User talk:SMcCandlish/Archive 202

=September 2023=

Ulster-Scots
We are in the middle of a discussion, it's not legitimate to go around making reversions of it. It's also not legitimate to accuse me of edit warring when I've made a reversion almost 24 hours regarding an issue I've been an active participant in the dispute resolution process. Alssa1 (talk) 20:46, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
 * When four editors are are against what you are doing, and you have zero support from any other editors, you are in fact editwarring in a WP:1AM manner. Your hand-waving dismissals of the arguments against your flag misuse have done absolutely nothing to address the concerns raised. You're just playing WP:ICANTHEARYOU games.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:00, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
 * 4 editors? You resurrect a dead discussion that started in 2020 and treat it as if all the editors are in active agreement with your position. You talk about the edit being in breach of MOS:FLAGS, while being seemingly unaware that it applies only to icons (as Danbloch pointed out to you in the discussion). Alssa1 (talk) 21:14, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
 * There is no prescribed time-limit for such matters. And Danbloch is simply wrong. Just read the material. When it applies to icons in particular it very clearly says so. Most of it is entirely general material about flags and their often politicized interpetations, their relevance to the subject, etc. And MOS:IMAGERELEVANCE is also against what you are doing.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:46, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Feedback request: Wikipedia proposals request for comment
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templates in headings
What you say (at Asterisk) makes sense but there are thousands of these. The doc for anchor says In general, if the intended target of an anchor is a section title, then it should be placed at the end of the section header by substitution: (which is what I've been doing). Is that a problem too? 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 22:31, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
 * There are also thousands of unsourced statements, and thousands of non-neutral phrasings, but we still need to clean them up. :-) As for substitution, I'm not sure if the template substitutes cleanly; something to test in a sandbox, I guess.  A heading with code like   doesn't break anything, and hopefully that's what would result from   But it's also okay to just put the anchor tag right above or right below the heading.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:54, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
 * "Just below" misses out the heading, thus confusing incoming links. "Just before" should be fine while it lasts but has a significant risk of disassociation. Appending a substed anchor to the heading text is the most reliable strategy and that is what the guideline says. But I just wondered if the authors of the guideline considered the access implications (if any? Screen readers must encounter span tags thousands of times a day so surely must be programmed to deal with them? Maybe this is a non-issue?) --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 10:37, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, it was considered (the recommendation to do that is based on the MOS:ACCESS testing for an alternative to putting templates in headings), and is a non-issue. Some editors don't prefer it, versus before/after template placement, because the span code "pollutes" the heading name when editing the section, but it's really a small price to pay and is probably something that can be fixed in Mediawiki's editor.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:54, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

New page patrol October 2023 Backlog drive
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Feedback request: Media, the arts, and architecture request for comment
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Respectful request for advice
Greetings. You recently undid one of my edits. Because I just saw that you're much, much more experienced on Wikipedia than I am, I wanted to make sure I understand the policies of the encyclopedia and what I did wrong. To language that included the following explanatory sentence:

Compare "I thank my friend, Smith and Wesson", in which the ambiguity is obvious to those who recognise Smith and Wesson as a business name.

I added this explanation:

Because that is implausible, it is relatively clear that the construction refers to two separate people

You commented that this was an inappropriate personal opinion to add and that Wikipedia is "not my blog". But I cannot see the error. Is my comment any more an opinion than "the ambiguity is obvious", which was already in the article and which I was endeavouring to explain?

I was honestly just trying to help. I would like to avoid errors in the future. Genuine apologies if this request is a waste of your time. I do not intend to sound peevish. Teacher1850 (talk) 02:10, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I reverted your change because it was a subjective opinion, and not cited to reliable sources (see WP:V, WP:RS); and because Wikipedia doesn't serve a didactic purpose (WP:NOT). Your assertion that a particular inference is "implausible" basically amounts to mass mind-reading, and does not account for things like uncertainty in interpretation by children and by second-language learners. What you asserted is an opinion you hold about the material in question, not a fact about it. If it were a fact, you should be able to find a reliable source making the same point. If you still think I'm wrong, feel free to open a discussion on the article's talk page, per WP:BRD, proposing your changes and the rationale for them.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:29, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks. But so I fully understand, is the rest of the paragraph to which I was adding not equally problematic in exactly the same way? It already claims that a similar ambiguity is "obvious".
 * I understand "everyone else is doing it" isn't a useful justification. Maybe what I should have done instead is to have removed the unsourced, subjective explanation that was already there? Much of the Comma page is already quite didactic in nature, without sources.
 * I think I may not yet have the feel for how to make incremental improvements to pages that have problems. Apologies again if I have wasted your time. Teacher1850 (talk) 02:38, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
 * There is probably other material there that needs to be removed. Many of our articles on English grammar, puncutation, and other usage are trainwrecks. Incremental improvements are mostly made to articles like this by finding reliable sources for what they say (when they say something without a source), correcting prescriptive or didactic wording to be descriptive, checking that what is said and attributed to particular sources actually matches the source material, and ultimately removing material that doesn't seem sourceable.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:29, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks again for taking the time to reply! Teacher1850 (talk) 03:38, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
 * No problem. BTW, I put your language back in; since the entire passage is unsourced it doesn't seem to make a net difference in that regard, and to the extent it's explanatory, maybe someone will find it helpful. However, I think the entire passage could be removed, your tweaks included, because the entire block is unsourced.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:36, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Oh, thanks, maybe I can find a source and fix it. There may be an old source in the public domain that the article could directly quote. Teacher1850 (talk) 06:50, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
 * A source that old would probably not be useful, because the language changes over time. Much advice in pre-modern style guides is no longer valid. Something more like the current edition of Chicago Manual of Style, the current Penguin Guide, etc., would likely be of more value, but of course they're not free.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:12, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I see. That makes sense. Thank you again. Teacher1850 (talk) 20:22, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

British English, contractions and punctuation
Regarding your revert, it remains my view that the current wording is incorrect, and doesn’t reflect British usage as reflected by both print and online reputable media, and standards for publishing. I checked with the Oxford guide to which you refer, and whilst you are correct that the general rule is tempered with some examples that may take punctuation, like Ph.D or PhD, Dr for doctor is specifically given as an example that doesn’t carry punctuation, along with other common ones like Mr and Mrs. Thus the example cited in the MoS currently is incorrect and therefore misleading for editors, since you won’t in British English find usage such as Mr. or Dr. Kind regards, MapReader (talk) 06:28, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
 * This is surely better addressed at the guideline's talk page.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:06, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Books & Bytes – Issue 58
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Revealed
Loved your “holy mysteries” edit today! If I had a dollar for every “not everything is a revelation” edit summary I’ve written… drives me batty! -- Dr. Margi  ✉  23:54, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
 * :-) I would do a lot more of that cleanup, but I don't edit pop-culture/media articles all that much.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:08, 13 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I get that. I do a lot less than I used to.  -- -- Dr.  Margi  ✉  02:35, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:IPMag
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Your notifications at WP:VPP and WP:NPOVN
Hi SMcCandlish, thanks for posting the notifications at VPP and NPOVN. I just saw those now; I was planning to notify there once an RfC was underway, but I guess this might be a bigger issue than I thought it would be, so it's just as well to draw in more editors now.

However, I believe your linking of guidelines there to be somewhat unfortunate: MOS:DOCTCAPS does not seem to fit, WP:NPOV is superfluous given the title of the discussion, and WP:CHERRYPICKING seems to be both an aspersion and poisoning the well to an extent that clearly fails WP:APPNOTE.

Would you please remove at least the link to WP:CHERRYPICKING? It might also be good to know that the most relevant redirects for the policy section under discussion are MOS:MUHAMMAD and MOS:ISLAMHON. I think these would be a better fit than MOS:DOCTCAPS and WP:NPOV. Thanks for taking this into consideration, ☿ Apaugasma  ( talk  ☉) 00:28, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
 * It's just a discussion notice, not an article, so the text in it does not need to be nit-picked. DOCTCAPS is entirely relevant, since much of the discussion is about "prophet" vs. "Prophet".  I didn't mentioned MUHMMAD and ISLAMHON because they are obscure and overly specific, and much of the problem under discussion at that thread is a desire of some parties to engage in "special exceptionalism" for Islam and Muhammad, against broader guidelines that apply across all topics evenly, and this is forming a WP:CONLEVEL problem. If it gets much more serious, there may be grounds for an RfC to remove the  tag from that page, and move it to something like "WP:WikiProject Islam/Style recommendations" with a  essay tag on it instead. But feel free to add your own notes below mine that mention the MUHAMMAD and ISLAMHON shortcuts.As for CHERRYPICKING, the discussion is utterly overrun with the argument that because various sources can be found that are referring to Muhammad as "the Prophet" that Wikipedia must do so also, but this does not in any way represent the total source usage, but is selective favouring of particular sources to try to argue for changing our guidelines to conflict with our neutrality policy. If you think this is "aspersion casting", go ahead and open a WP:ANI thread about it. I am quite confident I am able to demonstrate that my concerns about that discussion and various arguments made in it are valid. Nor does "fails WP:APPNOTE" apply, because I did not in any way suggest in my pointers which side might be cherrypicking.  Raising the concern that cherrypicking is happening, at all, in the abstract, is no different in any way from posting the thread at NPOVN in the first place, which is by definition a claim that NPOV issues are happening, at all, in the abstract. If someone individually chooses to identify with the term CHERRYPICKING and be offended by mention of that rule, that probably says much more about what they've been writing than about what I wrote.So, maybe spend less time trying to word- and thought-police what other editors post, and more time constructing arguments that make better sense, or – better yet – seriously considering when the argument you are pursuing is meeting a lot of resistance and why, and that it might be time to WP:DROPTHESTICK. Wikipedia is not a platform for "language-usage warrior" behavior, and we are in absolutely no way beholden to write in ways that are apt to come across as biased to many readers, especially not on the basis that various other writers, who are less cautious about this sort of thing than we are, sometimes do it with impunity. We have a serious responsibiliy to write better, and we have our own MoS for a reason, which is not dictated to by external publishers.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:26, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Well you've accused me of cherry-picking here, and by linking to WP:CHERRYPICKING in the notification you're clearly implying that something untoward is going on. In this very reply, you say that what I'm doing is "selective favouring of particular sources to try to argue for changing our guidelines to conflict with our neutrality policy". This is an accusation, and if unproven, an aspersion. Now don't get me wrong, I don't mind it that much, and there are several places where we can discuss this in peace. But implying there's cherry-picking going on in a discussion in the very notification about that discussion? Yes, that fails WP:APPNOTE pretty badly, as I'm sure other editors would agree.
 * Now I've tried to address the cherry-picking concern in the evidence section, but you've not answered there. What else can I say than that I've tried not to cherry-pick, and that this time around I have tried to avoid even the appearance of it by just looking at the books by major historians of Islam that I happen to own? If you'll look at these historians' wiki-pages (in the green bar), you'll find that they are from very different schools of thought, from ultra-revisionist to traditionalist, but what they all share is that they are top scholars in their field. Meanwhile, my challenge to cite a reliable source on Islamic topics that does not use "the prophet" or "the prophet Muhammad" to refer to Muhammad stands. If, as you say, it is not the "norm in offsite, non-Muslim writing" to use these expressions, surely it should be easy enough to cite a few examples of your own?
 * By the way, did you read my last reply to you in the discussion? My feeling is that you're expecting worse from me than I am intending. I really do feel that the discussion has been progressing, and there has been some limited support that I feel could grow with the issues becoming clearer and the evidence, well, more looked at. In my experience, if the RS are on your side, Wikipedians will tend to come to your side eventually, even if you start with something of a one-against-all situation. I've been there before, where I started with a small minority opinion but one firmly based in RS, against a large majority opinion that runs entirely contrary to RS, and where eventually consensus decided in my favor.
 * However, I am totally aware of the fact that this almost necessarily involves dominating a discussion to the point of bludgeoning, and that this is not a healthy thing, neither for me nor for the community. I'm trying to look out for warning signs about that, and your point about dropping the stick is well taken. In any case, I absolutely respect the point of view that Wikipedia can determine its own way of handling potentially biased terminology, regardless of what RS are doing. When I said "you're simply dead wrong about this", I meant your position about the RS themselves: the norm there is different from what you think it is. I meant that respectfully, as in 'hey, I appreciate your opinion, but on this particular matter you just don't have the facts straight, as I'm sure you'll see when you look into them'. Obviously, this being a text-only medium, that didn't come over quite as I meant. I'm sorry about that.
 * But wouldn't we look foolish on ANI? Please just remove the link to WP:CHERRYPICKING in the notification, it would really make me feel better. ☿ Apaugasma  ( talk  ☉) 02:49, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
 * "I've tried not to cherry-pick": well good on you, but you are not the only person making "do it because sources I like do it" arguments, and I never said anything about the cherry-picking concerns having anything to do with you in particular. I will not be brow-beaten (with either "make me feel better" pleading or "you're casting aspertions" menacing) for simply raising a completely genericized and non-personally-identifiable concern that cherry-picking could be a factor in the discussion (I didn't even suggest on which side of the discussion it was happening; a read through the entire mess might even show instances on both sides – and I decline your above invitation to engage in it myself, since there is utterly no point to creating a link-farm of examples of sources just writing "Muhammad" as untold thousands of them do millions of times in total, and vastly in the majority ). On "you're expecting worse from me than I am intending": I'm not, really, but above you are  worse from me than is in evidence; raising a vague concern about cherry-picking across a discussion isn't some kind of laser-focused "aspersion" about you in particular. I've not raised any concerns about things like "you're simply dead wrong about this"; I argue pretty forcefully myself, and I have a thick skin. "regardless of what RS are doing": Not accurate. WP cares about what RS are doing when they're near-uniform in consistently doing it; some minority, even a large one, of sources doing something is completley irrelevant, and even if a super-majority of them did something, we can still reasonably come to an internal consensus to not do it here anyway, e.g. if it would have core policy or encyclopedic-purpose implications. For the umpteenth time: WP's style is not dictated by any off-site publishers, ever. The idea that external writers "force" Wikipedia to write a particular way is simply fallacious (though your attempts to reinterpret that page to mean things not intended means it needs some clarity revision). You're consistently making an argument that amounts to "WP:CONSENSUS is an invalid policly and process" when taken to its logical conclusion, and that's not going to work. As for "I am totally aware of the fact that this almost necessarily involves dominating a discussion to the point of bludgeoning, and that this is not a healthy thing, neither for me nor for the community." Simple solution: just stop.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:18, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
 * My claim is that RS on Islam are near-uniform in consistently using "the prophet" or "the prophet Muhammad" as a reference to Muhammad. Now how can that claim be proven? It's not possible to cite and quote all RS in existence, right? I tried to quote from a sample that I've made as representative as I could (have you looked at the green collapsed bar in the evidence section yet?), but obviously that sample too is far from perfect. However, the claim could perhaps rather more easily be disproven, by citing a sample of sources equally (not-really-)representative as mine that does not use the expressions "the prophet" or "the prophet Muhammad" to refer to Muhammad. Just one high-quality source would suffice for starters, you may even cherry-pick it if you want, I would still be interested to see such a source. You see, I've read dozens of scholarly papers and monographs about Islam, and do not remember ever having encountered such a source, so I would find it interesting to see one, just for that sake of it.
 * But then again, perhaps if after all this time you still think I cherry-picked Michael Cook, Patricia Crone and Bernard Lewis together because they are so favorable to Islamic religious agendas, if you still believe I'm proposing to allow the use of the word "Holy" (please read the current text: it starts with Honorifics for Muhammad should generally not be used in articles [...] the most common ones being: and then immediately lists The Prophet or (The) Holy Prophet, which in my proposal becomes Holy Prophet – the guideline text starts out with what it disallows), maybe the more reasonable conclusion would be that assuming good faith is just not an option for you at this point, and that it would be better for all of us if you left the discussion. I promise, things won't turn ugly in your absence, I will do my best to behave, and other editors will check me if needed. ☿ Apaugasma  ( talk  ☉) 06:30, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
 * It's clear that some of the guideline text does not reflect actual consensus and may even be contradictory of wider guidelines; the consensus discussion will fix that. I don't think your claim be proven, because it's demonstrably not true. The ngrams prove that just "Muhammad" massively dominates over "the [p|P]rophet Muhammad" in search results for phrases that would pertain to "the" Muhammad. I don't think you've cherry-picked writers "favorable to Islamic religious agendas", but it looks like you're selecting sources that agree with your position on writing "the Prophet Muhammad" instead of just "Muhammad", rather than looking at any aggregate data. In short, I don't think you understand what "cherry-picking" even means. One thing that it doesn't mean is selectively preferring particular sources that support your position. and not your opposition, . It just means selectively preferring particular sources that support your position, at all, period. "I can find hundreds even thousands of examples of sources using 'the Prophet Muhammad is completely meaningless when there are somewhere between tens of thousands and millions of sources. Another strong indication you are not looking at the aggregate data and are just favoring the sources that support you is that if we search for "Muhammad" at Google Scholar (exclusing authors by that name)  and wade through page after page of results, ignoring the ones that are obviously false hits, you see over and over again the historical figure being referred to as simply "Muhammad", while "the [p|P]rophet Muhammad" is quite rare, sometimes clearly non-neutral writing by actual Muslims, e.g. "... the career of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) ...".  If you spent all day it, you could again amass maybe hundreds of examples that "go your way", but they would be dwarfed by an order or two of magnitude more examples of source usage that isn't the way you like it. I'm sure you'd like me to leave the discussion to you, so you can continue to try to dominate it despite already conceding that pursuing your angle "almost necessarily involves dominating a discussion to the point of bludgeoning, and that this is not a healthy thing, neither for me nor for the community". There is no bad-faith assumption of any kind in quoting you back to yourself and opposing what you are doing and the faulty rationalization you are using to justify it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:25, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I do know what cherry-picking is, I just don't believe it's as easy to avoid as you think. As I've explained in the discussion, the Ngrams evidence and other aggregate data is absolutely useless in this case. This will have to be done in the dirty way, by trying to limit selection bias and by having as much independent editors looking at the evidence as possible. A good place to start are the sources used in FA-Class Islam-related articles. Or as I suggested before, perhaps simply refrain; what you're doing now is not helping. ☿ Apaugasma  ( talk  ☉) 08:40, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
 * You didn't "explain" anything; you made an argument that would be true of a bare search on "Muhammad" but which is clearly not true of searches on phrases highly likely to be specific to "the" Muhammad in reliable sources. And I've already been over that with you at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Islam-related articles. It's getting very tiresome to deal with this [{WP:BLUDGEON]] approach on two fronts at once. Please keep the discussion at the MoS thread. Cf. WP:TALKFORK. Also, just using the tiny handful of sources we've already selected at one article would tell us nothing useful at all. I don't think you understand what aggregate data and statistics of usage really mean. Either that, or you are pretending not to, so you can keep arguing and arguing and arguing to see if I will just give up and go away (argumentum ad nauseam). When someone asks you, on the basis of your own unmistakable admission that what you are doing is "unhealthy" (AKA disruptive), to drop the stick and back away, coming back with "perhaps simply refrain" is childish tit-for-tat WP:ICANTHEARYOU bullshit.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:39, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Feedback request: Biographies request for comment
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Hiberno-English
The IP was already blocked for two weeks. The Banner talk 20:15, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Well, they keep changing to a "nearby" IP, so hopefully a range block.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:28, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

template:crossref
I removed the template because it seems imprecise yet extraneous to include the comment. What was the philosophy behind writing that comment? Iterresise (talk) 20:51, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Cross-references like "See [somewhere else]" should be marked up with that template; they are a form of permissible Wikipedia self-reference and instruction to the reader, like hatnotes. However, I agree that the "(see above)", regardless of its formatting, isn't something we need to use there at all, so I agree with the removal.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:35, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Doing a ctrl+f of "crossref" in Manual_of_Style/Self-references_to_avoid, I see that it is mentioned there. I'm not convinced that this is a best practice let alone good writing. Maybe I should bring it up on the talk page? Iterresise (talk) 06:19, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Do you mean: "Neutral cross-references, e.g. (See also Cymric cat.), are permissible (and best done with the crossreference template), but are often best reworded (The Cymric cat is a recent breed developed from the Manx.)."? They are often best reworded. I'm not convinced that crossref is a best practice let alone good writing. Iterresise (talk) 06:22, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
 * And I'm not sure what you're on about. Just because something isn't an idea that initially occurred to you, or isn't how you would do something on your own blog, doesn't mean it's broken and needs you to charge in to "fix" it. If we changed MoS to agree with every random editor's opinion, then there would be and could be no MoS at all, because every single line item in it is disagreed with by someone, somewhere, and that would always the case no matter what it was changed to say.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:08, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
 * See above, See below, and Crossreference were all created by you. Iterresise (talk) 00:13, 3 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Every template (and everything else) on WP was created by someone, so observing that someone created something here is not making any actual point. PS: The first two of those templates are basically obsolete and should just be replaced with simple wrappers for . They were unnecessarily complex.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:38, 3 October 2023 (UTC)
 * You also changed that page to allow usage of these templates and when I checked the archives, I couldn't find any discussion for that addition. Iterresise (talk) 01:10, 3 October 2023 (UTC)
 * change is made by someone. What part of this are you not understanding? There is no rule that every change must be pre-discussed. We make WP:BOLD edits all the time, and those that do not meet with consensus don't survive.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:33, 3 October 2023 (UTC)
 * PS: See WP:Fallacy of the revelation of policy.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:33, 3 October 2023 (UTC)