User talk:CharlotteWebb/Archive/007

Why did i say wrong in rating articles ?
--User:RRaunak 07:43, 10 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Nothing at all. It might actually be a good idea. — CharlotteWebb 03:39, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

But it needs more powerful server --User:RRaunak 13:50, 11 July 2008 (UTC)


 * So buy one. Or you if you already have one, you could set up a rating system on your own server and sweet-talk somebody into adding it to the interface. Personally I would recommend a 1-10 system similar to the one used by IMDb (See Internet Movie Database). Note that their algorithm relies heavily on security through obscurity, so a healthy amount of trial-and-error guesswork will be needed before believable results can be published. — CharlotteWebb 14:16, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

RFA thank-you
Thank-you for your support of me at my recent RFA, which was successful. I have appreciated everyone's comments and encouragement there. Good Ol’factory (talk) 03:34, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

A comment on the village pump
This diff appeared to me to be an accusation that I was attempting to game the system. I admit that I have process-wonkish tendencies, but I have made my peace with that particular article and had moved on to looking at whether it represented a systemic problem. I apologize if I'm violating WP:AAGF, but I thought I'd mention that I had a problem with your comment. Feel free to WP:TROUT me if I'm misunderstanding. SDY (talk) 17:44, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
 * No, this was intended as general advice, based on your comment about "following processes and [getting] burned anyway" (not upon your behavior which I have not examined). All I'm saying is there is, ideally, no upper hand to be gained by "following processes" and that your position should be judged on its own merits rather than your conduct (be it deplorable or stellar) in promoting it. If you are doing the Right Thing, you will be vindicated in the end, regardless of the approach you take. — CharlotteWebb 18:00, 29 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I obviously agree, but I still think you're misreading my comment. I had no intention of saying "I was obviously right because I followed process" and you appear to be inserting that into my comments when I never said it.  In other words, you appeared to be assuming that I had a bad faith reason for bringing up the topic.


 * I was simply stating that I did follow the process, the process failed, and I wanted to evaluate whether there was an underlying problem. To quote an old essay, "If a process is not good, think enough of fellow Wikipedians to engage the problem and propose a change to it; don't just ignore the process."  SDY (talk) 19:32, 29 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Apologies if overreacted, reading your comment as appeal to social obedience, but it is not an assumption of bad faith to suggest that you think they are right (regardless of your reasoning), and I did not mean to imply malice or "bad faith" of any kind. By the way, this version is funnier. — CharlotteWebb 20:27, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for cleaning up my nomination
Now that you fixed it, I'll have to edit my rationale for clarity, and I don't think that your cleanup comments belong, because it seems to clutter the nomination. I didn't bother tagging any of the categories, because this is essentially an uncontroversial proposal that just needs an admin to complete. A lot of the categories pertaining to the cities/regions are already without the "Ontario". --Pwnage8 (talk) 23:05, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

An honest question,
and seriously asked in good faith. You said, at AN, ''Or you could stuff beans up your nose. I would rather see a red link than slapping myself every time I open a talk page which contains no actual talk''. Do you often click on bluelinked talkpages, find only templates, and then "slap yourself?" I find that rather hard to believe! The redlinked talkpages, in my opinion, are dangerous. They scream: "New article!  AFD me!  Prod me!  Speedy me! I'm not even important enough to have anyone talk about me! (Sorry, way too many exclamation points there).  I'm honestly at a complete loss as to why a talkpage, of any article, should remain red, even if the only thing there is the talkheader template.  Does it prohibit others from talking about an article?  I understand you may be frustrated to click on a blue link, only to find a template or two, and be disappointed.  If you had something to say though, would it stop you from being the first "real human" poster?  I find that highly unlikely.  I'm not about to go on a crusade of finding "redlinked talkpages" and adding a silly template to them, but at the same time, I find it a complete waste of time to find the talkpages with "only orange templates" and go about deleting them.  Both extremes seem silly, don't you agree?  I hope you agree, you've always struck me as one of the more reasonable editors here. Keeper   76  01:17, 2 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't know you but I'll take that as a compliment. This has nothing to do with caring who makes the first post, or encouraging or discouraging actual discussion in the future (IP users can still create pages in any "talk" namespace for what it's worth). This is about signal-to-noise ratio. When one realizes that the talk pages (of most minor articles) do in fact exist but contain only banner templates, the conditioned response is to stop bothering to even check them. In the less common case where the article has been previously discussed (er, talked about) the consequence is to be reverted by somebody saying "What, didn't you read the talk page?"; "Well, no because I assumed it was (as far as I'm concerned) blank". Of course, short of creating a third "banner-space" page for each article (for all the wiki-project notices and BLP warnings and whatnot), I don't see any practical way to distinguish between the actual talk pages and the placeholders that have been added by people with too much time on their hands. — CharlotteWebb 02:13, 2 August 2008 (UTC)


 * It was a compliment! At the same time, I wasn't implying that the person who makes "the first post" was somehow more important than someone else.  I have yet to experience your "conditioned response" though, for what it's worth.  If I have something to say about an article that I think needs to be discussed, I click "talk".  I don't give a rip if it's red, blue or purple.  If it's blue, I don't give a rip if it is "only banners" or contains lots of jabber.  I click "new section" (on my screen, the + sign) anyway.  I can't fathom someone being "conditioned to either "not respond" or being flatly ostracized for "not reading the talkpage before editing".  I'm sure it has happened, I just can't fathom it.  A talkpage full of banners (with nothing else) is as useless, in some senses, as a redlink talkpage, I agree.  But it isn't more useless.  In my opinion, perhaps alone, it is relatively less useless, because, at the very least, it gives EditorX a few bluelinks to click on (meaning the bluelinks in the talkpage banner of course) if he/she needs more info about a subject, or how to edit the talkpage in general.  Seems more professional, from an encyclopedic standpoint.  If I'm a new editor, and I see a "redlink" for an article that I'm interested in but have a question about, am I more or less likely to "start a new page" or simply add a sentence or two to an existing one? My gut says the latter, yours may not.  Keeper    76  02:20, 2 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, for my part I've asked a couple of people to make me a javascript tool to follow links to talk pages and paint them red (some... color... other... than... blue] if they appear not to contain any actual talk. That was a while ago, still waiting. — CharlotteWebb 02:27, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Why? What harm is being done by having banner-only talkpages?  Is it using too much server space?  I can't fathom a reason to go backwards and delete talkpages in this manner.  Am I missing something?  I of course, being a loyal Wikipedian, will go along with whatever consensus is apparent or is arrived at, but I for one cannot see the fruit in "undoing" a silly talkpage header on an otherwise redlink.  Seems entirely wonky if I'm being honest.   Keeper    76  02:32, 2 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Yeah well we don't create placeholder AFD/FAC/RFA/RFC/RFAR pages for every article or user that might be discussed. We (hopefully) don't tag User_talk:0.0.0.0 through 255.255.255.255 with &#123;&#123;IP address&#125;&#125;, though some people do add a welcome template to newly registered users whether they edit or not. As for the current discussion, I don't really care what "consensus" says (thank you for spelling it right!), I'm tired of opening empty gift-wrap, hence the x-ray vision (so to speak) user-script, so I would know whether a talk page is (for practical purposes) empty before I click on it. Sorta like popups but less subtle. — CharlotteWebb 02:52, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes I know it's dull, but....
Charlotte, hi! Thank you for moving CFD/Log/2008_July_26#Category:Pan-European_advocacy_groups to CFD/Log/2008_August_1#Category:Pan-European_advocacy_groups due to lack of participation. Er, OK, but how do I increase participation? Would it be OK if I dropped a note at Wikiproject:European Union, or would that count as canvassing? Regards, Anameofmyveryown (talk) 22:44, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Hello. It is not canvassing if your comment does not suggest that those reading it should "vote" one way or the other. — CharlotteWebb 17:38, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Your reverting
The MfD is still ongoing and you do not seem to be the closing admin. I filed it in an official way, so your revert is nothing but your resistance without any valid reason.--Caspian blue (talk) 04:31, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Ha! I followed MFD link to the first MFD before you corrected it to point to the second MFD. I noticed that the MFD I was reading had already been closed by Acalamari but for some reason I did not notice it was from three months ago. I am only now aware of the second MFD. — CharlotteWebb 13:21, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Ha!, you did not even look into the history. That is your mistake.--Caspian blue (talk) 13:28, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Speedy categories
Hi;

I've noticed you've speedily closed a few discussions at WP:CFD. With this one, however, there are a number of problems in doing this. First, you didn't wait 48 hours from the time of nomination. Please see WP:CFDS, where the procedure for speedy renames is outlined. Even if the result of the proposal is obvious and there are no objections, the rename can't take place until a minimum of 48 hours have elapsed from the time of nomination. This is in order to give the creator and any other interested parties time to comment or object. For this one, you waited only about 9 hours.

Secondly, "Olympic swimmers of COUNTRY" is not a category convention that is eligible for speedy renames. The complete list is found at Naming conventions (categories). If it's not included there, the only things that are speediable is converting a country abbreviation to the full name, spelling errors, pluralization errors, etc. See the 6 criteria at WP:CFDS. Please note point #5 under when speedy renames should not be used: "When proposing a change that does not qualify under any of the six criteria above, regardless of whether or not the proposed change will bring the category into conformity with existing categories". This seems to be the situation here.

Hopefully you will find this helpful. Good Ol’factory (talk) 22:28, 12 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the links (I'll read them someday), but I'm not going to sit here and argue with you unless you believe the result was incorrect. Even then I might not argue with you... maybe "for" or "from" or "representing" would be better than "of" for the hundreds of olympic-athletes-by-event-type-by-country categories we have. An extra 48 hours of inconsistency for the sake of process would bother me more than being reverted as part of an opposite mass-CFR in the future, mostly because this is a wiki and I try not to take things personally. Cheers. — CharlotteWebb 15:39, 13 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I wouldn't pooh-pooh process. Consistent pre-empting of CfDs in this manner has been regarded as disruptive editing in the past, with all the nasty consequences that that entails. That's not something anyone wants to get involved in, and it's not a great burden to simply abide by some rules which have been widely agreed to by consensus.


 * I know you're well-meaning and just being helpful, but whether or not you are correct in this particular instance is really beside the point that I am trying to make. Most editors think they are correct when they take any action, so process exists to help everyone in a situation where an editor thinks they are doing the right thing, but in reality maybe they aren't. It's often cases like that that end up being the "straw that breaks the camel's back" for other editors and results in a flurry of bad stuff happening. I just thought I'd try to tip you off in a situation where you were correct, to save you from maybe a situation where others won't want to tolerate it. Good Ol’factory (talk) 22:12, 13 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your concern, but like I said, I'm not going to argue with you. — CharlotteWebb 15:19, 14 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I wasn't trying to start an argument about anything, nor was I fishing for a confrontational reply. I was just giving you a heads up. You can do with it what you please, but this, too, counts as a "process" of notice that has been completed, I suppose. Good Ol’factory (talk) 21:45, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Category:Stubs
Should I withdraw the CfD nomination and move it to SFD instead? Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • (Broken clamshells • Otter chirps • HELP) 00:38, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't really care what you do as the result will probably be the same in any case. — CharlotteWebb 00:44, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

C++ Hello world
Charlotte, with regard to this edit, you weren't serious, were you? An IP has taken your advice literally and is edit-warring to change the Hello, World font. Can you please clarify? Thanks. :-) ATren (talk) 14:21, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
 * No, and in fact I could care less which example code is used as long as it compiles and runs properly. I think everybody on that page is worrying way too much about it. — CharlotteWebb 14:28, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The problem is that every other week somebody comes and creates "their" version. In many cases, it is not standards-compliant - sure, it may happen to work on their compiler, but that doesn't make it standards compliant. And every time this happens there is much pointless debate as new editors try to assert their version. So to avoid this absolutely idiotic and pointless debate, we found a well-sourced version and used it verbatim. Personally, it's not even the version I would prefer, but it's standard-compliant and sourced right to Stroustrup so there can be little debate. It's not mine or yours or his, it's Stroustrup's, and many editors on the talk page agreed that this is the path of least drama. ATren (talk) 16:54, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Possibly unwise language?
Hi there. I just saw this edit of yours to Requests for adminship/Geni 3:. I fully agree with the sentiments you expressed, and your comment made me laugh... but then I felt I should possibly comment on the use of the phrase 'nigger in the woodpile'. That was perhaps unwise, and I would advise you to consider retracting it. While I know it's just an old phrase, without any offensive intentions, others might not, and it's only a matter of time before someone sees that comment and gets offended by it. Up to you of course (I might just be oversensitive about this sort of thing). Sorry for messing up your simple attempt to introduce a little levity to RFA. :) Terraxos (talk) 22:05, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, now I'm glad I didn't say "chinks in their armor" [[Image:Smiley.svg|15px|]]. Thanks for the advice. — CharlotteWebb 13:10, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

FPaS RFC
As a participant in the recent discussion at WP:ANI, I thought you should be informed of the new RFC that another user has started regarding FPaS's behavior.  Jerry  talk ¤ count/logs 16:07, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Requests for comment/Future Perfect at Sunrise

Copyediting
You come recommended to me for a a copy edit request. I recently wrote and posted U.S. Route 41 in Michigan, which was initially rated as B-Class. I'd like to take it to GAN (and eventually FAC) but I know it could use a second set of eyes for a copy edit. If you are willing, could you copy edit it, or recommend someone else who might? Thanks in advance, Imzadi1979 (talk) 02:21, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I'd probably settle for B-class myself (shrug), but I'd really like to know why I was recommended and by whom. I took a look at it yesterday but abandoned the edit without saving. Is there some kind of current nomination page open somewhere or should I just give my thoughts on the talk page? I think this would be more constructive than actually editing it (less guesswork to revert later). — CharlotteWebb 15:43, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

RfA thanks
--SmashvilleBONK! 23:32, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Requests for arbitration/Sarah Palin protection wheel war
The Sarah Palin wheel war arbitration case, on which you have commented, is now open.
 * Evidence for the arbitrators may be submitted at Requests for arbitration/Sarah Palin protection wheel war/Evidence. Evidence should be submitted within one week, if possible.
 * Your contributions are also welcome at Requests for arbitration/Sarah Palin protection wheel war/Workshop.

For the Arbitration Committee, Anthøny   ✉  21:11, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Feedback
I trust your judgment and unbiased opinion so as to ask you to give me some feedback at User_talk:Jossi/What_shoud_I_do ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 18:09, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

TINA
Hi, I only just noticed this. I found it rather troubling that not only had I missed an edit on my watchlist, but an edit to my userspace. Good link anyway, I was going to link it to There is no alternative but recursive acronym is as good a place as any :p Happy editing! ~ Ame I iorate U T C @ 11:43, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh sorry, I only now noticed that recursive acronym was already linked further down. Do as you will. — CharlotteWebb 15:35, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Category:International rivers
Should we be including boundary-only rivers in this category? This is a good time to decide while there are eyeballs on it and we have the momentum to sort it out. (Cross-posted to Meco and Skookum1). Franamax (talk) 00:01, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
 * My opinion should already be clear on the CFD page, see "some of the water". — CharlotteWebb 00:12, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I knew where you stood, I was trying to organize a consensus (so I really was cheating by asking you wasn't I, since we already agreed on that? :) I decided tonight to start a category for International boundary rivers for the nonce, then I saw you had already started adding them in, so I joined up. I started with the fertile but obscure ground of Central America and worked down.
 * Have you covered Europe, Asia, Africa thoroughly, or should I recheck? I personally took care of all the international rivers in the continent of Australia, so no need to worry about that. Oh yes, I did New Zealand too. :)
 * I don't know how you are on scripting, I'm thinking of asking at bot requests for someone to code up a cross-check of articles with multiple "Rivers of..." categories and NOT "International rivers". Is that within your scope or should I ask there?
 * And looking at this further - maybe a better way to organize this category would be to create List of international rivers? This would be tables by continent, with river, source country, intermediate countries, exit country and maybe boundary length. The great majority of rivers are two-country, the Rhine, Danube, Mekong etc. would need special treatment. Possibly also river length, to give an indication of the rivers overall importance. Then the user could sort on various columns to better understand the situation (what international rivers are in Germany e.g.) - which is really the whole point of this. What do you think? Franamax (talk) 11:59, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Try as I might, I doubt I have completed any continent. Automating this would be great but the categories for each country are probably missing at least 20% of the time (sometimes in favor of states or other divisions).
 * I found a few by looking at the map centerfolds I found in a stack of (rather old) National Geographics that my grandmother left, so for some rivers I had trouble figuring out what name is used on Wikipedia. Others I was able to find and confirm based on the description in the article, but the country categories were missing. When I get a chance I'll go back and create redirects but at the time I was more interested in being able to count the number of unique rivers by looking at my edits.
 * There were a few I found on the maps but not on Wikipedia, so I'll try google to look for different names. I was able to confirm that many of them had no article yet as I recognized them as red links on a list or on an article about a nearby city.
 * There's nothing wrong with having a list and a category for the same topic, and I think it would be helpful to have both, mostly because you can't categorize a page which isn't created yet, and because a list can contain extra information like length and alternate names. Probably would want to all the links to be blue before having delusions of grandeur, but I'll add all of this to my personal to-do list (which is incidentally full of red links [[Image:Smiley.svg|15px|]]).
 * On a side note I know angels fear to tread into naming disputes, but the best advice I found was here. However there seems to be at least one case where the same river is split into multiple articles. While it may be a brilliant solution for names used at opposite ends of a river, I'm sure it would be considered a POV fork for names used on opposite banks.
 * — CharlotteWebb 14:54, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Yahh, I was wondering if you were noticing how many of those articles had a controversy section. And you already spotted the naming disputes. And I also was working through my atlas with a magnifying glass doing google searches for possible name variants. Certainly, if you want to learn something about the world, take a look at its border and border-crossing rivers. They would be a PoliSci course all by themselves.
 * I'll request some automation tomorrow, but all it will do is find candidates. I rambled across some countries where obviously they had got there first and even though it was a border river, there was no hint of "that other country". Other names? I think I can pull a four-namer out of my hat now! Wikipedia is great - you can find a mess in any direction you look. :)
 * Somehow I got stuck down in saline lakes in Antarctica tonight. I'll try to work my way northwards tomorrow. Maybe see you then! :) Franamax (talk) 12:18, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh yes - redlinks and boundary rivers mentioned in city articles - shoudn't we stub them? Why not? At least gather up the reds in one place, like a u-subpage. Franamax (talk) 12:26, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Ken Jennings LOL
I actually watched that episode, and in real time actually agreed with Jennings! Baccyak4H (Yak!) 15:28, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I would just like to clarify
Probably won't change your vote, but I will clarify. Yes, I think that knowing creation of articles that violate any major policy or guideline is inappropriate, including WP:N, obviously. As I've attempted to clarify in the discussion, the reason Bulbasaur got singled out in that quote was not because it is fictional, but because it had already been redirected for violating WP:N, and it was resurrected by editors that knew that, and they edit-warred ( to prevent the redirect from taking effect. To this very day, it violates WP:N. Did my wording suck? Yes. If editors had edit-warred to preserve a violation of any other major guideline or policy, would we have treated them differently? Yes. Do I think that's wrong? Yes.&mdash;Kww(talk) 16:41, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
 * If "Notability" is in fact written in a way that excludes starter pokémon, it only further undermines my faith in this guideline. It should be descriptive rather than prescriptive anyway, if we're going to have it, but I'm increasingly convinced that it does more harm than good (especially when you wave it around like some kind of trump card). Regards. — CharlotteWebb 17:00, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
 * It is, in fact, written that way, because no one has ever been able to find multiple, independent, third-party sources that examine Bulbasaur directly and in detail. They have been trying for six years, and haven't found them yet, so I'm comfortable with the assumption that they don't exist. I don't mind that people disagree with the notability guideline. They are free to do so, just as I tend to think our policies on non-free content are too strict, and our policies towards pseudoscience are too lenient. However, I don't think any group of editors are free to disregard policies and guidelines they disagree with. Discuss them? Certainly. Lobby to get them changed? Certainly. Disregard them and enforce their disregard through edit-warring? No.&mdash;Kww(talk) 17:06, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, now you've completely lost me. But it's been sure nice talking to you Kevin. — CharlotteWebb 17:41, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry if I made a leap of logic somewhere. Care to point out what statement I made that confused you?&mdash;Kww(talk) 17:45, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Non-free content. The idea that it might be fine to have a picture of a bulbasaur (in an unsightly list of pokémon 1-20 perhaps) but not an article about it. I know you didn't actually say that, but the thought crossed my mind just now, and made it hurt [[Image:Smiley.svg|15px|]]. I'm not going to edit war or lobby about any of this (I'm really not interested in editing pokémon, whether it would make me a vandal or not) but it still depresses me to see these articles attacked on such a spurious basis as "notability". — CharlotteWebb 18:22, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Just please understand that I'm not attacking the concept of an article on Bulbasaur, I'm upset about the guideline violation. If people can either manage to find acceptable sources, or get WP:N changed to allow the article, I'll go along with it. It's the way people manage the conflict between the guideline and what they want that upsets me.&mdash;Kww(talk) 18:27, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
 * In a more perfect wiki, guidelines would update themselves to reflect actual practice, and delete themselves upon realization that nobody is taking them seriously. Artificial intelligence, I'm afraid, still has a long way to go. Even if I did feel strongly about what the most applicable guideline says at any particular time, I probably wouldn't know which of the way-to-many "notability" sub-pages I'd have to edit. My personal approach would be to let each article stand or fall on its own merits (more specifically, lack of flaws: if an article is free of bias, original research, unverifiable assertions, outright bullshit, copyright infringements, grammar and spelling errors, etc. etc. and still has at least a few paragraphs left over, it's a right fine stub). The other thing I'd like is more feedback from readers, and a broader idea of what they are looking for but can't find. Server log data suggests that the editor-to-reader ratio is abysmally low. Earlier this week a co-worker of mine was talking about something she read on "The Wikipedia" which she said wasn't true and that maybe she should "e-mail them" and "ask them to correct it". Maybe the "edit" button wasn't conspicuous enough, or maybe the article was protected, or maybe she arrived by a deep link and completely missed the "anyone can edit" bit on the main page, but it really doesn't matter. Feedback would be good. It would be interesting to have some random survey for perhaps 1 in 1000 anonymous page views (or maybe higher... something frequent enough to get a meaningful sample but seldom enough to keep it from annoying people or being gamed by page-reloading trolls). Ask them their opinion of the article's quality, whether or not they found the information they were looking for, how it could be improved, why they haven't created an account, etc. etc. That would offer us a more nuanced perspective on what is "worthy of notice". I don't expect any of these ideas to be put into use, I'm just brainstorming right now, and having a bit of fun with it. I guess the point of all this, if there is one, is that you've got to think outside the box sometimes. Of course I've never believed in following guidelines for the sake of it, or enforcing rules when I don't care about the result. There is never a pressing need to update or revert hundreds or thousands of pages (millions in the case of the ongoing date de-linking nonsense) in order to comply with a guideline. This is one of the key differences between guideline and policy. A guideline should not be seen as a bill wanting to become a law, but more as some "well, here's what has worked elsewhere" advice for unsure editors, and as such it should be updated or reverted according to the way things are, not the way a handful of people want them to be. Enforcing this sort of thing as if it were policy is deceptive in my opinion, and enforcing a guideline you disagree with is nothing short of WP:POINT. I'm not accusing you of that. I don't want to accuse you of that. I don't want to know how you really feel about Bulbasaur or any other topic, in fact you're probably better off not telling me, but just think about it, ask yourself whether what you're doing would make sense in the lack of an extant guideline. — CharlotteWebb 19:47, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

FA help thanks
Thank you so much for your help! Sandy just bumped The Greencards to FA status. :) rootology ( C )( T ) 00:45, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually, I didn't do that much. Certainly didn't do any research or even listen to the audio samples -_- but congratulations (I honestly didn't think it would pass). — CharlotteWebb 14:02, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Place of birth missing
Hi. Concerning your edit in Zlatko Dalić I would like to inform you that Category:Place of birth missing should be place in talk pages only. Please read instruction in there carefully. Moreover, keep in mind that for living individuals there is another category Category:Place of birth missing (living people). Thanks, Magioladitis (talk) 23:49, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I didn't know the instructions had changed. Interestingly you left Category:Year of birth missing on the article page. Frankly I don't think a functional distinction between these two categories makes any sense at all.
 * I also think the article page would be more appropriate because anybody working on this category would look at an article, check the sources, then remove "Category:Place of birth missing" and add for example "Category:People from Highland Park, Illinois" (preferably in one edit). The second category doesn't belong on the talk page so why should the first?
 * I also notice that this change was before the _ _HIDDENCAT__ feature was added. This is how the more obnoxious "maintenance categories" are typically used. — CharlotteWebb 09:24, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

East Africa
Removed the template. Thanks for seeing that. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 21:32, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for this. I couldn't get the page to load (or any other page) for a couple of minutes. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 21:36, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

ACE2008
I think it likely I'll be willing to run for arbcom in December. Gwen Gale (talk) 10:36, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
 * COOL! — CharlotteWebb 10:45, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the colon! :o
I didn't realize that missing a : could make such trouble. Thanks! —Kanodin ( talk to me / slap me ) 22:19, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of "Unboxed (album)"
A page you created, Unboxed (album), has been tagged for deletion, as it meets one or more of the criteria for speedy deletion; specifically, it has no content, other than external links, categories, "see also" sections, rephrasing of the title, and/or chat-like comments.

You are welcome to contribute content which complies with our content policies and any applicable inclusion guidelines. However, please do not simply re-create the page with the same content. You may also wish to read our introduction to editing and guide to writing your first article.

Thank you. --  Ra nd or  Xe us . Remember to Be Bold! 02:29, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Your recent edits in Euro gold and silver commemorative coins (Ireland)
Just wondering why you needed to change all alligns to align="center" (adding the quotes). Any specific reason? Thanks, Miguel.mateo (talk) 02:48, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Wow, I didn't notice there were that many. If you want everything to be centered it would be easier to do it once per table. — CharlotteWebb 02:57, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
 * You should have checked in several browsers, your recent edits break the layout of the page in Firefox. Miguel.mateo (talk) 04:10, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I certainly don't know what you mean. I'm using Firefox right now. — CharlotteWebb 04:13, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Currently the template is irrelevant
Re: if you don't discuss your ideas behind a template on the talk page, the template is considered irrelevant and often is removed. Please join me on the talk page to discuss your suggestion. Odessaukrain (talk) 15:49, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Too many noticeboards?
Surely one more would be okay? S HEFFIELD S TEEL TALK 21:36, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Headline text
I hope you're planning to update all the links you've broken by changing the destination of WP:.... Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  22:15, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Silesians
It was wrong of you to move this without a debate since two people at the Cfd had stated it should not be moved. The great majority of articles about peoples are in the form "Fooians", whilst the related biographical categories are Cat:Fooish people. The articles and categories do not cover the same subject. Additionally, the article covers a people (singular, means ethnic group or race) while the category is of people (plural of person, mean individuals), so that they appear to be the same name is in fact just a coincidence, a trick of the language. Johnbod (talk) 20:53, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I haven't examined all articles of this kind but my own experience has been that most of that the categories typically match the article.

Surely this is a practical matter for some of them as no single noun exists in English:
 * Malagasy people/Category:Malagasy people
 * Maltese people/Category:Maltese people
 * Portuguese people/Category:Portuguese people
 * Vietnamese people/Category:Vietnamese people

Of course for some ethnic groups the only single nouns which exist are considered offensive/sexist/politically incorrect and probably not worth mentioning:
 * Chinese people/Category:Chinese people
 * French people/Category:French people
 * Irish people/Category:Irish people
 * Japanese people/Category:Japanese people

In some cases the adjective form is commonly used as a noun:
 * "Albanians" for Albanian people/Category:Albanian people
 * "Azerbaijanis" for Azerbaijani people/Category:Azerbaijani people
 * "Brazilians" for Brazilian people/Category:Brazilian people
 * "Colombians" for Colombian people/Category:Colombian people
 * "Hungarians" for Hungarian people/Category:Hungarian people
 * "Iraqis" for Iraqi people/Category:Iraqi people
 * "Latvians" for Latvian people/Category:Latvian people
 * "Lithuanians" for Lithuanian people/Category:Lithuanian people
 * "Puerto Ricans" for Puerto Rican people/Category:Puerto Rican people
 * "Thais" for Thai people/Category:Thai people

Even when there is no present-day nationality to conflate it with:
 * "Assyrians" for Assyrian people/Category:Assyrian people
 * "Basques" for Basque people/Category:Basque people
 * "Kashmiris" for Kashmiri people/Category:Kashmiri people
 * "Kurds" for Kurdish people/Category:Kurdish people
 * "Maris" for Mari people/Category:Mari people
 * "Tibetans" for Tibetan people/Category:Tibetan people (matter of dispute)

In other cases a less obvious but very common noun exists and could just as easily be used instead, but isn't:
 * "Danes" for Danish people/Category:Danish people
 * "Magyars" for Hungarian people/Category:Hungarian people
 * "Spaniards" for Spanish people/Category:Spanish people
 * "Scots" for Scottish people/Category:Scottish people
 * "Turks" for Turkish people/Category:Turkish people

If I had to decide what to do about all these categories I'd probably use "[adjective] people" for ethnicities and "people from [country]" for nationalities (which may or may not coincide). Won't happen I know, but as a second choice I'd at least make the category match the article title in every case. Failing that we I guess we are left with "category shall use '[adjective] people' but the article shall use '[plural noun]' unless none exists (in which case it shall also use '[adjective] people')? Perhaps some of the above can be renamed to make the nomenclature more consistently inconsistent. If only category redirects worked like they should, this wouldn't matter so much. — CharlotteWebb 14:51, 1 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks! I still think the articles do not exactly correspond with the categories, so I'm not too concerned with them matching. List of Danish people would be the exact match for Category:Danish people, but we rarely have such articles.  You also get cases like Category:African American, which is the category matching African Americans; Category:African Americans (which should be renamed to Category:African American people) is not.  Johnbod (talk) 18:09, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for what? Just curious, not trying to be sarcastic.

I do understand the "people" vs. "people" distinction, but the meanings seem quite interchangeable in English-language prose. I checked the lead sentence of some of the articles linked above and the usage is not consistent (emphasis added):
 * "The Colombian people is the multiethnic nation from [...] Colombia."
 * "The Tibetan people are indigenous to Tibet and surrounding areas..."

If I say "I like the Danish people" I might mean "my awesome neighbors downstairs are from Denmark" or "I find Danes likable in general" or "the deliverymen who bring baked goods to my office are cute"—it all depends on the context.

Overall I think the majority of readers and editors do and will interpret "Foobar people" as "individuals who are Foobar" rather than "the group of individuals which is collectively Foobar" unless context explicitly dictates otherwise. A deliberately awkward pronoun might be too subtle, or even "corrected" as a typo, so I wouldn't rely on that.

(This assumes they see a meaningful difference between these two meanings and are not hopelessly lost just reading this—the other day I tried explaining my 7-year-old nephew the difference between "some fish" and "some fishes" and he didn't get it).

Is there a situation where failure to "disambiguate" people creates a problem? — CharlotteWebb 19:53, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for moving Silesians back. The point is that the peoples articles normally cover language, culture and art, history and all sorts of things that the purely biographical people categories obviously don't.  Looking for an example, I saw Anglo-Saxons was in fact only categorized in Category:Anglo-Saxon people, which is clearly wrong, as it is really the main article for Category:Anglo-Saxon England (now changed).  These are its main sections:

1 Etymology 2 Anglo-Saxon history 2.1 Origins (AD 400–600) 2.2 Heptarchy (600–800) 2.3 Viking Age (800–1066) 3 Culture 3.1 Architecture 3.2 Art 3.3 Language 3.4 Law 3.5 Literature 3.6 Religion 4 Contemporary meanings - all of which have sister-categories to Category:Anglo-Saxon people. Johnbod (talk) 20:40, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

I see. If the new category's title describes the scope of the article better than article's title does, perhaps it should be renamed to Anglo-Saxon England, a term which is already used for the sub-article History of Anglo-Saxon England. Perhaps also parts of these article can be broken off into an Anglo-Saxon people page to accompany the category, I don't know, only that the status quo seems a bit awkward to navigate. — CharlotteWebb


 * Mixing in here -- while it might be more trouble than it's worth to change it now, this could all have been avoided by using the more formal, unambiguous plural of person, namely persons. --Trovatore (talk) 08:15, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Spacing in articles
I was wondering if you could explain the rationale behind this edit? The last I checked, which was admittedly last month and guidelines change faster than heads spin around here, spaces such as blank lines below headings were explicitly discretionary and allowed. —Quasirandom (talk) 22:26, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah the line after the section heading doesn't make much difference unless you overdo it. I was actually trying to get rid of the excessive space at the bottom of some of the sections, but it didn't actually solve the problem. It seems to be caused by sloppy coding in the expand-section template. I'll look into this, thanks for bringing it to my attention. — CharlotteWebb 22:36, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh, yeah -- I've been routinely removing blank lines between expand-section and whatever follows, for a couple months. They still get returned of course when you edit just the section. —Quasirandom (talk) 00:19, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * That's been fixed now. — CharlotteWebb 00:49, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

The discussion on discussing where to discusss... or something like that.
Ok. VP is one possibility. If we are willing to do things sequentially, or in multiple discussions at once, it could be dome at the talk pages of the individual deletion methods. I would think we could come up with something that uses one variable to trigger various different message templates, one for AFD< one for PROD, one for CSD, etc. - TexasAndroid (talk) 18:29, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Dashes and such
Thanks for fixing dash issues in articles. However, when you are changing dashes on a wide scale in articles, can you please create redirects if such changes are breaking wikilinks? Thanks. Kolindigo (talk) 16:09, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Diffs
The diffs are in the future 217.39.5.223 (talk) 23:17, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

My user name
I see you commented on my user name here. I am discussing it on my talk page now, as the notice has been archived apparantly. Please share your view on my talk page. Thanks. Ann arbor street (talk) 19:09, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback
Thanks for your input at my successful Rfa. I'm already thinking about working on my content creation. Hopefully in a few months, I'll have passed the point where you would've !voted Support. If you have any more equally well-thought-out suggestions on how I can improve myself as an editor, I'd be happy to hear them. I'm curious to hear what you feel was erroneous about my Afd's. Happy editing!--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 20:51, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Re. User:CharlotteWebb/process (which is hilarious)
So you think BJAODN is the least process-driven thing on WP? :-p -- Menti  sock  18:22, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, it's not currently in operation… — CharlotteWebb 18:49, 17 November 2008 (UTC)