User talk:SMcCandlish/Archive 162

=May 2020=

Black-footed cat
Hey SMcCandlish: are you still busy? I just put up a request at Wikipedia:WikiProject Cats/Assessment‎ for reassessing the black-footed cat page for at least B-class. It is currently listed as C-class, but a lot more referenced content has been added and lead revised in the past few days. But alas, the list there indicates that it often takes a looong time for anybody to react to such a request. So if not you, who do think would be a competent assessor? Stay healthy! Cheers -- BhagyaMani (talk) 20:48, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Done. I pored over it with a fine-toothed comb, mostly to make the citations all consistent and properly using the parameters. Fixed up some typos, punctuation, grammar glitches, and inclarities. The sourcing looks tight.  At first I was concerned that the substantial lead, mostly devoid of citations, might be a problem, but everything in it appears to be in the main body with an inline citation already.  This may be WP:GAN-worthy at this point.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:29, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks a ton for your fast reply and addressing the rating !!! This article now being B-class gives is better base for the next step: nominating it for GA. But I'll first work on it again, as I have a few more references that may be worthwhile to be included. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 07:07, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Sounds like a plan.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:43, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I nominated sand cat for GA last week, did not get a response yet, but will wait with nominating black-footed cat until this is done. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 09:45, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Yeah, GA can take a long time, since it's dependent on someone randomly volunteering to dig deep into the article. It's best done by someone not connected to the topic (or it looks like wikiproject participants just scratching each others' backs).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:19, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

"Fantasy" royals
Hi - I totally understand if you are too busy in the current crisis to take any action about this but since you raised the issue on the NPOV noticeboard I hope that you consider it important enough to deal with to some extent as you are able. As I said there, it was about seven years ago that I made an effort to try to bring some sense to these sorts of "fantasies" but there are indeed a lot of amateur genealogists or monarchists or whatever they are on WP who are obsessive about these "princesses" and "dukes" of nonexistent monarchies and they all gang up and argue until they are blue in the face that the articles labeling somebody the holder of a royal title that was abolished more than a hundred years ago are correct. So I gave up, thinking "oh well, what the heck, let them live in their deluded fantasies, what does it matter really" but I don't actually think WP should be a refuge for that kind of nonsense. I am mostly a content creator, on opera and Baroque music more than anything else, and am not as familiar as you are with all these procedures of how to try to change MOS guidelines etc., I don't even know what VPPOL is, but I am more than willing to try to help in any way I can so please try to set that up Believe me, those examples I gave at NPOV noticeboard are the mere tip of the iceberg, there are zillions more. You are welcome to contact me on my talk page at any time. Best, Smeat75 (talk) 23:16, 5 May 2020 (UTC) .  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:32, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I just burned all my WP time for today on a C-to-B-class cleanup and assessment. I agree it needs to be done, but I don't relish the drama, and it would be time-consuming to even draft a VPPOL RfC on it.  I can do it, but not immediately. I'm hoping someone else will run with it.  Then again, WP:THEREISNODEADLINE, and this stuff has been ucked fup for a very long time, so another week or month or whatever won't kill anyone. Note to lurkers: This is about:

R+I Request
There is a version of this which is just about content not content and conduct. Coming as it does on a reply to a reminder to focus on content please consider striking the conduct pieces. Barkeep49 (talk) 02:25, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm not into striking; what's said is said. But, it's enough for now; as I already indicated over there, I'm going to let that aspect of this alone.  I get where you're coming from, but in this particular dispute (I mean the entire months-long saga, not just today) and this  of dispute – of two warring WP:GREATWRONGS encampments and all us other editors caught in their crossfire – it really is all about conduct, and the "content" matters cannot really be separated from that cleanly, because the content is hostage to the conduct problems.  That's  it keeps going to noticeboards, and RfC, and AE, and ArbCom. But, yes, the article talk page isn't really the place for a conduct issue to be aired out.  I have to say, however, that I was responding to  character-assassination handwaving by the other party, to whom anyone in disagreement is "against consensus" and "pushing pseudoscience", and etc.  That kind of borderline personal attack on entire groups of editors is why he's apt to get topic banned eventually.  Well, part of why.  The civil-Pov / slow-editwar thing is another.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:59, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Non-admin closure of RfC
As you are someone who has done non-admin closure of discussions and talked about it on your user page, I'm just wondering about your take on the recent non-admin closure of the RfC on Indigenous Aryans. BirdValiant (talk) 16:33, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Not what I would have preferred (it's just going to extend the debate to another, later round of RfCing). The closer has been around for almost 2 years, which is long enough for some successful RfAs.  As a "no-consensus", it's not a supervote. The support/oppose head counts were pretty close to even, after ignoring two banned users, so it was reasonable to come to a no-consensus result, especially since this this comes down to a source-interpretation debate (i.e., neither side has an overwhelming policy argument in their favor, nor a near-totality of sources).  There is real-world debate about the matter, but it's pretty clear what the scientific consensus is. In a later RfC, we're just going to have to take the opposers' arguments into account and produce a clearer showing of that off-site consensus, in a way that cannot be claimed to be cherry-picking.  In the interim, it's really perhaps not actually important whether the article contains the word "fringe" or not.  We just do the sourcing work, and it will become clear to the reader that it's a fringey idea with only minority support in the literature. There are lots and lots of topics like this, and that's okay.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:17, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

'The' in article names
SMc, can you, or any of the MOS savants watching this talkpage, point me to if/where in the style-book the use of 'The' in article names is discussed? In particular, the practice of distinguishing X and The X as article titles. If it helps, you can see the context of my question here although I'm not asking you to weigh in on that move request. Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 07:54, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
 * See the "MOS:THE" internal disambiguation page; one of the things listed there is probably what you're after. Also of note is WP:THE (part of the naming conventions), since you're asking about titles in particular.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:12, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks SMc! WP:NCTHE is exactly wht I was looking for and I wouldn't have found it w/o your help since searching MOS pages for the word 'the' or 'article' is pointless; and checking what the shortcuts MOS:THE/WP:THE link to, is obvious only in hindsight. Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 17:19, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
 * You're welcome. MOS:THE didn't even mention WP:THE (WP:NCTHE); I added it as a "see also" after you asked about this.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:25, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Ha. Then there is some lasting benefit to my query! Abecedare (talk) 17:39, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
 * (passerby) Aah, Saint McCandlish, the MOS wonk to the rescue! 150% I actually looked into this a bit on a minor, cursory level, but didn't post here because I didn't find anything. Well done, and thanks for schooling and I about this! North America1000 04:09, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Glad to be of service.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:49, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

MOS:FORLANG
Hi there. I've been trying to get some clarity about MOS:FORLANG and the only specific discussion I could find was here. Would you be able to comment at Talk:New Mexico? Cheers. Magnolia677 (talk) 21:44, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Pinball media
Category: Pinball mass media, which you created, has been nominated for speedy renaming to Category:Works about pinball. – Fayenatic  L ondon 10:55, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

In case you weren't aware...
Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Catholicism, I'm about to hit the road to take care of some long-delayed stuff for the inlaws or I'd weigh in. --Ealdgyth (talk) 13:09, 15 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the note. I commented there, and at WT:MOSBIO, and also notified WT:MOS and WT:MOSABBR of the RfC.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:59, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

May
Thank you for article improvements in May! - DYK our list of people for whose life I'm thankful enough to improve their articles? - I have a FAC open, one of Monteverdi's exceptional works, in memory of Brian who passed me his collected sources. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:27, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

today a composer pictured who wrote a triple concerto for violin, harp and double bass, in honour of the composer who died and my brother who plays double bass. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:16, 26 May 2020 (UTC)