User talk:Derek Ross/2016


 * 2015 talk archive

Burns supper
Not really a problem and I'm not about to revert, but I'm a little puzzled as to your edits here. "no starters, just soup", you say. In what way is soup not a starter? Every restaurant I've ever been to and person I've ever been to one with considers soup to be a starter. And in what way does a hors d'oeuvre differ from a starter? It's just a more pretentious way of saying the same thing! Once upon a time these may all have referred to different things; now they do not. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:19, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, congratulations, you've now met someone who doesn't consider soup to be a starter! In a full, formal dinner, the soup course may or may not be the starter. A Burns supper of the type described in our "Order of the Supper" is a formal dinner, so "soup course". As for the hors d'oeuvres or starter thing, nothing pretentious about it: the article uses UK English and that's just accepted usage. Check out our article on hors d'oeuvres for why it's a better word to use for something like a starter which does not start the meal. Just like appetizer is a better word for something like a starter which you have before the meal. Cheers. -- Derek Ross &#124; Talk'' 17:10, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm British born and bred. I've never heard anyone refer to an hors d'oeuvre in normal speech. Ever. Neither have I ever seen it on a menu, including for Burns suppers. I would personally consider it very old-fashioned (from an era when it was fashionable to put everything on the menu in French, no matter how ordinary the food was in English) or the height of pretension restricted only to dinners either in extraordinarily high-class surroundings or those that were pretending to be, and I suspect most other British people would agree with me. So no, it isn't accepted usage in modern UK English at all, although I'm not disputing it once was. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:12, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Snap! I'm British born and bred too! And I never thought of Northeast Scotland as being particularly high-class or pretentious but I've heard plenty of people using "hors d'oeuvres" in normal speech there over the years. Admittedly I never hear it used in Canada. But isn't it weird how our experiences are so different? -- Derek Ross &#124; Talk'' 16:32, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm English, so maybe the Scots have retained the old-style terminology for longer than we have. But I'm middle-aged and I can honestly say I've never heard it commonly used here. I understand its meaning of course, as I should imagine do most British people, but it isn't commonly used. Although as an archivist it's the sort of thing I see on old menus all the time, usually the same ones that are entirely in French but actually say prawn cocktail, roast chicken and fruit salad! -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:11, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Good point. We Scots do tend to retain older usages, some more than others. I remember that it used to be said by Aberdonians during the 1970s that visiting Moray was like going back to the 60s. And going a bit further along the coast to Nairn was like going back to the 50s! -- Derek Ross &#124; Talk'' 17:12, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Your administrator and bureaucrat status on gd.wikipedia
Hello. A policy regarding the removal of "advanced rights" (administrator, bureaucrat, etc.) was adopted by community consensus in 2013. According to this policy, the stewards are reviewing activity on wikis with no inactivity policy.

You meet the inactivity criteria (no edits and no log actions for 2 years) on the wiki listed above. Since that wiki does not have its own rights review process, the global one applies.

If you want to keep your rights, you should inform the community of the wiki about the fact that the stewards have sent you this information about your inactivity. If the community has a discussion about it and then wants you to keep your rights, please contact the stewards at m:Stewards' noticeboard, and link to the discussion of the local community, where they express their wish to continue to maintain the rights.

If you wish to resign your rights, you can reply here or request removal of your rights on Meta.

If there is no response at all after approximately one month, stewards will proceed to remove your administrator and/or bureaucrat rights. In ambiguous cases, stewards will evaluate the responses and will refer a decision back to the local community for their comment and review. If you have any questions, please contact the stewards. Rschen7754 05:46, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, fair enough, if that's policy. I have been a Wikipedian since 2001 and am the person who "founded" the Gaelic Wikipedia, configured a lot of it and kept it going until enough Gaelic speakers took interest to make it self-supporting. As I am not a great Gaelic speaker myself, I have taken a step backwards to allow better speakers to take over. Hence my lack of edits in the last couple of years. I don't believe the small community has any objection to my "sleeper" role and they have called on me in the past when they have needed assistance. You can confirm this by talking to the other bureaucrats on the gd.wiki if you wish. The community is really too small to have a strong opinion on my status or lack of it. They are much more interested in editing the encyclopedia than in who the bureaucrats are but I'd like to retain my status. However if you still wish to remove it, so be it. I won't argue. -- Derek Ross &#124; Talk'' 14:14, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

Two-Factor Authentication now available for admins
Hello,

Please note that TOTP based two-factor authentication is now available for all administrators. In light of the recent compromised accounts, you are encouraged to add this additional layer of security to your account. It may be enabled on your preferences page in the "User profile" tab under the "Basic information" section. For basic instructions on how to enable two-factor authentication, please see the developing help page for additional information. Important: Be sure to record the two-factor authentication key and the single use keys. If you lose your two factor authentication and do not have the keys, it's possible that your account will not be recoverable. Furthermore, you are encouraged to utilize a unique password and two-factor authentication for the email account associated with your Wikimedia account. This measure will assist in safeguarding your account from malicious password resets. Comments, questions, and concerns may be directed to the thread on the administrators' noticeboard. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:32, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

A new user right for New Page Patrollers
Hi.

A new user group, New Page Reviewer, has been created in a move to greatly improve the standard of new page patrolling. The user right can be granted by any admin at PERM. It is highly recommended that admins look beyond the simple numerical threshold and satisfy themselves that the candidates have the required skills of communication and an advanced knowledge of notability and deletion. Admins are automatically included in this user right.

It is anticipated that this user right will significantly reduce the work load of admins who patrol the performance of the patrollers. However,due to the complexity of the rollout, some rights may have been accorded that may later need to be withdrawn, so some help will still be needed to some extent when discovering wrongly applied deletion tags or inappropriate pages that escape the attention of less experienced reviewers, and above all, hasty and bitey tagging for maintenance. User warnings are available here but very often a friendly custom message works best.

If you have any questions about this user right, don't hesitate to join us at WT:NPR. (Sent to all admins) .MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:46, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

ArbCom Elections 2016: Voting now open!

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