User talk:Francis Schonken/Archive 02

Communications in Dutch: please see User talk:Francis Schonken/Dutch

Overleg in het nederlands: op User talk:Francis Schonken/Dutch a.u.b.

Victionarium -> User talk:Francis Schonken/Latinus

Archive -> User talk:Francis Schonken/Archive 01

Started another RfC prep (alas): User:Francis Schonken/SlimVirgin RfC --Francis Schonken 08:41, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Updates
I've posted some important information here. --HappyCamper 01:05, 24 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Looks like we have others who would like to join in now. See here --HappyCamper 01:24, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Naming conventions (Western nobility)
I don't know if you've noticed, but User:Jtdirl has nominated that page, created by you, for deletion. john k 03:14, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Norse mythology
Could you please take a look at Naming conventions (Norse mythology). A couple of editors are trying to force a guideline tag on it, even though it clearly did not reach consensus and violates existing guidelines. CDThieme 01:06, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Citation issues
You may be interested in reference/citation content/format issues in Talk:Global cooling (see preceding discussion) and Requests for comment/SEWilco. (SEWilco 05:55, 30 November 2005 (UTC))

Belgian Wikimeet
If it really is hard to contact Henna, you could try it via the student's association of her faculty. Easy to find via her home page. She is, or recently was, part of the board, so if you contact that, they should be able to find someone who knows what's going on. – gpvos (talk) 13:01, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

List of gay, lesbian or bisexual composers
Who does "Bredel, Marc, Erik Satie - Paris, Mazarine, 1982 - 232 p. - ISBN 2863740555" describe as gay? In other words, why did you add this uncited reference? Thanks! Hyacinth 12:51, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:Current_surveys
Thanks for setting it up in a better visualization and more organized way! :) --Cacumer 00:13, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

standards
Ok, if you don't mind, i've moved this conversation to my talk page, since I want to keep track of it and I started, so I don't wanna take your space for it.

And thanks for your reply! Please, take a look at the conversation. :)

--Cacumer 16:33, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree almost completly with your last reply. I hope I got a final word about it, but you can (or should) comment. I just hope I won't feel like answering, because we would agree! :P

--Cacumer 19:36, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

And we're done! :)  (or so I've hoped)

--Cacumer 06:42, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Sorry
I didn't do it on purpose. This text editor I was using can't handle nonstandard characters. I forgot all about that. Thanks for informing me! &mdash; BRIAN 0918 • 2005-12-9 15:51

WP:V citations
You may be interested in Wikipedia talk:Verifiability: Format of citations and WP:V examples, and WP:FN. (SEWilco 16:49, 14 December 2005 (UTC))


 * Why dont you join discussion. Are you not up to it?--Light current 22:47, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

refactoring
please refer to user_talk:cacumer

You've got yet another message! :P

--Cacumer 11:02, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Hindu-Arabic numerals
Hi Francis. I appreciate your interest in the article. Don't you think the intro to the voting should have arguments for both "Arabic numerals" and "Hindu-Arabic numerals"? That was my intention of putting it on the top, and I certainly didn't want to spoil the space there. Dank je wel :) deeptrivia (talk) 20:44, 18 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Hi Mr. Schonken - I applaud your decisive intervention into this issue. After this, best wishes and merry Christmas to you.

Jai Sri Rama!

Rama&#39;s Arrow 20:55, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi! Thanks for the info. After sending you this message, I myself realized the point by further reading about it! Makes perfect sense, and yeah, a (very belated) happy Sinterklaas and merry christmas from me too! deeptrivia (talk) 21:09, 18 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Hi Francis! As per your suggestion, we based the voting on the agreement that the suggested move is from Hindu-Arabic numerals to Arabic numerals, and:

I would highly appreciate it if you can make this clear to User:RN, who is closing the vote. Thanks! deeptrivia (talk) 07:54, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Those opposing the move have the advantage that it won't be moved unless there's a 60% majority
 * Those supporting the move have the advantage that the person proposing the move can do the *short* opening statement.

I expect you will play fair and clarify this point to User:RN. Thanks again! deeptrivia (talk) 04:38, 29 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Come on Francis, I expected much better from you. The admin based the result on his assumption that the proposal was to move from "Arabic numerals" to "Hindu-Arabic numerals", and thus, more than 60% votes favoring HAN are needed. This is opposite of what we agreed upon at the beginning of the vote, whereby I agreed not to write anything in the lead text, and you agreed to move the article only if >60% voters supported AN over HAN. Why should I not be disappointed with you now? Thanks! deeptrivia (talk) 15:39, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Mediation
I've read through the medcom and medcab pages and I'm more confused than ever. It seems that the medcab has a significant delay before anything gets done and the medcom seems to assume a previous RFC &mdash; something which I'd rather avoid. If you can make more sense of this than I can then maybe you can suggest something. Alternatively we could skip the structure and just ask someone we both trust to conduct an informal mediation. Let me know your thoughts. - Haukur 08:09, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Okay, that was blunt but sensible. Maybe we can strike some sort of deal here. How about you read my suggested additions to the Exceptions part of the CN guideline again with a more positive mindset and I read your people naming convention with a positive mindset? If you'd be willing to accept my inserting that couple of notes on diacritics and British vs. American English then I don't see that I need to make more changes to that NC for the time being (I would like to get in a comparison of burping/eructation vs. farting/flatulence but it's not important and it can wait). And I won't insist on keeping the dog or the fixed-wing aircraft in there if you don't like them. And I won't insist on removing the link to that 2004 poll.

Maybe I'll be able to support your people naming convention (I have yet to read it thoroughly). Ideally I would like to take a break from working on guideline pages for now and concentrate my efforts on the article space. Since we don't tend to edit the same articles I think that the risk of further conflict between us would lessen.

Do you think we can reach some sort of understanding? - Haukur 10:14, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

This was too large a bite for me to chew right now. Let me get back to you later. - Haukur 21:48, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Naming conventions
To be honest, I unlisted all surveys over a month old from the CS page, on grounds that surveys rarely get any meaningful comments after their first week. If CS gets too long, then nothing on it will get the attention it deserves. I believe your numbers poll either got lost in the shuffle, or was deemed too complex or too lengthy for the community to comment on, especially as the discussion is not immediately obvious. If you want my advice, I'd reword the poll to include more rationale and examples, reformat it to make it more legible (e.g. by using horizontal lines), cut the amount of questions in half because that way more people will take it seriously, and restart it in january because many people are on christmas break now. Radiant_ &gt;|&lt; 22:32, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Naming conventions (numbers and dates) looks good to me, and to the best of my knowledge matches most of what we already have. Let's see, some remarks...
 * As noted on the talk page, it may help to put some thought into structuring articles like March 18, 2001. We probably don't need an article for each day in history. So which days get their own articles, and which go in March 18 in general?
 * The bit about Roman numbers is weird. Some of them redirect to years, others to numbers. Arguably some should redirect to Roman numerals. Some consistency would be nice. And arguably, a lot of deletion since many of these seem to be entirely arbitrary.
 * I think some standard would be nice on the repetitive events section, but good luck in getting any. I think we should stick with the "Event (year)" bit because it matches practice in other areas.
 * Overall, looks good! Radiant_ &gt;|&lt; 16:51, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

WP:Importance
It's historical because no active discussion has been going on for a long time, and past discussion shows neither obvious acceptance nor obvious rejection of the page. If you want it reactivated, fine with me, but please get some people to join in e.g. at the village pump. Radiant_ &gt;|&lt; 21:22, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Minor note
In order to try to lessen tensions I'm going to try not to work too much on naming conventions at once. So I don't expect to make further edits to those for today. - Haukur 11:42, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Naming conventions
Thank you for your help. I apologize if I was doing things the wrong way. --BostonMA 14:24, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Editing Satie
Hello,
 * I am new to Wikipedia, and a fan of Eric Satie.I was trying to do some minor format editing on his article. However, when I attempt to edit, the page won't accept it. When I hit a key the page goes to the character box at the bottom. Can you help me with this? Michael David 15:40, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Thank you
Hello again,
 * Thank you for your response. I'll try to edit it a bit later. My note was also an excuse to communicate with another Satie fan. As my User Page says I collect LP phonograph records. In the collection is a wonderful series of recordings of Satie by Pacal Rogé. I wish I could share them with you. Thank you, again. Be healthy. Michael David 16:28, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Polish monarchs?
So what is the deal with the Polish monarchs? Have we abandoned the idea of using "of Poland", as we do for all the other kings on wiki with reference to their kingdoms? - Calgacus 16:11, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Sysin's objection
Short version: Sysin doesn't like the name "Republic of Macedonia" and wants to attach a footnote on the controversy over that name, apparently on every page that mentions it. He's arguing that the naming conflicts guidelines requires it. I co-wrote the guidelines with Ed Poor, so I think I have a pretty good idea of what the policy was intended to achieve - and it's not what Sysin is trying to claim! :-) -- ChrisO 21:14, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Diacritics
Looks OK to me, if somewhat overkill, but I guess all bases need to be covered in these things. What I get out of it is that (a) it only covers article names, not content; (b) diacritics are to be avoided in article names, as much as possible: I can't disagree with that; (c) people who use Microsoftware are in a horrible fix, as usual. Thank heaven I've been Macintosh since 1984.... Bill 14:21, 14 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Perfect sense. All the Unicode characters etc. appear onscreen correctly, and the instance where you apparently do something (was it ᾈ, i.e. Greek capital alpha with smooth breathing and iota subscript? — I confess I didn't check) in 3 different ways did in fact, as you predicted it might, appear exactly the same each time — because I don't use DOS or Windows or whatever it is they use — so you did well to put the disclaimer in, that for people with good computers they'd all look the same: or else I would have been confused. Best, Bill 15:55, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

naming conventions
Don't just revert me. Discuss first. Thanks, --Urthogie 19:59, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Ok, before we continue, could you make a list of what you don't like about the page in its current form(with my edits) on the project's talk page. I'm likely to agree with you if we can reach a compromise(I'm sure we can).  Thanks, --Urthogie 20:06, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
 * K, I posted a question for you at the talk page of the subpage you created.--Urthogie 21:00, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Please reply when you get a chance.--Urthogie 08:06, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Replied at talk page.--Urthogie 10:22, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Naming conventions "rationale" section
_ _ I revised Naming conventions without grasping its intent, believing it needed cleaning up even if, after discussion, it perhaps gets deleted. As far as i can see, it is a non-sequitur, perhaps to forestall proposals to remove the "redirected from ..." text. Perhaps a dozen or so additional words could bridge better from the first sentence to your addition. _ _ BTW, i conjecture that "works slightly comforting" was your conscientious effort at correct grammar, rather than an artifact of cutting and pasting to restructure an earlier draft of the passage. Comforting, while an inflection of the verb to comfort, can be used in three grammatically distinct ways: In the case of what you wrote, it is a noun, and must be modified by an adjective (slight, rather than the adverb you chose), e.g the counter-idiomatically awkward, but grammatical, "works slight comforting". (FWIW, it sounds like someone straining to recall the catch-phrase "offers scant comfort". Perhaps with good reason (as i understand German to be a bit more closely related to Dutch than to English), it also reminds me of usages in German that do sound idiomatic to me(in German), even tho i would probably never try to use them -- unless i were trying (probably, as i suspect here, unsuccessfully) to quote Mephisopheles's self-introduction, "Ich bin ein Teil der Geist der stets verneint, der stets die Böse willt, und stets die Gute wirkt." I'll presume you German is stronger than mine, until you say othewise.) --Jerzy•t 17:41, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) As a verb in one of its "progressive" tenses. (Sorry, but i am unsure how official progressive is, in the sense i am using it; i'm not sure i was taught it in school even once, and certainly not repeatedly like most grammar.) E.g. present progressive, "He is subtly comforting her", where to my ear, comforting or is comforting is the core verb of the sentence, and is amounts, i think, to an auxiliary verb or auxiliary, having the same role as will or shall, or of did in "He did go."
 * 2) As an adjective, as in "He said subtly comforting things to her."
 * 3) As a noun, as in "His subtle comforting calmed her."

Your English
_ _ Comparing the diffs shows you're neither as ignorant nor stubborn as your note on my talk suggested, but you need either better English advisors, or to use them more faithfully, or to be less confident when someone edits you. _ _ I still don't know in what sense you think "on the other hand" connects the ideas it stands between, and i'd be surprised if anyone other than you can explain it, which is why i asked you rather than the community. But no matter, at least it doesn't look ignorant. _ _ I changed three more things, one of them a change you had removed. Look in your English dictionary under lead; maybe the result will help you to accept the on top/at the top distinction, which is harder to document, on faith. --Jerzy•t 07:43, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

My talk page
I have replied to your message on my talk page, on my talk page. --Philip Baird Shearer 12:14, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

WP:V
Nice addition to the page, Francis. SlimVirgin (talk) 17:31, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Epochs of Roman Emperors
Please can you tell me why you reverted my edits on Template:Epochs of Roman Emperors. Thanks Andeggs 22:01, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your reply Francis - I have replied to you on the template's talk page. Please give your thoughts Andeggs 11:35, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Emperor dab
Hi. You just reverted my page on Emperor (disambiguation) saying "no piped links on disambiguation pages". I've just had a look at Disambiguation, where the only references I see to piped links are when specifying links to disambiguation pages and when repairing links. Could you point me to the policy which supports your position? If it's only a guideline, I strongly think ignore all rules applies here: exposing Wikipedia readers's to our internal # syntax is very ugly. Cheers --Pak21 16:07, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I'd be tempted for something like


 * "Emperors" in the List of fictional rulers
 * "Kaisers", in the List of fictional rulers
 * but that's only a very small improvement on your version as far as I'm concerned. Thanks for the MoS pointers as well. Cheers --Pak21 16:46, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

WP:CLS
Please refrain from undoing other people's edits repeatedly. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing Wikipedia under the three-revert rule, which states that nobody may revert an article to a previous version more than three times in 24 hours. (Note: this also means editing the page to reinsert an old edit. If the effect of your actions is to revert back, it qualifies as a revert.) Thank you. Omniplex&#160; 21:53, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

That discussion started here, so I'll copy what you've written on my page and answer it here:


 * I didn't count but I think you re-inserted
 * Categories are easy to use and essential like site maps on Web pages.
 * Each category can belong to one or more parent categories.
 * Each category can contain multiple subcategories.
 * more than two times in Categories, lists, and series boxes over the last 24 h, after someone else had removed them, so:


 * Nobody but you and me edited in the last sixty hours, it's quite easy to prove that you started this. I count five reversions from you including the removal of controversial3 on the talk page in the last 24 hours. One reversion after I've warned you. Not counting the reinsertion / move of my example to the talk page for discussion on both accounts I see two rvs from me, the first to your own prior version, the second reinserting four clear advantages of categories (omitting 5+6 as per discussion).
 * In other words this...


 * Please refrain from undoing other people's edits repeatedly. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing Wikipedia under the three-revert rule, which states that nobody may revert an article to a previous version more than three times in 24 hours. (Note: this also means editing the page to reinsert an old edit. If the effect of your actions is to revert back, it qualifies as a revert.) Thank you.


 * ...is nonsense, if you're unwiling or unable to cout to three stay away from this template.


 * Also, please stop posting inappropriate templates in guidelines and on their talk pages. Giving more breath to guideline disputes is possible, for example, by posting on current surveys and/or village pump (policy). Not by the disruptive antics you're using, remember: don't disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point --Francis Schonken 22:17, 16 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Inserting POV-section in your intentionally misleading (dis)advantagews is most appropriate, because it's heavy POV. Omniplex&#160; 00:44, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

CA 2
Please visit California State Route 2 and vote on the page move. Since SPUI won't take the initative I will.JohnnyBGood 00:03, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Date linking
Thank you for taking this matter forward. I am very pleased that you have taken the time to do this (even though you voted "oppose" and I voted "support"!). Whilst not feeling very stongly on the date issue as such, I have been horrified by the retaliation being taken against Bobblewik. It seems to me these people have utterly failed to make any move at all to try and bring the guidelines towards what they feel ought to be said. Thincat 11:07, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

SmackBot
Francis, thanks for letting me know about the discussions on SmackBot. I'm sorry I gave the wrong impression about being prepared to implement new solutions for days of the year pages - I thought I was clearly offering to do the right thing, regardless of whose idea it was and the amount of work involved! On the subject of the William's complaint, while I wouldn't want to call it frivolous, he has posted to about six admin pages, over a fairly minor matter, rather than coming back to me. Regards Rich  Farmbrough 19:01 26  March 2006 (UTC).


 * Oh by the way can you point me to the focus of the "strong feelings by some wikipedians against including HTML commentary tags in wikipedia pages." Rich  Farmbrough 00:56 27  March 2006 (UTC).

al-Khwarizmi
Hi, al-Khwarizmi is a disambiguation page. The page is now at Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi but Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Ḵwārizmī redirects there. —Ruud 21:24, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

RCC
Hi Francis, recently you voted on a move from Roman Catholic Church to Catholic Church. That proposal was voted down, but now they're trying to accomplish the opposite: to change Catholic Church from a redirect into a disambiguation page (redundant with Catholicism, Catholicism (disambiguation), Catholic, One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, and other articles). There is an ongoing vote at Talk:Roman Catholic Church, and your contribution to the discussion is very much needed. In fact, there's a revert war going on at Catholic Church with some people trying to preempt the vote and create a disambig page anyway. So more voices and your contribution to the discussion in particular is very much needed! --Hyphen5 13:02, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

PorthosBot
Hi. Thank you for leaving the note on my talk page. Well I have listed the request for bot aproval on March 3, 2006 (month before today), it is number 3.17 in TOC. I was waiting another 3 weeks (I think policy talks about "one week") before asking for the flag. Nobody cared about it until someone (you?) started the discussion on April 3.

On the other hand, I hope someone will finally care about this situation now. I would like to solve it with both-way satisfaction. --Zirland 11:32, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Well the bot is deflagged for maybe two weeks and nothing is happening with BRFA. Is there any problem? Or simply nobody cares? --Zirland 15:40, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

SmackBot
Thanks for the note. I will submit a request when I have time. On quick editing, your point is well taken, but people really do edit a lot faster then many think. For example you have made three edits in a minute. Also with tabbed browsing the "submit"s can come closer together. Regards, Rich Farmbrough 12:15 9  April 2006 (UTC).
 * I liked your example about the "anual opening of Congress". The word I was correcting manually was "millenium" -> "millennium".  There are many cases where the original was left, generally because it was the name of an image or embedded in a URL.  SmackBot has just gained approval for the task I originally applied for bot approval for (although I may have done it manually while waiting), a very simple replacement of "External link" with "External Links" where there is more than one.  Best regards Rich  Farmbrough 22:10 13  April 2006 (UTC).

Archiving
When archiving pages, please do not move the page to create the archive as you did recently at Neutral point of view. This loses important history records. Rather, create a blank archive page and paste the archived text into it, and manually remove the archived material from the main page. Thanks. &mdash; Saxifrage ✎ 04:29, 10 April 2006 (UTC)


 * If you check the history of Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view/Archive 17 (the original page before archiving), the history goes back to 2002. Despite undergoing 16 previous archives, this is the first that used an actual page-move. Since that page is not actually a terribly active one except in the past few months, I don't think using the alternative is warranted, especially given the local precedent. &mdash; Saxifrage ✎ 07:06, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Furthermore, the next paragraph of How to archive a talk page is subtitled "Controversy" and recommends, "[w]hichever way you prefer, you should generally stick to one procedure or the other on any given page, since mixing the two only causes confusion." &mdash; Saxifrage ✎ 07:14, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I suspect that WP talk:NPOV being a busy page is a passing thing. But, since the switch is well-documented now (and assuming future archivers use the same method), all's well that ends well. &mdash; Saxifrage ✎ 08:46, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

WP:CONTEXT
Francis, which of these edit summaries exactly caused you to leave a civility warning on my talk page? :-) SlimVirgin (talk) 23:34, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I still don't get it. You were removing material that is in the MoS. WP:CONTEXT should be consistent with the MoS. Therefore, I put it back. I honestly don't see the problem, or where the false accusations were. Sorry if I'm being dense. SlimVirgin (talk) 07:45, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

AWB
Hi Francis. Thanks for your proposal at Semi-bots, but this is unneeded. I understand that you have concerns about how AWB is used. As a regular AWB user and a developer on the AWB sourceforge project I would like to offer my help if you see edits done with AWB that you feel are bad or problematic. Please drop me a note if you see any problem edits with AWB. I understand that especially new AWB users are sometimes a bit overly enthusiastic and do some not so needed edits with AWB. Please try to be kind with them and explain what the problem is. It is mostly not bad faith. I was thinking about creating a discussion page for AWB edits, but this is also a bit problematic as most article "owners" only watch "their" pages and only start mocking when someone actually comes to "their" pages. Maybe some optional mentorship/consultancy for (new) AWB users, or a second opinion system would be of help ("ask an experienced user or admin if you are not sure about a series of edits you are up to"). To get an approval for every AWB "run" would be overkill on the other hand. Just some thoughts. --Ligulem 23:16, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply on my talk. What I do not like about Semi-bots is the page itself :-). Of course as a motorcyclist I'm very interested in not getting hindered by unneded regulation, created by people who never rided a motorcycle themselves (sorry, no offence intended). I was also thinking about moving that Semi-bots to Serial edits. The page talks a lot about that term. Erm, apperently what we really need is a page to talk about AWB edits or better serial edits in general. WP:BOTS doesn't fit so well. I just do have the feeling that it's not only the tools. There are lots of editors that are "up to a task". That doesn't even need to be with consecutive edits (serial edits). I will have a look at that Rich/WA Simpson case. I'm just not convinced that creating another tree in the policy jungle for each conflict is a good idea. --Ligulem 12:05, 17 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Since your right that it was wrong for me to remove your comments I have replaced your comments with my response in a section underneath the poll and I was never talking about deleting the subpage and indeed never made any edits to it so now both your comments, the link, and the subpage are there as well as the poll though since the poll is still active (I reactivated it when reverted your premature closing of it) it's still up there as well. Pegasus1138 Talk 00:44, 18 April 2006 (UTC)


 * As per my comments on Wikipedia talk:Semi-bots I have reverted myself since after reviewing the relevant policies and guidelines it is premature to judge approval or dissaproval of the proposal at this time, however eventually a straw poll will be appropriate to judge overall consensus. Pegasus1138 Talk 02:08, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

RE:Władysław II Jagiełło
Sorry for being unresponsive. That page is essentially been the victim of a Polish cabal. There you have the limitations of wikipedia. Only the autocratic intervention of User:Jimbo Wales could help it. Sorry you're wasting your time, but you are. Regards. - Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 21:35, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Indo-European
Thanks for cleaning up the naming of the pages. I was working on the disambiguation, and it still must be done, as 80% of the links to Indo-European mean the language family rather than the people. For that reason, I also redirected Indo-European to Indo-European (disambiguation), so that the bulk of users aren't taken to the Indo-European people disambiguation page. I'm now going to look at the double-redirections you fixed to see if any of those would be better pointed to the disambiguation page, then I'll continue the disambiguation work. Dpv 16:03, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Now that I see it, I'm going to have to move Indo-European language back to Indo-European languages, as articles on language families are expected to be plural (see Naming conventions (plurals)). Dpv 16:30, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Emperor Article
Thanks for continuing to work on this article. I do, however, have questions about some of your reverts to my contributions. (1) What exactly is wrong with noting the explicit titles used by the rulers of the "Latin Empire" (which, as a name, is a modern convention) or the "Empire of Trebizond" (more or less the same)? (2) Why did you revert the Greek spelling of basileus? As a Byzantinist I can guarantee that the breves over the α and the ι were not in usage, and are indicated only in some modern textbooks for learning ancient Greek as a teaching aide. (3) basileus was actually used, albeit most often informally, as a term for the Roman Emperor throughout the Hellenized East well before the 7th century. At that point it became the standard and exclusive usage for "emperor", being augmented with older titles like tōn Rōmaiōn and autokratōr later, as other emperors had to be recognized in Francia and Bulgaria, respectively. I have now added a reference to the standard study of these titles by Ostrogorsky, although its accessibility is limited for most users by its language (Serbo-Croatian). (4) Your Greek rendering of augoustos requires not only an acute accent but also a smooth breathing mark over the first υ. (5) The article List of Bulgarian monarchs exists and works, just check. (6) Finally, I am not sure that elimination of Romano-Byzantine imperial tradition from the list of characteristics for determining emperors is altogether fair. The term is directly derived from this tradition and so, in the strictest sense, it is precisely those rulers that are emperors. That is not to say that various other (mostly eastern) potentates were not of equal rank (something worked out by diplomatic conventions after sufficient contact between states). Anyway. I hope you act on the Greek terms above, I have not edited them, in part because I want to see your reasoning, and in part because I do not know whether I can successfully insert polytonic Greek. Thanks, Imladjov 16:04, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the responses on Talk:Emperor, I replied there. One thing I forgot to address: the more common English designation is "Soldier Emperors", rather than "Barracks Emperors". A quick Google search (for what it is worth) turned up almost twice as many (963) instances of the first usage than the second (535). I recommend changing it accordingly. Thanks, Imladjov 19:23, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Semi-bots
Please stop repeatedly removing the rejected tag from Semi-bots. I consider this disruptive. Three editors including me have applied the rejected tag. Your proposal has clearly been rejected. --Ligulem 08:33, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Francis, please keep in mind the three revert rule. You have already reverted three times on Semi-bots. If you revert again you will be in violation of the 3RR and subject to a block of up to 24 hours. —Locke Cole • t • c 09:54, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Actually, the part of How to create policy stating Avoid kneejerk reactions I think applies to this proposal. It seems you've had some negative experiences with AWB users fairly recently and are, seemingly, trying to start a one-man crusade to limit the ways AWB (and other bot-like tools) can be used. That's a knee-jerk reaction. Your best bet would be to solicit comments on the Village Pump or observe other editors sharing your frustration and contacting/organizing them. If you can get support on the Pump (or from other editors who share your point of view), you can probably revitalize Semi-bots. I would advise against blindly reverting in 24 hours as you've indicated though; nothing is stopping you from asking on the Village Pump for further comment or trying to discuss things with the people opposing you. I hope you'll consider some of what I've said. —Locke Cole • t • c 10:45, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Reverts
Ok, now you have reverted 4 times in 25 hours, this is very poor form. Plus I must ask you to keep your edit summaries in perspective, for example;


 * Pegasus1138 has been qualified a troll by the bots approval group - FreakofNature said "Your comments border on trolling", Pegasus then retracted his statement, this is hardly being qualified as a troll.


 * rv, the "vote" organised by some kind of misguided semi-bot cabal - yet no one had mentioned the "vote", they were rejecting it on the grounds that everyone else who commented on it disagreed with it. As for claim about a "semi-bot cabal", how exactly is this? Claims of cabals have a tendency to backfire.


 * undo disturbing edit by Rich Farmbrough, who was using AWB - this is largely unrelated, but I was shocked that you could describe simply changing a level 3 to level 2 heading as "disturbing", in fact it looked perfectly sensible to me. Either way it certainly was not disturbing, and was unfair to Rich.

Anyway, I understand your frustration about the semi-bot policy, as I would have been happy to let it run its course, which is why I won't enforce a block (4 reverts in 25 hours still counts). However I strongly encourage you to show a little more restraint. thank you Martin 10:26, 24 April 2006 (UTC)


 * There Is No Cabal Martin 10:46, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

RfC comments
I appreciate your comments on my RFC, I really do, but I can't help but think that they are out of place. Unfortunately, that is a user conduct RFC rather than a references RFC. I was really pushing for a references RFC because I thought it would be useful to get larger community input, and Evilphoenix (the originator of the RFC) even agreed and decided to hold off on the user conduct RFC .. but ... Lulu reverted him and steamrolled the thing through so he could attack me. I would encourage you and the other people who are interested in this issue to file a real RFC on the topic of references. The thing Lulu made is just getting ugly and it's turning into nothing but a huge attack against me (which is backfiring horribly), and it is not going to solve references disputes one whit. -- Cyde Weys 08:47, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

About IP 87.116.171.209
This IP, to whom you sent a 3RR warning, address resolves to a dialup account in Belgrade, owned by Serbian Broadband. Similar IP addresses from Belgrade have been making identical edits to a small number of articles. (I've left more details on WP:AN/I.) Not sure what to say other than a ban won't stop this user. -- llywrch 20:39, 25 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, unless someone comes up with a better idea at WP:AN/I, my only solution would be to block the specific IP address from the 87.116.* range for 15-30 minutes when an edit appears from there on those articles. (In fairness, the changes this person made to List of Vietnamese dynasties are arguably improvements.) I know, this is a "whack-a-mole" strategy & minimizes collatoral damage, but it might encourage this person to talk with us. -- llywrch 21:08, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

reverted myself
I just wanted to note that I have reverted back to the proposed version, however even in assuming good faith I am getting the feeling that you have a grudge against AWB users and that is why you are unwilling to let this go. I am not going to edit war with you, however I do plan on getting a consensus on the talk page that this is a bad idea and thus should be rejected and should that happen please accept that, as I will accept a consensus to either keep this going as a proposal or make it a full blown guideline should things turn out that way. Pegasus1138 Talk 13:48, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Ref converter page
I have reverted your edits to Cyde's ref converter page as the phrasing makes it sound like a rule "don't do" in reference to don't convert harvard references unless there's a consensus to do so make me think of it as such. Since it's Cyde's tool I think rephrasing it as a suggestion that it isn't recommended or that it's controversial to do that when there isn't a consensus would be appropriate to add but phrasing it as a rule is innapropriate as per my previous and continued reasoning behind this. I am going to try to rewrite and repost it on the page as a suggestion (something I believe Cyde will approve of), but if you have any suggestions then please by all means let me know —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pegasus1138 (talk • contribs)

Reply to your comment
Somewhat belated reply to your advice about my simplified write-up on how to use Cite.php - mbeychok 02:46, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

monarchies and republics
The meaning I'm explaining is one of the principal meanings of the word "republic" in common usage. Please quit obscuring that fact. --Trovatore 22:46, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Saints Wikiproject
I noted that you have been contributing to articles about saints. I invite you to join the WikiProject Saints. You can sign up on the page and add the following userbox to your user page.

I also invite you to join the discussion on prayers and infoboxes here: Prayers_are_NPOV.

Thanks! --evrik 15:39, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Renard
Thank you very much for your correction and addition. (Meladina 16:09, 3 May 2006 (UTC))

Monobook.css change to reference size
It seems that there is a discussion here. Apparently, that discussion (minus the comment I left with "strong disagreement") was enough to make a site-wide CSS change that breaks a lot of featured articles that put a div at size 85% around their references. See here: Village_pump_%28technical%29 for that discussion. Please add your disagreement to the discussion! —Michiel Sikma, 06:33, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

The Human Res
JA: As a general rule, I assume that a writer of Plato's caliber uses all his key words in full awareness of all their many-splintered layers of meanings, so it's not a bad bet to begin with the bottom layers and move toward the light, er, out of the Cave. The gloss that was in place when I arrived on that shore seemed rather strained and insipid to me, so I tried to improve its taste a just a sip by indicating its fons et origo. Jon Awbrey 17:28, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Huh?
'' 'Sorry, this was actually getting worse. 66% "majority" of two people is not a sufficient level of consensus for policy changes'' ' - recent edit summary. What do you mean by that? Kim Bruning 08:29, 12 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Alright, that's fair enough. I'll leave you to duke it out with the folks. Please do so on talk, of course! :-)


 * Even so, that's not what you said in the edit summary of course. Can I take that the actual text of the edit summary was some spur of the moment oddness, or so? I'm just sort of worried because it seemed to show some misunderstanding of guidelines and policy on en.wikipedia. But maybe I'm just reading too much into it. Kim Bruning 09:09, 12 May 2006 (UTC)


 * AH! *grin* It all becomes clear to me now. :-) You've convinced me that you're correct. Have fun! Kim Bruning 09:37, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

You have an odd definition
...of "policy change." It's unpacking circular wording—that's it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Marskell (talk • contribs)


 * Repetition does not mean invalidity, no. Tautologies are much like exclamation marks—they emphasize, but offer nothing meaningful that the subject alone doesn't already impart. Perhaps you can show me the neo-positivist argument that suggests you have a veto over our NPOV page. At the very least, you might leave it for a day and see if others want to revert or tweak. Marskell 09:03, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Inclusion rules for lists
See my arguments regarding lists construction in my talk page. Mag2k 12:53, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Consensus
The version that was there had been there for some time, you reverted it, yet apparently refused to explain specific objections, or provide reasons for the reversion. You also appear to be giving examples of Harvard referencing using the cite template as though it is obligatory or the only way to do it, when it is neither, and there is no conensus for that change. Jayjg (talk) 16:44, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

question
hi Francis, how are you? I noticed that there is some discussion going on about the naming format of Polish royals and maybe nobility as well. I noticed that they are all kept in Polish, which I find rather strange considering this is the English language Wikipedia. What is your opinion on this? Do you happen to know where the proper forum is where the discussion is going on? There is so much of that discussion I got completely lost in my search. thanks and with kind regards Gryffindor  14:33, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Edit conflict
You wrote:


 * PS. Might be accidental, but I see some similarity with a trick previously played by Ed Poor/Uncle Ed, see above . --Francis Schonken 15:28, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Before you accuse me of playing a trick, wouldn't you rather ask me what I meant? Please assume good faith, at least for a single hour. --Uncle Ed 15:36, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Contradiction in dash styleguides?
Where is the contradiction between Manual of Style (dates and numbers) and Manual of Style (dashes)? Manual of Style (dates and numbers) is certainly in accord with Manual of Style (dashes). - Centrx 18:54, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Re: your response: Isn't this related to an addition to the section that was reverted because it was objected to and discussion of it has not yet completed? If this is the case, the sections would not contradict, though it may be appropriate to put a little note about contributing to the discussion? - Centrx 19:11, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Cite.php in Meta version is not the same as in Wikipedia version
Francis, I don't want to get between you and User:Omniplex. However, there is a problem:


 * Where my simplified writeup on how to use Cite.php was incorporated into Help:Footnotes it works very nicely.
 * But, where it was incorporated into m:help:footnotes it does not work because the Meta version of Cite.php still uses a vertical arrow instead of a caret ... and it uses 1.1, 1.2. 1.3, etc. instead of a, b, c, etc. for multiple use of the same references.

That difference really should be resolved somehow.- mbeychok 19:18, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Help
Francis, I'd appreciate some help over sizing. I note that there was recently a great deal of mucking about with how ref sizes are displayed, including edits to the common MediaWiki css. I take it the dust has settled, but I'm afraid I'm not quite certain what the status quo is. Is there a new template for smaller sizes? Is it a temporary fix? Have the smaller sizes been standardized? I'm rather lost. FWIW I thought the initial edit to the common css was disastrously shortsighted. Do you think you could take a few minutes to explain where we're at right now, and what, if any, developments will need to be watched? I'd greatly appreciate it. Many thanks — Encephalon 23:54, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Editing policy pages
Hi, Francis. I don't think the "voting" on that page is considered to be in any way an official ballot. Rather, it's to get some indication as to how people feel about the idea. My main problem with putting a historical or rejected tag is that that page was created less than three days ago, and people are still contributing. Those tags more or less instruct them not to add to the page any more, and I think it's way too soon to stop contributions. Cheers. AnnH ♫ 09:02, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Your last edit summary at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view
(rv, @Kzzl: I didn't see what you tried to say with you fairly incomprehensible edit summary, please use talk page for finding consensus prior to change)
 * Hmm, don't do that. If you're not pleased with a change, rv, and provide the actual reason why you don't like it, while referring the user to talk for more details. If the change is good, leave it alone.
 * There is no wikipedia policy that says that this is the rule for reverting. However, this method does allow several wiki-editing methods to work more smoothly.
 * It's a form of politeness, I suppose you could say. Instead of throwing up arbitrary barriers, it enhances the appearance of genuine cooperation :-)
 * Kim Bruning 10:06, 23 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Ah yes, I saw the edit summary out of context (another problem with edit summaries and watchlists). The above still applies, but perhaps you're already applying much of it. I think it's generally ok to name a user in an edit summary, as long as you're being nice to them.
 * Mind you, I'm just picking nits now, because I know/hope you'll be doing a lot of policy patrol in the near future.
 * Twice now I have picked a nit with you I believe, and twice now I stand corrected. Cool.
 * Kim Bruning 10:26, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
 * By the way, nice to have you helping out with policy patrol. Thanks! :) Kim Bruning 10:48, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

"Disgusting"
Please apologise for that comment. We are having a civilised discussion, not a slanging match. Vizjim 15:15, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Once again, I ask you to withdraw a comment that goes beyond explaining your position and goes into name-calling and assuming bad faith. I am not inventing policies, I am quoting them.  Your point of view being different from mine does not justify abuse.  Vizjim 15:29, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Since you are clearly only going to be increasingly antagonistic and rude, I will leave this issue back on the main deletion discussion. I suggest you read up on WP:CIVIL. Vizjim 15:58, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

My change to WP:V
Francis, I think my change is pretty self-explanatory. I also discussed it on the talk page here and here. If you have a concern about it, I'd love to hear your thoughts - the best place might be my second talk entry. Thanks!TheronJ 02:10, 3 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Francis, could you explain why you are reverting me? My change didn't have anything to do with RS, it just resolved a contradiction in V itself.  (See links above).Thanks,TheronJ 11:49, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

And please give further consideration to mine as well, which you reverted again without listening to what I'm saying. Your comment "wikipedia:reliable sources is a guideline, not a policy, don't reverse the roles" is exactly my point! WP:V and WP:RS already reverse the roles. WP:V doesn't mention reliability and is all about RS, and WP:RS says to refer to WP:V for details on some of the guidelines. If that's not reversal, I don't know what is. How is that clear? You're shooting the messenger, here.—mjb 10:41, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Regarding my edits
As to your first disagreement, I altered the Lucius Caesar article but actually seem to have misread the source, so ignore it.

As to your second disagreement, Cinna was dead when Sulla landed in Italy in 83 BC, and Carbo was the one in charge at that point in time. The wording of the text implied that Sulla was opposed by Cinna rather than Carbo. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Black Sword (talk • contribs)

Proposed guidelines
Francis, hi, thank you for inviting me to participate in one of your guideline proposals. I wanted to explain my reluctance. Though we seem to agree on several matters, it has seemed to me that at times when you create guidelines, you are creating them not for the betterment of Wikipedia, but because you had a personal axe to grind on some article somewhere, and were trying to address it by creating a "Guideline" to promote your point of view. As such, when I have attempted to participate in the drafting of guidelines written by you in the past, your general response has been to immediately and wholesale revert my changes. This indicated to me that you were claiming "ownership" of the page, and didn't want anyone else to change it unless you personally agreed with them. Do you feel that your stand on this has now changed? --Elonka 16:21, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
 * (Update) I have gone ahead and added a summary to the page. Please review at your convenience. --Elonka 16:43, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

poish monarchs
Hi. Appleseed apparently does not like the tables at List of Polish monarchs. May be a case of "ownership" of article. Can you check from time to time that no one destroys the tables there. Shilkanni 13:32, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Your bahaviour at WP:LISTS
Your behaviour at WP:LISTS is not acceptable. Please do not delete or archive current discussions. Thanks. 14:44, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Also, when archiving, please do not move the tak page, as we lose the history that way. Just cut and paste into an archive. Thanks. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 14:52, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

My mistake
Tnx for pointing it out, I missed that the original comment was by User:Pmanderson, not by John.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:15, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Wladyslaw Jagiello
Shoudn't be Jagiello, not Jagiellon? Jagiellon is the dinasty name, and Jagiello is the starter of that dynasty. Best regards. Juraune 16:57, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Piotrus
May want to check this out, as your name is being used:. --Elonka 18:21, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Your move and changes
Hi Francis. I don't see how anything has changed since the mythology naming convention got good approval in a poll. Nor do I see how anything has changed since a significant majority in a poll came out in favour of using diacritics for the location of the article about everyone's favorite dragon. In line with that thinking I'm reverting your changes. This isn't really a huge deal&mdash;and I can understand the arguments for the other position&mdash;but until you show that that position has more approval among editors in general or editors in the Norse mythology field in particular I don't see a reason for this move.

I've noticed you spend a very large proportion of your Wikipedia time debating and and proposing naming conventions and page moves. Perhaps it's time to take a break from that sometimes frustrating field and write some nice new articles? :) Haukur 17:54, 10 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Oh, and I used the rollback tool to revert your changes to the redirects since there were so many. By this I, of course, do not mean to suggest that your edits were vandalism. No offence intended. Haukur 18:01, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Mediation Cabal
Greetings! I wanted to make sure you were aware of this mediation cabal case which might include you in some way. If you could take a look and possibly comment, it'd be appreciated. Happy wiki-ing! --Keitei (talk) 05:36, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Polish medieval monarchs naming
Hi. I have proposed to move the following monarchs from their current, generally Polish-spelled names (with diacriticals) to the systematical English name, citing my general ground that English should be used, not Polish. Would you share your opinion at Talk:Bolesław I the Brave, Talk:Bolesław II the Bold, Talk:Mieszko II Lambert, Talk:Władysław III Spindleshanks, Talk:Jan I Olbracht and Talk:Kazimierz III the Great. Marrtel 19:55, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I'd like your take on this
I see the ebook matter has been resolved. E-book! Having seen your level headed points on a few talk pages, I'd appreciate your advice on this too, especially from the international pov:

I've been 'bugged' by my hot button issue of the default skin hiding categories from the user for around two months, and this related thing punched the button pretty much dead center as the same point has been nagging at me as is made by the originator. Seems to me a VP listing ought be made on both, as it were, by at least a mention 'synopsis' with link, and the common debate on kept this page. This seems preferable, as both VP:Technical and VP:policy are certainly apropo venues for a link posting, and I think we've all seen some of the bad effects of the current trend. This point made by the originator is sparse, but on point and imho, important. By keeping the discussion there, it can be similarly referenced on other BB's (Meta for one), and there are a few others. I'm much too focused on wikiEditing to keep up with all the discussion forums, so where should it go, should it be given a seperate venue (Yet another 'proposed guideline'!), or what? In sum, seems to me the 'Internal links' section with such a category template would solve both problems with minimal edit dislocation.

My confidence is high that a structural problem in presentation is present under current standards (editorial guidelines), but my crystal ball shattered some years back , so I can't measure it's severity there and it's hard to gauge it's exact magnitude using anything but inductive reasoning. Personally, I rarely visit the nether regions of a web-page, and admittedly tend to attribute that to other 'oldsters' as well. I guess the key question is: If one is reading casually, what reason have they, 'our customer-readers' for looking lower down past the references? Advice? Best regards! // Fra nkB 15:59, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Should this template be deleted?
Hi Francis. I noticed you edited Template:CategorisationDisputedPeople. I created Template:CategorisationDisputedTopics for similar purposes, and it's been proposed for deletion, so you may want to comment on that here. best regards, Jim Butler(talk) 05:25, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

3RR on WP:V
Francis, with all your straightforward and complex reverting on WP:V, you are well over the WP:3RR limit at this point. Rather than getting blocked, why don't you try to work these issues out and get consensus on the Talk: page first? Policy should be stable, it really shouldn't be played with in such a cavalier way. Jayjg (talk) 15:12, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Reverts
Francis, I'm in no danger of breaching the 3RR. Please don't try and bully me. It simply won't work and I think you are very much flirting with a breach of WP:CIVIL by doing it, particularly since you are edit-warring with more than one editor on the pages in question. Please do not make any more edits to policy pages without making a proper effort to obtain consensus, particularly when they are as big as they are. Grace Note 02:44, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

"Sympathy" on NPOV
Do you have any opinion on this? It's a minor thing but I'd like to change it. Marskell 11:35, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Working toward a common goal.
''Don't take what I say as a criticsm, please. Take it more as an attestation that many editors are working toward a common goal.'' I understand. You read a portion of my comment. You didn't understand what I attempted to communicate. You viewed what I said as some sort of odd personal attack. I understand perfectly. No, my statement is an accurate statement of what went on. Particularly the last two sentences which I posted here. Particularly at that time it looked to me like you were in opposition to a group of editors, again and again. I was re-affirming that an unpopular editor's position is not necessarily a losing position, but that some methods are more fruitful than other methods. No personal attack was implied. You are free to understand my words as you wish, of course. But no, I don't plan to retract nor to apologize though you invite me to with your posting to my discussion page. Terryeo 13:02, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Archive method of moving
Such as at Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view, how are you dealing with moving when there are on-going discussions? This seems to a major problem with the move method. The history for several discussions is, then, not present on the same page while the discussion is ongoing, and when the discussion that was ongoing at the time of the archival is eventually archived in a later archive, its history is not part of the archive. —Centrx→talk • 06:05, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

NPOV FAQ linking
Really nice call on linking the FAQ's. Gold star for commonsense editing :)

I was thinking of that myself after the fact, but didn't want to edit again, so soon after the first one. But it really does work, doesn't it :) FT2 (Talk 10:19, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks
For the kick in rear on starting the book notability page. I slapped my head, said to myself "why didn't I think of that?, and wrote the proposed guideline. Cheers!--Fuhghettaboutit 06:53, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

bobblewik standard
hello, what is bobblewik standard? i would like to restore User:AndyZ/Suggestions toWP:WIAFA as it contains lots of useful info, but dont know what this standard is that you refer to. chhers. Zzzzz 13:03, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

your edit summary at Poincare conjecture
I'm not sure what you mean by Perelman reworking his preprints. He has done no such "reworking" (check the arXiv, you don't believe me!), and especially not after any ICM-related announcements. Anyway, I think it's important not to overly emphasize the fact that the ICM bulletin seems to place the 3rd paper on a different status than the other two (although the statement by the Spanish mathematician saying "everyone understand the third paper" is really an endorsement); the main result of the 3rd paper has already been reproven differently and published in Journal of the American Mathematical Socieety. The authors of that article (and a lot of other people, really) do not think there is anything wrong with Perelman's 3rd paper. --C S (Talk) 12:32, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I've replied on my talk page. --C S (Talk) 14:00, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Move request for emperors of the Palaeologus/Palaiologos dynasty
Hi. There is a move request for several Palaeologus/Palaiologos dynasty emperors at Talk:List of Byzantine Emperors. I tought you might be interested in.--Panairjdde 22:24, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Deletion review for Template:Good article
hi, i hope you can take part in the deletion review debate for the above metadata template that puts a star on the article's mainpage (you voted in the original deletion debate). the vote is here Deletion review/Log/2006 July 8 (scroll down for Template:Good Article section). thanks. Zzzzz 00:43, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

User catagorism
I've been fixing the redricts for the old user catagorise that've been replaced by newer catagories. You made a comment on this Wikipedians/Belgium I didn't know what to do with your comment so I'am just going to move to talk page for now.--Scott3 03:57, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

My talk page
Please do not post to my talk page again. I would prefer if you would confine your comments to the article or project talk pages instead. Many thanks, SlimVirgin (talk) 13:14, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Gay, lesbian...
Thank you for adding the ISBN. Wjhonson 19:25, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Edit of List of gay, lesbian or bisexual people/P-T
Hi. I'm not sure why you removed my addition of Keith Ridgway to this list. Can you clarify? Thanks. --Wastekiller 10:02, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Med Cab Case
Hi there Francis, I'm the mediator who has taken your case. I've had a look and the matter seems quite straight forward, so I think that it would be best for now to talk on yours and SlimVirgin's talk pages. We will hopefully sort this out soon. Yours, Th ε Halo Θ 11:24, 17 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Just letting you know that all discussions can be found here


 * Hello again. As you can see on the case discussion page, SlimVirgin does not wish to take part, and, as such, the case is now closed.
 * I think, as I said to SlimVirgin, that her edit summery was confusing, and, as such, made the whole situation a lot worse. She has posted that the comment can be put back up, but that she doen't think it belongs there as it is no longer relevent. As far as the talk page issue is concerned, After she removed his edits, you responded in, what might be considered, a rash way, by leaving you an offical looking warning for a misunderstanding. Then SlimVirgin responded rashly by telling you not to post on her talk page. Again, this was a simple communication brake down.
 * I wish you well in the future.
 * Yours, Th ε Halo Θ 12:14, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

ICRC move/creation
Hello Francis Schonken, for the past few months I've been writing a new International Committee of the Red Cross article. I'm finally satisfied enough to propose its move into the main namespace, though it's far from perfect. That article is at User:Draeco/ICRC, and I've proposed a move here. I hope you can take the time to give your opinion, because I see you've worked in the area - Draeco 18:00, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

List guideline
I've been reorganizing the discussions on this guideline's talk page, and noticed that a section from a proposal page you were involved with Lists in Wikipedia was pasted onto the active guideline even though the draft never reached concensus. I've moved it to the talk page for further discussion. --Polar Deluge 04:36, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Books notability
Please do not push this issue beyond existing concensus. Notability conventions on books emphatically do not belong as a rider in a Guideline on naming conventions for books, especially when there is an active proposal for a complete books notability Guideline. Adding a link to this pseudo-Guideline in the Notability Guidelines sidebar template isn't very appropriate either (FYI, it already lists the proposal). &mdash; SMcCandlish &#91;talk&#93; &#91;contrib&#93; ツ 14:44, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
 * The consensus on this guideline *including notes on notability* was prior to notability (books) being started. There is no consensus on that new proposal. Until there is, Naming conventions (books) is the *active* guideline on book notability. --Francis Schonken 15:41, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikimedia Conferentie in Nederland!
Beste,

Er wordt een Wikimedia Conferentie in Nederland georganiseerd. Er is al een voorlopig programma met lezingen van Jimbo Wales, Kurt Jansson en vele anderen, workshops en discussies over bijvoorbeeld de Easy Timeline, pywikipediabot en de toekomst van wiki[p/m]edia. Het zou me leuk lijken als je ook kon komen! Meld je snel aan op de inschrijfpagina, want we moeten snel weten hoeveel mensen er ongeveer komen! Stuur deze uitnodiging vooral ook door naar anderen die geïnteresseerd zouden kunnen zijn door { {subst:user:Effeietsanders/wcn} }~ op hun overlegpagina's te plakken. Hoe meer zielen, hoe meer vreugd. Met vriendelijke groet, effeietsanders 22:42, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

your opinion sought at WP:LIST talk
I've made a proposal here, and am seeking feedback. Best,--Anthony Krupp 14:10, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Wiki_talk:Verifiability
Thanks for the catch on that, I came to the page through the search engine and didn't realize I was on the talk page when I saw the custom 'this is a policy' header... -- nae'blis 02:25, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

3RR warning
Thanks for your heads up there. I see why there's been editor confusion as the article was previously full of content that wasn't directly related to the term "islamofascism".... I've cleaned it up quite a bit. Hopefully the article can be properly kept on track. Thanks. (→ Netscott ) 17:07, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Christopher Gillis
Was gay. He is listed as gay, he is in the category LGBT, he died of AIDS. Wjhonson 07:26, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Feedback requested
At Wikipedia_talk:List_guideline Thanks! --Anthony Krupp 00:02, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Image:Superpowerbldg.jpg
I believe that the copyright problems on this image have been resolved; after e-mail communication, Andreas Heldal-Lund, the owner of Operation Clambake, has released these images under the GFDL. See. Ral315 (talk) 06:21, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Lebanon Temp Page
Hello Francis Schonken! Thanks for helping in the Lebanon-Temp page issue. I see that you have moved content to the Talk: namespace. As you specifically stated, you do not participate in the dispute; however, I think I have become slightly confused about who created the Talk: and /Temp namespace copying. I have posted my confusion here and wanted to check with you to verify that this is what actually happened. The forked content seems to be copied to the Talk: space, as per policy; in which case it does not need deletion... Thanks, Nimur 15:11, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

WP:3RR
Regarding this. Aren't you doing exactly the same thing? Should I place that same template here?


 * First revert 15:10, August 8, 2006
 * Second revert 07:12, August 15, 2006
 * Third revert 07:13, August 16, 2006

≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 10:50, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

3RR on List guideline
Look Francis, I don't know what is wrong with you, but cut it the hell out!!! You put this nonsensical notice on my talk page, after I fixed your blanking (which is arguably vandalism) ONE TIME. This after you have blanked the same content twice in the last 24 hours.
 * Please refrain from undoing other people's edits repeatedly, as you are doing in List guideline. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing Wikipedia under the three-revert rule, which states that nobody may revert a single page more than three times in 24 hours. (Note: this also means editing the page to reinsert an old edit. If the effect of your actions is to revert back, it qualifies as a revert.) Thank you. --Francis Schonken 10:20, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I think you will probably stay under 3RR, since you know the rule, and your perverse desire to disrupt any discussion about use of criteria in lists has been around for many months. Your pattern has been to wait a couple days between each such destructive blanking, and hope that no one notices. In fact, having removed stuff from my watchlist, you indeed managed to get things destroyed for a few days at a time. Especially your repeated past blanking, redirection, and substitution of wholly not-in-same-spirit contents, in the WP:LISTV essay, many times in the past.

I am pretty sure that somehow in your mind you have convinced yourself that lists are better if anyone includes anything that subjectively "seems to fit" the list title. And indeed, there really are a fair number of lists where the title alone is probably "good enough". Nobel Laureates, for example, are apparently a direct and verifiable yes/no question... though I sneakily pick that apparently obvious example because the Economics prize is not a Nobel proper, but a "commemorative in honor of Alfred Nobel", and hence whether winners should be called Nobel Laureates requires list criteria. You are welcome to be misguided about this question... but when you actively disrupt many pages, and the work of many editors, to push your weirdly misguided ideas contrary to WP:CONSENSUS, WP:AGF, and so on... it becomes a big problem. LotLE × talk 15:14, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Gnossienne
I don't understand why you reverted my changes. As I stated in Erik Satie's talk page, the paragraph doesn't belong to the Gnossienne article. I don't feel confortable with editing Erik Satie since I'm not a native speaker of English and I wouldn't be able to reword it well enough. Anyway, the info is pasted to the Talk page, so it's not going anywhere. I'm going to remove the irrelevant information from Gnossienne, I hope you don't mind. --Missmarple 15:37, 22 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm not trying to get in an argument, but I really don't see how the paragraph is relevant to the article. It is about how he gave names to the compositions, and that info belongs to the article on him, not on Gnossienne... don't you think so, too? --Missmarple 15:48, 22 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't feel strongly enough about this issue to continue the discussion. I thought it was clear that the info on the article wasn't relevant, but I guess it isn't so. Nevermind and have a great day, --Missmarple 15:55, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Salome
Dear Francis,

I notice that you reverted my note on the 'Dance of the seven veils' on the Salome page as 'far-fetched' and unsupported by evidence. I do appreciate your concern to keep Wikipedia pure ; degradation of the encyclopedia to a forum for fantasies and wild guesses is a danger that should be continuously countered. I fully agree that the story about Salome's dance of the seven veils may very well be a legendary conjecture, but isn't Homer's Odyssey as well ? In my opinion, a link to this item on the Salome page is a must, because of a number of reasons: (1) the cultural significance: In the playing notes added to his original french version of salome, Oscar Wilde refers to the seven veils. Since then the veil-dance has received enormous attention throughout artistic circles; (2) The mystic/ritual status of the seven-veils dance is undisputed and even discussed before Wilde. Perhaps you wanted citations here ? (3) Their is an item 'Dance of the seven veils' in Wikipedia already; perhaps you must now remove this whole page as well ?

I suggest to do the following, if you agree. Either: simply add a link to the veil-dance page on Wikipedia in the 'further links' section or: reinstall my original note under a subheading 'Curiosa'

I do not wish to make new additions on the risk of you reverting it within an hour. So an agreement on this issue would be welcome and informative for Wikipedia users.

Thanks a lot,

User:KoosJaspers

Merging of Avoid trivia sections in articles
I removed the merge notice again, since I'm not of the opinion that a guideline should be merged to an essay. I think the better idea is to discuss adopting Trivia as a guideline or discuss expanding Avoid trivia sections in articles with information from Trivia. The two are somewhat incompatible, since Avoid trivia sections in articles doesn't attempt to define trivia, but rather looks at dealing with sections of isolated facts regarding the topic. Hope that clarifies my actions. Steve block Talk 13:38, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Naming conventions (Arabic)
The Naming conventions (Arabic) page consists of the main information located in Manual of Style (Arabic), so why did you change the redirect. I'm trying to reduce the proliferation of rebundant guidelines pages especially if they could be included in one page. 17:47, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
 * You didn't answer to my question. So why you you want to create a one paragraph guideline while it could be centralised in one page? And why is the MOS page messy, do you have any objection we could fix? CG 12:47, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Flawed rationale for deletion at Lousewies van der Laan
You deleted the private life section justified by referring to the guideline Avoid trivia sections in articles that states "This guideline does not suggest deletion of trivia sections". Andries 13:09, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Francis, thanks for the explanation, but I consider your interpretation of the guideline erroneous and unconvincing. Andries 13:51, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Œ
Didn't know there was a problem with the œ. I'll not be doing it again. Thanks! Nyttend 21:10, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

By the way, what is the problem with "œcumenical"? Oxford spells it either "ecumenical" or "œcumenical", not listing "oecumenical". Sorry if you can't use that link; it's to the online Oxford, to which my college has a subscription. Nyttend 21:31, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Help with a misguided user insistent on restructuring?
Hi, Francis. I hope you can help out -- over at Scientology there's a user,, who came by, announced that the article was in a terrible state and that he'd be fixing it up, and that he didn't even need to discuss or get consensus for the changes he planned to make -- obviously, any editors who were already there and already had experience with the article were responsible for its awful state, so what could they possibly have to say of any value?

Anyways, the most major change he had in mind was to restructure the article. As you and I and others have discussed at Content forking, when an article is "summary-style" then for each spun-out sub-topic article it links to, it should contain an NPOV summary of that sub-topic. This, I would have thought before Thumperward, would be obvious. And Scientology is very clearly a "summary-style" article -- in fact, its main purpose is to summarize two articles which are themselves summary-style, Scientology beliefs and practices and Church of Scientology.

Thumperward, however, seems to think that the way the article should be structured is to present Scientology's POV, and only Scientology's POV, for the first half of the article -- and then, and only then, to present all opposing POVs in a separated "Controversy and criticism" section. So, rather than getting an NPOV summary of the subject of Scientology auditing under Scientology -- you get, under that header, a description of auditing and how Scientology claims that "improved IQ, improved ability to communicate, enhanced memory, alleviated dyslexia and attention deficit problems, and improved relaxation" result from auditing. The fact that the practice is highly controversial because numerous former Scientologists have testified in court that the confidential information revealed in the process is regularly used for blackmail and harassment is not under the same header -- it's not even in the same half of the article! How can that be an NPOV summary? And yet it's the structure that Thumperward seems to be insisting on and he does not seem to want to listen to anything different. I can't seem to get anywhere and I'm afraid I'm physically under the weather at this point and can only do limited amounts on Wikipedia each day. Can you maybe try to talk to Thumperward and explain why the structure he wants just isn't right for this article? -- Antaeus Feldspar 04:35, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Hebrew
I still dont understand the above warning. Perhaps other casual Wikipedia users who are less familiar with the programming for namespaces also wont understand it. Please explain what the difficulty is in simple language. This is the first time I'm working with a project page, and I'm just not familiar with all the issues yet. --Haldrik 09:43, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I post this elsewhere, but would appreciate your suggestions on the problem.
 * "It is not generally allowed to put links to 'wikipedia:' (= project) namespace pages in wikipedia ARTICLES."

The above policy seems problematic. How can (spontaneous) Wikipedia editors use a standard format if they are unaware of it? I myself have been editing Wikipedia for about a year now and was unawre the Naming convention even existed. I came across it by accident while Googling the globe a few days ago about another topic. Achieving a standard for Hebrew transcription is notoriously difficult. It requires the consensus and participation (and awareness) of all editors who refer to Hebrew. --Haldrik 11:16, 27 August 2006 (UT

Arabic
Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Arabic), and send it to anyone you think is interested in Arabic. thanks. Cuñado  -  Talk  01:43, 29 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for adding that unicode stuff. I never quite understood it till now. ~Cunado

Salome, again
Dear Francis Your blunt and prompt removal of my revised (much more prudent) notes on 'the dance of the seven veils' and your comments, clearly demonstrate that you have little personal affinity with psychosociological aspects of historic persons. Only the cold historic facts seem to interest you. You decided to impose this narrow view on the whole wikipedia community, thus disregarding the exact reasons for Salome's distinct role in art, theatre and music ... Here, not the bare historic facts do count, but the legends and allegations. I give up. With you on my back, further attempts to serve readerhip with this issue appear futile. Koos Jaspers n.jaspers@erasmusmc.nl

old naming convention idea is beeing discussed again in a new place
see Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_%28Finnish%29 Stefan 13:18, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

ISBNs

 * Thank you for the information, we will scan for any other occurances of this problem. Rich Farmbrough 15:34 30  August 2006 (GMT).
 * Both and also identify any candidates which would have been a problem. Rich Farmbrough 18:40 30 August 2006 (GMT).
 * There were a total of 10 articles where this could have been a problem, all have been dealt with. Rich Farmbrough 09:32 31 August 2006 (GMT).
 * I did not say that the algorithm would be the same as mediawikis. ISBN XXX is valid under the mediawiki software, but completely invalid in real life as is ISBN 12312-1231-23131-3-4-34-1-3-1432. Rich Farmbrough 11:14 31 August 2006 (GMT).
 * Incidentally calling someone a liar, or incompetant, even prefaced with the word "apparently" is both a breach of WP:NPA and not a good way to make co-operative progress. Rich Farmbrough 11:20 31 August 2006 (GMT).


 * I understand what you want, and it is the same as what I want, really. That the bot make no mistakes.  That is not the same as what you are asking for.  However the bot run is finished to all intents and purposes, so I now need to address any problem edits after the fact.  And I welcome anyone who tells me of a problem edit, because I can then fix it, and possibly a class of problems.  And I accept that some people will be angry/annoyed, and that some of the edits will turn out to be correct, and some turn out to be wrong, and in one case the publisher had put an invalid number on the book.  But really I have a few problems with a lot of your comments.  If you can't be cheerful and freindly, can't you simply restrict yourself to stating the apparent problem, and requesting feedback, without resorting to commands, threats or insults?  E.G. "Rich - this edit is wrong, I think your bot is counting the dash as part of the ISBN. Can you let me know what you do to fix it?" It's quicker for both parties, and less stress probably.  Rich Farmbrough 12:02 31  August 2006 (GMT).

Please help removing insults
I thought "Apparently, SmackBot evaluates the viability of an ISBN differently from how the automatic ISBN function does (the ISBN function has no trouble to only include the ISBN number, excluding other numbers that follow on the same line)."more than friendly enough. That was my first comment. I had no clue this was linked with hyphens. I'm still not sure it is *exclusively* linked with hyphens.
 * Fair enough. At the time neither was I, I thought it was hyphens followed digits. What I did was
 * Fix the article in question.
 * Scanned for similar articles (finding ten, nine more and the original).
 * Changed the robot rules to deal with the situation correctly.
 * Fixed the articles and or ran the process against those articles. (Belt and braces approach.)
 * Rich Farmbrough 13:37 31 August 2006 (GMT).

It would be impolite if I would try to nail down the technical cause of a problem, for a bot for which I have no insight in its internal workings. I can only indicate the problem.
 * That's fine. Rich Farmbrough 13:37 31 August 2006 (GMT).

Apparently you had nailed the technical problem (which I derived from your consequent manual edit of Socrate)), but had not provided a solution. Sorry, if I raised my voice as a consequence of your lack of appropriate reaction (I was correct in assuming you were only trying to sooth temporarily, in order not to have to improve the bot).
 * See above.Rich Farmbrough 13:37 31 August 2006 (GMT).

But insults don't help, you're right there. For that reason I moved Invalid isbn to Please check ISBN. I'm sure you can get a bot or semibot change every occurence of {{Invalid isbn| to {{Please check ISBN| in a swiff ( there are less than 50 pages transcluding that template currently – oops, wrong count, there are over 1000). Then you prevent that an error of the bot turns into an insult of the person who added a "false positive" ISBN. Thanks. --Francis Schonken 12:52, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, OK, I can live with that if it makes you happy. Rich Farmbrough 13:37 31  August 2006 (GMT).

Islamic Fascism page
The Islamic Fascism page and several others were the subject of lengthy and heated debates, numerous attempts to delete the pages, POV wars, numerous attempts to rename the pages, etc. These discussions are therefore on a number of pages going back over a year. Most recently there has been a discussion on Islamofascism, although even that page has had several names. Almost all of the text on the Islamic Fascism page that was recently revived already had been moved to either Islamofascism or Neofascism and religion. The very outdated and redundant page was simply switched back on by deleting the redirect. Therefore almost the entire page was redundant. There was no serious attempt to engage editors in a discussion on either Islamofascism or Neofascism and religion. There was no substantative discussion over several weeks--I waited to see if there was a serious dicussion. There was not. POV page forks are a violation of Wiki policy. Any editor can do what I did. I have no intention of trying to suppress claims about Islam and fascism, and in fact have written scholarly articles where I argue some forms of militant Islam are indeed forms of theocratic or clerical fascism. At the same time, I was just quoted in Newsweek saying that the term "Islamofascism" creeps me out. Over time, the two pages Islamofascism (on the term) and Neofascism and religion (on the contemporary debate), along with a few pages that mention the Grand Mufti and the Phalangists, have been the best way to keep this topic from turning, once again, into an endless POV war. If people want to have this discussion, that's fine, but it is not a useful procedure to launch a discussion on an inactive redirect page. Please have the discussion over at Islamofascism by simply clicking here.

A simple redirect message fails to consider the fact that the page in question was redirected and the entire text at the time of the redirect distributed to two other pages. If you want to propose a new page, or a page rename, or whatever, then by all means do that. But attempting a simple merger on a page that is a redirect and from which all the text had already been moved to other pages is not the proper procedure. --Cberlet 19:04, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Superscripts
I had a look at the section you pointed out, and this seems to refer to linking dates. Although not as elegant as using a superscript, your revert on non-linked dates does seem to be internally consistent.

I couldn't see any mention of non-dates - eg he was 1st to arrive versus he was 1st to arrive. Do you have a reference for not using a superscript, or did I miss it? I might bring it up on the discussion of the MOS if it is not formally agreed, as these days typical computers have no problems with superscripts which seem to me more correct. Stephen B Streater 11:52, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Common names guideline
I suspect you have the page on your watchlist and may already be aware but I would like to personally seek your input on a propose revision to the Common name guideline. There has been some intepretation of the guideline as being the bench mark standard by which all article titles should adhere to, which has caused quite a bit of conflict in requested page moves like Talk:Seattle, Washington, Talk:Popsicle, and Talk:Fixed-wing aircraft among others. I do believe that the root of these conflicts is in gray areas of the guideline that can be wedged to make room for such an interpretation. Rather then watch these battles wage on requested move pages and convention talk, I think getting to the base of the matter will be more beneficial as a whole. As an editor who worked extensively on the guideline, I think you can offer valuable insight into the matter. Again, I would like to personally invite you to the discussion. Thank you. Agne 20:34, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Template query
Hi there! I realize that the categorization by race etc is a guideline - however it doesn't really seem to be related to notability, or am I missing something?  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  00:33, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, ok. I'm not sure if I agree entirely, but there certainly is no harm in keeping that page listed.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  15:35, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Your rv at Wikipedia_subcat_guideline
You reverted a string of edits by me and Radiant! at Template:Wikipedia_subcat_guideline. Each edit in that string was a compromise, and few were reverts to earlier material. I find it derogatory that you accuse me of violating policy, while leave no note with Radiant. I was not violating policy and was not being uncivil. Lets continue this discussion on the discussion page. Fresheneesz 01:24, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

NPOV/FAQ
Hm, that's a good point. And a merge seems rather unwieldy. Would you object to renaming it NPOV/Corollaries?  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  13:30, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

WP:STACK
Another good point. I think the best option would be to merge WP:STACK, WP:SPAM and that section from WP:SOCK (although the latter seems to be mostly about recruiting voters from outside WP, as opposed to other editors).  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  15:31, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Lists in Wikipedia
Wow, we seem to run into each other a lot :) I noticed your past involvement in this page; could you please enlighten me as to its legitimacy or lack thereof? Thanks.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  17:13, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree with your suggestion. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Lists in Wikipedia.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  11:34, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Category:Wikipedia how-to
I disagree with you on that count. A guideline states how (and why) people think something should be done, and should generally be followed; it is actionable and consensual. A how-to, on the other hand, merely lists possible ways of doing something, and it doesn't matter if people want to do things in some other way; it is instructive. I think the difference is important, and there's enough confusion about guidelines as it is :) I'd like to hear your opinion on this.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  11:05, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I can hardly call this novel, it has been on WP:POL for at least half a year (ironically, that's the very place you say I should discuss it). I agree that the difference between a style guideline and a content guideline is somewhat arbitrary, but the difference between a guideline and a how-to is not: the distinction (to me) is between things that we expect users to follow for the purpose of the Wiki, and the things users could look at for help.
 * Yes, I realize this sounds like wonkery. The problem is, however, that many novice 'pedians engage in some amount of wonking because they expect Wikipedia to have clear rules (which, unlike most communities, it doesn't). There is always some sentiment that some action cannot be undertaken based upon a guideline (or upon an essay), only on 'official policy'. The obvious remedy for this is education of said n00bs. Dilution of the term "guideline", by using it to refer to different things, is not helpful to them.
 * (A style guideline is a guideline related to style. A deletion guideline is a guideline related to deletion. An editing guideline would tell us how we want people to write, an editing how-to would tell us what the buttons do. That's a difference; a how-to guideline is not a guideline related to how-to; the terms are either redundant or in contradiction).
 *  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  19:28, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't think we're quite on the same wavelength here. I rather like the division of policy / guideline / essay and am not proposing a fourth level. I am simply saying that a how-to page fits better with essays than with guidelines (since how-tos are neither actionable nor necessarily consensual). There might be individual how-to pages for which this does not apply, but the majority of CAT:H does not at all fit with CAT:G.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  16:41, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Take care
The term rvv in an edit summary means "revert vandalism" and is wholly inappropriate in the case of a content dispute between eidtors acting in good faith. That and issuing standard vandalism warnings to long-standing editors is generally considered a breach of civility. Cberlet makes a good point: there are two separate concepts in operation, one being overtures to Islamic countries by fascist governments pre 1945, and the other being the recent concept of islamofascism (a neologism I hate, but which seems to be widely used). I find this, for now, a reasonably persuasive argument. Please join the discussion on the admin noticeboard rather than simply reverting. Thanks, Guy 10:22, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I've just got to comment
I find it extremely amusing that any edit I make is viewed as a personal edit toward a personal point of view. I've just got to comment because the Scientology articles were the last thing on my mind when I edited NPOV toward making the first 3 paragraphs of the policy easier to understand. It just amuses me greatly that so many editors consider any edit I make to somehow, in some obscure and undefined way, to further the more positive, more widely published POV which I view Scientology to be popularly known for. And I thank you for letting me know how my edits are viewed. BTW, here's an article I recently created Bridge Base Inc. Have a good one. Terryeo 15:39, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

WP:BK guideline
Hi. You can't just arrive on a proposal page and put up a failed proposal notice because you feel like it. There are still active discussions on the talk page and certainly more than enough material there to show that your assessment is not representative of the overall opinion. If you want to shut down the proposal then discuss it first on the talk page. I have reverted that edit and the one you made on the IncGuide template. Pascal.Tesson 07:41, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

"Joe Cardinal Sixpack"
Care to come back to discussing []? Lima 18:25, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Discussion of Æ in Ligature page
Hi,

You recently reverted my discussion of the ligature Æ from the page Naming conventions (standard letters with diacritics). Your gave your reason on the history as "a "ligature" is not a "letter with a diacritic", if you've got agreement on a ligature, it's still not on its place in this guideline proposal: start another one, or include in WP:UE, etc."

I see your point, but the reason I raised the issue here was that this page recommended against the use of ligatures in the section "Other types of diacritics and non-standard letters", which was apparently inconsistent with the Wikipedia page on Proper names.

I think we ought to strive for consistency in such guidelines, and invite you to join the discussion on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (standard letters with diacritics).

--SteveMcCluskey 07:11, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Verifiability & self-published sources
I saw your comments on the current problems with self-published sources under the verifiability policy, and must say I completely agree with you. The current situation is a mess, and any changes to the section seem to be rejected out-of-hand as "lacking consensus", no matter how many people on the talk page have apparently agreed with them. Whereas I only see a consensus of a couple of editors in favour of the status quo. If you wanted to start some kind of project to get changes accepted, I'd support them. I have a few notes and some proposals at User:JulesH/Self Published Sources that I worked on with User:JoeMystical a couple of weeks ago. I'd love to hear your opinions. JulesH 08:04, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

About bullshit
I don't know how to call such a phrase as "English-speakers in other parts of the world (especially those for whom English is a second language) often find these symbols incomprehensible and unpronounceable" instead of bullshit. The term may be too strong. It may be only because I'm a foreigner myself and my English is not smooth enough to translate the French word "connerie". But nevermind. I am writing a very long explanation in the discussion page, but I want to post it only when it's finished (and I rarely finish what I begin). So, we'll keep for this time this starnge sentence with the affirmation that native English speakers understand better the ß, þ, ə, and so on than the Spaniards, the French, the Russians, and so on, and that's the reason we must avoid those letters on the English Wikipedia... (PS: don't reply in my discussion page, you can reply here if you want to.) Švitrigaila 16:23, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Verifiability, not truth
Hi Francis. Your edit at WP:V stated, "See talk page: I gave an answer, Terryeo didn't like it and started a new section". Yes, I started a new section, but where may I read the answer you gave to me about that? Terryeo 16:50, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for responding to my question. Perhaps you'll engage in discussion on the WP:V talk page about the issue, since your viewpoint about it does not completely co-incide with several other edtiors. In any event, my motivation for raising the issue is the jarring "verifiability, not truth", which some editors agree, isn't smoothly written. Terryeo 23:44, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Francis, before you AGAIN revert without discussion please review the concensus of editor expression at, as it has been an ongoing discussion for several days. Your reversion without discussion is exactly the kind of thing you recently brought an RfC about, and you are doing it on a Policy whose discussion you have even entered into. Terryeo 15:40, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Replies on 3RR
You said: "Please refrain from undoing other people's edits repeatedly, as you are doing in Manual of Style (dates and numbers). If you continue, you may be blocked from editing Wikipedia under the three-revert rule, which states that nobody may revert a single page more than three times in 24 hours. (Note: this also means editing the page to reinsert an old edit. If the effect of your actions is to revert back, it qualifies as a revert.) Thank you. --Francis Schonken 09:17, 12 August 2006 (UTC)"

I don't know if I understand correctly, but it seems to be the reverse. I posted an update. Others reverted all the changes without even trying to improve or examine.

What's more, this recent update is not just the same as the old one. It has spent me days to modify the update according to some comments (eg super-section, bullets, and spacing in unit measurement). After that, I posted this update. However people just don't examine it before they make a revert.

And no one seems to care about the "revert policy" - not to revert people's contributions even if it has problems. What rule says this is justified for just a revert?--Wai Wai (talk) 10:22, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Just a point
I would have said this on the Talk page, but I've tried hard to discuss things there with little reply. Surely you aren't suggesting that changes like "we're" to "we are" or the addition of hyphens and similar manual-of-style edits should be negotiated through prior agreement on the Talk page. If you went through my edits one by one, you'd find that most were of the above sort. By reverting, you may clear some changes you don't like but also some that were unexceptionable; and you may even put back some mistakes. In one case I changed "building" to "build", which was a grammar correction. Someone saw the change and altered it to "establish", which they thought was a better word. For me that's a perfect example of how edits can collaborate to a better version. The reverting method, as it applies to that example, means that we are now back with a grammatical mistake on the page. I will leave it at that.qp10qp 12:19, 19 September 2006 (UTC)