User talk:Colonies Chris/Archive/2008/Aug

Wiki date links
Hi Colonies Chris, why did you remove the date links at Robert d'Ufford, 1st Earl of Suffolk? Daytrivia (talk) 00:08, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I see that you have addressed the reasoning in the previous section. Sorry I didn't check. Daytrivia (talk) 00:11, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

RE: Floor Jansen
It's okay. It was just one minor thing that was like that. Otherwise, thanks for your additions to the article. B T C 21:28, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Wiki date links again
Chris, what is the rationale behind all these changes both in wiki dates and in reverting wiki links such as World War II? FWiW Bzuk (talk) 17:57, 31 July 2008 (UTC).
 * So Chris, as I understand it, the change is entirely optional and others will still utilize the autoformatting system? FWiW Bzuk (talk) 18:42, 31 July 2008 (UTC).
 * Chris, I am not sure you understand the term: optional. The latest reading of the Wikiautodating forum has indicated that editors engaged in such a campaign of wholesale changes should "cease" the practice. Please do so. Bzuk (talk) 19:02, 2 August 2008 (UTC).
 * See the following discussion: and note: "Just to be clear, see the top of WP:MOSNUM. You'll note what it says about it being a guideline (as opposed to a policy). The means it's advisory, and so is optional." Again, not my interpretation but the assessment of others. FWiW, on "new" articles that I am editing, see Empire of the Sun (film) and  Swing Vote (2008 film), I have completely discarded autowikilinked dates, but I do not feel it is productive to go around changing countless other articles. Bzuk (talk) 19:31, 2 August 2008 (UTC).
 * Henry Allingham and Harry Patch have just been rid of all DATE AND COUNTRY LINKS: is this vandalism (not nice)? Extremely sexy (talk) 15:17, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

You have now removed the links from the date entries for the article minor campaigns of 1815 twice (first,second edits). Please see Manual of Style (dates and numbers). Please do not remove the links on the dates in the article again. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 00:13, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Like wise dates on the article Battle of La Suffel. If you continue to remove links from dates it can be seen as disruptive behaviour, particularly as there is a prohibition on changing date formats in Manual of Style (dates and numbers). Disruptive behaviour will get your account blocked (see Blocking policy).--Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 00:37, 14 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Chris, I want to congratulate you on your bold and intelligent moves to improve the formatting of WP's text. You may be aware of the strong groundswell of support at WT:MOSNUM and elsewhere for the move away from mandatory date autoformatting, and the fact that the debate over absurdities such as 1980 is virtually over. Philip is deeply conservative in his approach to WP's technical and stylistic infrastructure; I respect his right to be so, but I find his posts above to be on the aggressive, even threatening side: I think you can safely disregard them. His move an hour ago to insert a contentious and, I believe, pointy clause into MOSNUM on this matter has been met with at least one call, by [[User:Kotniski for date autoformatting to be deprecated (beyond its current optional status).
 * Please keep up the good work. You have quite a few supporters who haven't let that support be known. Tony   (talk)  11:04, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Removing date links
''User:BillCJ publicly accused me of vandalism for unlinking dates, and then wiped my responses from his talk page, so only his final response remains. I am therefore copying the entire discussion here so it's all in the open.''

The changes I made are in line with the Manual of Style: see WP:CONTEXT.

Dates that contain day, month and year or day and month may be linked using MediaWiki's date autoformatting mechanism. Careful consideration of the disadvantages and advantages of the autoformatting mechanism should be made before applying it: the mechanism does not work for the vast majority of readers, such as unregistered users and registered users who have not made a setting, and can affect readability and appearance if there are already numerous high-value links in the text.

Wikilinking dates provides a small benefit to a small proportion of readers but is at best useless and at worst a distraction for the vast majority, so when I'm making some other change to an article, I'm also de-linking dates. This has been extensively discussed on the WP:MOSNUM pages.

It is entirely unacceptable for you to publicly accuse me of vandalism - I suggest you read WP:Assume good faith. And I note that in your eagerness to revert changes that you so violently object to, you have also discarded my correction from Pascagoula (the wrong article) to Pascagoula, Mississippi, and my change from "Va." to "Virginia" (see WP:ABBR "Current and former postal codes and abbreviations – such as TX for Texas, ... should not be used to stand in for the full names in normal text."), and the changes from curly apostrophes to straight quotes (see WP:PUNC "The exclusive use of straight quotes and apostrophes is recommended." Colonies Chris (talk) 10:26, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Wow, I am suprised you even deign to speak to an "elitist" such as myself! You've been asked by other editors to stop, but yet you continue with controversial changes. I had to get your attention somehow, as nothing else seems to work! Please STOP removing date linkings. They are OPTIONAL, and I'm exercising the option. Thanks. - BillCJ (talk)


 * Your sarcasm is entirely uncalled for, and I have never used the word "elitist" in discussions. The vast majority of articles where I have unlinked dates have raised no objections whatever. As I have said on other articles where questions have been raised, if after "Careful consideration of the disadvantages and advantages of the autoformatting mechanism", there is a consensus (not just your opinion) that that readers' experience of this article would be improved by wikilinking dates, then I'm prepared to go along with it. I will continue to unlink dates elsewhere in the interest of improving the encyclopaedia and I will not be deterred by your crude attempts at bullying me. Colonies Chris (talk) 10:54, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Bullying? Chris, I participated in discussions at one ot the MOSNUM talk pages for about one hour. TONY and his bully-buddies used so many insults leveled at me and anyone else who disagreed with them that I left in disgust. It became quite clear then how this change was put forth and implemented, and it certainly wasn't by consensus of anyone other than a few real bullies. If there were a real consensus against date linking as you and the bully-boys pretend, the linking features would have simply been disabled. So please keep your trash off my talk page. We are done here. - BillCJ (talk) 11:14, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Um ... BillC, in my experience, plays loosely with the truth and argues aggressively and in an exaggerated fashion. If I lead a team of "bully-buddies", he must be a mass murderer. He needs to let off steam, so perhaps it's best to ignore his fussing at the moment. Trying to engage him in reasoned debate appears fruitless. Philip B Shearer still hasn't engaged with me on the actual benefits of DA removal, despite several invitations to do so. But at least he's not overtly aggressive. Tony   (talk)  00:42, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Completely, well maybe not so completely, uninvolved editor jumping in. All parties need to take a "deep breath" and remember that experienced and knowledgeable editors like yourselves can become very worked up over an issue, especially if there is some investment involved. From my limited dealings with each of you, a consistent effort to work for the betterment of the project is evident. I believe what began as BRD exercise, has now been elevated into a dispute of personalities. None of that should apply in what is essentially still a "content dispute." FWiW, Chris, you have probably a gathering consensus bolstering your deprecating of autodate formatting but where you link that campaign with a general "paring" of common wording wikilinking, it can look like a nefarious attack. BillCJ, this direction of evolving standards in editing will take some "push and pull" and AGF still applies. Tony1, I am gaining a begrudging admiration of your tenacity and willingness to stick your neck out, but one of your earlier perspectives my be applicable, paraphrasing or rehashing an axiom" "not all battles are worth fighting in a war..." Bzuk (talk) 15:29, 16 August 2008 (UTC).
 * A quick note - my unlinking of common words has only been questioned a couple of times, and that very mildly and politely. All the hostility has been reserved for the date unlinking. I don't think it's useful to associate the two things - they're quite different. Colonies Chris (talk) 15:35, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The point being when the changes to both aspects of an article appear together, it does raise "red flags" and certainly, the first time that I saw the changes showing up in large numbers on my watch list, I was leery of the reasoning behind the alterations. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 15:54, 16 August 2008 (UTC).


 * It may be worth noting that nominators are regularly required to delink common words at FAC. I'd have thought that battle was long won. I see that it may cause a bigger reaction among the guardians of an article who haven't yet thought about the date issues, but it's a good thing to combine in a visit to an article. I've alwasy delinked common words alone where I see them, irrespective of the date thing. It's entirely condoned by MOS, by the way. Tony   (talk)  00:00, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
 * In addition, CONTEXT clearly says:

In general, do not create links to the following. Tony  (talk)  03:09, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Plain English words, including common units of measurement[2].
 * Low added-value items when linked without reason—such as, 1995, 1980s, and 20th century.
 * The names of geographical locations that are likely to be well-known to English-speakers should generally not be linked where, in the context, they are unlikely to be confused with other locations of the same name, and the linked article would not specifically add to readers' understanding of the topic at hand; this includes country names such as United States, UK, Australia, Canada, Germany, India and China, and the names of cities such as New York City, London, Moscow and Paris.

Periods
Why are you removing these from the ends of references? Gatoclass (talk) 13:34, 17 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I put those periods there because I felt they were appropriate, and I would appreciate it if you stopped removing them, because to my eye the result looks untidy. Gatoclass (talk) 13:50, 17 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks, much appreciated :) Gatoclass (talk) 15:10, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

MOSNUM talk
Chris, have a great time away. Are you intending to add your voice to the supports at the proposal to strengthen the negative stance of MOSNUM towards DA? Now would be a good time, if your are. Tony  (talk)  07:55, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Re: USS Wasp
It is my understanding that the date autoformatting is optional. I also see that you have been making these edits to many, many ship articles. I would have thought that something that encompassed so many articles would be proposed at WT:SHIPS before-hand and gained the consensus of the editors who edit these articles on a daily basis. If that had happened, I wouldn't have reverted and be typing this now. Also, tying such a move which has been seen as controversial to some with non-controversial edits such as the implementation of USS and other edits at the same time could be seen as a bit nefarious and gaming the system. As for my use of twinkle, you'll note that I used the option that allowed me to use a personalized edit summary instead of automatic or admin-rollback. Would you have accused me of misuse if I had used the standard undo feature as well? -MBK004 23:05, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I've posted a note at MBK's talk page. Tony   (talk)  01:24, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I was very tempted to revert back the revert made by MBK. On the whole I see date autoformatting as totally pointless, though it is not clear to me what the problems it might cause on a page are, perhaps because I havn't set a date format and have no experience of what it does. At least, I don't think I have? Never bothered me in three years? Not misssed not enjoying the benefit? I understood the autoformatting was introduced to stop incessant wars over whether to write 10 April or April 10. I never link dates, I havn't quite got so far as to eradicate date links. Sandpiper (talk) 07:33, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

AWB search/replace
Your search/replace for the unit of measure 'knot (speed)' needs improvement, or perhaps just more careful application. Not all instances of 'knot' should be replaced with the plural 'knots'.

Many instances of 'knot' are wikilinked with a pluralizing 's' after wiki brackets. Blindly converting 'knot' to 'knots', without checking for wiki formatting, can result in the following:


 * 17 knots > 17 knotss


 * Instances of this to fix:, , , , , , ,.

Additionally, some instances of 'knot' are necessarily singular, such as when the word is used as an adjective:


 * a 10-knot wind > a 10-knots wind


 * To fix:,.

Please let me know if I've not made the reasoning clear. Thanks for your work cleaning up ship-related articles - it is much appreciated. Maralia (talk) 15:47, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Date linking
Sorry I haven't been following the discussion on date linking. I've always found it helpful and, last time I looked (which was probably a very long time ago), it was recommended as a "good thing". I didn't know that so few people had set their date preferences. I certainly don't feel that strongly about it--I just thought it looked like a retrograde change. Still, if that's the current policy, feel free to revert me back! There are much more important issues in the world to argue about. Bluewave (talk) 17:11, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

USS template
Be careful to use braces when applying templates, your changes to Miles Browning left most of the article invisible for over a month due to two accidental uses of a box bracket rather a brace.--HarryHenryGebel (talk) 08:23, 27 August 2008 (UTC)