User talk:Mr. Stradivarius/Archive 12

Green Mountain College
Since I'm now involved, and PE2011 isn't like to listen to my advice, could you kindly drop him/her a line to recommend against following through with the threat implied in this diff--to recruit 20 offsite editors to tip the "balance" in favor of his/her preferred position? Thanks, Qwyrxian (talk) 14:18, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Ok, I've sent them a message about it. I had just typed a rather long and wistful reply about disputes being resolved by people who were involved, but then I re-read your comment and registered the part about PE2011 not being likely to listen to your advice. So fair enough. :) Also, while you're here, are you thinking of going to Wikimania in Hong Kong next year? I was thinking about going to Washington this year, but it would just have been a pain to sort out, both on my schedule and on my wallet. Hong Kong would be much easier to get to, though... — Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 14:42, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks. On the other topic, I wish I could, but finances keep me from that. It sure looks fun, though! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kingsrow1975 (talk • contribs) 15:45, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry about that. For some reason I thought you were talking to me. I apologize.Kingsrow1975 (talk) 16:27, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Hey, no worries, and you're welcome to come too. Not that I could stop you or anything. :) — Mr. Stradivarius on tour  (have a chat) 05:32, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, I doubt that I could swing it financially either. While it's certainly cheaper than flying to Europe, it's still a chunk of change. I think I'd only do it if I could present a real scholarly presentation (i.e., something that could go on my CV, ideally related to my teaching interests), and I don't know that I can pull one together by August. I am, however, considering doing some projects at school using Wikipedia starting next school year, which I could possibly then transform into publishable/presentable work. Qwyrxian (talk) 01:19, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
 * A chunk of change it certainly is! To be fair, I'm not at all sure that I'll be going yet. Those school projects using Wikipedia sound interesting - I'll be looking forward to reading about it (if you decide to post something, that is.) — Mr. Stradivarius on tour  (have a chat) 05:32, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!
(Barnstar archived)
 * Thank you! Glad to know that I've been of assistance. — Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 13:03, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!
(Barnstar archived)
 * Thank you! It looks like this is one of those barnstar weeks for me. :) I like to think that I have made more good edits than hideous mistakes when patrolling protected edit requests, but please do let me know if you notice me ballsing something up. Patrolling CAT:CE can mean making some pretty hair-raising edits, so any feedback can only be a good thing. — Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 13:42, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Creating Separate Page on Oxen Slaughtering Controversy
Hi Mr. Stradianus,

Thank you once again for your guidance in our dispute--I think the 2 day lock helped everyone, such as by allowing participants get some sleep!:) I was thinking about writing a separate article on the controversy, one that will include more interesting details on this fascinating story (e.g., arguments for and against slaughter). When I write it up, is there a way to link my separate page to the GMC's sub-section on the controversy? Your guidance, as always, is much appreciated. PE2011 (talk) 15:34, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm just about to go to bed, but just so you (PE2011) know I would very much oppose a separate article, and recommend deletion, under WP:EVENT and WP:NOTNEWS. Qwyrxian (talk) 15:46, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Qwyrxian, thanks for your input, and for the courtesy you've shown towards me. I read up on those guidelines (and will study them more carefully), but I do not believe a separate entry would be in violation. So know that I very much oppose your opposition! :) PE2011 (talk) 22:27, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I also think that a stand-alone article probably wouldn't pass WP:EVENT. If you really want to find out, you are welcome to create it, but be aware that it may well be deleted at articles for deletion. The most important criterion for whether the article can have its own page is whether the incident has had lasting historical existence, and I have a hunch that most Wikipedians would think it has not. I would think that any deletion debate would hinge on how the participants interpret WP:INDEPTH and WP:CONTINUEDCOVERAGE. — Mr. Stradivarius on tour  (have a chat) 02:51, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the direction. If I try and fail, then at least I’ll learn more about the process.PE2011 (talk) 05:57, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

HelloGiggles again
You may want to take a look at this one, and the related COI report. -- Orange Mike |  Talk  17:49, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I had a glance at the page, and it is much better than the one I deleted as a G11. The Forbes and Mashable refs look good enough for the page to survive AfD - it looks like it just needs someone to clean it up and expand it. If the COI editors start editing against policy we can deal with that when it comes. Best — Mr. Stradivarius on tour  (have a chat) 02:35, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Your page protection wore off and same problem as before.
The two day protection you put on the page wore off, and so an IP address edited once again, adding in a fake character who they claim has sex with ducks. Please extend it forever this time. Whoever this guy is, he isn't going to stop trying to vandalize this page via different IP addresses.  D r e a m Focus  01:25, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi Dream Focus. Could you file another request at WP:RFPP? I'm on a public computer and can't use my admin account now, so you might get a quicker response that way. — Mr. Stradivarius on tour  (have a chat) 02:17, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Ok, I just had a look at the history, and it doesn't look like enough vandalism to warrant protection. If there's another surge of vandalism like last time please report it to WP:RFPP. And sorry about the "garden shed" edit - goes to show that I've never actually seen Duck Dynasty myself. :) — Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 09:54, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Arbcom elections
Sooo, any chance you might be interested? : ) - jc37 21:30, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Wow, I hadn't even considered running, but maybe I could... I'll need to think carefully about how I would balance ArbCom with my real-life commitments before nominating myself though. — Mr. Stradivarius on tour  (have a chat) 02:22, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Well the nomination period ends soon : )
 * You also may want to take a look at User:AGK/ACE2012, and Arbitration Committee Elections December 2012/Candidates. - jc37 02:45, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I've had a good long think and read a lot of ArbCom pages, and I've come to the conclusion that I'm probably not quite ready to run this year. Next year, perhaps, but it is still a pretty onerous duty and I'm not sure that I would want to take it on. I'll see how I feel next November. :) However, if there is a serious shortage of qualified candidates this year I may rethink my position before the nomination deadline. — Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 09:58, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Nod. AGK has me half leaning there... waiting for his follow up comments on his talk.
 * Thank you for considering this. I look forward to your candidacy next year : ) - jc37 04:26, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

"Infobox former country" quirk
Hello. Thanks for all those recent updates to Template:Infobox former country. Since flexing it further, I've noticed a(nother) little quirk, but this time I haven't managed to iron it out. If you look just below the "Today part of" line in the version currently in the sandbox (edit summary "removed class"), you'll see "a." (for footnote_a) riding high. Trying to correct this using "vertical-align:..." seems either to have no effect or leave it riding low when footnote_a is more than a line long. The other footnotes seem unaffected. I suspect this is happening because the footnote_a entry needs some kind of class setting ("toprow" doesn't seem to work) but this is where my know-how starts fading. Any ideas? 213.246.91.158 (talk) 00:50, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

PS I'm intending to replace the example at the top of the template's documentation with the one currently above it on the template page (i.e. remove the need to "Scroll down for this template's documentation.") — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.246.91.158 (talk) 00:54, 14 November 2012 (UTC)


 * You're welcome - I'm only too happy to facilitate coders improve our templates. I'm afraid I can't help you with the footnote issue, though. I'm generally good at the template logic structures but less so with the html, so the best I can do is suggest that you look at what other infoboxes have done. Maybe looking at some of the infoboxes that use infobox will give you some inspiration? Or you could try asking at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Templates. Feel free to update the documentation for the template, btw - just submit another edit protected request when you want the main template removed from view on the template page. Also, have you thought about registering an account? It would be nice to be able to put a name to all these decent edits. :) — Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 13:52, 14 November 2012 (UTC)


 * I've made the same request (for lettered footnote handling) at Template:Infobox country, so I'll ask there. Hopefully, someone will ride in with a solution which I'll then ask to be applied here and update the documentation. I haven't registered an account as I doubt I'll be able to do much more editing once I've finished convalescing. Thanks for your kind words, 213.246.91.158 (talk) 21:12, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Just spotted another small oversight within Template:Infobox former country. In the "Map/s" section, the font-sizing for image_map2's caption isn't quite being handled in the same way as for image_map, so I've just left the corrected version in the template sandbox (edit summary "image_map2_caption font-size"). 213.246.91.158 (talk) 04:20, 16 November 2012 (UTC)


 * It looks like the sandbox code will introduce the same bug that you mentioned at the start of this thread (the one with footnote a riding high). Is that intentional? Also, you should really submit this as a proper edit request, so that someone else can add it if I'm not around for whatever reason. Best — Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 08:48, 16 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes, that was intentional, but I agree: I'll combine it with the request implementing the footnote solution (if/when it arises). 213.246.91.158 (talk) 05:25, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Chris Janson
Can I ask you to keep an eye on Chris Janson please? An IP just removed some info from the article after it got unprotected. The edits don't correspond to what Kibus1 was doing — instead of adding NPOV-violating biographical info, they just excised all information pertaining to "Til a Woman Comes Along", including its peak chart position. I have a feeling that the IP might be related in some way, though, so I'd appreciate more eyes watching the article. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 19:15, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Sure, I'll put it on my watchlist. — Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 00:49, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

SLA hyphenation
Hi Strad,

Did you happen to notice this part of the comment I'd left on your change discussion:

""The argument for using a hyphen is that "second language" is a compound modifier of "acquisition", and that per MOS:HYPHEN #3 this should take a hyphen." If this is your reason for preferring the hyphen, then it's based on a false analysis of SLA. "Second language" is not a compound modifier of 'acquisition' (as in 'second language' acting adjectivally to modify 'acquisition'). It's the subject of a verbal noun with 'acquisition' being a noun that retains its verbal character, particularly in this case passive voice with second languages being what whomever would be 'acquiring'. It's the noun that refers to the activity (or rather study of the activity) of acquiring second(ary) language(s). 'Second language' is itself not a unit, but rather second is an adjective which in this context means non-native which contrasts with 'first', which in the overall field of language acquisition means native. This all means that MOS:HYPHEN doesn't apply to this case."

Enric has been trying to draw attention to this, but I just wanted to post to you directly since you're the one heading up the discussion. It seems like this overall discussion is going the way of previous ones over style choices and preferences in linguistic terminology. However, at the core is an insistence that hyphenating SLA is in line with WP:HYPHEN and WP:MOS and thus 'must' be done regardless of what the standard form is. As I've pointed out on the discussion and above, the application of a hyphen in this case is based on falsely identifying the syntactic components of the topic title and trying to assign it a structure in which acquisition is the head of a compound noun with second language acting adjectivally as a unit within that greater compound |{ [adj [noun] ] -adj- } > noun|. In actuality, the structure is acquisition as a verbal noun in the passive voice with language as its passive subject (active object); second could be viewed in two ways, either as an adjective modifying the subject language or as an adjective modifying language acquisition (the overall field of which this is a component genre). This would yield one of the following: |{ [ adj [noun] ] noun} < verbial| or | adj { [ [noun] < [verbial] }|.

The passive voice versions Second Language Acquisition and First Language Acquisition are tough to decipher because the use of first and second clouds the way it looks but if you substitute the meanings of 'first' and 'second' as native and non-native, it becomes clearer: Native Language Acquisition &  Non-native Language Acquisition. When shifted to active voice you get: Native Acquisition of language & Non-native Acquisition of language. The more usual structure requires swapping out one non-finite mode, the verbial, for another more familiar, the infinitive: 'Acquiring Language Natively' (or 'Natively Acquiring Language') & 'Acquiring Language Non-Natively' (or again, 'Non-natively Acquiring Language').

Do you see that once substitutions are made, there's no possible way 'first' or 'second' could be viably made to modify 'language' or for second language to modify acquisition?

This is my main point, that this discussion shouldn't even be had because hyphenation is an error, not a stylistic choice. Also, regarding the changes in other articles to the hyphenated form, there are a few editors (and at least one admin) on here who have a penchant for well choreographed changes of WP to reflect their own personal whims regarding linguistics, with changing an article and every article that relates to it together is standard play. For that reason, I wouldn't give much credence to whether the hyphen occurs elsewhere on WP.Drew.ward (talk) 02:26, 11 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Hi. After posting this I realised it tied in with some of the questions being raised in the change discussion, so I added the same info there. I look forward to your thoughts.  Thanks again for taking the time to follow up on this topic and keep the original participants in the loop.  --drew Drew.ward (talk) 17:39, 11 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Hi Drew. Actually I was going to suggest that you do exactly what you have already done, and post this analysis at the CfD discussion. I think I'll leave the analysis of the grammar to people who actually know what they're talking about though! Remember that I'm happy whichever punctuation we decide on, as long as the category is the same as the article. It didn't even occur to me that "second language acquisition" might take a hyphen until Tony1 pointed it out to me on WT:LING last year. Best — Mr. Stradivarius on tour  (have a chat) 01:16, 12 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Hi Mr. Strad. I hope the discussion on SLA hasn't been too widely deflected away from the topic at hand via the tangent regarding whether only the works of currently popular writers are valid for sourcing.  My intent was not to have that discussion, and I was surprised that it kept going as I'd expected each reply to result in it getting back to the actual discussion of hyphenation and SLA.  It seems to have ended unresolved (went the usual route of 'you don't agree with me therefore you must obviously be incompetent).  Either way though I think it seems the opinions overall, for whatever reason, seem squarely in the corner of removing the hyphen from the various pages and categories. --drewDrew.ward (talk) 18:12, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Denial at dispute resolution
Hello, Mr. Stradivarius.

How do you do? I hope you're doing well; I am not. Actually, I think I badly need help with a content dispute case. This has been going on for a month and various people involved has resolved to what I can only describe as personal attacks. To make matter worse, my own lack of experience in Wikipedia has added more complexities to the case.

I can post the details if you wish but I don't want to bother you if you are busy or just not interested. Could you please help?

Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 09:32, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi there. This would be the Windows Server 2012 DRN listing, would it not? It looks like the DRN thread was closed because there is already an RfC open on this subject. I think you should wait for more comments from third parties in the RfC (at my count you have 11 more days until the 30-day limit). If that doesn't provide a resolution then you might want to contact TransporterMan on his talk page and ask if opening another DRN thread would be a good idea. Also, have you advertised the RfC in all the places that it might reasonably advertised, bearing in mind the advice at Canvassing? Advertising RfCs widely is important, because relying on people who subscribe to the feedback request service can be a bit hit and miss. Hope this helps. — Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 09:53, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Hello again


 * You admins are aware of everything in Wikipedia, aren't you? It both fascinates and scares me. But no. As I have said previously, I have the capacity to lose and be a good loser. No, the keyword here is "denial". Care to listen?


 * Best regards,
 * Codename Lisa (talk) 10:12, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Sure, let me know what the trouble is. (And I'll let you know the secret of my superpowers - enable the "Add page and user options to drop-down menus on the toolbar" option from the Gadgets section in your preferences, and install the userpage info script in User:Mr. Stradivarius/vector.js...) — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 10:24, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
 * (Oh yes, and there's also the fact that I have the DRN listings template in my user page dashboard...) — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 10:25, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi. Sorry, had to go. Urgent matter. Still cannot write much. Have to go. Later. Codename Lisa (talk) 11:36, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi. Sorry for the interruption. I know this isn't exactly an instant messaging system but I hope I did not leave you waiting a long time. Okay, what was I saying? I think I was saying that I have been involved in a number of dispute resolutions recently, but I don't know what to do when I encounter denial. Starting with a simple case, remember the MCQ case of VirtualBox logo? I did not know how much I should wait before deciding that no one will probably comment on the issue? For more complex example, see this: In this instance, I am figuratively kicked out of the talk page. Ouch, I am being called again. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 13:50, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry for the late reply. I'm not sure that what you've experienced in these situations is necessarily denial. If there is no reply to a particular thread there can be any number of reasons for that, and denial is only one of the possible ones. In the thread you linked to it seems like Jasper is a bit annoyed, but I wouldn't really call that denial. He seems to be saying that you should feel free to add back in the changes that he didn't object to. Remember WP:AGF, WP:AAGF, WP:AAAGF and WP:AAGFAAGF? :) Those are the best way of dealing with that kind of situation. Best — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 12:59, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi. It seems I forgot to mention the actual denial: While they stonewall me in their talk pages or article pages, they also revert my changes, violating BRD and even BRR(D). So, basically, I have no option of talking or reverting (without willfully starting an edit war). So, they do not mean "you should feel free to add back" as you said. They actually mean "Now way, pretty girl, I'll revert you till the day of judgment!"


 * For instance: Jasper Deng thread; well, the DRN that you recently discovered with your "superpower" was part of the same dispute resolution! I went through a talk page discussion, some heuristics and the discovery(!) of the subject of dispute (colors), a DRN, an article talk page discussion, a 3O, an RFC, another DRN and all along Jasper Deng ensured that a consensus or compromise is not achieved by resolving to reverts and never bothered to warn me about my going wrong in DR process. I cannot say there was malice in his action but he definitely get a kick out of it. In fact expect him to revert again. If you look at the article history, you'll see that it is calm; well, I kept it calm.


 * Argh! These corp guys are calling me again! No time to proofread and shorten my message. Sorry. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 14:32, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Hmm, tough one. I still think WP:AGF and waiting for the RfC to finish would be the best way to deal with this, as that is likely to get you to a final decision with the minimum of drama. Also, after the RfC has finished a new DRN request would not be turned down. However, if a user is consistently reverting another user without participating in discussions or in dispute resolution proceedings, then we usually class it as a conduct problem and deal with it using our conduct dispute resolution processes. I'm not sure whether that is the case with Jasper Deng in the Windows Server 2012 dispute, because I haven't looked into it in any detail, but there is nothing to stop you from using the conduct dispute resolution forums if you think it's appropriate. Please note that it pays to be careful with making allegations in these forums though, as typically the behaviour of all parties is examined, and starting conduct dispute proceedings that have no basis is often seen to be disruptive. (See Gaming the system for an overview of all the possible dastardly tricks that people have noticed over the years.) I'm not sure if I have pointed you to Be the glue before, but it definitely applies here. Assuming good faith and making extra efforts to find a peaceful resolution is the best way to deal with this situation even if you end up having to take it to a conduct resolution forum eventually. Let me know if this all makes sense. — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius on tour  (have a chat) 05:49, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi. Yes, they make perfect sense; don't worry. At the moment, I do not feel anybody's behavior has due weight for a conduct dispute noticeboard. I don't think anybody is ever blocked for mischief in Wikipedia. Maybe perhaps for repeated mischief on the entire community... So, let's just hope for the best.
 * I've been using the word "mischief" throughout our discussion as "a vexatious or annoying action." I hope you didn't pick up the U.S. Laws definition, "an offense against property that does not involve conversion, such as damage, defacement, alteration, or destruction of property."
 * Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 12:12, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 12:12, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

A kitten for you!
(Cute kitten removed)

Thanks very much for the translation. For that, here's a cute kitten.

Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 10:40, 19 November 2012 (UTC) <br style="clear: both;"/>
 * Noooo, not the kitten! Anything but that! I was considering replacing the image with this, but I thought better of it. I'm glad you liked the translation though. :) By the way, I think the "Marui" in the Japanese article is probably this Marui, but the link on the Japanese Wikipedia led to a disambiguation page, so I'd need to see the source to be sure, or to check it against other sources online. The big department store chain seems like the most likely bet, though. Best — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 12:00, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Also, I've history merged your draft page to the main article page. You need to keep the history intact to preserve attribution of who did what - especially as it wasn't clear in the stub that you started that the page was a translation from the Japanese Wikipedia article. — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 12:19, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Belarusians
Hello :-) Some weirdo called Joe.brawo.2 is doing a revert war on the Belarusians article. Please look: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Belarusians&action=history

Also look at his racist comments. He called Belarusians stupid, and look at this:

He changed the Spanish version of the article to "fuck Belarusians". Is it possible to sent him to a mental hospital :-) ? Danton&#39;s Jacobin (talk) 12:58, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I've asked for protection at WP:RFPP. I can't do anything more for now as I'm on my non-admin account, and I'm also pretty busy. Best — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius on tour  (have a chat) 02:11, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Top Model po-russki, Cycle 4
I opened a discussion on the talk page of this article, please consider that the edits made by KIRILL95 and how the current version stands are not following the guidelines that were determined by the general consensus on the talk page of America's Next Top Model. Regards Shameless (talk) 13:28, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that. I'll be monitoring the situation, although I'm pretty busy today, so you might need to report it at WP:RFPP or WP:AN3 if necessary. — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius on tour  (have a chat) 02:16, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Adminship
I was referring to users Karthikndr and TheSpecialUser. --Rsrikanth05 (talk) 15:51, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

CAT citation inquiry
Hi,

I'm editing the page of communication accommodation theory for a course right now. And I noticed that you changed the citation format to make the page more neat last year.

I appreciate the new format, but I've got a little problem adjusting to it.

I'm OK with adding references in its detailed form. But I'm not sure how to edit the abbreviated version and link it with the detailed version listed before.

Hope you can help me figure it out. Thanks. Stellalqx (talk) 16:48, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi there! I've fixed some of the references for you. There were a couple that I couldn't fix because it's not easy to see which source they are referring to, so I'd appreciate it if you could have a look at those. You can see the instructions for using this particular citation style at Template:Sfn. Basically, to make them work properly you need to specify the exact same author surnames (up to four) and the same year as the cite book (or cite journal, etc.) template at the bottom of the page. The cite book template also needs to contain the parameter harv for the links to work. And you also need to list the other authors individually rather than use coauthors. If the harv parameter is not set, or any of the name or year details are wrong, the link won't work. Hope this clears things up, but do let me know if you have any other questions. Best regards — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius on tour  (have a chat) 02:42, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh yes, and the sfn template goes after the full stop, not before it. See MOS:REFPUNC for the guidelines on this. Thanks! — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius on tour  (have a chat) 02:45, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Hi Mr. Stradivarius,

I really appreciate your help. It's so nice of you to offer those information.

I'll read the instructions and try to work it out.

Thanks very much.Stellalqx (talk) 04:56, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Request for comment
You are receiving this message because you have submitted at least one edit to the Frank_L._VanderSloot article during the past thirty days. Your attention is called to Requests for comment/Rhode Island Red.2. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 01:02, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Metalcore currently plagued by vandals.
Hi, How are you happy turkey day, this person here seems to once a week now just remove true accurate sourced material and rewrite the page with about 16 edits. this person http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Omair00 at the page Metalcore. Sorry to bother you but I just had noticed it. this person keeps going against consensus. — Preceding unsigned comment added by CombatMarshmallow (talk • contribs) 01:11, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
 * The first thing you should try to do is to open a discussion on Talk:Metalcore. Let Omair00 know why you disagree with their edits (but please be polite) and see if you can come to a consensus about what to do. If you can't come to a consensus or don't get a response, you can make a request on WP:AN3 or WP:RFPP, whichever seems more appropriate. Be warned, however, that both your behaviour and Omair00's behaviour will be examined, and if you have been edit warring there is a chance that you could be blocked. Let me know if you have any questions about this. — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 01:45, 23 November 2012 (UTC)


 * I thought people couldnt change what a whole page is about and erase sourced material and do all of that without discussion on the talk page first. this person did all of this. Isnt is already consensus of a few years of edits and at least around one years worth of edits, as it is today, considered consensus when multiple editors consider this version to be true and I was even there during all these years from 1984 at the earliest band until now. It all makes sense. it it very informative for this person to keep changing the whole page to suit it seems "Converge" and the fact that someone os re-writing it to where metalcore starts in the 2000s when in fact sourced material starts it in the 1980s. This person did 5 reverts that was the first of 16 edits. I thought there was a revert rule. this is basically Vandalism. The page is being changed without consensus or the talk page first. I may be too tired from the backlash of the hurricane to take action tonight. You put back the same sourced material this person erased and put protection on the page because of it. and this person erased it and sourced material that is true I dont get how they are getting away with this. Ive had an editor examine my work and said I was one of the good guys. I am half asleep hope that was clear and easy read. ( IP address removed ) 03:14, 23 November 2012 (UTC)


 * sorry about the typos and it must have signed me out. CombatMarshmallow (talk) 03:17, 23 November 2012 (UTC)


 * The point is that you have to at least try to find out the reasons why he is making those edits, even if you might disagree with them. Calling his edits "vandalism" is not going to help matters at all, whether you are trying to talk to him about them, or whether you are trying to convince an admin to sanction him because of them. If you read Vandalism it has a very clear definition of vandalism, and these edits do not qualify. The next step is to talk to Omair00 about his edits, and there is no real way around this step. Have you read WP:AGF and WP:GLUE? They have some good advice for situations like this. Best — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 02:50, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Please leave feedback on School meal programs in the United States
Hello, Mr. Stradivarius,

Some major additions have been made to the article on School meal programs in the United States since you last commented on the article. Looking at these additions, what sections may I want to add more detail to at this point? What sections can be revised and improved? I appreciate you input! Best, Heidimkahle (talk) 06:29, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Election question
Hi Strad, I'm sure all would agree that we would like to have broad participation in the ArbCom election as only a fraction of a % of active editors voted in last years elections.. I was just wondering how members of the community are being alerted as I sense many may be unaware of its occurrence. Any info on that? Thanks!--<span style="font-family:Comic Sans MS,sans -serif"> — <b style= "color:#090;">Keithbob</b> • Talk  • 16:02, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, we have a watchlist notice about it that is visible to all editors until the end of the elections. The only more intrusive way we have of notifying all our editors is via the site notice system. I thought the watchlist notice would be enough, though. — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius on tour  (have a chat) 23:49, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Following up
Mr. Stradivarious, hope you are doing well. I´m following up still interested in publishing the article about my work again. As I told you before it was removed because I added some pictures that apparently were taken as braking the copyright law. I think I told you I own the rights of the covers of my CDs. You raised the topic of notability, I send you links in which you can see about my activity, etc. Most info about my concerts, classes, books and CDs can be found at google.com and at my CD. How could we proceed with this? I´m grateful for your help in advance. Cordially, Patricia — Preceding unsigned comment added by Singerpat (talk • contribs) 21:39, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Hello again Patricia, and thanks for your message. Actually, your article wasn't deleted because of the pictures you put on it. If there are images that violate copyright, we usually just remove them from the article - we don't delete the article altogether. Your article was deleted because it was almost completely unreferenced, and because no-one else found any references for it. That is the essence of our notability guidelines for biographies - there need to be enough independent sources about you from books or from newspapers that we can write a decent article about you. I think that someone noticed your article because of the image copyright problems, but they didn't delete it because of those problems. Copyright is a different issue entirely from notability. So, as to what we do now: my opinions haven't changed since the last time we spoke, but if you want to go ahead and try to create the article, you can do it via our articles for creation process. You will be able to create a draft of the article, but it won't be in the main article namespace, and it won't be indexed by Google. After you've finished your draft, someone will come along and review it and see if they think it should be made into a regular Wikipedia article. If they think it's ok (no guarantees of this, by the way), then an administrator can perform the technical steps to put the article up "live" on Wikipedia. Be aware, however, that it is always possible for an editor to bring the article to articles for deletion after the article is up "live", and if there is a consensus among editors that it still doesn't satisfy the notability guidelines, then it may be deleted anyway. If you still want to write the draft after knowing these risks, read the instructions at articles for creation to get you started. And as always, feel free to ask me any questions you might have. Best regards — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 10:39, 29 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your answer. Actually there have been many people who have asked if they can write the article. I don´t have to be the one who write it down if it would mean that there could be a problem in the future. But of course people who write about me will use the information provided in my web or in concert programs that is all similar. Do you think it would be better if other person writes it? Pictures and videos I have the ownership of most of the copyright.
 * Have a good weekend. P. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Singerpat (talk • contribs) 13:28, 2 December 2012 (UTC)


 * It might be better if someone else writes it, because they are more likely to be able to write it neutrally. That said, if those other people still have some form of conflict of interest, there may not be that much difference in that respect. In the end, the important thing is that the article is written from a neutral point of view and that its contents are cited to reliable sources. — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 13:45, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Proposal for category:Translator stubs
Hi Mr. Stradivarius. Hope you are doing fine. I have just published a proposal to create a new category:Translator stubs. What do you say? Regards from Montevideo, --Fabio Descalzi, aka Fadesga (talk) 18:10, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

RFPP
Hello Mr. Stradivarius, I replied to your decline for PC protection on WP:RFPP. Vacation nine 19:38, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Aerican Empire
why, I have not set a template for deletion because I do not think it's serious? --109.232.72.49 (talk) 14:20, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi there. The reason is because the criteria for speedy deletion are quite limited in scope, and your reason of "when we started making country data templates to micro-nations not recognize and which are only made ​​for fun?" doesn't fall under any of the criteria. It's nothing personal at all, it's just that admins don't have the authority to unilaterally delete pages if they don't meet the criteria. If you want to get the template deleted, then the proper way to do it is by nominating it at templates for discussion. If a consensus of uninvolved editors there thinks that the template should be deleted, then it will be deleted after seven days there. Let me know if you have any questions about this, and I'll be happy to help you out. Best — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 14:26, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

PP request
I noticed a few months ago that you PPed Evan's talk due to harassment by IP socks. Now I would like the same protection; however, others are refusing this to me at the request page. Any thoughts? GabeMc (talk 01:26, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
 * The one big difference I notice between his case and yours is that there is no recent disruptive activity on your talk page. At Evan's page it was pretty unrelenting. (And you know we generally don't protect pages preemptively. User pages and subpages, maybe, but user talk pages, generally not.) By the way, Diannaa asked you a question at RFPP which you haven't responded to yet. If you get this in time it would probably be a good idea to comment over there. Best — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 11:04, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!
(Barnstar archived)
 * A scratch? Your arm's off! I mean thank you. :) — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 16:18, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Question about auditing/examining a reviewer
I am very concerned over reviewer rights being given on a recent request. Is there a formal way to have a reviewer reviewed? I am very worried, as this person is a single issue editor with a great deal of problems, including the creation of near-duplicate articles. I don't wish to jump out and make any direct accusations yet, or name any names, but I am extremely concerned at this. Is there a process for this, and if so, could you point me in the correct direction? When I saw that this editor had reviewer rights, I was quite frankly alarmed. --<span style="white-space:nowrap;text-shadow:#ff55ff 0em 0em 0.8em,#55ffff -0.8em -0.8em 0.9em,#ffff55 0.7em 0.7em 0.8em;color:#ffffff">Sue Rangell ✍ ✉ 22:45, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Not as far as I know. It would have to go to one of the regular user conduct dispute venues, for example WP:RFC/U or WP:ANI. If you think it's a mistake I have made, though, then I can undo my action myself if there is information I wasn't aware of when I gave the editor reviewer status, and if I agree that there is good reason to suspect that the editor would abuse the reviewer right. Feel free to email me the specifics if you don't want to reveal them on-wiki. Best — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius on tour  (have a chat) 04:17, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Template:pp-pc1
Do you think you could reduce the protection to semi or PC2 for now? It's a template still being worked on.— cyber power <sub style="color:olive;font-family:arnprior">Online <sup style="margin-left:-6.1ex;color:olive;font-family:arnprior">Merry Christmas 14:38, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't think we're allowed to use PC2 yet, correct me if I'm wrong, and semi doesn't seem quite enough seeing as it would be a very tempting vandalism target. If you want to work on it, there's always the sandbox. (Testing shouldn't be done on the live template now that it is being rolled out on articles anyway.) If you have a sandbox version that you want putting in the main template, feel free to ping me and I'll transfer it over for you. — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 14:59, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Celebrity Big Brother 11
Hi, the dates you have added for the start date need to be in the english format (dd/mm/yyy) not american, and there also needs to be a source. Thanks. --MSalmon (talk) 18:06, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * You're welcome. :P Go ahead and make another edit request and I'm sure someone will get round to it soon enough. — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 21:29, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * It's ok, the page has been changed to semi-protected now,and the user has been blocked now --MSalmon (talk) 22:58, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Template:WikiProject Canada
Hi. Thanks for making the change. Sadly, may I request that you change the "Okanagan" category to "WikiProject Okanagan articles" please? Also, I believe, for example, "Stub-Class Okanagan" should be "Stub-Class Okanagan articles" instead, same goes for other classes, that will need to probably be changed as well. Thanks, <font face="Impact"> TBr and  ley  21:54, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi there. If you work up the corrected code in the sandbox and submit another edit request, I'll get around to it when I have a moment. Don't forget to test the change on the test cases page too. :) — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 06:45, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Shah Rukh Khan
Hello Sir

In last 4 to 5 days back, Shah Rukh Khan was Medal of Honoured in Morocco International Film Festival few days back. There Shah Rukh Khan was Introduced as Demigod of Cinema. So, I want you to add another nick name of Shah Rukh Khan as "Demigod Of Cinema".I am sending you various websites:


 * <"http://dawn.com/2012/12/04/bollywood-demigod-khan-casts-spell-on-moroccans/">
 * <"http://www.topix.com/arts/cinema/2012/12/bollywood-demigod-khan-casts-spell-on-moroccans">
 * <"http://www.indianexpress.com/news/bollywood-demigod-khan-casts-spell-on-moroccans/1040362/">
 * <"http://m.timesofindia.com/articleshow/17475128.cms">
 * <"http://www.ptinews.com/news/3184500_Bollywood--demigod--Khan-casts-spell-on-Moroccans-">
 * <"http://topic.worlds-luxury-guide.com/article/04He9lcbHIfbr?q=Morocco">
 * <"http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-12-04/news/35594527_1_shah-rukh-khan-indian-cinema-bollywood">
 * <"http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/17475128.cms">
 * <"http://www.allvoices.com/news/13533511-bollywood-demigod-khan-casts-spell-on-moroccans">
 * <"http://www.tvballa.com/2012/12/shahrukh-khan/moroccans-casts-khan-bollywood-spell-demigod">
 * <"http://stcommunities.straitstimes.com/movies/2012/12/04/bollywood-demigod-khan-casts-spell-moroccans">
 * <"http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/lifestyle/story/bollywood-demigod-khan-casts-spell-moroccans-20121204">
 * <"http://www.movieballa.com/2012/12/bollywood/casts-bollywood-spell-demigod-khan-moroccans">
 * <"http://www.bollywoodstatus.com/bollywood-news/bollywood-demigod-khan-casts-spell-on-moroccans-indian-express/">
 * <"http://www.coastaldigest.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=48296">
 * <"http://www.emirates247.com/videos/the-best-of-bollywood-honoured-in-marrakesh-2012-12-05-1.485937">

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.59.38.160 (talk) 10:10, 6 December 2012‎ (UTC)


 * Hi there. Sorry, but this isn't the right place to propose your edit - the right place is Talk:Shah Rukh Khan. I see you have made a post there, but it wasn't very clear what you wanted to be changed in the article. You have to say exactly what you want to be done before an administrator can make an edit for you. However, the protection on the page is going to expire in an hour or so, so it might be easier to just wait and add it in after that. Make sure that your edit has consensus, though, and don't edit war to keep it in the article, otherwise the page might be protected again. Best regards — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 11:14, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Perm
Hey Stradivarius. Although I'm a reviewer and understand the duty of reviewers, I'd like to know which are the requirements to have the right, as I don't have them very clear. — ΛΧΣ  21  23:01, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi Hahc21. You can find them at Reviewing. There are also some instructions for administrators at Template:Editnotices/Page/Wikipedia:Requests for permissions/Reviewer. Best — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 03:32, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Bitcoin DRN suddenly closed, POV removed & edit approved
Hello. There is currently a discussion at Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pratyeka (talk • contribs) 10:08, 8 December 2012‎ (UTC

Template:Infobox film Narrator
Thanks for your help, but as you can see at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Infobox_film#Narrator, we were not looking to change the way Narrated by was displayed in the infobox to Narrator(s) - that was only for the instructions. Please change it back so it displays as Narrated by in the infobox. - Gothicfilm (talk) 22:46, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Done. — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 02:29, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Re: Infobox airport - change request November 27th
I did the changes in that sandbox like you suggested. I left a note in that talk page two days ago, but there has been no discernible activity. My only problem, apart from my eyes going bad from so many }{, is really to do with the stuff. I presume these are to make the documentation work, but it all got too much for me.

Incidentally, looking at my own live work, I see I entirely replicated the other[n] elements by use of and  etc. as footnotes

John of Cromer in China (talk) mytime= Tue 12:26, wikitime= 04:26, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Judging from Template talk:Infobox airport, it looks like Zyxw has taken care of the stuff. It also looks like there is more to be added, and that the new additions will need to be tested. Once all of this is done, feel free to reactivate the edit requested template on the talk page. By the way, you no longer have to save the sandbox each time to see what the test cases look like. There's a new feature activated for template pages in the latest version of MediaWiki that makes it possible to preview how a template would look on a particular page. You should see the text "Preview page with this template" underneath the save page button in the edit window for template pages. Try using that. :) — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius on tour  (have a chat) 06:41, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Speedy deletion templates
Hi, I was cleaning up templates and I came across these two: Template:Speedy deletion templates and Template:Speedy deletion notices. I was wondering if they are the same/similar templates, and if the 2nd one could be redirected to the first one? (because the word "templates" makes more sense). Just wondering if there is a reason why there are 2 of them. Please fill me in, thanks, --Funandtrvl (talk) 23:44, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
 * The templates are the actual speedy templates, db-g1, etc. The notices are what goes on users talk pages when you've tagged an article they created for deletion. Legoktm (talk) 23:51, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Yep, what Legoktm said. Template:Speedy deletion templates is used on  pages, and Template:Speedy deletion notices is used on   pages. They could both do with a bit of cleaning up though, as it looks like the html stopped displaying nicely when MediaWiki was updated the time before last. (Or maybe one of the times I upgraded Firefox - not sure about that.) — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius on tour  (have a chat) 06:29, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
 * OK, thanks, but what is the difference between the two that necessitates one being used by db-xx and the other being used by db-xx-notice? I could barely find a difference, if so, it is very subtle. I'm still wondering if the two could be combined, somehow. Thanks, --Funandtrvl (talk) 18:03, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, I suppose you could merge them together if you wanted all the speedy deletion templates in one place. The result of a merge might end up looking like the templates section of speedy deletion navbox - was that the kind of thing you were thinking of? — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 21:26, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Now, I see the difference in the sidebars :)! One is for the notices... now I think I get it. Just leave the sidebars as is, and I see how it's combined in the nvbx too. I think it's alright as it is, now. Thanks, sorry for the trouble!! When I have a chance, I'll see if they need any updating. --Funandtrvl (talk) 21:33, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Backlog at CAT:EP
I am not an admin, but is there anything that I can do to help? --<span style="white-space:nowrap;text-shadow:#ff55ff 0em 0em 0.8em,#55ffff -0.8em -0.8em 0.9em,#ffff55 0.7em 0.7em 0.8em;color:#ffffff">Sue Rangell ✍ ✉ 00:29, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for offering to help! I suppose you could go through the list of requests and decline ones that are made in bad faith or obviously made in error. For example, if someone uses the template but doesn't make a request, or if someone files a request that obviously goes against policy. (Like someone requesting that unsourced controversial material be added to a fully-protected biography of a living person.) However, if there's any chance that someone might contest your action, it's probably better to wait for an admin to do it. Also, if you like template coding or JavaScript, it would be very helpful to go through and review/test code that people propose. Often code is proposed that makes simple mistakes, or someone makes a request for a template feature but doesn't actually write the code. Often these kinds of requests sits around for days, only for the patrolling admin to ask the requester to write up or fix the code in the template sandbox. And then it takes another several days while the improved code is reviewed again. If good template coders who aren't admins helped to patrol the category then these kinds of changes could be made the first time the admin takes a look. Hope this answers your question. :) — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius on tour  (have a chat) 06:19, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh yes, and I forgot to mention - please make it clear that you are not an admin if you answer requests, either by using nao or just by saying so. People tend to assume that the person who answers the request is an admin, so it is best to be clear about these things. — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius on tour  (have a chat) 07:22, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Cool beans. I shall dip my toe into these waters as soon as I read the appropriate guidline articles. Thanks for the opportunity, I wasn't sure if there was anything I could do, not being an admin. Be well. --<span style="white-space:nowrap;text-shadow:#ff55ff 0em 0em 0.8em,#55ffff -0.8em -0.8em 0.9em,#ffff55 0.7em 0.7em 0.8em;color:#ffffff">Sue Rangell ✍ ✉ 06:50, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

DR Case on Confucius Institute
Hi Mr. Stardivarius, I'm ready to resume the DR case on the Confucius Institute article. Do I just need to start a new case with a link to the previous case?--PCPP (talk) 12:39, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Yep, that's right. File a new case at WP:DRN, include the link, and you should be good to go. — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 13:02, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Orlah (cleaning up unnecessary disambiguation)
Thank you for helping us taking care of this. StevenJ81 (talk) 15:03, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
 * No problem at all. :) — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 15:10, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Regarding: User Page Protection
Hi,

I do not want any one to make changes on my user page as it is personal one and sensitive as well.

Thanks & Regards, Pankaj Bajaj — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pankaj Bajaj Eldeco (talk • contribs) 06:58, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi there. That's fine - I only deleted the permanently protected template from your userpage because it could mislead people into thinking that the page was permanently protected. I'm not really interested in editing the page now the template has gone. Please note that we do have some rules about what you can and can't have on your user page and your user subpages - have a look at User pages for the details, and feel free to ask me if you have any questions about them. Best — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 14:17, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Technical problems
Hi again Mr. Stradivarius! In regards to Category:Okanagan, that category is showing talk and category talk pages for some weird reason, when it should not. This may be a technical problem about WikiProject Okanagan. Do you what is incorrect and how to fix the concern? <font face="Impact"> TBr and  ley  02:01, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi there. You were still seeing some talk pages in the category because the relevant changes were waiting in the job queue. If categories are not changed directly but by means of a template, then those changes are not performed straight away but are put into the job queue. It can sometimes be several days or even weeks before they are processed. However, I have made the wait unnecessary by performing null edits to the relevant talk pages, so they have all been moved over to the proper category now. Have another look at Category:Okanagan and see if anything is out of place. Best — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 02:53, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, that did it. Thanks! I'm not very familiar with the job queue and null edits, really. That really helped clean the category up, which is great. Happy Holidays, <font face="Impact"> TBr and  ley  17:34, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Noticeboard for India-related topics
Greetings! You have been randomly selected to receive an invitation to participate in the request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Noticeboard for India-related topics. Should you wish to respond to the invitation, your contribution to this discussion will be very much appreciated! If in doubt, please see suggestions for responding. If you do not wish to receive these types of notices, please remove your name from Feedback request service. — RFC&#32;bot (talk) 06:16, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!
<div style="border-style:solid; border-color:red; background-color:fff; border-width:2px; text-align:left; padding:8px;" class="plainlinks">

— ΛΧΣ  21  is wishing you a Merry Christmas! This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Happy New Year!

Spread the cheer by adding {{subst:Xmas2}} to their talk page with a friendly message. — ΛΧΣ  21  05:48, 21 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you! Merry Christmas to you too. :) — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 18:23, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!!
'''For all you do. We need more Wikipedians like you :)'''

<div style="border-style:solid; border-color:white; background-color:white; font color:red; border-width:2px; text-align:left; padding:8px;" class="plainlinks">

<span style="white-space:nowrap;text-shadow:#ff55ff 0em 0em 0.8em,#55ffff -0.8em -0.8em 0.9em,#ffff55 0.7em 0.7em 0.8em;color:#ffffff">Sue Rangell ✍ ✉ is wishing you a Merry Christmas! This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Happy New Year!

Spread the Christmas cheer by adding {{subst:Xmas5}} to their talk page with a friendly message.


 * Thank you, and a Merry Christmas too you too! :) — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 18:25, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Admin help
I created Template talk:Editnotices/Group/User:My76Strat with a protected edit request to tag and deleted Template:Editnotices/Group/User:My76Strat per csd-g7; then the talk page deleted per csd-g8. The deletion was performed out of sequence, killing the edit request with it. Could you have a look and perhaps delete the template page? Thank you. -- My <font color="#FF4500;">76 Strat (talk) 18:39, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Ok, I've deleted the page for you. — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 20:28, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Re: Magik (rapper)
Hey, thanks for noticing. As you can imagine, my intention was to restore the correct name. Somehow I only managed to reject the second edit that the previous user made, and the wrong name remained.

Btw, there seems to be some sockpuppeteering going on. The creator of the article and this latest vandalizer are clearly the same person. I also left a request for investigation on this. Widr (talk) 22:17, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Happy Holidays! :)
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Mediran ( t  •  c ) is wishing you a Merry Christmas! This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Happy New Year!

Spread the Christmas cheer by adding {{subst:Xmas3}} to their talk page with a friendly message.


 * Thanks Mediran! Merry Christmas to you too. :) — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 08:37, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

User:Ananyaprasad/Rashmi Singh
Hello! Please check the article. I have added fresh links and some more I have seen are added. But I do not know how to go about itAnanyaprasad (talk) 14:49, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi there. I had a look at the article, and it doesn't look like any substantial third-party sources have been added which pass Wikipedia's guidelines on identifying reliable sources. This was the reason that the article was deleted at Articles for deletion/Rashmi Singh (author), and because these issues haven't been fully addressed, the article would likely be deleted if it went to another deletion discussion. I think you should hold off from recreating the article until some better sources are available. Let me know if you have any questions about this. — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 15:24, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

User:Pawpau
You gave a welcome and a comment on his requested edit at Polytechnic Institute of New York University. Unfortunately, this user is a sockpuppet of a blocked user (see Sockpuppet investigations/Mangoeater1000) and is now making other edits to Wikipedia to non-protected articles like here. As an admin, if there is anything you can do to expedite the blocking of this sockpuppet it would be much appreciated. Thanks, 72Dino (talk) 16:35, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for letting me know - I've gone ahead and blocked. You might want to comment at their talk page, where they have posted an unblock request. Best — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 16:51, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Will do. I appreciate the help. 72Dino (talk) 16:53, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!

 * Thank you! Have a great Christmas yourself. :) — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 21:50, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!
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<font face="Impact"> TBr and  ley  is wishing you a Merry Christmas! This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Happy New Year!

Spread the cheer by adding {{subst:Xmas2}} to their talk page with a friendly message. <font face="Impact"> TBr and  ley  02:13, 25 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you! It's nice waking up on Christmas morning to a WikiMerryChristmas! :) I hope you have a great Christmas too. — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 08:26, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Coord template
Thank you for performing the requested edit. —Stepheng3 (talk) 09:01, 25 December 2012 (UTC)
 * No problem. Any time. — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 09:05, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Merry Christmas
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 CURTAINTOAD! TALK! is wishing you a Merry Christmas! This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Happy New Year!

Spread the cheer by adding {{subst:Xmas2}} to their talk page with a friendly message.  CURTAINTOAD! TALK! 10:23, 25 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you! Merry Christmas to you too. :) — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 10:31, 25 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank-you! ;)  CURTAINTOAD! TALK! 10:43, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!
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<font color="Fuchsia">TheGeneralUser <font color="Fuchsia">(talk)  is wishing you a Merry Christmas! This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Happy New Year!

Spread the cheer by adding {{subst:Xmas2}} to their talk page with a friendly message. Hello Mr. Stradivarius! Wishing you a very Happy Merry Christmas :) <font color="Fuchsia">TheGeneralUser <font color="Fuchsia">(talk)  14:07, 25 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you! I hope you have a great holiday too. Best — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 16:24, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

About Tek Nath Rizal
--Vidhyapati (talk) 15:36, 27 December 2012 (UTC) Hai,

I found that the article on Tek Nath Rizal has erroneously mentioned that he is a leader of Bhutanese People's Party ! The sentence is this :

Tek Nath Rizal (also spelled Rijal) is a leader of the Bhutanese People's Party and a political and human rights activist in Bhutan.

Reality : Mr Rizal is never associated with this party, and in fact there is no party called 'Bhutanese People's Party'. It should be Bhutan People's Party.

I have started using wifipedia from today, and this is just my suggestion. I have no idea if I can correct those mistakes instantly or not.

Best regards,

Vidhyapati


 * Hi Vidhyapati, and welcome to Wikipedia! Feel free to be bold and correct the mistake yourself, but make sure that you cite your sources when you do it. I also recommend reading our guideline on identifying reliable sources so that you have an idea of the kind of sources that are acceptable on Wikipedia. Best — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 17:02, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Proposal for
Hi Mr. Stradivarius. Hope you are doing fine. Please, be so kind an d take a look at this proposal to create a new. Thank you! Regards, --Fabio Descalzi, aka Fadesga (talk) 16:48, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Using your design
I am using your user page design on my user page. If you permit it, I gratefully thank you. But if not, please notice me and I will immediately revert the change.

Thanks!

---

Malikussaid (talk) 19:17, 28 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Hi Malikussaid! Yes, you're welcome to use my user page design. Not least because I originally stole it from User:Jimbo Wales, who used to have the same design but in grey. Let me know if you have any question about optimising it - I might be (might be) able to share something useful. Best — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 00:06, 29 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you. I am still trying to costumize the the userboxes, the top menu, a sectional biography (the long one which I explain myself), and proper links or biography sidebox about how to contact me properly (and the short biography about me). Since I saw you are an Administrator, I would try to not take your precious time managing Wikipedia to answer unimportant question(s) about improving my user page, but since you actually let me ask you, I would gladly ask you upon encontering an issue that I can't find solution about.


 * My gratitude,




 * Malikussaid (talk) 08:23, 29 December 2012 (UTC)


 * For the top menu, we have a neat guide that you can read at User page design center/Menus and subpages. For the sections in the biography part, just add the following code at the start of a new line:
 * The other pages in User page design center should be useful for the rest of your customization. Hope this helps! — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 09:48, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh yes, and Cheatsheet is good for learning the basic WikiCode that you will need. — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 09:49, 29 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank You.




 * Malikussaid (talk) 16:55, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

HI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
HI MR.STRADIVARIUS! We haven't talked in soooooooooooooooo long! You were the first one to welcome me into Wikipedia! I'm doing so great here! Got in trouble a few times and was awarded a few times. Hi!!!!!RaidenRules!Talk to me! 15:56 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Re: User talk:83.77.188.206
Hi Mr. Stradivarius! I can't believe that en.wikipedia is even more complicated than de.wikipedia!! Anyway, thanks for the message. Cheers --83.77.188.206 (talk) 19:29, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Happy New Year!
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 CURTAINTOAD! TALK! — is wishing you a Happy New Year! This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Happy New Year, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Happy New Year!

Spread the New Year cheer by adding {{subst:New Year 1}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

Hey Mr. Stradivarius! Wishing you a very happy New Year :)  CURTAINTOAD! TALK! 23:04, 30 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you! A very happy New Year to you too. :) — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 23:31, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

I also wish you a very happy New Year 2013, Mr Stradivarious. May you achieve things that you couldn't do so in 2012. Torreslfchero (talk) 10:10, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you! I'm sure I will find some new things to apply myself to. Have a wonderful 2013 yourself. :) — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 10:15, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Talk:Windows Mobile
Hello, Mr. Stradivarius. And happy new year! How do you do?

Now, I know it is new year and people are very busy at this time, but I wonder if I could ask for a little help here. (No hurry.) Today, I noticed this message on Talk:Windows Mobile, titled "Delete redundant articles?". I wonder if you could help, since it is your area of expertise. If it is not much trouble, please go over each article and see if they meet the criteria for speedy deletion. For those that don't meet the criteria, I will carry out the consensus gathering and merge procedure.

Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 11:36, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Happy New Year to you too! I'm doing very well, thank you very much. :) I've left a reply at Talk:Windows Mobile, which hopefully should do the trick. Do feel free to ask if you have any other questions, though. Best — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 12:07, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

RfC closure questions
In order to address questions posed by some of the participants at Wikipedia talk:Requests_for_mediation/The Beatles, Mr. Stradivarius and Feezo have opened this thread in which editors may ask questions relating to Newyorkbrad's closure. In so doing, we ask that participants respect the following:


 * Brad's closure of the RfC was consistent with Wikipedia policies, guidelines, and practices. As the unanimously elected closer of the RfC, Brad has the full standing and confidence to make judgement calls on the RfC and peripheral issues relating to it.
 * There is no expectation that this question & answer session will lead to the RfC's outcome being altered.
 * Please keep your questions brief and specific. Vague, open-ended questions (e.g., "Do you really think it was a good idea to...") will be removed. In particular, suggestions that Newyorkbrad's closure was improper, or complaints about the RfC's implementation or outcome, will be treated as disruptive.
 * As a procedural note, this thread is a follow-up to the RfC, and not part of the mediation case.

For Feezo and Mr. Stradivarius — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 11:28, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

GabeMc has expressed three concerns about my closure:
 * 1) Whether I was the right person to close the debate, given that several months ago I participated in an ANI thread that led to a block of a particular editor. With due respect, and per the comments above, I don't really see continuing this discussion as productive.
 * 2) Whether my "caveat" that "The" rather than "the" can continue to be used in direct quotations from sources that use the capital "T", even though Wikipedia has decided to use the small "t". I don't know whether this continues to be an issue.
 * 3) Whether my "caveat" that although the sizable majority of commenters in the RfC poll supported the small "t" and hence that was the outcome of the poll and the RfC and the mediation, it might still be the case on occasion that the better course is to recast the sentence where a small "t" might be unexpectedly jarring. (I had in mind sentences that contain other uses of the capital "T", e.g. in the name of an album, so it could be awkward to see a "t" and a "T" in comparable contexts in the same question.) I think this was the most serious of GabeMc's concerns. However, I'd like to know whether this comment in the closing is causing any actual problems in editing these articles, as opposed to purely theoretical ones.

Given that my purpose in agreeing when I was asked to close the poll/RfC was to resolve the dispute rather than perpetuate it, I'm glad to participate in addressing questions 2 and 3. One thing that should be stressed, though: the outcome of the poll, and hence of my closure, was clear, and the "caveats" were intended to be minor points in the overall outcome and closure, not to overshadow it. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:31, 18 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Gabe has asked to me to comment, so I hope no-one will mind if I do so up here. Just above, Brad says that there could be a problem with the small 't' jarring with an album title. Indeed, but With the Beatles has now been corrected, and as for the white album, The Beatles, it seems to me an apt contrast with the Beatles themselves. And as for the avoid-dance, is anyone actually dancing? Rothorpe (talk) 22:00, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Comments from Gabe

1) I agree with Strad in terms of: "Brad has the full standing and confidence to make judgement calls on the RfC", but I was not even remotely aware that every party to the mediation would be essentially "signing over" any and all decision making to Brad in regard to "peripheral issues relating to it". We asked him for a simple answer to a poll with only two options, anything beyond that, while "consistent with Wikipedia policies, guidelines, and practices", was not even explained or discussed during the mediation as a possibility. In fact, the only reason that we asked Brad to close the RfC was because Feezo and Strad had already publicly denounced the "avoid-dance" as a non-viable unworkable non-solution. Had I known that asking a third-party to close the RfC would mean us signing over all rights to a project that we had diligently worked on for several months, then I would have strongly reconsidered my suggestion to hold another RfC and instead I would have agreed to follow whatever the mediators determined. Having said that, I fully agree to drop the discussion of whether or not Brad was too involved based on his active participation in the sanctioning of a vocal party to the mediation. I do predict however, that this particular point will come back to haunt us next year, but hopefully I am wrong about that. GabeMc (talk 03:55, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

2) My position on Brad's 2nd caveat, which limits or prevents our ability to achieve orthographic conformity within articles is simple. We did not discuss the issue during mediation, so his unsolicited personal opinion on the matter is both an unneeded and potentially complicating point. I think we should allow the MoS editors to determine what is, and what is not an allowable orthographic change at the appropriate MoS talk page, and the scope of this mediation be limited to the issues actually discussed prior to Brad's closure. GabeMc  (talk 03:55, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

3) In regard to his 3rd caveat. It directly contradicts the mediators pre-RfC position that "avoiding" violates the principle of least astonishment while unduly constraining prose. In response to Brad's above comment: "I'd like to know whether this comment in the closing is causing any actual problems in editing these articles" Well, this was the exact situation we were in before I filed for mediation, in fact, if anything, the "avoid-dance" forced the issue to the point where the mediation was required. If Brad is asking for specific diffs to prove that the avoid-dance has caused issues since his closure, then I find that position to be a bit too convenient. Just look at Paul McCartney: Revision history during the first two weeks of July 2012, the scenario immediately preceding the mediation. If Brad wants to see a more recent diff, look here. As far as "purely theoretical ones", well, that we even needed a mediation in the first place sort of proves that the problem isn't theoretical IMO. I quote Feezo: "The fact that this mediation was opened shows that the compromise did not settle the issue. As a practical matter, it did not work ... the mediators see the mid-sentence compromise as an unsatisfactory solution ... (that) will be considered ruled out for the remainder of the mediation" and "the resulting formal mediation case shows that (the 'avoid-dance') did not ultimately resolve the issue." Again, while I fully agree in principle with Strad (see above), if the "avoid-dance" was "considered ruled out for the remainder of the mediation", then why did it come back up in Brad's closure and why are the parties to the mediation subject to Brad's opinion not supported during the mediation by the mediators or the involved parties? In fact, a "Big Letterist" suggested it be removed from the poll and not even one person disagreed, thus we removed it as an option. One could argue that at that point, we no longer even needed an uninvolved third-party to close the RfC, but that's neither here nor there. GabeMc (talk 03:55, 18 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Gabe, about your first point - I wonder if you may be misunderstanding how the processes of mediation and RfC relate to each other. Mediation is non-binding, and is completely dependent on the involved parties coming to an agreement. MedCom used to have a rule that all parties have to consent to mediation before mediation can go ahead. The logic behind this was that if just one party doesn't consent, then it makes mediation meaningless, as any outcome of a mediation won't affect them - they can simply continue editing the disputed content without regard for what others may think. This rule has been relaxed slightly in the current policy, but the basic principle still applies. There is no onus on anyone outside of a mediation case to accept its outcome. Now an RfC, on the other hand, is a little different. RfCs aim at getting input from a broad spectrum of the community, and they can be held even if some of the participants do not consent to them. If RfCs are to be formally closed, then an admin will judge the rough consensus from them, a process which does not require the agreement of all parties. And importantly, while RfCs are not a vote, and consensus is judged according to the strength of arguments presented, more weight is typically given to RfCs with a higher number of editors. Hence we require well-advertised community-wide discussions for changes to major policies such as the one I was involved in at Verifiability/2012 RfC, but RfCs on individual articles can find a workable consensus with much lower participation. When both mediation and RfCs mix, as was the case with the present dispute, the RfC usually trumps the mediation. The key point to consider is which discussion has the more solid consensus. I suppose that it could be possible for the outcome of a mediation to outweigh that of an RfC if the RfC has very low participation or is otherwise flawed, and the mediation has a higher participation. But in the vast majority of cases an RfC will garner more participants and have more opinions in line with policy than people working together to find a consensus at a mediation.  Our case was rather special, in that it was a mediation leading to an RfC. In such a case, all the mediation participants can do is set the structure of the RfC, ask the right questions, and as we did, assemble the relevant evidence. Despite this stage taking considerable time, and despite its necessity, it is not the mediation stage where the real decisions happen. The real decisions happen in the RfC discussion itself. Furthermore, the mediation process cannot control what people choose to talk about in the RfC. So even if we disallow the option of excluding "the" mid-sentence, we cannot stop people from discussing it in the RfC. RfC participants are free to discuss whatever they like, as long as it is relevant to the discussion and complies with Wikipedia's behavioural policies. And when a closing admin comes along to close the discussion, they judge the arguments that have been brought forth during the discussion, not the arguments as defined by the questions set by the mediation parties. So it is entirely appropriate for an admin to include a point in their close if it was a part of the discussion, even if it was ruled out as an option during the mediation stage.  This has been a rather long comment, but hopefully it clears some things up. Please let me know if you have any questions or comments about it. Best regards — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius on tour  (have a chat) 06:39, 18 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Strad, while I quess I can understand how an RfC might trump the RfM from which it sprang, I don't understand why Brad, or any closer, has the ability/power to undermine/overrule what had been previously decided during mediation, or to throw out his unsolicited opinions, but I fully accept your above explaination, with one caveat: this should have been explained to the parties of the mediaiton, by the mediators prior to the RfC, not after. Also, if you are saying that Brad's caveats are supported by the poll results, then I would ask you: how many people supported the "avoid-dance" during the poll? 2 or 3, maybe 4 out of 125! Is that really a consensus? Really? At any rate, it sounds like you are saying here that this discussion thread is merely a formality, and that Brad's caveats, no matter how many times he downplays their importance, or how many people take issue with them, will stand regardless of what I, or anyone else says. Is that an accurate assessment of your position Strad? It seems to me, a simple striking of the "avoid-dance" caveat would seal this deal for good. And since Brad has repeatedly downplayed its significance, I wonder why is he fighting any amendment of it tooth-and-nail? GabeMc  (talk 21:19, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
 * In hindsight, you are probably right that it would have been best to give an explanation of how mediation interacts with RfCs. The reason I didn't do this was that it simply didn't occur to me that it would be necessary. I assumed that all the parties were familiar with RfCs and how they are usually run - that they are not a vote, but a discussion, and that closers interpret the whole discussion in their closes. I haven't expressed any opinion either way on how the caveats are supported by the discussion in the RfC. Regarding your desire to change the result - this is not impossible, but we need to follow the proper process. The first step with any contested close is to discuss it with the closer, and that is why we're here. First let's discuss the ramifications of the close and see what Newyorkbrad thinks of everyone's suggestions. If discussion here does not reach a conclusion you are happy with, the next step would be to go to WP:AN to get the close reviewed by uninvolved administrators. Standard procedure at WP:AN would apply, so admins would look at the behaviour of all parties as well as the close itself. I am not aware of any other avenues for review, short of having another RfC, and I think I can safely say that there is little appetite for another RfC on this subject at the moment. Does this answer your questions? — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 03:13, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, it answers some of my above questions, so thanks for that. To clarify, 1) IYO, is the avoidance caveat supported by the RfC poll and discussion, or are you unable to comment on that particular point for some reason that I am unaware of, 2) if so why? and 3) are you saying that if Brad unilaterally decides that no amendment to the closure is needed that my only recourse is to take him to AN/I? I know Wikipedia isn't a democracy or an anarchy, but I certainly hope it's not a tyranny either. 4) No, I don't want another RfC, but I will point out that the RfC we did hold shows more support for the "context" solution than it does the avoidance non-solution. GabeMc  (talk 04:53, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
 * You are right that I am unable to comment on whether the caveat may or may not be supported by the RfC discussion. This is because commenting on that would be a judgement of Newyorkbrad's close, and making a judgement about Newyorkbrad's close would mean taking sides in the dispute, which is not what mediators do. And yes, I am saying that if Brad doesn't want to change his close, then your only recourse is to ask for it to be reviewed by uninvolved administrators. I think WP:AN would be a better choice than WP:ANI, though, as this is not an urgent matter. And there's nothing necessarily tyrannical about AN - a surprising amount of things that get discussed there don't involve a block or a ban. Think of it as a deletion review for RfCs, only sandwiched between a lot of threads about different things administrators are interested in. — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 11:32, 20 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I haven't "fought" anything, except perhaps your criticism of my having been chosen to close the poll in the first place, which I hope is now a moot point. I'm reading here to see if anyone other than you (who initially was lavish in your praise of the closing I wrote) finds the comments appended to the closing to be at all problematic. If there is significant feeling that they are creating problems, then we figure out what to do. If the problem is almost entirely theoretical, that might be something else. Please do your best to de-personalize your approach to this situation and to keep it in its proper perspective. Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:23, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
 * (Comment removed)
 * As I said at User talk:Newyorkbrad, the caveat is undesirable, against the spirit of free-flowing prose. The first two people to agree were User:Lukobe and User:Binksternet. Rothorpe (talk) 00:44, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Indeed. GabeMc is by no means alone here. --Lukobe (talk) 00:58, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

My initial position on brad's close was that it was balanced and fair. I thought he threw a bone to the people on the losing side of the RfC with the bit about keeping the "avoid" option, but I did not think the issue was potentially toxic until those same people used it for leverage against a satisfactory implementation of the overall ruling in favor of small case 'the'. At this point I don't think the "avoid" option should ever have been part of the close. Binksternet (talk) 00:52, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * The caveat was dismissed as unworkable, and that decision should be respected. Otherwise the big T faction will continue to alter references to 'the Beatles' to read 'the band' or 'the group'. Yes, they really are that absurd. Rothorpe (talk) 01:09, 19 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Comments by Evanh2008 I was asked to comment, so here are my thoughts:

1. Brad was unanimously chosen for this job. I had no objections to his selection then, and I have none now.

2. While Brad clearly gave a great deal of thought to his closure, I am of the opinion that the avoidance caveat was unnecessary in the extreme. Other than this problem (admittedly a major one), I am pretty much happy with his handling of the case, and I thank him for his time and work on it.

3. The avoidance measure has been impossible from the beginning. It was implemented several years ago as a good-faith attempt at compromise, but everything since has proven that it is unworkable, in addition to being self-evidently constraining and (to be frank) ridiculous. If it were otherwise, we wouldn’t be here. Implementing any kind of adherence to it at this point, when it received negligible support in the poll, and was actually removed as a poll option by consensus of both sides of the debate, places an undue burden on editors and potentially bars any related articles from ever meeting the featured article criteria for prose.

It serves no purpose other than to appease those who prefer uppercase, and looks like a back-door attempt at giving the uppercase crowd some kind of consolation prize. I cannot say that this Brad’s motivation (I very much suspect that it was not), but this is what I see as its effect. It should be withdrawn from the closure statement and promptly forgotten about.

I am currently working towards a deadline at the moment, but I will check this thread again in the morning and comment as necessary. - Evanh2008 (talk&#124;contribs) 01:59, 19 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you everyone for your opinions so far. I count five different editors who have expressed displeasure with the caveat, and this shows that concerns are not just limited to one or two editors, which is a good start. However, at the moment no-one has brought forward any specific examples of how the caveat has affected real editing decisions. At the top of this thread, Feezo and I were clear that we wanted to avoid "suggestions that Newyorkbrad's closure was improper, or complaints about the RfC's implementation or outcome". So to keep this thread from being a general forum for complaints, I would like us to focus on specific situations where the caveat has impacted editorial decisions. Binksternet, you said that the caveat has been used to provide leverage for supporters of upper-case "T" - could you point us to the specific situation you are talking about? Or if anyone else is aware of such situations, it would be very helpful if you could link to them here so that we can discuss them. And as always, let me know if you have any questions, comments or concerns. — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 02:43, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I was asked to look for poor behaviour involving the "avoid" option but I looked quite thoroughly at five biographies (band + 4) and one song but I mostly saw a bunch of people feeling their way through the interpretation of NYB's closure as it applies to direct quotes, infobox lists separated by commas, headers above sections, and hatnotes. Here are the only examples I found of the "avoid" option being leveraged following NYB's closure on 3 November:
 * Beatles => group, 04:41, 5 November 2012, Tvoz
 * "The Beatles" => them or they, 02:33, 7 November 2012, GabeMc (avoiding capital "The" in a direct quote)
 * I don't think these demonstrate bad behaviour. Surprisingly, the latter is from GabeMc who we all know is firmly against avoidance. Sorry for overstating the case in my comments above; I had been seeing so many changes and reversions of the capital/lower case variety that I came to think more of them were also about avoidance. Binksternet (talk) 05:54, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * FTR, the above example of me "changing" a quote was merely a test to see if the "Big Letterists" would allow the caveat to be applied to avoid "The", assuming someone was jarred by it, not necessarily me, and per Brad's caveat that would seem to be a perfectly allowable rationale for doing so. I was correct in assuming that they would not allow the change. Here's the key clarification though, the original source uses lowercase, as with 85%+ of all other known sources. Someone had changed it from "the" to "The", not the other way around. GabeMc  (talk 03:40, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

I was not "pinged" or alerted that this conversation had begun again (apparently only supporters of one position were pinged which feels a lot like canvassing to me), even though my single edit from a month and a half ago was going to be cited again (see "Comments from Gabe" item 3 above) as some kind of evidence of rampant caveat-following. In fact all I was doing was improving the prose - the relevant sentence had used a pronoun ("they") for some time, and as soon as the rfc closed Gabe immediately changed it to "the Beatles" for no apparent reason, saying "use proper name". Nothing in the Rfc requires that pronouns have to be changed to proper names - it has to be based on the flow of the prose. I felt that it was better writing to say "the group" in that sentence, rather than repeating the name yet again. It was not a reaction to the lower case "t", it was a reaction to the writing having been made worse. The words "the group" were not in the intro, and to my eye the prose flowed better with "the group" than with "the Beatles" at that point, since "Beatles" already appeared several times in the section. I was not invoking the caveat or anything else other than attempting to improve the writing. Gabe was at the same time in the midst of changing quoted material from the original upper case T which another editor objected to - perhaps that contributed to his apparent concern that somehow there was going to be widespread caveat invoking in that one edit. So to be clear: I was not avoiding or dancing or edit warring or invoking Brad's caveats, although as I said at the time in the closure comments, I think his caveats made sense and were helpful. As someone who has professionally edited for many years, what I care about is that our articles be better written. When the prose calls for the proper name, we should use the proper name, but when it is redundant we should not. That's why there are pronouns, and alternate words. That would be the case regardless of how Brad closed the Rfc and with or without his caveat about avoiding mid-sentence use - I'll change an awkward use of a proper name to a pronoun or substitute word any time, and these articles are not exempt from that. This is much ado about absolutely nothing - I'm in favor of good, free-flowing prose, and there was nothing in Brad's caveat that prevents it- in fact, it encourages it. And unless I've missed it, I have no idea what Binksternet is talking about either. Tvoz / talk 07:26, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the explanation; I haven't changed my mind about the caveat, though. Rothorpe (talk) 19:14, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry, Binksternet, I didn't see your reply above until now (no edit conflict warning on talk pages(?), and I had this screen open while I was doing something off wiki) - as I think I explained just now, I wasn't "leveraging" anything with my edit - in fact, I dont really know what you mean by that. I was just trying to improve the prose, when it seemed to me to have been made worse by the previous edit. Tvoz / talk 07:54, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry about not alerting you about this earlier. You're right, I should have alerted everyone involved with this about this thread when I first posted it. I have now gone through and left a message on the talk page of all mediation participants who haven't posted here yet. This thread has only been up for 24 hours so far, so it shouldn't be too late for the others to get up to speed. — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 13:52, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Yes, that would have been a good idea, but my comment about canvassing, like HotStop's below, is not that no notices were posted, but that one participant selectively requested comments (both here and at Brad's talk page before this was opened) only from individuals he thought of as supporters of his position. It's not the first time in this mediation process that he has done something like that, and yet it continues. Seems to me that this should have been addressed long ago with him when sanctions were being handed out, and perhaps it would not have happened this time again. Tvoz / talk 17:49, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Your concern is duly noted; however, I can't comment on user conduct issues due to the conflict of interest it would create with my position as mediator (although this thread is not actually part of the mediation case itself). If you wish to pursue complaints about conduct the proper thing to do would be to use one of our conduct dispute resolution venues. And if you choose to go this route be aware that the behaviour of all parties would be examined, not just Gabe's. (Though I'm sure you knew that already; sorry if this is stating the obvious.) — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 18:10, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Comment by Steelbeard1 I still consider the name of the band to be "The Beatles" which is a registered trade mark of Apple Corps Ltd., despite the inconsistencies of whether "the" is rendered in upper of lower case so I will continue to use "The Beatles" in midsentence when referring to the band by name as a noun. Steelbeard1 (talk) 14:06, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Request for Clarification: I saw the discussions at NYB's talk page, and am more than a little bemused, and would appreciate clarification. As I understand it (and taking a non-Beatles example), Brad's caveat amounts to this: Suppose an editor encounters the following...
 * The main campus of The University of West Lavatoryville is located in Upper Woop Woop.

...and the capital 'T' needs removing, then the sentence would become...
 * The main campus of the University of West Lavatoryville is located in Upper Woop Woop.

...but, Brad's caveat means that an editor might exercise his or her discretion and redraft it to...
 * The University of West Lavatoryville has its main campus in Upper Woop Woop.

...and that either option is a reasonable outcome. Is this right? Is the situation that Brad suggested that rather than just changing a "T" to a "t" mid-sentence, that an editor might choose (but not be obligated) to modify the sentence such as by arranging for the drama-inducing capital "T" to come at the start of the sentence? And, if so, is this seemly unremarkable caveat (that editors have discretion in how they address a mid-sentence capital "T") really worth all this discussion / debate / teeth-gnashing? Have I missed something big here? EdChem (talk) 15:48, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * No, all NYB'S caveat said that it might be better prose (and more economical use of space, BTW) not to say something like:
 * The main campus of the University of West Lavatoryville is located in Upper Woop Woop, while the football stadium of the University of West Lavatoryville is located in Lower Woop Woop, the veterinary school of the University of West Lavatoryville is on Hwy 144 north of Upper Lower Woop Woop, the medical school of the University of West Lavatoryville is in Tim Tebowville, the agricultural extension of the University of West Lavatoryville is in Justin Biebertown and the University of West Lavatoryville has a vital online university operated exclusively by alumni of the University of West Lavatoryville. Jburlinson (talk) 22:30, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Doesn't need saying then, does it? Rothorpe (talk) 23:04, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Anyone who needs a "caveat" to tell them not to write like that doesn’t need to be editing Wikipedia (or otherwise utilising the English language in its written form, for that matter). Stating something that doesn’t need to be stated, in a forum where one did not have the authority to state it, is nothing but an exercise in pointlessness. Evanh2008 (talk&#124;contribs) 04:48, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Comment by Hot Stop I had a conversation with Gabe a couple weeks back viewable here. To re-iterate what I said there I don't believe The/the should be avoided at all costs, but I don't necessarily have an issue with the caveat. Has it caused any actual problems yet? If not, I really think this is making a mountain out of a mole hill. I'd also like to add that in general RFC closers are able to use discretion when judging consensus. While a third option (avoidance) wasn't on the table at the RFC, I think there's an element of common sense that says if so much effort is being wasted on an RFC and prior discussions, maybe a compromise can be reached. Like Tvoz above, I'm also disappointed only proponents of one side were notified by Gabe. This is the definition of canvassing.  Hot Stop     (Talk)   15:50, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * FTR, I do not agree that my actions were inappropriate in notifing parties with concerns about the avoid caveat. Brad basically insisted that either I prove that I wasn't the only one with an issue or this discussion would soon end. Also, how can one votestack if there is no !vote? I was merely attempting to show that I am not completely alone in this concern. Anyway, its a strawman that avoids the issue at hand. I assumed that all parties to the mediation would be notified by Strad or Feezo, as they now have. Also, I was under the impression that off-topic comments would be removed, but as of yet only mine have been while several disparaging comments directed against me remain. Strad, please hold all parties to this discussion to the same standard. GabeMc  (talk 20:29, 19 December 2012 (UTC)


 * (Comments removed)

1.	NYB was unanimously chosen as the poll judge and all agreed to abide by his judgment. Prior to that, another admin had been proposed but was passed over due to their involvement in a previous related dispute. Nobody posed the same objection regarding NYB. This issue should be closed definitively and permanently. 2.	Text within quotations should not be tampered with unless it is absolutely necessary to provide clarity (which is why brackets and ellipses are used). Changing the original author’s choices regarding language usage based on an editor’s personal preferences is unacceptable. WP editors need to exercise utmost respect and fidelity when quoting reliable sources that they, themselves, have chosen to convey necessary information to the reader. If there’s a mistake in a quotation, use a [sic]. In this case, obviously, use of [sic] would be inappropriate because writing The Beatles is not a mistake, it’s simply an matter of style. 3.	NYB didn’t tell anyone that they were required to use pronouns or other anaphora for the name of the band. He merely confirmed that it’s an option open to all editors that sometimes, indeed many times, results in better prose. Redundantly repeating the name of the band within an article just to enforce a typographical nicety is not in the best interest of the WP project. Jburlinson (talk) 21:18, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment by Jburlinson
 * Exactly. Tvoz / talk 06:54, 20 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Recent example. - Look at this diff for a very recent example of how Brad's closure has not entirely solved this issue. Note. - It's interesting, to me at least, that none of those Big "T"s in the above linked article needed avoiding before, when uppercased, but I predict that now, once lowered, the sentences will be "re-structured" so as to avoid use, except of course when it begins a sentence, then it will be uppercased, and indeed every instance of "the Beatles" in the article will effectively be uppercase when all the occurrences are moved to the beginnings of sentences. Thus, the "avoid-dance" produces articles with only uppercase occurrences, and is in fact, a backdoor way of achieving all uppercase "the"s. GabeMc  (talk 22:25, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Again "you predict" and there's no hard evidence.   Hot Stop     (Talk)   22:43, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Are you asking me to show prima facie empirical evidence of the eventual long-term result of a policy that has not yet been fully implemented? Can you prove that its not going to be a problem? The avoidance caveat is the heart and soul of what led us to this discussion in the first place. If redacted, the caveat couldn't possibly be a problem, therefore it is also theoretical to assert that there is no reason for concern. GabeMc  (talk 05:44, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Note - I have redacted Gabe's comment above slightly. — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 11:48, 20 December 2012 (UTC)


 * (Comment removed)


 * Another example. - Look at this diff for another example. GabeMc  (talk 22:44, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * And another. What's interesting about this diff is that "1966 would mark the last year that the Beatles would be tied to their classic "Mop-Top" image" became "1966 would mark the last year that all four Beatles would be tied to their classic "Mop-Top" image", a prime example of what I am talking about. - GabeMc  (talk 22:51, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Another. - What I find interesting about this diff, is that prior to my edit, the article contained three instances (I later found three more for a total of six) of "The Beatles" in quotations; however, all these quoted sources use lowercase, so it would seem that editors have already been altering quoted material in favour of "The". GabeMc  (talk 23:13, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Prime example. - The article, More popular than Jesus is a perfect example of what kind of prose the "avoid-dance" creates. FTR, there are over 1,500 article in the Beatles project. GabeMc  (talk 23:19, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Current anaphora used at More popular than Jesus to avoid mid-sentence use: "on the lifestyles of the four individual Beatles", "Well known by all four Beatles", "while the individual Beatles themselves" and "all four Beatles". GabeMc  (talk 23:45, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Use of "all four Beatles" in these cases is not simply anaphoric, but conveys specific meaning that would be lost if "the Beatles" was substituted. For example, in the phrase:  "shortly before the tour began, on 11 August 1966, all four Beatles attended a press conference in Chicago, Illinois to address the growing furore...", the phrase emphasizes the fact that, even though only one Beatle, Lennon, had made the comment about Jesus, the other three were also embroiled in the controversy. Jburlinson (talk) 23:41, 20 December 2012 (UTC)


 * For an example of how the caveats have recently caused a dispute among editors please look here. GabeMc  (talk 00:02, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Another example of how the caveats have recently caused a dispute among editors. Re: my alteration of quoted material and User:Future Perfect at Sunrise's threats to block me for such. Please see here. GabeMc  (talk 01:31, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Another example of the brilliant and engaging prose (now fixed) that the "avoid-dance" caveat encourages. GabeMc  (talk 03:29, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid I can't agree that the "fix" was an improvement. The original said that Mad Alex was a friend of "all four Beatles", and the fix changed it to "the Beatles".  The original meant that he was a friend of each one of the Beatles; it's clear that he had a relationship with each of them as individuals.  The "fix" is more ambiguous, as it could mean that he was a friend of the band, i.e. a fan.  I'm a friend of the Beatles, but I don't know any of them personally. Jburlinson (talk) 01:18, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, it's a real distinction. Rothorpe (talk) 16:20, 21 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Here is a good example of how "The Beatles" didn't need to be avoided mid-sentence at this article. GabeMc  (talk 05:33, 20 December 2012 (UTC)


 * You didn't quote the diff correctly, but, nevertheless, the new edit is more accurate since at least one Beatle, Paul McCartney, is still, to this day being referred to as a mop-top. So saying "all four" Beatles is to be preferred. Jburlinson (talk) 23:09, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * (Comments removed)
 * As an admin who was previously involved in this from a solely administrative perspective (dealing with some behavioral problems during the mediation) I wanted to note one small thing: you do have to take care between raising what may be a serious ongoing concern and what is just a temporary behavioral problem. Specifically, I'm speaking of Steelbeard's staement above, and this change by Steelbeard, which was raised above as a possible concern. That's not a case of there being confusion generated by the caveat; rather, that's a case of Steelbeard unambiguously violating the RfC decision. As such, I've warned Steelbeard that continuing in this manner will lead to a block. Please note that I have no comment about whether or not the other diffs raised GabeMc do, in fact, provide evidence of a possible problem caused by the closing caveat. Qwyrxian (talk) 12:29, 20 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Note - I am going to be unavailable for a day or so due to real-life commitments. My apologies for the absence, and I will ask Feezo if he can keep an eye on things in the meantime. Best — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 12:30, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Statement from steelbeard1 I hereby resign from The Beatles project will NOT BE CONTRIBUTING any further to any article regarding The Beatles. Steelbeard1 (talk) 13:31, 20 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I didn't think "avoidance" was a viable solution when it was first proposed and still don't. It's not an accepted concept in proper grammar and compostion and future editors, no matter how capable, won't have any idea that they are to follow this unique convention in a particular article. Piriczki (talk) 14:41, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi Piriczki, and thanks for joining in the discussion. If possible, I would like editors here to focus on specific situations where the caveat in Newyorkbrad's close has impacted real editorial decisions. Do you know of any situations like this that we can discuss? Also, please be aware that the caveat in question does not suggest a strict avoidance of all mentions of the Beatles in mid-sentence. Rather, it says that, "The suggestion that editors should try to structure sentences to avoid unnecessary mid-sentence use of "the Beatles" remains a valid one." I don't think this is intended to be a convention that newcomers to the topic area would be expected to follow. Best — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 15:18, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Strad, why does Piriczki have to prove anything? He is a veteran Wikipedian and has been a significant contributor to the Beatles project for years and he said it doesn't work. Also, the mediators quoted Piriczki during the mediation:
 * "While this and many other articles would benefit from a better use of pronouns, as a solution to the question of capitalization it is misguided. This method only hides the problem, and the lack of a solution, from view. It does not solve the problem. There will no doubt be instances where the use of 'the Beatles' in mid-sentence will be appropriate or even unavoidable. I haven't read through the most recent version of the article but already I noticed an awkward sentence in the Song Catalogue section where it is unclear which antecedent the pronoun refers to. Piriczki (talk) 14:24, 21 March 2011 (UTC)"
 * This can be seen used by the mediators during the mediation here. GabeMc  (talk 05:24, 21 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I think there is a misconception about what the "avoidance" suggestion means - no one is suggesting a unique convention for these articles that isn't good grammar. As JBurlinson put it: Redundantly repeating the name of the band within an article just to enforce a typographical nicety is not in the best interest of the WP project. This is something good editors do every day, in articles all over the encyclopedia - we come upon a bio, for example, that has a paragraph where the name of the subject is repeated in every sentence and rework it to be better writing.  This is just a version of that, which ordinarily would not have to have been mentioned, but I think Brad raised it as a caveat to point out that going in and changing all pronouns/substitutes to "the Beatles" is not required by his close and that the option of rewriting remains valid here.  I think this is obvious especially in a sentence  like this: "From 1965 on, the Beatles produced what many critics consider their finest material, including the innovative and widely influential albums Rubber Soul (1965), Revolver (1966), Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), The Beatles (1968), and Abbey Road (1969).", where "they" had been changed to "the Beatles", repeating "Beatles" unnecessarily in the paragraph and also introducing the odd situation of having both "the Beatles" and "The Beatles" (album title) mid-sentence in the same sentence. Changing "the Beatles" to "the group" avoided both problems, and is better writing. Also, no one is suggesting that every instance of "the Beatles" be changed - we just should be writing the best prose we can.  There is no grammatical issue, and no special convention for these articles whatsoever. Tvoz / talk 16:03, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I suggest we make it an "official" question for Brad to confirm this interpretation of the caveat. If correct, it might reduce the contentiousness of the issue. It would be just as disruptive for an editor to tendentiously write "the Beatles" at every opportunity as it would for an editor to avoid using it anywhere. The solution is not to write an ironclad, abuse-proof set of instructions &mdash; we have to assume that editors will interpret the closing statement in good faith, and treat it as a user conduct issue when someone does not. <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype, Book Antiqua, Palatino, serif;" color="#BBAED0">Feezo <font size="-2">(send a signal &#124; watch the sky) 20:31, 20 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Another very recent example of the avoidance caveat causing a problem. What's interesting here is that until I changed the "t"s to lowercase in the article, Tvoz felt no need whatsoever to go through and avoid the band's name mid-sentence. This at least partially proves that my concern about the caveat is not a purely theoretical one. GabeMc  (talk 22:17, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Far from "causing a problem," this is actually an excellent example of a top-quality editor making some changes that enhance the readability of the article. For example, changing the grammatically confused "It was the first time an artist had taken over from themselves in the American album charts..." to "It was the first time an artist had overtaken itself on the American album charts..." adds a touch of class as well as accuracy.  There's even an instance in which the editor goes in the other direction, changing "the single" to "Sie liebt dich", in order to clarify the antecedent.  Every single one of the edits is an improvement.  So, if this diff is an example of anything, it's an example of how the caveat is paying off dividends by elevating the quality of the article as a whole. Jburlinson (talk) 23:06, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you, JB. Tvoz / talk 01:53, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Improve your writing skills with a daily dose of Caveat! Rothorpe (talk) 16:14, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
 * My point about the above diff is quite simple. Tvoz did not feel the need to remove any, let alone several (if not all) mid-sentence uses until after I lowercased them (just hours prior to her edit) per Brad's closure. FTR, there are more than 1,500 Beatles article over which this could/was/is an issue. GabeMc  (talk 23:31, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
 * My point is equally simple. If Brad's closure (including all caveats) results in each and every Beatles article receiving the same quality of editorial review that Tvoz performed here, there will be >1,500 better articles on WP. Jburlinson (talk) 23:57, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Whether or not any given article contains high-quality, brilliant and engaging prose is to be determined at GAR and then FAC, not unilaterally by Tvoz or you, who have both clearly and repeatedly demonstrated an especially strong aversion to "the Beatles" mid-sentence. Can you provide even one diff (prior to this post) where Tvoz had avoided "The Beatles" mid-sentence? Also, I got Paul McCartney through FAC (the only Beatles article to earn this status since the "avoid-dance" was implemented nearly two years ago). And FTR, I made absolutely no effort whatsoever to avoid mid-sentence use of the name of his former band. No one complained about it at FAC just 5 months ago. GabeMc  (talk 00:16, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Interesting. And here I thought WP was a community effort.  Just FTR, where does that leave the 1,000+ other contributors to the Paul McCartney article? Jburlinson (talk) 00:37, 21 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Gabe, we should always be striving for high quality prose, regardless of the status of the article, not wait for GAC/GAR or FAC/FAR to tell us. They are not the editing police, and they're not always right about what is well written and what is not. We all bring our own aesthetic senses to our editing, and there is often no right or wrong, so collaborative editing means we discuss and work things out with our fellow editors. There are many GAs and FAs that have writing that needs  improvement, and we do it - this is not a static environment, and giving an article the nod is great but not  even close to the end of the story. You're looking for hard and fast rules, and that's just not how good writing works - for example, sometimes avoiding the passive voice creates awkward sentences and poor writing, so we ignore that suggestion.  Guidelines are just guidelines, not laws.  (By the way, as far as I am concerned, unnecessarily repeating "The Beatles" in a paragraph would be just as irritating, and just as poor writing, as doing that with "the Beatles".) Tvoz / talk 01:53, 21 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Tvoz, I think we generally agree here in principle on this point. But none of this needs specifying in the Beatles closure. It goes without saying when talking about high-quality prose. That's why a specific caveat that could (and will) be used later as an arbitrary way to achieve "The" and to avoid "the" is both unneeded and potentially troublesome. There is no good that could possibly come from this caveat as I see it, and since this situation is far and away complicated enough as it is, striking the caveat would help simplify the solution. FWIW, I absolutely agree with you about excessive repetition and redundancy. Do an edit summary search of my edits and you will see how many of them are devoted to avoiding them. The closure should be as simple and non-constraining as possible. I said it before, and I'll say it again here. I would have much sooner supported and !voted for "The" than the "avoid-dance", which is, as we all decided, an unworkable non-solution that unduly constrains prose, violates the principle of least astonishment and creates an avenue for further dispute in this regard. All I want is a secure and workable long-term solution to this time-wasting dispute. There are several more Beatles article that I intend to take to FAC before Wikitedium gets the better of me. GabeMc  (talk 02:47, 21 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Further, to clarify, as I read the "avoidance caveat", or as I assume pro-"T" editors will read and apply it, is that if any instance of "the Beatles" mid-sentence is jarring to anyone, then they need merely cite Brad's caveat, or his imprimatur as you called it, and then any "re-structure" edits to install anaphorisms and/or pronouns are therefore beyond reproach. Good writing is good writing, but no one should ever be encouraged to avoid something that even Brad said (in his closure) was not incorrect or an error out of personal phobia while citing Brad's caveat as justification, which was, again, dismissed during the mediation as an unworkable can-of-worms. This thread would seem to reinforce that conclusion. GabeMc  (talk 03:04, 21 December 2012 (UTC)


 * JB, I never intended to imply that I had done all the editing work at Paul McCartney (though I did write about 60% of the text). I certainly didn't do all the ce work, nor am I implying any ownership as your edit summary suggests. I had very much help from an encouraging and collaborative community. I was merely attempting to point out that I was the sole nom at FAC who also resolved 99% of the issues that were holding back the article's promotion. My mid-sentence use of "the Beatles" wasn't identified as an issue of concern regarding grammar or prose during the FAC. GabeMc  (talk 01:16, 21 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Also, at this point, I am once again feeling trolled by you Jburlinson (though I am certain this is not your intention), so I will now respectfully ask that you please refrain from following-up my every comment with a rebuttal. I am not of course implying that your participation in this discussion in general should be limited in any other way, I just really don't see how you and I going back and forth (again) over the same old dead-end arguments is going to help this discussion move forward and reach an amicable resolution. GabeMc  (talk 01:16, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Just noting that I've been reading this discussion from time to time and making notes of the points made. I expect to comment substantively over the weekend. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:20, 20 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the update Brad. Question/suggestion: assuming that you are intent on retaining the "quotations caveat", can I at least suggest that you consider amending it to include sources that use lowercase as well. Because as it reads now, the caveat sounds like only Big "T" sources need exacting reproduction. Within 24 hours, I have more than 10 quotes that were altered from "t" to "T". Such as this example. So while I personally think its best to just stike the caveat, at least consider re-wording it for neutrality. Thanks much for being willing to discuss your closure with us, I appreciate your efforts in helping us resolve this dispute long-term. GabeMc  (talk 00:34, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Arb break

 * Comment. - Though Brad's "avoidance" caveat certainly wasn't meant to cause or create any ground for further dispute, the inherently subjective and potentially biased nature of the way it would be implemeted in practice should raise at least some cause for reconsideration. IMO, the above thread itself is evidence enough that the caveat is not contributing in a positive way to the long-term resolution of this dispute (not the generalised strawman disputes about redundancy that keep coming up) nor will it in the future. The one thing that everyone here seems to agree on is that it goes without saying that high-quality writing is inherently not excessively redundant. There seems to be no practical need for, or non-theoretical benefit derived thereof by retaining the caveat, and since Brad has repeatedly reiterated how unimportant it is to him and the overall meaning of his closure, why not just strike it now so we can all move on with our lives? The same goes for the orthographic conformity constraint built into caveat #2. It's universal among publishers to adapt text typographically and orthographically to their "house style" (aka the Wikipedia MoS), and there is no reason that Wikipedia shouldn't conform to this globally accepted practice, particularly when the restriction is being applied specifically and only to the Beatles project, and especially when that restriction is based on the unsolicited opinion of one Wikipedia user out of more than 4,000,000. GabeMc  (talk 04:27, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Further comments by Evanh2008 Brad was voted the authority to determine the consensus arrived at by those who participated in the RfC for this case. It is clear that there was absolutely NO consensus for the avoidance caveat. Furthermore, the RfC saw several orders of magnitude more comments in favor of the context solution than it did for mid-sentence avoidance (if you don’t believe me, just check the archives). If there is a consensus for anything other than lowercase (and there isn’t), it is for context-dependent capitalisation. Why enforce a minority position in the name of compromise when another had much broader support? Either way, Brad did not have the authority to rule on or unilaterally enforce anything other than consensus. That is the issue here, not whether the caveat has had any impact on article quality in the few weeks since the closure. Evanh2008 (talk&#124;contribs) 04:48, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
 * The context solution? That business of capital The Beatles group but small the Beatles individuals? Takes me back. But yes, it was regarded as a possible alternative to avoidance by quite a few people, if I recall. And it was even worse nonsense. Rothorpe (talk) 23:56, 21 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I quote Binksternet, from 1 August: "We all do enough authorial contortions when we are summarizing a multitude of sources in the process of writing a good article for Wikipedia—we do not need one more constraint, and an unnecessary one at that. If "the Beatles" is the best possible choice for clarity in running prose then that is the choice we should use. Phrases such as "the band", "the members of the band", "the group", "the artist", etc., are all well and good in proper proportion, but when we need to bring it back home, when we need to establish absolutely who is being discussed, we should be able to do so free from constraint." GabeMc  (talk 05:32, 21 December 2012 (UTC)


 * That comment was made well before the close and the caveats. No one is suggesting that we be constrained from using the name of the band. The close mandates the use of the lower case "the" if we use the name mid-sentence. That is clear. The caveat reminds us - and apparently the reminder is needed - that there's nothing that requires us either to use the name mid-sentence or to not use it and good writing should prevail, such as not repeating the name needlessly. You are making up problems and imagining how it "would" be implemented with no logic behind it. How could anything in the caveat reverse the close and be  "an arbitrary way to achieve "'The'"?   What does it have to do with "The"?  The only thing I can get out of your insistence that the caveat be eliminated is that you are planning to object if sentences are re-written, which is exactly what you did about my completely legitimate edits to She Loves You (which I had been reading cold, and then edited, after you cited it way upstream as  "how "The Beatles"[sic] didn't need to be avoided mid-sentence"). You neglected to mention that I left in many "the Beatles"'s - more than I removed - in fact I changed at least one mid-sentence "The Beatles" that  you missed to the lower case.  There is nothing to your accusations, and your alarmist posts are not helping. You are worried about nothing. There is no mandate for or against using "the Beatles" or for or against using a pronoun or a substitute word.  We do what reads best, and for starters that means not mindlessly changing all "they"s and "the band"s, etc., to "the Beatles", thereby littering the articles with repetition. Nor do I think we should remove all mentions of "the Beatles", and I did not.  You say you are against redundancy and repetition - good.  That's what I was reducing at She Loves You, and will do  anywhere I see clunky repetition of the band's name for the sake of having it appear with a lower case "t".   As for the quotes, we don't just knee-jerk change them from upper case to lower or vice versa - each source has to be checked, and the quotes rendered faithfully to the original.  There is nothing special about this set of articles that requires us to set up special standards for editing.  Lower case was chosen - now let's write better articles.  I think most people know good writing when they read it, and I think your fears are groundless. Finally - you objected to JBurlinson responding to your comments with what you called the same "dead end" arguments, but you are doing exactly that, and your comments call out to be answered and it goes on and on - how about we all give it a rest and wait for anyone else to comment, and then for Brad to respond so we can be done with this and get back to what we should be doing here? There's really nothing new being said. Tvoz / talk 08:52, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Tvoz, I fully agree with the assertion that "good writing should prevail". However, I was left a bit perplexed by this comment of yours: "I also hope that the "minimizing mid-sentence use" concept is heeded - it worked before. Perhaps with your imprimatur on it as a valid suggestion, it will work again - I hope so." I respectfully ask you to please clarify in what way it "worked before", and in what way "you hope ... it will work again", regarding the long-term resolution of this dispute? That explaination may well go a long way toward resolving this concern.  GabeMc  (talk 02:05, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

(thread removed)
 * I quote the mediators: "The fact that this mediation was opened shows that the (avoidance) compromise did not settle the issue. As a practical matter, it did not work ... A rule against avoiding mid-sentence usage constrains prose and, from a design point of view, violates the principle of least astonishment ... It will otherwise be an attractive refuge for a faction that sees itself in danger of losing." GabeMc  (talk 22:31, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes. Avoidance did not work before the mediation. It failed to resolve the dispute then and it will fail again now. If anything, the avoidance non-solution led us to this mediation. Please, Brad, don't constrain our ability to write unhindered. Rothorpe (talk) 01:41, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Key point. - Per Tvoz's above comment: "I was reducing [redundancy and repetition] at 'She Loves You', and will do [so] anywhere I see clunky repetition of the band's name for the sake of having it appear with a lower case 't'."
 * Per Evan's astute comment here, therein lies a key question about the caveat. Who is to "judge" whether or not each individual usage among 1,500+ articles was written for the sake of clarity of prose (see: WP:AGF), or for the sake of "clunky and intentional repetition" with an unhealthy dose of WP:ABF? Given the absolutely ridiculous amount of edit-warring and conflict that has resulted from this capitalisation issue dispute, which has now been ongoing for 8 years or more, I really don't think that any of "us" are uninvolved enough to make those types of judgement calls on each other's writing and editing regarding this particular issue. I think it's best to just let good prose speak for itself, and not force good-faith editors to justify each mid-sentence use of "the Beatles" just because some people are jarred by seeing the definite article preceding the noun printed in lowercase. GabeMc  (talk 03:30, 22 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Observations and questions. - Brad's 3rd caveat: "The suggestion that editors should try to structure sentences to avoid unnecessary mid-sentence use of "the Beatles" remains a valid one. This is particularly true where mid-sentence use of the "t" might be especially jarring."
 * Comments. - This is currently being interpreted by Tvoz and Jburlinson as an argument against redundancy (please see above), and how avoiding "the Beatles" mid-sentence can result in higher-quality prose. I think we can all agree in principle that good prose is by definition not excessively redundant. Questions: 1) Brad, did you originally intend this caveat to be construed so broadly so as to include even the most basic of prose issues such as redundancy? 2) Would you please define more clearly what you meant by, "especially jarring"? GabeMc  (talk 06:22, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Even if I believed that this caveat was a good one, I have to agree — "especially jarring" is especially subjective. I don't believe there was any consensus that avoiding mid-sentence use of "the Beatles" was the way to go. Editors should always strive for the best prose possible. Sometimes the band's name will go at the beginning, sometimes in the middle, sometimes at the end. There may be valid reasons to avoid the middle (e.g., sentence focus), but a lowercase "t" being "especially jarring"? I don't think — and more importantly, I don't believe there was consensus that — that's one of them. --Lukobe (talk) 02:44, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Indeed, it is either jarring or it is not, depending on which side you are on. Anyway, the RfC received almost no support from voters or commentators for avoidance. Rothorpe (talk) 00:02, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Exactly. If there is no objective standard for what constitutes unnecessary midsentence use, then we are effectively asking for this topic to be the subject of many more disputes to come. Imposing an additional constraint on prose (and that is exactly what this is -- there is no other way to define it) that is foreign to the consensus reached is both outside Brad's purview and counterproductive. That said, I still believe he was acting in good faith and I have no other objections to the close. I'd like to wish him and everyone else here happy holidays. Evanh2008 (talk&#124;contribs) 02:04, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Update: I'm still reading here. GabeMc and others have provided a fair number of diffs for me to sort through. The notes I placed at the end of the RfC closing were (and are) intended to be a minor part of the overall closing, and I am still surprised they have become as controversial as they have become on this page. I'll have limited availability online for the next day or two (family holiday plans) but I am still trying to figure out the best way of addressing all this. (No responses necessary to this interim comment.) Newyorkbrad (talk) 18:56, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Please don't let all this worry you or distract you in any way from enjoying your holidays with your family. Just know two things, (1) Your willingness to pay attention to this dispute and to take the time to provide your excellently reasoned and well-expressed closing statement are greatly appreciated, and (2) Your closure, including all caveats, has succeeded in laying to rest the initial controversy and has already resulted in improvements to Beatles-related articles.  No amendations are needed.  All disputants agreed in advance to abide by your decision.  I, for one, have kept my word, even though I was on the "losing" side.  Best wishes. Jburlinson (talk) 21:55, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Ditto that, on all points. I've refrained from responding when my name was mentioned in the last few days as I said I would, because it all was going over the same ground, not because I agreed with the characterization of my perspective - but I'll make one comment now.  I don't think any diffs - my edits or anyone else's -  invoke the caveats as the reason for edits that resulted in a degradation of the writing. In fact, I don't recall diffs for any edits that invoked the caveats at all.   Improving the prose must always be the goal, and I think there are more than enough good writers watching and editing that we don't have to worry about whether we can tell what's good and what's not - it always gets sorted out.  As for reducing redundancy, I'm glad to see  others coming on board with that now, because it appears to me that the way the closure was initially implemented sometimes focused more on changing capital Ts to small ts and less on reading the text and improving it at the same time. So if we all agree that the goal is better prose, and proceed accordingly, there's nothing to worry about. Have a good holiday, all. Tvoz / talk 01:40, 25 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Comment. - On the issue of whether or not the mediation RfC shows any consensus for avoidance. I could only identify one RfC !voter (#41) who supported uppercase that also vaguely advocated for avoiding in their !vote rationale. As far as the support for, or lack thereof, for avoidance during the previous two RfC polls, here and here, I can only identify two editors that supported avoidance, for a total of three editors supporting avoidance during the last three RfCs dating back more than 5 months. As far as support/consensus for avoidance during the mediation, just look here to see that avoidance received exactly zero support during our mediation discussion. Also, please note that User:Jburlinson suggested avoidance be removed as a poll option and that User:Tvoz made absolutely no attempt whatsoever to make any argument for its inclusion in the poll during the actual mediation discussion. Also, neither Jburlinson nor Tvoz showed any support for avoidance in their RfC !vote rationales. I really don't think that just three people (out of more than 130 editors) advocating for avoidance over the course of 5+ months constitutes any kind of consensus that could justify the inclusion of a very contentious caveat that is 1) unnecessarily redundant with the basic principles of good prose and, 2) could later be used as grounds for further disputes when the obvious results of the mediation RfC (2 to 1 in favour of lowercase) should have been, and still should be enough to settle this issue long-term. GabeMc  (talk 00:18, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
 * This "comment" - at least the part that refers to me once again - was raised by Gabe and answered by me on November 6, in the discussion following Brad's close. I don't know why it is necessary to raise the same point again as if it were a new thought without acknowledging the previous exchanges, and yes, I know it is being narrowly defined as whether the compromise solution was raised "during" the "actual mediation discussion". But those were not rules we were operating under at the time, and I made my point more than once, and saw no point in repeating it any more back then.  I made my preference known to the mediators in private message as we were told was an acceptable method of responding to the intiation of the mediation, and repeated my position and  disappointment publicly, but moved on. I'm still waiting to hear if anyone has invoked any caveat to justify his or her edits - thus bringing to reality the fears of widespread caveat-invoking that have been expressed. The only one I've noticed is, ironically, this one from Gabe.  Perhaps there are others, but not by me. So, again, how is there a problem? Tvoz / talk 03:28, 27 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Tvoz, it seems to me that you invoked Brad's 3rd caveat with this edit, considering that your edit summary reads: "not necessary to add name here", which would seem to be invoking: "editors should try to structure sentences to avoid unnecessary mid-sentence use". Also, Indopug invoked Brad's 2nd caveat here, though they were at least partly wrong in doing so as two of the three quotes changed in the diff actually use lowercase; Indopug reverted them to the erroneous version previously introduced by a "Big Letterist". Also, here, Indopug changes "the Beatles" to "the band", presumably invoking Brad's 2nd caveat. As for my edit here, 1) it is a spoken utterance, not a direct quote from a written source and could therefore be lowercased for orthographic conformity without issue. I used my own editorial discretion and decided against lowercasing the quote considering that it uses "The Beatles" twice within 15 words, which is both redundant (see yours and Jburlinson's compelling arguments above) and jarring (see Brad's 3rd caveat). Either way, lowercasing is absolutely acceptable in this example per standard publishing practice, and removing the quote altogether is also completely justified by Brad's 3rd caveat, based on the quote's "especially jarring" redundancy. GabeMc  (talk 03:53, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
 * No, if I felt I needed the caveat to justify my edit I would have said  "per Brad's caveat" - and seeing as the dozens or even hundreds of places the text now says "the Beatles"   have not been changed, it's obvious that no one, including me, is taking it as some kind of mandate. Using pronouns and substitute words are normal, good writing when the proper name has already appeared in a sentence or repeatedly in the same paragraph and claiming that anyone is invoking the caveat when they are not explicitly doing so is creating a problem where there isn't one.   As for changing quotes, I do not agree that it is acceptable practice, and I'm not alone in this - several editors who favored the lower case "the" agree that quotes should not be changed. But in this case,  the source you quoted, Ingham, has rendered Harrison's comment as "People were just thinking The Beatles were like public domain", said Harrison. "You can't just go around pilfering The Beatles' material." It actually is a great quote, and worthy of inclusion in the article particularly since it comes from Harrison who himself was accused of plagiarism.   It may be acceptable in some instances for an author (i.e. Ingham, not you) to  render verbal utterances however he or she chooses, but  it's not even clear from Ingham's text that it was a verbal utterance (he calls it Harrison's "statement at the time"), or certainly not one that  Ingham heard himself live or via a recording (in which case he could render it as he saw fit).  In any case, we are not hearing it, we are reading it in Ingham, and as such we should faithfully quote it as he wrote it in his book - which it had been.  So for you to decide to remove a good quote with your editorial commentary that Harrison's words were "awkward, redundant and jarring" is absurd - apparently those are Harrison's words, and we don't insert our editorial values to people's quotes - and then to explicitly invoke Brad's caveat which you have been vehemently opposing for weeks is sarcastic,  pointy, and not helpful to a congenial settlement of this, unless you are now embracing these minor caveats as well as the close when it suits you. I've said all I want to say about this same territory that we've been over repeatedly, and unless something new is raised I'm going back to other, more important things in these articles, such as turning sentences (that had been perfectly clear but have recently been made incomprehensible) back into English as I've been doing the last few days. I'll spare readers the diffs - they are readily available if anyone's interested.   Tvoz / talk 17:37, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
 * One other thing about the Harrison quote: I was curious about when and how the quote landed in the article and discovered that this quote that you claim to be suddenly finding "awkward, redundant and jarring" has been in the article since November 9, 2009 - a year and a half before you started editing The Beatles in February 2011, and in place throughout all of your many hundreds of edits to the article - never removed or touched as far as I can see, with no one including you having any problem with it in any way that I've seen. As DocKino, a well-respected editor of the article with almost 900 edits to it starting in 2008 said when he added it: "Good Harrison quote." which indeed it is regardless of whether any of us would have phrased it quite that way.  Removal of it now - with that edit summary and invocation of caveats with which you clearly disagree - seems like a classic definition of WP:POINT, and not good faith editing. Now, for me, back to editing. Tvoz / talk 21:31, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm quite confused Tvoz. In your RfC !vote rationale you said: "(The context solution) didn't make the poll, indeed, but it was always the best solution to this very minor issue that has been blown out of all proportion. I too am responding here because the other column would seem to ban the mid-sentence use of the capital T completely." Then you continued to argue for the "context solution" during the RfC poll discussion, see here and here. Your comment: "the other column would seem to ban the mid-sentence use of the capital T completely" would seem to imply a dislike for avoidance, which seems to contradict your current stance that avoiding is now the way to go. I agree in principle with Brad's comment below, but I do think I have some right to respond when you are once again dragging my name through the mud and making accusations of impropriety. Please try to keep this discussion about content, not editors. GabeMc  (talk 00:06, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

I stopped by again to catch up on the discussion. I'll be posting here again in a day or two, when I get over a horrible cold which is making it difficult for me to focus in any detail. In the meantime, any further specific examples or evidence for your respective points of view are welcome and will be useful to me and others, but there is no need to continue bickering back and forth right now, and it would be better if you didn't. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:46, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Okay, I've now spent significant time reading through the discussion here and checking many of the diffs that have been cited. I see some disagreements about how particular sentences should be worded. What I don't see is real evidence that the "caveat" I appended to my close of the RfC/poll is really motivating any of those edits. No one (on either side of the original dispute) is pointing to a specific edit that he or she made and saying "I reworded this sentence per Newyorkbrad's observation that sometimes it's better to recast a sentence." While it's possibile that someone is fibbing about the motivation for his or her edits, or is relying on my caveat only subconsciously, I think it's more plausible that the caveat is having little or any actual impact. This is consistent with how I intended it. As I've said umpteen times by now, the result of the poll and hence of the closing was clear, and the minor caveats appended at the end were just that.
 * I have to disagree with the suggestion that I was out of line to append any caveats or observations at all. They were received quite well at the time. More importantly, preparing some sort of holistic analysis of the input on the RfC would seem to be the closer's job, or at least a useful role if the closer thought it necessary. For whatever reason, the mediators and others asked me to close this RfC/poll. When the time came to do so, there were (give or take a couple of disputable SPA votes on either side) about 70 votes for "the Beatles" and 37 votes for "The Beatles." To put it directly, you didn't need me, or any other previously uninvolved administrator, to tell you that 70 is greater than 37. I presumed that something more was wanted from me than that.
 * To put this to rest: the community has decided, and in my closing I recognized and affirmed, that for various reasons, in mid-sentence usage on the English Wikipedia, the usage is to be "the Beatles" rather than "The Beatles". The counterarguments in favor of "The Beatles" have been (I believe) respectfully considered and have been overruled. As far as I can see, the vast majority of the dispute is now resolved, in that no one is writing "The Beatles" or changing "the Beatles" to "The Beatles" any more.
 * A preference for avoidance is not the result of the RfC (as GabeMc has pointed out multiple times without disagreement, it was not even listed as one of the choices). The option of changing a mid-sentence use of "the Beatles" to another wording still exists, if there is a reason to change the wording (preference for "The Beatles" rather than "the Beatles" is not such a reason), but the option would exist whether I'd mentioned it or not.
 * At this point, I am sorry that I included the caveat in my closing, but after having heard about this for several weeks, I'm candidly not sure whether I'm sorry because the caveat has turned out to be a mistake, or whether I'm sorry merely because the caveat has created a seemingly unnecessary digression and dissension just when it appeared that the Beatles editing community was ready to move beyond the distraction of the capitalization dispute. If there is consensus on this page that the caveat has become counterproductive, I will not fight its being removed, because it makes little if any difference in the outcome of the RfC or in how articles should be edited. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:14, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks, again, for the time you've taken on this topic. I'm not quite sure I understand which of the caveats you're referring to (the avoidance one or the quotation one), or if you're referring to all the caveats.  Regardless, I don't believe there's a consensus on this page.  I, for one, do not believe your closing statement should be changed in any way.  It seemed to me to be perfectly calibrated in putting an end to the controversy while remaining respectful of all participants and emphasizing adopting a commonsense attitude toward editing practice.  The beneficiary of your closing statement, including all caveats, is the reader of Wikipedia -- not one or another disputant or faction.  Over and above the specifics of your statement, there's a larger principle here.  When people engage in a controversy and agree to abide by an outcome that was achieved by a generally accepted process that was carried out in good faith by all participants (especially the mediators and the poll judge), it is unacceptable to attempt to undermine or subvert the outcome because it didn't go your way.  It's especially egregious to do so when it did go your way, but just fell short of dotting of every "i" and, especially, crossing of every "t".  Indulging such behavior has already driven off people who have been good contributors to Beatles articles and, at least in my opinion, compromises some pretty foundational WP principles. At any rate, thanks for listening and thanks for your time.  Jburlinson (talk) 21:53, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for working through this, Brad. I agree with everything JBurlinson said here - I also see no consensus or reason to make any change to your respectful and common sense close. You made your assessment - which has been accepted and honored - and you included some  clarifications of a few points that I think provide some context and useful reminders. The concerns expressed here have not been borne out by the editing, which should always be governed by common sense and good writing in addition to the usual Wiki standards.  And as JBurlinson's comment suggests, it's wise to remember that this never should have been about "winning" a 100% "victory", and since everyone claims to want to put this to rest, we ought to just put it to rest as you did and get on with it. In my view, to make any change to your close and its caveats because of concerns of a few people who see potential - not actual - problems, would undermine your work, which is not right, and not the basis that any of us agreed to when we agreed to participate and respect this RfC/mediation. Thanks again, and happy new year. Tvoz / talk 02:15, 31 December 2012 (UTC)