User talk:K6ka/Archives/2020/August

Administrators' newsletter – August 2020
News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2020). Administrator changes
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Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:20, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

The Pogues inaccurately described as 'English' - when they were both English And Irish
Hi there,

I just wanted to bring you some information on the current debate. On The Pogues Talk page you can see in the section 'Irish-British' that there is a long chat about this subject.

I am aware the the page has been protected- which I agree needed doing, but while looking at the edit source of the page it states 'The Pogues were an English Celtic punk{{refn|group=nb|While often labelled as variously "Anglo-Irish", "Hiberno-English", or simply "Irish", amongst others, '

I believe that the evidence being used to justify the Pogues as English is unfair and inaccurate because for the following reasons which are taken from what I have said on the talk page:

The evidence used to say they are 'English' in interviews (even though it references only one interview) is from when the Irish members left the band, and while the interview isn't dated at the source point - it must be around 19 October 1993 after the Waiting For Herb album was released and after it's lasting Irish members (Terry and Phil) had left after recording it. It is well known that Shane et al left (among other reasons) because the band were moving away from the Irish tinged music they inevitably regrouped to play. I think that using this interview is not a way to truly represent the historicity of the band and the article was written during an odd time for the band that doesn't really acknowledge the Irish elements very accurately.

It reads 'So none of you are actually Irish. I didn't think you sounded very Irish. I just thought you had lost it from being away. 'No, we're actually all English. Shane was born in England. He did spend some of his childhood in Ireland but he was born in England. Spider's English. Terry Woods and Phillip Chevron were born and bred in Ireland but they're not in the band anymore. They were the nearest thing to Irish. The band started as a London/Irish band, but the emphasis is on London because that's where we came from, that's our roots.' - The article entitled 'The Reformation of That Irish Band From England: The Pogues' seems to hold the natural answer to me in that of mentioning 'England and Irish' and this shows that this is how they were regarded before the interview to some extent. But the article changes this band identity to just 'English' and does not reflect the band as it was for the majority of the time where it did have three Irish members in it and on how the band actually reformed with said Irish members up until Phil's death.

So on this basis Is there a reason why a compromise of 'English and Irish' cannot be reached please to reflect the state of the band when it disbanded rather than an interview written 21 years before their final tours and breakup that lasted 13 years? And furthermore, would the benefits of this compromise not help to put the issue to rest and reflect the band in how it was for the majority of it's existence, both in it's prime and since they reformed in 2001 - 2014?

The I received a reply which read:

'Thanks for your message and for joining the discussion! It's pretty common for articles linked in the news to experience a large increase in edits. Regrettably, in this instance, most edits have been unconstructive. I believe it's such a common misconception that the Pogues are Irish and from Dublin, that people swing by the article and 'correct' what they believe to be a mistake without checking the references. It's a shame the article had to be semi-protected due to edits like those (as well as the blatant, abusive vandalism). I'd like to take the time to appreciate the fact you instead investigated the article's sources, and took to the talk page to discuss the matter. It's very much appreciated; open and honest discussion is what makes Wikipedia such an invaluable resource. First of all, to reiterate, the Pogues are a band founded in London by three English people, one of whom (MacGowan) had parents born in Ireland. More importantly, and something that is often inexplicably overlooked in this discussion, is the band's view of their own identity — it's well referenced in the article (and noted in the discussion above) that the band consider themselves an English band playing a particular genre of music (namely Celtic, coupled with influences from many genres, cultures, and nationalities). Throughout the band's lifetime, it welcomed many new members, the vast majority of whom were also English or British; of these, only Cait O'Riordan and Philip Chevron are known to be Irish. Let's make a comparison with The Beatles for the sake of argument. As another editor pointed out, John Lennon had an Irish father (as an aside, his surname is derived from O'Lennon, the Anglicisation of "Leannáin"). Of The Beatles, John Lennon once said “We're all Irish” and you can find interviews in which he talks about the heavy Liverpool-Irish influence on the Beatles' music. Would the later addition of Stuart Sutcliffe, a Scottish musician with Irish ancestry, have meant the Beatles were best described as an "English and Irish" group? No, and nor would anybody suggest as such, because they're a band formed in London by English-born musicians, just as the Pogues are; the only difference is the Pogues focused on Celtic music, playing up the Irish element (that is, once the derision they suffered early on for being Englishmen playing Irish music had subsided to the point it stopped being a major impediment to their success (see Kiss My Arse: The Story of the Pogues, where the Pogues' representative Stan Brennan makes reference to the abuse they received in the early days, after MacGowan "came up with this Irish thing")). Back to the Pogues: so, how did the band view themselves? The official interview cited (The Reformation of That Irish Band From England: The Pogues) which you mention is not the only source given; it's one of many. Crucially, it isn't only Jem Finer who objected to the band being described as "Irish" — Jem Finer, Philip Chevron (who himself was Irish), and James Fearnley have all stated that the band is English, and discussed its misportrayal as "Irish" (or "British/Irish" and, amusingly, "English-Scottish"). Fearnley makes reference to this in his book, Here Comes Everybody: The Story of the Pogues (2012), in the context of the band coming under criticism for being "predominantly" English yet playing music described as 'being of the Celts' (i.e. "traditionally Irish"); as Finer has said, the band's identity is that of a London-founded, English band that plays Celtic music. Contrary to the objections Finer is referencing here, the fact the Pogues were a band founded in England by English-born members and comprised at all times by predominantly English musicians is not changed by the style of music they play, nor by the later addition of two Irish musicians. The "English Celtic punk" labelling is absolutely not simply the opinion of myself or other editors. In closing, allow me to quote Chevron himself (source). Keep in mind, not only was Chevron one of the few Irish-born members, but this statement is from October 2010; it cannot be dismissed as outdated or reflecting the band's early stages: "When people like Jem Finer protest, as they have done for 30 years, that the Pogues are not "an Irish band", they are not just semantically noting geographical and demographical facts, but stating a position that has held since Day One: that the Pogues are a bunch of people whose musical influences and interests are multiple and various". GhostOfNoMeme (talk) 11:55, 24 July 2020 (UTC)'

To which I replied:

Hi Ghostofnomeme, thanks for the warm message that is very nice to hear and sort of gives me hope for the human race in a way, as I slowly feel the ability to have open debate is being societally eroded. But that's another debate haha. I too appreciate the need to debate rather than make things worse or by shutting arguments down. This is a great way to talk about things and understand other points of view - ultimately this very mechanism has been used over thousands of years to create 'understanding' and 'reason'.

Respectfully, I firstly disagree with your first point that it was started by three 'English' people. This is because Shane MacGowan doesn't see himself as 'English' per se, so there is nuance. One of his famously attributed quotes is 'I'm just following the Irish tradition of songwriting, the Irish way of life, the human way of life. Cram as much pleasure into life, and rail against the pain you have to suffer as a result. Or scream and rant with the pain, and wait for it to be taken away with beautiful pleasure. . . ' - so if he saw himself as English, then wouldn't that be reflected in this quote?

I totally agree though that people often wrongly attribute them as being entirely Irish though, but would further the idea that they are 'only English' as inaccurate too. You mention Cait O'Riordan – well actually she was born in Nigeria, so if you are classing her as 'Irish' then surely we can afford the same right to MacGowan? Phil was born in Dublin, but also so was Terry Woods. It should also be noted that on Cait's wiki page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cait_O%27Riordan) that 'She played bass guitar for the British-Irish punk/folk band The Pogues'. So I would willingly take the compromise of 'British-Irish punk/folk rock band' to help solve this issue haha.

Comparing The Beatles to The Pogues is a hard one. They were totally different in style, outlook and origins. The Beatles didn't use traditional Irish songs or instruments at anytime and were actually from Liverpool. Also The Pogues' first album had at least 11 traditional Irish songs on the remastered edition including songs that pull heavily on the Irish identity such as 'Poor Paddy on the railway' and 'Muirsheen Durkin'. Surely these are also testamount to their underlying Irishness? even if it was just Cait and Shane's Irishness – the band owe a lot to Irish Culture and is surely proof of these too being Irish, thus being an integral part of the make up of the bands identity.

Fair enough about the 'Kiss my arse' book, but others including 'Here comes everybody' and 'A Drink with Shane MacGowan' mention how Shane felt like he didn't fit in and that the Irish thing wasn't some kind of gimmick – it was all that Shane knew. This is also well documented on Shane's very own wiki page were he is described as an 'Irish-English Vocalist', so again, surely if that wiki page can describe him like that, then how is it fair that the Pogues cannot do the same being that if you didn't have Shane (who wrote most of the songs and the biggest hitters), then you simply wouldn't have had the Pogues?

Now on the point about what the band say – actually Phil didn't explicitly object to them being described as Irish. You put some of the quote, but Here is the full quote:

'It's not really an issue, and I don't especially want to make it one, but the Pogues were a fully-fledged and realised band about two whole years before they made their debut album. When I say that there were more eclectic influences in the earliest days, and that the Velvet Underground, Country and Rockabilly were strong aspects of what the band did, I say so because I was there. Me and 30 to 50 other people, in the Bull & Gate, the 100 Club, the Sir George Robey, the Diorama, the Pindar of Wakefield and Dingwalls.

Naturally, the "Irish" aspect quickly became the Unique Selling Point as the band began to attract attention, not least from the smug, smacked-out coterie that was the Music Press in the early '80s, because that fitted most neatly with the "drunken paddy" stereotype they were quick to foist upon the band and it's easier to be a lazy journalist than a thoughtful one when you have numerous deadlines approaching and your drug-dealer's left town. After some consideration, I have elected to defend my position on this, not just because of dsweeney's insufferable "earlier than thou" posturing [and I realise the "early days" of the Pogues are a moveable feast, but not if your first Pogues gig was in 1982] but because I realised that this misunderstanding, widespread though it undoubtedly is, remains the source of a number of misapprehensions about The Pogues, but let's just zone in on one.

When people like Jem Finer protest, as they have done for 30 years, that the Pogues are not "an Irish band", they are not just semantically noting geographical and demographical facts, but stating a position that has held since Day One: that the Pogues are a bunch of people whose musical influences and interests are multiple and various, and it is this, rather than an intimate knowledge of O'Neill's Music Of Ireland, that gives the music of the Pogues its power, its passion and its distinction: it is obviously a music made by people of musical erudition who have found, or rediscovered if you prefer, that "Irish" music is uniquely equipped to provide the most direct route to the feet and the heart; but after all this time, when our music has become part of rock's musical vocabulary in its own right and has spawned hordes of imitators, it's easy to forget how comparatively little Irish music there has always been in the Pogues stew. And songs like "Haunted", "Ghost of a Smile" and "Lorelei", to name but three, are much closer cousins of Lou Reed than they are of Turlough O'Carolan [peace be upon him].

And finally, if you actually take the trouble to heed Shane on this subject over the years, you'll find he's saying exactly the same thing. Unlike Jem, Shane and some of the others, including myself, have tended to take the path of least resistance when discussing this in interviews and so on, partly because it's not what a journalist wants to hear when he's already framed his story in his head, but also because we more readily accept that what people really mean when they call us an "Irish band" is that the Pogues music has a Carnival aspect (in that it has a transgressive, libertine streak that people tend to associate with Irishness in, I suppose, a positive sense) that is best enjoyed at face value than analysed too deeply. Nevertheless, academics have filled many chapters of weighty cultural tomes analysing the Carnivalesque Pogues, and most of these books are readily available to anyone who is genuinely interested. '

He isn't saying they aren't Irish, but gently lilts towards his own opinion that he doesn't really care and The Pogues should be seen as a bit of fun and tha he doesn't want to rock any type of boat. So it's really neither 'for' or 'against' the description of the band being described as Irish.

Just look at their prime album 'If I Should Fall From Grace with God' – Aside from Fiesta, it is an undeniably Irish and English album in culture. It features songs such as 'Fairytale of New York' and 'Thousands are sailing' (written by Phil) – both of which describe what it is like being Irish immigrants. Then you have 'Streets of Sorrow/Birmingham 6' – The first part is a song about the troubles from Terry Woods' point of view as an Irishman and he even sings it. Then the second part is back to Shane and describes how 6 Irishmen were arrested and wrongly convicted for a crime in the UK. These republican themes are so Irish I don't know what more to say. Look at the other albums, How can songs such as 'sickbed of Cúchulainn' (which is grounded in Irish mythology and shows just how much MacGowan knew Irish history) not be proof of the Irishness within the band, and other songs that the Dubliners previously recorded such as 'gentleman soldier' and 'South Australia' add to this argument too.

In conclusion and in light of the above, is it not more accurate and inclusive that the label of 'English and Irish band' be applied to a band that owe so much to it's Irish members and Irish themed and traditional songs that appear throughout their entire discography up until the Irish members actually left? As Shane says in this video interview 'Of course I'm proud to be Irish' (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcPNwSWky4g) (Please forgive the bad language in this interview!) Best regards and thanks very much in advance.Glaaaastonbury88 (talk) 16:03, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

A week on I have not received a reply to my points. On the basis of the evidence, reason and logic I have provided, which disproves that the band were only 'English' - can we make the reasonable adjustment of having them described as and 'English and Irish' Band please?

I'm not sure really what the mechanism is for debates - and since no one relied to my points, I see a reason for this is that my points are hard to refute and thus reasonable. This is not about winning or losing, this is about accurate information.

Thanks and all the best!Glaaaastonbury88 (talk) 09:10, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
 * {{u|Glaaaastonbury88}}, I am responding entirely and only to your last full paragraph/sentence, because expecting someone to read 17k, worth of text is entirely unnecessary. If you have made your case, and others have made an alternate case, and yet no one can come to a conclusion, you have a few options:
 * Get a Third Opinion. Note that this is only an option if there have only been two individuals in the discussion.
 * Go to WP:DRN and seek Dispute Resolution.
 * Start an RFC.
 * I would attempt them in that order. Also, if and when you make your next case, please try to keep it brief! You might have the best argument in the world, but if the reader cannot get through the wall of text without falling asleep they may just skip it entirely (as I have done) and your point will be moot. Primefac (talk) 13:34, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

{{u|Primefac}} Thanks for the reply - fair enough. That feels to me like a personal choice, I for one don't mind reading lots of information, unless you mean that the user I am contacting would investigate the 'talk' page in question for himself anyway, in which case I have unnecessarily copied it from there? Fair enough if that's what you mean. I agree and see what you mean. But, if meant otherwise then I would respectfully say that the point may be moot - but it is moot for you or who ever chooses not to bother reading an entire argument which I personally do not understand the logic behind - especially if they are involved in the original dispute, but each to their own. I suppose you can lead a horse to water...Hard to know what people would do though - hence I include the convo here in good faith.

Thanks for the advice though and I do appreciate your input and would always read someones response in full personally. Perhaps we are talking at cross purposes or I have misunderstood what you mean in which case I am sorry for the confusion. I will look into those now. Thanks again. P.S - I have contacted the other editor involved in dispute to try and get discussion going again. Best regardsGlaaaastonbury88 (talk) 14:25, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

Hi Glaaaastonbury88. In the future, when posting on other people's user talk pages, please look over what you wrote and try to keep the number of edits to other people's talk pages to a minimum, since each edit you make triggers a notification, which quickly gets annoying (see here for what I mean). — k6ka  🍁 ( Talk ·  Contributions ) 14:54, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

{{u|K6ka}} Hi there, Ah sorry about that! I will take that into consideration in the future and understand completely why that is irritating! Sorry again. (There will be no further edits to this comment I promise!!) Glaaaastonbury88 (talk) 15:14, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

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Tech News: 2020-32
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Problems
 * All queries to the Wikidata Query Service failed between 17:50 and 17:59 UTC on Thursday 23 July. Some queries failed during a longer period.
 * Interlanguage links were ordered incorrectly for the past few weeks. This problem was also mentioned in Tech News two weeks ago. The problem is now fixed.
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Changes later this week
 * The video player will change to be simpler and more modern. This week, the current beta feature will become the video player for everyone on most non-Wikipedia wikis. The old player will be removed.
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 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from August 4. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from August 5. It will be on all wikis from August 6 (calendar).

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  15:43, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-33
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * FileImporter and FileExporter became standard features on all Wikis during the first week of August. They help you transfer files from local wikis to Wikimedia Commons with the original file information and history intact.

Problems
 * The mobile skin displays a message at the bottom of the page about who edited last. This message showed raw wikitext. This has now been fixed. Some messages in Structured Discussions and content translation may still appear as raw wikitext. Developers are working on it.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from August 11. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from August 12. It will be on all wikis from August 13 (calendar).

Future changes
 * All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on September 1. This is planned between 13:30 and 15:30 UTC. More information will be published in Tech News and will also be posted on individual wikis in the coming weeks.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  16:06, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-34
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Recent changes
 * If you revert an edit using the undo link your edit is marked with an  tag. This will now only happen if you don't change anything in the edit window before publishing the undo. This is to keep users from marking edits as undos when they actually do something else.
 * The new OOUI version will not work with Internet Explorer 8. This means the wikis will look strange and not work well in Internet Explorer 8. This was reported in Tech/News/2020/17. This is because keeping the wikis working with very old browsers creates other problems.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 18 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 19 August. It will be on all wikis from 20 August (calendar).

Future changes
 * All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on September 1. This is planned between 13:30 and 15:30 UTC. More information will be published in Tech News and will also be posted on individual wikis next week. This is a reminder. You can help by translating the announcement message.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  20:40, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Join the RfC to define trust levels for WikiLoop DoubleCheck
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RevDel question
Hi, can you explain your mass RevDel on User talk:Demonichellbringer? It looks like there was some discussion related to an IP hardblock affecting them, the user subsequently retired, and then you removed all of the edits containing the unblock discussion for "purely disruptive material". Please elaborate on your reasoning. If the reasoning has to do with WP:OS I think there's a separate RevDel reason/criteria for that. 2601:187:4581:7F50:BC46:ED6C:F749:A9A8 (talk) 02:17, 23 August 2020 (UTC)


 * The reasoning was related to OS-related material. That is all I can say, due to the nature of the material revdelled. I will note that, as a rule, OS-related material should not be labelled as such in the revdel log; in practice RD3 is usually used. — k6ka  🍁 ( Talk ·  Contributions ) 02:29, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-35
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Changes later this week
 * Octicons-sync.svg The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 25 August. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 26 August. It will be on all wikis from 27 August (calendar).

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  17:59, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

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Editing news 2020 #4
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Reply tool


The Reply tool  has been available as a Beta Feature at the Arabic, Dutch, French and Hungarian Wikipedias since 31 March 2020. The first analysis showed positive results.


 * More than 300 editors used the Reply tool at these four Wikipedias. They  posted more than 7,400 replies during the study period.
 * Of the people who posted a comment with the Reply tool, about 70% of them used the tool multiple times. About 60% of them used it on multiple days.
 * Comments from Wikipedia editors are positive. One said, أعتقد أن الأداة تقدم فائدة ملحوظة؛ فهي تختصر الوقت لتقديم رد بدلًا من التنقل بالفأرة إلى وصلة تعديل القسم أو الصفحة، التي تكون بعيدة عن التعليق الأخير في الغالب، ويصل المساهم لصندوق التعديل بسرعة باستخدام الأداة.  ("I think the tool has a significant impact; it saves time to reply while the classic way is to move with a mouse to the Edit link to edit the section or the page which is generally far away from the comment. And the user reaches to the edit box so quickly to use the Reply tool.")

The Editing team released the Reply tool as a Beta Feature at eight other Wikipedias in early August. Those Wikipedias are in the Chinese, Czech, Georgian, Serbian, Sorani Kurdish, Swedish, Catalan, and Korean languages. If you would like to use the Reply tool at your wiki, please tell User talk:Whatamidoing (WMF).

The Reply tool is still in active development. Per request from the Dutch Wikipedia and other editors, you will be able to customize the edit summary. (The default edit summary is "Reply".) A "ping" feature is available in the Reply tool's visual editing mode. This feature searches for usernames. Per request from the Arabic Wikipedia, each wiki will be able to set its own preferred symbol for pinging editors. Per request from editors at the Japanese and Hungarian Wikipedias, each wiki can define a preferred signature prefix in the page MediaWiki:Discussiontools-signature-prefix. For example, some languages omit spaces before signatures. Other communities want to add a dash or a non-breaking space.

New requirements for user signatures

 * The new requirements for custom user signatures began on 6 July 2020. If you try to create a custom signature that does not meet the requirements, you will get an error message.
 * Existing custom signatures that do not meet the new requirements will be unaffected temporarily . Eventually, all custom signatures will need to meet the new requirements. You can check your signature and see lists of active editors whose custom signatures need to be corrected.  Volunteers have been contacting editors who need to change their custom signatures.  If you need to change your custom signature, then please read the help page.

Next: New discussion tool
Next, the team will be working on a tool for quickly and easily starting a new discussion section to a talk page. To follow the development of this new tool, please put the New Discussion Tool project page on your watchlist.

Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:48, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Tech News: 2020-36
 Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Problems
 * This is a reminder. All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on September 1. This is planned between 14:00 and 15:00 UTC. Please check on the details on the announcement message.

Changes later this week
 * There is no new MediaWiki version this week.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.  20:08, 31 August 2020 (UTC)