User talk:SMcCandlish/Archive 117

= August 2016 =

As it turns out...
Gulangyu was a sockpuppet of Kauffner, a site-banned user with a strong anti-diacritic and anti-consensus bias, a grudge against me specifically. So I reverted them on MOS-KOREA, as they were the only one to oppose the second RFC, and likely if another RFC ever takes place Kauffner socks and a tiny group of ROK nationalists will again be the only ones to oppose the use of MR. Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 22:20, 2 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Well then! I guess, be on the lookout for anyone "new" showing up and pushing hard on this, and writing with too much knowledge of WP policy to be a real noob.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:15, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Philippines v. China
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Please comment on Talk:Truck
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Please comment on Talk:S&P 500 Index
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Please comment on Template talk:Infobox organization
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Advice needed
Hi! I found you among WP:LINGUISTICS members. I see you're interested in English and its development and even Proto-Indo-European; perhaps you can help me with a problem: just a few questions which you can answer here (I'll watch your page), I only need to understand the answers myself. I'm currently looking for etymology of the word "lead" (the metal) for the article lead, which is mostly done and is not far from its FAC (the research is done, and it is only left to fill the article with the info still not there). I was easily able to trace its origin to Proto-Germanic *laudą (question 1: what does that diacritic under "a" mean?). But what next? I was able to find this great Proto-Germanic dictionary (see page 368 of the pdf file; by the way, question 2: why is that diacritic missing here?), it mentions the Celtic origin of the word. And then it says "The same word through a different (Pre-Indo-European) route also served as the basis for *blīwa- 2". Question 3: what "same word" are we talking about and how could this possibly happen? Could you describe the chain of transmutations in detail here? I understand *blīwa (p. 107) is pre-Indo-European in its origin, but no such thing is mentioned for *lauda. Also, there is another hypothesis that says there is Proto-IE word *lAudh- ("lead"; why is that "A" capitalized? and why both Proto-Germanic and Proto-IE words are often given with finishing hyphens, what are these meant to say?); could this be related?

And one more question. Why are the words "lead" (the metal) and "to lead" pronounced differently despite the exact same spelling? Both words are Germanic in its origin, so probably you could understand it.--R8R (talk) 16:18, 14 August 2016 (UTC)
 * That's a lot to cover. The diacritic presumably indicates something about pronunciation, but I'd have to see the transliteration key being used by that source (which is evidently not used by the other one, thus the mark is missing). When citing sources, you need to give the printed page number in the source (328 in this case, not 368) because PDF viewers and e-book viewers all paginate differently, if at all. For a source with no page numbers in it, cite the entry name (which is, after all, more specific than a page number anyway). But this source's citation should not include a URL to this copy, since it's obviously a copyright violation; there's no way "bulgari-istoria-2010.com" has permission to post a full-text scan of an expensive recent academic dictionary, to the whole world for free, like that. [Kinda wish they'd put up the Proto-Celtic one, which I would have had more use for. >;-]  Anyway, "the same word" apparently means whatever the unreconstructed, non-IE origin word was for both Celtic *φloud-io- (i.e. *pʰloud-io-) and PGm *blīwa- 2 (see p. 69), also meaning "lead". I.e., it's being suggested that two divergent PGm words for lead, *blīwa- 2 and *lauda (or *laudą) ultimately come from a single ("the same") non-IE word we don't know, the first directly, and the second via a [Proto-]Celtic intermediary word. But we only care here about the second of these two which gave us the word lead; our article need not concern itself with *blīwa- 2 and its origin at all.  When everything under discussion begins with "*" (meaning "reconstructed, not attested"), it's all very speculative, anyway. The "A" in *lAudh- is capitalized because, again, it's a phonetic representation of something in some particular pronunciation key that may differ from others.  No idea what specific sound it means without a copy of the key from the source in question. If mentioned in our articles, it would ideally be normalized to current IPA, but can be given exactly as it appears in the source, and I guess someone else can IPA-ize it later. Neither the "A" nor the "ą" appear to be standard IPA, or even part of any well-known superset of IPA. Our article at Ą suggests that the latter is often used (in natural languages) for one of two nasalized vowels, but this doesn't help us be certain what the author intended with "*laudą", and it's almost certainly not a nasal. The capital-A, I dunno. It might even be an OCR or transcoding error of some kind, unless you're looking at the original book or a graphical scan of it.  Moving on: The hyphens at the ends of many of these indicate they are combining forms (i.e., prefixes) not stand-alone words; this is the style for these in general, and has nothing to do with markup for [P]IE languages in particular, and doesn't relate to anything under discussion here. Lead the metal and lead the verb are spelled the same way by pure accident; English is not a particularly phonetically spelled language, and just "is the way it is" after centuries of amalgamation, into a very simple alphabet, of several forms of Germanic, multiple influxes of Latinate/Romance that came centuries apart (thus guarantee and warranty, the same word borrowed twice without realizing it), and bits and pieces of all sorts of other languages, especially Celtic, Greek, and later Romance languages like modern Spanish and Italian.  Hope this helps.  I would check several recent (i.e. 1980s+), good dictionaries and etymological dictionaries.  Some may trace the English metal term more specifically than just to Anglo-Saxon then a big, undifferentiated jump back to Proto-Germanic.  The "*lAudh-" hypothesis might also appear (maybe in IPA), or it might be consistently absent, indicating it's fallen out of favor. I'm not sure there would be much difference between a *laudh[a]- theory and a *laud[a]- one, anyway; they might still both resolve back to Proto-Celtic *pʰloud-[io-] I would try to help further, but all the relevant books I have are packed away right now due to renovations in my building (my bookshelves were uncomfortably close to some pipes they've been working near, very roughly).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  18:53, 15 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Thank you very much for your reply! I'll definitely find a use for this great text.--R8R (talk) 11:17, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
 * YW.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  11:46, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

ANI notice
There is currently a discussion at Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you.

I suspect it's going to be closed as a vexatious boomerang, but thought you'd like to know. Discussion is here Tazerdadog (talk) 09:33, 15 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the note. In the discussion on the page in question, at least two other parties are convinced it's a sockpuppet of a banned user.  Regardless, I'm just treating it as a troll and moving on.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  18:56, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Murray Bartlett
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Tertiary proposal...
...on the Balkan nationality and/or ethnicity of the mother of a now-Serbian tennis player when she was born, a question almost as distressing as it is desperately obscure. Perhaps we should omit any reference to the nationality/ethnicity of either him or his parents at all? I will only advance this proposal on the talk page if you think it will be well received ;) Kudos for actually wading into that... -Darouet (talk) 19:18, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I think the ethnicity/nationality of the parents should definitely be omitted as pointless cruft, and his own nationality included (as basic info), but not alleged ethnicity/ethnicities. It's just a recipe for fighting unto death, as everything dealing with former-Yugoslavia usually is. I don't know how Tito did it for as long as he did. (Oh, yeah, actually I do: If you didn't cooperate, you got shot.)   — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  20:52, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I don't actually have a strong opinion, but I suspect you're correct. It's just sad to me to know that so much of what motivates editing on this subject is something other than "building the encyclopedia." Cheers, -Darouet (talk) 20:56, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
 * It's only going to get worse. Much of my very infrequently updated mini-newsletter at User:SMcCandlish/On the Radar is about programmatic abuse of WP for WP:GREATWRONGS or WP:SOAPBOX purposes. The more WP becomes one of the world's primary information sources, the more pressure, from more directions, there is to bend the truth in it for propaganda and marketing purposes.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  21:05, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Notice of discussions regarding updates to MOS:TV
This is just a notification to a series of discussions that are taking place regarding updates to MOS:TV, given you participated in the discussion and/or expressed interest in the discussion seen here. You can find more information about the initiative and the discussions, here. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 03:40, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the note; will go take a look.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  04:35, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Quote box
By the way, what is your opinion on Quote box? Sure, no one uses it to format pull quotations. But it isn't used in the same way as Quote either. Quote is typically used when a long quotation is an integral a part of article prose and its flow. It's directly tied to text before and/or after the quote, i.e.:

"When X happened to Y, he said:



After having said that, Y proceeded to do Z."

Quote box Isn't used like this at all. It's used to present excerpts of relevant material that is not as directly related to statements made in article prose, but that support it, not unlike illustrations. For a very typical example, see the following FA: Thorpe affair. Indeed, I don't think I've ever seen a Cquote in a FA, but quote boxes used in this fashion are fairly common. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 08:44, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Has the same problems as the template the "RfC" is at, other than the MOS:ICONS concern is reduced (I don't think that page addresses borders and background colors as such, just graphical icons and text dingbats; there probably is something in MoS somewhere about not decorating things with borders and colorizing/colourising). All the UNDUE, relevance, etc., concerns remain.  Every way that Pull quote is used and misused, so are all these other decorative quote templates.  WP should have a consistent block quotation style, like it has a consistent style for every other noteworthy aspect of presenting content to readers.  Presenting actual excerpts is what a pull quote is for, and we virtually never do that in mainspace, so we don't need templates for it that people cannot resist using as wild emphasis of material that is not an excerpt. I've spend days in a row cleaning up abuses of the templates, and in the case of every single one of them, less than 1% are used for actual excerpts. Even for material that would be excerpted verbatim, it almost always raises NPOV concerns, which is why it's just not an encyclopedic style except under unusual circumstances (and even then, there are better approaches).  As far as I'm concerned all these quote templates other than  should be eliminated, after we make a consistent block quotation style that is distinct enough without being ridiculous.  And MoS should just ban pull quotes in mainspace.  There's not a single case on WP where it's actually needed. You can get the overall effect of one by leading a section with a block quotation, then using prose to elucidate its importance. This is both more encyclopedic instead of journalistic in style, and more contextually and educationally useful, instead of being solely cute and dramatic at the likely expense of injecting emotion where it does not belong, and leaving readers confused.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  09:23, 18 August 2016 (UTC)  Looking over the Thorpe affair cases, both are problematic. The first instance highlighted (actually the second misuse of the template on the page, out of three) is completely devoid of context or contextual meaning. When someone arrives at this part of the page, their eye is practically forced to that box – THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING HERE! READ THIS EVEN IF YOU READ NOTHING ELSE! – but it's excessively rambling trivia, and over-quotation that should be removed from the article entirely, since it's already encyclopedically treated sufficiently in the main text. If it were kept, it should be quoted, inline, immediately after being mentioned in context.  The template grabs attention, does not deliver, then forces the reader to wade through the entire section (which should not be titled "Revelations", a tabloid journalism hook) to even try to figure out what relevance this could have to anything.  It's just a total failure. The second mentioned (third in page) is a pseudo-pullquote being inappropriately used again as a "cheap news" hook, a teaser soundbyte.  "He said ?  Wow, I'd better 'stay tuned' and read the rest! What juicy gossip!"  It's not encyclopedic writing.  That quotation belongs inline as part of the narrative of the matter.  There is no rational reason to (as usual) start with facts leading up to an incident, details of the incident, and various fallout of the incident being presented as a cohesive narrative, then cut a key party's reaction out of this narrative and put it in a sidebar in a template.  Especially given that the allegations are likely mostly or entirely true (according to decades of investigative journalism), it's just plain wrong to have Wikipedia side with that party in a heavy-handed manner.  Even aside from the policy problem, that template will be excluded by probably most WP:REUSE of this article, thus losing the content, and it appears in a kind of random place for users of screen readers or text-only browsers. It's actually in the wrong section (placed apparently for graphical layout "I'm a designer!" reasons), and pertains not at all to the aftermath of the trial, but to the nature of the evidence presented  it and the defense's strategic reasoning, long before the judge even sent the jury to its deliberations.  No experienced writer of documentary prose would ever do such a thing. It's pure marketing/PR style.  Even if the material were made to appear in the main prose in context and still quote-boxed – i.e., done as an actual pull quote – we would remove it anyway, because it serves no purpose as a pull quote other than blatant bias and "steering" of the reader. It is not pithy, memorable, a key "if you remember one thing about this page, make it this" point, famous, a summarization of what is at stake in the issue, or any other reason for a pull quote in encyclopedic material.  Even as a real pull quote, it would be news style writing.  WP has evolved, like most media and large publications, some uses for sidebars (in our case, infoboxes, images with captions, and some navigation templates). An argument could be made that we need more them (e.g. tables of data supporting a technical article, the way newspapers and magazines often do, and which WP instead has as typically centered-in-mid-document tables), but if we did expand the formal role of sidebars (unlikely, or we would have done it years ago), it certainly would not be to draw attention to material that is trivia, or divorce direct quotations from their contexts, or (against neutrality policy) grandiosely highlight one party's view of a dispute or event.  The first quote box, higher up the page, is even worse, being totally confusing, as it introduced non sequiturs that made no sense in the article until one reached the trial section, where the names were finally explained and linked.  Definitely not how to write Wikipedia.  I just did an overall cleanup on the article, fixing these and several other problems.   — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  17:31, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Dersim massacre
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Hows this?
OK, my RfC was poorly considered. I opened a new one at WP:MOS and hopefully this one is better... I envision a two-part process with maybe another RfC later with specific wording to clear up the disconnect between documentation and use... I did not realize that it is Quote box, at half a million (!) transclusions, that is the big bugbear here. We'll have to see how it goes. Herostratus (talk) 21:37, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
 * That's probably the RfC we need, though it missed a huge part of the concern/dispute/debate (and I added it in): It's mostly the attention-demand sidebar and centered block usage that is problematic, though the giant quotation marks and other gimcrackery are frequently causes of debate even with the default layout. The side-lining of quotes introduces problems that inline use does not, like random placement of context-free quotations to "beautify" (in someone's mind) the layout, often further leading to including of extraneous trivia quotations just to decorate. Anyway, I'm working on getting better stats; the advanced search stuff can be used with regular expressions to force it to tell us an exact count of pages, by namespace, where templates or HTML tags are being used.  These searches are difficult to construct, and are very hard are the server, so I'm mostly working on them slowly and carefully.  The transclusion counts are misleading, because the same page may transclude a template many times, and it doesn't tell us anything about usage in article in particular.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  04:22, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

Verse translation
Hi SMcCandlish. I noticed your recent screed at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (I'm being jocular: I'm with you almost all the way). I recently created the tangentially-related Verse translation and wonder if you have any comment on that. (I'm trusting that its essential modesty will render it inoffensive at worst.) If you think it's good enough to be worth improving, there are a handful of tweaks I have in mind, but either I'm not sufficiently confident they'd actually be improvements, or I'm not competent to implement them. Maybe after you take a peek, you'd be willing to chat about them? Thanks. Phil wink (talk) 04:10, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
 * That seems very reasonable, though I'm not sure how it really differs from Template:Text and translation. I wonder if they could merge.  Also wonder if they'd be any good for doing linguistic interlinear glosses; would have to pore over the parameters.  We'll always need some specialized quotation templates, and there are several at Category:Quotation templates.  We just don't need decorative, non-neutral ones.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  04:30, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, the reason I created it ... was that at the time I didn't know Text and translation existed. But in retrospect, I think Verse translation has several slight advantages.
 * It has  under the hood, so  is not needed in the parameter values.
 * It accepts 2 independent attributions (1 for each side) rather than just 1.
 * By default it italicizes the left text, which is appropriate for all Latinish-alphabet originals -- I expect the vast majority of cases, although this can be turned off for other character sets. (By contrast, while T&T is structurally neutral concerning which side is text and which translation, all transclusions happen to put the original on the right -- which seems backwards to me.)
 * Differences (which might be good, bad, or indifferent) are that VT is not really appropriate for prose, whereas T&T seems to accommodate it just fine (although not as I'd personally want... Idaean Dactyls (poem) shows that long prose texts stack rather than sit side-by-side). T&T's structure is based on, whereas VT is a table. As far as merging, T&T has only 6 article transclusions, whereas I've really gone to town with VT, which now has almost 200 -- so, maybe I'm being a dick, but I'd incline to just replacing the few instances of T&T and deprecating it.
 * My impression of interlinear glosses are that one wants to keep parallel texts stacked directly on top of each other, which is the opposite of the goal for Verse translation. Phil wink (talk) 05:27, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Just 6? Yeah, that's a template that can just be replaced out of existence, after some kinks are worked out.  In response to the above points, I agree  is the better approach (its existence post-dates that other template), though you should probably have a switch to turn it off so that regular prose works in it.  The T&T template's name is probably the one to eventually merge to, being more general.  About left versus right, I agree that the traditional order in linguistics, textual criticism, historiography, etc., is the original on the left.  I think that it was put on the right here because of what WP is and who our readers are and why they're here.  Probably 95% of them only care about the English version.  That said, I don't think their heads will asplode with a default left-right order. It would be nice if it were switchable; there is, for example, virtually no use in putting something like cuneiform on the left, which almost no one alive can read other than a handful of academics.  Flexibility is king!  I can see a variant of this template, with CSS-based code like that in block indent, and sans the  element, being useful for all sorts of things: giving pseudocode and real code, showing a stylesheet next to the HTML it acts upon, giving a table of Proto-Indo-European roots on one side and English derivatives on the other, etc., etc. And the interlinear gloss thing I want (Left: line in original, interlinear morpheme-by-morphone gloss under it, next original line, next gloss, etc.; on the right, a more convention prose translation in natural language).  Re: Table and div – This might be resolvable with using divs that have table display properties, so we can have the document structure benefits of divs and the more dependable formatting of tables. I have not experimented with that on WP, though.  If not, the table should be marked as a layout-role table (see the MOS:ACCESS material on tables). Anyway, good work.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  07:16, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your comments. For now I've implemented  on the underlying table (best resolution? dunno -- but it was easy!). Regarding flexibility (in this case, specifically the flexibility of symmetry): if , then the template becomes symmetrical so, e.g., one could place English on the left and Cuneiform on the right. I think that the template beginning asymmetrical is justified, in order to push people to what we seem to agree is at least usually the correct use: English on the right. Regarding prose, I think that putting prose through  has no negative effect on the prose; for example, I believe it will still wrap correctly. If this is true, then I don't believe there's a need to be able to switch off "poem", even if the template were used for prose. I'm a little preoccupied right now, but sometime in the future I hope to post a sort of grab-bag of notes (e.g. possible tweaks, alternative uses, contraindications) at the template talk page... and if that ever happens, I'll be sure to ping you. Phil wink (talk) 19:27, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Ok, I thought you'd said that it wasn't working well for prose.  might not typically be an issue, but could be if the input material contains linebreaks or other code-level spacing stuff that does not normally show up in the rendered output when the HTML parser compresses away all stray whitespace that's not hardcoded. Might do weird things with lists, too; worth testing.  Agreed beginning asymmetrical should be fine, since the common use case would be (and already is) the one you developed the template for.  I just hope people do not abuse it for italicizing block quotes just to italicize them, e.g. putting italicized quoted material (in English) on the one side, and notes about it on the other, as a way to over-decorate with quotations.  Given the knock-down-drag-out nature of "don't you tell me I can't use decorative quotation boxes any way I want!" disputes (see Talk:Thorpe affair and the quotation templates RfC at WT:MOS), I would not be surprised if people do bad things with this in exactly that vein, so documentation that forestalls such misuses would be a good idea. MOS:QUOTE is already clear about not italicizing quotations or using quote decoration in mainspace, but people keep doing it, because the templates allow it, and it's one of various common styles on blogs to render pull quotes and other news-style "billboards" (which WP should not have, but try getting that through to all editors!).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  20:22, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I think my prose comment you're referring to was the one about how the other template (Text and translation) worked. But your points about whitespace, etc. are well-taken. Not to discount other uses, but for me that's still a bit of a mañana issue, as today I'm still focused on the original purpose: literally Verse translation. With respect to misuse, I had thought a bit about putting additional good/bad use notes in the documentation, and perhaps I shall. But I can't get too exercised about it: it's so easy just to put  around a quote to make it lovely, that I've gotta believe that there will be (probably literally) 10,000 articles doing that to every 1 that misuses this template for a cheap italic thrill. To use (in a way) your own words against you, you've already argued (I think rightly) that policies and guidelines are no use against a large proportion of template misuse because they are misused mimetically. Currently this template is named very specifically ("Verse translation"), used seldom, and (so far) 100% for its legitimate purpose. It strikes me that expanding its name (e.g. to "Text and translation" or even something broader... I don't know "Parallel content"?), expanding its flexibility and stated purposes (to prose, code...), and therefore expanding not just the count, but type of instances of its use -- would all inevitably lead to more (I'm guessing geometrically more) misuse. Phil wink (talk) 21:40, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Yeah, the fact that average editor doesn't read MoS or template docs means they just do what they want. The benefit of spelling out the dos-and-don'ts in both places is that undoing the misuses has a rationale that can be cited. :-)  I'm not sure how many italic quotes there are. It would be hard to guestimate even with a   search for   followed by   since there are many markup situations where that would be called for (e.g. a quote beginning with something in italics, or a quote of non-English material, or a quotation mark starting something that isn't a quote (e.g. a term of art or a words-as-words case).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  22:49, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, but I had to roll back your ed
I had to roll back your additions at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style. You can't make substantive alterations to the body an RfC. For one thing, they're under my signature. As far as I'm concerned, neutral corrections that any reasonable person would avow are improvements are probably OK. (You have to be careful about that, to be sure that people are discussing and voting on a stable version, but its early in the process and it not really a voting RfC, so some slack there.)

But you introduced terms such as "mimic teasers" for non-pagewidth quotes. That's your opinion, it's not helpful to laying out the situation to the other editors. You're also being a bit prolix. It's true that it's a complicated issues with many aspects. However, the main body of the RfC was already probably about as long as possible without other editors' eye glazing over. (I deliberately omitted material on the non-full-pagewidth versions (except to not them for for editors to look at if they wanted) to avoid "TL;DR, so Oppose everything" type responses.)

I'm not saying that this isn't valuable, what I'd suggest is:
 * Only making straightforward corrections to the transclusion counts as succinctly as humanly possible as long as you can look at them at say to yourself "I an confident that all reasonable intelligent informed good-faith persons, regardless of their stand on these issues, would find this change an improvement". Use strikeouts if necessary.
 * Even then we have to find a way to put then under your signature, not sure how to do this.
 * And/or put the material in a separate section.

I'd further recommend, if I may, that you relax. It's just a website. Soon enough none of this will matter. The project has survived fine so far with the present state of affairs. Other editors are also intelligent and also have views that are reasonable. There's manifestly no one right or wrong answer to these questions. There just isn't. So relax. Herostratus (talk) 20:29, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
 * So for instance, I put in your research on the actual correct usage of the templates. I just replaced the old bad info. We all want the work from the correct numbers. I did it all as succinctly as possible. Herostratus (talk) 21:28, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

I actually looked and didn't see a sig; must not have looked closely enough. It's not uncommon for an RfC to have no sig (see WP:RFC, where this is explicitly covered), and not having one is often advisable for matters like this that are not cut-and-dry and very simple, because it often necessary to adjust the RfC before comments really get rolling in. I don't mind re-adding my stats research, etc. below the RfC, though I think that will not be as helpful, and it is apt to cast doubt on the RfC instead of improving it. The principal problem with the RfC is that it entirely misses the principal source of dispute: It's the sidebar and page-center "screaming for attention" usage that causes the most problems. And, yes, the stats you provided turn out to be very misleading, though this would not be apparent if you didn't know about the geeky ways to get the real page and article stats (i.e., I don't think you did anything wrong, but the end result of the stats you provided is serious negative, unintentionally). — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  23:12, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I just checked again, and you did sign any of the material under issue, only "The basic questions of this RfC" intro (and the request to use the threaded discussion subsection, at the top of the threaded discussion subsection).  I'm going to review what's happened since then, and reserve to right to restore material (minus "mimimc"), under its own subheading (signed), if it hasn't been integrated already. And you should sign your two "Reference" sections, or anyone else is also apt to interpret them as freely improvable, not asserted to be one-author content.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼
 * You're right. I meant to add a signature at the end (of the entire RfC) but looking back I see I neglected to. At any rate I wasn't accusing you of violating a rule or any other bad thing -- just trying to keep things neatly separated.


 * But I apologize. It was entirely my mistake.


 * You might well be right that the "sidebar" use of quotes is more problematical. It is at any rate a complication to the basic issue of full-width quotes. Since it's a sub-issue of the issue of quote templates in general, I didn't include examples because I was (and remain) concerned over the main body of the the RfC becoming too long. I see that you added them in a collapsed section and that's probably the best way so everything should be all Sir Garnet. Herostratus (talk) 12:22, 22 August 2016 (UTC)


 * However, you still weren't able to restrain yourself from open advocacy within the body of MY RFC. This annoys. I request you to change
 * While the above examples illustrate the default use of these templates, a major source of contention about them is the use of their additional parameters or variations, to remove the quotation from the overall flow of the article and treat it as a decorative sidebar, or to dominate the center of the page. A large number of uses of these templates are in such styles, which often present issues that do not occur as frequently with default-mode inline use of the templates, including trivial, redundant, unreasonably highlighted, and out-of-context quotations.
 * to something like this:
 * While the above examples illustrate the default use of these templates, they can also be used to make sidebars (as shown below. A large number of uses of these templates are such, which can present issues that do not occur with default-mode inline use of the templates.
 * or something along those lines.


 * See the difference? It's also shorter which is a virtue here. AFAIK the use less-than-page-width quotes is not "a major source of contention" since I doubt that many people are excited by this either way.


 * I myself haven't seen very many instances of "trivial, redundant, unreasonably highlighted, and out-of-context quotations" but maybe. Just like trivial, redundant, unreasonably highlighted, and out-of-context images or trivial, redundant, unreasonably highlighted, and out-of-context text material, they should be redacted when encountered, I guess. Maybe its true, maybe its not, so I don't like seeing presented as a flat statement of fact in the body of the RfC.


 * In the transclusions section, I'm not happy with
 * Even taken separately, the MoS-prescribed Quote and greatly outnumber all other options combined...
 * Let the reader see the numbers and decide for herself what they mean. That's what we do for articles. You could as well say "Note that almost 20% of editors use forbidden templates". So if you'd take that out it would be a kindness. Herostratus (talk) 12:51, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Done (mostly) and done. I've retained a neutralized mention that the sidebar usage in particular is often the locus of dispute (I was not joking when I said it accounts for about 80% of disputes about these templates, and I would know, since I spend more time doing MOS:BQ cleanup than just about anyone).  Hope this is amenable. Also hope it's clear that I have not been approaching this as "your" vs. "my" RfC, but as "an" RfC.   I've learned the hard way that it's best to modify, or allow modification to, RfCs (when they are still new) if respondents to them feel they're unbalanced, counterfactual, or missing the point. If one does not, what usually happens is the opening of a whole section on why the RfC is broken, or a counter-RfC proposal, and usually the entire thing derails.  This one remains unbalanced to me, though neutral in your eyes, because it is approaching this as if it's a "we've never discussed this before" matter, as if all options were equal and we should just pick one on present whim, without regard to years of previous discussions and their rationales favoring avoidance of decorative quote framing. This is why I tried to balance it (in my view) with mention that the "MoS version" totally dominates mainspace despite claims to the contrary based on bare transclusion counts (people try to use that number frequently without realizing it's misleading). But, I can live with it as it stands now.  I'm not intending to get into a WP:THERIGHTVERSION dispute!   — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  18:33, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

Thorpe affair
Your recent edits on this article have been reverted. There may or may not be merit in some of your proposed changes, and I and other editors with an interest in this article will be happy to discuss them. This article has in the not-too-distant past been through various review procedures, including FAC, in which a good number of editors participated and approved its promotion. You should respect that, even though it is accepted that the article is not inviolable and is capable of improvement. You know as well as I, however, that the simple assertion of a "right to edit", when the edits are likely to be contentious, is a sure-fire route to trouble; I assume that is not what you want. The way to go about improving the article is through civil discourse on the talkpage, not through imposed changes and aggressive and contemptuous edit summaries. I am ready for that discussion whenever you care to instigate it in a proper, civil manner. Brianboulton (talk) 00:11, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

— SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  06:14, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I copied the above to the article talk page, and responded to it there, in the matters pertaining to that article. I did want to respond to the non-content-related part of it outside that venue, though, and after some time to reflect on it (knee-jerk reactions being often poor). I concede that I could have used more brown-nosing language in my edit summaries, but let's be clear that criticism of content and the policy and clarity problems with it is not personal criticism of another editor.  If one cannot tell the difference between, e.g., "this sentence is silly and irrational" and "you, loser, are a silly and irrational person for not noticing before I did", one needs to have a stiff cup of coffee or something.  :-)  If, as you indicate, you recognize that at least some of the changes I made were for the better, then it would be far more constructive to substantively address any problems you have with any of the changes you have doubts about, and to distinguish those questions or objections clearly from what you are not objecting to or are actively supportive of, and to do so at the article talk page.  It's especially unhelpful to leap in to defend the amazingly clumsy mass-revert-everything-that-didn't-have-my-permission behavior of some other editor, especially one with a long track record of following his "enemies" around page after page to battleground against them.  I did not make any kind of "I have a right to edit and you can't stop me" statement about those edits, so your message to me being a stand taken against this position looks rather thatchy.  Since you bring it up, though: WP:EDITING is policy, the overriding policy of the entire project.  Objections to good-faith edits have to be grounded in objectively defensible rationales based on policy or sourcing, otherwise they are just WP:IDONTLIKEIT noise.  Yes, we do take care in editing them, but WP:MERCILESS still applies, and no amount of WP:LOCALCONSENSUS game-playing can trump site-wide policies and guidelines.  "Being careful" is not synonymous with never editing without a discussion first (or with reverting everything one did not get to discuss and then failing to open a discussion).  I never substantively change articles like that without a clear and careful rationale.  The care I have is primarily for readers' needs, however, not editorial egos.  And when it comes to WP:OWN behavior, I do not shy away from dealing with it, head on. I am not impressed by WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS arguments (some older FAs having guideline-compliance problems means they need to be updated; they are not magical precedents to cite against future compliance!), or attempts to game the system, e.g. using a patently false MOS:ENGVAR claim about a single punctuation mark to mass-revert all changes to an article one feels proprietary toward or (in this case, more likely) just to stick it to an opponent of one's incoherent campaign against MOS:BQ compliance at FAC.  The changes I made were in lieu of taking the article to WP:NORN or WP:FAR for serious PoV and distortion problems, steering the reader brow-beatingly to Thorpe's dismissive view that the case against him was frivolous, when the sources actually suggest that he was guilty of conspiracy. (Among many other problems at that article.)


 * In the first place, you apparently don't know the difference between "brown-nosing", as you put it, and normal courtesy. I see the caption you have inserted under your image – is that hypocrisy? You certainly have a unique way of fostering the collaboration to which you pay lip service.


 * Secondly, I have not "recognized that at least some of the changes [you] made were for the better", merely that they might have some merit when properly argued through. That is what collaboration means. I generally assume good faith, even when disagreeing with edits, but in your case I have doubts: your recent interventions on other articles, plus the fact that you have been called out on your own talkpage for interfering with the text of an Rfc, and the intemperate brandishings, above, of those well-worn chestnuts WP:IDONTLIKEIT, WP:MERCILESS, WP:OWN, etc, indicate the temperament of a warrior and a bully, rather than a collaborative editor.


 * You say your edits were in lieu of taking the article to FAR, a threat you repeat in your edit summaries. If you had bothered to read the WP:FAR page you would have seen that the prior stage in this process is to raise issues at article talk: "In this step, concerned editors attempt to directly resolve issues with the existing community of article editors, and to informally improve the article." Exactly what I have requested that you do. I will deal with your nonsensical allegations about serious PoV and distortion there.

— SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  13:12, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Brianboulton (talk) 10:26, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I'll take the courtesy bit at face value (especially since I already conceded on this point, just in wording you didn't like). The below is largely a "where I'm coming from" exercise, not an attempt at debate, since you seem to have doubts about my good faith even while saying your assuming it. People are different, some sweeter than others. Plenty of us treat WP as a meritocracy of volunteer work toward important goals, not a social networking enterprise.  We have pages like WP:SPADE for a reason.  I come from the civil liberties activism community, and the free software world, and several similar collaborative but results-oriented endeavors, where the expectation is "get on with it, and do it well, or get out of the way."  WP:COMPETENCE, in this corner of its implications, runs both ways.  One does have to be not a raging asshole, but one also has to not have a paper-thin skin and not misinterpret no-nonsense treatment of content problems as if it were a personal insult due to self-identification with ephemeral content and with specific topics. At any rate, it's difficult to see how "a proper, civil manner" (see your first post here) aligns with "I will deal with your nonsensical allegations", which is the kind of aggressive wording you accused me of, and strongly suggests you've already made up your mind (on the basis of a personality conflict) before the discussion you demand has begun in any substance.  But whatever; I'm not going to take it too personally.  I've had no issue with you, other than a request not to be an enabler of SchroCat's 'WP:P&G don't apply to me, except when I like one and can use it as a cudgel' game-playing. Second part: Difficult to respond to without seeming defensive. There's not a lot of substance there, just book-by-its-cover judging.  I did not "interfere" with an RFC, I corrected serious factual problems in it (in material  signed by the original poster); he actually adopted my corrections himself in a later edit. (Notice the same "don't you touch my content" theme, though?  When people complain on my talk page, it is very, very frequently in that vein – "you should have consulted WikiProject Whatever first", "why did you RM this instead of talking to me on my user talk page about it?", "you're not even an editor of this article, so why are you trying to change something in it?", and 100 other variants on this theme of vested and special personal (or good ol' boys club) exceptionalism; all about territorial control and primate dominance behaviors, not about value of content to readers). I mostly arouse the ire of PoV pushers, but sometimes incidentally also that of over-controllers of insular pages with a history of little outside input.  Our policies are frequently cited nuggets because they're meaningful and important.  Let's turn this around a little.  One thing that collaboration definitely does not mean is mass-reverting all edits to get at a couple of allegedly contentious changes, and doing it again after it's pointed out why that is wrong.  It also doesn't mean backing up that reverter and trying to force a good-faith editor to over-discuss everything – to pointlessly repeat all the rationales already given in edit summaries, most of which are self-evident upon reflection anyway – until the status quo is defended simply through attrition and wearing out, and seemingly for no reason other that to treat FAs as near-exempt from normal editing processes.  I'm a fan of  process, myself, but not pursuit of bureaucracy against common sense. BRD is an optional process that only works when everyone acts in good faith and reasonably; it cannot be abused to trump policy, and the attempts to promote it to a guideline last year was shot down in flames.  If I seem intemperate in this article's case, it's because I (like at least five others) have been viciously and repeatedly personally attacked by SchroCat and his tagteam buddy (what was that about bullying by warriors?) for daring to question their attempts to lobby FAC to ignore guidelines any time they stamp their feet. The good faith tank is running dry (especially given that SchroCat appears to have engaged in the revert because I used this article as an example of cleanup of misuse of pull-quote templates – he really, really likes to misuse them, so monkey-wrenching my example serves his anti-MoS campaigning needs). Lots of people have temperance issues, but there's a difference between criticizing content or behavior patterns, and making ad hominem insult tirades one's go-to tactic.  It is true I spend almost no time in WP:DRAMAboards and don't memorize their rules. I would, of course, have read FAR's before using it (I never have before, only commented in FARs already running).  Deciding to use a formal WP process (for once), because the current situation is characterized by filibustering and dodging, is not a "threat", it's standard operating procedure; we have noticeboards and dispute resolution avenues for a reason.  As I predicted, SchroCat is unable to articulate plausible rationales or specific objections, just totally subjective handwaving about quotes and layout, and red herrings about punctuation.  So, the talk-page-first requirement will be satisfied soon enough.  I think FAR, or an RfC, is probably the best course of action. (I do RfCs all the time, but they aren't very good for multiple-problem pages; maybe FAR will be more flexible).  Issues like this are rarely resolved in local-consensus echo chambers consisting of one person trying to gain consensus with a handful of "old timers" at an article they don't think should be changed in any way ("this already passed FAC"); it usually requires external input from the uninvolved.  The other course of action is to tediously present a more cogent argument than the opposition, point by point, over days, even months if it comes to it. I'm skilled and patient at that, but a collective decision from FAR or RfC is less one-sided and has more impact, while using less time and energy, and defusing the circular tendency of the debate-it-out method.


 * Noted. Brianboulton (talk) 14:03, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Eritrea
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Eritrea. Legobot (talk) 04:24, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

Re: Diacritics
Greetings. I was referring to conventions like "All North American hockey pages should have player names without diacritics.". Cédric HATES TPP. 23:26, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Wow, thanks for drawing that to my attention. Don't know how that one slipped past the radar.  That is actually a bogus WP:LOCALCONSENSUS "guideline" and needs to be fixed!   My point still stands, though, that "any" covers both this any any new proposal someone might come up with. :-)  Anyway, I'm not sure how to deal with the "screw the MoS, we're going to ban diacritics in hockey" crap, other than probably an RfC hosted at WP:VPPOL.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  23:30, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
 * For your information, I'm using "any and all" on the template so both our grounds can be covered. Cédric  HATES TPP. 05:05, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Fortunately, the universe did not implode.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  18:30, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Miniature Australian Shepherd
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Miniature Australian Shepherd. Legobot (talk) 04:24, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

A heads up
You made a post at the CFDs for yesterday but it was in the wrong section. (People from Marshall Arkansas, instead of Obese cats) I took the liberty of moving it. Hope you don't mind....William, is the complaint department really on the roof? 13:08, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Eyestrain must've been getting to me. Or maybe a non-obese cat in lap distracted me. I don't think anyone from Marshall (where?) did.  Heh.   — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  17:34, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Request for mediation rejected

 * Uh, okay. I just went to dinner and came back and all this happened? Ha ha.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  05:42, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

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Please comment on Talk:SIG MCX
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Archiving tip
I appreciate the heads up. I'm aware of that, I'm just the kind of guy who wants to not only save, but quickly access everything, so I've been reluctant to do that. However, I do believe it's about time for it. I get the impression you tried to load my talk page on a slower device and by the time it was done loading, were ready to say something about it. If that's not a cue, I don't know what is. :) MjolnirPants   Tell me all about it.  13:14, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
 * It was getting a bit slow to load (Chrome, on a Mac, but one from 2010); didn't break anything. I'm also often slow to archive my own page, so don't feel bad. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  21:27, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Drama in films and television
Hi - I saw your proposal and responded on moving Drama (film and television). I've also been talking to User:Rwood128 about similar issues on the Drama talk page. Once I'd responded, I thought I really ought to wade through all of the old discussions and some edit histories on the subject. That gave me a clearer sense of how it's developed, so I thought I'd try to do something more substantial to sort it all out with some decent sources. As well as theatre material, I've got quite a number of film studies books on genre kicking around, so I've scanned through what I could find there. There isn't much. So, I thought I'd take a look on Google books. It was similarly slight.

From what I've read on my books on film genre, and from following the development of discussions on the various talk pages, it seems to me that the present state of affairs has developed from some initial assumptions (unsourced) and misunderstandings, which I wasn't aware of when I started talking to User:Rwood128. I'm going to leave a note with him/her too, along the same lines. The basic gist of all this is: "drama" isn't a genre used much in film studies, as counter-intuitive as that sounds. What is used, however, are the various 'sub-genres' that are more familiar: historical drama, comedy-drama, melodrama, etc. For example, Steve Neale in Genre and Hollywood explains that what came to be known as the "women's film", and what film studies tends to call "melodrama", Hollywood tended to call "drama" (they called thrillers or action movies 'melodramas'). Looking through the article, much of the lede has just been imported from the drama article and supplemented with a dictionary definition. Most of the content of the article are generalised statements about cinema with the adjective "dramatic" added on. I don't think anyone would seriously call E.T. or Blade Runner examples of "drama" as a film genre. Most of the examples suffer from the same problems--they are, biopics or epics or whatever, rather than belonging to a film genre called "drama". The index for Neale's book, for example, does give references to "dramas" but in each case they are treated under the long list of sub-s that he gives: costume drama, domestic drama, home front drama, social drama, etc.

So, if I remove all the material that comes from the umbrella term Drama and the unsourced material, all we're left with are the links to the various sub-genres. After I've left a note at User:Rwood128's page, and unless you have any objections, I'm going to be bold and remove the unsourced material and turn it into, in effect, a disambig page pointing readers to the specific genres they might be interested in. From what I can tell from my research, that would bring us closest to reflecting it's use in film. There's already an article at radio drama, so that presents no problems. Rather than just doing it, then, I thought I'd explain first here. Oh, and what I meant to say too: all of which means, I think, that the rename wouldn't be necessary, so I'll remove the proposal, if that's ok?  • DP •  {huh?} 15:40, 31 August 2016 (UTC)


 * D'oh. I just realised you didn't propose it. Sorry...  • DP •  {huh?} 16:58, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
 * No worries. Something needs to be done about the current content-fork, in one way or another.  PS: I would call Blade Runner a drama, though it is also sci-fi, and an action film, and a cops-and-bad-guys story, and a Dickian metaphysical piece, and several other things all at once.  ET, not so much. More of a melodrama combined with a morality play.  :-)   — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  21:24, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

My RFA
Just a point of information, it may be instructive for you to read the first of my RFAs to establish why the second was so successful, having more than addressed the criticism levelled at me then. If you really are interested, you can see it here. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:39, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Will do.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  21:21, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I see what you mean, and trimmed my bit at the case page. FWIW, I agree with something you said in some "evidence" someone posted .  The more I think about this, the more I think I'm just reacting negatively to a general "admins can be hostile because we gave them badges" attitude, and it's not really about you in particular (especially since, as you pointed out in that diff, your cantankerousness is lower than that of some other admins who seem to never receive any serious flak for it).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  21:49, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Cheers. It won't mean much, I see how this ends and it ain't pretty (for me).  But that's what eleven years (and nine of them as sysop) means, you upset a lot of people who think mediocrity makes for a good encyclopedia.  Or that Wikipedia is a good alternative for Facebook or Twitter.  I look forward to the solution of the Catch 22 Arbcom are now placed in, it should test their mettle and comprehension skills a little more than normal.  The Rambling Man (talk) 21:40, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I actually agree with most of that. On the up-side, a lot of the Arbs seem more concerned about drama in general at ITN, DYK, and other features that some characterize as activities approaches as "badge-collecting", not with you in particular.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  22:03, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
 * No, that's just a smokescreen. The reason it's taking so long to move to the next phase is that they haven't quite worked out how to phrase me being scuttled.  Either way they're doomed.  I collect no badges, I gave that up a decade ago.  After all, when you have about 350 featured or good articles or lists or topics or DYKs or ITNs, it's pointless worrying about it, especially if you don't engage in the children's games like WikiCup.  One final note, I thought that you'd actually agreed with me way back when you notified me of Arbcom's arcane machinations and I suggested that most of us were blissfully unaware of them.  Yet you seem to suggest now that all admins should be intimately familiar with all the detritus that pours from Arbcom's funnel.  Perhaps I misinterpreted your posts.  Some of us admins are just here to improve Wikipedia, not to frequent the drama boards and expend our energy in the Wikipedia namespace.  How many edits have you made in the mainspace in the last few months, as a percentage?  Not being confrontational, but just a question.  We seem to have top-loaded with process-mongers and arbitrators and lost out on contributors and article creators.  Terrifying when taken its inevitable conclusion.  The Rambling Man (talk) 22:12, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Books & Bytes - Issue 18
 The Wikipedia Library Books & Bytes

Issue 18, June–July 2016 by, Ocaasi, Samwalton9, UY Scuti, and Sadads

 Read the full newsletter The Interior via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:25, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
 * New donations - Edinburgh University Press, American Psychological Association, Nomos (a German-language database), and more!
 * Spotlight: GLAM and Wikidata
 * TWL attends and presents at International Federation of Library Associations conference, meets with Association of Research Libraries
 * OCLC wins grant to train librarians on Wikimedia contribution

RfC on Quote Boxes.
Hello SMcCandlish! This is just a message to let you know that I have recently initiated a 'support/opposition' section at the RfC discussing the issues surrounding the use of "quote boxes" (here). As you previously expressed a view on this issue over at the MoS talk page several days ago, you may wish to reiterate your opinion in a 'support/oppose' format. Best, Midnightblueowl (talk) 21:53, 31 August 2016 (UTC)