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For some reason...

For some reason, whenever I come to this page, it's vandalized in SOME way. I'm going to put it on watch. If any more vandalism occurs, I'll see to it that the page gets locked. DrowningInRoyalty

Heh, I thought to myself how hilarious it would be to write an entire section on his "Proactiv Solutions" commercial. Something like "P. Diddy is a big supporter of Proactiv Solutions acne medication, and quote 'Didn't want no bumps on my face. I'm going to be straight up with you. You know what I mean?' and additionally likes it because it enables him to 'preserve my sexy, you know what I'm saying?'" Just a thought. I guess that would be vandalism though.

Even though this is kinda off topic can someone help the new list of best-selling remix albums worldwide with its structure.

RafikiSykes (talk) 17:47, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

is this a fan club page or an encyclopedia??

i think this page should get the

This article contains promotional content. Please help improve it by removing promotional language and inappropriate external links, and by adding encyclopedic text written from a neutral point of view. (March 2009) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

treatment. please.

RafikiSykes (talk) 17:47, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Date format change proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

As far as findings of fact in this discussion it appears that the initial proposal enjoys fairly wide support and as such it is approved. A few other points: There is a completely unacceptable level of personal acrimony, off topic conversation, and baseless accusations of bad faith on this discussion. This is probably a large part of the reason it took so long to get someone to close this The other reason is that the vast majority of Wikipedians would view this as a tempest in a teapot and do not really care one way or the other. The persons who commented here are probably at least 90% of the users who even have an opinion on such a minor issue. No disrespect intended to all those who did make actual intelligent contributions to this discussion, but you must realize that in the grand scheme of things this matters very little, if at all, to almost everybody else As such I would suggest to everyone involved that should a similar situation be encountered in the future they attempt a more comprehensive discussion so that we do not have to go through this issue one article at a time. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:47, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

The format of the dates in the references used in this article should be altered to be in a format of "May 4, 2012" (as per this edit).

• Dates in the format of "May 4, 2012" are unambiguous and are easier for readers to quickly comprehend than are dates in the "2012-05-04" format.
• The {{Cite web}} template (which the references should, and will one day soon, be using) recommends using the "May 4, 2012" format.
• The dates already in the main article text are in the format "May 4, 2012" so without the proposed change, more than one date format is used in the article. This proposal will increase consistency in the article.
• From WP:CITEVAR: "when adding citations, to try to follow the system and style already in use in the article". This can be interpreted to apply to date formats—which means that it would have been better to use the familiar (and existing) format of "May 4, 2012".
• WP:CITEVAR states that YYYY-MM-DD format "may be used", but doesn't insist on it.
• WP:RETAIN is not of primary importance here because its intention is to provide consistent formatting within the main article text (e.g. so that a combination of mdy and dmy formatting doesn't develop).
• However if WP:RETAIN is to be considered, please note that the article used "May 4, 2012" formatting for referencing prior to the use of the "2012-05-04" format (as demonstrated by the article in this state).
• In my experience (and I add/format a lot of URL references using {{Cite web}}) the format of "May 4, 2012" (or "4 May 2012" where required) is far more commonly used these days (than is the format of "2012-05-04").
• Apart from arguments of "it exists", there has been no proffered argument that demonstrates a tangible benefit to the article by using the "2012-05-04" format.

GFHandel ♬  00:25, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

• Support as proposer. GFHandel ♬  00:25, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

This article has developed over a period of about 6 years. The reference style, from earliest times, has been publication dates in Month dd, YYYY, and accessdates in YYYY-MM-DD. It currently has 77 references in this consistent style, representing quite a bit of prior editorial work. From the edit history, it appears the first accessdate was indeed in YYYY-MM-DD, and newly added references have followed the existing style of the article. On to some of your specific points (is this a templated text?)

• Distinguishing one type of reference information (publication date) from another type, arguably less important (accessdates), aids the reader, by helping them not to read one date as the other.
• I don't see that {{cite web}} recommends anything, and I'm not sure why it would be relevant. Cite web appears to omit to show any examples with one of the acceptable styles; if this is taken to suggest something contrary to MOSNUM, then the examples may need to be revised.
• The article already follows a consistent style, as far as I am aware. "Consistency", in MOSNUM, does not mean a single style in both the article and the references. MOSNUM explicitly allows YYYY-MM-DD formats in the references.
• The style of references has been followed; although WP:CITEVAR did not exist in 2006 in that form, references have been pretty consistently added following the style as specified (publication dates in Month dd, YYYY, accessdates in YYYY-MM-DD).
• I agree WP:RETAIN is not of primary importance; WP:DATERET is the more relevant guideline
• The first use of accessdates, as far as I can tell, were in YYYY-MM-DD format , so even the "first major contributor" clause of WP:DATERET argues for retaining the style with which the article has developed
• I'm not sure what "commonly used" means here. Most developed articles I'm aware of use YYYY-MM-DD formats, though some were changed (see WP:FAITACCOMPLI). I know of relatively few articles (some, but comparatively fewer) that developed from earliest times without YYYY-MM-DD style for either publication or accessdates.
• Distinguishing the publication dates and accessdates is a benefit. Some may not agree, I'm aware, but that's why we have a guideline about not changing arbitrary style options. It's also more compact. I don't see any benefit to removing YYYY-MM-DD accessdates from this already consistent article.

Gimmetoo (talk) 01:57, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

• Support The only reason that accessdates ever existed in YYYY-MM-DD format was that the citation mechanism created them in that format at the time when users could set the displayed date format in their preferences. Following the unlinking of dates, that mechanism disappeared, and we were left with the underlying accessdates in YYYY-MM-DD format, despite them being added without any actual editor preference being made. That seriously weakens arguments about respecting original authors' intentions, and leaves us to consider what is best for articles now. The argument that a mixture of date formats helps the reader distinguish between date of publication and date of access makes sense, but I don't find it convincing, as their positioning by all of the citation templates is so very different. The overriding arguments are that DMY and MDY are much easier to comprehend at a glance ('September' is clearer than '09'), and that consistency in the format of dates throughout an article is desirable - and that includes the references. The only place where YYYY-MM-DD dates have a place is in tables and infoboxes, where space is at a premium. --RexxS (talk) 03:52, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Your technical history does not appear correct. The first accessdates added to this article were in YYYY-MM-DD format, without any autoformatting. (If I recall correctly, autormatting wasn't used with the mdy publication dates, either.) I am glad you recognize that distinguishing types "makes sense". Thank you. In my experience, the confusion resulting from the differing positions of dates in the references is helped, rather than harmed, by having two types of dates in different formats. It allows the reader to quickly identify the publication date and accessdate in the reference, whether they are at the start, middle, or end of the reference. It aids the reader. I am aware you may not find that benefit convincing, but others may not find the benefits of another style convincing, either. We have gudielines to prevent arbitrary style changes based on such arbitrary preferences. Gimmetoo (talk) 05:58, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

• Support. RexxS has provided a reasonable summary of the history behind the date format wars to which I will add two points:
  • Gimmetoo hints at "technical advantages" in favour of the yyyy-mm-dd format. But in fact there's only one, that it's sortable, which is irrelevant for citations. The technical advantage it did once have disappeared with date delinking, as RexxS says.
  • Documentation for the {{citation}} template specifically says in reference to the accessdate parameter: "use the same format as other dates in the article". It's time to put this date format nonsense to bed once and for all, and for Gimmetoo to drop his stick. Malleus Fatuorum 04:21, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

  PS. Perhaps an administrator could fix that rather irritating "in in" error in the citation template's documentation. Malleus Fatuorum 04:29, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

  Please avoid making this personal, MF. Was "drop his stick" needed or helpful? Gimmetoo (talk) 05:58, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

  Yes, it was. Malleus Fatuorum 06:14, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

• Support per GFHandel, RexxS and Malleus. It seems blindingly self-evident that most editors would find September 9, 1998 easier to parse than 1998-09-09. I am not sure how the bee entered the bonnet here, but the sooner it flies off and does something more useful the better for us all. --John (talk) 10:12, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
  • This has been answered many times. You claim that most editors would find one form easier to parse than another. Your unstated premise is apparently that this factor so overrides any other consideration for readers (including the benefits of distinguishing, etc.) or anyone else, that ISO-style dates must be removed. But this is contradicted by the guidleline, which explicitly authorizes ISO-style dates, including explicitly for the accessdates. I would generally agree that formatting should benefit the reader, but between a benefit that would violate guideline and one that is explicitly in accord with guidelline, I think I would go with the latter. Gimmetoo (talk) 10:32, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
• Support per RexxS and MF.PumpkinSky talk 10:31, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
• Support per the above. "We've always done it this way" seems to be the counterargument. Let's let the readers read, not decode.--Wehwalt (talk) 10:37, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Explicilty allowed by guideline, and for which no substantial, evidence-based reasons have been provided to change. Let's aid the readers to read, not confuse them. Gimmetoo (talk) 10:44, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
• Support per Rexx's comments, especially. Plus I find these ISO dates difficult to parse, and I bet our readers do too. External tools such as WP:Cite4Wiki do not offer ISO dates, only the other two options, so using one of the other options makes articles easier to maintain. -- Dianna (talk) 14:34, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
• Support per everybody, this looks like a clear improvement to me. Mark Arsten (talk) 17:12, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose, because there is no good reason for this disruption, and ... why has the entire Merry Band of Jack Merridew and Rlevse Supporters in the FAC Matter shown up suddenly on this particular article. If at first you don't succeed ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:21, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

  Sandy, do you have any reasons for your oppose that relate to the article itself, or to the technical issues we are discussing? -- Dianna (talk) 02:58, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

  The Chewbacca defense. Sandy is also relying on the "if you have no argument, smear everybody you disagree with" school of debate. Let's not cloud the issue with facts, eh? Since when have Malleus, John, GFHandel and I been "Jack Merridew and Rlevse Supporters in the FAC Matter"? That's pretty laughable, isn't it. It's commendable that Sandy wants to stand up for her chum, but it's only helpful when there's something constructive to say. The ad hominem BS is far too obvious for anybody to take it seriously. --RexxS (talk) 03:21, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

  Why, I would never stoop so low as to smear everyone I disagree with, if for no other reason than the lack of enough hours in a day-- I'll have to content myself with just those who travel in roving bands of bullies trying to enforce their views of ... well ... everything they hold in common and sacred, with is ... everything they hold in common .. which is ... cabalism. On the citation matter, I happen to agree with our guidelines that they are a matter of consensus, and I also hold that those who work on articles should determine the consensus for the citation style for those articles, not those who show up to bolster their buddies to win a meaningless argument. Whatever floats your boat, some get gratification building articles, others get it bringing them down. May whomever prevails be sure to stick around after the little turf war is over and actually maintain the article you now seem to care so much about. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:40, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

  I have had little or nothing to do with the other editors in this debate, and I have only made one communication to another editor regarding its existence. I (and most others) have retained a polite and non-personal perspective in this debate, so I'm saddened to see the level of discourse diminished with personal attacks such as "Merry Band", "cabalism", and "roving bands of bullies". For the record: are you applying any or all of those epithets to me? GFHandel ♬  08:38, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

  Wow Sandy, that's extremely unexpected. We are discussing date formatting here, and which format of dates best serves our readers. It's incredibly inappropriate of you to make these allegations here. It leaves me worried for your well-being, to be honest. --John (talk) 08:42, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

  "Extremely unexpected" for Wehwalt, Diannaa, RexxS and Rlevse/PumpkinSky who are all supporters of Alarbus/Merridew and his band of socks and who together took a minority position in the FAC wrecking crew, when Alarbus/Merridew is known to have plagued Gimmetrow for a long time over citation style, to all suddenly show up for the first time, at the same time, on an article they have nothing to do with and have never edited, to argue something that doesn't belong here anyway, is not unexpected; it's quite the norm for how that group works. The personalization began with the appearance of uninvolved editors here to try to affect consensus on an article they don't even edit. If someone wants to impose a house citation style, the place to do that is on guideline pages-- not by taking on an article they don't even watch, continuing the plague of Gimmetrow by Merridew. Until such time as house style or guidelines change, citation style is a matter for article by article consensus, and for uninvolved editors to pile on to change citation style on an article they don't even edit is suspect, considering their history with Merridew and Merridew's history with Gimmetrow. They should take it to the guideline page if they want to impose a house style.

  Now, as to It leaves me worried for your well-being, to be honest, weren't we down this very road years ago, when you made statements about Ceoil's mental health? I thought you'd seen the light and changed. If you're reverting to abusive adminly old ways, it's time to re-examine ... something ... that is related to your fitness for adminship. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:24, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

  Aw, come on, Sandy. I was never involved in the FAC leadership debate that seems to be such a sore point for you. My contributions are public record and unless you can show how I was in any way involved, you really ought to strike my name from that peculiar accusation. My earlier interaction with Gimmetoo over the issue of date formats can be seen at Talk:Ursula Andress#Accessibility and dates so it's not unsurprising that when I noticed the debate on John's talk page, I followed the link to this page and saw the same problems that we had discussed previously (as I suspect the other editors who arrived here did). I promise you I did not sit down with Malleus at the Manchester Cabal Meetup in February and plan to ambush Gimmetoo three months later. And the only interaction I've had with John is when I argued for him to have the ARBDATE restrictions lifted from him as he was clearly caught up in a dispute that he had no part in. Sounds familiar. Finally, it's is extraordinarily ironic that you should be fabricating the sort of connections that you have: This isn't about personalities or cabals; the whole point of the debate is that many of us prefer months to be have names, not numbers, and want to reduce the usage of YYYY-MM-DD formats; while Jack is a big fan of YYYY-MM-DD dates and he'd be arguing against us if he were here! Don't you think that 'April' is a much more beautiful use of the English language than 'month 04'? --RexxS (talk) 17:15, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

  You might notice I never said anything about what brought Malleus or John to this issue (a discussion that brought me here as I attempted to mediate). The folks who subsequently showed up here is not at all ironic, and they should all be embarrassed to be so obviously partisan. (Doubt that they are, though.) So, why don't all of you stop fighting over trivia that makes not a wit of difference to anyone after you're done here, except the person who stays to maintain the article, let the folks who actually maintain this article decide what citation style to use, and take this little tiff to MOS if you want to gain consensus to enforce a specific style across the entire WIki? Doesn't matter who started this; does matter who grows up and stops it, before you chase off the editors who are doing the work of watching and building the article. My bottom line is the editors who are involved with an article should decide citation style within guidelines, if you want to change that guideline, go gang up elsewhere. This is unbecoming and disgusting what is going on in here. A continuation of the lamest arbcase ever. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:43, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

  Oh, I see. Malleus and John didn't take part in the "FAC wrecking crew", so they have your permission to express an opinion here. Whereas I, who also had no part in the "FAC wrecking crew" don't have your permission to have an opinion. No wait, that can't be it. Maybe it's because I'm a known supporter of Jack Merridew, who is in favour of ISO dates, so I can't express the contrary opinion, since that is cabalism ... no, that would be if we had the same opinion. Oh well. Does that mean that you don't prefer "April" to "month 04" after all? --RexxS (talk) 18:13, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

  It means either you're being deliberatively obtuse, or you don't want to take this discussion to the guideline page where it better belongs. Probably because the proposed change will gain little traction there, and it's sooooo much more fun to create drahmaz in here !!! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:27, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

  Sandy, your posts seem to imply (please correct me if I am misunderstanding you) that it is not okay to have a discussion about changing the format of the access date on this one particular article; that the overarching manual of style of guideline has to be changed. I am pretty sure you are incorrect about that; it is possible to have a discussion about changing just this one article. There does seem to be a parallel discussion about the guideline happening right now, and some people have participated in both discussions. -- Dianna (talk) 20:57, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

  Of course you can discuss an article, but then you should discuss the article, rather than repeat non-specific "arguments" already discussed at the guideline level, and not accepted. Gimmetoo (talk) 21:44, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

  Consensus on individual articles can and does change regardless of what is happening at the guideline level. That's what this discussion is about; a consensus change of citation style for this one particular article. This is permitted. -- Dianna (talk) 23:26, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

  Are you saying a group of editors, whose proposal was rejected by the larger community, can go to each article individually and "form a consensus" to do what was rejected the larger community, over the objections of the existing editors of the page? Gimmetoo (talk) 00:28, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

  There are several acceptable citation styles; different styles appear in different articles; consensus changes; this article could be changed. That's what I'm saying. -- Dianna (talk) 01:17, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

  I can see what you're getting at, Gimme, but surely the problem with that is how to define who the 'existing editors' are? Must an editor have a certain number of edits within a particular time period to qualify for participation in a discussion? And who would set those numbers? It holds far too much danger of creating ownership of articles for my taste. I willingly accept that you believe having accessdates in ISO-style is an improvement (to distinguish from publication date and for compactness). I think you can accept that I genuinely believe that dates containing a named month are an improvement anywhere where we are not constrained for space (easier to parse and more consistent than a mix). It seems to me that consensus has changed in the two-and-a-half years since the 2009 RfC, and more folks are moving towards favouring the latter rationales over the former ones. Let's actually have the debate on the issues, and not get distracted by the ad hominems that seem designed merely to disrupt the discussion on GFHandel's proposal. Lest I forget, though, I must remind Sandy that policy and guidelines on Misplaced Pages are descriptive, not prescriptive, and document what we do in articles. The MOS is not an abstract set of rules, derived in isolation from actual editing, rather it reflects actual practice in articles such as this. If it transpires that there is a clear preference here for 'April' over 'month 04', then that is the time to take a case to the MOS. Considering the actual issues, rather than the crimson clupeids, may I take it that you'll be !voting with Malleus and me, rather than Gimme and Jack, if that happens? --RexxS (talk) 03:09, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose If it's working fine, leave it the way it is - for one thing. For another, it makes sense to have access and archivedates in yyyy-mm-dd format (pls don't say ISO, there's some problem with the Russian Revolution that makes them not ISO-xxxx compliant) because they take up less space that way and those dates are not important - honestly, do you want a line wrapped around so that you the reader can see that I the writer/reviewer clicked on a link or opened a book on "February 27, 2012" rather than 2012-02-27? RExxS is incorrect on the history too, some of us specifically never set a date preference, because we cared about what the actual readers saw. The removal of autoformatting meant nothing at all to me, I already had the anonymous view that always included yyyy-mm-dd. It's a great and succinct format for a most incosequential yet necessary datum. Moreover, our guidelines say quite clearly that if that is the established format, it should be left as is. What a crazy little tempest! Franamax (talk) 05:52, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

  I have no problems with possible line wraps (which is never a reason to not present information in the most obvious and customary way to our readers—which is what the supports here wish to do). GFHandel ♬  08:38, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

  So you like it because it is shorter? That actually seems like quite a good argument. I've always wondered why this metadata even needs to be displayed to the ordinary reader; I wonder if it would be possible to make it invisible and you have to enter edit mode to check it? Just a thought. I still value consistency with other dates in the article and readability (as long as we display this data at all we may as well do so in a format people can understand!) over brevity but thanks at least for making a coherent argument for your preferred style. --John (talk) 08:47, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

  I'm sorry I wasn't clearer, Fran, but you're missing the point I was making. I also never set a date preference (because I wanted to see what the viewers did), but every time I used the 'cite' button on the toolbar and filled in the fields to create a citation, the script rendered the accessdate in YYYY-MM-DD format (and linked it), regardless of what format I used to enter it. That is why we were used to seeing so many articles using that format for accessdate - and the likely reason many people just copied that when hand-crafting references. I believe the proliferation of YYYY-MM-DD for accessdate is merely a historical accident of the choice made by the programmer of the script for the cite button, and that is why I refute the arguments about "original author" choice in these cases. Interestingly, this article had no references at all for more than three years after its creation! Our guidelines - for what they are worth in this instance - also say that date formats should be consistent. The early versions of this article contained a mixture of DMY and MDY formats (example), and nobody would argue that regularising those contravened the "established format" guideline. There's nothing special about YYYY-MM-DD dates that elevates them to sacrosanct status and should exempt them from the same consideration. By the way, "ISO" is ok most of the time - it's simply YYYY-MM-DD but only defined for use on dates in the Gregorian calendar. --RexxS (talk) 13:16, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

  If an article were inconsistent it could be regularized. This article has a consistent style explicitly authorized by the MOSNUM guideline, and per the same guideline, that style should be retained. Gimmetoo (talk) 21:44, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

  Yes, exactly, it is metadata, and if there were a way to hide it altogether I would be all for that. It's no different than the type of camera used to acquire an image really - absolutely essential info, but only for those of us who nurture that particular interior geekiness. :) I've been concerned for at least 3 years now about the explosion of inline cites (perfectly justifiable in terms of ensuring article quality) and the impact of the resultant massive "References"/"Footnotes" sections. I would !vote for even the primary date used in footnotes to have a 3-character alpha month for purposes of brevity, it is a footnote after all. I've never quite understood those who argue we should have fully narrative dates in such a minor location, when the works themselves are so heavily abbreviated. A paper published in j. Res. Mol. Bioch. on 27 February 2007, the date takes as much space as the name of the journal? OK, maybe that's not the best example until Sean Combs gets his chem doctorate, but still, we're not reading "Twas The Night Before Christmas" to the audience here, it is the footnotes by now and IMO we should be presenting only the minimally necessary information. A locally consistent but above all terse format to me ideally satisfies the goals of simplicity and comprehensibility. Franamax (talk) 06:03, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose, just so it's clear. This article currently has references using the format with publication dates in Month dd, YYYY, and accessdates in YYYY-MM-DD. The article developed with this format accessdates in YYYY-MM-DD from the beginning. A format that distinguishes publication dates from accessdates is beneficial, because
  • Distinguishing types of dates by format aids readers to easily identify one type of date vs. another
  • YYYY-MM-DD for the accessdates in particular de-emphasizes the accessdate as less important, largely technical information; it's also more compact
• The main arguments for changing this long-established format are essentially 1) YYYY-MM-DD dates are harder to parse, and 2) cite templates do not show examples using YYYY-MM-DD. Neither of these arguments are specific to this article. I argue against these reasons as follows:
  • Changing an accessdate like "2012-04-04" to "April 4, 2012" may arguably make it "easier to read" in isolation, but in a reference, the change makes it more likely for a reader to confuse an accessdate and a publication date. This is especially so in citations where only one date is present.
  • If the documentation for a template does not the range of MOSNUM-allowable options, and that is being taken to argue those options do not exist, then that's evidence the template documentation is misleading, and that the template documentation should be revised.
• Gimmetoo (talk) 12:25, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

  "The article developed with this format from the beginning"—except that it didn't. When the article was in this state it did not have a single reference using "YYYY-MM-DD" format (with all month references spelt in full). Note that that state of the article was reached by 1,418 edits made by over 100 editors in almost four years.

  Simple clarification - "this format" refers to the accessdates. At the point you are looking the article did not have a single accessdate. Gimmetoo (talk) 13:53, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

  In fact it was Gimmettoo himself (using his alternate account of Gimmetrow) who unilaterally introduced the yyyy-mm-dd format into the article with this edit of 29 October 2006, almost four years after the article was created, so as you say, hardly "from the beginning". But until then the article wasn't using accessdates at all, so maybe that's what he means. Malleus Fatuorum 12:12, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

  I don't believe it is necessary to distinguish date formats between references and article text; instead, I'll give our readers credit to realize that there is a very long horizontal line under the distinct section heading "References" to assist them in distinguishing which section of the article they are viewing.

  The use of "YYYY-MM-DD" is not supported by the {{Cite web}} example template—which is what is used to copy-and-paste to obtain a set of blank fields. That is because the use of things like "April" (instead of "04") is no longer considered to be in the best interests of our readers. There is now a great deal of reasoned support on this page for that view.

  GFHandel ♬  10:20, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

• • The first accessdates added to this article were in YYYY-MM-DD format, and that is how the article has developed. YYYY-MM-DD is explicitly allowed by the guideline even now. But if you think what {{cite web}} does is relevant, then it certainly does support YYYY-MM-DD: "Example". Retrieved 2012-05-08.. Gimmetoo (talk) 13:47, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

• Support - I find the "all number" way too difficult to read. Agree with whoever said "April" is better than "04". Besides, all the other dates in the citations have the month name, so why should accessdate be in a different format? Don't get it. MathewTownsend (talk) 21:26, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Did you not notice the section immediately above you? Or any prior discussion of the reasons? Gimmetoo (talk) 21:44, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
    • yes, I read through the whole thing. It just happens that I find the citations in this article difficult to read because of the accessdate format. I have used {{Cite web}} and used accessdates such as April 27, 2012. I don't understand who decided this or why: "That is because the use of things like "April" (instead of "04") is no longer considered to be in the best interests of our readers." Just my view. MathewTownsend (talk) 13:55, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
      • The article developed with this format. Can you me where it was supposedly decided to remove YYYY-MM-DD dates from all articles because they are allegedly "no longer considered to be in the best interests of our readers"? As for readability, I find the following difficult to read.
        • "Example". May 8, 2012.
      • Your mileage may vary, but I find that date difficult to read. Is it a publication date? An accessdate? Something else? Gimmetoo (talk) 14:05, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
        • "Example". Retrieved May 8, 2012. I can tell the difference, and I doubt that anybody who knew what an accessdate was would confuse the two even in such an abbreviated example, but I agree that YMMV. --RexxS (talk) 15:32, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
          • The repeated claim is that 2012-05-08 is "difficult to parse". Well, putting the dates in the same format makes them more difficult to functionally interpret, another form of parsing. I have observed editors (in the process of changing date formats in long lists of references) claim the accessdates are inconsistent, when as far as I could tell they were all consistent. The only explanation that makes any sense to me is that they are reading some publication dates as accessdates. When both are present,
            • • "Example". May 1, 2012. Retrieved 2012-05-08.
          • clearly distinguishes types of dates so it is very easy to read, even at a glance. But when it is written as
            • • "Example". May 1, 2012. Retrieved May 8, 2012.
          • Of course, someone *can* figure out which is which, but it takes me and presumably others more attention to determine which is which quickly than the prior form. Accessdates are about our relation to the source rather than the source itself. They serve a largely technical purpose, and using ISO-style dates for them helps readers understand them as technical, less important pieces of information. Indeed, if people are arguing that they are "difficult to read", perhaps that's a good thing; as this is information that is generally not useful to readers, that's an argument for putting all accessdates in YYYY-MM-DD, on principle. Gimmetoo (talk) 16:00, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
            • I gave up long ago trying to figure out what was going on in some peoples' minds, but I sympathise with your observations. We both know, I guess, that we have a different kind of consistency in mind. You say that the pattern A-B, A-B, etc. is consistent, while I'm saying that A-A, A-A, etc. is more consistent. Perhaps I should use the word "uniform" to describe what I would like to see with date formats. I'd think your example above is a rarity on Misplaced Pages (but that's just my hunch, not a survey result). If this sort of example:
              • Too, Gimme; Schneider, Rexx (May 1, 2012). "Example". Misplaced Pages. Retrieved May 8, 2012.
            • and its ilk are actually much more common, then your 'distinguishing' line of argument is that much weaker, I think. Perhaps Franamax's explosion of highly detailed inline cites demonstrates how much more common it is nowadays to have most of the information supplied for every cite. Naturally, that is a strong recommendation for using WP:List-defined references and/or {{shortened footnote}}s to get the "snot" out of the edit window, so that you can actually read the text that you're editing. But that, of course, is a debate for another time. --RexxS (talk) 16:33, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
          • I disagree. If cite details increase, then the citations become longer with more line wraps (exacerbated by multiple columns). So it's more difficult to distinguish one date from another at a quick glance, because a reader loses location information. Writers use patterns, like A-B, A-B as you say, to help organize and identify structures. Wedonotwritesentencesthiswayinsteadweputspacesbetweenwords. We do not write the letters together with "uniform" spacing (documents used to be like that). Wiki doesn't "uniformly" put all content under level2 headers, but we use level3, and even level4, to provide structure. It's consistent in a way, but it's not "uniform". I think a "uniformity" which degrades the structure is largely a "foolish consistency". Gimmetoo (talk) 23:16, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

• The bottom line is that there are only two real opposes here. Isn't it time to end this apparently endless discussion and just make the change that consensus is evidently in favour of? Malleus Fatuorum 00:20, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

• Well, I guess you told me! And then what ... the wrecking crew moves on to the next target, an article they've never edited, and changes citation style there, since they can't accomplish this change at MOS? Rhetorical: what is it this crew has gained or hopes to gain? Alienating editors who watch and maintain articles? The power of winning a useless argument? A de facto change in MOS since it can't be accomplished directly? I really don't understand what motivates people to do something like this. I repeat; my oppose is that the citation guidelines allow this format, and those who actually work on the article (not those who showed up only and exclusively for this discussion) should determine the citation style. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:19, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

  My position very simply is that until Gimmetoo's intervention almost four years after the article was created it did not contain dates in the yyyy-mm-dd format, and I see no valid reason why it should do so now. Malleus Fatuorum 02:32, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

  I'm pretty sure that meme was already dealt with somewhere on this page, but just in case, I reviewed the older versions and found the article had no accessdates or full citations until about 2006 ... like this just before Gimme edited and what's this, after citations were added a few months later? Maybe I'm missing something. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:56, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

  It's not a meme, it's a fact. When introducing accessdates there was no good reason to choose a date format other than the one already used in the article. Malleus Fatuorum 02:59, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

  There was no good reason not to do it that way, either. And nobody objected in 2006. Or 2007. Or 2008. You get the picture. Are you really saying that now, 6 years later, when the article is consistent, you can change it because you don't like an edit from 2006, that was not contrary to any guideline in 2006 and is not contrary to any guideline now? Are you going to apply that principle everywhere? If not, why not? It seems like a glorious principle for disruptive editors to use down the road. But you're semi-retired, what do you care? Gimmetoo (talk) 04:46, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

  The really puzzling question Gimmetto is why you're so obsessed with this issue. Malleus Fatuorum 20:16, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

• I agree with MF's view. I disagree with the pejorative implication of "wrecking crew" because the desire to improve the article for all readers by using things like "April" instead of "04" cannot reasonably be interpreted as an attempt to "wreck" the article. GFHandel ♬  01:44, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

  If this is such an issue, surely you will prevail then at the appropriate MOS and guideline pages, and avoid demoralizing editors by an article-by-article campaign to install something that has not been endorsed or accepted wikiwide. I hope you enjoy whatever it is you're winning if editors who have watched and developed articles for years are chased off over something on this level-- as if MOS warriors didn't get a bad enough name from the date delinking arb. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:56, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

  The truth is that it's only Gimmetoo's intransigence that has made this a big issue. Why is he so resistant to the clear consensus? Malleus Fatuorum 03:02, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

There is no clear consensus on the broader issue, Malleus. And I'm sure you can appreciate that it's offensive when folks charge in to an article they've never edited to make an example that is not endorsed by any Wiki-wide guideline. Perhaps similar to how you feel when someone who can't write barges in and starts altering prose you've labored over for years? For the record (since the old FAC discussions are what got me drug in here so John could insult me), here are only some of the old discussions I referenced almost a week ago (perhaps, Malleus you've forgotten or weren't around when we were forced to deal with the ISO date issue because the cite templates only accepted them in many cases):

• Misplaced Pages talk:Featured article candidates/archive30#Date autoformatting change
• Misplaced Pages talk:Featured article candidates/archive25#New guidelines for date formatting where not autoformatted
• Misplaced Pages talk:Featured article candidates/archive48#Reference style

Now, perhaps the templates are now fixed (I'll never hold my breath on that, though) so that editors have more choices, but that wasn't always the case (ISOs were at one point forced upon us), it's unfair to call Gimme intransigent when he respects guidelines, and this raises the bigger concern that I share with Gimme, which is that because of the vagaries of the citation methods on Misplaced Pages, in the absence of broader consensus, we leave citation style to consensus within guideline, article by article. For folks to barge in and try to change one article when the broader proposal has been rejected boggles my mind. Like we have nothing better to do. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:17, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

What's clear to me is that the yyyy-mm-dd format is simply a hangover from the days of date autoformatting, a half-baked idea that should never have seen the light of day. Today it has no place except in situations where dates need to be sorted, as in tables. As for John insulting you, well, I agree that any concern he expressed for your well being was ill judged. Malleus Fatuorum 03:33, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

I do my best to avoid the MOS pages like the obsessive plague that they are, although as FAC delegate, I was obligated to stay abreast of changes there ... so ... you may well be right that they are now a hangover, but I really don't know if ISO dates are a relic or not or if they have some other use still. What I do know is that the damn MOS changes so often that it's silly to spend so much time on this, and it's rude to insult an editor and attack an article that was and is following guidelines, and if the ISO dates are indeed a relic, the collaborative, indeed kind and wise thing to do is to address the issue at the core, MOS, not by going after one editor and one article. Particularly when we've seen that pattern before, and it is destructive to editors, to articles, and to a collaborative environment.

I hope John finds himself able to regroup and come back to the admin we had come to enjoy. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:40, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

• We have people arguing that accessdates must be "May 9, 2012" because they absolutely must be in whatever format these users think is the most readable format in isolation (without providing any evidence, of course), and others saying accessdates shouldn't even be displayed at all. Clearly a group of editors want iso dates gone, but consensus is a matter of reasoned, solid arguments. If you want iso dates changed, you need to engage discussion on the matter and respond to objections (RexxS has been doing this). At this point, all the above lacks any solid, convincing, evidence-based arguments for changing the existing format. If anyone has one, please provide it. If not, then I think we can be done here. Gimmetoo (talk) 04:57, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

  No, consensus is about consensus, not about perceived "rights" or "wrongs", or "reasoned solid arguments" – which you have yet to provide yourself – and the consensus here is clearly against you. Malleus Fatuorum 05:02, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

  It is the job of those proposing a change to provide strong reasons for the change. Gimmetoo (talk) 05:07, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

  No, consensus is clear in this case (as substantive arguments have been provided—which have been supported by the majority of editors here). After a little more time for comment (preferably from editors with input other than IDONTLIKEIT), I intend to rework the references in this article to be based on the standard {{Cite web}} template (as is the convention), and therefore to use the suggested accessdate format of "Month Day, Year" (as is the convention now used by all editors who copy-and-paste the template fields from {{Cite web}}). I will do this, not as part of some "cabal" or "wrecking crew", but with the same intent on which I base all my editing activities: the desire to improve the article for our readers.

  I will add that I am very surprised that less than 10% of the references in this article use the {{Cite web}} template—which has resulted in much too wide a result in reference syntax. Converting all the web references to using the standard {{Cite web}} template will be a large job in this case, and I could use all the help I can get (and perhaps the work could be divided up by sections?). Anyhow, when this is all over I'll make a start and do the best that I can.

  GFHandel ♬  08:34, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

  You have stated your intent to violate yet another guideline. Good to know. Gimmetoo (talk) 19:53, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

  Surely you are not now going to start arguing that the citation format ought not to be consistent? Malleus Fatuorum 20:16, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

  Actually yes, consensus among the regular editors of this article is indeed quite clear. Gimmetoo, SandyGeorgia and myself agree that the existing format is adequate, and no substantive arguments have been put forth to change this particular article. It does seem that your proposal has rallied some inchoate sense of a need for change of something or other. Please address this at the relevant guideline and policy pages and return when you have developed the enyclopedia-wide consensus you seem to be prematurely declaring here. Franamax (talk) 09:22, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

  In what sense is SandyG, who has made only two edits to this article almost four years ago a "regular editor"? You yourself have only made 28 edits, the last well over a year ago, so what's your definition of "regular editor"? Malleus Fatuorum 12:14, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

  Correct, I am not a "regular editor" of this article. As far as I know, the only "regular editor" here is Gimme (that is, an editor who followed this article before and independently from this style dispute). I am here because I was asked to opine in a disagreement between friends on what our guideines say (I thought I had done that impartially, and was surprised to see John claiming some issue because I didn't look at the actual edits, which was eggggzactly the point-- I was only commenting on the guideline). I re-engaged when I saw an influx of editors unrelated to the topic attempting to affect consensus on an article they don't even edit (WP:POINT), and I continue to say that it is demoralizing and demotivating to editors when one article is targeted because a group wants to effect a wider change to a guideline. It's just not nice-- take it to the guideline, leave the individual article alone until you gain consensus. It's the editors who work here who have to deal with whatever method is used, as well as the ever-changing citation methods. IF there are serious problems with ISO that need to be addressed, reason will prevail in a broader discussion. Again, what have all of you gained by all of this illwill? When you "win", what have you won ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:02, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

  Conversely, what would Gimmetoo lose by recognising that consensus is against him, as it so obviously is? Malleus Fatuorum 16:30, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

  Consensus, as expressed in numerous guidelines, is to not arbitrarily change styles. Are you saying that a group of editors, very likely including off-wiki canvassing with an intent to harass, can form a "consensus" in direct opposition to the consensus expressed by the wider community in a number of previous discussions? Gimmetoo (talk) 19:51, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

  You're being very free with your allegations of underhanded practice; unless you have some evidence to back up your accusations I suggest that you withdraw them. Consensus on this article is very clearly against you, and you need to accept that and move on. Malleus Fatuorum 20:12, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

  Very few "arguments" here for changing styles are about this article. If it's been established at guideline level that styles A, B and C are acceptable, then they are acceptable. The "Style B is bad" sort of "argument" has been rejected repeatedly at the guideline level. If all the "argument" here is just more "Style B is bad", without reference to this article, then that "argument" is simply refuted by pointing to the consensus guideline. No substantial reason has been provided for changing this article. Gimmetoo (talk) 20:29, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

  One might equally well argue that no substantial reason has been provided for not changing this article to have all its dates formatted consistently. Malleus Fatuorum 20:43, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

  The dates are formatted consistency, publication dates in one format and accessdates in another. Gimmetoo (talk) 20:47, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

  That's two different formats; the best you can claim is that it's consistently inconsistent. Malleus Fatuorum 20:56, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

• How many edits does one need then to be entitled to contribute to the discussion? Franamax, you're on shaky ground with only 28. Actually, Gimmetoo would get to make the sole decision if our opinions were weighted according to the number of edits; between his two accounts he has made 452. Wouldn't this be somewhat opposed to the spririt of WP:OWN though? --John (talk) 10:59, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

• For my purposes, there's a distinction between anyone who was editing this article before and independent of the style dispute. I don't think your analogy of weighting above would apply, at least IMO. The question is, who works on the article and what has been gained by all of this ill will, and why isn't this effort expended on the guidelines rather than one article and one editor, who not incoincidentally was targeted in the past ?? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:02, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

7,968 words in this section arguing over the access date that nobody will read anyway. You people crack me up! Tex (talk) 16:23, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

If that was all we had done you would indeed by entitled to your crack. Malleus Fatuorum 16:30, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Tex is right, I'm unwatching now, but this sort of thing is really sad and doesn't speak well for Misplaced Pages. When so many good editors are arguing over a silly accessdate, instead of letting Gimme go about his business of maintaining an article no one else ever cared about, we've got issues. Did we learn nothing from the lamest ever Arbcom case? Bye, I'm sorry I wasn't able to be of more help; I thought I could affect some reason among people I think of as friends, and I've surely failed. Work to do elsewhere. IF there is a reasonable RFC somewhere about the guidelines, I'd appreciate it if someone would ping me. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:34, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes John I am on shaky ground. However I do feel that I am on stronger ground here than anyone else bar Sandy (who's correctly spotted the bullying) and Gimme. I've had this on my watchlist for ages, and if you look (way) back you will find where Gimme was on holiday and I discussed with Sandy picking up the ball on the BLP issues - and I think I got bitten a bit by Gimme when they got back on the scene for overstating something. So this article has been on "our" radar for years. It's not the hot zone it used to be, but all the way through it has been Gimmetoo riding herd here. I can bear witness to that, day-by-day from my watchlist, and I do believe that no single other participant in this discussion can do so. The plain fact is that you are all interlopers, sharpening whatever particular axe into a sharp WP:POINT, but you have no real particular interest here other than to win a battle. Everyone seems to have their own particular need to win something. In your case, you got pissed off about being reverted and rather than just redoing the edit without the automated changes (so as to, you know, make an improvement everyone could agree on) you decided to make an issue out of it. And suddenly all these revenge-seekers and axe-grinders took notice and here we are. The sad thing is that even given my low level of participation lately, I will still be a major "responsible" watcher here, long after the rest of you have moved on. And given how effectively this lot has screwed over the major friend of this page, I might even end up as the man in charge. Nice work there... Franamax (talk) 06:06, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Who exactly are you accusing of "bullying", and in what way has Gimmetto been bullied? If it's so lame to want a consistent date format throughout the article then why is Gimmetoo so resistant? Why is it such a big deal for him when hardly anyone else cares? And if he's such a "friend" of this article, why did he fail to spot and correct a blatantly obvious copyright violation, and in fact in his unseemly hast to revert John went so far as to restore it? The bottom line is that this isn't Gimmetoo's article and he has no right of veto over it, whatever you may believe. Malleus Fatuorum 11:24, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

These criticisms are not justified. John did not decide to "make an issue out of it" (as I started this proposal with no communication with anyone else). I did not do so as a "revenge-seeker" or "axe-grinder", and I can't remember ever having had dealings with Gimmetoo. And if the thought of using things like "April" instead of "04" is enough to demoralise someone to the point where they feel forced to walk away from an article, then there was most definitely too great a sense of ownership. I also don't believe that will happen, as I believe Gimmetoo will remain here as the dedicated and hard-working editor he has demonstrated. Regarding "long after the rest of you have moved on"—that is an assumption that is unwarranted. I have a vast number of articles on my watchlist to which I routinely perform clean-up, improvement, and anti-vandalism duties—and I will commit to keeping this page watched for those purposes. GFHandel ♬  22:29, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

• Support If a date is intended for machine-sortable usage like punch cards, then all-numeric dates with leading zeros like 2012-05-04 are fine. If the date is intended for humans to read (which is what content on Misplaced Pages is for) then “May 4, 2012” is easier to read. Greg L (talk) 03:36, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

I have only one motive: to improve the article for our readers—which in my opinion (and, as it turns out, the opinion of the majority here) includes displaying things again like "April 9, 2012" instead of "2012-04-09". I say "again" because that was the direction adopted after the more than 1,000 edits by more than 100 editors over the almost first four years of the article's life.
I'm more than willing to go through the article and implement the {{Cite web}} template for the 70 or so web links that (unfortunately) have not been standardised during the article's history. I will use the format of dates that is recommended by that template (the format that, in my experience, is the dominant format used by editors utilising the template). Of course, it will take a few days to load, check, and transfer the details of each URL to the {{Cite Web}} template, so I'm asking editors here to be patient and tolerant while the work happens. So how about we all relax a little, let me get on with the task, and see what the results look like?
GFHandel ♬  22:29, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

This might not go over too well, as Gimmetoo is also down on the use of citation templates and considers their addition to an article as controversial. Recent diff from my talk page -- Dianna (talk) 01:14, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Confronting Gimmetoo about anything never goes well, but that's no reason not to do it. Malleus Fatuorum 01:37, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

I made a good start on this today, however Gimmetoo has now threatened me on my talk page with:

Installing cite templates on an article that does not have them is contrary to guideline. You have previously been notified of this. You are also changing the reference format. As such you are knowingly editing in violation of guidelines. You will not be warned again.

I was under the impression that consensus was achieved, and I observed that there were no objections to my stated course of action (above). I don't understand the "Installing cite templates on an article that does not have them is contrary to guideline" message because that would mean that you could never add them (say) if the original editors didn't know how to use them when adding references. I will also note that the article does have {{Cite web}} template use (I think about seven of them were present before I start editing today).

GFHandel ♬  01:22, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

If your interest is "to improve the article for our readers", then you would not attempt to install cite templates on this article. There most certainly was an objections to your stated intent to violate guideline. Prior to this "discussion", It had 77 references without cite templates. It doesn't need them. Adding cite templates would adversely affect readers. Gimmetoo (talk) 01:35, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

In what way would it adversely affect readers? Malleus Fatuorum 01:42, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

• well, I support what GFHandel is doing because I like the article and wish it t be easy to read and understand for me. MathewTownsend (talk) 01:41, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, but that is simply not correct. This was the state of the article prior to my edits today. If you click Edit at the top of the page and search for "{{Cite web" you will find six examples. I am flummoxed by "Adding cite templates would adversely affect readers" because providing a standard method of presenting and formatting references is precisely designed to assist readers. Additionally, the job of going through the article and applying the templates (although large) will improve the overall quality for our readers (I've already corrected a few problems). GFHandel ♬  01:48, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but you are simply not correct. This article had no citation templates prior to this "discussion". I further note that certain editors are even edit-warring over capitalisation of the cite templates. Have any of you looked at ongoing and recent arbitration? Gimmetoo (talk) 03:25, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I wasn't the one who added those six recent {{Cite web}} templates, and I was talking about the state of the article that I found on 2012-05-09 when I offered to patiently go through the article and improve the formatting of the references. Regardless, the whole thing is moot since the article now has the template (and will soon have many more). For a little sense of proportion, please note that there are well over a million uses of the {{cite web}} template at en.WP.

Edit-warring? What war? I used {{Cite web}} and MF changed that to {{cite web}}. I'm happy with his change and will continue with his suggestion (when I have time to continue). Could you please stop trying to find fault?

Could you please provide us with a link to the guideline that states "Installing cite templates on an article that does not have them is contrary to guideline"? I will note that you now consider the action to be "contrary to guideline", however a week ago you considered it to be "controversial". What happened in that week to upgrade the practice from "controversial" to "contrary to guideline"? I have asked for more details about this at the Citation template talk page.

For the record, when you write "You will not be warned again", what are you suggesting your intentions to be when I (and I guess others now) resume the task of using the {{cite web}} template in this article?

GFHandel ♬  04:21, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

One can only assume that he's threatening to block us, just as he threatened to have me banned from GA reviewing. Some people are quite simply unfit to be administrators, and Gimmetoo is one of those. Malleus Fatuorum 04:33, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

BTW, I have no dog in the {{cite web}} vs {{Cite web}} issue. I'm simply one for consistency, and the first occurrence of the template I came across in the article was {{cite web}}. To call that an edit war I think says a great deal about Gimmetoo's unbalanced attitude. Malleus Fatuorum 04:45, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree. And having found one blatant copyright violation in this article (now dealt with) I have to add that much of the rather flowery prose makes me suspicious that there are others as yet undiscovered. Perhaps Gimmetoo might like to address that? Malleus Fatuorum 02:26, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I continued with the work today, however I just received the following message on my talk page:

As an uninvolved administrator, I would like to ask you to heed WP:CITEVAR. Please stop adding citation templates to articles which have been established without them. In particular, you have been advised already that Sean Combs was established without citation templates, and that others object to the conversion. Therefore, it is inappropriate for you to continue to convert references in that article to use templates, as with .

To which I replied:

No, it's not "others" who object, it's "other" (see the talk page discussion). From the same discussion, please note that others do support the use of the templates. The proposed action of adding the templates was made on the talk page and the work began yesterday. It is a large job, and I will have to do it in stages. It is now inconceivable to leave the article in a state where it has a mixture of referencing styles. In adding the templates, consistent formatting is being established, and issues are being detected and corrected (e.g. unnecessary use of archives, missing dates, etc.). Consensus has been established at the talk page, and at least one other admin has contributed to the work. For the record, could you please explain to the entire community exactly what it is about the templates that you feel are not helping to improve the article for its readers?

I don't see a relevant post on CBM's talk page, so I'm guessing he was contacted privately about this? I'm interested to read what any involved editors think about this development. I am more willing than ever to continue with the work, because I know that I am improving the article's quality for all of our readers.

GFHandel ♬  21:40, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

• Good work GFH and Malleus in tidying up the references. Gimmetoo, you'd better not be threatening to block as you are clearly involved here. CBM, which others besides Gimmetoo do you see objecting to the use of cite templates? --John (talk) 21:50, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

• Agree with John, though there's still some faulty citations on the page. e.g. ref 67goes to this useless page. Good work GFHandel! MathewTownsend (talk) 21:56, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

• Thank you to all. I'm going through the references in numerical order, so 67 is some way off. For each reference, I'm loading the destination URL, and confirming the parameters to be used in {{cite web}}, so I will eventually detect problems such as the one you noticed. Thanks. GFHandel ♬  22:02, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

  I was feeling a bit left out, not having been warned by CBM, but it's all OK now, I've had mine as well. The fact of the matter though is the pre-existing citations were a bloody mess, and it would be exceedingly hard to make them worse. the date format was the least of the problems. If CBM decides to block us for tidying up this article than it's yet another battle scar I'll wear with pride. Malleus Fatuorum 22:52, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

  I haven't had time to edit this article for a few days, but I would like to make it clear that I support improving this article by adding citation templates. Templates make citations easier to maintain and are familiar to all but the newest users. They ensure that all citations within an article will be fairly uniform in presentation. Material inside citation templates is accessible to Citation Bot, and ones without templates are not. Citation Bot crawls the wiki, fixing citations, making formatting corrections, and adding things like DOIs and jstor information (we're not likely to see any of those on this particular article unless Mr. Combs changes career paths, but still). -- Dianna (talk) 23:20, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I've looked at how the citations have varied over time in this article, and I must agree that settling for a consistent style is an improvement to the article, even if it is a minor one. What is more important is that using the {{cite}} family of templates does make it easier for automated tools to clean up and maintain citations - as well as emitting COinS data for others to use. Nevertheless, we should always be aware of the known problems with that family of templates, principal of which is the time taken for the server to re-create the page when it is edited. I've just checked the times with and without rendering the cite templates and the 33 templates in use at the moment increase the serve time from 3.1 sec to 4.4 sec. This suggests that using cite templates throughout is likely to increase the serve time form around 3 sec to less than 6 sec and I don't believe that presents a significant problem for editors. Although, should the number of references increase into the hundreds, then a faster cite template would be preferred - assuming that the article hasn't been split and converted to summary style by then. If there are any other reasoned arguments against the present round of edits, then it seems sensible to debate them on this talk page. I'll drop a line to Carl and invite him to comment on the discussion here. --RexxS (talk) 23:56, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

• While "improving" an article is a good thing, templates are not necessary, and they are a hindrance in various ways. The genuine improvements I've seen are a few archive links and some minor rephrasing, none of which required cite templates. I objected to the templates as soon as they were brought up. Continuing with these questionable templates could be viewed a an attempt at WP:FAITACCOMPLI. As for some of the "improvements": - it's trivial to find . And the complaint about ref 67 above (probably meant 69) could have been fixed with . I will remind editors to avoid "personalizing disputes and engaging in uncivil conduct, personal attacks, and disruptive conduct." Gimmetoo (talk) 00:01, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

• I don't get what you are saying. Why do you decide what to do with the article when other editors object? The citations really are a mess. Shouldn't you be glad that someone is taking on the job of fixing all the citation errors? I don't understand your point of view. And it seems drastic to threaten editors who are improving the article with being blocked. I thought that anyone could improve an article. MathewTownsend (talk) 00:09, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

• Nobody would stop "improvements". But that rhetoric hides the issue about templates. Do you think templates are always and everywhere an improvement over any other system? If so, then that's where we differ. Gimmetoo (talk) 00:14, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

• No. I have no opinion in general about templates. I think what RexxS and others have said is persuasive. And I think the citations in this particular article are a mess and that GFHandel is doing a good job fixing things up. MathewTownsend (talk) 00:19, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

• "Tidying up" whatever "mess" you think you saw did not at all require templates. Why not just "tidy up" the existing references? Gimmetoo (talk) 00:28, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

• Because I would tidy up using templates and might be blocked for doing that. MathewTownsend (talk) 00:43, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

I wouldn't go as far as to say that the references are a mess, however I'm still keen to do my part to standardize them with the cite web template (as per consensus here).

I will go as far as to say that the article layout is a mess. Why is a heading such as "2010–present: The Dream Team and Diddy Dirty Money" a sub-heading of the "Early life" section? If Mr Combs is planning to live to 150 then I guess that age 41 (in 2010) could be considered "early", however I'm suspecting that to be a tad optimistic. Perhaps Gimmetoo would like to leave the mundane formatting tasks to us worker ants here, and spend some time considering the layout of the article?

GFHandel ♬  00:38, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

I have always been against imposing templates on article that didn't previously use them because they clutter the text, and I'm opposed here for the same reasons that I've had and expressed for at least six years. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:26, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

But the article did previously use them. And it's inline citations that clutter the article text, not templates per se. Malleus Fatuorum 04:16, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

@ Rexx - Does the page generation time differ based on whether a person viewing the article is logged in or not? People who are not logged in are served a cached version of the page. @ Gimmetoo, SandyGeorgia: My opinion is that citations in templates are far superior to hand-made citations. Please check out what we've done on Adolf Hitler as an example. {{sfn}} templates combined with cite book, cite journal, and cite web templates make for a highly organised set of citations. Order promotes stability, and stability helps create a quality experience for our readers. {sfn} templates automatically collate duplicate references and create clickable links down to the bibliography. The system does not work as well on articles that are mostly cited to web pages, but it's a nice example of what's technically possible. I am in favour of using technology to speed editing as that frees up more editor time for other tasks. The time of our editors is virtually our only resource, so we need to spend it wisely. -- Dianna (talk) 00:28, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

@Diannaa: The server only has to generate a page when the wikitext changes, i.e. on preview or when you save an edit. Otherwise you get the last cached version of the page from the squid and templates have no bearing on that - it happens in milliseconds. The template "load" on the server only affects editing, not viewing, logged in or not.

@Sandy: if the text gets too cluttered, then why not use list-defined references and shortened footnotes? They can go a very long way to restoring the readability of what appears in the edit box.

Anyway, Gimme is the major contributor to this article, and as such deserves to have his substantive arguments debated fully. I would certainly agree that not every article is well-suited to citation templates. As an example I argued strongly for the retention of parenthetical referencing in Geogre's Ormulum at Misplaced Pages:Featured article review/Ormulum/archive1, since Geogre's writing style was complemented, in my humble opinion, by that referencing format. Sadly, I lost that argument. There are, in general, clear advantages in the use of citation templates, as are rehearsed above, but we must be prepared to discuss with Gimme (and anyone else who wishes to comment) when they disagree. I know that many editors worry that citation templates are off-putting for newcomers - and that is a genuine concern in many articles. Would I be right, Gimme, to see that as one of your major reasons for preferring hand-written cites in this article (which may be a natural magnet for younger, less experienced editors)? --RexxS (talk) 00:48, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

But the issue here isn't parenthetical referencing; it's inconsistent, incorrect, and messy referencing. Malleus Fatuorum 04:28, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Why not just "tidy up" the existing references, if you thought they were "messy"? Gimmetoo (talk) 23:18, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

I am. God knows what you're doing though. Malleus Fatuorum 00:00, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

I will again remind editors that "Editing in a manner so as to provoke other editors goes against established Misplaced Pages policies, as well as the spirit of Misplaced Pages and the will of its editors. Editing in such a manner may be perceived as trolling and harassment" . Gimmetoo (talk) 23:18, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

"Provoke"? My intention is, as it has always been, to improve articles for WP's readers. I have little control over whether that intent "provokes" someone. I will remind you that WP:AGF applies here as well, so please consider that a number of hard-working and dedicated editors are spending time to improve this article. Unfortunately, I don't have much time today, so I'll have to continue with the work later in the week. GFHandel ♬  23:32, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

It's not your statements that I had in mind. However, I don't find templates (or the date formats for that matter) to be an improvement. They are style changes, so largely arbitrary. (Templates have some significant drawbacks, however.) It take a lot of editorial effort to completely change the style of an article with 70+ references. Why spend all that effort? Gimmetoo (talk) 23:44, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm struggling to see the benefit of carpet-bombing everyone with general policy advice, and actually class such actions as much closer to harassment than anything I've seen here from other editors. The reasons for change are amply covered (and supported) above. Yes, it does take a lot of effort, but as stated and demonstrated, I (and of course others now) are happy to do the work. GFHandel ♬  23:56, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

No, the "reasons for the change" are not amply covered and supported. Nor were they discussed. I objected and editors nevertheless proceeded to change the article without discussion. Gimmetoo (talk) 01:01, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Interesting. I already explicitly told you how to improve this citation. How is tagging it "dead", despite already knowing what to do, "improving" the article? And , tagging as "not in citation", when it clearly was , let alone other links with the same 2007 quote. This is "improving" the article? Gimmetoo (talk) 01:05, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

• because I want to be helpful but not to get in trouble using templates, which is the only way I know how to do it. So now the article is receiving a cleanup, it helps to know which citations need replacing. Also, the wayback machine link wasn't there. Maybe you need to use named references or something. MathewTownsend (talk) 01:20, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

An edit adding some information contrary to the cited sources, this time by someone from the "group of copyeditors". I'm glad to see such keen interest in "improving" the article. Gimmetoo (talk) 04:41, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

You've got it backwards, Gimmetoo. I didn't add any content at all. I removed "to commemorate the inauguration of an annual October 13 'Diddy Day'" because there's nothing in the source saying that the event is held annually; it looks like it was a one-time thing. And I removed "It featured a white carpet to go along with the white dress code" because it had been lifted directly from the source without any paraphrasing, and is thus a copyright violation. -- Dianna (talk) 05:12, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

No, you got it backwards. Your edit put Diddy Day on October 16, 2006; contrary to the cited source. And you have not corrected it. Gimmetoo (talk) 07:20, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Interesting, another copyvio. Well done, Dianaa for removing it. I wonder how many more there are? I think in general the style of the article could use more work as well; it's a little chatty and fannish in places. --John (talk) 13:31, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

The style of the language is precisely why I'm convinced that there are still other copyright violations in the article. Malleus Fatuorum 14:25, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

... and I've just found another one. The entire final paragraph of the Charity work and honours section has been copied from this web site. Why is Gimmetoo not helping with this effort? Was it him who introduced all these copyright violations? Malleus Fatuorum 14:33, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Why are you still installing cite templates without discussion? Also note that most citations put the author in "First Last" form, not "Last, First" form. Gimmetoo (talk) 14:59, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Why are you not addressing the very serious issues of copyright violation in this article instead of repeatedly whining on and on about trivia and ignoring direct questions? Malleus Fatuorum 15:14, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

And surely you know enough about basic coding to know that with named parameters it makes no difference what order they're given in? Malleus Fatuorum 15:44, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Which issue do we currently think is more important, the date format, the use of cite templates, or the numerous copyvios and turgid writing style? I started off with an innocent copyedit whcih happened to align the date formats, but I think we have now uncovered some far more serious problems. This situation could have been designed to illustrate the ownership that well-meaning editors who have worked on an article can come to feel. --John (talk) 18:23, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

I have addressed them. Why are you repeating such very serious accusations without evidence, especially after being challenged on them? Recall WP:NPA#WHATIS. And surely you know the difference between |author=John Smith and |first=John |last=Smith. Gimmetoo (talk) 18:27, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Because they're true? You have studiously ignored the several copyright violations found so far, and I have no doubt that more will be found. Why did you let the article get into this state? Malleus Fatuorum 18:30, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

That is a highly provocative accusation. Demonstrate or retract, please. Gimmetoo (talk) 18:31, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

This talk page is full of such demonstrations of your focus on trivia while very obviously ignoring this article's far more serious problems, which you have not lifted a finger to help correct. Malleus Fatuorum 18:34, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Yet another very serious accusation. I have addressed every alleged copyright issue brought to my attention, including one that you studiously failed to correct. If you thought it was serious, why did you not correct it? Gimmetoo (talk) 18:40, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

I drew the first one to your attention, and given your very clear ownership issues allowed you to deal with it as you felt appropriate. You might, for instance, have decided to rewrite the offending text instead of deleting it. But tell me, why have you failed to spot any of the copyright violations discovered so far? Did you introduce them? Malleus Fatuorum 18:55, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

With 452 edits to the article under your two different identities (why do you do that by the way?), you are by far the main contributor to it. It is obvious from the amount of fuss you have made over a nonsense formatting issue that you regard the article as being "yours" (and, notwithstanding WP:OWN, that is something we can all do to some extent). Fine. So why have you allowed at least two serious copyright violations onto the article? Did you add them yourself? If we look further will we find more like this? I'd like to work on the article but am reluctant now because of the possibility that it is infected with multiple copyvios. Is it? You seem like the best person to ask as the most prolific editor of the article. --John (talk) 19:01, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

So you accuse me of "OWNing" at the same time as you accuse me of not "OWNing" the article enough. I don't recall adding any text so far alleged to be a copyright issue, and I resent your repeated accusations. Now are you willing to cut the rhetoric and actually engage collegially, or not? Gimmetoo (talk) 19:16, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

You still don't get it, do you? Has none of your behaviour changed since AGK got involved? Gimmetoo (talk) 19:47, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

• For the sake of apportioning blame (or not as the case may be), the copyright violation I discovered earlier today was introduced by an IP on 11 October last year with this edit. Gimmetoo next edited the article four days later, and interestingly did not object to the IP's use of the {{cite web}} template. Malleus Fatuorum 19:44, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
  • "Interestingly did not object to the IP's use of the cite web template"? Where do you get these things? I'm fairly sure I reformatted the stray template while updating some other information in light of a newer reference. Gimmetoo (talk) 19:56, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

    So you fiddled with your pet peeve of citation style while completely ignoring the fact that the entire text had been copy and pasted? Didn't the writing style look odd to you? Have you in fact checked any of the citations in this article, ever? Can you explain, for instance how this supports anything in the sentence it follows, which says "Sean Combs was born in a public housing project in Harlem, New York City, the son of Janice, a model and teacher, and Melvin Earl Combs"? Malleus Fatuorum 20:34, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

    Don't recall, and the link no longer provides the full story, but I would presume it included a brief biography of Combs that used the name of one or both parents. Gimmetoo (talk) 22:31, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

    This cite was not recoverable using the wayback machine, and we don't need two cites for these basic facts, so it's been removed. -- Dianna (talk) 23:05, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

• Except for perhaps the word "violent", this information is trivially verifiable, for instance . Gimmetoo (talk) 22:19, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
• I'm at a loss to figure out what's going on with this edit. In the first part, the text is missing a word now ("New York drug Frank Lucas"). In the second, apparently "party promoter" was removed, but why? See p.2 of a Time article that was already referenced there, for instance. Gimmetoo (talk) 22:49, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
  • The fact that a college student threw parties seemed unremarkable, so I cut it. I will replace Malleus has added the missing word. Stopping for a while; someone else can have a go. -- Dianna (talk) 23:05, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

    In fact the citation says nothing about him being a party promoter while at Howard; what it says is that he "schooled himself in party throwing", not at all the same thing. Malleus Fatuorum 23:11, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

    I think that's quibbling. He is frequently referred to as a party promoter during college , that it was his "first job in entertainment", and even suggesting that these provided him connections to arrange the Uptown internship. He did not merely throw parties while in college, but sold tickets to them . The Time article puts the phrase "party thowing" in the same paragraph discussing the 1991 event. Gimmetoo (talk) 23:25, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

    It's not quibbling at all, as the two things are very far from being synonymous. "Schooling himself in party throwing" may well have involved him in charging for tickets, but that doesn't make him a promoter as opposed to someone simply throwing a party and hoping to recoup some of the costs. Malleus Fatuorum 23:44, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

    Charging for tickets is not at all the same thing as recouping some of the costs. Gimmetoo (talk) 06:15, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

    In your world perhaps. But the bottom line is that none of these sources call him a party promoter during his time at Howard. Malleus Fatuorum 18:02, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

    I've looked over these additional sources and I still am not seeing how throwing parties was influential in the development of his career or tells us something about his character. I don't think it's important enough to be in the article. -- Dianna (talk) 04:54, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

    It was mentioned in substantial reliable sources (specifically - the general biographies). It's important enough to be in these sources. Gimmetoo (talk) 06:15, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

    Many of those sources are just breathless hagiographies though. "Hold the front page! A student throws parties!" Malleus Fatuorum 17:59, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

    Reliable sources find it relevant to mention in relation to this subject. Gimmetoo (talk) 03:11, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Templates, specifically

This article developed to have 70+ references, all written in wikitext without templates. I object to templates on this article for a number of reasons

• Cite templates increase the computational time to deal with the article in various ways. For editoring, it increases the time for preview and save; on articles with a lot of templates I sometimes have to wait over 30 seconds to preview/save. For reading (not logged in), articles with templates do appear to take longer to display, possibly due to time to process various tags the templates add. Even a few seconds extra on an article with ~5k views per day can mean hours of reader time.
• Cite templates clutter the text. The same information, without templates, is almost always shorter in the wikitext.
• One of the "advantages" claimed of cite templates is "consistency". YMMV, but I don't find the following citations, produced with the same template, to be consistent with each other. One has the date in parentheses as the second piece of information, while the other has the date as the third piece of information, and not in parentheses. These look like they came from different style guides. Citations of both types are almost inevitable in an article like this, referenced mostly to webpages.
  • Author (May 10, 2012). "Example". en.wikipedia.org. Retrieved May 16, 2012. {{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)
  • "Example". en.wikipedia.org. May 10, 2012. Retrieved May 16, 2012.
• RexxS says that manual citations may be easier for newcomer editors.
• There are some other considerations, but I think that's enough for now. Gimmetoo (talk) 14:48, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
  • See above, there are more important issues than cite templates. --John (talk) 18:24, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
  • If you find the inline citations problematic, a good option is to convert to list defined references. There's a script available that we can use to help with the conversion. It's a good citation system for stable articles that use a lot of web-based citations. It also makes it easier to put all the parameters into the same order on each citation, if that's important to you. As newer contributors would not be familiar with the system, it would require you to incorporate any new citations into the existing style, like I do on Adolf Hitler. A sample article with list-defined references can be found at Ted Bundy. But that's fusswork best left for another day; for now we had better focus on locating and removing any further copyright violations, and finding a way to resolve the remaining dead links. -- Dianna (talk) 18:59, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
    • As implemented, LDR is not really a good option, as it separates the citation information from the text. That could have been addressed had LDR been discussed with content editors before being implemented, but now that's water under the bridge. Nor are "dead links" really an issue - if the material was published, it can still be referenced even if the link goes "dead". (There is one mention in this article of material that was retracted, but that's a special case, and the cite is to the retraction.) Gimmetoo (talk) 19:24, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
      • I disagree about the dead links. The information at Misplaced Pages:Link rot states that dead links are a serious threat to the verifiability of the references. And as you know, WP:Verifiability is a Misplaced Pages policy, very important, much more important than the formatting of the access dates, or whether the references are called with a <references/> tag or a {{reflist}} template, or whether it says "accessed" or "retrieved". -- Dianna (talk) 20:28, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
        • • • WP:Dead links says: "WP:Verifiability does not require that all information be supported by a working link, nor does it require the source to be published online." Gimmetoo (talk) 22:12, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
        • To be fair, the problem that Gimme mentions is one that any form of named references suffers from. By implementation, all but one of the named references are separated from the text in every case. LDR differs only in that the full reference can always be found in a fixed place (in the References section). When I think of all the times I've searched back-and-forth in some large articles trying to find where a reference is defined in full, I'm surprised the adoption of LDR has not been universal. --RexxS (talk) 21:06, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

          There's an easy solution that avoids the hassle with LDR of having to keep two windows open; just add "importScript('User:PleaseStand/segregate-refs.js')" to your skin's CSS and all the citations are collected together for easy reviewing and editing in a separate window underneath the edit window, whether the article uses LDR or not. Malleus Fatuorum 21:12, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

  • I don't know what "hours of reader time" is designed to demonstrate. I just loaded the article as an anonymous reader in Firefox and the article displayed in under two seconds (IE took a little, but not much, longer). Of course it all varies a lot based on any number of caching mechanisms, but I don't feel we should be discussing issues to do with page-loading times (something that will only improve over time as hardware and network throughput improves). I have witnessed the different renderings of the cite web template, but that's the consensus decision that was made; and of course, the point is that if the rendering is under the control of a common mechanism, it can all be changed quickly (unlike hard-coded reference syntax). I don't believe that templates cluttering the text is a show-stopping issue. There is just so much reference text disrupting the article text anyway, that a bit more syntax is not much of a concern; and actually, I believe that the "|parameter=" syntax helps the editor to visually skip forward to find the </ref> marker. I am very interested to discuss LDR (should anyone care to push that a bit more here). Lastly I will note that as I write this, there are 1,117,911 uses of the {{cite web}} template at en.WP, so perhaps we shouldn't get too worried about how it is affecting or "disrupting" this one article (i.e. lots of articles and editors seem to be coping with it). GFHandel ♬  06:09, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
    • All you've said is that you don't consider the disadvantages of templates much to be worried about. I consider them rather more significant to this article, and consider whatever benefits the templates provide rather insignificant to this article. And so it is an arbitrary style issue; styles, like tastes, are not really debatable. We have a long-standing guideline against changing styles arbitrarily. That should have been followed. It wasn't. Gimmetoo (talk) 06:27, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
      • The general points regarding benefits that I (and others) have observed also apply to individual instances—e.g. this article. The guidelines also state that change can be accomplished: "...or seek consensus on the talk page before changing it"; and that was done. Instead of all this, how about leaving it alone now, and perhaps saying a simple "thank you" to the many editors here now who are working to improve the article for its readers? GFHandel ♬  22:45, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
        • If you believe the "general points" (whatever they are) apply to every individual instance, then make that argument at the guideline level. If you cannot get consensus on that, then you don't have a consensus based on "general points". That the disputed changes have continued, without discussion, is not particularly helpful. (That recent edits have had WP:V and other issues is also not helpful.) Gimmetoo (talk) 03:05, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
    • @GFHandel: I am going to put some general information about list-defined references on your talk page. It's the same tool Malleus was talking about; you can use it to get the citations out of the way temporarily while editing the prose, or you can ask it to get the citations out of the way permanently into a separate section. -- Dianna (talk) 18:40, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
      • Thank you. Very interesting. GFHandel ♬  22:45, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Edit issues

Another 2 days have passed. Editing has continued changing the styles of the article without discussion or consensus here. In addition to a handful of genuine improvements, I have observed editors removing cited or easily verifiable material, tagging cited material as not cited, and "copyediting" that adversely affected the text, making it less accurate or more difficult to verify. Good job. Gimmetoo (talk) 00:46, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

• Just for instance . If I recall right, the quote was in the video linked on the referenced page, but in any event it was reported elsewhere and even mocked on a comedy news show . Or : I have no idea what this editor tried with google, but this EW article "Rough Daddy" was easy to find. Editors should show due diligence before removing material. Gimmetoo (talk) 01:18, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

This negativity is hardly worth a response ("without discussion"?); except to say: feel free to help the other hard-working editors who are working to improve the article for all its readers. GFHandel ♬  02:06, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Did any of you respond on this talk page while editing in the last couple days? Gimmetoo (talk) 02:30, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

To address another issue: a concern was raised above that "Cite templates increase the computational time". For comparative purposes, the Jennifer Lopez article uses 350 cite templates (257 "cite web", 81 "cite news", 8 "cite book", 2 "cite journal", and 2 "cite album-notes"). Loading that article in a browser (which had never opened the article) took about eight seconds. Load time doesn't appear to be an issue at that article, and in conjunction with other page load overheads, I can see no reason for concern based on the 80 or so uses this page will have. GFHandel ♬  02:06, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Even a few seconds matters when a page is viewed thousands of times a day. And templates slow things down for editors, too. Gimmetoo (talk) 02:30, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Gimmetoo, why don't you welcome the help of GFHandel and others, since you don't seem to want to clean up the article yourself? IMO, the article is definately improving. An article on such a high profile person shouldn't be in the mess it was in for such a long time. MathewTownsend (talk) 03:01, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Not sure what you're getting at. Genuine improvements are always welcome anywhere, but how could one welcome the inappropriate removal of content? Gimmetoo (talk) 03:08, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

The information is still there; it's been paraphrased. If you have a citation for the direct quote and think it is preferable, you could try to make a case for re-adding it. But in my opinion saying "Combs said that fans didn't know how to address him, which led to confusion" is a lot easier to understand than "the P was getting between me and my fans". -- Dianna (talk) 04:22, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

If you have sources, and are able to extract the meaning from the paragraph I removed as unintelligible and undertake a re-write so it's understandable, that would be great. -- Dianna (talk) 05:26, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

If editors would stop removing material, none of that would be needed. And while technically this is not material removed, perhaps you might look at why the article no longer shows any material about Club New York, Lopez, or the lawsuit. Gimmetoo (talk) 11:02, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

If editors would stop adding copyrighted and unsourced material then removal would not be needed. Malleus Fatuorum 12:13, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps if editors would stop removing sourced material, there might be some progress. Gimmetoo (talk) 12:16, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps if you'd exercised due diligence in your efforts here there would have been no need to remove anything. There has in fact been a great deal of progress, despite your filibustering, unless of course you believe that an article containing multiple copyright violations is in some way superior to one that doesn't. Malleus Fatuorum 12:21, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

There has been a great deal of style changing, and some improvements, but I'm confident you wouldn't say that removing sourced information improves the article. Gimmetoo (talk) 12:27, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Then your confidence is misplaced. Incoherent ramblings, whether sourced or not, are unhelpful. Malleus Fatuorum 12:41, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Granted, incoherent ramblings are not helpful, but that's beside the point, as the issue is the removal of sourced information written in English. Gimmetoo (talk) 13:07, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Gimmetoo, if you have some good content you wish to add or re-add you are free to do so at any time. If you think re-adding content that's been removed might be contentious, just post your proposed edits here on the talk page first for discussion. -- Dianna (talk) 16:33, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Diannaa, you have so for not addressed or fixed any of the issues I brought up. Did you propose or discuss your contentious edits? Gimmetoo (talk) 03:48, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

If you could be more specific about what you want fixed, that would be great. Some of your concerns were dealt with already, and the talk page is too huge to navigate. There's no reason why you couldn't edit the article too, though, and fix problems yourself that you may have spotted. No one is working on it right now. -- Dianna (talk) 04:32, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

The only "concern" of mine that I'm aware was fixed was one word. If you could fix the specific things I have already mentioned, it would be a start. Gimmetoo (talk) 12:13, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Please make a list of your concerns, so I don't have to wade through a 200K talk page. If you want me to help you, you are gonna have to make a list of what you think needs to be done. And please do start jumping in and working on the page yourself. -- Dianna (talk) 13:25, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

I point out specific removed information that was sourced or easy to verify, and apparently that's not specific enough. This edit with the edit summary "trim unref" removed content sourced to the February 2007 issue of Blender magazine; did that editor check the source? Still no mention of Club New York, Lopez, or the lawsuit on the page? Gimmetoo (talk) 13:30, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

I clicked on the Blender article, and the material is no longer there. http://www.blender.com/?src=fc The same phrase is in the Telegraph, so we can source it to that. http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/the-gullible-making-an-art-form-of-consumerism/story-e6frezz0-1225878114367Y done -- Dianna (talk) 18:46, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Here's the paragraph I removed, as I was unable to parse the meaning and it was unsourced.

In December 1999, Combs was accused of assaulting Steve Stoute of Interscope Records. Stoute was the manager for Nas. Combs had filmed a video scene earlier that year for "Hate Me Now" that featured Nas being crucified but demanded that the images be removed. Stoute's refusal led to an argument and Puff Daddy's arrest for aggravated assault. This was followed by yet more negative publicity as The Lox left Bad Boy Records and a recording session with Lil' Kim and Lil' Cease, both of The Notorious B.I.G.'s Junior M.A.F.I.A. posse, was interrupted by gunfire.

Material that claims someone assaulted someone and that folks were shooting at one another surely needs sources in a BLP so i took it out. You say you want this sourced to Entertainment Weekly http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,273202,00.html , but that source does not mention Lil Kim or Lil Cease. If you want that part to stay in, another source will have to be found.

I have re-added the content about the assault charges (re-worded so it is easier to understand the sequence of events). However, the article doesn't say whether he was convicted, and if so, what penalty he faced (a fine? jail time?). If you could locate any information on the outcome of this charge, that would be great. -- Dianna (talk) 00:01, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Your third concern is a lawsuit, and the source you want used is the LA Times: http://articles.latimes.com/2007/oct/12/business/fi-combs12. I need a little help with this one please, as there are three separate legal matters discussed in the LA Times article. (1) James Sabatino sued Combs in an attempt to receive payment for work done in 1993; (2) James Waldon sued Combs for damages over an alleged attack by Combs' bodyguards (this incident is presently in the article); (3) Combs accepted responsibility for Chance, a daughter he fathered with Sarah Chapman (this information already appears in the article). So if you wish the Sabatino lawsuit to appear in the article it can certainly be added, but it would make sense to find some sources that talk about the outcome of the suit. This LA Times article doesn't do that. So let me know what you want done here please. -- Dianna (talk) 23:34, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

I gotta get ready for work now and will resume editing the article after supper if you want me to. -- Dianna (talk) 14:11, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

How could you "click on" the Blender article? It's a printed magazine. That this sentence was accompanied by a link that worked in 2007 but no longer does is not cause for removing material. WP:Link rot specifically says "WP:Verifiability does not require that all information be supported by a working link, nor does it require the source to be published online." Do you agree with that, or not? Gimmetoo (talk) 14:20, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Your edit removing the paragraph about the Stoute incident claimed that "Google pulls up nothing on this incident". You claimed "nothing". I found something immediately. You also claim you are "unable to parse the meaning" of that mateiral. It's English - what don't you understand? Gimmetoo (talk) 14:26, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

I just discovered that a few paragraphs have been snipped out; it's the material you were wondering about that covers the night club incident. I will locate the latest version later after work. I have to go now or I will be late. TTYL. -- Dianna (talk) 14:32, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

This one happened in one of your edits. If you recognize what happened, you might avoid it in the future. Gimmetoo (talk) 14:39, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Y done -- Dianna (talk) 18:46, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

• This is a rather confusing talk page edit, as it adds to material that I had already replied to, changing the context of the reply. Anyway, this LA Times article give the outcome of the Stoute charges. Gimmetoo (talk) 12:55, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

• No, it doesn't. "WP:Verifiability does not require that all information be supported by a working link, nor does it require the source to be published online." This was an AP story. The title (which can still be found easily) is "Chicago Mayor Gives Diddy Key to City". If you really want to quibble about the trivial info (cufflinks), then , though it was almost certainly in the AP story as well. Next , specifically the "cn" for "His attorneys were Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. and Benjamin Brafman." The tagging editor should have by that point read the following reference, and known that the info was there. I'm still waiting for "discussion" on the numerous unnecessary style changes that were and are made here over objections. Gimmetoo (talk) 16:34, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
  • I note that these issues have not been handled, and the editors who imposed their preferred style over objections have also abandoned discussion of their "proposed" style changes. If they have now abandoned the article, then it is time to facilitate other editor fixing the article, including restoring the long-standing styles. Gimmetoo (talk) 20:24, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

    You have a curious definition of "fix". Are you ever going to anything substantive to this article, or are you just going to keep on whinging endlessly about your preferred citation style? Malleus Fatuorum 20:28, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

    The consensus was to implement the technical changes, so they should stay, in my opinion. I have not abandoned the article; there is simply nothing left to do from a technical point of view, and no new material has been added that needs attention. -- Dianna (talk) 21:26, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

    Agree with Malleus and Diannaa. The article has not been "abandoned" by the editors who recently worked so hard to improve it. I will observe that the sky hasn't fallen in, and that there hasn't been a single complaint (regarding the consistent reference style, and easier-to-digest date format) from other local editors or resulting from the 407,418 views the article has received in the previous 60 days. GFHandel ♬  23:08, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

    Consensus was to improve the referencing mechanisms, and it was done and should remain (or be yet-further improved). I've tidied a few nits. Methinks this was mostly about not archiving this silly thread. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 04:02, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

    • I am still waiting for those who "worked hard to improve" the article to fix the issues they created. They have not . Because they left the article with content issues they created, it appears that their goal here was to change the existing, consistent, long-term stable style of the article over objections and without discussing the objections. Gimmetoo (talk) 10:53, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

      If there's content issues, please don't be coy about it; if you could please describe the problems that you are asking help with. I am not going to play guessing games with you as to what problems you are perceiving or what sort of help you require. -- Dianna (talk) 12:45, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

      • • Stop playing games. I brought up issues on the talk page, and you failed to address or discuss some of them. Gimmetoo (talk) 03:58, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

          I am not playing games. You waste my valuable time if you expect me to comb through a 200-kb talk page to verify that all your content concerns were addressed. To the best of my knowledge they were all addressed. If you have a specific error to report, please go ahead and do so. -- Dianna (talk) 05:43, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

          • • You chose to use your time to arbitrarily change the style of this article (to something inconsistent, even) and create problems along the way. You waste my valuable time by not responding to the issues when I raised them, and expecting me to repeat them when available evidence indicates they will never be addressed. Gimmetoo (talk) 02:15, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Your sole activity on Misplaced Pages for the last four days has been to post to this talk page! In the meantime I have logged 82 administrative actions, mostly file deletions; performed 52 edits to articles; finished off the promotion of Heinrich Himmler to GA status; participated in a couple of discussions at ANI; and answered eight queries on my own talk page. So I really question who is wasting whose time here. I am not going to hunt through this article or talk page for unaddressed issues; please re-post any unresolved issues you expect me to deal with. I have already politely asked you to do so several times. Any further posts like the above will be considered trolling on your part and will go unanswered. -- Dianna (talk) 03:54, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Violation of CIV noted. If you are unwilling or unable to put in the time needed to fix your the problems you have created, then just say so. Gimmetoo (talk) 04:19, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Which planet are you posting from? Malleus Fatuorum 04:22, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

It seems evident that Gimmetoo's only concern is over the date formatting used in this article, not its content, as if he loses this battle than he'll find it even harder in the future to impose his preferred yyyy-mm-dd format on others. Malleus Fatuorum 04:05, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Gimme, I've repeatedly said that I am willing to help, but you refuse to reveal what the problems are! I am not going to put in the required time to locate problems when you sit on your hands and do nothing, when it's obvious that you already know what the problems are, and refuse to tell me. I refuse to be manipulated in that fashion. -- Dianna (talk) 13:55, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

I identified problems and you did not fix them. If you are "not going to put in the required time" to respond to them, then why are you here? Gimmetoo (talk) 04:51, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I was planning on doing routine monitoring of new additions, where all new content should be (a) evaluated for inclusion-worthiness (b) checked for copyvio (c) checked to make sure the source is reliable and actually backs up the addition (d) copy edited to an encyclopedic style and (e) incorporate new citations into the existing citation style. But there's been no new content added for a long time. -- Dianna (talk) 14:17, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Oh, and I just noticed a bit of misinformation here: What I said was "I am not going to put in the required time to locate problems when you sit on your hands and do nothing" and you are interpreting that to mean "not going to put in the required time" to respond to them. It's not the same thing at all. -- Dianna (talk) 18:52, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

User:Dianna, I have told you that you have not responded or fixed some of the issues brought up here. It was you who made allusion to your valuable time. So, if it was not lack of time that led to you to not see, fix, or respond to some issues, then what was the reason? Gimmetoo (talk) 03:57, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Gimmetoo, I've also lost track of what the outstanding content issues are. Could you please (succinctly) list them again, and I'll do my best to help you and others address them. Cheers. GFHandel ♬  04:08, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Done, and next

I've just finished going through all the references in the article—which are now standardized with the "cite web" template, have all the appropriate parameters filled, and are all named.
I'm curious to see the LDR effect of putting all the reference information in the References section, so would it be possible for someone who knows the process to perform that edit, and then immediately revert? It would be interesting to evaluate how easy it is to edit, and to see if section load times are effected by LDR—things that might be tested by looking a the test revision of the article. Anyhow, up to others if this should be tried here.
I know that there are many editors here who are much more familiar with the GA process than myself, so how much more work do editors here feel would be required to achieve that status? I'm happy to continue working towards that goal if thought to be reasonably achievable. Thanks to everyone who helped with the recent work. Cheers.
GFHandel ♬  08:00, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

User Br'er Rabbit has just converted the article to LDR format—thank you. Happy to discuss of course, but I think LDR is very nice because it moves almost all of the complexity of referencing away from the casual editor. One question: does it mean that adding a reference means editing the entire article (with two changes in the one edit), or should two smaller section edits be made (one in the section with the new reference, and one in the References section)? If it's two section edits, then I guess that the References section edit should be made first so that the article is not left in an inconsistent state (even if that's briefly)? GFHandel ♬  09:40, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

The main thing that has to happen is for a user familiar with the system to monitor the article and incorporate any new citations into the existing style. This can be part of the routine monitoring of new additions, where all new content should be (a) evaluated for inclusion-worthiness (b) checked for copyvio (c) checked to make sure the source is reliable and actually backs up the addition and (d) copy edited to an encyclopedic style. I don't think it matters in which order the edits are done. Normally I do it as two section edits, the prose first and then the references, on an article with {sfn} templates. For an article with list-defined references I would normally do it as a whole-article edit.

I have taken several articles to GA and can tell you there's still a ways to go here. Articles are normally not promoted with dead links, and we still have three to resolve. And Citation Needed tags are a quick-fail. Any unsourced material will have to be sourced or removed. Every niggling fact does not need a citation, but all statistics and numerical values and direct quotes need sources, as well as any contentious statements likely to be challenged. -- Dianna (talk) 14:19, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Interesting. A "discussion" which never happened is now "closed", while one of the editors who insisted on removing content and changing the style is now replacing citations to news articles with repeated refs to a book apparently written by a children's author. Why? Gimmetoo (talk) 01:46, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

The fact that you still don't get it ought to give you some food for thought. Malleus Fatuorum 02:07, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

No response on the sourcing question, I see. Nice to know that Billboard doesn't show "Been Around the World" charting . When you are willing to address content and sourcing appropriately, let me know on my talk page. Until then, I'm not watching this train wreck. Gimmetoo (talk) 16:54, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Could you please explain the problem without the cynicism (because that just makes it harder to interpret your request)? If you are saying that there is some information that is unsourced, and you have provided the source, I'm curious why you aren't willing to click the relevant "Edit" button in the article and help to improve it? Would you like me to add the reference for you? To the other editors here ... is all that is being asked is to add a reference? GFHandel ♬  20:47, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Could you please not modify the context of my comments? One editor removed content because, according to the edit summary, "Replace unsourced content with sourced content; Billboard Hot 100 site does not show these other songs as charting, so I have removed that claim". But Billboard did, which illustrates the quality of "research". Again, I am not watching this article. When the "editors" here are willing to address content and sourcing appropriately, let me know on my talk page. Gimmetoo (talk) 11:56, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

If you are no longer watching the article, why are you continuing to post here? It can make sense to walk away from an area of Misplaced Pages that is causing one frustration, but to work it has to be total. Declining to work on improving the article, yet continuing to make unhelpful and cryptic remarks here seems like the worst possible solution. --John (talk) 12:16, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Parking lot for close paraphrases

• Section Business ventures has "In 2002, he placed at #12 on Fortune Magazine's "40 under 40..."

which closely resembles

In 2002, Combs was featured at #12 on Fortune magazine's "40 Richest People Under 40" list.

--John (talk) 19:46, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Hip-hop or hip hop?

There are 16 occurrences of "hip-hop" in this article and 6 of "hip hop". Which should it be? Malleus Fatuorum 20:45, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Our article is at Hip hop music which is slightly indicative. My own view is it doesn't matter; clearly both are used in the literature, but obviously it should be consistent throughout. Well spotted. --John (talk) 21:31, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

For consistency with our article then I'm going to go with "hip hop". Malleus Fatuorum 22:00, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

GA

Amazing (especially considering where the article was earlier this year). It really is inspirational to see a hard-working and dedicated editor like Diannaa plugging away to achieve such great outcomes. Well done, thanks, and best wishes for the GA. GFHandel ♬  00:20, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Withdrawn, premature. Gimmetoo (talk) 05:34, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

fixed — Br'er Rabbit (talk) 10:17, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

This nomination is closed. Interesting that a user who has made only 6 edits to the article (and 2 to the talk page) chose to restore the closed nomination, with inappropriate edit summaries, rather than address any of the content and sourcing issues I've already raised. Gimmetoo (talk) 15:24, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Due to repeated restoration I have been forced to quick fail this article for unresolved sourcing and content issues. Gimmetoo (talk) 15:40, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Fixed, gimme; you're being disruptive. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 15:49, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Sourcing and content issues have still not been addressed. Gimmetoo (talk) 23:52, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

The only thing that hasn't been addressed is your long-standing disruption, which I doubt you'd be getting away with if not by some miracle you'd managed to get through RfA. Malleus Fatuorum 00:30, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

why is this? I've been watching the page ever since the Rabbit started fixing the citations. Also have noted Dianna's contribution. Gimmetoo has contributed nothing positive and only disruption. How can this be? MathewTownsend (talk) 01:12, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

It's been going on for years with Gimmetoo, on various articles. Only he can say why. Malleus Fatuorum 01:19, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Sourcing and content issues have still not been addressed. I'll check back in a couple days and if they are still not addressed, I will consider a GA review. Gimmetoo (talk) 00:29, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

If you want to make a fool of yourself that's entirely up to you, but I'd strongly suggest a community review, as after your recent shenanigans an individual review would likely result in sanctions against you. Malleus Fatuorum 00:34, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

What happened here was that some peripheral content for which I was unable to locate readily verifiable sources was removed as part of the GA prep. That's a perfectly normal part of preparing an article for nomination, and I am prepared to defend the choices that I made. The fact that an independent reviewer has now passed the article to GA, while saying that "overall the article is really good", only serves to back up my choices as being improvements to the article. I would also like to point out that if you have some good properly sourced content you wish to add to the article, there's no reason why you can't add it yourself. There's no need to try to intimidate me or bully me into doing it for you. -- Dianna (talk) 11:59, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

wp:GAR does say:

• Fix any simple problems yourself.

Br'er Rabbit (talk) 16:43, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

I see there is still no substantive reply to issues that were raised weeks ago now. You removed sources, and sourced information. Had you addressed the issues when they were raised, perhaps they could have been discussed and resolved, but your persistent refusal to engage discussion made discussion difficult.Gimmetoo (talk) 05:16, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Are you for real? Either put up or shut up. Malleus Fatuorum 05:23, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Sean Combs/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Bruce Campbell (talk · contribs) 02:45, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

I'll be reviewing the article. Bruce Campbell (talk) 02:45, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Early life

There are a few stray lines and sentences throughout the article that could be combined. Combine the last two line of texts in this section, the ones that begin "Combs graduated from the Roman Catholic... " and "Combs said that he was given..." into one so the section instead has two paragraphs.Y

Career

Same little issue here; combine the part that goes "After dropping out of Howard University..." and "In 1991, Combs promoted an AIDS" as one. Neither is really too specific to need its own paragraph.Y

1997–1998: "Puff Daddy" and No Way Out

Put reference 22 at the end of the sentence, after "March 9, 1997."Y

"The album produced five singles. "I'll Be Missing You", a tribute to The Notorious B.I.G." -> The album produced five singles; "I'll Be Missing You", a tribute to The Notorious B.I.G.Y

Reference "Producer Tom Morello supplied guitar parts and played bass." - couldn't find a source; removed. -- Dianna (talk)

1999–2000: Club New York and Forever

"In April 1999 Combs was charged with assault as a result of an incident with Steve Stoute of Interscope Records. Stoute was the manager for Nas, with whom Combs had filmed a video earlier that year for the song "Hate Me Now". Combs was concerned that the video, which featured a shot of Nas and Combs being crucified, was blasphemous. He asked for the video to be pulled, but after it aired on MTV on April 15, Combs visited Stoute's offices and injured Stoute." = reference this section atleast once more.Y

2001–2004: "P. Diddy" and The Saga Continues

"A collaboration with David Bowie appeared on the soundtrack to Training Day, and he worked with Britney Spears." = reference this, also mention in what way he worked with Britney Spears.

Combs was a producer of the Training Day soundtrack; I am amending the content and adding a source (Billboard). It looks like he worked informally with Spears when she was having trouble with a drinking problem; I can't find anything career-related, so I will take it out. -- Dianna (talk)

"Acts that got their start this way include Da Band, Danity Kane, Day26, and Donnie Klang." - reference this line pleaseY

2005–2009: "Diddy" and Press Play

"The album features guest appearances by Christina Aguilera, Keyshia Cole, Mario Winans (signed to his label), Nas, Will.i.am (of The Black Eyed Peas), Mary J. Blige, Nicole Scherzinger (of the Pussycat Dolls), Jamie Foxx, Fergie, Big Boi (of Outkast), Ciara, Twista, Just Blaze, Pharrell, and Brandy." = Other albums on this article don't go into as much detail on the guest list; only mention the most notable artists on the project.Y It's just too much detail; I will summarize. -- Dianna (talk)

Business ventures

Combine the "In 1998, Combs started a clothing line, Sean John..." and "The clothing line was subject to controversy... " parts into one paragraph since they both discuss the same line.Y

Combine the "Combs responded with..." and "In late 2006..." parts since they both also discuss the controversyY

Move reference 84 to the end of the line, after "Bar Refaeli in its advertisements."Y

Accolades

Reference the MOBO Awards nomination. -- Not done; I can't find a source, so sorry. I will remove the content for now. -- Dianna (talk) 17:47, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

The section doesn't mention his Emmy or Teen Choice Awards, or some of the other awards mentioned at but they're not overly important. -- Not done; perhaps if someone makes a list article in the future, it could be added then. -- Dianna (talk)

The section could potentially be split into its own article per its length, which could be an easy featured list. But it's not relevant to the review.

References

Ref 2 -> it's Forbes, not Forbes magazine. Publisher is Forbes publishing.

Ref 7 -> work is Daily News (New York) and publisher is Mortimer Zuckerman.

Ref 13 -> work is Rolling Stone and publisher is Jann Wenner.

Ref 17 -> it's iTunes, not itunes.apple.com.

Ref 19, 21, 36, 43, 58, 60, 61 & 73 -> work is Billboard and publisher is Prometheus Global Media

Ref 25 -> publisher Amazon

Ref 28 -> It's RIAA, not RIAA.com.

Ref 29 -> work is People, publisher is "Time Inc.. (Time Warner)"

Ref 30 -> Wikilink Entertainment Weekly, publisher is Time

Ref 31 -> work is Los Angeles Times, publisher is Eddy Hartenstein

Etc. A majority of the references aren't done properly, and 98 is dead. If you want I could help with the references myself. If you need a reference of what is wrong with some of the references, take the Watch the Throne article as an example.

Overall the article is really good. If these corrections are all fixed along with the reference problems, the article will be passed. Bruce Campbell (talk) 05:14, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

I've tweaked the references you've mentioned and some similar ones, and will tidy further. Terima kasih (thank you in Indonesian;), Br'er Rabbit (talk) 10:10, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm gonna jump in here for just a second and ask a quick question about the Billboard refs. The publisher for Billboard was Nielsen Business Media, Inc up until 2010. Would articles published before then still list Prometheus Global Media as the publisher? —Torchiest _edits 13:48, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

The information was actually drawn from the website, not the magazine, if that matters, and if I am looking at it today, would I not use the current owner as publisher? Also, I have hunted for an alternate source for the information from Citation #98 (keys to the city) and couldn't find anything reliable. The material did not archive on the Wayback Machine; something about AP requiring the content to be removed after two weeks. A fansite was the only confirmation I could find. I will remove the material and the citation as there's no way to verify it any more. The other recommended citation work has been completed and is ready for review.

I think I have addressed all the concerns listed above, and am ready for the work to be checked. Thank you so much for taking the time to review the article. -- Dianna (talk) 17:47, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Excellent work on the changes, however, there are still more referencing errors.

I went ahead and took care of them myself since it's just easier to fix them myself than tell you how to fix them, and then have you fix them... and then have to check to make sure they were fixed. Etc.

The lead also needed some work, to much of it was about his nickname and there wasn't a single mention of his actual albums. I went ahead and just quickly added something better fitting.

I think it's now up to GA standards. Passed. Bruce Campbell (talk) 21:25, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Bruce! A great review that led to some nice improvements to the article. -- Dianna (talk) 22:08, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

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