User talk:Alan smithee

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Deleting redirects
Hi - I see you've listed a couple of useless redirects on Articles for deletion. While I fully agree that these need deleting, you might like to know that technically speaking the proper place to take redirects is Redirects for deletion. &mdash; Haeleth Talk 01:10, 5 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Re your note: the only thing you forgot was to sign your name with ~ . Apart from that, perfect. You're doing a great job with the redirect maintenance, too!
 * This next bit may be confusing, so let me apologise in advance. I'm re-listing the AfDs, because if I don't, someone else will. I'm also going to close them, though, since you've taken the redirects to WP:RfD. So everything's okay. ^_^
 * If you're still not certain about anything, or if you'd like any more help, then please do just ask. The deletion process is hideously arcane - there are even some administrators who constantly make mistakes with it - so there's certainly no shame in not understanding it! &mdash; Haeleth Talk 01:44, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Question about your edit
Hi, I am a new WikiGnome & so don't know a lot of the mysteries of Wikiformatting. In your recent edit of the "Epistolary novel" article, you added the English titles onto the beginning of the titles of a few foreign-language novels I had added to the article, along with a vertcial bar. What does this do? Does it direct the reader to the article describing that novel, using the English-language title of the novel as the title of article? Z Wylld 21:53, 12 January 2006 (UTC)


 * That's exactly what it does. It seemed most logical that, since WikiPedia pages seem to be generally titled using English versions of book titles, I had the foreign-language-title links still display the foreign-language titles, but link to a Wiki page titled with the English title of the work.  (If said English title exists, it'll go there; otherwise, it'll only tacitly suggest the creation of the English-title page (not both the English-title page and the foreign-title page).) Alan smithee 22:57, 12 January 2006 (UTC)


 * THANX for the information! I feel educated & edified to boot. Z Wylld 19:13, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Sr. and Jr.
It is obviously accepted on Wikipedia to insert a comma in. Please stop changing this, as I just have to revert your edits. Thanks. Harr o 5 05:46, 5 March 2006 (UTC)


 * How is this "obvious"? I see both versions with and without a comma.  Most style guides explicitly disallow the comma, and I couldn't find an explicit rule either way on Wikipedia.  Could you please explain why you "have to" revert my edits?  Alan smithee 08:00, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
 * The fact that all articles with a Sr. or Jr. in the subject's name should make this clear. For example, Martin Luther King, Jr., a very popular article. The fact that his article uses the comma, after having been edited by thousands of Wikipedians, should indicate this strong convention. Thus, I want to ensure the convention is followed, and reverted your changes to maintain this. Harr o 5 05:06, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm assuming your first sentence means, essentially, that since "all" articles with a Sr. or Jr. in the subject's name follow the convention of using a comma before the suffix, that is a strict convention here. But plenty of articles don't: Norm Coleman, Will.i.am, Ray Parker Jr., William Clay Ford Jr., Snoop Dogg, Andrew Card, William Wrigley Jr., W. Mark Felt, Muhammad Ali, Scooter Libby, John Glenn, Albert Hammond, Jr., David Strickland, Edward Burns, Pete Rose, Bob Mothersbaugh, John F. Kennedy Jr., Nelly, John Grisham, William F. Buckley Jr., William Holden, Anthony J. Celebrezze, Anthony J. Celebrezze Jr., Quincy Jones, William H. Macy, Tom Sizemore, Burt Reynolds, LeVar Burton, J. Presper Eckert, Armistead Maupin, Robert Downey Sr., Henry Paulson, Jimmy Lennon, Jimmy Forrest, Rod Roddenberry, Danny DeVito, Carl Laemmle Jr., René Elizondo, Felix Pappalardi, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Tom Clancy, Luxo Jr., ... to name a few.  I certainly agree that many articles use the comma, but many don't, and most style guides recommend not using the comma (e.g., CMS 14th ed. 8.55).  If you're still dead set on keeping your reversions of my changes, shouldn't there be something explicit about this policy in some Wikipedia style guide?  (And isn't this a decision for more than just one person (or two people), anyway – isn't that one of the fundamental points of Wikipedia?) Alan smithee 07:40, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Postal abbreviations
Hi, I changed your edit to the article for Steven Tyler where you had changed the links for his birthplace. You changed "Massachusetts" to "MS" and I changed it back. First of all, because MS is the abbreviation for Mississippi, not Mass. Also, because most people outside the U.S., and even some within, wouldn't know what MS is but they have a better chance of knowing that Massachusetts is a state. Dismas|(talk) 17:02, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, that's a terrible example of rushed editing (on my part). (The "MS" instead of "MA".)  I hadn't thought about the view outside of the US (ah, the naive American).  FWIW, my intent was to separate the single "Boston, Massachusetts" link into two separate "Boston" "MA" links.  Thanks for catching that. Alan smithee 19:57, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks
Thanks for fixing my mistakes (regarding possible keys) on Vigenère cipher. I don't know what I was thinking. BrokenSegue 20:53, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
 * No worries. Hopefully that balances out my postal-abbreviation mistake above ... Alan smithee 07:19, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Good is Good -> Good Is Good
Please do not move pages by cutting and pasting the contents into a new name; this is a direct violation of Wikipedia policy. You should only move pages using the "move" tab at the top of each page. Thanks. Extraordinary Machine 17:55, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Sorry about that. Thanks for the information.  Alan smithee 01:33, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Fate Is the Hunter
You recently changed a link on the Rod Taylor (actor) page (from Fate Is the Hunter to Fate is the Hunter), stating that the change represented the "correct" title. Could you tell me your source? Thanks! Alan smithee 04:14, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, it comes from 2 things: 1) the version with "Is" capitalized is a redirect to the version with "is" in lower case in wikipedia.  and 2) words like "is" in titles are not usually capitalized.  However, upon further research, I found that imdb.com lists the film with "Is", as do some other sources (from google), but not all.  So I would say that "Is" is (I sound like Bill Clinton) probably correct, even though it conflicts with my understanding of standard English syntax. --rogerd 06:20, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Edit summaries
I noticed that you generally don't use edit summaries in your edits to talk pages or articles. They are very useful to other editors when looking at the edit history or recent changes to an article. Please review the Help:Edit summary article and let me know if you have any questions. Thank you. --rogerd 06:30, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I have been incredibly sloppy about that – thanks for pointing that out. I'll try to be more responsible about that in the future. Alan smithee 00:29, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Re: Question about Wikipedia Style
This is quite odd. It seems perfectly obvious that there is no "standard" way of adding a "junior" suffix to a name. If you ask me, the Wikipedia way is to avoid arbitrary prescriptivism: I would say we should use the most common form for each individual, and if that is hard to find out, just stick with whatever the article has. That would follow the precedent established for things like American/British spelling differences, as well as the fundamental rule that an article should be given the name most people will be expecting it to have.

The way to get a guideline changed is to propose a change on the talk page of the guideline itself. That way, everyone who cares about the guideline text will see your proposal and discuss it, and it will either be adopted or rejected. It appears this particular guideline is being treated quite protectively by the editor who created it, which means it's likely that any proposal will be contested, so be prepared to argue your case. :)

You might like to refer to some printed style guides to get an idea for how other people approach this matter. For example, while Hart's Rules does state that a comma should normally be used for Americans, it is quite explicit that the comma should be left out for British people, or for Americans who did not habitually use a comma themselves.

If you do decide to propose that the wording of the guideline be broadened, let me know; I'd be happy to support you. &mdash; Haeleth Talk 12:25, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Film adaptation
I've basically been waiting for a year for any of the people who edit Film adaptation to notice that I hadn't bothered to find out the precise linking for Ten Things I Hate About You and O. I don't mean to say that I was writing poorly on purpose, but rather that I tend to leave a few things intentionally in the articles I do that I think are going to get a lot of edits. In that year or so, the edits have been somewhat predictable (everyone wanting to add his or her favorite type of adaptation (the comic books, e.g.)) and unpredictable (one editor on a jihad to say ... something... about Clarke's writing of 2001 being...I think he wanted to say "after" the script) and some pleasantly surprising (people haven't done the usual Wiki-mess of adding and adding and adding to that foolish "list of adaptations" at the end of the article (the list I had nothing to do with; it's about the only thing left from the substub originally written); normally, wiki editors love to add things to lists). You're the first to correct the substantive gaps. Geogre 13:40, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Capitalization of prepositions
While some style guides recommend lowercase for all prepositions, it seems that most recommend lowercase only for short prepositions. In the the case of the specific things ("10 Things I Hate About You" and "Wings Over America"), a google search for those terms turns up no results (until I got tired of looking) of an instance in which "about" or "over" is written with a lowercase first letter. So since these articles are widely refered to using the uppercase version of those words, and Wikipedia doesn't seem to have a specific policy about capitalizing prepositions, I think we should go with what everybody else is doing for these subjects. Qutezuce 07:53, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Generally, if I were creating a title, I'd argue that we use miniscule for prepositions. That's the classic style I've been taught and teach.  However, our primary duty at Wikipedia is to report and to lodge novel lemmae at positions where they will be most commonly sought.  Therefore, if the film company called their movie "Ten Things I Hate About You," it's our duty to lodge our article at that location, with the majiscule.  If, on the other hand, we're creating a new article, we should locate it where it will be most often sought.  Beyond that, Wikipedia does have a guide in naming: Majiscule for the first word and miniscule for all subsequent words, regardless of part of speech, unless it is part of an artwork or work that carries capitalization.  So, if it is an artwork, we should do what the publisher does.  If it's not, miniscule.  For textual reference, I'd say we should be accurate to the published version.  Geogre 13:22, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Wings over America has "over" in lowercase on its cover and 10 Things I Hate about You has "about" in lowercase on its poster:
 * none|200px|thumb|Wings over America cover [[Image:10 things poster.jpg|none|200px|thumb|10 Things I Hate about You poster]]
 * Additionally, my copy of The Chicago Manual of Style (14th ed.) notes in 7.127 (p.282):
 * Articles (a, an, the), coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, for, nor), and prepositions, regardless of length, are lowercased unless they are the first or last word of the title or subtitle.
 * (the bold is mine). My copy of MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (3rd ed.) notes in 2.5.1 (p.50):
 * Therefore, capitalize nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and subordinating conjunctions (although, if, because), but not articles (a, an, the), prepositions (e.g., in, to, of, between) ...
 * notice that one of their examples is a seven-letter preposition. Which style guides recommend lowercase only for short prepositions?  And as far as concern with people finding these articles where they're commonly sought I completely agree (though I think a redirect for Wings Over America and 10 Things I Hate About You sufficient). Alan smithee 21:09, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
 * The poster of 10 Things I Hate About You also has the words "things", "hate", and "you" all lowercase, do you recommend we lowercase them as well?
 * This guide at dictionary.com says that only short prepositions should be lowercase, and this guide for university publications at the University of South Carolina also says that only short prepositions should be lowercase.
 * As far at 10 Things I Hate About You, there seems to only be two possibilities, like the poster ("10 things I hate about you"), or like every textual reference I can find (Amazon, imdb, every result on a google search) ("10 Things I Hate About You"), which seems that it would be the publishers prefered textual representation. Qutezuce 21:30, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
 * My apologies &mdash; I should have been clearer: my pointing out that "about" appears in lowercase on the poster was merely to note that it wasn't capitalized; were it capitalized on the poster, there might be a better argument that the creators of the film had meant for "about" to only appear capitalized. Also, I do not recommend placing "things," "hate," and "you" in lowercase.  I would argue that (and, in fact, do argue above that), in addition to the two possibilities for capitalization that you suggest, there is a third (10 Things I Hate about You), as prescribed by CMS and MLA (as I note above).  You present two (seemingly) minor style guides (presumably) to counter two of the most respected in the English language; it seems that me both that the CMS and MLA are clear about how to treat this case and that they should be adhered to above the other two style guides (so long as Wikipedia users can find the article they are looking for through 10 Things I Hate About You, of course).  Frankly, it seems to me that Google, IMDb, Amazon.com, etc. are great source for determining how people might search Wikipedia (hence why the redirect page is there) &mdash; in other words, what are popular capitalizations &mdash; but they should not be to basis for determining what is the correct capitalization.
 * I'd like to also comment on the authoritativeness the two style guides you note. Who runs dictionary.com (in particular, why should it be considered authoritative?)  Additionally, isn't it even possible that they got their rules from the same source as USC, thus making these two sources used to counter CMS and MLA essentially one (possibly weak) source?  And what exactly does "short" mean &mdash; is a five-letter preposition too long?  The USC site lists three examples, all of which are two-letter prepositions, but, as they don't exhaust the list of two-letter prepositions (e.g., "to" is missing), they presumably cannot mean that those that they list are a complete list of "short" prepositions.  I would say there is at least some doubt as to the how the USC and dictionary.com rules apply here and, as the very first rule under capitalization on the USC Web site states: "[w]hen in doubt, do not capitalize." Alan smithee 01:00, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Above and beyond all style guides I think we should go with what the producers of the film intend. What is on the poster is a graphical rendering and does not seem to be the intention of the producers for how the film should be refered to in textual form. Amazon, which most likely gets its data from the movie industry (I don't think someone at Amazon types in the titles of all their products when they arrive in the warehouse), and IMDB, which seems to be somewhat of industry standard would most likely get it right. Plus the absence of a single instance of the title of the movie with "about" lowercase leads me to believe the producers intended "about" to be uppercase.
 * My point about the style guides is simply that there are different conventions, and Wikipedia doesn't itself have anything to say on the matter so there is really no reason to go against the producers wishes on capitalization based on conflicting conventions. Qutezuce 01:09, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Two of the biggest (most accepted, revered, authoritative, etc.) style guides are clear about what to do &mdash; even the USC style guide leads to agreement with CMS and MLA. (If I started a tiny Web page that disagreed with a point that every style guide agreed upon, does that suddenly make "conflicting conventions" that, thus, should be ignored?)  I completely understand your concern caused by Wikipedia not specifically covering this issue (if that is actually the case &mdash; I certainly couldn't find it covered); I think that details should be added to the style guide.  However, the Wikipedia Manual of Style is clear what to do when a rule is not covered: Manual_of_Style says to revert to a style guide such as CMS (or Fowler's, though I think this issue falls outside of Fowler's bailiwick).
 * Also, I don't see how capitalizing "about" is "go[ing] against the producers wishes on capitalization" &mdash; how do we know the "producers wishes?" But, more importantly, I don't see why Wikipedia articles should match "producers wishes" &mdash; Wikipedia is not a forum for advertizing, it is an encyclopedia.  Again, I agree that if someone looks for 10 Things I Hate About You, they should have no trouble getting to the article &mdash; but that is exactly what redirects are for. Alan smithee 19:39, 24 June 2006 (UTC)


 * The producers created their work, they named it, we should respect how they want it to be named. Naming a film properly is not advertising, the existence of the page could be considered advertising, but naming the article properly is not advertising. Would you like it if I refered to you as "Alan Smithy"? I don't think so, that is your choosen user name, and it should rightly be respected. Should we also change the name of the movie to "Ten Things I Hate about You" because there are plenty of style guides that would recommend spelling out the number 10?
 * As I already explained we know the producers intensions because many websites which likely get their data directly from the producing studio have consistently spelled the title. For further proof consider this: movies.go.com is a website owned by Buena Vista (look at the copyright on the bottom of the page) the distributor for the film, the Touchstone Pictures website, the production company for the film, is even hosted from movies.go.com, (see the company credits page for 10 Things I Hate About You at imdb) If you do a google search limited to movies.go.com for "10 things i hate about you", every result you get (at least until I stopped looking after about 60 results) has "about" capitalized. There doesn't seem to be any doubt the producers of the movies want "about" to be capitalized.
 * Your argument about redirects is moot, I could just as easily use it to argue that the article can be placed at my prefered place.
 * The MLA style guide is for academic writing in the humanities, so it does not apply here. So that leaves just the CMS, and you simply cannot deny that there is another convention on this issue, I've shown you two places where it is used (one from a major university, another from a website that is the 132 most visited website on the internet ). It doesn't matter that the CMS is more prestigous or whatever, the fact that there is another convention different from the CMS cannot be changed no matter how prestigous the CMS is. Qutezuce 06:45, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
 * The Wikipedia Manual of Style states that this issue should be resolved by "other resources, such as [CMS or Fowler's];" CMS resolves it.
 * The only reason why I am writing any more is to respond to several of your specific points (which I believe become moot by my previous sentence); I appreciate a healthy, intelligent debate and I don't want to simply be dismissive of responses you took time and thought to respectfully create (something that seems rare in any sort of discussion on the Internet).
 * I have no interest in changing the name of the film; my interest is in how it is indexed in Wikipedia.
 * Should we, for example, reindex the Amazon.com Wikipedia page with a lowercase "a" because of their logo? Image:Amazon.com logo.gif
 * "Smithy" and "Smithee" are different spellings; if my account were being referred to by something (say, an on-line encyclopedia) in which the appropriate style were "Alan Smithee" (with a capital "S" &mdash; or even "Alan Smithy," though it does seem odd that a style guide would suggest that), I would not object.
 * A Web site that lists the film as "... About ..." is proof only that the person who typed in the relevant code/data for that Web page typed "About." (Additionally, I conjecture that the production company probably doesn't care how "about" is capitalized.)  Also, an argumentum ad populum (or argumentum ad Google, if you wish) does not provide a convincing argument about the producers' wishes.
 * I'm sorry I that was unclear in my redirect argument (it is sometimes difficult to communicate through this medium). I meant that it seems to me that a lowercase "about" is correct, but that I agreed with at least this concern: if someone goes to 10 Things I Hate About You at Wikipedia, they should get the appropriate article; my suggested solution to this concern is a redirect link.  Your suggestion that the article could equally be placed at 10 Things I Hate About You (and presumably include a redirect from 10 Things I Hate about You) misses my point: then the article would be, according to CMS (and, thus, according to the Wikipedia Manual of Style), in the wrong place.  With both options, either capitalization will lead Wikipedia users to the right place; however, mine adheres to the proper style.
 * How are film and the construction of an encyclopedia not related to the humanities?
 * That dictionary.com is the 132nd-most-visited Web site does not mean their style guide is correct. (Additionally, this can be considered an argumentum ad populum.)  I agree that there are other conventions, insomuch as other Web sites, books, etc. present alternatives to The Chicago Manual of Style's view; Wikipedia just happens to lead one to use CMS to resolve this issue.
 * (Also, you never responded to the following notes. (1) Your alternatives in one case is unclear (how short is too short?) and in the second case suggests "[w]hen in doubt, do not capitalize" (and there clearly is doubt here).  (2) If I started a tiny Web page that disagreed with a point that every style guide agreed upon, does that suddenly make "conflicting conventions" that, thus, should be ignored?)
 * Again, except for the first sentence, all the points in this response are moot to the primary argument &mdash; unless there is something wrong with the first sentence of this response ("The Wikipedia Manual of Style states that this issue should be resolved by 'other resources, such as [CMS or Fowler's];' CMS resolves it.") Alan smithee 02:13, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure why we keep going on circles here, but it is abundantly clear what the producers intentions are, every single instance of the film's name on the producers own website has "about" capitalized. This is not an argument by google or argument by popularity, this is how the producer of the films website consistently spells the name of the film, as I was searching the producer's of the film's website (just because I used google as a tool to search their website doesn't invalidate the information I got from the search tool). No style guide can override what the producers of the film intend the title to be, and that is "10 Things I Hate About You". If there was any confusion in the production company then you'd think there would be one single instance of "about" being lowercase, but I haven't found one, and you haven't produced one. It seems to me like a consistent effort has been made to consistently capitalize the name of the film by the production company (and by everyone else too). Your conjecture that the production company doesn't care about the capitalization is not backed up by any facts whatsoever, while I've have provided overwelming evidence to the contrary.
 * Regarding Amazon.com, I'm not sure why we would want to rename the Amazon.com as that is what Amazon.com refers to itself as in textual form (while it's graphical logo uses a lowercase a, whenever Amazon.com refers to itself in text form the a is always uppercase, for example at the bottom of www.amazon.com we see the text "© 1996-2006, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates"). While on Wikipedia is it impossible to have the name of an article be in lower case due to technical restrictions, there are several examples of articles where the subject uses an initial lowercase letter. What Wikipedia does in this case is to put a little note at the top of the article stating that the first letter should be lowercase but isn't due to technical restrictions, see IPod and Id Software. Every reference to the subject of the article in the main text then uses a lowercase first letter. This is only one more argument why the title of the film should be respected according to the producers wishes: Wikipedia already respects the names of products, companies, etc when their first letter is lowercase even though every style guide (including CMS, MLA, Fowlers, and the two I linked to) would most likely say that the first letter should always be uppercase (and it does all this despite the technical restrictions as well). There are tons (almost 1,000) of examples of similar articles in Category:Article titles with lowercase initial letters.
 * When the Wikipedia manual of style says that when all else fails issues should be resolved with a style guide, such as CMS or Fowler's, that most certainly does not mean that CMS or Fowler's should be taken to be the bible of style guides. My understanding of that section is that if the Wikipedia manual of style does not specify a preference on the matter you can consult a style guide, and then it gives some examples of ones to consult. Anyways, this is really moot, as the producers have a clear preference for the title of the film, style guides don't override that.
 * Wikipedia is not an academic journal, it is not a thesis for a university, and it is not a paper for a university course in the humanities. Plain and simple Wikipedia is not part of the academic humanities. I don't think we would see an article on the Symmetric hypergraph theorem in the humanities.
 * "Alan Smithy" is different from "Alan smithee" and "10 Things I Hate About You" is different from "10 Things I Hate about You". So why should only spelling be respected but when a consistent effort to keep the capitalization consistent it should not be respected? Spelling and uppercase/lowercase are just two parts of the same thing.
 * Your "agrument by popularity" point can just as easily be countered by an "argument by emperors new clothes" point: just because someone important says it doesn't mean it's true. Qutezuce 06:14, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Since any secondary arguments seem moot unless my primary point ("The Wikipedia Manual of Style states that this issue should be resolved by 'other resources, such as [CMS or Fowler's]'; CMS resolves it.") is incorrect, I will address what seems to be your main response to my primary point.
 * You write "No style guide can override what the producers of the film intend the title to be." Presumably, you mean that Wikipedia cannot index things in a different format than the creators of those things intended.  Why not? Alan smithee 20:37, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia can index things in any way it wants, but it has already demonstrated that for names of companies, products, movies (eg eXistenZ), and many other things that it indexes them at the name that the creator intended. Obviously this doesn't apply to everything (the centre of a political scandal would probably want the scandal to be called a "non-scandal", or forgetten entirely), but for titles of creative works Wikipedia should (and does, as I've already demonstrated with almost 1000 examples) index the work by the creators intended title. The creator of the work chooses the title, not you or me. Qutezuce 08:35, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Why should they be indexed by the creators' intended title? (I realize that a work's creator creates the title, but that is not the question at hand.)  Should eXistenZ be indexed as eXistenZ (well, EXistenZ, thanks to Wikipedia's initial-capital limitation) or Existenz?  (Again, the actual title of the movie is eXistenZ &mdash; that is not in question &mdash; the question is how it should be indexed in Wikipedia.)  Whatever the answer is, I think that the answer should be in the Wikipedia Manual of Style.  How does one start the process to have that answer in the Wikipedia Manual of Style?
 * If it should be up to the creator(s), then determining how the creator(s) capitalize "about" is the key. I checked the DVD (including the box, the disc itself, and the chapter-search-index card inside) and it always appears in one of two ways: the stylized format that appears on the poster or all caps.  This seems to me that, if we are to index Wikipedia articles by the way the creators capitalize their work, then 10 Things I Hate about You should be indexed under 10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU.  (Also, how does this compare in relevance to a Buena-Vista-owned Web site when Buena Vista distributed (as opposed to created) the film?)
 * (My argumentum-ad-populum comment merely warned against taking something as many sources when it could acutally be only one (or few).)
 * You have not provided any evidence that the production company "cares about capitalization" (not that this is particularly relevant to the actual topic at hand).
 * You write "... when all else fails issues should be resolved with a style guide, such as CMS or Fowler's, that most certainly does not mean that CMS or Fowler's should be taken to be the bible of style guides. My understanding of that section is that if the Wikipedia manual of style does not specify a preference on the matter you can consult a style guide, and then it gives some examples of ones to consult." Are you saying then that the Wikipedia Manual of Style is suggesting that these style guides be consulted ... and then ignored?  It is not necessary to take CMS or Fowler's as the "bible of style guides," but they clearly should be looked at &mdash; and what they contain should affect stylistic decisions (particularly when the Wikipedia Manual of Style suggests consulting them).
 * I agree that Wikipedia is not an academic journal, that it is not a thesis for a university, and that it is not a paper for a university course in the humanities. That doesn't mean that the construction of an encyclopedia is not a task in the humanities.  How would you categorize such a task?
 * SUMMARY: I think the Wikipedia Manual of Style should include a resolution to the more general issue (proper capitalization of articles whose titles are titles of works) &mdash; until then, it seems that the WMS suggests using CMS which resolves this with "about"; of course works' creators create the works' titles &mdash; it's how they should be indexed in Wikipedia that is being discussed; if Wikipedia should index with the usage of a work's creator(s), do the creator(s) here use 10 Things I Hate About You, 10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU, 10 Things I Hate about You, or something else? Alan smithee 02:01, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Nice job
thanks for your work on the Big Love family tree. I really appreciate it. 03:01, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks both for the note and the impressive work you've already done on the Big Love page. Alan smithee 18:44, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Paul Halmos
I had not heard Paul Halmos had died, and a quick search on the internet doesn't confirm this. Can you tell me specifically what you know about it? Thanks. Michael Hardy 22:00, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
 * See Alan smithee 17:58, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. I've just added Halmos to the list of recent deaths. Michael Hardy 18:16, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

10 things i hate about you
Please do not revert my change again, we have been through this a million times. I have no intention of going over it again. Qutezuce 21:24, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

List of The Wire episodes
Noting that you edited List of The Wire episodes within the last few months I wonder if you have an opinion about the use of screenshots in this article and would welcome your opinion here if you have time.--Opark 77 22:47, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Piped links in disambiguation pages
(The Avengers, specifically). The prevailing manual-of-style for disambig pages, Disambiguation, says "Do not pipe the name of the links to the articles being listed.". So disambiguation pages really kinda intentionally ugly :) -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:29, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry about that. Thanks for the polite correction and the link to Wikipedia's page explaining things! I'm off to take things like "(film)" out of italics (but still leaving the text there) &#8212; the disambiguation page for Rome appears similarly (and, though I didn't find a direct example on the page you linked me to, it at least uses the Rome page as an example).  Alan smithee 20:41, 21 April 2007 (UTC)


 * No problem. There are probably lots of dab pages which are like that, not least because some idiot used to do just the same "improvement" all the time. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:43, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Karp-Lipton theorem
Hi Alan. I moved back Karp-Lipton Theorem to Karp-Lipton theorem per WP:NAME, which states that words should be lowercase unless they are proper nouns. Cheers, Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 22:09, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
 * My apologies. And thanks for the polite explanation of why it was wrong (it should save me from making the same mistake again). Alan smithee 23:39, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Spelling
Thank you for your recent contribution to Military simulation. You spotted and corrected a number of spelling mistakes, for which I am grateful. However, you also changed the article's British English spelling to American English. I wrote the article in BE, and since it covers an international subject there is no reason to have it in AE. Because there were so many changes in your edit, I reverted it rather than pick through the article one edit at a time - I'm aware that this has also reverted some genuine spelling corrections, so I'll go through the article with reference to your edit and replace your corrections manually. Please don't regard my revert as non-WP:AGF; it's just quicker for me to do it this way ;) Regards, EyeSerene TALK 11:52, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Removing comment
Hi, please don't do this, those of us who maintain the short pages list find it very frustrating having the same pages clogging it up all the time. Thanks. --Closedmouth (talk) 02:35, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

5-letter-clause
I have reverted your edits for now, primarily because you cannot claim to act on behalf of a previously established consensus, seeing that before your involvement, the 5-letter-clause was part of our general naming guidelines, as well as those for music and film.

And as I recall, I have previously reverted a similar change of yours to WikiProject Music's collected guidelines, which should have given you the idea already that at least one fellow editor begs to differ on the matter and further discussion is required (as per WP:BRD). Yet instead of pursuing such a discourse, you just came back a few weeks later and tried again on a related page. Mind you, I'm not questioning your good faith here, I'd just like to point out that such behavior may give your fellow editors wrong impressions, i.e. that you would dodge opposition rather than dealing with it.

Anyway, the talk page page of Naming conventions (capitalization) seems to be a central enough place to exchange opinions and to ensure broad enough input, I will open a request for comment and leave respective notes on related talk pages. You see, while your proposed change would only remove part of one sentence from each of the affected guidelines, it's no less substantial, as it easily affects hundreds of page names, as well as countless occurrences of titles of certain published works within the articles themselves. – Cyrus XIII (talk) 00:32, 10 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks a lot. I actually was unfamiliar with WP:BRD.  I've got some reading to do.Alan smithee (talk) 04:02, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

WP:AWB
Hi, I have approved you for use of this tool, and all you need to do now is download & install it. I notice, however, that we also have another User:Alan Smithee (capitalised surname). Would you confirm this is not you? It's just that it could get confusing and may need looking at. You may want to put on your user page n the meantime. -- Rodhullandemu  (Talk) 13:00, 12 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I am the one who applied to use AWB &mdash; thanks for approving me. I've (finally) created my user page &mdash; its only content for now is  . Alan smithee (talk) 20:00, 12 April 2008 (UTC)