads north a northern road, compared with the Great North Road. Composite directions may or may not be hyphenated (northeast and north-east, Southeast Asia and South-East Asia), depending on the general style adopted in the article.
• Regions that are proper nouns, including widely known expressions such as Southern California, start with a capital letter. Follow the same convention for related forms: a person from the Southern United States is a Southerner. Regions of uncertain proper-noun status are assumed not to have attained it.

Institutions

• Proper names of institutions (for example, the University of Sydney, New York-Presbyterian Hospital, George Brown College) are proper nouns and require capitalization. Where a title starts with the, it typically starts with lowercase t when the title occurs in the middle of a sentence: a degree from the University of Sydney.
• Generic words for institutions (university, college, hospital, high school) require no capitalization:

Incorrect	(generic):	The University offers programs in arts and sciences.
Correct	(generic):	The university offers ...
Correct	(title):	The University of Ottawa offers ...

Acronyms and abbreviations

First give the full version

Readers are not necessarily familiar with any particular acronym such as NASA (pronounced as a word) or initialism such as PBS (pronounced by saying the letters themselves). The standard practice is to name the item in full on its first occurrence, followed by the abbreviation in parentheses. For example, The New Democratic Party (NDP) won the 1990 Ontario election with a significant majority The NDP quickly became unpopular with the voters.

Initial capitals are not used in the full name of an item just because capitals are used in the abbreviation.

Incorrect	(not a name):	We used Digital Scanning (DS) technology
Correct:		We used digital scanning (DS) technology
Correct	(name):	produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)

If the full term is already in parentheses, use a comma and or to indicate the acronym; for example, They first debated the issue in 1992 (at a convention of the New Democratic Party, or NDP).

Plural and possessive forms

Acronyms and initialisms are pluralized by adding -s or -es as with any other nouns (They produced three CD-ROMs in the first year; The laptops were produced with three different BIOSes in 2006). As with other nouns, no apostrophe is used unless the form is a possessive.

Periods and spaces

Acronyms and initialisms are generally not separated by full stops (periods) or blank spaces (GNP, NORAD, OBE, GmbH); many periods and spaces that were traditionally required have now dropped out of usage (PhD is preferred over Ph.D. and Ph. D.).

Truncated (Hon. for Honorable), compressed (cmte. for committee) and contracted (Dr. for Doctor) abbreviations may or may not be closed with a period. A period is much more usual in American usage (Dr. Smith of 42 St. Joseph St. was there.); and no period is commonly preferred in British and other usage (Dr Smith of 42 St Joseph St was there., though one or other "St" might take a period, in such a case). Some British and other authorities prefer to drop the period from truncated and compressed abbreviations generally (XYZ Corp, ABC Ltd), a practice also favored in science writing. Regardless of punctuation, such abbreviations are spaced if multi-word (op. cit. or op cit, not op.cit. or opcit).

US and U.S.

In American English, both US and, decreasingly, U.S. are common abbreviations for United States; US is yet more common in other varieties. When referring to the country in a longer abbreviation (USA, USN, USAF), periods are not used. When the United States is mentioned along with one or more other countries in the same sentence, US or U.S. can be too informal, and many editors avoid it especially at first mention of the country (France and the United States, not France and the US). When the United States is mentioned by acronym in the same article as other abbreviated country names, for consistency do not use periods (the US, the UK and the PRC); and especially do not add periods to the other acronyms, as in the U.S., the U.K. and the P.R.C.). The spaced U. S. is never used; nor is the archaic U.S. of A.

In all of these matters, maintain consistency within an article. The sole exception is that for units of measurement, periods are not used even if other acronyms are dotted. (See Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) for more information.)

Do not use unwarranted abbreviations

The use of abbreviations should be avoided when they would be confusing to the reader, interrupt the flow, or appear informal or lazy. For example, approx. for approximate should not be used in most articles, although it may be useful in reducing the width of a table of data, and infobox, or in a technical passage in which the term occurs many times.

See also Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) for when to abbreviate units of measurement.

Do not invent abbreviations

Generally avoid the making up of new abbreviations, especially acronyms. For example, while it is reasonable to provide World Union of Billiards as a translation of Union Mondiale de Billard, the former is not the organization's name, and it does not use the acronym WUB; when referring to it in short form, use the official abbreviation UMB. In a wide table of international economic data, it might be desirable to abbreviate a United States gross national product heading; this might be done with the widely recognized initialisms US and GNP spaced together, with a link to appropriate articles, if it is not already explained: US GNP, rather than the made-up acronym USGNP.

HTML elements

The software that Misplaced Pages runs on does not support HTML abbreviation elements (<acronym> or <abbr>); therefore, these tags are not inserted into the source (see Mediazilla:671).

Italics

Emphasis

Italics are used sparingly to emphasize words in sentences (bolding is normally not used at all for this purpose). Generally, the more highlighting in an article, the less the effect of each instance.

Titles

Italics are used for the titles of works of literature and art, such as books, paintings and musical albums. The titles of articles, chapters, songs and other short works are not italicized, but are enclosed in double quotation marks.

Italics are not used for major revered religious works (for example the Bible, the Koran, and the Talmud).

Words as words

Italics are used when mentioning a word or letter (see Use–mention distinction) or a string of words up to a full sentence: "The term panning is derived from panorama, a word coined in 1787"; "The most commonly used letter in English is e". For a whole sentence, quotation marks may be used instead, as they are in this manual of style where this helps to make things clear: "The preposition in She sat on the chair is on", or "The preposition in 'She sat on the chair' is on". Mentioning (to discuss such features as grammar, wording and punctuation) is different from quoting (in which something is usually expressed on behalf of a quoted source).

Quotations in italics

For quotations, use only quotation marks (for short quotations) or block quoting (for long ones), not italics. (See Quotations below.) This means that (1) a quotation is not italicized inside quotation marks or a block quote just because it is a quotation, and (2) italicization is not used as a substitute for proper quotation formatting.

Italics within quotations

Italics are used within quotations if they are already in the source material, or are added by Misplaced Pages to give emphasis to some words. If the latter, an editorial note "" should appear at the end of the quotation ("Now cracks a noble heart. Good night sweet prince: And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest" ).

If the source uses italics for emphasis, and it is desirable to stress that Misplaced Pages has not added the italics, the editorial note "" should appear after the quote.

Effect on nearby punctuation

Italicization is restricted to what should properly be affected by italics, and not the punctuation that is part of the surrounding sentence.

Incorrect:	What are we to make of that?
Correct:	What are we to make of that?
		(The question mark applies to the whole sentence, not just to that.)
Correct:	Four of Patrick White's most famous novels are A Fringe of Leaves, The Aunt's Story, Voss and The Tree of Man.
		(The commas, period, and and are not italicized.)

Italicized links

The italics markup must be outside the link markup, or the link will not work; however, internal italicization can be used in piped links.

Incorrect:	The opera ] is his best.
Correct:	The opera '']'' is his best.
Correct:	The ] was a submarine.

Non-breaking spaces

• In compound items in which numerical and non-numerical elements are separated by a space, a non-breaking space (or hard space) is recommended to avoid the displacement of those elements at the end of a line.
• A non-breaking space can be produced with the HTML code   instead of the space bar; thus, 19 kg yields a non-breaking 19 kg.
• A non-breaking space can also be produced by using the {{nowrap}} template; thus, {{nowrap|8 sq ft}} produces a non-breaking 8 sq ft. This is especially useful for short constructions requiring two or more non-breaking spaces, as in the preceding example.
• In some older browsers, quotation marks separated by a non-breaking space may still be broken at the end of a line: ("She said 'Yes!' ").
• Unlike normal spaces, multiple non-breaking spaces are not compressed by browsers into a single space.

=== Section 1b ===
]
First paragraph of section 1b.