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Yes Sirey

Thanks for your edit, but I've long been aware of an inconsistency in our presentation of British people with honours. On the same page, neither Thatcher nor Major are presented as they should be formally styled. Is this just a WP:COMMONNAME thing? I remain, as ever, etc... :) Gareth E Kegg (talk) 13:08, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Hi Gareth. See Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style/Biographies#Changed names for an answer to your point: "If a person is named in an article in which they are not the subject, they should be referred to by the name they were using at the time of the mention rather than a name they may have used before or after the mention." In the case of Margaret Thatcher and John Major, the two politicians did not possess a peerage or knighthood at the time Penny Junor wrote her respective biography of them. Philip Cross (talk) 13:25, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

WikiProject Women writers Invitation

Hello Philip Cross! Thank you for your contributions to articles related to Women writers. I'd like to invite you to become a part of WikiProject Women writers, a WikiProject aimed at improving the quality of articles about women writers on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the WikiProject Women writers page for more information. Feel free to sign your name under "Members". I look forward to your involvement!

Criticism of the BBC

Why did you mess up my punctuation fixes? -- AnonMoos (talk) 15:18, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, an accident. Philip Cross (talk) 15:29, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Doctor Who

Amusing that you dismiss Doctor Who as a minor part of the BBC's output in 1976 when it was actually at the height of its ratings, regularly attracting 11-13 million viewers on a Saturday evening and Tom Baker was one of the most recognizable actors on TV. Rodericksilly (talk) 17:41, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

It was then a minor part of BBC Drama, and the resources allocated to it were much lower than for more critically prestigious BBC productions of the time. The Saturday teatime slot was not peak-time scheduling, and for this era, the ratings of Doctor Who were lower than say, Coronation Street or This is Your Life. Philip Cross (talk) 17:54, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

I quote: "These stories also benefited from the fact that they were made during a period now widely regarded as a golden age of BBC drama, with extremely high production values being achieved across the entire range of series, serials and plays. Having reached an almost unprecedented level of popularity, Doctor Who was at this time regarded as one of the BBC's flagship programmes, and the production team were able to call upon not only the highest real-terms budget the series had ever had but also some of the cream of the Corporation's considerable creative talent to help bring it to the screen." (Howe-Stammers- Walker "Doctor Who - The Seventies") Rodericksilly (talk) 18:12, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Inevitably, in a book written for, and presumably written by, Doctor Who fans you are going to find a quote like that. It won't be typical of many general surveys of television drama. Michael Grade's rather clichéd comment about "clunky Daleks that couldn't go up and down stairs" is rather more typical. Philip Cross (talk) 18:22, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Grant Shapps

Hi Philip, this has been one of the more controversial political bios I've seen and it took a long time to get it straightened out. The problem is with a living politician the temptation is to list every story written and it's difficult to prevent the wiki becoming ludicrously long. I haven't undone your edit back, instead I propose that we try to shorten the section which is already disproportionately long to other current day sections which could do with a bit of updating anyway. By all means come back to me. But I'll wait a couple of days and if I've not heard back edit it down in length without losing meaning. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Contribsx (talk • contribs) 16:39, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

I have just removed the alleged false names, which is what I was referring to in my edit summary. In an article now running to 32k, I don't see how the handful of lines on this claim and the "political smear" counter-claim (both properly cited) could be reduced any further without, as you put it, "losing meaning." Philip Cross (talk) 17:03, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Books and Bytes - Issue 8

The Misplaced Pages Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 8, August-September2014
by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs), Sadads (talk · contribs)

• TWL now a Wikimedia Foundation program, moves on from grant status
• Four new donations, including large DeGruyter parntership, pilot with Elsevier
• New TWL coordinators, Wikimania news, new library platform discussions, Wiki Loves Libraries update, and more
• Spotlight: "Traveling Through History" - an editor talks about his experiences with a TWL newspaper archive, Newspapers.com

Read the full newsletter

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:51, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Discretionary sanctions notification - BLP

The Arbitration Committee has authorised discretionary sanctions to be used for pages regarding living or recently deceased people, and edits relating to the subject (living or recently deceased) of such biographical articles, a topic which you have edited. The Committee's decision is here.

Discretionary sanctions is a system of conduct regulation designed to minimize disruption to controversial topics. This means uninvolved administrators can impose sanctions for edits relating to the topic that do not adhere to the purpose of Misplaced Pages, our standards of behavior, or relevant policies. Administrators may impose sanctions such as editing restrictions, bans, or blocks. This message is to notify you sanctions are authorised for the topic you are editing. Before continuing to edit this topic, please familiarise yourself with the discretionary sanctions system. Don't hesitate to contact me or another editor if you have any questions.

Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 06:43, 8 October 2014 (UTC)Template:Z33

Interesting info

The info you added is quite interesting. I found a reference to the film while going over some old papers, and I looked it up. All of this is quite fascinating, is it? :) --Katafore (talk) 16:53, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

My understanding is that Jens Jørgen Thorsen's The Return of Jesus (1992) is not a good film, despite what is suggested in the NYT/AMG piece I cited in the article. Philip Cross (talk) 17:03, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

New Misplaced Pages Library Accounts Now Available (November 2014)

Hello Wikimedians!

The Misplaced Pages Library is announcing signups today for, free, full-access accounts to published research as part of our Publisher Donation Program. You can sign up for:

• DeGruyter: 1000 new accounts for English and German-language research. Sign up on one of two language Wikipedias:
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Do better research and help expand the use of high quality references across Misplaced Pages projects: sign up today!
--The Misplaced Pages Library Team 23:25, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

You can host and coordinate signups for a Misplaced Pages Library branch in your own language. Please contact Ocaasi (WMF).

This message was delivered via the Mass Message to the Book & Bytes recipient list.

Dasha Zuhukova

You edited the Dasha Zhukova piece to restore a prior version that had been changed in several ways after the topics were brought up on the talk page. In particular, you restored a large body of material that had either no source, or where the sources referred only to each other -- i.e., which were created for Zhukova's P.R. In addition, you restored some material that had been removed because of copyright problems.

The reason we bring these things up on the talk page is so that people can object before hand. And if they want to object later, they can continue the discussion.

When you ignore the talk page and revert a whole set of edits, that undermines the process of consensus.

It is worse, here, because the descriptions you put for your edits were incorrect -- you had not made just small changes or removed honorifics, you actually reverted weeks worth of changes be several different people whose purpose was to take out unsourced, hagiographic, and copyrighted material.

Please don't do that again.

Thank you.

Djcheburashka (talk) 03:17, 9 November 2014 (UTC)