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Interpersonal communication does not work when messages are left on individual users' talk pages rather than threaded, especially when a third party wishes to read or reply.
Being a "bear of very little brain", I get easily confused when trying to follow conversations that bounce back and forth, so I've decided to try the convention that many others seem to use, aggregation of messages on either your talk page or my talk page. If the conversation is about an article I will try to aggregate on the article's talk page.
If the conversation is on your talk page or an article talk page, I will watch it.
If the conversation is on my talk page or an article talk page and I think that you may not be watching it, I will link to it in a note on your talk page, or in the edit summary of an empty edit. But if you start a thread here, please watch it.
I may mess up, don't worry, I'll find it eventually. Ping me if you really need to.
please note this is a personal preference rather than a matter of site policy
Hmm. That anybody thinks "a number of" is better prose than "some" astonishes me, but I suppose it takes all sorts. On Misplaced Pages we are not paid by the word, and where meaning is similar, shorter is better. As regards the "brighter... brighter ... brighter.... brighter" question, I always like to see the TFA blurb look like brilliant prose. While there can be a danger of elegant variation if the changes are random, I stand by both these edits and intend to continue to improve TfA blurbs as long as I have the power to do so. Thanks for the ping. --John (talk) 02:04, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
Heh, I'm not looking to take away anyone's power ... I'm looking to go in the opposite direction ... I'd like to see the TFA paragraphs (blurbs) become some kind of group project, and you're certainly invited to the group, but I don't know yet what kind of pushback I'm going to get on that. On these two points: there's at least a suggestion in AmEng dictionaries that "several" and "a number of" might not be interchangeable, that they're both vague but that the second is vaguely more than the first, so I haven't previously been swapping one for the other; but personally, I'd prefer to rewrite "a number of" when I see it, and it looks like we've got support for that. On the second point, I liked your switch to "stronger" but agreed with the suggestions over at WT:ASTRONOMY, so I've added the word "apparent". - Dank (push to talk) 05:47, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
I believe it was User:Bencherlite about a year ago who invited me to copyedit these blurbs as they come out, so I consider myself already invited, but thanks for endorsing the invitation. As a mathsy/sciency sort of a guy I particularly hate "a number of". Not only is it lazy, longwinded, pretentious and vague, but it is meaningless when read literally, as pi, zero, negative nine and the square root of negative one are all perfectly respectable numbers. You may be right that the habit of turgid and pompous prose is stronger among Americans (I worked as an English teacher in California for a number of years and can vouch anecdotally for this) but it is not a habit to be encouraged and is not compatible with the criterion of "brilliant prose", I would maintain. --John (talk) 12:57, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
We may have gotten off on the wrong foot here, which surprises me, but I don't see anything here we can't work out ... our copyediting sentiments usually agree, and when they don't, there are ways to get answers. I'm tied up for a couple of days, I'll come back to this soon. One thing: I have never said anything remotely like "the habit of turgid and pompous prose is stronger among Americans". - Dank (push to talk) 14:56, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
No worries Dan and sorry to have given you that impression. I care passionately about language as I know you do too. Disagreement is important in order that we can drag things forwards. You're right, you said you had seen "a suggestion in AmEng dictionaries that "several" and "a number of" might not be interchangeable" and I paraphrased it to "the habit of turgid and pompous prose is stronger among Americans". I certainly wouldn't want to cause any sort of offence as obviously no one country has a monopoly on good or bad writing. I too am rather busy and it will be next week before I am back in my routine again. Take care, --John (talk) 15:40, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
Thanks, agreed with all of that. The only edit of yours (of many) that I'd prefer that you revert is this one. If I understand correctly, your point is that the word "apparent" is redundant and this isn't something that should confuse people. I think what the people at WT:ASTRONOMY are saying is that they prefer the word because (by implication, in their experience) people do get confused about the difference, even if they shouldn't ... and that's my experience too. I don't read the word as strictly redundant here. And it's a word that people familiar with astronomy will be looking for to give them confidence that we know what we mean. - Dank (push to talk) 16:03, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
Always a pleasure to work with you. These blurbs are probably too important to be done by one person or a small group. Generally the more eyes the better. --John (talk) 16:40, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
Likewise, John. Btw, two of your edits got reverted; "brightest" and "noted" got re-inserted. If you're wondering what I'm going to do about it ... I don't know yet, I need a few more days. I know what I'm looking for ... I'm looking for a lot of people who know something about the prose standards at both TFA and their home wikiproject, so they can help explain practices that often don't make sense to wikiprojects (and sometimes aren't followed at FAC). I'm thinking about how to get there. Your thoughts are welcome. - Dank (push to talk) 05:25, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
I saw. Repeating the word brightest over and over is just clunky writing. Saying something is notable on either a Featured Article or its blurb is beyond the pale. I have re-reverted this one and left the user a note. We have a few days before this one is due to run. Let's hope it can be resolved. --John (talk) 14:07, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
I see you are still quite new here. I will fix up the error you made (you should have used undo rather than revert) and we can continue this conversation in article talk. --John (talk) 22:54, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
Hello again John! I hope You have had a pleasant Christmas and New Year. I cannot really comrahend that we now are in the 16th year of this millenium, the 1999-2000 New Year feels almost as yesterday. To the matter, I've written about the HH Ferry route between Elsinore (Danish: Helsingør) and Helsingborg. It's far from finished. But as I read the lead , I noticed that I had written "line" were it really should be "route" (the route has been operated by many sipping lines through the history. But as I didn't want to use the word "route" finishing one sentence and begin the next with "The short route", I began looking for a synonym. First I thought of "path" but discovered and choose the word "itinerary" (a word I've never even heared before). So my question is, is "itinerary" ok, entirely wrong or perhaps too difficult (There are word in my native Swedish I don't comprahend and hence assume such words exists also in the very synonyme rich Engling language) Any possible comment would be appriciated. Boeing720 (talk) 15:01, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
I had a quick look at it and I am confident that I can improve it by copyediting it. I will try to look in the next few days. --John (talk) 16:09, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
That wood be nice, thanks! If there are spelling errors like "ertor" instead of "error", I want to tell You that I have got a disturbing problem with my right eye. It's like looking in water. It came after (not due to) I began wrighting this article.
Aside of the article, would You say that the word "itinerary" is understood as "route" by a majority of British people. I think this is the first time ever I've used a word of which I never before had heared of. Boeing720 (talk) 22:16, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
I am on holiday for the next couple of days. I should be back to normal by Tuesday or Wednesday and will give your question the attention it deserves then. --John (talk) 16:10, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
