User talk:JamesLucas/Archive 3

Removal of places of birth/death from firstsentence
Hello, I understand why you're doing this, but please don't remove birth/deathplaces from an article's first sentence without making sure they're already elsewhere in the article lead/body. At the Alexandra Rodríguez Long article, where I noticed you doing this, I moved the birthplace to an appropriate location. Their presence in an infobox is not enough, as infoboxes are supposed to summarise content that's already in the article. Graham 87 14:42, 8 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Hi, . I agree with the general principal that the infobox should summarize what's in the body, but I don't view a DOB parenthetical in the lead sentence to be intrinsically different from an infobox in that respect. Yes, it's in a paragraph, but it's not part of a natural English sentence, its appropriate contents are strictly limited, and it's not an ideal place for references. I'd argue that a place-of-birth/death is always better located in the infobox than it is in the DOB parenthetical, regardless of where else that information appears in the text.
 * The one big caveat to this point arises when the place-of-birth/death appears only in the DOB parenthetical and is supported by a reference appended to that parenthetical. In those cases I try to be mindful that my edit is not not divorcing the place-of-birth/death from the reference that supports it. In the instance of Alexandra Rodríguez Long, the place-of-birth/death had no obvious supporting reference, so my edit did no harm on this front.
 * While I remain convinced that my edit was a (small) step in the right direction, it's inarguable that your subsequent edit improved the article, and I certainly appreciate your contribution. —jameslucas ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄  17:00, 8 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your note. As a screen reader user, I often scroll right past tables containing biographical infoboxes because they usually don't contain any information beyond what's in the article. It's an admittedly minor point, and sometimes article categories also contain things that aren't in the article ... and they're far more inaccessible to the average reader. I for one would rather have a slightly misplaced birth/deathplace in the lead than none at all in the lead/body. Graham 87 03:50, 9 May 2019 (UTC)


 * It's always good to get feedback from Wikipedians accessing Wikipedia in ways. On that note, I hope footnote b didn't come across as absurdly lecture-y; I didn't realize were a screen reader user. I certainly agree that essential information shouldn't be hard to find (I almost never look at categories myself!), and I'll continue to weigh your suggestion as I progress in my NoAmCom project. —jameslucas  ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄  02:48, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

Rollback granted
Hi JamesLucas. After reviewing your request for "rollbacker", I have [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=rights&user=&page=User%3AJamesLucas enabled] rollback on your account. Keep in mind these things when going to use rollback: If you no longer want rollback, contact me and I'll remove it. Also, for some more information on how to use rollback, see Administrators' guide/Rollback (even though you're not an admin). I'm sure you'll do great with rollback, but feel free to leave me a message on my talk page if you run into troubles or have any questions about appropriate/inappropriate use of rollback. Thank you for helping to reduce vandalism. Happy editing! Lord Roem ~ (talk) 05:39, 1 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Getting rollback is no more momentous than installing Twinkle.
 * Rollback should be used to revert clear cases of vandalism only, and not good faith edits.
 * Rollback should never be used to edit war.
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 * Use common sense.

Stop redirecting rivers
Hi, I see you're redirecting the Brazilian rivers you recently nominated for AfD. Some of these rivers aren't notable, but some are, including ones you've already redirected (the Capitão Cardoso River has multiple references in Google Scholar, for instance) and creating a redirect isn't helping with the cleanup. Please stop redirecting any more of these based on your own determination of notability. SportingFlyer  T · C  03:51, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I've gone through and reverted any redirect where a simple WP:BEFORE search for Brazilian/Portuguese langauge books showed there may be more to write in the article. Some are perfectly valid redirects - Rio Da Dúvida was renamed Rio Roosevelt anyways. I'm not implying these should be kept, but notability is a property of the topic and not the current state of the article, so the ones I've reverted need a second look. If you want to keep going through the rest, we could set up a mini-project like I did recently with Arizona geography stubs here. SportingFlyer  T · C  04:17, 5 February 2020 (UTC)


 * (A), this is the greatest subject-line that will ever grace my talk page.
 * (B) Making this a more official project could be good if it brings more editors aboard, but I hope that doing so wouldn't add baggage to what can and should be a pretty quick process. I saw that you were judicious in your reversions—four out of the dozen or so redirects I implemented—but even that ratio strikes me as over cautious. Let me make a few arguments to this point:
 * Common sense tells us that the small scale and relative isolation of these rivers makes the odds of notability for any given one quite low. That these stubs are more than a decade old with virtually no improvement further suggests that there is no perceived notability. Neither of these points establishes a lack of notability, but they do mean that assuming notability until resources are exhausted is going to require a significant time investment since we'll be trying to prove a negative over and over.
 * For most of these rivers, a two-minute review of the algorithmically found references is likely to turn up as much relevant information as an hour-long review. A Portuguese speaker will be able to more fully review the scholarly sources, but between my familiarity with Spanish and the aid of Google Translate, I have reasonable confidence that the Google Scholar hits for these rivers fall into three categories: 1. subjects with the same name as the river—sometimes regions or tribes proximate to the river but sometimes entirely unrelated

2. the river in question being used to define a boundary ("such-and-such tribe's land extends west to Rio A")

3. a technical description of the river ("the source of Rio B is X meters above sea level" or "nearby topsoil is Y centimeters deep"), usually in the context of a hydrology report or a scientific study I don't think anyone is arguing that these establish notability, and in reviewing the four stubs that you restored I'm still failing to find anything of greater substance. I fully acknowledge that something could be out there but maintain that there's compelling reason to suspect that there isn't.
 * The amount of information being removed from Wikipedia with the creation of these redirects is virtually zero aside from a lat–long coördinate (sometimes of questionable accuracy). Even if the process I'm advocating removes one or two (or ten!) stubs that will someday be revived as proper articles, the setback is minimal or non-existent. I would argue that careful targeting of redirects (as I am doing) is in many cases actually more relevant information than a lat–long coördinate.
 * I believe this process to be worth doing because it will remove accidental duplicates, it will reduce confusion over rivers of the same name, and it will concentrate efforts on more significant articles and hopefully lead to their more rapid improvement. If formalizing this process brings more editors (particularly some Portuguese-speakers), that's good, but if it turns a five-minute process into a 50-minute process and takes editors away from other things, that's concerning. Nevertheless, please consider my mind open. —jameslucas ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄  16:38, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
 * We have very low standards for geographic notability per WP:GEOLAND since we're a gazetteer - some of these rivers are truly non-notable, but some of them do get written about, especially because larger rivers appear to be the way to mark the locations of where different tribes live. The data's not great, though, especially considering one of the rivers with an unsourced stub article is literally now the Roosevelt River. If you'd like, I'm happy to take a week and go through the ones which were at the AfD and see which I think should be kept and try to source them. SportingFlyer  T · C  03:14, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
 * It can only be good to have more minds on this, so if you have time to take a look, please do. I'll hold on the matter while you look, but ping me if I can answer any questions. (One note: I'm pretty sure there was at least one article that made it into the AfD via a copy/paste error, so if you see anything that's substantially more developed than others, assume we're in agreement to keep and don't waste time on it.) —jameslucas ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄  11:13, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Sounds good. I'll make a list based off of the AfD and will post a link once I've started - already updated my user page. Also glad you like the section title. SportingFlyer  T · C  11:36, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

It's been a couple weeks so I thought I'd check in,, and see how things were on your end. Any chance to look into this yet? Cheers —jameslucas ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄  23:35, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Sorry mate - super busy in real life at the moment. I intend to get to it soon. SportingFlyer  T · C  10:46, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

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Bill Haywood

 * The following comment was left on the talk page for 88.24.174.213. Subsequent comments were made on this page.

Sorry if I jumped to an incorrect conclusions. Your edit seemed fishy in a lot of ways, and I didn't give it due consideration until after I acted.

The content you removed was placed by a long-time editor,, and included a citation of a book that I could easily establish was real. Any of us can make errors or lean on the wrong source, so this doesn't mean his or hers version is right, but I wouldn't want to assume the converse either. Perhaps neither account is entirely correct or Haywood did say both things. Unfortunately, the cited page of Big Trouble, 151, is not available in the preview. I have found the paragraph you cited in a searchable text on Google Books, but at this point, I'm not in a position to gauge the sources or compare the narratives.

In case it's helpful. I'll also mention two issues with  that caused me to assume (too hastily, I admit) that it was not a genuine attempt to add to Wikipedia:
 * 1) Your edit did not make it clear that Bill Haywood's Book is the book's title (as opposed to a generic description) because you did not use proper formatting or provide the subtitle, "The Autobiography of William D. Haywood". The title, I hope you'll agree, is an odd one. (Also—and this is on me, not you—"International Publishers" sounded too generic to be real. Clearly I was wrong.)
 * 2) Your edit did not include an edit summary. A clear edit summary is always a courtesy to your fellow editors, but it's even more important when you're significantly reversing the meaning of a sentence or paragraph.

I'm not making any immediate edits to either 1899 Coeur d'Alene labor confrontation or Bill Haywood. I'd be interested in your take on Lukas's book, and maybe can comment too. Best —jameslucas ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄  23:57, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Throughout his life, before, during, and after the miners confrontation of 1899, Bill Haywood always emphasized the unity of the working class of all races against the capitalist class, and opposed any form of racial discrimination or oppression.

When the U.S. government unleashed black soldiers against the mostly white miners, the U.S. government told the black soldiers that the white worker is "the enemy" and responsible for the oppression of black people, and to be as aggressive as possible against him.

The black soldiers unleashed brutal violence on the white workers, as is revealed by the very book that Wikipedia originally quoted on this issue. The government arrested every single male in town, accused of sympathy for the workers, while the soldiers marauded and sexually harassed the workers' wives.

It may be very true that Haywood said the two things, but:

When Haywood talked about the violence of the "black soldiers", this was in no way a racist comment as is misrepresented by Wikipedia, he actually highlighted their race in order to criticize the fact that the U.S. government abused their black race in order to sow racial division. He noted that the only way to oppose the government's attacks is to oppose any form of racial division.

So there is no contradiction, and the way Wikipedia originally portrayed it is misleading, while the new edit reflects his position better. 88.24.174.213 (talk) 07:48, 26 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the clarification of your thinking. I follow your reasoning.
 * I hope you can understand how my reversal was motivated not by the accuracy of the statements made but by technical aspects of the edit. Again, I apologize for my haste. —jameslucas ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄  12:44, 26 March 2020 (UTC)


 * No problem. 88.24.174.213 (talk) 14:53, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Mister Roberts (1955 film)
Please note that everything you add to an article needs to be verified with reliable sources. You even state "obviously citations are good" in your edit summary. Please do not re-add unsourced content. Thanks.  Lugnuts  Fire Walk with Me 07:31, 3 May 2020 (UTC)


 * Yes, I said that citations are good. If we can add them, doing so will benefit the article. In the meantime, the table that created for Mister Roberts (1955 film) was clear and well formatted and all claims were supported either elsewhere in the article or by the articles and lists to which his or her table linked. He or she was not adding content likely to be disputed or challenged. He or she was not adding unsourced statements to the biography of a living person.
 * Just in case my standards had become atypically lax without my realizing it, I spot-checked similar tables for some other films. It looks like the quality is all over the place, even for Academy Award nominees:
 * Stephen Spielberg's Lincoln has an entire list dedicated to its accolades. Most—but not all—of those accolades have a citation.
 * The table of accolades for The Godfather has no citations of its own but the body text of the same section is richly annotated.
 * The article for Crash has a section devoted to accolades, but in this case both the table and the body text of that section are citation-less.
 * I'm convinced that 's edit was beneficial to Wikipedia by making relevant information more accessible. Removal of such content is not a matter of urgency, and doing so makes it harder for improvements to be made. I don't dispute the importance of WP:VERIFY, but adherence to it without consideration of WP:PRESERVE is not compatible with the collaborative project that is Wikipedia. —jameslucas ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄  14:41, 3 May 2020 (UTC)


 * I see that you I just restored on the grounds of WP:CITEIMDB. Two points I'd like to raise:
 * The reference I took from Writers Guild of America Award for Best Written Comedy. If you're concerned enough to delete that row of the table, you may want to XFD that article.
 * It took me all of 90 seconds to find an alternate source. I'm not opposed to you taking WP:CITEIMDB seriously (it's a reasonable position), but I think it would be more constructive for you to attempt to find an alternate citation—or even ask me to find a better one—rather than launching immediately into delete mode. As noted above, this is not contentious content requiring urgent removal.
 * —jameslucas ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄  17:45, 8 May 2020 (UTC)


 * Please see WP:BURDEN. - "The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material" and "Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source". You've been on WP for ages, and I'm surprised that you seemingly don't understand the basics with regards to sourcing. If it's not sourced, or poorly sourced, then I'll remove it.  Lugnuts  Fire Walk with Me 17:54, 8 May 2020 (UTC)


 * Yeah,, I've been here for a while, and I'm here to build Wikipedia. Clearly you are too, but I'm baffled by your instinct to immediately remove content that is non-controversial and probably accurate—especially when you know there are invested editors standing by. Some editors can't stand to see a red link, and I agree that too many in one place undermines confidence, but one red link in a sea of blue can be the seed for a new article. Analogously, a well placed Citation needed can precipitate additional sourcing and maybe even be a foothold for new editors. Imperfections are an open door and Citation needed is a request for help. A deletion isn't even a visible hole to anyone not watching diffs—it's a perfect nothing that invites no further action. —jameslucas ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄  02:57, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
 * And if you'd sourced it correctly in the first place, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Don't add unsourced content. That's pretty straight forward.  Lugnuts  Fire Walk with Me 07:49, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
 * As much as I can tell that you're not interested in having this conversation, I'm too curious to resist asking: Why haven't you gone to Writers Guild of America Award for Best Written Comedy and deleted all the nominees since those are sourced only by IMDb? —jameslucas ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄  15:31, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Your changes to Jeff Rense were not just light copy-edits
Specifically, you removed " Regular guests include conspiracy theorists, geopolitical analysts, and ufologists." It's a bit weird that your edit was blocked by pending changes. Doug Weller talk 10:28, 30 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Sorry for the confusion: I made a minor edit, wrote the edit summary, then made more changes. I was trying to "Show changes" (so I could recap what I had done) and accidentally hit "Submit changes" instead. I reviewed the edit, figured it wasn't quite worth a dummy edit for additional summary, and moved on. Regarding the pending change status: it looks like my edit was accepted until you manually deprecated my change. —jameslucas ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄  12:20, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Invitation to RedWarn
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Morse code for "TP"
Hello, JamesLucas. I assume, that part of your signature is meant to be Morse code for TP as in Talk Page. However, in your signature all the gaps between dashes and dots are the same size—a single, which would suggest that it is a single character: ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄. This is an encoding of the open parenthesis character. I would recommend increasing the gap either by using more than one : ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄, or by using other space characters, like Unicode em-space: ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ (here non-breaking space from Unicode, rather than its HTML encoding is used). —⁠andrybak (talk) 23:48, 15 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Whoa, that's a cool alternate interpretation! but, no, I was not going for 'TP'. My signature is meant to be $\overline{KN}$, the prosign for "go ahead, named station". I would have preferred the Q code QSW, but it was obnoxiously long ( ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ). $\overline{KN}$ wasn't the perfect fit definitionally, but it was a much better fit graphically.
 * Thanks for the thoughtful check-in, ! —jameslucas ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄  00:50, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for October 3
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Dates in short descriptions
When you reverted my edit for Eubie Blake you said "aren’t birth years added to SDs only when they’re needed for disambiguation?" I'm not aware of any guidance either way and, in looking at Featured articles biographies it seems like most people have birth/death dates in the short description, even if they have very uncommon names. Specifically I looked at every article under "Biographies (art, architecture, and archaeology)" so it appears to be a common and accepted practice. If you have pointers to more specific guidance I'd appreciate if you could share them with me. Lorax (talk) 02:21, 11 November 2020 (UTC)


 * To be upfront with you, dear, this seems to be relatively unsettled territory by present-day Wikipedia standards, so I think it’s difficult to say where the consensus will settle. With that said, there are trends, and I think “Art, architecture, and archæology” may be an outlier. I’ve been burned before when trying to determine best practices based on articles within a single topic, so, when in doubt, I look to Featured and Good articles and try to sample across disciplines. I just pulled this little data set:
 * {| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders"

! scope="col" width="90" | topic ! scope="col" width="150" | article ! scope="col" width="480" | short description
 * rowspan="6"|Art, architecture, and archæology
 * Bronwyn Bancroft
 * Australian artist and fashion designer
 * Felice Beato
 * Italian-British photographer (1832 – 1909)
 * Jean Bellette
 * Australian modernist painter (1908 – 1991)
 * William Bruce (architect)
 * Scottish architect (c. 1630 – 1710)
 * O. G. S. Crawford
 * British archaeologist (1886 – 1957)
 * Lisa del Giocondo
 * Subject of the Mona Lisa
 * rowspan="5"|Biology
 * Mary Anning
 * British fossil collector, dealer, and paleontologist
 * Edward Driner Cope
 * American paleontologist and biologist
 * Charles Darwin
 * English naturalist and biologist
 * Georg Forster
 * German naturalist, ethnologist, travel writer, journalist, and revolutionary
 * Meinhard Michael Moser
 * Austrian mycologist
 * rowspan="4"|Business, economics, and finance
 * William Barley
 * English bookseller and publisher (1565?–1614)
 * Richard Cantillon
 * Irish-French economist and banker
 * Finn M. W. Caspersen
 * American financier, attorney, philanthropist
 * Harold Innis
 * Canadian professor of political economy
 * rowspan="6"|Culture and society
 * Anna Anderson
 * Romanov impostor
 * Hadji Ali
 * Egyptian vaudeville performance artist
 * Marshall Applewhite
 * American cult leader
 * William D. Boyce
 * 19th and 20th-century Businessman and founder of Scouting in America
 * Josephine Butler
 * Victorian feminist and social reformer
 * Montague Druitt
 * Suspect in the Jack the Ripper murders, cricketer, barrister and schoolteacher
 * rowspan="6"|History
 * Abu Nidal
 * Palestinian militant, founder of Fatah (1937-2002)
 * Samuel Adams
 * American statesman, political philosopher, governor of Massachusetts, and Founding Father of the United States
 * Æthelstan A
 * Unknown scribe who drafted charters for King Æthelstan of England
 * William T. Anderson
 * Confederate guerrilla fighter
 * Aspasia
 * Milesian woman, involved with Athenian statesman Pericles
 * James G. Blaine
 * American Republican politician
 * }
 * Immediately apparent is that the topic you happened to sample is a major outlier as it holds 4 of the 6 short descriptions that contain lifespans. Also apparent is that lifespans are otherwise uncommon within short descriptions (present in 2 of 21 bios from other topics).
 * Of course, this is a statistical look at Wikipedia as it stands now. More important is the discussion between editors of what’s the best for Wikipedia’s future. I submit to you that inclusion of dates of birth and death in short description is usually more a distraction than a benefit. I recognize that when we have articles for numerous individuals named Miguel Torres and at least three are or were “footballers”, we will need to differentiate by dates of birth, but generally I believe that key points of notability should be as prominent as possible. If I’m searching for Michael Jackson, do I mean the American singer, songwriter, and dancer or the beer and whisky expert? I don't know when either man was born, but I certainly know why each was famous, and when I’m sifting through search results, that’s what's helpful. I’d be surprised if I were an outlier in this respect, but I welcome your thoughts on the matter. —jameslucas ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄  03:52, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Josephine Butler
 * Victorian feminist and social reformer
 * Montague Druitt
 * Suspect in the Jack the Ripper murders, cricketer, barrister and schoolteacher
 * rowspan="6"|History
 * Abu Nidal
 * Palestinian militant, founder of Fatah (1937-2002)
 * Samuel Adams
 * American statesman, political philosopher, governor of Massachusetts, and Founding Father of the United States
 * Æthelstan A
 * Unknown scribe who drafted charters for King Æthelstan of England
 * William T. Anderson
 * Confederate guerrilla fighter
 * Aspasia
 * Milesian woman, involved with Athenian statesman Pericles
 * James G. Blaine
 * American Republican politician
 * }
 * Immediately apparent is that the topic you happened to sample is a major outlier as it holds 4 of the 6 short descriptions that contain lifespans. Also apparent is that lifespans are otherwise uncommon within short descriptions (present in 2 of 21 bios from other topics).
 * Of course, this is a statistical look at Wikipedia as it stands now. More important is the discussion between editors of what’s the best for Wikipedia’s future. I submit to you that inclusion of dates of birth and death in short description is usually more a distraction than a benefit. I recognize that when we have articles for numerous individuals named Miguel Torres and at least three are or were “footballers”, we will need to differentiate by dates of birth, but generally I believe that key points of notability should be as prominent as possible. If I’m searching for Michael Jackson, do I mean the American singer, songwriter, and dancer or the beer and whisky expert? I don't know when either man was born, but I certainly know why each was famous, and when I’m sifting through search results, that’s what's helpful. I’d be surprised if I were an outlier in this respect, but I welcome your thoughts on the matter. —jameslucas ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄  03:52, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Milesian woman, involved with Athenian statesman Pericles
 * James G. Blaine
 * American Republican politician
 * }
 * Immediately apparent is that the topic you happened to sample is a major outlier as it holds 4 of the 6 short descriptions that contain lifespans. Also apparent is that lifespans are otherwise uncommon within short descriptions (present in 2 of 21 bios from other topics).
 * Of course, this is a statistical look at Wikipedia as it stands now. More important is the discussion between editors of what’s the best for Wikipedia’s future. I submit to you that inclusion of dates of birth and death in short description is usually more a distraction than a benefit. I recognize that when we have articles for numerous individuals named Miguel Torres and at least three are or were “footballers”, we will need to differentiate by dates of birth, but generally I believe that key points of notability should be as prominent as possible. If I’m searching for Michael Jackson, do I mean the American singer, songwriter, and dancer or the beer and whisky expert? I don't know when either man was born, but I certainly know why each was famous, and when I’m sifting through search results, that’s what's helpful. I’d be surprised if I were an outlier in this respect, but I welcome your thoughts on the matter. —jameslucas ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄  03:52, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Of course, this is a statistical look at Wikipedia as it stands now. More important is the discussion between editors of what’s the best for Wikipedia’s future. I submit to you that inclusion of dates of birth and death in short description is usually more a distraction than a benefit. I recognize that when we have articles for numerous individuals named Miguel Torres and at least three are or were “footballers”, we will need to differentiate by dates of birth, but generally I believe that key points of notability should be as prominent as possible. If I’m searching for Michael Jackson, do I mean the American singer, songwriter, and dancer or the beer and whisky expert? I don't know when either man was born, but I certainly know why each was famous, and when I’m sifting through search results, that’s what's helpful. I’d be surprised if I were an outlier in this respect, but I welcome your thoughts on the matter. —jameslucas ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄  03:52, 11 November 2020 (UTC)


 * art, architecture, and archaeology does seem to be more of an outlier than I would expect. Short descriptions are an area that would benefit a lot from a consistent approach.  I see that the Short Description talk page has a relatively recent discussion about this with a near-even split in comments. I think they are useful beyond disambiguation, one of the first things I look for is to see if the person is living or not.  I will add my comment to that page and see if it encourages further discussion. Lorax (talk) 08:32, 11 November 2020 (UTC)


 * I’ll try to keep an eye out and join in. It’s a worthy discussion. Cheers —jameslucas ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄  12:44, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

Reverting your reversion of my addition of the Flag of Balochistan National Party (Mengal) to the Flags by color combination page
You reverted my change stating that the flag was not of a state or territory. You seem to not be familiar with the page. The heading states "This is a list of flags of states, territories, **and other entities**"[emph. mine]. The list is full of flags of political parties and social and religious movements--from the Gadsden flag to Gay Pride to Islamist movements and Marxist-Leninist militias. "Other entities" for the Wiki Master list of flags is "Active autonomist and secessionist movements; Cities; Country subdivisions; Cultural; Dependent territories; Ethnic; Gay pride and Lesbian Bisexual Transgender flags; Micronations; Political; Religious". So kindly stop. Or be consistent. You've got some work to do if you go that latter route. Shorepine (talk) 11:54, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
 * You’re right that consistency has declined substantially since I was last very actively involved in this list. I’m reviving a discussion on the list’s talk page. —jameslucas ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄  16:04, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

Please revert your change to 7"/44 caliber gun
There was no consensus reached on this discussion and now this article is inconsistent with other similar articles. Please revert your changes.Pennsy22 (talk) 11:42, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for writing to me, and sorry not being able to respond the same day. I am open to discussing discussing that edit. One reason why I didn’t go for a whole bunch all at once (and thus created the inconsistency) was to give time for anyone nettled to raise the issue. I was/am planning to make analogous moves sometime after New Years.
 * I do not think a move back to the original title is a good course of action because there are too many reasons why the old title was unacceptable. I was motivated to make the move because double quotation marks are not the correct character to denote inches—the double prime is the correct Unicode character for this purpose—but a less nitpicky reason for the move (and one of a couple reasons I didn't just move the article from 7"/44 caliber gun to 7″/44 caliber gun is that Wikipedia uses neither quotation marks nor double primes for this purpose. The Manual of Style specifically requires ‘inch’ (or, when needed, ‘in.’).
 * While a reversal is not beneficial, there is an opportunity to revector a bit. In particular, I invite discussion on hyphenation. Personally, I would favor 7-inch/44-caliber gun over 7 inch / 44 caliber gun because it is more compact and the hyphenation is both conventional and supported by templates such as convert (e.g.,  returns 7 in, hyphenated so). The reason I didn't select this option is that I have a distinct recollection from a few years back that some gun- and military-focused editors have balked at hyphening ‘caliber’ (I can't remember what reasoning was cited, and the article for Caliber is internally inconsistent), and I was trying to avoid ruffling feathers.
 * When all these factors are considered, many possible combinations result, but (if we ignore the option to use ‘in.’) only three such combination are permitted by both English convention and Wikipedia standards.
 * 7-inch/44-caliber gun – nice and dense, unlikely to be ambiguous
 * 7 inch / 44 caliber gun – a little loose and floppy but unlikely to be ambiguous
 * 7-inch / 44 caliber gun – somewhat more conventional than option 2 but awkwardly asymmetric
 * Other options, including the one previously used, are unacceptable for various reasons.
 * 1. 7 inch/44 caliber gun – ‘inch/44’ appears to be a discrete term

2. 7-inch/44 caliber gun – ‘7-inch/44’ appears to be a discrete term

3. 7″/44-caliber gun – a double prime is the correct character by English convention but is disallowed by MOS:UNIT

4. 7"/44-caliber gun – a quotation mark is the wrong character and is disallowed by MOS:UNIT

5. 7"/44 caliber gun – a quotation mark is wrong/disallowed, and ‘7"/44’ appears to be a discrete term
 * I look forward to your thoughts. I'll try to be online tomorrow, but given the holiday and my own delay in responding, don't feel like you have to rush to reply before I go do something drastic this weekend. Cheers and happy new year! —jameslucas ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄  21:56, 31 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Okay, that helps, again, the holidays had me away for a few days too. I must say that you probably picked one of the least likely guns to get noticed, but I accept your explanation and it definitely makes more sense now. When I originally wrote the article I was just following other US Naval gun articles as far a naming went. If you want my two cents, I'd prefer 7-inch/44-caliber gun to any of the others, or 7-inch/44 caliber gun since this is how it's generally written in articles.Pennsy22 (talk) 11:37, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Problem with your custom signature
Hello, I'm sending you this note because you need to update your signature. You have a custom signature set in your account preferences. Your signature does not link to your account. This is usually because your account has been renamed.

To fix your signature, you need to find the signature section in the first tab of Special:Preferences and either blank it or change the link to your current account name. More information is available at Signatures. New requirements for user signatures/Help. If you have followed these instructions and still want help, please leave a message at Wikipedia talk:Signatures.

Thank you, Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:46, 25 January 2021 (UTC)


 * My signature definitely links. Was this message left in error or is there some aspect of the issue that I’m missing (e.g. is my signature malformed on a different wiki)? Thanks. —jameslucas ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄  01:46, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the ping. Yesterday, it didn't like your signature; today it's happy.  I have no idea what might have made the difference.  I don't think it would have picked up something on another wiki, but if you've changed your sig this month, then it might have been looking at outdated information.  At any rate, everything's fine now.
 * (Is that Morse code?  ?  ?  ?  ?) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:42, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I tested -.6px in place of -.5px in my signature code for one edit some weeks back—possibly within the past month?—but otherwise it’s been the same signature for years. Funny that it tripped an alert since the name part has no formatting whatsoever other than piping, but computers be crazy sometimes.
 * And, yep, it’s Morse code for $\overline{KN}$. You can find a more complete answer above from when another editor asked me about it last summer. Cheers! —jameslucas ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄  18:47, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Betty Harte article
I posted several articles that cite Betty Harte's birth name within this Wikipedia article.

I went on the Wikipedia discussion board and they said a birth certificate is never a valid source.

I have read several publications that talk about Betty Harte's birthname.

What more clarification are you talking about? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Happy-J (talk • contribs) 05:59, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * It’s highly unlikely that she was born “Daisey Mae (Margaret) Light” with parentheses in her name. I think that it’s most likely she was born "Margaret Mae Light" and went by “Daisey” (or “Daisy”?), which is a common nickname for Margaret, but I don’t know that for sure. Whether or not my guess is correct, the current wording is confusing. —jameslucas ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄  07:21, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Local records in Lebanon, Pennsylvania indicate her middle name was Margaret but she was called Mae. Hence, the reason I put Margaret in parentheses.

I am going to look in Ancestry.com to verify it.

By the way, I like the table you created for the 117 movie credits...the only thing about it is that it makes the article a bit longer. The two column list I created was only half as long. (six of one, half a dozen of the other...). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Happy-J (talk • contribs) 17:07, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Maybe she was born “Daisey Mae Light”, and some well meaning but pretentious biographer thought, Clearly “Daisey” is a pet name for “Margaret”—no parent would name their child “Daisey”! Tut tut! . . . just a theory, of course.
 * You are correct that the table is long, but don’t forget that some users access Wikipedia from phones, tablets, or old computers with low resolution monitors, so columns are a solution for only some people. Similarly, adding extra words (like Role:) over and over again can make articles very tedious for the blind and anyone else using a screen reader. I don’t believe that I’ve encountered a well tended article with a filmography not in table format.
 * The more accepted solution for very long filmographies is to fork them into their own article (e.g. James Hong § Filmography contains only a link to James Hong filmography). If you think this might be good for Betty Harte § Filmography, I recommend that you create a new discussion on the article’s talk page to see if other editors agree. Lugnuts in particular is hugely invested in Classical Hollywood cinema–related articles and has much knowledge (and strong opinions!) about how things work best. Don’t forget to sign your post (and all other posts to talk pages) with four tildes, and feel free to come back here if you have any questions. —jameslucas  ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄  18:50, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestions. I searched on Ancestry.com and discovered that Betty Harte was born Daisey Mae Light. The reference to 'Margaret' in local correspondence was most likely a family name on her mother's side. Anyways, I updated the article to state her born name was Daisey Mae Light. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Happy-J (talk • contribs) 12:24, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Sounds good, and thanks for keeping me posted! (But don’t forget to sign talk-page posts with four tildes  at the end!) Cheers —jameslucas  ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄  12:42, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Shakespeare in the Park edits
Personal note: Thanks for forking the issues. I wasn't sure how to do it sensibly. Zaslav (talk) 00:00, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
 * It wasn’t too hard for me because your paragraphs were so well organized! —jameslucas ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄  00:31, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

Date links
This template is being created primarily for use in articles about specific months. Its genesis is documented in the below discussion. Please don't remove date links from Month articles. The guideline on date links does not apply here, nor in Year in Topic articles. Deb (talk) 15:52, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Noted. I’m sure this has been raised dozens of times, but it’s a bad idea to violate this core style guideline, even if its done consistently within on a highly parallelized set of articles. It makes the mobile version harder to use, looks wrong, and confuses new and veteran editors alike. Before making my edit to the first such article I encountered, I took the time to look for a commented-out warning to editors which would typically accompany an instance of local consensus overriding community-wide consensus, and there was none. —jameslucas ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄  19:30, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
 * It goes a long way back, perhaps as much as ten years. All dates used to be linked, until a group of people decided they didn't like them because they didn't think they looked nice. In the end it was agreed that they wouldn't be allowed in most articles (e.g. biographies) but any articles that were specifically related to time - dates, years, etc - like Year articles, Year in Topic, and so on, would be allowed to maintain those links. I know it's not consistent, but it's mostly consistent within the same "set" of articles, such as Year in Literature. So it's probably not a good idea to use a blanket approach. Deb (talk) 19:35, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
 * In case we might be misunderstanding each other, I’ll clarify that I’m concerned only by having links in the section heads. I really don’t mind having dates linked when it makes sense, and I sense that it does in articles of this flavor. Cheers —jameslucas ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄  20:00, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

—I’m still concerned about potential accessibility issues caused by having links in the section headers. In the mobile interface, the headers are links used to unhide their sections, and having links within them shrinks the hitboxes—a small annoyance for almost all users and a significant challenge for a few. I might have a solution that resolves these layout violations without depriving the articles of their links. I’ve tested the solution in this sandbox version of August 1975. It uses hatnotes (currently generic ones) to hold the day links.

I did a little poking around to see if there was a centralized forum in which to solicit feedback, but the month articles seem much less loved than the year and day articles. (WikiProject Years seems to be closest fit, and they don’t even mention the month articles so far as I can tell.) If you know a good forum for this proposal, please let me know. Cheers —jameslucas ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄  15:18, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
 * User:Mandsford has done a lot of these and may have an opinion. I don't really see why links in headers are a problem, but then I hardly ever use Wikipedia on a mobile device. On the rare occasions I look something up casually, I find the whole layout a huge annoyance, so I wouldn't have an issue with one minor annoyance. Deb (talk) 16:20, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Deb. —I welcome your thoughts when you have a moment. —jameslucas ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄  19:23, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Just bumping this up in your notifications. Cheers —jameslucas ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄  14:39, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

—there’s a block of articles about specific months. They are primarily tended by a single admin and do not seem to have the attention of any WikiProject. Most of these flagrantly violate MOS:SECTIONLINKS. As I’ve noted above, I believe that there is very good reason for this guideline, so I’m angling to do a little cleanup.

Other editors, but my initial (unfocused) attempts. As far as I can tell from the above conversation, the admin who reverted my edits wanted to preserve the links but was open to alternate formatting. I proposed one such formatting, but received no feedback. Questions for you: (Of course I value any thoughts you have beyond answers to these questions.)
 * Do you agree that these violation of MOS:SECTIONLINKS are worth addressing?
 * If so, is preserving the links worth the cost of additional complexity?
 * If so, is my formatting suggestion the best way to do this?
 * If so, can you help me create a module that makes the leanest possible template?

With my usual appreciation —jameslucas ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄  02:05, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, it's an accessibility problem. When screen readers (at least some of them) encounter a link in a heading, parsing the link terminates the heading, or causes other issues. And "The guideline on date links does not apply here, nor in Year in Topic articles." is made-up nonsense. If we go RfC that right now at WT:MOS the answer will be clear that there is no magical exception for such pages (cf. also WP:CONLEVEL policy; individual editors and wikiprojects cannot make up their own "anti-rules" against site-wide policies and guidelines). As for reformatting, I don't see any truly encyclopedic point to the links at all, really.  No one interested in a timeline of what notable things happened in, say, August 1944 is also looking for what happened on August 14 in every known year of history.  They're just entirely different research interests.  So this linking to August 14 from the "August 14, 1944 (Monday)" heading at August 1944 is arguably link cruft.  But it's not something I would want to squabble about, and I confess to sometimes enjoying WP for the "where will this lead?" clickbait pastime it can provide. (And we do have the "Random page" feature, after all.  And the WP homepage is basically daily random clickbait, too. As are portals.)  What I would suggest instead of this blecherous heading-linking is a compact right-hand sidebar template (without a bunch of annoying and probably also MOS:ACCESS-problematic coloration, just  simple) that does something like:
 * August 14 throughout history
 * [whatever else - do we have articles on Mondays throughout history? Or August 14, 1944, in more depth with regard to particular fields or on particular continents?]
 * If this were done using tests whether a page exists, this could be automated. E.g., use a script to pull the date from the heading with a regex, de-link it, then at end of section add something like, presuming a template at that location that can parse that date (also as 14 August 1944 and 1944-08-14), and separate out the month and day, and then provide links if there are relevant articles for that day-month or more specific ones for that day-month-year (any articles that match other than the page calling the template).  Just make it as non-manual as possible so it can be done with WP:AWB.  Otherwise it would be painful, as that's a really large number of pages with 28 to 31 sections per page. Oh, and since it's basically extraneous navigation, it should appear at the bottom of the section and use CSS to visually be placed high-right within the section.  Screen-reader users should encounter it last in the section, since it's the least important material there.  An alternative, if it's not likely to be ever desired to link to anything but, e.g. August 14, would be to instead end each section with .  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:49, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I agree that the link inclusion isn’t strictly necessary but does make for good garden-path wandering. To the best of my knowledge, there are no articles for specific dates (Category:Dates is empty, and I wouldn’t know where else to look), so I think we can use the simplest solution. I’d be able to script for AWB the See also solution you suggested, but I somewhat prefer wording akin to For the same date in other years, see […]. Would you have any concerns about that? I can script for AWB a dumb implementation using hatnote, but a custom template could reduce code bloat and enable future adjustments. For that, I’d need help because I have only a crude understanding of Lua.
 * Separately, I forgot to ask in the previous message if you agree that the years should be dropped from the section headers to comply with MOS:NOBACKREF (e.g. August 1975 § August 14, 1975 (Thursday) → August 1975 § Thursday, August 14)? (I think the month has to remain redundant because month names are integral to date names, but I’m open-minded about this too.)
 * Thanks —jameslucas ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄  04:08, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
 * For finding root categories, the way to do it is to walk them backward. E.g., if you go to August 1944, see what categories it's in. Both Category:August and Category:1944 are promising. See what categories those are in. Eventually it resolves down to Category:Chronology, which is what you're looking for in a "Category:Dates".  No Lua is needed for a template as simple as what we're contemplating, just regular template code. A starting "Date in other years" template need contain nothing but  . If at some point we find other stuff to link with it, it can be tweaked to link to more stuff.  I think § Thursday, August 14" works fine as a heading. It's more natural than that parenthetic version, the reader likely already knows they're on the 1944 page, and I agree that just the number would not reflect how dates are expressed in English. Anyway, whoever[s] else you've previously had discussions and apparently some arguments with about this stuff may have additional ideas about what might be worth linking to (I'm thinking we probably have "in sports" and other more topically specific pages of this sort, at least sometimes, though maybe I'm wrong and they're all by year and not by month.) However, if we're going to do more than a one-line hatnote, I would think a  sidebar would be preferable, to use up some of the right-hand space and not make the page grow vertically in length. But that really need not be a concern right now. If it's done as a section-bottom hatnote, it can be converted into a sidebar that is positioned rightward and up, from that same location, using CSS.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:51, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Oh cool—I had been looking at Other Pennsylvania townships as an example of a project-specific hatnote template, but it makes sense that if our requirements are simpler, our code could be too. Much obliged!
 * Regarding Category:Chronology, did you find any actual single-date articles there? I traced the category tree up that far when I started looking at this originally, but I didn’t find any subcategories that seemed promising. The closest thing I found is the Current events portal, which has subpages such as /1994 August 12—not something appropriate for linking to from article space. —jameslucas ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄  12:59, 8 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Oh, yeah, I'm not sure we have articles that get more specific than months, except for specific events like the September 11, 2001, attacks.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:45, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

Hi, James. I'm assuming you're intending to do this new format for all the month articles then? I don't understand the reasoning behind putting the day first. Deb (talk) 09:18, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, I’m hoping to tick off a year or two a day until they’re done. (I had been hoping to go faster, but AWB is picking up so many MOS violations and other bits of bad formatting that I’ve decided extra care is warranted.)
 * The reordering of the section names is discussed above, but essentially it’s this: to get the headings to comply with MOS:NOBACKREF, we have to take out the year. If we’re opening things up to change, it makes sense to reconsider the titles from the ground up. Generally section titles should as natural as possible, and that would be Day, Month DD. The same part of me that likes ISO 8601 date formatting appreciates the tidiness of having the day last, but that’s mostly for æsthetics since articles aren’t sortable, and since the TOC numbers the sections anyway, there’s no real diminishment of navigability. —jameslucas ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄  16:06, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

Ivy Taylor date fixes
Hey, mea culpa on the date edits for the Ivy Taylor article. I don't know what I was thinking, for some reason I thought that grammar rules said there shouldn't be a comma after the year in a date in a sentence. I knew better and I must have had a massive brain fart. Appreciate your understanding on the edit and thanks for being a good Wikipedian. :) - SanAnMan (talk) 17:32, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Totally understandable—thanks for the kind note! —jameslucas ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄  17:42, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Richard Baker (British businessman, born 1962) page
Hi JamesLucas, received your ping and filed a SPI report. Please feel free to add anything else or comment as you deem fit. Thank you. -- Ashley yoursmile!  04:12, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Despite being on the ’pedia a good while, I’m never confident that I know the proper venue in which to flag a given instance of problematic editing. —jameslucas ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄  04:44, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for March 12
An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Sandra Vivanco, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Columbia.

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 06:12, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
 * ✅ —jameslucas ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄  11:54, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Same date revisions

 * Mr. Lucas, I am joining User:Deb in asking that you not do further revisions of the formatting of the "Months of the 20th century" articles that our project participants have been using for more than 10 years when researching and writing . I'm gathering from the discussion in Template talk:Same date that this may have been an extension of removing blue links from the headings, although the substitute you've proposed ("For the same date in other years, see ______" ) after every date is more distracting than having a blue link within the title of the heading.  I'm gathering that you're doing this based on the MOS:HEADINGS statement that headings within an article should not include blue links, although I would note that it's a recommendation rather than a mandate.  There are literally hundreds of articles in the "Months of the 20th century" project, added to and maintained by a group of people who are dedicated to citing to reliable and verifiable sources, and who regularly patrol the pages for unverifiable additions.  Certainly, we would appreciate having you as part of the project in adding information.  However, I think I speak for all of us in saying that the revision of the format of each article is unnecessary and that we would prefer that you concentrate on a different project.  Mandsford 17:55, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
 * As you’ll see in the conversation above, and I were aware that the wording and formatting we selected might be temporary. Our choice to use a transcluded template was part of a conscious effort to enable future changes without the need to make a mass replacement a second time. Because the specific failings being addressed have genuine accessibility implications (discussed above), I don’t intend to suspend the header replacements as you have requested, but I will be happy to be part of a conversation about how you and other editors might envision the next version of this template. I’d note that  back in February, so I hope that you’ll not feel that I have been dismissive of long-term attention to these articles given by you and others. —jameslucas  ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄  21:24, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Yeah, the point of templating this is separating the functionality from the exact wording, a form of separation of content and presentation. See also User talk:Mandsford: blanket reverting is not going to do anything to resolve dispute; and people should not confuse mobile usability with disabled accessibility.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:43, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

Group discussion on Category:Months in the 20th century articles

 * James, following up on our ongoing discussion, I'm following up on the suggestion from User:Deb that we seek to work out a compromise solution on a common framework for the ongoing Category:Months in the 20th century project. I'm sending out notices to other major participants, User:Freeman1856, User:Zee money, and to whomever else I can find who is active in the project.  In the meantime, I will stand down from further reversions of your changes until we can have a group discussion.  I would ask only that you hold off for the time being on further introduction of the "see also" (i.e. Same date) addition for every day of a particular month.  Mandsford 15:23, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
 * (response to "I’d like to suggest that in the short term we remove the extra paragraphs not by reverting my progress but instead by making the template definition empty. The templates will still be there in the pages, ready to be used if we come up with an alternate formatting, but they won’t be seen. We would, of course, have lost the date links, at least in the short term, but if I take your last note correctly, that may not be the deal-breaker I understood it to be.")
 * Marking the "same date" template empty so that it's unseen seems like a good fix. We seem to agree on at least one point, that blue-linking dates within the headings shouldn't be done.  On articles that I created over at least 10 years, I didn't blue-link the month and day because I saw no reason for it; I think that most of these were started the same way.  About a year or two ago, there was another editor who went through and began changing things like, say, "April 12, 1945" to "April 12, 1945" and it would be reverted by the time I saw it on the history, which was fine by me.   As with the year articles, I've never had much regard for the quality of pages like April 12, and have no wish to include a link to such things within a the pages in this category.  I'm all in favor of removing the blue links in the headings throughout the project.  I'm waiting to see what response I get from invitations, and then will see about creating a WikiProject for this category. Mandsford 13:25, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

Elastic Tabstops
Please revert your removal of information about elastic tabstops. I have no connection with the "inventor" but indent-to-here in Indesign is not the same, similar as it may be. Nick Gravegaard created an algorithm to define tab width depending on context, in plain text files. The importance and utility of context-variable tab width should be obvious, but clearly it is not; hence, the need for information describing its function and relevance. Richard Taytor (talk) 03:36, 3 December 2021 (UTC)