User talk:Apteva/Archive 3

Inapt comparisons
Please stop comparing fixing alleged errors in the manual of style to overturning "the Dred Scott decision" or "Rosa Parks taking an available seat in the front of the bus." While I understand you think the punctuation-style issues you have focused on are important, they cannot remotely be compared in importance to the moral, legal, and historical events you describe.

In dealing with the Manual of Style, as with all things in life, a sense of proportionality is appropriate. Using these inapt comparisons makes you come off as grandiose and faintly ridiculous. That is is contrary to your goal of having other editors focus on the merits of your arguments. Using these comparisons is also likely sooner or later to start offending people, which is equally counterproductive. Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:15, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Point taken. Apteva (talk) 18:53, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Hyphen and such
Thank you for your support on Talk:Paris-Orly Airport. I agree with you that many of our airport articles have spurious hyphens. And a few have spurious en dashes, too, thanks largely to the action of User:DASHBot. But the way to fix them is to look at them individually, and try to figure out what is the intended relationship between the words, and then use the best punctuation, styling, or title choice to make it better. Your allergic aversion to en dashes is just making it harder to make progress on that. And asking that every styling improvement that affects a title be considered controversial and go through RM is way too extreme, too. I have done many hundreds of changes to styles that affected hyphens and/or dashes in titles, and in better than 95% of cases, nobody ever reacts at all. Most users are not bothered by moving the project toward compliance with the suggestions of the MOS. You and Born2cycle and few others are exceptions, and pushing way beyond the point where it's clear that you have no support is just disruptive. Thanks for toning it down on the MOS talk page, but now why not tone it down on hounding my work, too? Dicklyon (talk) 04:29, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Basically it is odd that we would disagree on anything. Both of us have an identical background and identical intelligence. Given the same information I would expect both of us to come to the same conclusion. My recollection, though, is that I learned the clue-by-four way with one block, and evidently it took seven blocks in your case. My advice to you as an editor is to be very careful to avoid disrupting WP to make a point. As to airport names, I have looked at a thousand of them (4 thousand actually, but who is counting) and found none that used an endash. I agree completely that every name needs to be examined on a one by one case, and turning a bot loose on them was questionable at the best.


 * Here is my recommendation on endashes. Do not ruffle feathers. If an article consistently uses hyphens where endashes clearly should be used, ask on that talk page first. If an article already uses 80% endashes obviously just fix the rest. But stick to places where it is uncontroversial to use endashes. That means no changes from hyphen to endash in comets, airports, birds, etc. That means feel free to change any endashes that are found in any of those - but not without discussion at the project page first. I think it is great for WP to be hyper professional looking and use endashes where they should be used (but not necessarily in titles)*, such as where a majority of books published would use an endash. And no way no how use an endash where only a minority of books would use an endash. We try to present information in a manner that most people would expect. We do not try to use better standards, we do not try to look better, we do not try to fix historical errors. We report history, we do not try to make history. If someone becomes a little smarter by learning something from WP that is great - but everything they learn we need to have put there because it is verifiable somewhere else.


 * As to most people not reacting, I would estimate that 99% of editors have no clue what the difference is between a hyphen, minus sign, endash or an emdash, so I am not surprised that few people have complained. I really object to being typified as being disruptive though, because I am very careful about adhering completely to WP standards and guidelines - and changing those guidelines when they do not make any sense.


 * Airport names clearly do not use "intended relationship between the words" in deciding punctuation. They use whatever punctuation people who name the airport use, and whatever punctuation people who write down the airport use. WP does not make up punctuation for proper names from the "intended relationship between the words". We do do that for common names and when writing text within an article. But a name is a name, and whatever people use is that name. If Julia Louis-Dreyfus decided to spell her name with an emdash, that would be her name. Would anyone spell it that way? Not likely, so we would have a choice, the official name or the common name. In the case of Mexican American War, a very small number of editors decided to ignore the common name, and obviously there is no official name. Why should 500 million readers of WP and 3,000 active and a million occasional editors of WP have to follow that really bizarre recommendation that flies in the face of all of WP policies and principles?


 * Obviously I was not aware of the discussion while it was going on, and I really can think of things I would rather spend my time on than finding out who said what and when, but it to me is just such a strange position that it is completely discountable.


 * * I am putting an asterisk here because in 2007 the prevailing mood was to prohibit endashes and emdashes from titles, and I am not sure that deviating from that is such a good idea. I would lean towards using endashes in text but not in titles. If someone types in Germany (1911-14) they are 99% going to use a hyphen because even if they have an endash on the keyboard few know enough to use it, and so it is going to go through a redirect, which would be avoided by using a hyphen. The difference, of course is about three pixels. Apteva (talk) 05:18, 22 October 2012 (UTC)


 * As to our "identical background and identical intelligence", I take no position, since I don't know who you are, and since I never invoke background or intelligence in WP disputes. As to your being disruptive, I think the data show otherwise.  Sustaining an average of 6 edits per day on an important talk page, more than double the rate of anyone else there, for four weeks, can't be anything but.  With no support for your theory, you vow to press on until you win.  That's disruptive.  Dicklyon (talk) 05:33, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Not in this case. Disruptive was spending a couple of years arguing to use an endash in Mexican American War. Hugely disruptive.


 * Neither background nor intelligence are a requisite for editing and constructively contributing to WP content. We have editors with an IQ of 80 (and below) and ones with an IQ of 120 (and above). We have third graders and probably some with multiple post doctorates. All are both welcome and needed to make WP a success. All of us are able to collaboratively create something that none of us individually could possibly create. Some of us have the time and the energy to post six times a day for a year. Some only post once in six years. All are welcome and needed. None of our pages are more important than any of the other pages though. All of our pages are important. We deep six the ones that are not important. Apteva (talk) 06:03, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Isn't it about time to review your count, and change to support, at Talk:Richmond_%E2%80%93_San_Rafael_Bridge, to dispel the impression of just being an anti-en-dash–anti-MOS troll? Dicklyon (talk) 05:14, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Review my count? Just because "5 of the first 10 books"? After the first ten I was about to do that, but said, well lets push through and see what the answer really is, and checked only previews, I never used OCR once in that count. And after you get through the first 20 the 5 out of 10 starts slipping, and finally ends up at 25.7% - for books. For newspapers an endash is no where to be seen - although one does use an emdash. So clearly the vote of everyone should be for Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, with a hyphen. But at 5 out of 10 I would not have said that was conclusive - it was an indicator that either could be used, and that a tie breaker needed to be found somewhere else. Newspapers conclusively answered that question. I do not have a copy of the AP style guide, but it is so overwhelming that that particular bridge could even be included as an example. We do not use the MOS to determine names of proper names. We only use the MOS to determine titles that we make up. Apteva (talk) 15:04, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
 * And even that is probably not a true statement - because only TITLE determines titles - we just happen to use the same conventions that the MOS uses - sometimes. Apteva (talk) 15:11, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
 * "Only TITLE determines titles" is the signature of an anti-MOS troll, claiming that the MOS should be ignored when styling title text. If you want to survey the decisions make in reliable sources about whether an en dash is appropriate, it makes sense to do that in the context of sources that have en dash among their style choices, as I've pointed out before; that leaves out newspapers, and many books.  You can't claim that someone has decided hyphen is better than en dash if that someone doesn't have en dash as an available option.  In WP, we do have that option, so we need to make the call; that's what MOS helps with.  As for the Richmond–San Rafael Bridge, that's not an official name as you seem to think, but a name made up as a description based on the symmetrically-connected two places.  Like a Seattle–Tokyo flight, or the Hartsfield–Jackson Airport, a perfect place to prefer an en dash.  Your unreasoned rejection of such uses makes you appear an anti-en-dash troll, like Born2cycle and PMAnderson.  Dicklyon (talk) 17:30, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Since when do newspapers not use endash? They are typeset just like books and can use any font or character they want. They choose a uniform font, but to my knowledge do not avoid using an endash. I see the NY Times uses endashes for minus signs and emdashes for endashes "earnings growth — information that". In the two instances I found in the LA Times, they used -- two hyphens, to represent an endash in one place and a real endash in the other. I did not spend a long time looking. Calling someone anti MOS is counter productive. I use the MOS just the same as everyone else. Yes, the bridge has an official name, and Richmond-San Rafael Bridge is not it, but it also has a common name, that a majority of sources uses, and as far as I can tell, it is just that, Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, with a hyphen. Yes there are some books that were obviously written with a typewriter, but if they wanted an endash they could have used --, two hyphens. FYI, Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport is the official name. I researched that one and tracked down the actual city ordinance that gave it that name. The funny part is the ordinance says the purpose of the ordinance is to change the name to Hartsfield - Jackson International Airport (space hyphen space, which is what the FAA uses) and ends with therefore the name is hereby "Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport", without the spaces and with Jackson bolded. Obviously no one uses it that way. A year later a second ordinance was passed changing what the city calls the airport in the city code, but that did not change the name of the airport, and that ordinance consistently used an unspaced hyphen, with no bolding. Believe me I am as far from a troll as you can get - I simply want WP to be the best it can be - nothing less. The metric I use is how well respected is WP? Are schools allowed to use WP as a reference? They certainly can use Britannica. If they can not use WP, we have a very serious problem, and not one that throwing in a few endashes is going to fix - especially when we throw them in where they do not belong. Apteva (talk) 21:44, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
 * If newspapers use an en dash it's typically to stand for an em dash, since it's tighter. This book notes that "The en dash is less common and it's nonexistent in most newspaper styles."  And this one says "What's more, en dashes don't exist at all in the newspaper world."  But believe what you want; I'm sure there are exceptions.  As for turning WP into a reference source, I think that's an unreasonable goal; but let me know how you think it can be pulled off.  As for the name of the Atlanta airport, it's clear from the doc you quoted that the typography was not a part of that, is it not? They hadn't even settle on what typography to use in the name-changing document, so they clearly didn't see that as part of the name.   Dicklyon (talk) 02:27, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
 * As for "earnings growth — information that", the NYT seems to have revised that story, so I can't verify. It's not clear where it originated, or whether they would use such characters in print.  Dicklyon (talk) 02:34, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, they changed it to a comma. Here is a spaced emdash: " in the division — which excludes cash and discontinued operations — was $425 billion" Hmm "you've reached your limit of 10 free articles this month". Maybe WP should start charging for viewing articles. Here is another spaced emdash for a spaced endash on the main page

"Who Gets Credit for the Recovery? By DAVID LEONHARDT 5:45 PM ET

The odds that an economic recovery has finally begun have never been higher — adding to the election’s stakes."

No comment on Atlanta, other than I do think they meant a hyphen, and the FAA may have read the first part of the ordinance and not gotten down to the end. I think I would trust a sample of stories over a book that flat out says that they are not used when they clearly are, and the opposite is what I found for the NY Times - an endash instead of a minus sign, and an emdash instead of an endash. And it was a spaced emdash no less. I tend to like the motto of Missouri - show me. Did you notice that both of those books are by the same author? How to make WP better? How about using hyphens where hyphens should be used, like in Mexican-American War? Apteva (talk) 03:07, 27 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Interesting about the two books by same author. Here is a book that says the opposite; but your counts pretty well prove it wrong.  Dicklyon (talk) 03:19, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Because they called 1/3 seldom? It does seem that it is the author that thought that it was or was not used - one thought it was not and put it into two books, one more strongly than the other, they also wrote a third book, and the second author thought it was seldom used, even though in one sample it was used 1/3 of the time. Out of all the millions of publications though, it is pretty hard to draw conclusions - but easy to disprove is someone says "always" or "never". Apteva (talk) 03:41, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

WTF are you thinking here? Isn't the cause of these disruptive "problems" under your immediate control? Just stop being a cowboy. Dicklyon (talk) 16:38, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I fix what I can. The "disruption" is not caused by me, but by the decision to use endashes where hyphens should be used. That is the problem that needs to be corrected. Apteva (talk) 02:26, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

WP:MMA

 * I am guessing that means 976 from you and 1 from me? I have only edited MMA because of doing WP:RCP, to the best of my recollection, but thanks for the invite anyway. Apteva (talk) 21:37, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Barnstar!

 * You and half a million others. Apteva (talk) 08:30, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Ticker symbols in article leads and next steps
Hi. I'm contacting you as you participated in the policy village pump discussion regarding ticker symbols in article leads.

I've posted a section here about next steps to take, specifically examining whether an RFC is needed to reach a clear consensus on this issue. If you have the time and/or inclination to weigh in, please do! --MZMcBride (talk) 18:43, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Election debates table
Thank you for adding the table. Please see Talk:United States presidential election, 2012 as I added a comment there about the links used within the table. I'm headed off line for the rest of the day. The way you did the links is not a huge concern and so my comment on the talk page is more of a head's up. --Marc Kupper&#124;talk 00:47, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Edit
I dont understand this warning. At what point did William make a personal attack? Pass a Method  talk  22:13, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
 * The warning did not necessarily imply that there was any personal attack made. It was a warning to not make any. Apteva (talk) 22:15, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Category:Actresses
I have just reverted your removal of from. This follows on your earlier redirection of from, which I also reverted.

Per our discussion on my talk, these categories were re-created explicitly to allow discussion at CFD, following a deletion review. Your redirection without seeking consensus at WP:CFD was an attempt to undermined the possibility of a CFD discussion as mandated by DRV. I can accept that you may have done this in good faith, whilst unaware of the DRV decision, but your subsequent removal of the actresses from was done after you were made aware of the DRV. It is in any case a bizarre edit: the first time, you redirect actresses to actors (on the presumption that the two were synonymous), but the second time you removed from {{cl|actors}] as if they were nothing to do with each other. Those two actions are incompatible.

Please stop this, and start using consensus-forming procedures. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:16, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Your "warning" is ill suited and unwarranted. You have listed diff=522707307&oldid=522700339 twice and I am certain that I only applied the guideline once. The discussion is not about the creation of actresses as a category, but of the creation of the subcategories as categories, and they were not deleted or redirected. The creation of actresses is not needed for the discussion to pursue. It was another editor that redirected the category. What I did is delete the duplicate category "actor". Apteva (talk) 22:26, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
 * You will notice that recreating the category "to allow discussion" has inappropriately led to the addition of a "please populate" template, and the willing addition of what appears to be over 100 edits, instead of waiting for the outcome. Apteva (talk) 22:32, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

(ec) Check your own contributions, or the page history.
 * at 19:56, 12 November 2012‎ you redirected the category
 * at 21:13 I reverted you
 * at 21:54 you removed the parent

Also, take a look at Deletion review/Log/2012 September 11. You will see there that is explicitly listed as one of the categories for which deletion was sought, and permission granted for a relisting.

If you don't want to stay, then list it at WP:CFD and seek a consensus.

If you don't want to list it at CFD, then don't remove it from. If you genuinely believe for some bizarre reason that an actress is not a type of actor, and actresses should not be categorised under actors, then seek a consensus for that odd view. Good luck in finding the references to support that view. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:40, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
 * That is not a bizarre reason. Actresses are not actresses, they are actors, just like firemen or postmen who are women are not firewomen or postwomen, they are firemen and postmen. Just as someone was shocked at the mere idea of a man playing Marilyn Monroe, if someone has to be female to be an actress, then clearly actress is not a subcategory of actor, but is a separate category. (a woman in that view who acts is not an actor, but is only and solely an actress, and actress is not a subcategory of actor, any more than female is a subcategory of male, to make it more obvious) Apteva (talk) 23:12, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Please stop being silly.
 * You say that an actress is an actor ... so if exists, it belongs as a subcat of.
 * The rest of what you write in the paragraph above is, to put it as politely as I can, self-contradictory nonsense. I will not waste any more time arguing it with you here. Take it to WP:CFD if you want to, where we can have a wider discussion and other editors can share the burden of disentangling your self-contradictions. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:26, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
 * There are women who are actors who would be happy to be included in an actor category but would not like to be in an actress category. Apteva (talk) 02:02, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
 * And vice-versa. But a) Most articles on actresses describe them in the body text as actresses. b) The choice of title is a separate issue to the question of whether to categorise actors by gender.  could be renamed to "Female actors", "Women actors", or whatever. (Personally, I have no current preference on the choice of title). This is what we have done with, , and other gendered categories. c) We don't create parallel category structures according to the terminological preferences of individuals with any particular occupation. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:08, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Once a category is created, editors will populate it. That is how all categories work, and if you disapprove the solution is simple -- go to WP:CFD and propose its merger or deletion.
 * Why do you find this so hard to underestand? -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:42, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Let me get this straight. There is a guideline that says that actresses is not needed as a category. For years it was a redirect to actors. Someone creates a CfD but instead of it being deleted, someone creates a DRV, and instead of leaving it as a redirect it is made into a category? Something is not right there. Apteva (talk) 23:02, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
 * No, you ain't got it straight. Please read the Deletion review/Log/2012 September 11; I have posted the link to you several times, and it is tedious that you continue to make false assumptions rather than to follow the links repeatedly given to you.
 * I am now getting a bit fed up of trying to find new ways to explain this to you, but I will make one more attempt.
 * The categories were deleted at CFD. Some years later, a deletion review a) permitted relisting of the categories, and b) actually asked me to recreate them, in order to have something to discuss at CFD. (CFD can only discuss the proposed merger or deletion or renaming of a category. If the category doesn't exist there is nothing for CfD to discuss)
 * So I created, and , as discussed at DRV, in order to allow a CFD discussion. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:20, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

My apologies!
My behavior and actions yesterday night were innappropriate and was from a result high stress and fatique. I am here to submit a statement of apology to you for conveying that behavior toward you and your close decision. I will now be going on a Wikibreak while I have such a stress as it is affecting my judgement on wiki and what you experienced, was me venting from a bad day. If you have any follow up concerns or questions or comments or a mere thank you to write, I would recommend doing so on my page as that would get my attention.— cyberpower ChatOffline 19:55, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
 * All I can say is come back as soon as you can. Apteva (talk) 19:58, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Ultra disruption...
Even while you had a mediation invitation open to me, you decided to go on a disruptive tear of anti-MOS moves based on your theory that got no support in your last 3 months of trying. Why would you do that? You can't think it's an effective strategy to influence WP guidelines, can you? Please stop. Dicklyon (talk) 01:42, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Excuse me? There is a request on your talk page to stop moving airports and to use hyphens. I am simply following through. While it was certainly a good faith attempt on your part to follow the MOS, both of us clearly now know that it is not a correct interpretation of the MOS. Apteva (talk) 01:50, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
 * If you're referring to User_talk:Dicklyon, that's about city-name pairs in destination tables, nothing to do with article titles. I have already accepted that project's table formatting conventions.  If you're referring to your noise of October, I thought that was long settled by the string of tests at RMs, move reviews, and your other failed attempts to find support for your position.   If you're referring to something else, let me know.  Dicklyon (talk) 01:55, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
 * By the way, if you decline the mediation, there is no "mediation invitation open". But I can invite others instead. Apteva (talk) 02:23, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm saying that you started your disruption first, then I declined. It's odd to use a mediation request this way, adding people to try to find someone to argue with you.  Dicklyon (talk) 03:12, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
 * See Talk:Comet Hale-Bopp and User talk:Dicklyon. Right now you are impeding the development of the encyclopedia. Check your history, and you are moving pages inappropriately, such as Blue Canyon-Nyack Airport and Rock Springs-Sweetwater County Airport. This is just nonsense. Apteva (talk) 03:46, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
 * ??? Comets now? I thought you said there was something about airports that I had been told.  Never mind.  I don't think I'm "impeding the development of the encyclopedia" by working toward the styling recommended in the WP:MOS.  It would seem more logical that working the opposite direction, which is what you're doing, is more disruptive.  Dicklyon (talk) 04:10, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes comets now. For quite some time it has been agreed that comet Hale-Bopp is spelled with a hyphen, and at the time an RM was not opened to avoid the inevitable ill informed opposes that it would produce. This is an opportunity to bring you up to speed. Your time and my time is better spent fixing errors, like removing endashes in proper nouns, and making additions to the encyclopedia, instead of simply edit warring. Out of the last 50 edits you have made, less than 10 can be considered as productive, as in improving the encyclopedia, in some manner. Contesting an obvious move is not productive. Moving articles to incorrect names is not productive. Going off on a tangent about airport names is not productive. Call the city council (I did) and they will say it is a space, a hyphen, and a space. They will definitely not say, well we wanted an endash but it was not on our typewriter keyboard. I really would like to find a way to move past this nonsense and get on with some productive work. Apteva (talk) 04:42, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Where has it been agreed that spelling has to do with punctuation, or that comets can only use hyphens? That artilcle was moved in 2011 (with no involvement from me), and there was no pushback from the astronomers who watch it (who pushed back hard on downcasing Halley's comet, in spite of majority lower case in sources, by the way).  Anyway, since you're changing the subject, I assume you're retracting your statement that "There is a request on your talk page to stop moving airports and to use hyphens." Dicklyon (talk) 04:59, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
 * To find the answer, I would recommend participating in the mediation. You are correct that Halley's comet spells comet lower case. But convincing anyone else is not easy. It appears in different dictionaries both ways. Apteva (talk) 05:20, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Warning
Based on your latest RM at Talk:Comet Hale–Bopp, and your continued pig-headedness and ignoring of consensus at all the others, I'm thinking that one more will probably prompt me to open a complaint at WP:AN/I to ask to have you stopped. This is pure disruption. Dicklyon (talk) 05:52, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I see that you may not have been keeping up with the discussion at Wikipedia talk:MOS. Apteva (talk) 05:54, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
 * As mentioned before, it is never a disruption to correct an error. Apteva (talk) 05:56, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
 * See, for example, the response to your post "The fact that Hale–Bopp is so often found with en dash in sources, including astronomy journals, is strong evidence that the IAU naming guidelines are not being interpreted as styling guidelines in either astronomical or general publications. Dicklyon (talk) 18:07, 30 October 2012 (UTC)


 * I looked at the first 50 results in google books, and only 3 use a dash"


 * I have very often seen you point out those 3 in arguing an RM, and totally ignoring those 47. This is an example of WP:POINT. [As is this warning.] Apteva (talk) 06:01, 18 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Apteva, why would you risk a block over something so trivial? Just admit that you're wrong, as everybody keeps telling you, as you clearly are, and move on. What's the deal? --213.196.194.37 (talk) 16:51, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
 * First, it is not trivial, and second, no one is ever going to be blocked for wanting to fix errors in Wikipedia. That is why we have WP:AGF. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and is either the laughing stock of the world or a valuable reference. If it contains too many errors, it is the former, less, and it is the latter. Which would you like it to be? Respected, or laughed at? I want it to be respected and all of my edits are solely for that purpose, to improve the respect of Wikipedia. Apteva (talk) 17:53, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
 * It's a bit presumptuous to assume, as you are doing judging by your above comment, that you're always on the encyclopedically correct side of the argument. Wikipedia is also a community which collectively and collegially determines its course of action. Badgering the community with repeated requests is, in the long run, a sure-fire way to find yourself increasingly sidelined. And then what about your otherwise valuable contributions? --78.35.234.100 (talk) 19:08, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
 * For any community to do that obviates the purpose of that community and is ludicrous. It is, of course worthwhile quoting one editor who announced their temporary retirement, as a relief that they knew that tomorrow and the next day they would not be spending their time arguing with those who were less intelligent than average. It is, though, important for anyone with an IQ of 120 or above to always remember that by definition half of the population has an IQ of 100, which to them is severely deficient, let alone anyone on the other side of the middle, an IQ of 80. Wikipedia welcomes all persons to participate in editing - those with an IQ of 140 and above, as well as those with an IQ of 60 and below. And it is important to recognize that each group has its own frustrations - inability to understand and inability to explain. What we have far too much of is driving editors away not by blocking them, but by driving them away because of frustration with having to argue simple points that should be obvious to everyone. Like using hyphens where hyphens go, and using capital letters where capital letters go. By the way I do not presume being on the encyclopedic side, I insist that Wikipedia choose the encyclopedic side. There are a few subjects in which I am an expert, and can from my own knowledge verify reliable sources, and thousands of others which I contribute based on reliable sources solely, without having any personal knowledge. My basic modus operandus in every situation is to enter it with an open mind and based on best information available make a recommendation. As you point out, my recommendation is only one of many, and the operational procedure we follow is to obtain consensus. However, the best feature of consensus decision making is that if everyone else is wrong and one person is right, that one person can hold up taking action and be heard, even if 3,000 oppose votes are given, if one support vote can see the forest for the trees, it invalidates all of the oppose votes. That happens more commonly in interface issues, where for technical reasons an action that the community all wants is not possible, but it certainly appears to be happening in the case of hyphens vs. endashes. Most editors have no idea what an endash or a hyphen is, and have no clue that it makes a difference which is used. My own preference is to prohibit endashes from titles to make titles more accessible, but that affects titles such as War of 1978-1979 in xyz, where to me it is silly to make people go through a redirect to get to War of 1978–1979 in xyz. That is less important and will be brought up separately. Apteva (talk) 21:07, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
 * WP:AGF goes both ways. Apteva, you seem to be suggesting that the many who oppose your anti-en-dash efforts want to have the project laughed at rather than respected.  That's clearly not right, and not an assumption of good faith.  I'm sure we all felt you were sincere for the first month or so of trying to purge en dashes from titles, which is why we so patiently explained and argued and tried to educate you; but AGF wears thin in the face of continuing disruption that ignores consensus.  At some point, if you're not taking input and learning to work collaboratively, we may need to take action to stop you; the warning was just to point out that we're about at that point.  Dicklyon (talk) 20:28, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh I fully admit that it was a good faith suggestion that of course Mexican American War should be spelled with an endash to make sure that some fifth grader who has no clue what an endash is knows that obviously it is about a war between Mexicans and Americans instead of being a war of Mexican Americans. Obviously I am being sarcastic, but yes it was a good faith idea, but it misses the forest for the trees - English idioms do not have meanings that are logical - we commonly have phrases that should mean a positive based on the words used, and mean a negative. The other forest that was missed was that this would put the MOS into conflict with TITLE, as it is in conflict with the way everyone else spells Mexican American War. This is an example of coming to a perfectly logical conclusion that makes absolutely no sense. Fix it and move on. Trying to hold on to an absurdity is ridiculous. Apteva (talk) 21:07, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Wars
Here you espouse the theory that "wars that have not achieved proper name status are actually spelled with an endash, which changes to a hyphen when war becomes capitalized." By "are actually spelled with" I believe you intend to refer to common, standard, or official usage of some sort. Can you say where you got this idea?

With respect to categories of named things you also said there "Comets, out of the at least four categories that in my opinion incorrectly use endashes now (comets, wars, bridges, airports), is the most blatant violation, with airports the second, bridges the third, and wars the fourth." You can probably see how this kind of professed belief makes people afraid to support you even at comets, where you claimed the support of an outside naming authority. I don't personally think the IAU's official naming policy holds sway over typical English usage, nor over WP styling, but if I did, I'd still be reluctant to support someone who is trying to build a slippery slope that way. Maybe that's why not even the astronomers support you there, though they're adamant about following the IAU on capitalization.

Anyway, something for you to reflect on. Please don't restart the disruptive and anti-dash campaign, or I won't hesitate to seek intervention. Dicklyon (talk) 02:49, 19 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Wars: All sentences are constructed with appropriate punctuation. If I create the sentence "Foo occurred in 1978", I get to decide all of the punctuation in the sentence to convey meaning. There is an interesting example in "Eats, Shoots and Leaves", or is that Eats, Shoots, and Leaves? Where a letter with the exact same words has the opposite meaning simply by changing the punctuation. However, I do not get to change the punctuation or spelling of "Foo" if Foo is a proper noun and therefore has an established spelling. This should be obvious.
 * Comets: This also should be obvious. Wars have no "naming authority". Bridges, and airports have a naming authority but especially with bridges are commonly ignored by the public, choosing a utilitarian name instead of some obscure official, such as the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, instead of the actual name "John F. McCarthy Memorial Bridge". However names used by the public include punctuation, and to date there are no known proper nouns that use endashes, in common usage.
 * Campaign: I have never been disruptive, nor do I have an anti-dash campaign. I am perfectly willing to use endashes where appropriate within articles. I do not think they should be used in any title, because of accessibility issues, and after I get all of the articles fixed that incorrectly use endashes I will be bringing that up. Using them in titles has nothing to do with using them in comets, wars, bridges, etc. - using them there is just plain wrong. As I mentioned, Uganda–Tanzania war may or may not have achieved proper name status. If not, then those are just three separate words, and the correct punctuation is an endash, and war is not capitalized. If it has achieved proper name status, we do not get to choose the spelling, punctuation, or the capitalization. We use reliable sources and "Foo"="Mexican-American War" for example, as an unchangeable entity. As mentioned, the disruption was created by making an unfortunate error to spell Mexican-American War with an endash, with an edit war that started in 2006. Nothing is ever "finished" in Wikipedia, and editors are always welcome to suggest changes, regardless of how many times they or someone else has proposed them. Who knows, they might be right. Apteva (talk) 04:17, 19 November 2012 (UTC)


 * hyphen-->09:21, 13 March 2002‎ User:Rmhermen (created page)


 * endash-->23:39, 1 August 2006 User:RJN moved page Mexican-American War to Mexican–American War (Proper copyediting


 * hyphen-->04:22, 19 December 2006 User:Kirill Lokshin moved page Mexican–American War to Mexican-American War over redirect (The proper form in two-country conflict names is with a hyphen, not an en-dash)


 * endash-->07:13, 31 December 2006 User:RJN moved page Mexican-American War to Mexican–American War over redirect


 * hyphen-->19:35, 22 April 2007 Vanished user moved page Mexican–American War to Mexican-American War (Per WP:MOSDASH)


 * endash-->13:15, 29 April 2007 User:RJN moved page Mexican-American War to Mexican–American War over redirect


 * hyphen-->21:34, 12 May 2007 User:Allen3 moved page Mexican–American War to Mexican-American War (Removal of en-dash from article title as per Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Special characters)


 * endash-->03:36, 30 July 2008 User:Fuhghettaboutit moved page Mexican-American War to Mexican–American War (En-dash in place of hyphen, requested move with support (see talk page))


 * hyphen-->08:30, 13 March 2011 User:Graeme Bartlett moved page Mexican–American War to Mexican-American War (result of requested move, published sources exclusively use hyphen not dash)


 * endash-->18:14, 23 August 2011 User:Kwamikagami moved page Mexican-American War to Mexican–American War (MOS discussion finally over)

Non-admin closes
Apteva, I strongly object to you doing non-admin closes of RMs, after your long string of RM losses in which you demonstrated that you are largely out of touch with how WP articles are titled. Just leave it to someone else while you're learning about WP. Dicklyon (talk) 05:03, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
 * No one has ever questioned my judgement in any of the closes I have made. I am hardly "learning about WP". Nor am I the one who is "out of touch". If you or anyone objects to any close, please refer it to WP:MRV. Apteva (talk) 05:08, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Got it. Not learning.  I see you're planning to make good on your promise to keep up the disruption until you fix the title "errors" that others agree on .  Dicklyon (talk) 05:34, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
 * That RM review was closed as no consensus, but there were clear and obvious reasons for the move, and an admin suggested that the close be overturned. Apteva (talk) 05:39, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Dicklyon, you might consider checking an editor's contribution history and, oh I don't know, their userpage before throwing around presumptions that they might "still be learning." Accusations like this are nearly like templating the regulars.  I, Jethrobot  drop me a line (note: not a bot!) 06:04, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I think he knows that I know he's been around a while. Dicklyon (talk) 06:13, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
 * That is he or she, thank you. Apteva (talk) 06:58, 14 November 2012 (UTC)


 * "No one has ever questioned my judgement in any of the closes I have made."
 * They have now.
 * Please stop this. Avoid RM altogether, you clearly have a troublesome history with it. Also do not act in ways that make it appear you're acting as an admin.
 * If anyone should ever raise this at WP:AN etc., perhaps seeking a formal topic ban, please let me know too. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:16, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
 * FYI There is nothing wrong with what I did at your page, nor anything wrong with what you did. There is no history that needs to be preserved, assuming that you are the sole creator of the page. I apologize if I have in any way offended you by trying to help you. Admin's are not required for closing RM's. Pages can be moved by anyone. There is a new "non-admin" closure template that simply inserts the words "non-admin closure", but there is no requirement to use it. I choose not to use it. I have been doing RM closes for several years now and have no reason to stop now, especially with the backlog as it exists now. Apteva (talk) 18:48, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Edit wars
I thought you said you wanted to avoid edit wars over hyphens and en dashes. Why then do you do an uncommented revert of a good-faith move? Dicklyon (talk) 04:13, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I do. Use hyphens in proper nouns. Read the article. Apteva (talk) 04:19, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Opting in to edit count stats
As User:TheSpecialUser noted in your RfA, could you please create this page with any content so that we can get your detailed edit statistics? (edit count of months and pages most contributed to) Thanks, The Anonymouse (talk • contribs) 06:27, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks but I recall that there is another way to get that info. It does not show anything very interesting. Most of my edits are as an IP user, anyway. I registered this account in May 2008, and there is a break where I did little to no editing maybe in 2010 or so. Apteva (talk) 06:34, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I do RCP so I edit every article there is, other than that, just check Category:Solar energy - I have either edited or created all many of them., with few to no exceptions. I do WP:RM, so have a lot of edits to the WP:RM pages. Apteva (talk) 06:37, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

MOS
My original interest in editing this encyclopedia was simply to fix an error, and take pity on anyone reading it without it being fixed. Since then I have made thousands of additions and contributed a hundred articles. As a collaborative media it is essential to discuss the issue, not the conduct of a contributor on article and wikipedia talk pages. The place to discuss content is AN/I and user talk pages. It is never appropriate to name an editor on a guideline talk page, as was done at the Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style page. While you and I may have a different opinion on the purpose of the MOS, and I do know that you are a frequent contributor of the MOS, I am not. I am a content contributor, not a guideline writer, but I do not appreciate, and can not tolerate, the MOS giving me or anyone else bad advice, as is currently the case with hyphens being replaced with endashes where hyphens are correctly used. So what is the solution? How is this problem to be fixed? Any suggestions? As I see it the MOS is written by about a dozen editors, who evidently are not very respectful of the wikipedia community as a whole. Apteva (talk) 01:42, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

The three cups of tea is pretentious. Their User page speaks volumes – (NB not a hyphen) – via a UBX to profess outwardly that "This user would like to be an admin. one day". I rest my case, Sincerely,  -- Gareth Griffith-Jones / The Welsh Buzzard 10:00, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Your holier-than-thou "take pity on anyone reading [Wikipedia]" without your magically fantastic input, that is somehow automatically better than everyone else's, is the whole problem. You do not have a collaborative attitude, but a "my way or the highway" stance that is extremely offputting. No one cares that you are certain you are right. WP is not about "winning". It is entirely appropriate, and necessary, to address specific editor behaviors when they become disruptive, as yours consistently have, and to address them at the locus of the disruption initially, without escalating matters further if possible.  You appear to be confused about what WP:AN/I's purpose it.  It is for addressing specific user behaviors, not content, and in particular it is for seeking administrator response to problems for which users can be blocked.  You've been staying clear of those, so there is no reason to take you to AN/I, unlike User:LittleBenW at Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons, who go blocked last week.  Whether someone "names" you on WT:MOS is moot, since you sign your own posts there. Your opinion that MOS "gives bad advice" has been noted, by everyone within virtual earshot of MOS and various other places you visit with this anti-endash bugbear, like various WP:RM discussions, etc.; you just will not shut up about your obsessive nitpicks that almost no one else agrees with, and it's getting really obnoxious at this point.  This won't be a WP:AN/I matter if you continue; it'll be a WP:ARBCOM issue, and if it goes there it's likely that you, like various other parties before you, will get topic-banned from MOS for incessantly brow-beating disruptive editing, refusal to acknowledge that most other editors just don't agree with you, and your attempts to re-re-re-raise issues again and again after they're already settled, in hopes of incidentally finding a receptive audience if you wear out your opponents.  The "solution" is for you to WP:JUSTDROPIT and remember that you are to work on the encyclopedia, not dictate your style preferences to everyone else.  MOS is written by the Wikipedians who care to write it and with such consensus as can be forged among them, like all other pages here, and has had the direct input of many hundreds of editors.  At any given time there are probably a dozen or so editors paying a lot of attention to it, and this too is true of almost any page on Wikipedia; they change over time as editors come and go, and as editors' individual focuses change.  You should be aware that the assumption of a conspiratorial cabal running Wikipedia or any process on it is generally considered a farcical idea, and widely mocked.  Most people topic-banned from editing MOS, like PMAnderson, have also taken the "it's a conspiracy!" position, and it has not availed them, but instead made them look crazy.  I don't agree with everything MOS says (e.g. I really, really loathe sentence instead of title case for headings – I think it looks completely ridiculous), but I and everyone else but a few cranks, whom your behavior is aligning you with, agree that MOS should be followed, because it is important for WP to be self-consistent.  There is not a grammar and style rule in the world that someone will not take issue with, but it is more important that we settle on such rules, arbitrary as some of them may be, and follow them, than simply have chaos.  PS: Your principal objection seems to be that I took you to task publicly at WT:MOS, and that is very telling. People who are genuinely correct on an issue never fear public criticism, because their critics are self-evidently wrong, and only serve to make the facts they oppose all the clearer. The opposite has been happening in your case. — SMcCandlish    Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿ ¤ þ  Contrib.  09:00, 30 November 2012 (UTC)  Short version: Nobody cares. — SMcCandlish    Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿ ¤ þ  Contrib.  09:04, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Friendly Two points ...


 * No, this post is solely about the editing of SMcCandlish, one of the four most active contributors to the MOS. Short version. Comment on the content, not on conduct. WP:AN/I and user talk pages are for user conduct, not wikipedia guideline talk pages. To say that nobody cares is absurd. The incivility at MOS is a huge problem and everybody cares. Apteva (talk) 21:56, 30 November 2012 (UTC)