User talk:Apteva/Archive 2

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A barnstar for you!

 * +1; I just saw Solar power in Utah and you're doing great work :). Based on your articles, I'm granting you the autopatrolled userright; keep it up! Ironholds (talk) 06:59, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Nomination
Thanks for the nomination and the heads-up.--MrRenewables (talk) 08:48, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Red link
Hey- just so you're aware, there's nothing wrong with redlinks when they link to viable articles, and there's no need to remove them or force people to write the articles. Red links help Wikipedia grow, and removing them could even be damaging. Even featured articles often contain a large number of redlinks, but, if they're linking to viable topics, that's certainly not a problem. J Milburn (talk) 09:51, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Noted. Apteva (talk) 17:07, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Trolling in discussions
Please stop trolling on the bird discussion on this page. Hill Crest&#39;s WikiLaser! (BOOM!) 23:39, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Beg your pardon, but that is a gross misinterpretation. What I am doing is as far from trolling as you can get. Apteva (talk) 23:42, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
 * You just repeat your arguments over and over to make that discussion drag on, as I witnessed. Hill Crest&#39;s WikiLaser! (BOOM!) 00:05, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * There is zero intent to make the discussion drag on. I am looking for solutions. Apteva (talk) 00:11, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

I've not looked at the specific page in question. But I know Apteva to be a good editor and steady contributor in the renewable energy subject area. He has struck me as a knowledgeable person who has much to contribute to WP discussions. Johnfos (talk) 04:48, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Apteva (talk) 15:52, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry for accusing. Maybe I should say the word "troll" differently, to tone down the offensiveness? Hill Crest&#39;s WikiLaser! (BOOM!) 23:24, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I was not the troll. But I will back off from responding to the trolling. Apteva (talk) 23:31, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Uh... (just not sure on something) Hill Crest&#39;s WikiLaser! (BOOM!) 23:47, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Canvassing
Apteva, I see you have posting an advertisement for an RFC at several user talk pages. Are you aware of the provisions of WP:CANVAS? See these diffs:, , , , ,.

Take care.

N oetica Tea? 23:11, 25 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Specifically which part of it were you thinking of? It is true that I could have worded it more neutrally - I simply used a cut and paste. What I was doing was making sure that those who had participated in the past were aware of the current discussion. Apteva (talk) 01:57, 26 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Well, did you advise all past participants? That would be required for neutrality, under WP:CANVAS. It is also wise to signal what you are doing when you make such approaches. Perhaps like this:
 * "'I am contacting you, and all past participants in recent discussions on this issue, because there is now a new RFC. ...'"
 * See? Anything that looks like canvassing is very sensitive. You save yourself and everyone concerned a great deal of trouble if you keep things transparent from the start.
 * Other tricks to learn:
 * Indent your contributions with care, taking note of the structure established for the discussion that you are joining. Work to keep things readable for newcomers.
 * Link explicitly to talkpages when you link discussions, not to the pages to which they are attached. For example, link clearly to WT:MOS, not to WP:MOS. No discussion occur at WP:MOS!
 * Do not carry on the same discussion at several forums simultaneously. If you must do that, signal clearly that you are doing so with links; and explain why you are doing so.
 * Read Proper noun. You do not understand proper names and proper nouns. You are not the only one, just one of the most vociferous recently. Much time has been wasted through faulty understanding in this area.
 * That is all meant as genuine advice, to help you in being an effective editor whose contributions to the Project are valuable and not detrimental. Please take it in that spirit. If you want any follow-up, you can come to my talkpage.
 * N oetica Tea? 02:32, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks. If you click on the link, or even hover over it, I think you will see that I have wikilinked to the correct discussion heading on wt:mos, not to wp:mos. Such vagaries as using wt instead of wp are not of interest to me as long as the link goes to the right place when you click on it. But please, it is condescending to tell anyone that they do not understand proper nouns. The fact that there has been discussion, none of which I would categorize as wasted, indicates that there are differences of understanding. What a proper noun is is something that people learn in the second grade, but of the 50,000 words in the dictionary or should I say 200,000, it is not as simple as looking it up and seeing if it is capitalized. Especially when you are talking about proper names, few of which may appear in the dictionary. As to several forums, you are right, discussion always occurs at one place. However there are three questions. How should Sea-Tac be named? How should airports be named? How should the MOS be written to indicate that? I do not think the third question can be answered until the first two are answered. RM discussions normally last a week, RfC a month, so after the RM is finished, I think there will be better clarity on the RfC, and after that is answered, the MOS can be addressed. The notification is at WP:MOS talk page, which you might call WT:MOS, but which I would refer to as at WP:MOS (with the clear understanding that it is on the talk page), because editors have been accused of forum shopping and that needs to be noted so that anyone who is interested in the MOS knows about the discussion on the topic. But it needs to be noted in a neutral manner, En-dash, not "Forum shopping". If the discussion was on forum shopping, it would occur not at MOS, but on the offending users talk page or at one of the sanction proposal pages.
 * Thanks. If you click on the link, or even hover over it, I think you will see that I have wikilinked to the correct discussion heading on wt:mos, not to wp:mos. Such vagaries as using wt instead of wp are not of interest to me as long as the link goes to the right place when you click on it. But please, it is condescending to tell anyone that they do not understand proper nouns. The fact that there has been discussion, none of which I would categorize as wasted, indicates that there are differences of understanding. What a proper noun is is something that people learn in the second grade, but of the 50,000 words in the dictionary or should I say 200,000, it is not as simple as looking it up and seeing if it is capitalized. Especially when you are talking about proper names, few of which may appear in the dictionary. As to several forums, you are right, discussion always occurs at one place. However there are three questions. How should Sea-Tac be named? How should airports be named? How should the MOS be written to indicate that? I do not think the third question can be answered until the first two are answered. RM discussions normally last a week, RfC a month, so after the RM is finished, I think there will be better clarity on the RfC, and after that is answered, the MOS can be addressed. The notification is at WP:MOS talk page, which you might call WT:MOS, but which I would refer to as at WP:MOS (with the clear understanding that it is on the talk page), because editors have been accused of forum shopping and that needs to be noted so that anyone who is interested in the MOS knows about the discussion on the topic. But it needs to be noted in a neutral manner, En-dash, not "Forum shopping". If the discussion was on forum shopping, it would occur not at MOS, but on the offending users talk page or at one of the sanction proposal pages.


 * As I see it WP's biggest challenge is not having enough editors (serious editors, not vandal editors), and whatever we can do to encourage new editors, such as welcoming them and assuming good faith the better. People like me who might be upwards of 5,000 edits (and am too lazy to check), still need to be reminded about things from time to time, but the experts on consensus will tell you that in any discussion you never ever ever respond to the person, but only to the group. For example, if someone says, 4 is bigger than 3, and you disagree, you say, well in some situations 3 is better than 4 and in that sense bigger, and never "you are wrong, 3 is better, etc." So you focus your comments to the group, not to the individual. You would say, My reading of proper nouns indicates that they are capitalized, not "have you read proper nouns". Whether I or anyone has read it is totally immaterial, as a thorough knowledge of the MOS is not a requirement for editing. And referring someone to a Wikipedia article about something???? Please, I do a lot of editing of WP, but have zero confidence in the accuracy of any of the articles. I do my best to fix the ones I can, but it is a fact that any fifth grader can come along and put anything they want in, and that both enriches the encyclopedia, but also detracts from its reputation. A quote from 2012 is "Read any Wikipedia article on a topic you are expert in, and roll your eyes (and forget about trying to correct it, by the way)". Not good. I thought the direction was to a section of the MOS, not an article about nouns. Which if I did read, I would treat like any other article - check it for accuracy and find ways to improve it - not read it to learn anything about the subject. The reputation of WP is getting better, but has a very long way to go. Apteva (talk) 03:30, 26 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Be that as it may, I do agree with the last sentence of the first paragraph of this version of the article on proper nouns: "The detailed definition of the term is problematic and to an extent governed by convention." I also found myself rolling my eyes half way through the first paragraph. "Some proper nouns occur in plural form (optionally or exclusively), and then they refer to groups of entities considered as unique (the Hendersons, The Azores, the Pleiades). Proper nouns can also occur in secondary applications, for example modifying nouns (the Mozart experience; his Azores adventure), or in the role of common nouns (he's no Pavarotti; a few would-be Napoleons)." If this was an FA, the prose would be "even brilliant". This in clearly not one of our best articles - and not even rated GA. I think if I was going to make any suggestion it would be to move the article to wt. (Wikitionary). Apteva (talk) 04:03, 26 September 2012 (UTC)


 * The example of "Mountain Bluebird" is poor, because all bird names are capitalized because ornithologists do consider species names to be proper names. Mountain Goat might be better, or Big Dog. Apteva (talk) 04:27, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Hypen
You recently added File:Dashes.png to the dash article. So perhaps it would be easy for you to correct the prominent typo "hypen" to "hyphen". Art LaPella (talk) 00:51, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Done. Thanks. Apteva (talk) 01:04, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Bat capitalization RMs
Thanks for consolidating these discussions. Part of the reason RMs is so backlogged is editors not properly doing multiple page moves properly. I never thought before to consolidate them myself, but you've done so in a respectful, neutral manner that I may try to emulate in the future. --BDD (talk) 22:08, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks. And even better praise than a "barnstar". Apteva (talk) 22:12, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Your RfB
As soon as you are back online, please take a look at your RfB page. It would be good if you were to withdraw the RfB at this stage. Given both the current !voting margin and the substance of the concerns that have been expressed, there is no chance of its passing.

Some users have speculated that you might have meant to file a request for adminship rather than a request for bureaucratship. Could you clarify if this is the case? If it is, the sooner you withdraw the mistaken RfB, the better. I'd suggest you then wait for at least a few weeks before filing for RfA instead.

Of course, your contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, and should continue regardless of which titles you might have or aspire to. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:12, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I went ahead and closed the page. I have to say I'm sorry. Although I don't know you, I always like to see new and fresh "blood" and good contributors in the community. There is no technical requirement to have first the "admin bit" before getting the bureaucratship, but since bureaucrats can promote other users to admins, bureaucrats should know what admins have to do and how hard it is to do the "right one". Please try to get more involved into the "administrative tasks" of the community and then try to get the right as admin before trying to become an bureaucrat. I really hope that you aren't upset of that kind of "formalities", but this community is big and this community had experience with "problematic" admins and thus not willing to give their "OK" to "everybody". Regards, mabdul 23:30, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
 * And now you have met me. It was a bit pre-mature to close, but no worries. In future I would recommend 24 hours or 50 oppose votes, whichever comes first. But closing before the affected editor has even seen that anyone has voted? Apteva (talk) 23:53, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
 * In the guidance, it states explicitly that non-admin contributors may close requests prematurely if uncontroversial, irrespective of the quantity of votes, thereby indicating that Mabdul's judgment is sound. Whereas he did not specify any policies, essays, or guidelines, I was actually in the process of closing your request concurrently per WP:SNOW, which reflected the direction of the discussion accurately and the probability of a successful outcome. Regards, Mephistophelian  (contact)  00:20, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 * It was the timing that I was questioning. There are certainly no specific closing guidelines, but from a practical point of view I think if I was closing a similar RfA/RfB either as a non-admin, as an admin, or as a crat, I would wait just a bit longer (say the above mentioned 24 hrs), especially if the user/editor had not had a chance to reply even once. Who knows what they might have said? Apteva (talk) 00:41, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Again, please read WP:SNOW - you would have had to have a lot more suppporters to pass a RFB. If there's no way that a candidate will pass, an uninvolved user may remove a RFA/RFB at any time. Waiting 24 hours would have resulted in even more opposes. --Rschen7754 01:08, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Apteva, I read through your two talk page archives and being a bit confused: I see you were blocked, confronted with multiple accounts, and finally a failed RfA. Yes, that is really old stuff, but normally a failed adminship candidate should read the "documentation" how to be successfully next time. As it seems you didn't that - and really - I believe you're doing a great job to improve the encyclopedia ("autoreviewer" right), I highly doubt that you are ready. When I said "Although I don't know you, [...]", I hadn't recognized you before. Why? Because I was 4-8 weeks "offline" and in that time you started to be active in the WP/WT space. Regards, mabdul 06:25, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 * My history goes back about 4 1/2 years plus maybe a couple more as an IPUser. I learned through the clue-by-four method about 3RR. Not really a big issue. The point is that I learned. Privacy is a huge issue for me. I edit solely under the strict condition of anonymity - and am identified to the Foundation (not the Second Foundation). My only hesitation was adding another 1,500 edits before applying, but I did not see anyone else stepping up to the plate, and really edit counts are way over rated. Apteva (talk) 23:58, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Capitalization: Marine
Hi, Apteva! Thanks for framing my question about "Marine" into an appropriate discussion. However, there is a slight difference between my question and the way you stated it as a heading. Here's what you wrote: "When referring to individuals who are a member of a branch of service, such as the Marines, should they be referred to as marines or Marines? Apteva (talk) 06:33, 1 October 2012 (UTC)" However, my question is based on the change to NY Times policy (as of Feb 2009), at which time it was changed to agree with other manuals of style (including that used by the Associated Press) to capitalize "Marine" -- but NOT to capitalize "sailor" or "soldier." Your statement implies the question refers to all members of the various branches of service. The way I am asking the question is: "When referring to individuals who are a member of the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Coast Guard, should they be referred to as marines or Marines, and coast guardsmen or Coast Guardsmen?" I just reposted the exact quote from the NY Times article on the MOS discussion page to clarify the decision of its editors:
 * "We will now capitalize Marine and Marines when referring to individual members of the United States Marine Corps. Under the previous rule, we capitalized references to the service as a whole, but lowercased “marine” in referring to individuals. We used to say, “Three marines were wounded in the fighting.” Now we’ll say, “Three Marines were wounded in the fighting.” (We’ll make a similar change to capitalize “Coast Guardsman,” though that comes up less frequently.)"

Thanks! NearTheZoo (talk) 14:30, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

WP:TPO
Hi, Apteva. Please do not edit my message; especially, please do not duplicate or use my signature. In Wikipedia, I am held responsible for word for word of what I write; therefore, I have the right to be held only and only responsible for what I write, not what others write in my name. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 06:31, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 * My apology, but unless I made a horrible mistake I did not make any change to your message. What I did is format your message so that it is readable on WP:RM without having to scroll down the page an undo distance. Where there is a natural break, I copy the signature and duplicate it at that break, so that a portion appears on WP:RM and the rest is on the talk page. Where no natural break is possible, I simply duplicate the signature and add (see talk page). You are welcome to change the split if you wish, of course, but try to keep the first bit just a sentence or two - otherwise just a see talk page is better. Apteva (talk) 06:42, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi. Yes, my friend, I have assumed good faith because I know you meant to do good. In fact, there are things that I don't mind if you did, such as fixing the indentation in case I counted the number of colons (":") wrong, fixing spelling mistakes, adjusting CSS parameters and even fixing date formats or replacing some templates for better ones. But adding a full sentence that I never said (in this case "see talk page") or adding a signature that I never added are essentially wrong. (In my country changing a single letter in someone's message is illegal; I try to keep in mind that Wikipedia is not my country but that should give you an idea of what I regard "horribly wrong".) In the future, please consider adding a message of your own that says you think Page X is worth seeing.


 * As for the break, yes, I myself gave it a thought but after weighing the situation, I decided against it. Personally, I love to keep greetings, body and closing in separate segments but not everyone likes and not every situation allows it.


 * Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 07:43, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 * To give you some history of WP:RM, it was created to provide a list of links to pages that have an RM discussion. Specialists in naming conventions use the list to see if naming conventions are being applied correctly. The list becomes unwieldy if the reason for the move goes beyond a sentence or two. It is not possible for me to insert my own signature, because it would have the wrong timestamp, and modifying the timestamp to agree with your signature would be just wrong. So to make the list work properly, I split the summary into a workable size, and in your case I am not the least concerned with styling or indentation, although the bot removes all indentation when it posts your summary onto WP:RM. What I am only concerned with is limiting WP:RM to a link to the discussion and a very brief summary of the reason for the move, or simply the instructions to see the talk page if no easy summary is possible. I could have used [see summary], which would have made it look more like "I am quoting you and have inserted explanatory text to make your quote understandable" but that would not, in my view, be as good as (see talk page). Another thing I could do is ask the author of the bot to truncate all summaries to 40 characters and use ... after that, but in my opinion a human split works much better (what happens if a valid summary is 41 characters, or 42?). Anyway, I appreciate your concern, and hope that this helps with your understanding of WP:RM. As to a "break" you will notice that I did not see any easy way to break your summary and simply moved all of it off of WP:RM, while retaining the timestamp which is used by WP:RM to determine how old the request is. Apteva (talk) 22:39, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 * It is also extremely useful to retain the username of the nominator, which is why the entire sig, even with all of the stylization if possible, is retained. Apteva (talk) 00:08, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi. WP:RM's problem is considerable in its own right but as I said earlier, letting third parties edit my messages has a lot of dangerous consequences. For example, six month after your edit, someone may hold me responsible for what happens in a certain talk page and propose that I was aware of it, using your sentence (and lose interpretation of it) as evidence. By that time, I won't even remember that I did not write it.


 * I am sorry, but as much as I love to be helpful, I hate having to accept responsibility for what I did not write. Please consider modifying the RM procedure so that RM nominators are aware of your problem in advance. In the meantime I will devise an interim solution. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 05:40, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I have brought it up at Wikipedia talk:Requested moves - before your complaint. In your case, no further action is needed. And if you do correct it the most likely result is the creation of an erroneous time stamp that will move the entry on the page. I will not be making any further edits to that entry, but other than that I see no change that is needed to what I am doing, although I could enter a sig without a timestamp - I will consider doing so if this comes up repeatedly. What that would look like is this - (see talk page) Apteva (talk) and then your time stamp and signature, and then your summary and time stamp and signature. Normally procedural edits such as changing indentation or adding a new section heading or adding (unsigned) do not warrant or get a signature showing who did it - that information is readily available from the page history, which is no doubt how you found out who it was who added (see talk page). Apteva (talk) 15:50, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

On dashes
Apteva, many of spent most of the first half of 2011 hammering out a broad consensus on what the MOS should say about dashes. Probably you were lucky enough not to get dragged into that, but don't think that there will be much appetite to revisit these things so soon. You can see some of the discussion at this section and earlier archive pages; somewhere in there is a link to the subpage where it was taken off at the behest of ArbCom, who have ruled again more recently that such things (edits to policy and guideline pages involving style and titles) need to be treated in a non-disruptive way or there will be trouble. Sorry you had to stumble in this way. Dicklyon (talk) 05:15, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I was lucky enough to have not seen one character of that totally wasted discussion, and while I regard it as too embarrassing to even look at, I have been looking at some of it (which is actually a waste of my valuable time). My recollection of you as an editor is that you are no stranger to trying to make a point, but mostly make good additions to WP. Basically my assessment of WP:DASH is that it is correct as far as I can see other than in three of the examples which are in violation with the rest of the MOS, and in fact use a hyphen and not a dash. And that there are way too many examples. It is obvious that not all of them were discussed individually and most of the discussion was not focused at all on the examples. Apteva (talk) 05:55, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Comet Hale–Bopp RM
Hi Apteva, you removed the RM tag at Talk:Comet Hale–Bopp with this edit. I'm sure this was a mistake, but please be careful in the future. I was also a bit surprised to see that the nomination and first vote were added in an edit by Anthony Appleyard, who was neither the nominator or the voter. Do you know if he moved the discussion from elsewhere? --BDD (talk) 19:31, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * As nominator I withdrew that RM. Discussion can certainly continue, but it has come to my attention that the recommended name is comet Hale–Bopp, which is what we are currently, consistently (at least in this article) using. It is quite possible that the overwhelming majority give it proper name status and that can be considered. AA moved it from technical requests contested. It is his practice, apparently, to kindly do so. I usually just let them die if no one takes the initiative of opening the RM, but his method is kinder. Apteva (talk) 19:40, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Gotcha. I'll give that a close, then. And as a side note, I agree about opposed technical requests; if the original editor doesn't want to press forward with a discussion, why bother? --BDD (talk) 19:52, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Not necessary. No reason to cut off discussion. And no reason for a formal close.Apteva (talk) 20:10, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

October 2012
Welcome to Wikipedia. Everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia. However, talk pages are meant to be a record of a discussion; deleting or editing legitimate comments, as you did at Lorimerlite, is considered bad practice, even if you meant it well. Even making spelling and grammatical corrections in others' comments is generally frowned upon, as it tends to irritate the users whose comments you are correcting. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Thank you. ''DO NOT edit my comments to imply that I support your idea for a renamed page. Add your own by all means.'' Andy Dingley (talk) 00:36, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I am not implying anything. There is a bot that transcribes a summary of the move discussion onto WP:RM and it is not working. I am trying to trouble shoot the problem, which is possibly because of the link in the section heading. I will try taking out the links without moving it. Apteva (talk) 00:46, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Misconception?
I see I'm not the only one wondering where you picked up the idea that our MOS says "proper names use hyphens" (as opposed to en dashes). I think the MOS is clear that it depends on the relationship between the connected elements. Many proper names are styled with en dash, when things are named after two people, or two places, for example. Dicklyon (talk) 00:47, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Please provide an example, and actually, please provide many examples. And even if you find 1000, those 1000 articles would all use that spelling, and all of the rest of the proper noun phrases would use a hyphen. We do not make up rules to look goofy, we apply rules that already exist in the real world. Common names use endash, proper names use hyphens. The MOS is not as important as what is actually correct, which is why it is a guideline and not a policy, but our MOS is not out of compliance with what should be expected other than in two of the examples that are erroneously used (Uganda... and Roman...). According to MOS:HYPHEN, there are three cases where hyphens are used. Item 3) says: "Hyphenation also occurs in bird names such as Great Black-backed Gull, and in proper names such as Trois-Rivières and Wilkes-Barre." The MOS clearly does not say that it depends on the relationship of the words, and if it did, it would be just plain wrong - and if followed, create an encyclopedia that looked like it was written by people who had failed the third grade. I am certain that is not the goal. What I "picked up on" is that something is very wrong with what has been "decided". Mistakes happen. Fix them and move on. This is just one of the items that needs to be fixed. Apteva (talk) 01:13, 9 October 2012 (UTC)


 * "Common names use endash, proper names use hyphens." sounds like something you made up. Do you have a basis for it?  Dicklyon (talk) 21:17, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
 * No. That is what our MOS says. Common names by definition do not have an official name, and do have a "commonly used name". Our MOS offers help in knowing whether an endash or a hyphen is used, but that would be over-ridden if reliable sources indicated otherwise. Proper names use hyphens is in our MOS. Apteva (talk) 21:22, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Whether comet will be treated as a word like equator or as a part of the name like System remains to be seen. And whether they decide to use a hyphen or an endash also remains to be seen. I can imagine using Comet Hale-Bopp for a comet discovered by Hale and Bopp and Comet Hale Lennard-Jones for one discovered by Hale and Lennard-Jones to avoid the ambiguity of Comet Hale-Lennard-Jones. But I can imagine a lot of things. If WP was a work of fiction I could put all of them in. It is not. It is a record of fact, and as far as I have been able to determine, based on a majority of books using a particular proper name, no names use an endash. Bear in mind though, this is a guideline we are dealing with, and we expect there to be exceptions. If one was found there is zero need for inclusion, because the MOS is expected to have exceptions. If there were thousands of exceptions, than mentioning them is acceptable, but not if there is only one. Apteva (talk) 19:45, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure how the notion of "official" comes into this. Is that in the MOS?  I'm pretty sure proper names implying hyphens is not.  This is not a spelling or naming issue, but a styling issue.   When reputable sources like this and this use the en dash in Comet Hale–Bopp, does that make it a common name?  Maybe so, as some sources don't capitalize comet there (like this one, but it uses a hyphen so that doesn't fit your claims either), but I'd like to know where you get this stuff.   Ah, here's one with lower case and en dash, which would be the style that our MOS suggests, except for the astronomers' exception.  Styles do vary; get used to it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dicklyon (talk • contribs) 21:32, 9 October 2012‎
 * Proper names are not just capitalized, they have established names. The Comet Hale-Bopp is a good example. It is not called the "Hale-Bopp Comet" or the Hale-Bopp comet, even though yes there are sources that miss-name it in that manner. We can always find conflicting reliable sources for just about everything. It is our job to figure out which is the most reliable or the most common and use that, and if necessary indicate alternatives in parentheses, and provide redirects. And yes I am thoroughly familiar with erroneous information being added to WP, and corrected, but this has nothing to do with different style guidelines. By the way, I very carefully researched this edit that was reverted For example it is blatantly obvious through a search of reliable sources (ten of the first ten books in a google book search all use a hyphen), and carefully did not break the reference to a file, and carefully fixed the URL that was broken. I checked all of the references that used an endash in the title and found that in the original source a hyphen was used, even though some sources do use an endash, and if I had found that one of those was used I would have left it as an endash. While we commonly change all caps in titles, changing punctuation is not recommended, and can not be done in URLs - either removing all caps or changing punctuation, as it breaks the link. All domain names are case insensitive (the part between // and the first /), and some URLs are case insensitive but most are case sensitive. The ones hosted on Windows boxes tend to be case insensitive, and most are hosted on Linux boxes which are case sensitive. Apteva (talk) 22:29, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
 * By the way, thank you for bringing it to my attention that there is a third misspelled example in the MOS that needs to be corrected. Nobody is perfect, after all. Apteva (talk) 22:50, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Apteva, you quote the manual of style as saying, "Hyphenation also occurs in bird names such as Great Black-backed Gull, and in proper names such as Trois-Rivières and Wilkes-Barre." It does say that, but it does not say that only hyphens are used in all proper names. That is the misconception. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:11, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Not a misconception at all. I have yet to find any exceptions, and the MOS is not a dictionary. What it does is pull a couple of examples out of the dictionary. A better example than Trois-Rivières would have been "such as Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Mexican-American War". It is possible that if the Oxford University started capitalizing comet, they would use Comet Hale-Bopp, and possible that they would use Hale–Bopp. It has been pointed out that the IAU, despite being in French and English and French using a whole lot less capitalization than English is recommending capitalization: "the initial letters of the names of individual astronomical objects should be printed as capitals (see the IAU Style Manual, Trans. Int. Astron. Union, volume 20B, 1989; Chapter 8, page S30 – PDF file); e.g., Earth, Sun, Moon, etc. "The Earth's equator" and "Earth is a planet in the Solar System" are examples of correct spelling according to these rules."

Until you find consensus for a new WP style, you should avoid making wholesale changes to article styling based on your idiosyncratic interpretations. In the Comet Hale–Bopp article in particular, if there's a URL in which somebody put an en dash where a hyphen is needed, by all means fix it. But I have not been able to spot such in your diffs, so the best I could was revert the whole thing. What have I missed? Dicklyon (talk) 05:00, 10 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Attempting to herd cats is never productive. I am applying the MOS as written. It says to use hyphens in proper nouns and to use endash in common nouns. There are three examples in the MOS that I know of that incorrectly use an endash when they should use a hyphen, and those errors have been noted so that they can be corrected. I did not correct Hale-Bopp because it was in the MOS - I was not aware that it was in the MOS until after that edit. I see no reason to make any change to what I am doing - fixing errors when I find them and bringing them up for discussion where an intelligent person might have a reason to dispute the change. I see no reason for discussing things that are totally obviously wrong. I only opened an RM for moving Mexican-American War because I knew that it had previously been discussed ad nauseum and produced an absurd choice, and I am certainly not going to try to offend anyone by just moving it now without any discussion. Apteva (talk) 05:55, 10 October 2012 (UTC)


 * If nothing else, I feel like Clint Eastwood "go ahead ... make my day" - if anyone wants to defend not using a hyphen I am more than prepared to defend the use of a hyphen. Apteva (talk) 06:01, 10 October 2012 (UTC)


 * It does not say that. Applying it as written would be a better idea than what you've been doing.  Dicklyon (talk) 20:35, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Please be more specific than "it" "that" and "it". It is very hard to follow that if I have no idea which it or which that is being referenced. Apteva (talk) 20:43, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
 * If you are saying I left a word out where I wrote ... I am way too polite to use that word which I left out. Apteva (talk) 20:48, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Apteva needs to stop the disruption now
(moved from WP:MOS talk page)

In recent weeks, User:Apteva has been the most active contributor to this talk page, pushing his idiosyncratic theory about hyphens, dashes, and proper names. He has started at least three RMs based on this theory. As far as I can see, he has not been able to convince anyone to buy into his theory, and his RMs have been roundly opposed, as have his proposals here. I have not had time to read everything that he has written here recently, but on scanning it appears to be just same old same old. I think the vigorous pushing has become too disruptive, and needs to stop now. Does anyone agree, or have a good idea how to encourage a good resolution to this dead horse? Dicklyon (talk) 06:44, 13 October 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree that his or her behaviour has become disruptive, and I agree that something might need to be done about it. I hold off from concrete suggestions, for the moment. N oetica [User_talk:Noetica 07:03, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I am pretty sure that Noetica and others have posted many more times than I. But Users do not get banned for being prolific. Nothing that I do is not done without careful thought and purpose. I have just as much interest in improving WP as the best of us, and am not in the least "disruptive". I certainly apologize in advance for popping anyone's little balloon that was floated to say that Mexican-American War was spelled with an endash. This is not the first error that I have seen on WP, and it will not be the last. Each error needs to be fixed one at a time so that the respect of WP will improve a little bit each year. Believe me I could care less if every book spelled Mexican American War with an asterisk, endash, or a tilda. But whatever we find in common usage is what we should be using. Period. Apteva (talk) 08:04, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Prolific is OK, but dominating a talk page and multiple other sites with a campaign for an odd theory and change that you're finding no support for has become disruptive. As for who is doing what on WT:MOS since you showed up with your en dash theory on 24 Sept, see this tool, which shows you in the lead with 93 edits, Noetica next with 67, and falling off from there (I'm in 8th place with 15, just behind a new IP who sounds like he might be you). Noetica's contributions have been in a variety areas, not all related to your focused campaign against en dashes, which is the primary disruption. So slow down, educate yourself about en dashes, and back off on the disruption, OK? [User:Dicklyon|Dicklyon] ([User talk:Dicklyon|talk]) 22:37, 13 October 2012 (UTC)


 * I have removed some signatures, above. Apteva, do not move any signature to any new page – or anywhere at all, in a way that makes it unclear where an editor has posted. I did not post here in response to Dicklyon; but a reader would not know that. N oetica Tea? 09:24, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Which was done inappropriately. Actually you did post here in response to that editor because this section was moved here from the page where you did post the response. But short of minor children by a parent or teacher, someone that person has a contract with to obey, such as in the military, people are not told what to do. They are asked. Judges are under the misconception that they can tell bank robbers and drug users not to rob banks and use drugs. Well how well is that working out for them? Not very well. People are autonomous, and make their own decisions in life. Telling WP editors what to do is like herding cats. A perhaps better approach is to ask not tell, and even better is to just point out what others are doing. Apteva (talk) 13:28, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

(moved from WP:MOS talk page)
 * Even I am wrong sometimes, I freely admit that, like when I think that I am wrong. Apteva (talk) 18:10, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
 * So, you're an egotist? — SMcCandlish    Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿ ¤ þ  Contrib.  02:34, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
 * That was intended to be humorous. I could just as easily say and I kno that I never ever make misteaks. Apteva (talk) 05:25, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The difficulty with sarcasm is being more ridiculous than those who are sincere. — kwami (talk) 19:36, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Gender pronouns
Mea culpa. I try to use "he or she" when I'm not sure, but sometimes I slip into the default he. Do you have a preferred type of reference or would you rather be addressed ambiguously? It may help to state your preference on your talk page, although of course you're under no obligation to do so. --BDD (talk) 19:07, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
 * No preference as long as it is not gender specific. Apteva (talk) 20:36, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Gotcha. I may use the much-maligned but undeniably useful singular they. --BDD (talk) 20:54, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
 * English is an evolving language. Women did not get to vote and get paid 80 cents to what men do. He as a generic pronoun, postman for postal worker was ubiquitous a hundred years ago, when the only postal workers were men. Figuring out non specific language can be a challenge and everyone deals with it in a different way. I used to use they, now I am more likely to use other constructs. Apteva (talk) 23:13, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Re: Edit
I'm so sorry. That was a complete error! I have a new smaller laptop and I'm struggling to get used to it. Very sorry! &mdash;  Lil_ ℧ niquℇ № 1  [talk]  22:41, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

October 2012
Please do not delete or edit legitimate talk page comments, as you did at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style. Such edits are disruptive and appear to be vandalism. If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. Thank you. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:23, 17 October 2012 (UTC) The sections deleted were clearly irrelevant to the subject. --Apteva (talk) 05:42, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I did not and never have. I often archive talk pages and have deleted inappropriate talk page comments. There is an AE discussion on this specific issue. Apteva (talk) 14:43, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * You did here and here. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:50, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Both of those are 100% legitimate. There is zero reason for creating a section to discuss a user conduct on a guideline talk page. That simply is not the place for that. We do have correct places for that - user talk pages, ANI, etc. Even the village pump, but not on an article or guideline or policy or essay talk page. As an admin you certainly should know what talk pages are for and what is appropriate use of a talk page. Apteva (talk) 14:56, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The talk page guidelines are very clear. From Talk page guidelines "Stay on topic: Talk pages are for discussing the article, not for general conversation about the article's subject (much less other subjects). Keep discussions focused on how to improve the article. Comments that are plainly irrelevant are subject to archival or removal."

Headers at WP:AE
Can I fix the headers for your two requests? The H2 header usually is just the name of the person against whom sanctions are requested. Thanks, EdJohnston (talk) 15:16, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Please do, and thank you for asking. I would in that case recommend refracting the header or deleting the WP:MOS heading entirely. Apteva (talk) 15:21, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I've read your two requests for enforcement, WP:AE and WP:AE. At present they are not very convincing.
 * Your 'diffs of notifications' do not show any official notices of the discretionary sanctions under WP:ARBATC. If you think these editors should already know about the discretionary sanctions you should explain why.
 * As 'sanction or remedy to be enforced' you cite Arbitration/Requests/Case/Article titles and capitalisation, which is just a piece of advice from Arbcom and is not a clause that is enforceable by AE admins. If a clause is enforceable it is marked as a remedy.
 * In both cases you are requesting a warning of a possible block, but such a block could only be given to someone who was previously placed under an editing restriction. Your request appears to be skipping some steps.
 * Neotarf and Dicklyon have neither been notified nor restricted under WP:ARBATC. I can't see any reason yet to notify them or anyone else of the discretionary sanctions. Please be aware that the conduct of the submitter can also be reviewed by the admins at AE. Be sure you are prepared to show a large difference between the quality of your own behavior and that of the people you expect to be sanctioned. If you don't have time for revising the complaints at this time, my guess is that you could ask for these complaints to be withdrawn, which would preserve your options for the future. Thank you, EdJohnston (talk) 04:49, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Gotcha. What is the easiest way of withdrawing? It would be better for an uninvolved editor to bring the complaint, do the warning etc., but whether that is going to happen remains to be seen. To me the actions of those two editors on the talk page were extremely inappropriate, and worthy of immediate sanctions. But I was the one they were attacking, and of course I feel that way. Apteva (talk) 05:09, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Just go into your own section of each complaint and put in a request to withdraw. I'm sure an admin will follow up. Thanks, EdJohnston (talk) 05:19, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Incivility now?
In your withdrawal of AE complaint, you seem to have added a charge of incivility against me. What's that about? Dicklyon (talk) 05:54, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Touchy? I was saying the climate there is incivil and that your action was inappropriate. Those are two different things. Apteva (talk) 05:56, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I see. No, I don't.  Whatever.  Dicklyon (talk) 06:03, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

For the record, you are officially hereby warned to yourself heed the arbcom advice that you've been throwing around: "All parties are reminded to avoid personalizing disputes concerning the Manual of Style, the article titles policy ('WP:TITLE'), and similar policy and guideline pages, and to work collegially towards a workable consensus." You have brought personalized charges against Noetica, Neotarf, JHunterJ, and myself, for trying to restrain your outrageous behavior on WT:MOS. Cool your jets, man. If you continue to swear to fix "errors" that you see because your personal opinions differ from the advice of the MOS, particularly on things like the en dash in Mexican–American War, you are threatening to re-open a deep and painful wound that took many editors many months to patch up. Nobody is going to welcome that attitude or behavior. Dicklyon (talk) 06:12, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Noted. In filing the complaint the first thing it says is are you sure that you are not more guilty then they are? Or words to that effect. But like I said, sorry to pop anyone's balloon but clearly the Mexican American War punctuation was a well meant but erroneous "decision", and the sooner everyone recognizes that the better. An example in the US courts was the Dred Scott decision, which said that Blacks were not people. The most important thing to recognize is that mistakes are made. Fix them and move on. Holding on to an untenable position like Dred Scott or using an endash is really questionable. I am still waiting for anyone to find even one proper name that legitimately does use an endash. But by all means this is not the only error that can be found in WP. I am guessing that there might be others. Actually I know there are others. But think about it, all we are as editors is 3,000 busy scribes copying down the world the best we can. About 700 of us have earned the respect to be given some extra tools (the admins). What do we know about what is right or wrong? Is if verifiable? Is it supported by a reliable source? Let me emphasize part of that quote, "and to work collegially towards a workable consensus". What we have now is neither a consensus nor workable. Apteva (talk) 06:54, 18 October 2012 (UTC)


 * There was an extensive discussion of this so-called "error" in 2011, with many wikipedians participating. We worked it out.  If you're so sure it's an error, how do you explain the books and articles that make the same error, like this book or this article?  If your theory has any legs at all, show us a source that uses an en dash in "core–periphery tension" or "core–periphery relations" or something like that (like the book I just linked), but not in proper names such as Mexican–American War.  I don't think you'll find any; I could not.  If you can't even ante up something worth paying attention to, why do you think you have standing to re-open or overturn such a complex and widely discussed consensus?  Dicklyon (talk) 07:24, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I can see that an extreme minority have taken that view. That is not what we do, we pick the majority view. In the case of comets it is odd that most of the publications that choose to ignore lower case also choose to ignore the hyphen. Maybe it is because they are choosing to ignore the lower case that they also choose to ignore the hyphen. But the vast majority of google scholar results choose what our article chose - lower case comet and a hyphen, and for consistency that is what our MOS should use - lower case comet and a hyphen. But lower case is not actually as common as upper case when you throw in books - and the comet people tend to want to use upper case, so you end up with Comet and a hyphen. But our example should follow what the article uses, otherwise we are not being consistent, and how ironic is it for a guideline that is written to help bring about consistency fails to be consistent itself?


 * Just because you can find a few examples does not mean that is the most common usage. That is the point that I have seen you avoiding. When I see you participating in RM discussions your modus operandi appears to be to look for a few exceptions and introduce them and fail to point out "out of how many" or bring up the examples to the contrary that you certainly also could have. What is the most common usage? That is the question we are trying to answer. Find me one proper noun that in its most common usage uses an endash. I would have thought someone would have been able to find one by now, but no one has. Apteva (talk) 13:43, 18 October 2012 (UTC)