User talk:Headbomb/Archives/2017/March

Is #17 OK, can I do it?
Can I start removing duplicated categories? -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:59, 1 March 2017 (UTC)


 * While technically cosmetic in many cases, I can't see anyone raising serious objections to removing duplicated categories, since those really shouldn't be there.


 * How many of those are around? If there's more than a handful, a BRFA might be appropriate. Both so the community has a chance to object, and shield you from hounding. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 10:56, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

There are very few every day. I fix them manually and there are also cases of conflicting sortkeys that need manual attention. Menobot and BG19bot are fixing them via AWB too. Recall that Menobot actually provided diffs for this before the approval. This has been in CHECKWIKI for years. I guess nowadays I have not only to help there but ask you and other if your OK with my edits. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:43, 1 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Well, like I said, I can't really see the issue with #17, especially with clear edit summaries. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 11:46, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I try to have clear edit summaries. There are so many people that do not use the edit summary at all thought. Just saying. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:53, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Blossom Damania
Hi again-

The page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blossom_Damania ) does link to several websites- see the categories box at the bottom of the page. All of those link to this page. Here are links that link to this page:

Categories: Living people American virologists American women scientists Mount Holyoke College alumni University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill faculty University of Pennsylvania alumni

So this page is not an Orphan.

Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vwxy1234 (talk • contribs) 16:19, 5 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Those are categories, not article links. Only three pages link to Blossom Damania, you can find those here. None of them are articles. See WP:ORPHAN for more information. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 16:21, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

DYK for Bouncing ball
Mifter (talk) 12:02, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

Template:Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Good day Headbomb, would you be willing to comment on the merge proposal for template Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers? --Jax 0677 (talk) 23:13, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

tau edit reverts
Content moved to "talk:tau (particle)." Nicole Sharp (talk) 22:01, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Staff are vs. staff is
English grammar, is horribly inconsistent my friend... See this Cambridge dictionary for examples: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/staff — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hello there andy (talk • contribs) 05:05, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Magioladitis and fait accompli
I do think it is unfortunate that Magioladitis is following the Betacommand / Rich Farmbrough model, given that it is clear where that always ends up. But I also wanted to point out that the scope of problematic editing at the moment is more than just the "Template:" issue. There are also edits such as. Really, many more of the edits should be reversed. I had already reversed that one, but Magioladitis didn't pay enough attention to even notice - he just ran the bot job again on his main account, making the edit again. So I "reverted" it and left a comment so that it was clear he should notice that it had been undone. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 17:55, 17 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Again, there is zero reason to undo edits like . Categories are to be placed one per line, per longstanding Wikipedia conventions. Again, if the edit would not have been problematic if bundled up with a substantial changes, there is zero reason to revert such an edit if done on its own. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 18:00, 17 March 2017 (UTC)


 * There is a good reason to undo such edits, in my opinion. (And I have been editing long enough that I don't need the "again", as if I was unaware of the usual policies). If an edit should not have been made in the first place, I feel it it should be undone, in principle. Otherwise there is a first-mover advantage in favor of the inappropriate edits. This first-mover advantage has occasionally been exploited by certain editors via semi-automated edits and unapproved bot jobs, and it is what Fait accompli and the underlying arbcom principle argue quoted there argue against.


 * It is true that the category example seems innocuous - but the problem is that unapproved bot jobs can include any number of personal preferences, such as the now-removed rearrangement of footnotes. The better principle, in my opinion, is to stop the editing pattern at the outset, rather than waiting until there is even more disruption before doing anything. Unfortunately, as shown by the arbcom cases for Betacommand, Rich Farmbrough, and Magioladitis (among others), the community often tolerates or even enables the disruption until it is so severe that arbcom is able to step in. If more editors would simply revert the inappropriate edits, and avoid enabling the problematic editing, we might be able to prevent the next example of this from happening. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 18:41, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
 * There is a more important principle at work here: personal integrity. made a promise, in public, on his talk page, saying "I agree 'not to make changes that do not affect what the reader sees' as long as this discussion is active." The category-spacing edit linked above does not affect what the reader sees, as far as I know, and the ArbCom discussion is still active, as far as I know. If both of those things are true, it means that Magioladitis has broken his simple promise. It is possible that I have my facts wrong, in which case I will be happy to retract this serious accusation. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:48, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Which has no bearing on the fact that while those edit might not have been made because they were purely cosmetic [I am almost sure removing Template: would have community consensus to be done by a bot were such a bot proposed, however], those edits certainly had no reasons to be reverted since reverting essentially means cosmetically de-improving the page. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 20:52, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
 * It's not really an "improvement". The "Template:" syntax is not forbidden, as far as I can see. The page Help:Template only says "The prefix Template: before the template name is the default one and need not be included.". From my perspective, the use or non-use of "Template:" is just a harmless variation, and in general there is no reason to disturb the existing style in such cases. Historically, bot requests to fix these "not really a problem" issues have been denied. If anyone would like to genuinely improve the page -- perhaps by editing the prose or adding a new reference -- you can be sure I won't revert that. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 23:08, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

You wrote on Magioladitis' page "The point of WP:COSMETICBOT is that these edits are clutter, and annoying because they'll pop into watchlists, page histories, etc... But reverting a pointless edit is EQUALLY TRIVIAL and again clutter history pages, watchlists, etc.". That is true, but I see a bigger issue in "fait accompli". By allowing the inappropriate edits to stand, we would just validate the inappropriate edits which should not have been made. The challenge with editors such as Betacommand (and others) is that they did not care if the edits were appropriate - as long as they could make the edit, that was all that mattered. The most reasonable response to this is to revert the edits, consistently. This is the same way that we would handle vandalism, for example. A practice that says "Please don't make these edits, but if you do nobody will undo them" just encourages the false "fixing a problem" mindset that underlies these edits. So my position is that, if someone makes an inappropriate edit, we should not feel bad about restoring the status quo. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 01:31, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps part of the difference in our perspectives is that I do not think COSMETICBOT means "these edits are improvements, but they clog watchlists, so don't make them". I think it means "these edits are entirely insignificant, and cannot be said to be actual improvements, and moreover they clog watchlists, so don't make them". The key point is not that cosmetic edits clog watchlists, it is that they are not "improvements" in the first place. If they were, we would not care if they clogged watchlists, just as we don't care it any other improvement clogs a watchlist. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 01:37, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
 * The policy is don't make them because they waste time and are annoying. Once they have been done, time has already been wasted. Reverting them further annoys and wastes everyone's time. If you have two versions, and that people would change A to B, but not change B to A, then going from A to B is at worse "neutral". No one would ever, on purpose, change  to , but there are many reasons to go from   to   (namely, reducing edit-window clutter, not letting bad practices propagate via copy-pasting, and preventing newbies from using bad wikicode as an example).
 * You might have a case for a revert on edits that pointlessly mess with equally valid variants (like  ←→ , or  ←→ , in the spirit of Manual_of_Style/Dates_and_numbers, but short of that reverting otherwise non-problematic edits is disruptive, and just as annoying as (if not moreso than) the original cosmetic edit and should not be done. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 02:05, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
 * My main area of disagreement is that I don't think that is "bad code". I think it seems like perfectly acceptable syntax, although not used very often. Of course, it might be used more often if certain editors didn't take it upon themselves to remove it unilaterally - the fact that they can do so shows that the syntax is used. But, like I said, I am more worried about the fact that these editors would otherwise have no reason to follow the rules, if all that happened when they broke the rule is that someone might say "you shouldn't do that". We handle vandalism by pointing out that it will be quickly reverted; we really should handle this kind of cosmetic edit in a similar way. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 11:50, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
 * No, we really shouldn't treat cosmetic edits such as changing  to   in the same way we handle someone replacing every second word in an article with "YOUR MOM IS FAT", especially when there is consensus that   is the superior version. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 12:14, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Non breaking spaces
Are you using a script in this edit right after mine? Some odd non breaking space additions. --Izno (talk) 12:55, 18 March 2017 (UTC)


 * That's very odd. Especially since I did this purely manually. I've got no idea how those nbsp got there. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 12:57, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Looking at your version, those spaces were indeed non-breaking. It must be WP:WikiEd or something similar that exposes them. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 13:02, 18 March 2017 (UTC)4
 * Yes, a script that (inadvertently? and) automatically exposes them popped into my head as the potential cause. --Izno (talk) 13:16, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Wikimedia Movement Strategy
Hi. I'd like to invite you to participate in the Wikimedia Movement Strategy discussions, about our wider movement's overall goals. The overall question is "What do we want to build or achieve together over the next 15 years?", but there are many discussion prompts on the talkpage to get you thinking. It's currently in the first stage, of broad discussion. We hope a wide variety of people will participate, from long-term admins to new editors, from external partners to readers. There are further details in the related metawiki pages (incl. FAQ, calendar and process, list of other simultaneous communities' discussions, etc). Thanks. :) Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 00:13, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

correct facts?
I'm doing a project for my school and I'm making sure these are the right facts are you some sort of doctor or somehing — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.83.53.16 (talk) 18:57, 24 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Not quite sure what you are asking of me. But, no I am not a doctor. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 18:59, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

ndash per WP:MoS
Thanks for defending my proposal. It is a perfect task for a bot. --ExperiencedArticleFixer (talk) 23:16, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

WP:RFBOT
Your recent bot approvals request has been Approved. Please see the request page for details. When the bot flag is set it will show up in [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=rights&user=&page=User%3A this log]. — xaosflux  Talk 23:41, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

Policy RFC links
Saw your note, mostly because it is new - but personally I think most sections that were driven by an rfc could be linked - makes it easier for people reading the policy or wanting to make changes to know why things are there without having to dig through tons of archives. Thoughts? — xaosflux  Talk 03:07, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm not really opposed to the temporary link, or even more thorough RFC referencing in general. But there's been quite a few of them over the years. I'm a fan of consistency in presentation, so I'm just worried/wondering what that would look like if we referenced every BOT-related RFC (and other influential discussions) on these issues. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 03:13, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

partial revert of my changes to Strange quark
You partially reverted some wording and made it inaccurate. You gave no reason for reverting which is recommended Wikipedia practice.

I wrote which you changed to The problem is that s is not the symbol (like Na is the symbol for sodium) but the actual name of the quark. Strange is essentially a nickname. I don't want to start an edit war but it seems to me that the official name should appear first even if most people don't know the official name. Facts are facts, even if not well known. This would be acceptable: That seems far less awkward than: If you have a better wording, please suggest.
 * The s quark or strange quark is ...
 * The strange quark or s quark (from its symbol, s) is ...
 * The s quark, commonly referred to as the strange quark, is ...
 * The strange quark (the common nickname for the s quark) is ...

---Vroo (talk) 03:56, 26 March 2017 (UTC)


 * The thing is, you are citing IUPAP for this. To them, s quark is the name and strange quark is 'only a mnemonic', yes. But that ignores the reality that for pretty much everyone else, strange quark the name of the thing (or at least one of them). It is not 'merely a nickname', or 'only a mnemonic'. The same applies for all the other quarks as well, btw.
 * And s definitely is the symbol for the strange quark. That the symbol also happens to be one of its name doesn't make a symbol cease to be a symbol. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 09:55, 26 March 2017 (UTC)


 * I'm citing the recognized international authority for physics, an authoritative primary source. You act as if IUPAP is a nobody. What is your source for your claim to know the "reality for pretty much everyone else"? It's as if you insisted that Pluto should be called a planet because that's what everyone calls it despite IAU designating it a dwarf planet. The Pluto article should (and does) talk about the fact that the designation was changed but it doesn't ignore actual reality. Nor do the articles about elements ignore the names assigned to them by IUPAC. The fact that many people know a false thing doesn't make it truth. Wikipedia should not confuse facts and opinions. My phrasings respect both. Yours ignores it. If you have a phrasing that respects facts and opinions, please suggest it.


 * ---Vroo (talk) 04:37, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
 * ,, , , , , etc... Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 08:31, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Talk:ZETA (fusion reactor)/GA1
Headbomb, just a reminder that you still have this GA review open and not yet finished. Many thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:33, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, I've been under a great deal of stress recently due to unforeseen events, and probably won't have time to review this anytime soon. Not quite sure what the procedure is at this point. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 14:58, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Headbomb, I'm sorry I missed your ping. I can put the nomination back into the reviewing pool with no loss of seniority. You could make a quick post on the review page saying that you have to bow out, after which I'll take care of the rest. Thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 20:59, 31 March 2017 (UTC)