User talk:EEng/Archive 4

Season's Greetings!
Alex Eng ( TALK ) 05:15, 25 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Turns out midnight Mass was cancelled due to lack of interest. And after I drank all that coffee! Bah humbug!  E Eng  05:18, 25 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, here's hoping Christmas morning goes much better! Alex Eng ( TALK ) 05:25, 25 December 2016 (UTC)
 * And worst part is I'm an atheist.  E Eng  05:28, 25 December 2016 (UTC) In school I was voted Most athiest atheist.
 * Me too! But I do enjoy Christmas time. Alex Eng ( TALK ) 05:30, 25 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Please do not distract from my caffeinated martyrdom.  E Eng  05:35, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Wikipedia:Lies Miss Snodgrass Told You


A tag has been placed on Wikipedia:Lies Miss Snodgrass Told You, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section G1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the page appears to have no meaningful content or history, and the text is unsalvageably incoherent. If the page you created was a test, please use the sandbox for any other experiments you would like to do.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be removed without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. L3X1 My Complaint Desk 22:50, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
 * You must have missed the warnings on your talk page from various editors about learning guidelines before going around templating things.  E Eng  23:12, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

MfD nomination of Wikipedia:Lies Miss Snodgrass Told You
Wikipedia:Lies Miss Snodgrass Told You, a page which you created or substantially contributed to (or which is in your userspace), has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; you may participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Lies Miss Snodgrass Told You and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes ( ~ ). You are free to edit the content of Wikipedia:Lies Miss Snodgrass Told You during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. L3X1 My Complaint Desk 00:04, 9 February 2017 (UTC)


 * EEng, shame on you. --Miss Snodgrass (talk) 00:49, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Sam Sheppard
Did you just make a major revert error? It seems you reverted to some long ago edit of the article. Akld guy (talk) 00:40, 16 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Oops, my fault. I've fixed it.  E Eng  04:31, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
 * 'ppreciate it, thanks. Akld guy (talk) 10:23, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Unfinished thought?
At Articles for deletion/Armands Strazds (3rd nomination) you seem to have started a comment and not finished. See diff. Sentance starts "That someone ... " and then stops. Nfitz (talk) 00:04, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

My mistake!
Thanks for the reversion on Houghton Library. As a WikiGnome, it's been a habit of me to correct the bolded stuff in the lead. I didn't realize the lack of the "the" in this case. Should've read through it more though (and probably shouldn't have edited so late into the night). Thanks. GabeIglesia (talk) 23:15, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Being Tallest is Unhealthy
There are FACTS, and then there are opinions. Here are some FACTS:
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_people
 * http://www.oneinchpunch.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/worlds-tallest-man.jpg
 * http://www.elekta.com/healthcare_international_press_release_20071092.php

Fact: the tallest persons in medical history all died at an age below the median life expectancy for their cohort age group.

Now, if you choose to be uninformed, that's one thing. But to make fun of others who are right, and then to convince others that they are right when they are in fact wrong, is to spread misinformation. I do realize the goal of Wikipedia is not "truth" but "verifiability." However, it should be clear that living to 8 feet tall is not something that has generally been desirable. Unless, of course, you think the attention is worth the drawbacks. It should also be clear that there is a distinction between being "tall" and being the "tallest." No one says being 6 foot 2 inches is bad. So, enough with the jokes and take some time to respect other people's viewpoints. You may learn something. Ryoung 122 22:56, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
 * http://www.oneinchpunch.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/worlds-tallest-man.jpg


 * Ryoung122:
 * I've removed some of the excess line breaks from your message (above, apparently responding to ).
 * I didn't say that "being tallest" is healthy (or perhaps you mean healthful). Someone said, "In fact, since it's unhealthy, researchers try to limit height," to which I responded by inquiring, "Just where and by whom -- and on whom -- are these creeepy-sounding research efforts, which 'try to limit height,' being carried out?"
 * Despite what appears to be an attempt to evade your topic ban by not mentioning longevity explicitly, it seems to me you are likely in violation of your topic ban and I've brought that to the attention of someone who's dealt with you before.
 * Kudos for hitting the trifecta of Wikipedia egotism: an indefinite topic ban, a deleted vanity bio , even -- and this is a first in my experience -- a deleted vanity category.
 * I've addressed the above to you only as a mattter of form -- in fact it's primarily for the benefit of third parties. Based on a review of your behavior over the years, I'm saying in advance that I will likely not respond to anything further you address to me.
 * EEng (talk) 06:41, 17 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Are you here on Wikipedia to make positive contributions, or make ethnic jokes, as you did this week? And none of what you mention above is a fair or on-topic rebuttal or what I said about the category of "tallest" people, which, by the way, doesn't really fit under the category that I'm not supposed to be contributing to. As for me, it's not a trifecta of egotism: no, the problem is Wikipedia is edited by persons who are not knowledgeable about the subjects they edit. Far from being a "vanity" article, my own article probably should exist, based on outside sources. It's only because Wikipedia caters to the lowest common denominator ("anyone can edit") that it does not, since I have clearly been established as notable. Check out Who's Who in America 2012. I won't see your name in there, but you can find me.
 * I'm surprised you mentioned your response was for the benefit of others...clearly, it's not. It's for the benefit of YOU. You turned what should have been a discussion about facts into a "me against you" personal issue. That's called a red herring strategy: change the subject instead of admitting you are wrong and made a mistake. As many on Wikipedia allow their own egos to get in the way of the purpose of collaborative, objective, encyclopedic editing, so instead of addressing the FACT that you were doubly wrong in making fun of others for something they said that turned out to be correct (i.e., wrong to make fun and wrong to not research the issue before adding your opinion). Have a nice day.
 * Ryoung 122 14:33, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
 * FYI, see the last thread on my talkpage. I'll be on an iPhone for several hours, I'll respond when I get a full keyboard.  The Blade of the Northern Lights  ( 話して下さい ) 15:50, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Blade: You're talking about this? Honestly, I don't think any response to him is needed or even desirable. If you want to engage him don't let me stop you, but don't think you need to do it to defend me.  His behavior (past and present) speaks for itself. EEng (talk) 19:24, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Just wanted you to be aware it was going on, as your name was mentioned. Merely a courtesy I extend to people if their names come up on my talkpage. The Blade of the Northern Lights  ( 話して下さい ) 20:52, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
 * And I do appreciate it. We CYBERBULLIES have to stick together, after all, if we're to maintain our stranglehold on those who struggle to bring light and truth to Wikepedia.  By the way, a paper you may enjoy: . EEng (talk) 22:55, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
 * You have officially made my day now. Thanks!!!! The Blade of the Northern Lights  ( 話して下さい ) 23:15, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Enjoy it while you can, as we will no doubt pay many times over for it. EEng (talk) 01:11, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
 * "Far from being a 'vanity' article, my own article probably should exist, based on outside sources. It's only because Wikipedia caters to the lowest common denominator ('anyone can edit') that it does not, since I have clearly been established as notable. Check out Who's Who in America 2012. I won't see your name in there, but you can find me." Just have to say since I accidently discovered this thread since it was right above the one I started on this talk page, I have never, EVER, encountered WikiEgo such as this.  If this person did have an article, I would ensure this paragraph was included.  ~  Pesco  So say•we all 18:32, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Privacy and no disclosure
Privacy is important on Wikipedia. If you wish to publish you university address and telephone number on your user page your are free to do so. But be aware that not everyone who uses this site is sane, and it is not appropriate for others to make any comment or allusion about another users's personal information that has not been disclosed by that user. I don't care (and I doubt any others do care about which university if any you attend), but to start to see why this can be a problem spend some time reading WP:ANI and you will soon read vitriol on that page of a similar type that you see with university dons (too Oxbridge for you?) competing for the same funding. The trouble is that if an editor starts to edit controversial pages then information about them could be a matter of life and death (they may after be Liverpool FC supporters). But in all seriousness ponder on this example. -- PBS (talk) 12:18, 25 January 2013 (UTC)


 * You needn't explain to me why privacy is worthy of protection (whether on WP or elsewhere) and you'll get no argument from me that some here are not playing with a full deck. But that doesn't have anything to do with it, because -- don't you get it yet? -- Lockley didn't make allusion to my personal information. He made a series of jokes in which I actively participated . He violated neither the letter nor the spirit of WP:PRIVACY. It's conceivable you didn't grasp that in the moment, but what you nonetheless should have grasped -- and what absolutely cannot have escaped your discerning by now -- is that I am perfectly capable of handling such a situation myself . And please no lectures  about how humor can be misunderstood. Everything can be misunderstood, and I happen to believe that frequent exposure to humor (which draws its power from tensions among competing views of things) sharpens the critical faculties, and thereby aids discussion. Please give the sermonizing a rest now. EEng (talk) 18:16, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Discussion re what one editor considers a personal attack, and another does not

 * Struck-out hatnote was added by PinkAmpersand
 * Sorry, but section headers have visibility and prominence (e.g. in TOC) disconnected from their content and should needn't be allowed to represent your opinion only. For the record, PinkAmpersand's orginal section header was Personal attack EEng (talk) 04:42, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

I won't do you the disrespect of templating you, so, let me say simply this: I don't really care how bad of a guy Qworty was, or how much he deserves to be banned. (My own opposition is simply because I think a ban to be slightly overkill... however, a lot of users I highly respect disagree with me, and I don't plan on lobbying this.) He could be the epitome with everything that's wrong with Wikipedia and I still wouldn't feel any differently about what you said. You should know better than this, and in my opinion the first admin who saw what you wrote should have indeffed you on the spot until you were willing to agree to never say anything like that again. Not, mind you, because I think you're some contemptible troll, but because blocks exist to prevent disruption to the project, and what you said was clearly and unabashedly disruptive, calculated with the maximum intent to insult. I really don't like making enemies here, so I'd be very happy if this were the last time I felt compelled to call you out for something. — PinkAmpers  &#38;  ( Je vous invite à me parler )  06:46, 19 May 2013 (UTC)


 * For those who may be wondering, PinkAmpersand is referring to a comment of mine in the ANI discussion on banning User:Qworty. That comment was:
 * Ban this revolting intellectually masturbating narcissist so he can enter the final phase of his career i.e. teaching high school English or freshman composition while fantasizing about the literary glory that should have been his. "It’s time to get over the Internet. It’s time to get over ourselves." Whatever the fuck that means, you dumbass. EEng (talk) 04:59, 19 May 2013 (UTC)


 * PinkAmpersand and another editor objected to that post on BLP and NPA grounds, and removed it from the discussion. I would have restored it, with the following comments, but for the fact that the ANI discussion is now closed. My response is the following.
 * BLP doesn't come into this since no one could possibly interpret my comments as assertions of fact rather than my own interpretation of his behavior; meanwhile NPA must be applied in light of the fact that in a ban discussion we are, inevitably, discussing not content but the contributor. (NPA: "Accusations about personal behavior that lack evidence. Serious accusations require serious evidence." -- such evidence is present in spades in this case.)
 * My words distilled the feelings of betrayal and embarrassment Qworty's behavior aroused in me and, I am confident, in other editors. Because such feelings were a predictable consequence of the eventual exposure of Qworty's behavior, expressing them sheds light on the heedless disruptiveness of Qworty's longterm determination to engage in such behavior, and was therefore an appropriate contribution to the discussion about whether to chuck this jerk out on his ass.
 * However, in light of your concerns I'll rephrase as follows:
 * Ban this difficult selfabsorbed person (whose behavior raises significant WP:NOTHERE issues), perhaps redicting him to more effective outlets for his talents and allowing him to reflect on his contributions toward improving the lot of his fellow man. I find his recent userpage comments unhelpful in terms of explaining his longterm behavior.
 * Finally, PinkAmpersand, since you dislike making enemies (as you say), you might think twice before taking on the role of Wikipedia scold. If (as, again, you say) you think a ban for Qworty is overkill then your judgment about editor behavior and appropriate responses to it is seriously flawed.
 * EEng (talk)


 * I understand that you were very angry, and perhaps understandably so, but I don't think that "he had it coming" is an appropriate defense for gross incivility. Your comments were practically the definition of a personal attack, and the fact that you refuse to admit that disturbs me far more than the fact that you said them in the first place (which could otherwise be written off as a "crime of passion"). There is no backing in policy for your "predictable consequence" argument; rather, NPA tells us Furthermore, the amount of "serious evidence" (which I agree existed) is immaterial, seeing as your comments were entirely about his personal real-world life.
 * This is all a moot point now, more or less, but if you're unable to acknowledge the wrongness of your own actions, instead choosing to wikilawyer your way out of it, I must say that I hope you change your ways soon, before you wind up getting yourself blocked for disruptive editing. (Also, how fucking dare you use my !vote to suggest I'm not fit to criticize you? That's practically a PA in itself—deflecting criticism with ad hominem arguments.) Anyways, I'll be disengaging now. Bye. Hope I've given you some food for thought. — PinkAmpers  &#38;  ( Je vous invite à me parler )  03:37, 21 May 2013 (UTC)


 * The fact that you have failed utterly to understand what I wrote, which had nothing to do with "he had it coming", disturbs me far more than the fact of your starting this fuss (which could otherwise be written off as a "kneejerk reaction"). To make it easy for you I'll highlight the nub again:
 * expressing [such feelings] sheds light on the heedless disruptiveness of Qworty's longterm determination to engage in such behavior, and was therefore an appropriate contribution to the discussion.
 * I'm happy to repeat that your idea that Qworty shouldn't be banned brings into serious question your ideas about editor behavior and the appropriate response to them. And juxtaposing your more recent suggestion that I should be indeffed makes your poor judgment even more manifest.
 * Just so you know, by the way, I'm not saying any of the above because I think you're some contemptible troll, either.
 * EEng (talk) 04:42, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Phineas Gage GA
I've failed the article. User:Eric Corbett has stated on his talkpage that if the article is passed he will take it to GAR which basically means that he has now made it his personal mission to make life hell for anyone who doesn't agree that he is the sole authority to be followed regarding article writing and formatting. I don't wish that for anyone and therefore see no other choice than to fail. This is an immense shame because the article is great and you have done a great job and Wikipedia should be be ashamed of the way you have been thanked for your volunteer work here. I am very sorry it went like this. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 22:59, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I'd like you to reconsider. As I said before this doesn't cause me any stress because (a) crap like whether et al. and so on go in italics doesn't really matter and (b) from a review of his edit history, it seems like Malevolent Fatuous (you do know who I'm talking about, right?) gets into stuff like this all the time and always self-destructs, or gets blocked, or holds his breath until he's blue in the face, or whatever. And as for John, well, he means well.
 * Many good people have put a lot of effort into this so far; sooner or later the article will be re-nominated, and then again there will be a flurry of attention by everyone and his brother, and again we'll have to go through this stuff. So unless there's a deadline I'd prefer we continue.
 * Anyway, I don't see where MF said he'll "take it to GAR" -- all I see are comments saying stuff like "we're involved in a GAR" i.e. the normal peer review that's part of the GA process. Did I miss something? Anyway, I don't have any fear of any "higher scrutiny".
 * If you'll reactivate the process, we can evaluate where we are. One thing to remember is that much or most of the stuff being argued about isn't even on the GA checklist. So, what do you think?
 * EEng (talk) 23:26, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I am glad it didn't cause you stress, it did to me. Eric said he would take it to GAR at his talkpage. You are of course right in your assessment of his usual behavior pattern. I think it would have to be renominated to take up the review again. You are right that none of this is on the GA checklist. If I re-nominate it I can't review it myself. If you do it I can, or if you like someone else can do it. I'll look at it tomorrow with fresh eyes. Let me know what you think.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 23:32, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Let me suggest that in the meantime you just revert your own closing with an edit summary something like "Now not so sure I want to close, want to think about it". If you don't do something like that right away then it will need a new nomination and, I'm guessing, you have to wait a while before doing that. And then, as I said, we'll have to deal with a new influx of knowitalls. EEng (talk) 00:22, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I am sorry but the closing cannot be reverted once the GA-Bot has updated the GA nominations page and logged the fail into the article history.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:26, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Why don't you post at the Talk of the nom page if someone knows how to undo that manually. I'd be surprised if there isn't. I hate to press but I really don't want to lost the momentum, and since you're the reviewer you're the only one in a position to ask. I'd really appreciate it. EEng (talk) 01:39, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
 * OK, I'll try. Sorry for the hassle.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 01:56, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I tried but I don't think it is going to happen. You could renominate it right away and we'll take it from there. I would prefer not to review it at a second review, but if you prefer that I do it I will.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 02:12, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Hey, why didn't I think of this? -- you can just renominate it (I don't think I should). EEng (talk) 03:20, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I couldn't do that, since it would imply that I am responsible for carrying out the response to the review, which I am neither capable or willing to do. I think User:CurlyLoop will be willing to renominate, and Pyrotec who is a competent and experienced reviewer whose reviews I have myself enjoyed has expressed a willingness to take over the review when he finishes two other ones. I apologize for botching this. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 13:19, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

June 2013
This is a personal attack. Please don't make any more edit summaries like that. The issue you are edit-warring over is extremely trivial, and you are wrong on the MoS issue, but it's ok that you're wrong on MoS. It's definitely not ok to make personal remarks in your edit summaries. Really, please don't do that again. --John (talk) 21:56, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Oh please. You must be joking. EEng (talk) 22:35, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
 * No, I am not joking. --John (talk) 05:54, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Look, I appreciate that you think you're keeping me on the straight and narrow, but I stand by my statement, and to underscore that I'll amplify it here: the editor who used to call himself Malleus Fatuorum recently changed his "name" to Eric Corbett; however, I believe it would have been a service to the project had he, instead, changed his name to Malevolent Fatuous, because that would let editors know up front what they might be in for when he appears in any new situation. EEng (talk) 06:05, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Then you are not only behaving in a way that our community norms explicitly find unacceptable, but you are being rather unfair to Eric. You asked him here to get involved in the article, you then disagreed with some (fairly innocuous) edits he made, and now you're throwing out insults to him. Does that seem fair to you? --John (talk) 10:45, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Courtesy notice
There is currently a discussion at Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you.--John (talk) 07:09, 11 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for extending so much courtesy, but unfortunately I was up the Amazon while all this was going on. EEng (talk) 05:42, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Electrons
Hi, I can't get an answer from physicists as to whether spacetime is curved in relation to the interaction between protons and electrons on the atomic level. I was just wondering ... Tony  (talk)  06:00, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
 * , I hope this won't dash the idealized image of me I know you've formed, but my physics is extremely weak. I'd bet User:Sbharris would be able to enlighten you, though. EEng (talk) 06:20, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

"turkey factory" Lauri Love (not important)
Hello, this is not important but "turkey factory" is what the source calls it https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/usa-v-love-judgment-1.pdf page 12 at the bottom 208.44.84.138 (talk) 22:07, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, plant still fits and sounds less weird.  E Eng  22:11, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Okay. 208.44.84.138 (talk) 22:13, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
 * A turkey factory must be a real thing; where else could this year's presidential candidates have come from? Colonel Wilhelm Klink (Complaints&#124;Mistakes) 22:53, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
 * We'll have none of your shocking Thanksgiving Americanisms here, thank you. Martinevans123 (talk) 23:02, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
 * This is Wikipedia, so, there is obviously a nightmare decade-long POV dispute about this very question. FourViolas (talk) 23:59, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Obviously.  E Eng  06:21, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

New from the essay bin
Just when you thought that Wikipedia's standards couldn't get any lower, along comes this: it turns out that we no longer require competence in our editors. While this is good news for all of the other Klinks who plan on creating accounts, it's a rather disturbing idea for pretty much everyone else. Colonel Wilhelm Klink (Complaints&#124;Mistakes) 22:58, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
 * In the US, we don't require it of presidential candidates, either. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:12, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
 * That gives me an idea... .  E Eng  00:40, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

This is perfect for you!
Speaking of competence! --Tryptofish (talk) 18:38, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Why do you hate me? Listen, there's trouble at (that section and the RfC immediately following) so having no idea what your position would be I wonder if you'd like to wade into the swamp.  E  Eng  21:09, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I've waded, and it's going to end up beautifully. Believe me, it will be so beautiful that you'll get tired of how beautiful it will be. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:53, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm not going to name pages, but you ought to look around and see if there is anything where you can reciprocate. (Something that you already commented on, so I know that you are already interested, but haven't commented on in the last week or so.) --Tryptofish (talk) 22:20, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
 * You came sooo close. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:54, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Um, can you give me a hint? Is it bigger than a breadbox? Does it rhyme with orange?  E Eng  23:00, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Are you sure you went to Harvard? Rhymes with "schmofessor". --Tryptofish (talk) 23:12, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
 * And it's not WP:PROFESSOR? I'm stumped. I even ran http://tools.wmflabs.org/sigma/editorinteract.py . Please, just one more itsy-bitsy hint?  E Eng  04:34, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm being so cryptic because I'm twisting myself into a Trypto-pretzel, trying not to cross the line into canvassing. So, you are correct to think of that guideline. (I cannot imagine anything else that rhymes!) Just before commenting here, I made a comment at the guideline talk page. What I commented on is not what I'm referring to here. But it deals with a related kind of discussion, and a related kind of discussion was also discussed by me, and commented on by you, higher up on the same guideline talk page not too long ago. An administrator is asking for more eyes, in order to get a clearer consensus. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:46, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Look,, if it's canvassing for Editor X to direct Editor Y to a certain discussion via an explicit link, then it's no less canvassing if Editor X does so via a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. But in this case it's not canvassing, because (as anyone acquainted with both of us knows) we're hardly aligned on everything, and you have no idea what my opinion on the matter will be. So, since I've tried my best once again and I still have no idea what you're talking about, will you please stop pussyfooting around and just give me a link?  E Eng  21:08, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
 * link. At this point, I just feel embarrassed, sorry. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:27, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks, very much. What you said was helpful in clarifying the discussion, and indeed was not at all parroting what I had said. I feel really stupid about the way I communicated here at your talk, so I want to get this off my chest (or my fin out of my mouth). I completely misjudged the clarity of what I was saying, and I had made my first comments assuming wrongly that it would be clear. I never intended my exchange with you to grow into such a back-and-forth, but it kind of took on a life of its own, making what I originally intended into a much bigger deal than it should have been. Not my finest wiki-hour. OK, glad I got that off my chest. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:29, 2 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Fret not, and see right.  E Eng  23:38, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I just cot-ed that discussion at the AfD, but please understand that I wasn't finding fault with your comment. Just felt it was time to stop. But you asked me a valid question. My answer is that I don't expect things here to be any better than or different from the rest of the world. But I still don't have to like it! I suppose one could say that I'm not too fond of the real world, either. And as for your mention of pricks, that really does bring us right back around to the original topic of this talk thread, doesn't it! --Tryptofish (talk) 00:41, 7 October 2016 (UTC)


 * I'm disappointed and yet relieved that the project goals do not include expanding the use of the word "bigly" to as many different Wikipedia articles as possible. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:08, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Kinda makes me nostalgic for "nucular". --Tryptofish (talk) 23:51, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Many people are saying that Trump refers to his penis as "Mr. Bigly".  E Eng  00:43, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
 * For ten bucks, you can send him a bigly surprise! Colonel Wilhelm Klink (Complaints&#124;Mistakes) 18:40, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Colonel. We can always depend on you to maintain the discussion's standards.  E Eng  20:00, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, it's rather easy to do so when the standards are borderline pun-ographic images of housepets. Colonel Wilhelm Klink (Complaints&#124;Mistakes) 20:13, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Surely you know that's what I meant.  E Eng  04:34, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Motion picture rating system
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Motion picture rating system. Legobot (talk) 04:25, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
 * There was an attempt a while back to provide a rating for this talk page, but it was unsuccessful. Apparently, it was impossible to provide a rating because nobody could reach the end; whenever somebody came close, the page began to reproduce itself, leading to much despair among the ratings board. Colonel Wilhelm Klink (Complaints&#124;Mistakes) 21:06, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

Prep sets
Please don't edit a DYK prep set while the "inuse" tag is in place. I put it there because I like to build the whole set before saving it, and having intermediate edits done by others in the interim really makes things most difficult. Thanks. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 07:25, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
 * , sorry, there are so many templates and warnings and editnotices all the time there that I just didn't notice one more. REMOVE THIS MESSAGE WHEN ADDING HOOKS TO THE QUEUE The queue is empty. When the hooks are added they MUST be approved by adding to the top of the page; the bot will not update unless this is added. Remove this message when adding the hooks. DYK queues: 1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • Queue clear   Next queue: 4 [update · Purge] (edit · history) DYK prep areas: Prep 1 • Prep 2 • Prep 3 • Prep 4 • Prep 5 • Prep 6 • Prep clear  E  Eng  12:52, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
 * That's OK. :-) Cwmhiraeth (talk) 13:07, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Crooner

 * "Crooner" is not slang per the Merriam-Webster dictionary.
 * "Crooner" is not slang per the American Heritage dictionary.
 * "Crooner" is not slang per the Oxford English dictionary.
 * "Crooner" is not slang per the Collins English dictionary.
 * "Crooner" is not slang per the Macmillan dictionary.
 * "Crooner" is not slang per the Cambridge dictionary.

But if you insist on making Wikipedia mirror your own personal reality, you've got your work cut out for you. 32.218.47.105 (talk) 22:42, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
 * For those playing along at home, this concerns . I didn't say it's slang, I said it's WP:SLANG: a violation of the precept that articles "should not be written using argot, slang, colloquialisms, doublespeak, legalese, or jargon that is unintelligible to an average reader; it means that the English language should be used in a businesslike manner" -- businesslike being probably the word most apt here. In a detailed discussion of Crosby, it's appropriate to explain that his style could categorized as that of a "crooner", that being a semi-technical term; but it's not appropriate, in a context in which Crosby's style is irrelevant, to inject that unusual term into the text, as you have: "During a post-recording session talk with Crosby, the crooner suggested..." Thus I changed crooner to singer; I'd have changed it to simply Crosby if that didn't give us, "During a post-recording session talk with Crosby, Crosby suggested...", which is awkward. However, on reflection I see that the problem is solved by "During a post-recording session talk, Crosby suggested...", and thus I've made that change.  E Eng  23:31, 6 December 2016 (UTC)


 * You can try to parse your statements to within a hair's breadth of meaning, but the fact remains that "crooner" is not "argot, slang, colloquialisms, doublespeak, legalese, or jargon", is perfectly intelligible to the average reader, and constitutes "businesslike" prose. If you don't understand that, then I suggest you reread the previous sentence. 32.218.47.105 (talk) 23:42, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
 * The previous sentence is
 * However, on reflection I see that the problem is solved by "During a post-recording session talk, Crosby suggested...", and thus I've made that change.
 * so I really don't see how that makes your point. Anyway, I'm sure my glittering salon of talk page stalkers will arrive soon to help us sort this out.  E Eng  23:45, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I think maybe a better point is that we should avoid circumlocutions, regardless of how jargony they may be. It wouldn't be any better if we said "the musician" instead of "the crooner". We should just say "He suggested", or "Crosby suggested", rather than inventing new and colorful ways to confuse our readers by avoiding saying his name. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:04, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
 * OK, I glitter. 32.218 is correct that "crooner" is a perfectly acceptable word to use in this context, and that it does not fall afoul of WP:SLANG. On the other hand, it's not particularly necessary or useful to say it, and EEng's edit,, improves the sentence. And it is fucking aggravating to get an edit conflict on this talk page, given how long it takes to load. Says the syncophant. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:09, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Please archive
Your talk page is over 927,000 bytes large. You should really consider archiving a bunch of it. — MRD2014 (talk • contribs) 03:42, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I'll add your comment to the archive of people asking me to archive.  E Eng  03:59, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Haha good idea. — MRD2014 (talk • contribs) 04:00, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Please add me to that archive another time. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:14, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I forgot who it was but there was an editor on Wikipedia who pissed off the wrong group of admins and was banned/blocked (forgot which) because he kept refusing to archive his talk page and undid the admin's archiving of his talk page. Reading his talk page war with the 3% admins was fun, now I have to look to see if I can find it again. 🔯 Sir Joseph 🍸 (talk) 16:21, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Dear Sir, If you will kindly search the string 3% on this page and its companion User:EEng, you will find some of the incidents you're thinking of, plus links to others.  E Eng  16:35, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Dear Sir, I can vouch for the fact that 3% of this page is perfectly useful. If only I could find it. Martinevans123 (talk) 16:47, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Dear EEng, please archive the other 97%. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:14, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

WP:POLEMIC (2)
The first part of this says specifically: "Polemical statements unrelated to Wikipedia, or statements attacking or vilifying groups of editors, persons, or other entities (these are generally considered divisive and removed, and reintroducing them is often considered disruptive)." You have now reverted two editors (who don't generally agree with each other) who have found these statements to be in violation of WP:POLEMIC, specifically to the above-quoted statement. Please do not continue to revert against this consensus. If you continue to believe that the statements are not in violation, you can bring it up on the user talk page, on the talk page for POLEMIC (WT:User pages), or on a notice board, perhaps as an appendix to the thread in which Cedric was indef blocked. Thanks. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:04, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
 * For those playing along at home, this is about Too late. You're fussing about nothing, and I'm sure you know how I feel about the nannying of editor's userpages. The bar for such removals is very high. The guy's been (deservedly) humiliated but no need to add to it. Let it go.  E  Eng  00:07, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
 * BMK, firstly that seems to be a criticism of Wikipedia and we generally don't remove those. More importantly, we generally also give lee-way to those blocked/banned to "vent", and finally POLEMIC is in the eyes of the ever wonderful admins. I have seen pages and pages of off topic crap, userboxes calling for violence against certain people, but no action. A little tiny statement about how Wikipedia works by a banned user is not going to get under anyone's skin. Finally, that statement on his page is also certainly not polemic in any event.🔯 Sir Joseph 🍸 (talk) 00:12, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
 * They have a talk page to vent on, and it most certainly specifically contravenes the rule. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:33, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Imagine a smart guy like you wasting your time on this.  E Eng  01:26, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Driveby comment from the actual blocking admin BMK, do you really want to go down this route? If Wrongful accusations from a popular guy: "NBD." Fighting such wrongful accusations: "WP:BATTLEGROUND! WP:NOTHERE! Indef block!" is such a terrible block of WP:POLEMIC that it needs to be removed immediately, then most of User:Beyond My Ken/thoughts is so far in breach that it probably warrants a permanent site ban. Unless something is actually libellous, grossly offensive, a specific attack on a named individual, the use of userspace by a user with little or no history of Wikipedia activity to host out-of-scope content, or something which is actually causing technical problems,* we've always allowed extremely broad leeway in what people can keep in their own userspace. This is really not a hill on which you want to fight. &#8209; Iridescent 15:07, 30 December 2016 (UTC) * "something which is actually causing technical problems" is a policy which this talkpage is going to breach very soon if you continue to refuse to archive it to make whatever WP:POINT you're trying to make, incidentally; if any given page plus all transclusions hits 1.5mb in size, the software will lock it and whoever allowed it to reach that state will be treated as a disruptive editor, and that limit is a non-negotiable limit hardwired into Mediawiki, not just an artefact of humorless admins who fail to see the funny side of your having a talkpage that crashes the browsers of between 10–30% of readers. &#8209; Iridescent 15:07, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Now, now, Iridescent, there's no POINT. I do archive now and then, though I should probably pick up the pace. The parser stats are between 1/20 and 1/4 of limits, and the emphasis on text size is misguided since, as with most articles, it's swamped by the images.  E Eng  17:25, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks Iridescent! I say go for it (or at least revoke his talk page access)! Problem is, EEng just likes it when the rest of us say "it's too big!" Cmon, EEng, you can do it! And see: . --Tryptofish (talk) 22:22, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Butt out, shark-bait!  E Eng  22:52, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Ok, chum. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:23, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Imho etc it's not half as bad as the notice at the top of their tp, as I might've mentioned before ;) but seriously, that should be got rid of. I spose it has lost imapct now they're blocked, but what a first-time impression it could give a noob that stumbled over it. Just a thought.  O Fortuna!  ...Imperatrix mundi.  15:31, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
 * That notice is now one with Nineveh and Tyre, as he doesn't have the power to unilaterally overturn "anyone can edit". Looking at his CentralAuth page, it's clear that he's primarily active on Yue Wikipedia. I suspect a lot of this may be a cultural misunderstanding; since Yue is a tiny Wikipedia (only 199 active editors and 50,000 articles, according to the current table), I imagine most of the editors there probably know each other so there's much more of a culture of goofing around and an "I don't need to follow the rules, I write the rules" mentality as there was on en-wiki in the early days, and he just doesn't realise that despite all appearances en-wiki is actually a fairly professional working environment and generally takes a very dim view of self-appointed comedians trying to disrupt procedural discussions. &#8209; Iridescent 16:32, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Luckily for me, self-appointed comedians who aren't trying to disrupt are generally tolerated.  E Eng  22:52, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that- you're probably right, but, notwithstanding BOLD, IAR etc, I didn't like to do it myself. Thanks to EEng for allowing my bombast here too :)  O Fortuna!  ...Imperatrix mundi.  16:41, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I'd certainly be a hypocrite if I didn't allow others' bombast here.  E Eng  17:25, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Don't feed him
I saw your comment on Cedric's talk page. I don't have a problem with commenting on blocked users' talk pages (obviously), but if you are going to do so I'd advise against mentioning "diacritics". His block had nothing to do with diacritics, despite what he would likely want you to believe. It did have to do with posting indecipherable edit summaries that were not indecipherable because they included diacritics; they were indecipherable because the spellings used therein were gibberish. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 02:26, 30 December 2016 (UTC)


 * For those playing along at home [and I'm getting tired of saying that] we're talking about . Crikey, you and BMK both gotta find more to do that doesn't involve managing the precise wordings of messages editors leave for one another.  E Eng  04:48, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I hadn't noticed what BMK wrote (and still haven't read it). I saw your comment on his page because I was reading it. I knew he would immediately try to appeal his block, and I was fairly certain his appeal would mention me specifically. I corrected a few users on this point on ANI, and it's important -- last time opposed the indef proposal, apparently on the misunderstanding that the dispute had something to do with diacritics. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 14:28, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

About that penis of yours
Test. Drmies (talk) 16:26, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Success! Drmies (talk) 16:26, 16 February 2017 (UTC)


 * , have you taken your medication today?  E Eng  17:14, 16 February 2017 (UTC) How proud I am to have been part of this noble endeavor.
 * Yes boss--that's the scary thing. Drmies (talk) 18:45, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Here we see two Wikipedians locked in a life and death struggle to see who will establish dominance by demonstrating that their talk page has the highest number of page watchers who visited recent edits. Timothy Joseph Wood  18:57, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
 * My gift to EEng. Drmies (talk) 04:08, 17 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Now, now, no cockfighting, you two. I remember once seeing a purported photo of Rasputin's accomplishment preserved in what looked like a (large) pickle jar. Quite a sight. So sorry I missed that merge discussion of yore (not yours). I looked briefly at the bio page, and noticed multiple instances of what appear to have been intended as images, but which just show the wiki-text for the image; maybe someone should correct that. Interesting reading, anyhoo. Oh, and, if you do take that medication, be sure to see a doctor if it lasts more than four hours. --Tryptofish (talk) 03:56, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

Drmies told me I had to click on this. Now what do I do? Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 04:25, 17 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Get fired from a blow job.--Kieronoldham (talk) 04:28, 17 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Rejoice! Drmies (talk) 17:34, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

Template:Did you know nominations/Lasst uns erfreuen
I know you've done a few special occasion DYK's in the past, so if you could respond to the query about having this on Easter, it would probably be more useful than me, since I'm relatively new to that area of Wikipedia! TonyBallioni (talk) 16:51, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

DYK for Mark Barr
Mifter (talk) 12:02, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

DYK for Vaginal steaming
Mifter (talk) 00:02, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Does that have something to do with the Horney Dicks mentioned above? --Tryptofish (talk) 00:26, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Next time I use the kettle, I'm going to make sure it's sterilized first. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont)  09:23, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't that be forced sterilization? --Tryptofish (talk) 18:33, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Great to see some useful science at last, on this dismal collection of anecdotal filth. Inane Mars TV 123 (talk) 10:00, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Heads up...(no pun intended)...but my post is strictly for the purpose of gender equality, there's this and if that doesn't satisfy your hunger for encyclopedic knowledge try this as a potential new article for your sandbox. The latter has it's own hook (no pun intended)..."PENIS FACT #5 - The oldest known species with a penis is a hard-shelled sea creature called Colymbosathon ecplecticos.  That’s Greek for “amazing swimmer with large penis.”  Which officially supplants Buck Naked as the best porn name, ever. " Atsme 📞📧 19:57, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
 * My, you've been getting around! (Another such link at my talk, too.) Comparing the first link with fact #1 at the second link makes for an interesting contrast. And see also here. (Wouldn't that have made a great DYK?) --Tryptofish (talk) 20:06, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
 * WP:Forum shopping? No, no, no grasshopper, Doctor insert anogram here, the link on your TP was in direct response to a comment you made about notability. The DYK discussion here appears to be heating up, so I added different links in response; all rooted in a very innocent intent SMirC-angel.svg to broaden the encyclopedic experience with a more gender balanced approach. I would also like to think it may inadvertently have contributed to EEng's pool of witty hooks for future reference. SMirC-crazy.svg Any scientist reading this thread will be happy if not relieved to know my links lead to purely scientific material, and not WP:Pseudoscience. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Atsme (talk • contribs) 10:37, April 3, 2017 (UTC)

Public Garden - Irrigation System
I appreciate your arguments regarding the information that you removed, in the context of a conclusion drawn from original research. However, I still think the information you removed is relevant in terms of providing context for the reader. The paragraph in question is located in the history section of the document; providing the earliest-known investigation into building an irrigation system, and context of the irrigation systems in the park bordering the garden, are valuable in that they build context for the reader. I'd like to bring back that information. Nemilar (talk) 04:32, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
 * First of all, you don't know that the 1960s resolution was the first "known" investigation, and no matter how you look at it, you're WP:SYNTHesizing the difference in installation dates into a conclusion that it means something. Are there sprinklers on the Esplanade? When were they installed? If that was before/after the Public Garden, what does that tell us? How about the grounds of the State House? Should we include all that stuff too? No, because there's no source telling us how these other things illuminate the significance of the installation in the Public Garden.  E Eng  04:41, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

Herb Caen
Kudos for your work on the Herb Cain article. Dlabtot (talk) 01:03, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Why, thank you, kind sir or madam. I actually tear up a bit sometimes when I think that he's actually gone. It's amazing -- he started with the Chronicle when my mother was 8 years old
 * If you search for  <!--  in the raw text you'll find notes on ways the article can be improved -- it particularly could use more material on the unique feel of HC's work, and on tributes from others. The NYT obit, SFGate piece, and Pulitzer award must certainly have choice bits that can be mined -- also there's in interview with HC himself cited somewhere.  Why not take a stab in your abundant spare time.
 * EEng (talk) 03:36, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
 * P.S. Two items -- paraphrased from memory -- which I particularly remember and have only halfheartedly tried to find (though I suspect the bulk of Caen's text is under the Chron's tight lock and key):
 * [Early 70s, last item of the day's column -- typical zinger ending a HC column] FREUDIAN SLIP OF THE WEEK AWARD Hubert Humphrey, recalling the wonders of the LBJ Administration to The Tomorrow Show's Tom Snyder: "At least we didn't wash our dirty Lyndon in public!"
 * ...Sign posted in the anatomy lab at Stanford Medical School: "Students -- use only half of brain!"

Jim Leavelle
Thanks for your help with the caption in the Jim Leavelle article. Have a good day! - Thanks, Hoshie 22:00, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Malcolm X
Thanks! I needed a laugh after a determined attack last night by trolling, vandalizing sockpuppets on my user and talk pages. That's the way to convert a Jew to Christianity, huh?  Cullen 328  Let's discuss it  05:34, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Phineas Gage "remaining"
Like it. Ward20 (talk) 08:58, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Amazing it's taken so long -- been fretting about that sentence for ages! Strive ever upwards, O Wikipedians, be it just a word at at time! EEng (talk) 09:20, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Units
Re [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AAdministrators%27_noticeboard%2FIncidents&diff=577975763&oldid=577973370]: same thing, right? The real question is: 48 solar hours or 48 sidereal hours? NE Ent 14:10, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Just as an hour at a fun party feels like 15 minutes while an hour at a tedious faculty meeting feels like 5 hours, an hour at ANI feels like your life is flashing before your eyes while an hour not at ANI feels like a day in the countryside. If that helps. EEng (talk) 15:07, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Error
I think you mistakenly clicked instead of undo. 8^> —sroc &#x1F4AC; 09:02, 22 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Yeah, well ;P to you too, buster! But isn't yr Okt-fest example still ambiguous? Might the reader not mistakenly conclude that it lasts 1 yr + a few days? Assuming we're past that, what do you think about "Holy Week 2014 begins April 13 and ends April 19" -- conserves column width! EEng (talk) 09:11, 22 January 2014 (UTC)


 * True. The example looks good, although I'm not sure what "Holy Week" is or if it would ever be called "Holy Week 2014".  I intentionally chose an example in the past (so it needn't change tense in due course) and that spans two months, otherwise someone might get the idea of re-writing it as "from 13 to 19 April" or something.  What about "In 2013, Ramadan started 10 July and ended 7 August"?  —sroc &#x1F4AC; 09:28, 22 January 2014 (UTC)


 * When faced with a term or phrase (such as Holy Week) with which I'm unfamiliar, I often think to myself, "If only there were some way to answer such questions using calculating machines... A world-wide information storage and retrieval system of some kind... Perhaps computers linked using a kind of telegraphic communication system... with a typewriter-like way entering queries... and some kind of display device by which the machine would present answers...."
 * Well, last night I decided to stop dreaming and start doing. Click here for a demonstration. Crude, I know, but it illustrates the general idea. I don't think there's any money in it, though. Too bad.
 * You're right that crossing months is better, and in the spirit of inclusionism (if that's a word) perhaps we should go with Ramadan. More comments there. EEng (talk) 16:36, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Tweaked your MOSNUM edit
Hi, I hope this is fine. Tony  (talk)  06:01, 22 May 2014 (UTC)
 * It's fine, of course. I hope my snapping at you a while back didn't make you uneasy about dealing with me, but please consider the context. Over the last six months I've invested many hours reorganizing and massaging MOS (especially Dates & Numbers) to make it more usable and, to my amazement, have received almost no resistance. (Nor have I received much appreciation, but I can live with that.) Except in a very few places which I carefully call out, my intention is only to improve the presentation without changing the meaning. So when, in one tiny corner, I unintentionally did change the meaning, I was a bit miffed to have the C-word waved in my face as if I was trying to pull a fast one. I recognized, even then, that you likely didn't mean it that way, but MOS is such an unpleasant place that I think we should all bend over backwards to keep the tone as pleasant as possible. EEng (talk) 15:14, 22 May 2014 (UTC)
 * No problem. The removal of that "you can" appeared to make it mandatory, which was a bit sudden (and undesirable I think, without having talked through the implications). MOS is powerful, both for on- and off-wiki English. It purports to be a professional authority, and has that capacity (probably it is that already), so it's not surprising that there's tension on a wiki. Cheers. Tony   (talk)  07:00, 23 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I completely agree the change was inappropriate -- I just wish more consideration had been given to the fact that it was apparently unintentional. If you really think that people are using WP MOS as a style guide outside of WP, I think we need a little disclaimer on it somewhere saying that, while anyone's free to use it of course, it has many details peculiar to the needs of WP and issues that arise there, and which may not be appropriate for general application elsewhere i.e. a camel is a horse designed by a committee. EEng (talk) 07:05, 23 May 2014 (UTC)
 * You have no idea how that last statement really is.... better choice of words than I used as well. I'll need to remember that for next time MOS dramas erupt over the addition of the number of auxiliary parameters or data granularity without considering the more meta aspects. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 05:40, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

"Zero tolerance" baseball
OK, it's not everyday that edit summaries on the DYK talk page make me laugh as much as I did. Thanks a bunch. :) I, JethroBT  drop me a line 19:52, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks. An unfortunate limitation of edit summaries as a medium for artistic expression is that once you've hit you're stuck. My regret here is that I didn't link to Can't Anybody Here Play This Game?. A pity. EEng (talk) 20:02, 4 August 2014 (UTC) But then Picasso (or someone) said form is liberating i.e. if I could revise it, I'd probably still be revising even now, instead of wasting my time usefully editing elsewhere on WP.
 * Obviously as a ninjarette (don't highlight that spellchecker, it's brilliant), I don't take three strikes to put somebody out. ("testing showed it was 1.7 times more injurious than a 30mph car crash with modern safety features". You can't argue with "testing") Belle (talk) 20:09, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Over here in the UK, we often used to play "zero tolerance rounders", but the shot-gun would always jam at just the wrong time! lol. 20:23, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks
Thanks for suggesting to use paragraph break on ANI. It seems that's....done it. 213.7.147.34 (talk) 00:01, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
 * You're welcome. It's a shame how people who actually contribute content have to waste their time figuring out how to avoid being harassed by the technogeeks EEng (talk) 01:40, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Right, I see now that there's quite some background to this whole p tag business -- it would appear I've been caught in heavy crossfire. Anyway, I think the 2nd (72h) block was more egregious. Rule says must blockbrz0101. 213.7.147.34 (talk) 02:11, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Indeed, your bad luck. What's weird is that you and I crossed paths with him on exactly the same trivial issue.  It seems he never learns. EEng (talk) 03:55, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

x ≥ y etc
Hi, the MOSNUM examples for ≥ and ≤ appear in the table (spaced), but when it's a number by itself, is the symbol spaced thus? "If the value is > 15, the procedure is likely to succeed". Or >15? Thx. Tony  (talk)  11:10, 10 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Putting aside the question of whether and when mixing symbols and text like that is a good idea, I'd think that >, which is standing in for a word, should be spaced on both sides in your example. But that's just a guess, and in some contexts dropping the space on the right side might look better. (This is, after all, about what looks good, not some silly "correctness".) EEng (talk) 20:04, 10 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Yeah, thanks. I've since thought that because operators (+3, −3) are unspaced on the right, that "values of >3 should", "values <3 should", etc should also be unspaced on the right, since they look to me like operators in that context. The visual fails with the "is less than" sign, unspaced, to my eyes; but maybe that's the price for consistency. This seems like a different context to the spaced one in the title here. Tony   (talk)  01:50, 11 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I'd be happy to opine on a particular situation in an actual article. EEng (talk) 02:23, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

From the Museum of Freudian Slips
About this edit summary:, please tell me that the spelling was intentional, and not a typo or a Freudian slip! --Tryptofish (talk) 21:53, 27 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Well, sometimes a typo is just a typo, but I'm not sure it's possible to distinguish one from a F.S. without more psychotherapy than my insurance will underwrite. Not intentional, at any rate. EEng (talk) 23:45, 27 November 2014 (UTC)
 * "So, Sigmund Freud walks into a bra..." Martinevans123 (talk) 22:01, 28 November 2014 (UTC)
 * "So, Phineas Gage runs into a bar..." EEng (talk) 19:03, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Now that sounds bit hairy! Anyone fancy a Brazillian? . Martinevans123 (talk) 19:12, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I've seen that before, of course. I like where the doctor says "the bar entered a 'non-eloquent' area of the brain" -- likely Google-translate for the "silent area" – see . What's really amazing about these kinds of amazing survivals is that they're not actually uncommon anymore. See Stone (1999) "Transcranial Brain Injuries Caused by Metal Rods or Pipes over the Past 150 Years". (My favorites: Case IX – "a young left-handed American Marine in a jeep accident near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania who had a gear shift driven through his head ... On follow-up examination he was free of gross deficits and was eventually dismissed from the Marine Corps because of injuries to his knee. Some years later it was learned that he did have a dyslexia and had sought the help of a nun who trained him to read" – and Case XIV – "The victim and his friend were intoxicated and attempting a 'William Tell' maneuver ... The arrow was removed by pulling it through the brain along its original trajectory ..." I always find it amusing that details such as "near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania", and the nun, are considered somehow relevant.) EEng (talk) 19:49, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Better take care if you're out drinking in downtown Boston, Mr. L. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:58, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Freud's first slip. EEng (talk) 22:25, 28 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Poor EEng, as a young child, he was mistreated by a bot. Those nasty bots! --Tryptofish (talk) 22:56, 28 November 2014 (UTC)
 * More like the Primal scene, except with bots. After that I could never look at my motherboard the same way again. EEng (talk) 20:52, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Surely you mean Primal Scream? ya mutha. Martinevans123 (talk) 16:54, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Primal Screen And don't call me Shirley. EEng (talk) 17:40, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Berkley
Did I make the right guess here: ? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:01, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't think so though you'll need a better source than any of those -- you'd probably find it in the liner notes of one of his albums (not sure if that counts as a RS -- never thought about it). Did you get my email??? EEng (talk) 23:06, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Ah, many thanks. I was thrown by the Google translation of "Berklee" as "Berkley". My knowledge of Czech is pretty limited and I have to guess. But I can't even guess when it somes to Hebrew! Jakubovic's liner notes are often a bit scant, to say the least. Sorry no access to email at the moment, but I will check as soon as I can. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:39, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
 * "My knowledge of Czech is pretty limited." I had an instructor once who mentioned that he was going to have a busy term because he was taking over a sick colleague's Akkadian class "and my Akkadian is pretty rusty." I found that endlessly amusing. I mean -- how to do you stay supple in Akkadian? A sabbatical in Akkadia? And how would anyone know? If you just fake it, what are the chances you'll get found out? Glad I could help. EEng (talk) 13:29, 28 January 2015 (UTC) I was a bit pissed off when I wrote the email -- I really thought you were playing with fire at my expense -- so please see past that.
 * Lol. "Playing with fire"... are you joking! I'd rather try juggling with chainsaws! Martinevans123 (talk) 14:07, 28 January 2015 (UTC) p.s. he probably meant "Arcadian class". p.p.s. I have replied. Even a library needs a few coatracks, I would have thought.

Thanks for your help
Thanks for your consideration of the DATEUNIFY stuff. It makes a pleasant change from arguing about commas, having arguments over arguments about commas, discussing arguments over arguments about commas, and then deletion of images. —sroc &#x1F4AC; 00:45, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Happy to help, but you know I'm twiddling my thumbs until I get the go-ahead after the latest concerns were raised. Your turn! EEng (talk) 01:20, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Chuck DeVore
It looks like the subject is at it again. You helped deal with this back in 2013. Please take a look at my recent revert and, if so moved, keep an eye on the page. David in DC (talk) 16:35, 16 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm under pressure for the next week but I will, as you say, try keep an eye out.  E  Eng  17:23, 16 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Wow. I knew nothing about Gage until I helped out a tiny bit on the Genie article. Good luck and enjoy. David in DC (talk) 17:31, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Alyson Hannigan
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Alyson Hannigan. Legobot (talk) 04:26, 13 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I'd forgotten all about this woman - if she hands you a flute, make sure it's been washed :-/ Ritchie333 (talk) <sup style="color:#7F007F">(cont)  08:47, 13 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Oooooh. That's the first joke on this page I understand. -Roxy the dog™ bark 09:19, 13 August 2016 (UTC)
 * "I bought a dog from a blacksmith. When I got home he made a bolt for the door". Martinevans123 (talk) 09:34, 13 August 2016 (UTC)
 * The dog must have heard a tap on the door - altogether now - "my plumber's got a strange sense of humour". Robevans123 (talk) 09:46, 13 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you to that well known comedy duo, "the evans123 brothers" -Roxy the dog™ bark 09:53, 13 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Did someone say tap on the door?? Martinevans123 (talk) 17:29, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Length of page
Hi,

Your talk page is currently 715,338 bytes long. This makes it difficult for some to edit, or even read. Please archive most of it. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:48, 14 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I appreciate your concern, but I'll need to see actual evidence that the length make it hard for anyone to read. As to editing, no one except I should be making anything but section edits.  E Eng  19:51, 14 August 2016 (UTC)
 * You know what they say.... "big Talk Pages, big heel spurs". *snigger, snigger* Colonel "Deep Bucket" Sanders (talk) 20:00, 14 August 2016 (UTC)
 * EEng, please forgive me about this, but I'm actually going to agree with Andy. Here's a bit of evidence. I just left a comment in a section a little way above, and I carefully timed how long it took from when I clicked "Save" until the saving process was actually complete. I have a very fast internet connection (and the monthly bill to go with it), and my experience is that the rate-limiting step for my edits is at the Wikipedia end. Normally, my edits "save" in around 3 or 4 seconds. The edit I just made here took 18 seconds. Please consider some serious archiving. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:28, 14 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I went back to my watchlist, and then clicked for the diff of my comment immediately above, and it took 21 seconds. I then clicked from the diff to the top of this talk page, and it took 20 seconds. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:33, 14 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I just left a message on someone else's talk page, and it saved so fast that I could not really time it. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:39, 14 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Test edit - do not read. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 23:57, 14 August 2016 (UTC)


 * I'm experiencing none of the delays here that our icthyic friend has noted. Just another data point. Anyway, computers are weird. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 00:00, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

He's just Trypin', like he sometimes does. Any time a page is edited a new version has to be rendered. The page being X times the size of a typical page, it's not surprising it takes X times as long to render, though as SBHB found it's highly variable (server load, naked chance, etc.). It's part of the cost of membership in my glittering array of talk page stalkers. Anyway, the result is cached, so if the page gets any significant traffic at all, only the edit-or sees this delay, not plain read-ers.

Perhaps I'll be inspired to archived a few things.  E Eng  01:05, 15 August 2016 (UTC)
 * That's what I'm here for: to provide inspiration! Who called me icthyic? I'm neither icky nor thick. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:09, 15 August 2016 (UTC)
 * ... "raw prawns" are people too, you know. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:56, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm a pawn, not a prawn. (And why does a YouTube video about prawns consist of a photo of a dog? Don't answer that.) --Tryptofish (talk) 22:44, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I will not answer. But please bear in mind that is a garage band. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:51, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Under one month later, the page is now 730,269 bytes. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:54, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

DYK for Humphrey Stafford (died 1413)
Graeme Bartlett (talk) 00:02, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style. Legobot (talk) 04:28, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

^^^^Enter at your own risk, Bart Simpson^^^^ <span style="text-shadow:#F8F8FF 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em,#F4BBFF -0.2em -0.3em 0.6em,#BFFF00 0.8em 0.8em 0.6em; color:#A2006D;">Atsme 📞📧 14:09, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Don't have a cow, man. I'd commented there already.  E Eng  14:50, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I may have calves only a cow could love, but I won't be giving birth to one. It was humor connected to the Bart Simpson image you posted at Coward; meant nothing by it. <span style="text-shadow:#F8F8FF 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em,#F4BBFF -0.2em -0.3em 0.6em,#BFFF00 0.8em 0.8em 0.6em; color:#A2006D;">Atsme 📞📧 16:07, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Seriously: don't have a cow, man. I'm pretty culturally illiterate, but I recognized that one :-) FourViolas (talk) 17:52, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Okily Dokily! If anyone wants me, I'll be in my room. <span style="text-shadow:#F8F8FF 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em,#F4BBFF -0.2em -0.3em 0.6em,#BFFF00 0.8em 0.8em 0.6em; color:#A2006D;">Atsme 📞📧 18:01, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Your are always welcome here.  E Eng  19:56, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Was that an attempt to spell like Bart Simpson? (It's a wonderful sentiment, but grammar still counts.) Colonel Wilhelm Klink (Complaints&#124;Mistakes) 20:33, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I started to write "Your contributions are always welcome" and a few keystrokes in it revised itself into "You are always welcome here", and the result is what you see above.  E Eng  20:39, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Don'cha just hate it when that happens...especially when you're trying to make a point in a fallacious argument like we all tend to do from time to time. <span style="text-shadow:#F8F8FF 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em,#F4BBFF -0.2em -0.3em 0.6em,#BFFF00 0.8em 0.8em 0.6em; color:#A2006D;">Atsme 📞📧 22:28, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I've given up commenting on grammar and style. Muphry's Law nails me every time. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 23:33, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * SBHB - I've again learned something new from you. You're the gift that keeps on giving! SMirC-cool.svg <span style="text-shadow:#F8F8FF 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em,#F4BBFF -0.2em -0.3em 0.6em,#BFFF00 0.8em 0.8em 0.6em; color:#A2006D;">Atsme 📞📧 00:24, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for being one of Wikipedia's top medical contributors!

 * please help translate this message into the local language

Thanks again :) -- Doc James  along with the rest of the team at Wiki Project Med Foundation 03:59, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Well done, EEng. I wonder would you take a look at my bunions sometime? They've been giving me gyp lately. Martinevans123 (talk) 09:59, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Amazing stuff
Topology meets physics. Tony  (talk)  06:07, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Well-written, thanks. Might interest .  E Eng  06:13, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, thanks for the pointer. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:19, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I found it very interesting too. Thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:23, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

DYK for Newell Boathouse
Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:02, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Wilkins/Borges
Thanks for making improvements to The Analytical Language of John Wilkins. Part of the reason I created this one was to watch the DYK process unfold (it's an area of WP I have very little experience with) so I hope you'll entertain a newbie question: there are now a couple different hook proposals at the nomination page. What happens to determine which one is the one that sticks? Just add a comment of endorsement to the nom page itself or is there another venue for that? Thanks. --&mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;"> Rhododendrites <sup style="font-size:80%;">talk  |  15:41, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
 * The choice of hook is determined somewhat haphazardly. First, during the nom discussion often some or all-but-one get struck for one or another reason -- as the original nominator your preferences get a bit of extra weight in that. Next, the reviewer may not want to bother verifying several hooks, so may pick a smaller subset, or just one, to verify. Finally, if there are still 2 or more in play, then the "promoter" picks one to send to the main page. So if you much prefer one, or much dislike one, say so. Keep your eye on the nom page.
 * Sooner or later the article on Celestial Emporium should be merged in to your article, but that can wait.
 * I wrote a very long paper on Wilkins' Real Character and Philosophical Language about eight years ago, my thesis being that almost everything you read about Wilkins is baloney, because almost no one had access to the actual work until a facsimile was published some years ago. Foucault, who didn't read it, babbles on based on Borges, who didn't read it -- at least he admits it -- and was working from a bunch of other people who didn't read it either. Subbiondo's paper is complete nonsense -- absolutely shameful -- he makes a fool of himself. The best overall by far is Andrade, which you can find in a few anthologies. But if this interests you at all, there's no substitute for going through the book itself -- it's amazing. Wilkins is the greatest genius and most wonderful, gentle person you never were taught about in school. This is his magnum opus, but everything he wrote is worth reading, I promise you. EEng (talk) 18:21, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the tip re: DYK. I'm bookmarking the link for later. It's not directly relevant to the work I'm doing now (and I have enough of it :) ), but I find these "universal language" ideas fascinating. Is that your interest or did you come to Wilkins another way? I came across Wilkins before I read Borges or Foucault, while trying to learn more about Leibniz's universal character. Unfortunately, I never got around to reading either of the primary texts (Leibniz or Wilkins), but they're on my "down the road" list... --&mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;"> Rhododendrites <sup style="font-size:80%;">talk  \\ 16:50, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Aus der Tiefen
Amongst my glittering salon talk page stalkers, does there number a Commons admin? I'm caught in a Kafkaesque discussion over the licensing of an image with a bunch of people who can't keep their definitions straight. In the name of all that is holy, can someone give me a hand getting this resolved?  E Eng  17:46, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm not an admin there, but I may be able to put you in touch with one. I'm also very familiar with the licensing procedures if you're of the mind to direct me to the discussion. <span style="text-shadow:#F8F8FF 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em,#F4BBFF -0.2em -0.3em 0.6em,#BFFF00 0.8em 0.8em 0.6em; color:#A2006D;">Atsme 📞📧 18:30, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Two admins: George (A) and Yann (A) <span style="text-shadow:#F8F8FF 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em,#F4BBFF -0.2em -0.3em 0.6em,#BFFF00 0.8em 0.8em 0.6em; color:#A2006D;">Atsme 📞📧 18:39, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Yann I'm already dealing with, but it's going nowhere because as soon as I say, "Can you show me where it says what you're telling me", everyone falls silent. It seems like everyone's just constructed a private idea of what the rules are, plus no one seems clear on the definition of such terms as owner and author. Since you asked, I'd be happy for you to take a look but please, we both need to be in serious mode for the duration of it. They've already put me in an embarrassing position over there.


 * The file at issue is File:HarryRLewis_Harvard_demonstrating_SHAPESHIFTER_1967or1968.jpg. It's probably enough for you to pick up reading at Commons:Help_desk; I don't think you need to chase the link that gives to the earlier discussion (unless you want to savor how long I've been going around in circles on this). It occurs to me that may be able to help here too.  E  Eng  18:49, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm not an admin on commons, just a contributor there, so I'm not sure what help I could provide. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:50, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Read the copyright info at (short paragraph) - should resolve the problem since the image contains no copyright notice. It's actually public domain. <span style="text-shadow:#F8F8FF 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em,#F4BBFF -0.2em -0.3em 0.6em,#BFFF00 0.8em 0.8em 0.6em; color:#A2006D;">Atsme 📞📧 19:49, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I love you Atsme, and you're one of my favorite stalkers. Keep that in mind when I say that you must be a complete idiot to say that you're laboring under a misapprehension. The copyright notice doesn't need to be in the image itself, and anyway AFAIK (not that I'm in a position that I would know -- I just don't know) the image was never published until recently anyway (whether with or without a notice). So that path doesn't help us.  E Eng  20:08, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * “Publication is the distribution of copies  or phonorecords of a work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending. Distribution has been satisfied because a copy was made using the negative, your guy received a copy of it (that is distribution), and gave you permission to upload because he claimed sole ownership of it and granted his permission to license it under CC-by-sa 3.0 or 4.0 (whatever was granted); however, you could change that license to public domain, and that's how the cow ate the cabbage. ❤️  See definitions. <span style="text-shadow:#F8F8FF 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em,#F4BBFF -0.2em -0.3em 0.6em,#BFFF00 0.8em 0.8em 0.6em; color:#A2006D;">Atsme 📞📧 21:25, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * It's got to be to the public. Giving a copy to a friend, or the subject, isn't publication.  E Eng  21:33, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * lol* Last time I'm going to explain this...you're misunderstanding "to the public".  As a pro photog, I can assure you that if, prior to 1978, I shot a picture of a person and gave it to that person for whatever reason without a copyright notice on it - it doesn't matter if it was for their family photo album - it is still considered distributing work to the public - John Q. Public - remember him?  The photog loses all copyright claims for that image UNLESS they include it in a particular pattern or arrangement or in a copyrighted book, brochure, etc. - but the only part of the image that is copyrighted is the actual "arrangement" with the image included, not the individual image itself.  After 1978, that part of the copyright law changed.  The Kentucky Derby is about to start - gotta "run". <span style="text-shadow:#F8F8FF 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em,#F4BBFF -0.2em -0.3em 0.6em,#BFFF00 0.8em 0.8em 0.6em; color:#A2006D;">Atsme 📞📧 22:36, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree about this. The concept of publication (like everything in copyright law) is complex, but in general, and with exceptions, its essential element is what is sometimes called "general publication", in which the work is "made available to members of the public at large without regard to who they are or what they propose to do with it". "Limited publication", which is what you're describing, is (in general) for copyright purposes no publication at all. However, since there's many a slip twixt the cup and the lip, an intended limited publication might, subsequently, be interpreted by the court as a general publication, and so authors used to be advised to include a copyright notice in all cases, to avoid trouble. I think that's the advice you're thinking of. (Of course, now the notice doesn't matter anyway, in general.)
 * Enjoy the derby!  E Eng  00:08, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
 * One more last time...Harvard Magazine published it back in 1974? as Harry Lewis' thesis project? and Lewis provided the photo as a courtesy. There was no copyright notice on the photograph unless you know something I don't - therefore, according to the law (and I had to go to Cornell and Stanford so you could see it in print), SMirC-facepalm.svg, the photo is considered public domain because from 1923 through 1977, images published without a copyright notice are in the public domain due to failure to comply with required formalities. See . The law changed but it only applies to works in 1978 forward.  As for the Derby, my pick to win came out of the gate bucking, my pick to place won it, and my pick to show was 4th.  On that bet, I deserve a . <span style="text-shadow:#F8F8FF 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em,#F4BBFF -0.2em -0.3em 0.6em,#BFFF00 0.8em 0.8em 0.6em; color:#A2006D;">Atsme 📞📧 01:41, 7 May 2017 (UTC)  See this from ... stutter, stammer...Berkeley. Oh, you Harvard boys! 01:49, 7 May 2017 (UTC)


 * If ever there was a part of WP in which I want to just curse out a few editors and rage-quit, it's any commons licensing or deletion discussion. I am dead serious, by the way. The vast majority of editors I've encountered there are self-important idiots who just do whatever the hell they feel like with no respect or regard for consensus, common courtesy or the policies they themselves put into effect. I wish you luck. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  23:47, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm getting the same feedback from two or three others.  E Eng  00:08, 7 May 2017 (UTC)


 * It does seem to be the case that photographs new enough to be non-public-domain, but old enough that nobody knows the identity of the photographer or whether it was a work-for-hire, are stuck in a legal limbo that prevents using them on commons. If it were a work for hire, we could get permission of the employer, and if we knew who the photographer was (and it was not a work for hire) then we could get permission of them or their estate. But a person who possesses a print of the photo doesn't have the right to release it, and it can't be on commons without a release. It's too bad Atsme's theory about giving a copy being a publication seems so implausible, because that looks like the best remaining shot. If you want an even bigger legal morass for photos on commons, try looking into freedom of panorama sometime. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:16, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
 * nobody knows the identity of the photographer or whether it was a work-for-hire: but that's not the case here. I don't know those things; the content donor likely does; or maybe he doesn't; it doesn't matter. As long as the content donor affirms that he is the owner, and there's no significant reason to doubt that, that should be the end of it, because Wikimedia is entitled to rely on such representations made in apparent good faith. There's no requirement to supply, or even know, who the author was; the license requires that "licensees retain the following if it is supplied by the Licensor with the Licensed Material: (i) identification of the creator(s) of the Licensed Material..." (italics added) i.e. the license explicitly contemplates that the owner/licensor does not know who the author/creator is. For christ's sake, Can't Anybody Here Play This Game?  E  Eng  00:32, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I think maybe the issue here is the word "owner", which means something different in colloquial usage than what commons means by it. He may be the owner of the physical print, but he is not the owner of the copyright on the image, unless he took the photo, was the hirer of a work-for-hire (both of which look extremely unlikely in this case) or took part in an explicit copyright transfer agreement (possible, but still pretty unlikely because nobody ever does that unless required to by a publisher as a condition of publishing something, and then the transfer would be to the publisher not to the subject). So basically the commons people are trying to decide between two interpretations of what happened so far: (1) by some unexplained sequence of events Lewis has become the copyright owner on his own photo, an extremely unusual circumstance that would allow him to be the one giving the release, or (2) you and Lewis have misinterpreted what "owner" means. So far, it seems that the your insistence that you don't have to explain how Lewis became the owner as long as he certifies that he is has backfired, by convincing them that (2) is the likelier interpretation. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:38, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Sure, yeah, like you think Lewis and I are confused about the concept of owner. It's not that I don't have to (though it's true that I shouldn't have to), it's that I really don't want to, because it puts me in an embarrassing position. What pisses me off is that they seem to be making up the rules as they go along. To use an example close to your experience, all the images in Andrew Gleason and Jean Berko Gleason could, I suppose, have been challenged under similar "it-seems-unlikely" woolgathering, but they weren't, because by the luck of the draw (I guess) the OTRS volunteer who processed them had the sense to understand that Wikimedia is entitled to rely on representations given in releases, absent a realistic reason to question them. As it happens, I drew someone else this time, and a bee having got in the bonnet, there's apparently no way to get it out. Here's a typical interaction:


 * You say that "the client" (by which I assume you mean the person issuing the release) "needs to say who has to be credited as copyright owner". He's already told you who the copyright owner is: himself. EEng 15:48, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * [The file description page] says that the author is "unknown". Regards, Yann 16:33, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * What does that have to do with anything? Per the documentation at Template:Information, the Author is the "Original author of the file"; that person is unknown. The author is distinct from the copyright owner, and that is not unknown: it's in the release. EEng 17:07, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * That is the whole point of what I say above. If the author is unknown, it can't be released under a free license. Regards, Yann 17:18, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * What??? You just said, "At the very least, the client needs to say who has to be credited as copyright owner ." Now you're saying the author needs to be known. The Author has nothing to do with it, and (as already pointed out above) the license explicitly contemplates that the author might be unknown. Can you, please, point to something in writing that sets out the rules and requirements, so we can resolve this? We're going round and round in circles. EEng 17:24, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I am also a bit tired to repeat the same thing. Evidence shows that the uploader doesn't know or remember who took his picture, but claims to be the copyright owner. Sorry, but it doesn't work that way. Regards, Yann 18:49, 6 May 2017 (UTC)


 * First he says the owner is needed. Then when it's pointed out that that's been supplied, he switches to the author. Then when it's pointed pointed out that those are two different things, he simply says, "it doesn't work that way", which is just another way of saying "I can't explain what I'm talking about". Backfiring has nothing to do with it. They're just muddleheaded incompetents.  E Eng  02:02, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
 * So do you have an even-vaguely-plausible theory how Lewis could have come to be the owner of the copyright on the image? If you don't, they likely can't come up with one either, so why do you expect them to take your word for it? And if you do, why haven't you presented it? —David Eppstein (talk) 05:50, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
 * , you apparently underestimate the amount of time I've been knocking my head against this brick wall. I've been the "even-vaguely-plausible theory" route with this bunch (see the last paragraph of the diff here -- and I'm not joking about his mother). I don't know the answer, but why should I? Was I supposed to ask him when I created the release for him? If so, how was I supposed to know that? Why wasn't this question asked re the two photos in this article, both of which depict the person who issued the release?  E Eng  08:40, 7 May 2017 (UTC)


 * It's public domain unless there is a copyright notice stamped or written on the photograph per copyright law prior to 1978. Jiminy Cricket - I've referenced all kinds of RS, (see the Derby posts above) and now I'll even provide case law which supports the public domain status as "published" because the image was provided courtesy of Lewis and published in Harvard Magazine back in 1974 - "See Kernal Records Oy v. Mosley,794 F. Supp.2d 1355, 1364 (S.D. Fla. 2011). Citing Getaped.com, Inc., the Eastern District of Arkansas found that photographs that were accessible online to others who could download them freely were published.  The picture was published prior to 1978, it has no copyright notice on it, it is public domain.  Keep disagreeing - it's great fodder for future exchanges one of us will have a hard time getting past. 😂 <span style="text-shadow:#F8F8FF 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em,#F4BBFF -0.2em -0.3em 0.6em,#BFFF00 0.8em 0.8em 0.6em; color:#A2006D;">Atsme 📞📧 03:01, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Where are you seeing 1974? The reason I ask is that we haven't been able to find the article, which as far as I can tell would have been 1968 or 1969. Are you seeing the date 1974 somewhere? If so that's could be a clue.  E Eng  03:12, 7 May 2017 (UTC)


 * I wasn't sure about the date which is why I originally followed it with a ? At this link, the dates in the caption under the image may represent milestones, I don't know, but it reads Harry Lewis ’68, AM ’73, Ph.D. ’74 poses with his senior thesis project, SHAPESHIFTER. The program ran on a PDP-1 computer equipped with graphical displays. As Harvard Magazine described it at the time: "The program accomplishes rapid....(snip).....and converted into machine-recognizable code. The actual computations are then controlled by this code."  COURTESY OF HARRY LEWIS.
 * Apparently Harvard Magazine covered his thesis project and used the image in the article. Also, if you can find the following report, "SHAPESHIFTER: An interactive program for experimenting with com\-plex-plane transformations; Proceedings of the 23rd National Conference of the Association for Computing Machinery, 1968; pp. 717--724, you may see the picture.
 * Regardless, photographs are not treated quite the same as articles, books, movies and the like with regards to what determines "published" during the applicable time frame. When a photographer snaps a picture, develops it from negative to print, and hands that photograph over to whomever without a copyright notice attached (1977 & before), the recipient of the photo (Harry Lewis) was free to distribute it (throughout the university), and copy it for others to use (in reports, magazines, etc.).  As case law demonstrates, by making the image freely available to others, the photograph is considered published, and without the copyright notice (pre-1977), it's public domain. <span style="text-shadow:#F8F8FF 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em,#F4BBFF -0.2em -0.3em 0.6em,#BFFF00 0.8em 0.8em 0.6em; color:#A2006D;">Atsme 📞📧 05:48, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
 * The 1968 ACM paper is 10.1145/800186.810636 but there are no photos in it. Incidentally, if Atsme's legal theory is valid (I have no idea), the template to use (on commons) appears to be PD-US-no notice. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:53, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Harry Lewis ’68, AM ’73, Ph.D. ’74 means he earned his three Harvard degrees in those years, nothing to do with when the article appeared. Thanks, though.  E Eng  08:45, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Solution, see here - upload as public domain per the reasons I've provided, simple. <span style="text-shadow:#F8F8FF 0.2em 0.2em 0.4em,#F4BBFF -0.2em -0.3em 0.6em,#BFFF00 0.8em 0.8em 0.6em; color:#A2006D;">Atsme 📞📧 09:20, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I've changed the license tag to {PD-US-no notice}. Thanks, Atsme!  E Eng  09:35, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

And they leave with so little
Referring to myself, of course; you seem to have been out long enough to start re-acquiring basic logic skills. FourViolas (talk) 11:35, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

For the humorously (citation needed) inclined
This may be up yours up your ally: Wikipedia talk:Reflections on RfX. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:58, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Neutral-point-of-view policy
It could be, but the purpose of the hyphenation is to link the words together into a unit, and the link in "neutral point of view policy" would already do that pretty effectively. But, yeah, I have seen them hyphenated like that sometimes. Going by other usage on other, well-developed WP:POLICY pages, we tend try to work such references into natural language, like "Wikipedia's policy on neutral point of view". It scans better and comes across less like "bible thumping" about our policies. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  22:47, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Crikey, SM, even logicians don't have to take everything so seriously, do they?  E Eng  21:48, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Personally, I've always found your sermons to be real red-letter days, Stanton!   Martinevans123 (talk) 23:16, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Don’t call me Shirley
A sudden hankering for a visit to the museum made me type in WP:EEng instead of User:EEng and that took me to the Electrical engineering wikiproject. Felt a bit silly, since in my mind the only possible explanation for the Eng. in your username was the word 'English' - E. English. - NQ (talk)  12:45, 6 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Shirley, I'm pretty sure that EEng actually does have a background in electrical engineering, although I cannot vouch for what grades he might have gotten in English. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:16, 6 May 2016 (UTC)
 * "His body may be that of a mere mortal, but thanks to Wikipedia, his mind is now a temple to knowledge." Martinevans123 (talk) 22:37, 6 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Too bad, I'd prefer something with some alcohol. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:41, 6 May 2016 (UTC)
 * For that matter, I've always wondered how it's meant to be pronounced. Is it, , or ? If it is indeed an abbreviation for "electrical engineer", then I guess the logical pronunciation would be — but I'm not sure.  Eman  235 / talk  02:09, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Noitulos levon a s'ereh: give up and pronounce it backwards, as /ˈniː/ (or /ˈnjiː/—everyone here speaks Norman, right?) FourViolas (talk) 03:51, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm not speaking to Norman, and I'm not speaking to Shirley. I still want a drink. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:11, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
 * "It's pronounced /gniː/!" Eman  235 / talk  04:42, 7 May 2016 (UTC)


 * When I went to create an account, it was just the first thing that popped into my mind. Yes, I think there was some vague association to EE, which is indeed a constituent discipline of whatever it is I do, though not its emphasis. But really it was just short, easy to type (to save people trouble in the ANI threads which, subconsciously, I knew even then would be coming) and random. Only much later did suggest that I perform in rites and dances.
 * In my mind it rhymes with spree-xxxx, where, I now realize, xxxx stands for a sound I can't rhyme in English (and which, BTW, is not the Eng in English either). I just checked, and it's not the eng in Deng Xiaoping either. It's the a in ache + the ng in king.  E Eng  21:03, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Sounding in any way like "king" seems a bit of an overreach. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:11, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
 * We are not amused, insect!  E Eng  21:55, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Mmmm, fish likes insects! --Tryptofish (talk) 22:15, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
 * crushed already. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:58, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Crushed ice? I prefer neat. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:13, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
 * We can't all be just fat, dumb and happy, Trypty. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:20, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Would you settle for two out of three? --Tryptofish (talk) 22:25, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Hahahaha. ... Wiki innocence Martinevans123 (talk) 22:27, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Now, if you learned the IPA, you could be a little more specific. Something like, as in "E-eyng"? Eman  235 / talk  00:48, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
 * From his recent edit summaries (e.g. ) Tryptofish is your man, since he seems immersed in IPA just now. But as long as the e in eyng is like ay in day, yes.  E Eng  00:55, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I guess I'm sort of a "IPA-pusher".
 * Here's a "hoverable" version, anyhow: . I'm assuming the stress falls on the first syllable. Eman  235 / talk  01:08, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Hey, that's pretty nifty. It's just right. Thanks.  E Eng  01:18, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Eee-Yay-ng, yes, I'm a firm believer in total immersion, but I'm nobody's man, just a fish. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:04, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I guess it rhymes with "Whee!...dang". Eman  235 / talk  01:11, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Dang! If I understood the proprietor correctly, he wants the vowel sound to rhyme with "bay" or "hey", and not "fang" or "hang". Now perhaps there is a southern US pronunciation in which "dang" gets drawn out to something like "dayng", y'all, but to me a "long a" is not what "dang" is. Now as far as I'm concerned, it really should be as in "Deng" – but then again, as someone who insists that they are a fish, I guess I should let the proprietor have his way (or at least pretend to indulge him.) --Tryptofish (talk) 01:01, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
 * You have my permission to pronounce it any way you like in the privacy of your own mind.  E Eng  01:24, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Now that's a horrible place indeed! Sometimes, even I am afraid to look in there without medication! Or IPA. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:38, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
 * And it may not be possible without a microscope or magnifying glass. Listen, maybe you could help out at bit at Officially unrecognized Harvard College social clubs (which I just moved from Final club) -- ?  E Eng  02:16, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Actually, like an ideal gas, I fill all available space, no optics needed. As for that page, I just took a look, and blech! It's a subject that annoys me so much that I don't want to edit it. About the disputed content, I agree with you that it will be source-able (pretty much all verified by my micro mind), but you can probably wait until you get sources before reverting it back in. And I think the new pagename is too long and kludgy. How about Harvard social clubs for wealthy inbred misogynists? --Tryptofish (talk) 19:49, 10 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Gas, perhaps. Ideal, hardly. Re the other, I agree with you in general except... my roommate was a Porc, and I never knew a better bunch of guys. It seems to be different from the others. Pagename is awkward but I do think the whole group belongs in one discussion. You gotta hand it to the administration in how they're cleverly putting the screws on with this no-leadership, no-recommendation thing. It's masterful.  E Eng  00:16, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
 * So, ideally, is that Porc with a hard C (oink!), or a soft C? Or a C-minor? --Tryptofish (talk) 01:15, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Apparently, I have been using the "also US" pronunciation. I pronounce clang, fang, and bang the same way. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Eman  235 / talk  20:52, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
 * And how are you on sweet poontang? Martinevans123 (talk) 20:58, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Y'all better not let Martinevans take you down the wrong road. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:49, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I was going to say... there are limits, Martin.  E Eng  00:16, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I'll have you know I saw Ted at the Cardiff Capitol, back in the 70s, when the roof had to be reinforced against his decibel level! ... and my ears have never been the same since. Martinevans123 (talk) 07:59, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

Phineas Gage runs into a bar...
Question: What was the thickness of that iron rod? Answer: Phineas Gauge. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:34, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Puns are for children, not groan readers. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:12, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
 * And it's not the first time that reading Wikipedia has made people groan. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:04, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
 * "And with you two around, it won't be the last, hahahaha". Martinevans123 (talk)

Completely unimportant
With regards to this comment, I think this may be a fun read for you: No self attacks. Cheers, ansh 666 21:39, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

Talk page stalkers! Now's your chance!
From a now-ongoing ANI thread (the actual subject of which is irrelevant here):
 * Dane2007, I can't believe I'm saying this, but I seem to agree with EEng on this one. Is there some additional context missing here? Timothy Joseph Wood  11:18, 3 September 2016 (UTC)
 * This is maybe the third time today I'm getting the "Impossible-as-it-may-seem-I-agree-with-EEng" treatment. When did I become the personification of heterodoxy?  E Eng  15:13, 3 September 2016 (UTC)
 * You can...come off as...abrasive... Timothy Joseph Wood  23:35, 3 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I prefer to think of it as being "direct"...  E Eng  02:26, 4 September 2016 (UTC)
 * You can...also...come off as...self absorbed. Timothy Joseph Wood  00:00, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

'''Talk page stalkers, your honest thoughts are solicited on the comments above. If you wish, log out and comment anonymously (and I promise I won't geolocate the IP). Thanks,  E Eng '''
 * Self absorption is a necessary characteristic of the stereotypical Wikipedia editor. Blackmane (talk) 02:18, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Correction: YOU won't geolocate the IP. I guarantee it. Cards84664 (talk) 02:52, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Um, isn't that what I said?  E Eng  03:11, 5 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Hell, I don't even know what we're commenting on. Is it the fact that, judging from timestamps, it took TimothyJosephWood 22 hours to read your user page? (I admit that seems a bit speedy, doesn't it?) The rest seems pretty run-of-the-mill, no? Colonel Wilhelm Klink (Complaints&#124;Mistakes) 03:17, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
 * No, thoughts are being solicited on the idea that I'm abrasive and self-absorbed. I mean, that might even be true, but I'd always hoped no one here on WP would notice.  E Eng  03:26, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, in my experience, the only abrasion I've been met with is a rash on my index finger from scrolling through your userspace. And as for the "self-absorbed" aspect, it may have something to do with the fact that it took TimothyJosephWood 22 hours to read your userpage. Either way, I wouldn't worry about it. Colonel Wilhelm Klink (Complaints&#124;Mistakes) 03:37, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Oh, oh! A spark of creativity... (see image) Colonel Wilhelm Klink (Complaints&#124;Mistakes) 21:31, 6 September 2016 (UTC)


 * I can't believe I'm saying this, but I agree with Timothy. (Joke, I actually agree with him a lot.) --Tryptofish (talk) 14:21, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Meh, I'm too busy with myself to be concerned about you. Mr rnddude (talk) 02:35, 6 September 2016 (UTC)
 * That's hysterical.  E Eng  02:40, 6 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Why, that loggerheaded dismal-dreaming clotpole!! Doesn't he know that abrasives make things smoother in the long run? Eman  235 / talk  11:12, 6 September 2016 (UTC)


 * "Dear Mr Trump, I wonder could you please send over a few of your Mexican friends? About 13 should be enough. Thanks. " Theresamay123 (White Cliffs of Westminster) 21:56, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
 * "Hey bitches!!" (Does my mascara make me look suitably despicable??) William Sledd123 (serious bitchin') 22:29, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Grammar
Hi, I admire your hook wizardry, but your grammar tweaks leave something to be desired. I'm not an English teacher, so I can't say what grammar rules are being violated here, but changing "one of the few journalists in the world who has met..." to "one of the few journalists in the world to have met" is not proper English. You wouldn't say "EEng is one of the few DYK editors to write super hooks", but "EEng is one of the few DYK editors who (or "that") writes super hooks". Similarly, if you want to add the word "its" to "...that Wash's Restaurant served up soul food dishes to Atlantic City beach-goers by day and its nightclub-hoppers by night?" there should have been a possessive on "Atlantic City": "... that Wash's Restaurant served up soul food dishes to Atlantic City's beach-goers by day and its nightclub-hoppers by night?" I undid my correction of your correction to the first hook out of politeness, but maybe I shouldn't have. Yoninah (talk) 22:03, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Hmmm. I never thought about it before, but "The only journalist to have done/seen/overcome X" might very well be nonstandard; however, it's certainly in American usage.


 * As for Atlantic City, construction doesn't always have to be parallel. I remember thinking about adding the same 's you suggest, but I was on my phone, and it was late, and I was tired, and ... I think I had some other rationalization. It's not egregious as it stands, but I should have pressed on and added the possessive. I do depend on my esteemed fellow editors to keep an eye on me.


 * Coming up: see Template:Did you know nominations/Newell Boathouse (Harvard University) and ALT2 at Template:Did you know nominations/Tommy Tucker (squirrel). (You'd be welcome to do a couple of reviews, of course -- hint, hint.) But, sadly, nothing will ever recapture the glory of the CEO grilled on the witness stand. Thanks for stopping by,, and have you visited The Museums lately? Oh, and User:EEng too.  E  Eng  22:47, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
 * "The only one to [verb]" (or the "one of the few" phrasing that started this) is perfectly grammatical, even if one is a prescriptivist rather than a descriptivist. This construction is called a relative infinitive clause, or an infinitival relative clause. See e.g. . I don't think it has anything to do with American vs British usage; Shakespeare used it, in Henry VI part I: "the only means to stop effusion of our Christian blood". —David Eppstein (talk) 23:22, 5 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Well, it's all Greek to me. Thanks, D.E. I momentarily doubted myself because I had trouble finding good examples via Google. So there, ! Shakespeare and (more importantly) Professor Eppstein back me up! ;P  E  Eng  23:38, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the grammar lesson and the page cite. Yoninah (talk) 20:27, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Spelling
Hello, EEng -- I've seen that you are active on other MOS talk pages, so I wonder if you would take a look at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Spelling. I have posed a few questions there but have not received any reply. Thanks. – Corinne (talk) 17:29, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
 * ✅.  E Eng  18:31, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

Arbcom elections
Anyone want to point me to any of the voting guides that will usually have popped up by now? I find the formal statements and Q&A too sterile.  E Eng  05:32, 3 December 2016 (UTC)


 * I never wrote a guide, but my annual musings can be found clicking on the first line of my talk. Actually, it doesn't matter, arbcom, I mean. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:34, 3 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Take a look at Template:ACE2016, there are 13 listed. --Jules  (Mrjulesd) 12:27, 3 December 2016 (UTC)


 * To save anyone thinking for themselves, "neutral on NYB and oppose on the others" is the right answer. With the exceptions of NYB whose presence won't be actively negative, and three candidates who are actively liabilities, the remaining candidates have such an air of forced bland inoffensiveness that they give the impression they shit boiled eggs. For the second time in as many months, I find myself thinking "none of these people have anything in common with me and I really don't want to vote for any of them". &#8209; Iridescent 16:57, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
 * shit boiled eggs... And to think I got in trouble for saying tits.  E Eng  23:34, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
 * As Eric will pop up to point out, he was once blocked for a week by an admin who thought the word "sycophant" was a swear word. Seriously, consider archiving this page. Quite aside from the cost element, there are a surprising number of readers and editors who are still on 28.8 kbps dial-up connections, not to mention the people trying to navigate it on phone screens. &#8209; Iridescent 00:12, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
 * --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:33, 14 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Au contraire, the right answer is User:Tryptofish/ACE2016. Vote early and often. EEng, you really need to be reading my user talk page more carefully! Even if it cannot be seen from outer space. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:07, 3 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Thanks, everyone -- they sure make that list of voter guides hard to find. In appreciation, I'd like you to enjoy this video of me preparing the turkey this past Thanksgiving.  E  Eng  22:35, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, there are a lot of turkeys at Wikipedia. And: . --Tryptofish (talk) 22:56, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Re: "Sorry"
Hello! I'm not entirely clear what you were directing me to on my Talk Page. Your link took me to a Current Event portal for a date in August, but I saw nothing there about Joey Casio.

Just to clarify, he and I were not friends. We had never met. I just discovered his music over the summer, and quickly became a big fan. But I am still curious what you were trying to show me. Please clarify on my page, thanks! Juneau Mike (talk) 20:19, 13 December 2016 (UTC)


 * That link was a "footnote" from someone else's message on your talk page, not from me. I know he wasn't your friend, but I was too tired to say, "Sorry about that musician that you were a fan of."  E Eng  21:08, 13 December 2016 (UTC)


 * LOL yeah, much appreciated either way. Sincerely. Juneau Mike (talk) 00:10, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Pig men at AE go rootin' around
.... that's kinda like going through contribs, ain't it? Pig men! AEwesome image NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:52, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
 * PS  Wow thanks, reading the top of your page provided my first Wiki experience (after five years) in which I laughed five or six times without scrolling down once.  Fantastic  NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:55, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Fun with stats (redux)
Thanks for your feedback; I share your peeve with the misuse of stats, which is why I wanted to write a bit more in depth. I think it's best to clarify what I meant by posting the statistics. I'm not a positivist, I view them as a tool to gain additional facts that we can use to make decisions, not as able to definitively answer questions on their own. Reading the discussion above part of my decision-making process was to what extent is this a problem, non-bold links getting more clicks than the bold links we are highlighting. To answer that, I needed more than the ten or so hand picked data points offered so far and so would anyone else that had that same question. So I calculated the descriptive statistics which would be of use to anyone. I wanted to give something slightly more useful than the raw data so that others can, to quote my self, "do with it what [they] will".

It was always intended to be quick and dirty, essentially the first things you look at when you are given a bunch of data, so that people like you who do know how to interpret statistics can come to your own conclusions. But I also recognize that a lot of people don't know what to do with all those stats, so I wanted to give them something to take away from the data without forcing my opinions and interpretations on the data. That's what the t-test was for. A basic question that is the foundation of the discussion "do bold links get a different number of clicks than non-bold links". The t-test showed that they do get significantly more clicks and I intentionally left it vague from there so that the reader can use that to come up with their own interpretations.

However I wouldn't have stated the conclusion did I not have confidence in them. The statistics are all consistent with your hypothesis, that the data can be explained as a difference in the base number of hits, but it relies on flaws in the data which I figured to be unlikely. Because these are central tendency measures with about 900 points in both categories, the outliers you point out would be washed out as noise or you'd have to say that there is a strong net bias for bold links being high traffic. That at 900 data points DYK noms would not approximate a random sample of pages seems unlikely to me. But even the descriptive statistics give credence to it not being a data flaw. Take for instance the standard deviations. Firstly, they're both the same order of magnitude meaning that they're probably a similar shape. Secondly, for both groups, one standard deviation includes the mean of the other group meaning that there is a substantial overlap of the distributions.

I am doing your analyses and some follow ups. I'll post those as well. Wugapodes [thɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 22:30, 13 January 2017 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry, but I have no idea what you mean by
 * "your hypothesis" (that is, my hypothesis)
 * I said that specifically: The statistics are all consistent with your hypothesis, that the data can be explained as a difference in the base number of hits. An alternate way to state it: the difference I found is mostly due to differences in the base-hits of bold links versus non-bold rather than their status as bold or not. Wugapodes [thɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 01:56, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
 * "it relies on flaws in the data which I figured to be unlikely" -- what flaws? what's "it"?
 * "it" refers to the noun phrase "your hypothesis" (see above). "flaws" is perhaps better phrased as "relies on there being a systemic bias in the data" Wugapodes [thɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 01:56, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
 * "the outliers you point out" -- what outliers did I point out?
 * You pointed to statistics for Paddy Murphy, there were likewise other anecdotes above from others that contained examples of page view statistics for specific pages. Wugapodes [thɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 01:56, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
 * "That at 900 data points DYK noms would not approximate a random sample of pages seems unlikely"
 * As the number of data points increases, the sample distribution begins to approximate the population distribution (assuming all data is normally distributed). My point is that the sample sizes are so large that outliers would have a marginal affect on the data. My assumption was that the page view distribution of pages nominated for DYK is the same as the page view distribution of pages linked for clarification, both of which, because of the large sample sizes, would be equivalent to the population distribution. I specifically checked this and found that it is false. The average base page views for bolded links is ~2000 while it's ~150 for non-bolded links. Wugapodes [thɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 01:56, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
 * And stuff like "the standard deviations. Firstly, they're both the same order of magnitude meaning that they're probably a similar shape" makes no sense at all.
 * A t-test assumes homogeneity of variance. I'm saying that the variances are not so different as to render that assumption null.Wugapodes [thɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 01:56, 14 January 2017 (UTC)


 * It's great you're trying to get some quantitatives, but you need to more clearly define what you're looking for. You still seem to be focusing on whether nonbold links get, in general, different rates of clickthrough than do bold links, and there's no question at all about that, so it's a waste of time. The debate is about the effect of the presence of nonbold links on clickthroughs for bold links, and there's no way to actually find that out without some kind of experiment. Short of that all we can do is get an upper bound on how many clicks might be being diverted to nonbold links, by looking at how many clicks nonbold links get -- but that has to take into account the baseline level of clicks the nonbold links get on other days anyway. I vaguely perceive you to be suggesting you can neglect that, and (again) that's absurd, since nonbold links are established articles that often have thousands or tens of thousands of clicks daily anyway.` E Eng  23:21, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you misunderstand me or I misunderstand you. I'm confused as to what your fundamental problem is. you need to more clearly define what you're looking for I feel I've answered this already, but essentially, I'm not looking for anything, I'm providing descriptive statistics that summarize a large amount of data. there's no question at all about that, so it's a waste of time I disagree, and regardless will waste my time on whatever pursuit piques my interest. I vaguely perceive you to be suggesting you can neglect that That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying that, regardless of why the groups are different (base page hits, bolding, aliens), the descriptive statistics I gave are still completely factual summations of the data. The t-test is only valid if 5 assumptions are correct: (1) The data are continuous or ordinal (they are); (2) the samples are random (this one is a little more dodgy given the conclusion that the base page hits are different between groups; they're random samples of their respective groups, but they may not be random samples of the population); (3) the data are normally distributed (they are); (4) a large sample size, usually greater than 30, is used (it is); (5) the treatment does not significantly change the variance (it doesn't, hence the comment about the standard deviations being the same order of magnitude). These assumptions are met with or without normalization (the validity of assumption 3 is independent of the normalization as it's about the sampling). Wugapodes [thɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 01:56, 14 January 2017 (UTC)


 * (Personally, I don't mind you interposing your responses within my post, but most people find it very offensive and in general you shouldn't do that. I find, however, that most people will tolerate your numbering their bullets, so you can reference them in your own post, if you very deferentially point out that you've so.) Again I applaud your enthusiasm, and I don't want to talk down to you, but I have a degree in statistics and use it regularly in my work (in adversarial situations where there's someone on the other side ready to pounce) so you have to believe me when I tell you that a lot of what you're saying and doing makes no sense. A (nonrandom) sample:
 * Back at TDYK you said that something (I'm still not sure what) was significant, apparently because "p>0.00001". At the time I assumed the > was a typo but now I'm not so sure.
 * You said, "As the number of data points increases, the sample distribution begins to approximate the population distribution (assuming all data is normally distributed)". As the sample size increases the sample distribution approaches the population distribution always, period, whether or not "the data" (by which I suppose you mean the population) is normal.
 * The t-test is for small, not large, samples; it does not require normality; and it makes no sense at all for ordinal data.
 * There's no "treatment" here. Links end up in the hooks bolded, or not bolded because the articles they lead to are of utterly different kinds -- established vs. new -- and there's no way to interpret this as some kind of "treatment".
 * Perhaps most fundamentally, you seem to have based your computations on all the hooks "the last 200 revisions to T:DYK" . This isn't a sample (much less a random sample) of anything, it's a population -- it just is the hooks from the last 200 revisions. There's no sampling, no uncertainty, and hypothesis tests make no sense here.
 *  E Eng  03:41, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I know enough to know when I'm out of my depth, and I'm willing to say this is one of those moments. My thoughts on your points will probably be wrong or trivial (except for the first one; it was a typo, one that I wish you'd pointed out earlier!). I will say though that I wish you had been this clear from the beginning! I really don't mind what you perceive as bluntness or talking down. If I've posted it, I hope people will push back and help come to a good solution. I'd much rather you be clear than try to preserve my ego. So no need to fret or hedge, I've taken your comments in the good spirit they're intended.
 * The only thing I'm still unclear on is how you think the comment should be reworded. From the focus of your last comment, it seems you don't have much problem with the summary statistics but rather the hypothesis test (ie, the t-test) should I strike the t-test or revise to be more clear about its (lack) of implications. You've said next to nothing about my use of Cohen's d, is that something that should likewise be revised? Wugapodes [thɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 05:20, 14 January 2017 (UTC) P.S., I don't usually respond inline like that, but this seemed like one of the few times it seemed beneficial. So no need to worry, it's not a habit.
 * Well, there's nothing stopping you from computing d, but what does it mean? You tried to translate the d-values into % of one group which exceeded the mean of the other group, but doing that really does require knowing the data is normal (or something else about the distribution), and for sure that's not the case here -- I've never looked into it but I can just about guarantee you that page views of the general article population are heavily skewed left, with a very long tail to the right.


 * If you ask me, quit trying to compare bolded and nonbolded links, and instead focus on how much each nonbold link's views increase on the day of the hook's appearance, compared to a baseline established by the 14 days on either side. It would be then quite interesting to relate that to the views for the bolded link (which almost always have an essentially zero baseline, since the articles are new other than the case of GA promotions). The question isn't whether bolds vs. nonbolds are more or less, but how much nonbolds might be drawing away from bolds.  E Eng  06:07, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

An issue about your stats which concerned me was that you took hooks which usually have only one bolded link but can have many unbolded ones and treated the data as two groups. I would think a by-hook analysis would be more informative. A few things which I would find interesting would include: EEng is right that the real answer would come from an experiment. Theoretically, if every access to the main page on a half-day (as we are using 12 h slots at present) served the same DYK but including or excluding non-bold links, and the clicks resulting from each group can be analysed separately, we would get good data to address the question we seek. Such an experiment could only be run with the permission of the WMF (which wouldn't happen) and would need repetition, and may be technically problematic - and that's without even considering ethics. What we can do to answer our questions is limited and indirect measures are necessarily problematic. If I may share a personal story, I had a lecturer in quantitative methods of analysis who was roped in to teach at Masters level at the last minute as the assigned lecturer became unavailable. It was obvious to me that he knew how to do statistical tests and certainly how to use statistical packages, but he did not understand how they worked and consequently made some mistakes I found astounding. As an example, given a data set of responses from people, he considered whether the male and female respondents were (on average) the same age. Instead of performing a simple t-test, he plotted the data, age on the y-axis, gender on the x-axis, assigning male as x = 1 and female as x = 2. He then had as determined the correlation coefficient and test whether it statistically significantly differed from 0. The conclusion from the obvious analysis and his was the same, our data set had females who were statistically significantly older than males, on average, but only one approach was reasonable. The view that "small p-value = important finding" is dangerous and misleading because the p-value is meaningful only if the test is valid and appropriate to the data and the question. Misuse of stats arises from ignorance, from mining data for / seeking evidence to support a conclusion (instead of allowing conclusions to arise from evidence), deliberate misrepresentation (such as unjustified selective exclusion of data), and honest mistakes, amongst others. I'm comfortable with your goodwill and good intentions, Wugapodes, but I suspect that, like me, you lack sufficient statistical experience to be really confident about analyses to enlighten us about a question where we can't do the experiment we need to get the answer. EdChem (talk) 10:48, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
 * 1) For each hook, find additional clicks on the bolded link (less baseline, which I agree with EEng is usually near zero, but given we have new GAs in the information, needs to be accounted for). Find average additional clicks for non-bolded links, less their baselines.  Plot against each other and see what we got.
 * 2) Also estimate the probability that the bolded link views exceeds the non-bolded. This could be done (crudely) by counting hooks where extra bold clicks > average extra non-bold clicks.  Treatment of multi-bold hooks would need to be considered carefully as an average is less meaningful if (say) clicks decreases with distance into the hook.
 * 3) Examine whether the lead hook's behaviour matches that of other hooks, and also whether the quirky (last) spot displays different behaviour. The lead hook also has clicks on the image.
 * 4) Recalling my analysis at User:EdChem/DYK clicks for a single day, chosen as a recent day when it was written, which shows that the ratio of non-bold (total) clicks regularly exceed bold clicks ranged from 0.35:1 to 4.86:1, with 7 / 17 hooks having a ratio below 1 (the one hook with no non-bold link is excluded). Is examining such a ratio useful for commenting on "typical clicks" from a DYK, or for identifying cases with high ratios for hooks which appear to draw attention from the bolded link?  The valid statistical tests available is not obvious to me as a statistically aware non-statistician scientist, so I would defer to a trained statistician.  (EEng, I haven't pinged you on your own talk page, but obviously I am interested in your views).


 * if every access to the main page on a half-day (as we are using 12 h slots at present) served the same DYK but including or excluding non-bold links, and the clicks resulting from each group can be analysed separately – You don't need to present the same hook two different ways. Instead, you'd do this:
 * Develop and approve hooks, and put together hook sets the usual way.
 * As a new final step before a hook set goes live, flip a coin and if it's heads, unlink all the nonbold links (or make whatever changes to links called for by some proposed new linking approach) in that set (or maybe you flip the coin on a hook-by-hook basis -- there are pluses and minuses with each approach). This is "treatment".
 * Analyze view stats for bolded links and (if there are any) unbolded links in hooks that got the treatment vs. those that don't. Presumably the most interesting question is whether bold links in treatment hooks do or don't get more clicks than those in controls. (This is a "composite null" so some additional thinking would be needed about what questions we really want to ask.) And if so, how much more?
 * I don't think we'd need any approval to do this, IRB be damned!  E Eng  01:39, 15 January 2017 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure how much use an experiment would do, though it would be interesting and fun. We could propose a week long trial at WT:DYK to basically do EEng's design (I'd modify it to just have all hooks that week be sans-links and compare it to a prior sample for ease of execution. This definitely would not need IRB approval (were we to have one). The data are not "about" people, but are specific to the effectiveness of internal policies and won't be generalized so it's not human subjects research. Wugapodes [thɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 02:10, 15 January 2017 (UTC) P.S., I agree with you on all that. The stats I posted were meant as quick and dirty summaries, not a definitive analysis. I've updated the post to make that caveat more clear though
 * A design with two different sets of hook content (rather than just differences in provided links) will be open to criticism for the uncontrolled variable of the hook content themselves – "bold-only set X got more clicks than unbolded-hooks-as-well set Y because X had more interesting hooks". On 12 hour cycles, we also have the problem that more clicks come overall in one set than the other each day – "bold-only set X got more clicks than unbolded-hooks-as-well set Y because X was in the high-click position of the day."  An experimental design that includes known flaws is not good.  Further, based on my background knowledge, I don't think that the difference is as simple as having non-bold links.  I think this is a manifestation of what are termed "seductive details" in educational psychology.  We make hooks deliberately interesting to attract attention, but sometimes the hookiness lies in a detail not with a focus on the bolded article, such as the recent seven-year-old king example.  In education, this would be a seductive detail if the result is recall of the king or his age but not the salient fact in the hook – but is this a seductive detail in that sense, given that the point of the hook is not education.  If we are looking at a situation akin to seductive details, then the dominance of one or more non-bold links should be disproportionate to whatever is "typical", and not present in every hook.  This will cause a difficulty in statistical analysis because of a bimodal distribution.  The position of the bolded link in the hook also appears to have an effect (as clicks generally decrease along a hook), though the image also gets a lot of clicks, and the effect of hook position in a set is also likely to be significant.  I'm not sure we have the data to design a truly effective experiment, even leaving aside the implementation problem.  Also, even though the WMF may have no ethics body and as we have no intent to publish in the literature and are not acting as academics answerable to an IRB, that does not mean that there are no ethical issues to consider.  We are talking about collecting data on website usage from people, which is done routinely and with consent under the ToU / ToS, but a proper experiment (which I maintain needs two different presentations of the same hooks to be an ideal design) is not necessarily covered by the consent under ToU / ToS.  Maybe we would be told that there is no problem with doing this, but doing it without asking is at very least unwise.  EdChem (talk) 03:07, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Arbor-treeish break
This will never actually happen -- even deciding to change the number of hooks per day saps the community's entire strength, and with TRM rumbling about deckchairs and so on it'll be impossible to discuss this intelligently. Nonetheless it's a fun discussion (and who knows?).

 E Eng  07:19, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
 * The design I described has no "uncontrolled variables", as you seem to think, and none of the flaws you describe are, in fact, present: that's the beauty of randomization. Because the 0000-1200 and 1200-2400 time periods are known a priori to be so different, we'd analyze them as separate experiments: this cuts the sample size in half (one half goes into the 0000 experiment, the other half into the 1200 experiment) but almost certainly cuts the SDs way more than that, so power goes up. (We can check those assumptions in advance.) We can certainly look for any left-right pattern, or whether any effect on the bold link changes with the # of nonbold links, etc., but whether or not such patterns exist doesn't matter, because the question we'd be asking is: Does removing all the nonbold links (whatever they're position and however many there are) change the # of clicks on the bold link?
 * You seem to be suggestion a crossover design, under which each hook set would appear twice, once for the first 12 hrs and then again for the second 12 hrs, the links removed ("treatment applied") for one or the other appearance, per a coin flip. This would be a serious mistake, because we know that a DYK article often continues to get clicks even after its hook has left the main page, apparently because readers pass links along via email and blogs and so on..
 * There are no ethical issues here. That's silly. This would be no different from saying, "Gee, let's see if adding some nice pictures to these articles brings in more readers." We're not doing anything to readers and we're not gathering data on readers
 * Treating the different time periods separately would be wise / appropriate, yes.
 * I am not suggesting a crossover design, I am suggesting two versions of the set fed randomly to each different IP address which accesses the main page. This would allow direct hook-by-hook comparison, taking the content of the hook itself out of the equation.
 * Hook quality is an uncontrolled variable, IMO. Let's reduce it to a one-hook experiment (and going to the extreme / absurd to illustrate the issue).
 * Hook A: ... that water can be made by chemically combining hydrogen gas with oxygen gas in an exothermic reaction with enthalpy of combustion of &minus;286 kJ mol&minus;1?
 * Hook B: ... that the United States once sued 50,000 cardboard boxes and clacker balls?
 * The former is a true statement, the latter is the most clicked non-image hook DYK has ever had. Let's say we ran these against each other and found (astonishingly) that B got more clicks for the bolded link, and that only about one-third of clicks for A were to the bold link.  Let's further say we tried to argue that this supported avoiding non-bold links.  Would we be taken seriously (leaving aside that only one hook is an appallingly bad design from a statistical perspective)?  Of course not, because the uncontrolled factor is that A is dull and B is not.  Extending this to a complete set of hooks and where the differences in clicks are not massive, some will inevitably argue that set X was more interesting than set Y and that accounts for differences.  If we run set X1 (bold links only) and set X2 (same hooks with non-bold links) at the same time, the results are directly comparable and the hook quality issue is avoided.
 * I am not a statistician but I am aware that corrections dealing with all sorts of confounding factors are possible, so maybe there is a way under your design that my concern would be addressed. Unfortunately, the audience for the results is likely less statistically knowledgeable than I am and will likely not found methods they don't understand convincing.  Unfair, perhaps?  Maybe... but the situation nonetheless, IMO.  EdChem (talk) 13:00, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
 * So an A/B test? That would not be easy to implement on a whim. That's why I think EEng suggested randomly selecting some hooks to put up without links and some with, because then the randomization mitigates problems of quality because a high quality hook is just as likely to be in the bold only group as a low quality hook. It doesn't really require fancy math, just consensus so even more likely to be confusing. Wugapodes [thɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 13:57, 15 January 2017 (UTC)


 * leaving aside that only one hook is an appallingly bad design from a statistical perspective – Yeah, but that's the point. We wouldn't be doing two hooks, we'd do 1000, and Wugapodes has it right: a high quality hook is just as likely to be in the bold only group as a low quality hook. And this randomization doesn't just "mitigate" the problem (as Wugapodes said), it eliminates it, if the sample size is large enough given the treatment effect (bigger treatment effect --> smaller sample needed) and SD of views (higher SD --> bigger sample needed). EC, I appreciate your concern that people may not understand this, but your A/B design is susceptible to exactly the same misguided criticism – people might worry that the readers presented with the treatment version "might just happen to be" the kind of people who like to click on DYKs (or who like that particular subject, or any number of other things that affect propensity to click). That's not true, because randomizing who sees which version takes care of that (on an overwhelming scale – in an A/B design each of millions of readers would be randomized separately) but people will still have that misconception.


 * That aside, there are insurmountable problems in designing an A/B approach. Even if we had the machinery to randomize the contents of the main page on each visit, how do we handle the situation where the same "reader" (whoever that is – do we identify the reader by the IP address they'er working from – whether they're logged in or not?) returns to the main page an hour later – do we remember what we showed that IP last time? And what about clicks that don't come from the main page – what if the reader clicks on a link a friend emailed him? Advertisers spend a lot of time trying to figure stuff like this out, but it's complicated, there's a lot of handwaving to it, and no one really knows how well it works. Too bad, because in general A/B designs, if you can do them, are very powerful.  E Eng  21:18, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

The sooner you stop personalising these discussions with your snide humourless asides, the more likely we are to make some ground. Ironically this is one of the debates at DYK which is trivial to solve. Stick with WP:OVERLINK and don't create yet another arcane and subservient rule that can be endlessly debated, once again detracting from efforts to improve the mainspace. I know it's been a while since I've had time to seriously work on articles, you too by the looks of things. We need to re-focus the debate on quality of target articles, everything else is, and I know you don't like it, or object to it, or whatever, but deckchairs. Having discovered how popular OTD is with basically zero effort, versus DYK, it does suggest we could do without DYK altogether, particularly as the current debate is really underlining the fact that no-one really has a clue what the project really stands for. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:39, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Michael Portillo
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Michael Portillo. Legobot (talk) 04:28, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I thought Portillo has had plenty of feedback as it is. <b style="color:#7F007F">Ritchie333</b> <sup style="color:#7F007F">(talk) <sup style="color:#7F007F">(cont)  00:19, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
 * You Brits worry about your own electoral disasters. We've got our own to deal with.  E Eng  01:09, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Could we forget the American Revolution and just have Britain take us back? --Tryptofish (talk) 23:07, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Not a chance, we don't want to be responsible for President Farage. Anyway, since we're here, I was "up for Portillo" and remember that interview. However, the most joyous occasion of the evening came earlier when it was announced that David Mellor had lost his seat; he got a standing ovation. He was the Trump of his time. <b style="color:#7F007F">Ritchie333</b> <sup style="color:#7F007F">(talk) <sup style="color:#7F007F">(cont)  00:05, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

Archiving the DYK discussion page
Seasons greetings. Please don't archive the DYK discussion page items "Cwmhiraeth and the role of the promotor" and "Vom Himmel hoch, o Engel, kommt" for a while because I have sent links to them to various friends and relatives and they won't find them if they have been archived. I wanted my "folk" to see how we co-operate behind the scenes at DYK, and admire the sequence of events leading up to the first time I have ever been sworn at during my sheltered life. ;-) Cwmhiraeth (talk) 09:58, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Please archive your talk page
Your talk page is too long, like your user page. It would be more useful for you to put your museums in subpages. Ups and Downs 1234 (🗨) (My Contribs) 19:08, 27 April 2017 (UTC)
 * The irony of someone who's just had an informal warning for their disruptive talkpage (complete with tilted text and black-on-orange color scheme) and is about to get a formal one if they don't change it, having the presumption to lecture anyone else about having a disruptive talkpage, is strong. &#8209; Iridescent 19:12, 27 April 2017 (UTC)
 * EEng's talk page causing my iPhone browser to crash when I try to view the latest update to the greatest talk page on Wikipedia serves as a useful reminder of my need to upgrade my phone. An archive would be disruptive to me at least. TonyBallioni (talk) 06:30, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
 * This is sort of flogging a dead horse, but I would like to note: while I usually open links on my watchlist in many new tabs all at once, EEng's pages must be opened separately or they bring my browser to a halt for a few minutes. Eman  235 / talk  20:20, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

User page
It should be noted there is only one thing on this earth that is more congested than this page: http://www.lingscars.com

<b style="background:#0000ff; font-family:Helvetica; padding:0.4em; font-size:80%; border-radius:2em; margin:0.25em; color:white;">Cards84664</b> (talk) 00:36, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
 * My bleeding eyes and I must now hate you for linking to that, of course. Got any brain bleach handy? Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 15:19, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
 * If that doesn't work try mental floss.  E Eng  15:27, 10 February 2017 (UTC)