User talk:Sb2001/Archive 1

Talkback
AldezD (talk) 13:39, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

Question
Gonejackal (talk) 01:54, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

Talkback
AldezD (talk) 12:59, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

Talkback
AldezD (talk) 19:15, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

"Compared with"
Wanted to say thanks for the extensive amount of cleanup applied to misuse of "compared to". Didn't count, but I think you patched up at least 50 articles in that regard. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:36, 12 July 2017 (UTC)


 * It will be my mission over the summer to continue with this - extremely irritating. Thank you for the acknowledgement. – Sb2001 talk page 23:05, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Most welcome; it was bugging me that I was surely coming across as overly critical when the intent is to help guide you better into the WP flow, not to blockade you.  While you're doing that cleanup, please feel free to eradicate cases of things like try and for try to – "try and find", etc.  Drives me nuts. (Which reminds me of a lame pirate joke.)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  22:03, 13 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Certainly, on it! – Sb2001 talk page 15:52, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

Manual of Style
Welcome to Wikipedia, and thank you for your contributions. Although everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia, please note that there is a Manual of Style that should be followed to maintain a consistent, encyclopedic appearance. Deviating from this style disturbs uniformity among articles and may cause readability or accessibility problems. Please take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Thank you.

The above is templated boilerplate. To be more specific: You'll need to stop changing things like "4:01 p.m." or "4:01 pm" to "4.01pm", a style not sanctioned at Manual of Style/Dates and numbers (in two separate ways, both the punctuation and the space collapsing). Same goes for removing the stops/points/periods/dots (whatever you like to call them) from abbreviations like "e.g." and "equiv." You are not actually even following the "major UK style guides" you claim to be citing. A common but not universal British style is to drop dots for words internally contracted such that they begin and end with the same letters as the original word, especially when used in names and titles, "Doctor Brown" -> "Dr Brown", "Saint Patrick" -> "St Patrick", but "Professor Chan" -> "Prof. Chan". "Equiv" does not qualify as such a contraction (it's a trunctation that doesn't end with the t of the full word "equivalent"), and is written "equiv." in British English. No style guide anywhere recommends "equiv". While some journalism style guides prefer "eg" and the like for some particularly common abbreviations (a choice made for expediency and for saving as much space as possible), Wikipedia is not written in news style, as a matter of formal policy, and neither deadline pressure nor compression of text to fit into thin columns and "above the fold" are concerns here.

Like most publishers of large quantities of material by multiple authors, Wikipedia has its own house style, codified at WP:Manual of Style (MoS) and its subpages. Your style manifesto at User:Sb2001 raises serious WP:NOTHERE, WP:NOT and WP:GREATWRONGS concerns. You have less that 400 mainspace edits here, most of which are stylistic fiddling about (albeit some in the correct direction under MoS, plus some actual content work; I am not aiming to be over-critical). To the extent these edits are against established consensus at MoS or any other Wikipedia policies and guidelines they are counterproductive. If the programmatic anti-MoS changes you are making do not cease, this will result in an examination of your editing pattern at the administrators' noticeboard of incidents and is liable to result in restricted editing. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:05, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

* 'You are not actually even following the "major UK style guides" you claim to be citing.'
 * The major UK style guides I follow, and the ones to which I was referring, are the Guardian, Oxford University, Cambridge University (and the Economist, sometimes the Telegraph, and an in-house style guide which I use for my writing). The first three are all listed on my user page.

* '"Equiv" does not qualify as such a contraction
 * I was (and still am being) educated in an extremely well-respected establishment in the UK. This is what I was (and still am being) taught to do. Also, if you read the Guardian style guide, it tells you NEVER to use full stops for abbreviations (p23).

* 'Your style manifesto at User:Sb2001 raises ...'
 * I have removed this, due to the negative reaction this designed-to-be helpful element obtained by certain editors.

* 'If the programmatic anti-MoS changes you are making do not cease'
 * 'programme' suggests I do it without thinking. Every edit I make is considered carefully, on a case-by-case basis. I do not go out of my way to consider the MoS. I did not know about its opinions on 'p' and 'vol'. They just looked wrong to my rather young, British eyes.

* 'this will result in an examination of your editing pattern at the administrators' noticeboard of incidents and is liable to result in restricted editing'
 * There is no problem here. Most of my edits are GENUINE. All are done in good faith.

* 'You have less than 400 mainspace edits (sic)'
 * Yes, I have not made that many edits, clearly fewer than you. I do not think this is of significance. The quality of my contributions should not be made out to be less due to the number of edits I have against my account.

Finally, I would like to express my sadness at you examining my edit history, and systematically checking every edit to see if you could undo it. You will notice that, as you say, (MOST - not just 'some') of my edits are 'actual content work'. Good ones at that. I contribute knowledge to various issues. Since I became aware of the MoS, I started to enforce the regulations of which I was aware. I do not spend all of my time reading it in great detail. I do not use the WP MoS in my actual writing, that it the stuff I have to do in order to achieve my qualification. I use either board-issued guides, the Guardian, Oxford or Cambridge. These are the most highly-rated in my establishment.

I will end by saying thank you for your interest. I know that you are grateful for my contributions to the project. NB, I have been a member since 2012 - no need for a welcome message! -Sb2001 (talk) 15:50, 5 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Trying to catch up here; I've replied to the similar stuff at WT:MOS, and my own talk page already; not sure where else I should be looking. "I know that you are grateful for my contributions to the project": That is correct, and I meant it when I said I noted your edits that were improving content and even sometimes bringing style into rather than out of MoS compliance. The below material is long; there's a lot to cover.

This sort of melodrama isn't helpful; only the material about being on some kind of style mission raised any concerns.

I did not challenge your education in any way, nor did I suggest you have no style guides. I simply pointed out that you arrived here with an "enforcement" mindset, yet seem not to be following the style you wish to enforce; "equiv" is not standard British English, in any register; it's only found in news journalism produced by certain publishers.

Our templating system is rudimentary; we're not supposed to leave anyone a without a recent, yet the latter includes "Welcome" language. It could probably be modified easily to not include that wording, with a parameter like no or the like.

"Program[me]" suggests of "do it without thinking". A program[me] is a plan or (in computing) a set of specific instructions. Even in television, it refers to pre-planned, not random, content. I chose that word specifically because I was referring to your self-published plan to enforce your view of British style at Wikipedia. We don't need anyone to carefully consider and case-by-case implement their own personal style agenda here, nor any nationalistic one. We need people to write articles, to expand small stub articles, to find sources for unsourced claims in articles (or remove them if they fail verification), to provide photos for articles that don't have them, to clean up style to be consistent, and do other useful things for our readers. Removing punctuation and spacing to mimic your favourite newspaper is not among "useful things for our readers". Anything that makes content harder to parse is unhelpful; clarity is important here, but matching regional or field-specific text compression trends is not.

I'm not undoing your edits, just making MoS-compliance changes to them. If you want to go through your own edits and undo you own "eg" and "4.01pm" changes, be my guest. But I would almost be willing to bet you will not, which would mean someone else has to do the cleanup. I'm diligent enough to do much else in the process, like fixing broken or incomplete citations, incorrect italicisation, grammar errors, etc. (and none of that looks like it had anything to do with you, it's just stuff that needs to get done).

No one will care if you decide not to read MoS or to comply with it when creating new content. We want new content more than we want it to be perfectly compliant with a style checklist. However, people will object if you change compliant material to be non-compliant, so you'll eventually absorb MoS's main points anyway. And MoS compliance will be checked at the Good Article and Featured Article review stages. People will also object if you go out of your way to create new content that is as divergent from MoS as possible as some kind of "protest", since it wastes other editors' time. Since you stress good faith and that there won't be any such problem, I'm happy to take that at face value, and to consider the whole issue resolved, other than patching up some stray "eg" and "4.01pm" style. I do have to point out that if you were submitting an article to Nature or to The Guardian for that matter, you would probably read their style guide and conform to it, or at least not feel put-upon if an editor there changed your text to comply. I'm always a bit mystified when people treat WP any differently. "Anyone can edit here" doesn't equate to "there are no rules and this is a free-for-all, a textual deathmatch arena". :-)

The Guardian style guide is just one newspaper's own house style for journalists. It is not a linguistic reference work, and it does not reflect general British or any other norms. It sharply conflicts in innumerable ways even with the house styles of other British news publishers, such as The Economist. The section "abbreviations and acronyms" is downright aberrant, and directly contradicts most all other style guides on most points, and does not reflect the way people actually write outside of The Guardian and The Observer newsroom. They are doing this to "look different"; it's a branding move. The New York Times has its own style book that also does some (completely unrelated) things differently from almost all other publishers, for the same marketing reason.

Wikipedia does not care what these news publishers prefer anyway; WP is not written in news style, but in academic book style, following house style manual, which is based primarily on Scientific Style and Format (8th ed.), New Hart's Rules (Ritter ed., also published as The Oxford Style Manual and The Oxford Guide to Style), The Chicago Manual of Style (16th ed.), The Elements of Style (4rd ed.), Fowler's Modern English Usage (Burchfield ed.), and Garner's Modern American Usage (3rd ed.)  Very new works like Garner's Modern English Usage, New Hart's Rules (Waddingham ed.), and Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage (Butterfield ed.) are too new to have had any effect on observable language use yet, and the latter two at least have severe editing errors which make them self-contradictory in places. Journalism style guides have had almost no influence of any kind on the WP Manual of Style; the only exception I can think of is handling of transgendered persons and their pronouns, something that Associated Press Stylebook and various British news publishers have caught up with – and amazingly actually been consistent with each other on it – while the academic guides mostly have not yet due to slower publication cycles.

Please tell me you're not hinting above that you're a journalism student and that professors are actually requiring you to follow Guardian style. I shudder at the thought [of the latter part – I'm sure you'd make a good journalist], and it would seem unjustifiable given so many alternatives like The Economist Style Guide, BBC News Style Guide, The London Times Style Guide, Reuters Handbook of Journalism, The Telegraph Style Guide, the UPI Stylebook, etc. The Economist Style Guide (hereafter E) is actually intended as a style guide for public use, and is instructive in many of these regards. It's a higher-register and more respected publication than The Guardian (hereafter G), with a better reputation for both quality writing and editorial care, and at very least proves lack of consensus among British news publishers. E uses "AIDS" and "PDF" not the (internally inconsistent) "Aids" and "pdf" used by G. For initials, E also retains punctuation but not spaces ("V.P. Singh"), while G drops them both. E is mostly consistent with the British academic style guides and book publishers who follow them. Like most British publishers, E likes to drop the points from the ends of abbreviations generally, but this is not advised outside journalism; both Oxford/Hart's and Fowler's (and Cambridge if I remember correctly, not that anyone buys their style guide) say to only do this with contractions that begin and end with the same characters as the full word: "Doctor" -> "Dr" but "Professor" -> "Prof." This is the norm in British book publishing, academic journals, fiction, and even some UK news journalism.

To skim some of the others here: London Times and The Telegraph are inconsistent internally and with each other, and mostly are on the spectrum between the two British Journalism extremes, giving both "BBC" and "ICRC" but "Nato" and "Awacs"; yet LT has "IMAX" where T would likely have "Imax". LT uses "Prof." and "i.e." (as do the academic guides), while T (like G) uses "Prof" and "ie". But, rather backwardly, LT would use "V P Singh" while T would use "V. P. Singh" (dots and space), and G would use "VP Singh". The academic British guides use "ICRC", "NATO", "Prof." (but "Dr"), "i.e.", and "V. P. Singh" (sometimes without the space); aside from "Dr.", this agrees with mainstream North American usage, too.

I think this is sufficient illustration why MoS exists and why it says what it does about these matters. And why people say there really is no particular British style, but a collection of conflicting styles. That's historically a bit unfair, since there's been a consistent book and academic journal publishing style, just not a news journalism one (because the UK lacks something like the AP Stylebook being treated as a standard by most of its news publishers). However, both the Butterfield Fowler's and the Waddingham New Hart's take an excessive "descriptive" stance and have stopped actually providing advice on most of these matters, probably under pressure from news publishers. Instead, they just observe chaos and throw up their hands, essentially saying writers should do whatever the hell they feel like. I would definitely bet real money that the negative backlash against this – style guides abandoning their roles as guides to masquerade as linguistics works not written by actual linguists – will cause this to be rectified in the next editions, if the works get new editions. It's noteworthy that the internationalised Garner's Modern English is also an Oxford University Press publication, in direct competition with their New Hart's and Fowler's volumes, and Garner's get better reviews; at some point someone will probably realise this doesn't make much business sense. To the extent anyone is even reading them, Waddingham and Butterfield are worsening rather than helping with the "British style chaos" problem.


 * — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  21:29, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

I really hope you'll read the MoS pages, or stop doing style edits and focus instead adding and sourcing content. I'm seeing a lot of other issues besides "eg" and "4.15pm" in your edits (at least up to June of this year), like removal of commas that are grammatically necessary, using redundant time formats (e.g. "9.00pm – 9.30pm" for "9–9:30 pm"), mixing "from x to y" style with "x–y" style in the same expression, as "from x–y", ignoring MOS:NUMERO and putting the ambiguous "No" all over the place, capitalising things never capitalised here (e.g. academic subjects), removing capitalisation from proper names (e.g. the third thing in a series of them at a game show article), or weirdly removing it (e.g. "West Wing" → "West wing") resulting in a style not used in any dialect in any register. Lot of changes against MOS:INITIALS, at least two of which introduced errors (falsified the name of a company that pre-dated the emergence of the no-dots style; did something similar to a title of a published work). At least two cases of changing directly quoted material to suit your preferred style.

Working from oldest to newest, I've only reached 30 May 2017 in your edits (about 3/4), and have not seen you self-reverting any of your own un-MoS edits; I hope this means you've been working from newest to oldest. I've already spent three days of my WP time mostly on cleaning up after it all. [Update: Never mind; I caught up to all of it.]

Cite fixing tip: When a source URL is dead, don't delete the source. If you're busy, you can tag it with dead link. If you're not, use wayback.archive.org to get an archive-url and archive-date for it and also add y; this will repair the citation (unless the page was so obscure that Archive.org never spidered it, which makes it suspect as a source to begin with). — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  07:38, 11 July 2017 (UTC)


 * User:SMcCandlish: Thank you for this. The thing with the 'west wing' was to do with the fact that 'wing' itself is not the important part of the name (also followed with names of certain political parties, treaties, constitutions, battles/wars, republics, etc). I actually think is should be 'block' - ten years at the school ... only ever called the 'east block': I will get round to changing this when I have met Friday's deadline. Regarding Coronation St's article, I changed it from 'between 7.30–8pm' (or whatever it was) to 'from 7.30–8.00pm'. I carefully considered whether to change the en dash to 'to', and decided against it (cannot remember why, exactly). I assume you are talking about 'Babushka' and 'x-ray': I thought this was right – my Physics never was that great, though (to the extent that my teacher told me to drop it before GCSE). It just seemed to be in my mind that there was no cap. My English education (that is the subject, not the language) taught me to always capitalise the names of academic subjects. I support that, and do not know why the MoS does not. I do not know to which company/printed work you are referring. There may be a reason. Most books which I have do drop the stops, actually (although some (including the wonder that is 'Wuthering Heights') do not). With reference to the dead links, is this solely for external pages, or internal, also? – Sb2001 talk page 23:04, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I'll try bulletizing this stuff for convenience.


 * WP (like most others) uses "Labour Party", "Republican Party", etc., not "Labour party" or "Republican party", unless the name of the party is something different and it's just descriptive, in which case even the first part might not be capitalized. E.g. "Sinn Fein is a republican party in Ireland", in a different (general, original) meaning of "republican" – though WP would not probably write it that way, because of ambiguity. Or, "the Democratic Party [proper name] is the main liberal, progressive, or left-wing party [just descriptive terms] in the United States". If the DP changed its name next year to the Liberal Party, that would be capitalized, as a proper name, though when separated only the unique part would be: "According to the Liberal [Democrat, Republicans, Labour, etc.] platform, ... [some claim goes here] ..., but this party [not 'Party'] position has been criticized by [whomever]."
 * In the "West wing" and "Liberal party" edits, I think you're either pulling from some external style guide that has a down-casing rule that is even more "gung ho" against capitalization than Wikipedia is, or you're mixing different rules. A prime suspect for the latter is the one to not (any longer) capitalize things like the isolated, common-noun reference "universities" in the sentence "Oxford and Cambridge are in competition, but both universities are prestigious."  A generation or so ago, "Universities" would have been capitalized by many publishers, on the basis that "University" is capitalized in the full names of the institutions.  That usage only seems to survive today almost exclusively in house styles, usually in business writing ("Meeting tomorrow after lunch in the Board Room [overcapitalization, but 'the Johnson Memorial Board Room' would be a proper name] between the Marketing and Development teams [arguably okay if the departments are really named that and not something else like 'Public Relations and Marketing' and 'Product Development'] to resolve conflicts between these Departments [overcapitalization]").  I'm only aware of one even semi-recent style guide for general public consumption (a minor one) that would retain "Universities" in the original example, and it was in fact on the University' is capitalized in the full names" basis.  Even news publisher no longer do this; I saw just the other day a reference to a conference of the National Association of Attorneys General (US), which referred to it as a regulation-drafting meeting attended by the attorneys general of most of the [US] states; it did not capitalize "attorneys general" or "states", despite the title of the guy from California being the Attorney General of California, and the formal name of California being the State of California.  WP consistently follows this lower-casing convention.  Even "the US state of Georgia" is written that way, as a reference to a place (the "State of Georgia" is a legal entity, a bureaucracy not a location).
 * WP never, ever mixes range styles, as in "from x–y"; other comprehensive style guides also say to avoid it, as confusing. I'm unaware of any that advise doing it, and I own two book cases of English language style guides, collected over the last 30-odd years. This is covered at MOS:NUM, which is explicit about not mixing the styles.
 * Whether "x-ray" is capitalized in physics or not is irrelevant (I think it is not, but would also have to go look); in this context it is not a reference to part of the electro-magnetic spectrum per se (just by way of metaphor); it's the name of part of a game, and is a proper name for that part of it like the other two that preceded it. The argument that such things are proper names only applies to trademarked games with trademarked segments, like Jeopardy! and its closing segment, "Final Jeopardy!". If you are playing Texas hold 'em poker and come to the segment of gameplay called the river, you have done just that; you are not playing Texas Hold 'Em Poker and have not come to The River. Specialized poker publications overcapitalize such things for emphasis, as innumerable specialty works do in pretty much every field and topic. WP never permits Caps for Emphasis, because it would result in virtually everything being capitalized (each speciality would insist on capitalizing its "special" words if one was permitted to do so), and en.WP would look like German, which capitalizes alles Substantive und Substantive Sätze ('all nouns and noun phrases'). WP:Specialized-style fallacy explains why "it's capitalized in  field or preferred publications" is invalid reasoning on Wikipedia, and why pursuit of imposing specialized style here is disruptive.  Capitalization of elements and accoutrements of trademarked games and game shows also doesn't extend to generic references, e.g. it's "She was eliminated in the second round [not Second Round] in her third appearance [not third Appearance] as a contestant [not Contestant] on The Price is Right." Or, "He choked to death on a handful of Dungeons & Dragons dice" [not Dice]. Not a proper name? Don't cap it.
 * Virtually no modern style guides recommend capitalizing academic or other subjects, except in proper names. It's "the Department of Classics at the University of [Whatever]", but "I got a terrible grade in gender studies last year", "she is a professor of physics" (contrast "Professor of Physics Julia X. Chang" or "Prof. Chang" as a title adhered to a person's name). You capitalized "Physics" above, but see our article at Physics, and our articles on every other discipline; such terms are never capitalized here.  See also MOS:ISMCAPS; Wikipedia down-cases more than you probably think it does, including things like method acting, the adherents of which almost religiously capitalize. (It's a form of promotionalism: "our Method is magically special and better than your [alleged] lack of one".)
 * There's no consistent British style on most of these matters. British fiction and journalism is increasingly picking up stuff from North American style, including more frequently "double 'then single' quotation marks" order, and handling of commas at the end of quotations).  British journalism is also more often than its non-UK counterparts apt to drop points from all abbreviations, not just the contraction variety, and to drop spacing in various constructions.  There are to-and-fro influences between one publishing circle and another, and some trends can probably be demonstrated.  But they does not equate to a formal national style distinction (even when some writers like Bryan A. Garner incorrectly suggest otherwise without any proof; style guide writers love to over-nationalize because it helps sell books).  In the end, it's a matter of what a cluster of publishers are doing with their own house styles.  Sometimes a particular publisher like The Guaridian is in agreement with British (and other) general-audience and academic guides, sometimes with other journalism guides only, and sometimes with no one.  There are very few points of complete publishing-world consensus, even within any particular country.  Where there is universally recognizable overlap (as with "9:15 p.m." or "9:15 pm" time formatting), this is, and we have WP:COMMONALITY for a reason: every such instance is an opportunity to shut down a tremendous amount of productivity-wasting editorial conflict that would otherwise recur at article after article, day after day, indefinitely.
 * Dead links: I meant external ones ("When a source URL is dead ..."); WP cannot be a source for itself. Archive.org is not used here for internal links (if a WP article was deleted it was for good reason). For internal links: see WP:REDLINK for the overview.  The gist is that things that are red-linked which are very likely to be notable should be left linked, since this encourages article creation ("This important topic is still red? I'd better get to work to fix that!"). But things unlikely to ever have an article here should have the red links removed, as annoying visual clutter (sometimes also promotionalism, e.g. when a non-notable blogger comes here and links a reference to their own name in citation to an article of theirs that someone used as a reference). Most red-linking is innocent, the mistaken idea of noob editors that every proper name should be linked.

General sum-up: I really hate the misleading title of WP:Competence is required, but the page covers much of this in a general way: "I was taught that ..." is an attitude that has to be dropped. We were all taught of things about how to write in the micro-style sense (punctuation, etc.), how to compose "good" prose and a "good" outline, what makes a good source, how to get our own ideas to shine through and be distinguished from a recitation of basic facts, and so forth. A large amount of this absorbed pedagogy (and even professional experience in other, non-encyclopedia contexts), goes right out the window when writing for Wikipedia. WP has its own rules on style, format, tone/audience, verifiability versus original research, source reliability, etc., etc. They're out of necessity for the goals of the project, and are not arbitrary (even if some particular choices are arbitrary ones between multiple available options; the necessity to make a choice and stick with it is not arbitrary). Absorbing the policies and guidelines, either by reading and studying them or by having them held up at you in objection then slowly absorbing them bit by bit is necessary to contribute well here. It's effectively required that one absorb the WP way of doing things and listen to other editors (as a community if not always individually) even if you'd rather that the rules were different. I frequently analogize this to sports and games: most players would probably change a rule or two, but they all agree that the rules are the rules, otherwise the game can't be played. And no one shows up to a football game with a baseball or cricket bat and asks who the first pitcher will be. Or, you don't use pool balls on a snooker table; they don't fit in the pockets.

Both methods of absorption are painful and tedious in different ways, but the study method, rather than the "people keep grousing at me" method, is only a hassle for the single editor. Some of the material seem nit-picky. Even how WP defines "primary" and "secondary source" differs from how some entire disciplines do it (and they have differing reasons, that don't apply here, for divergent source classification systems). These seeming nit-picks are there for important but not always obvious reasons, which can usually be discovered in the talk-page archives. Please consider that we've been at this for 16.5 years now; there's not likely to be an objection you'd raise that hasn't been raised and found wanting before (at least not until you've really been around, as a near-daily editor, for several years, with tens of thousands of edits – enough experience to identify a frequently recurrent problem, which is genuinely problematic for the project, which can with certainty be traced to a policy or guideline deficiency, and which isn't counterbalanced by some other factor as part of long-standing consensus compromise. Most "my kind of English versus your kind of English" conflicts are firmly in that last category; what we have at WP:ENGVAR is dialect flexibility for (but only for) A. stuff that can be proven to be a matter of national dialectal distinction, and B. something about which WP has no reason to prefer one option over the other (like clarity, precision, readability, commonality between dialects, etc.). Most of the changes you want to make do not qualify. Some of them do, like changing contractions to drop the dot in BrEng ("Mr. -> "Mr") and changing "July 12, 2017" to "13 July 2017" in the same UK context.

— SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  21:59, 13 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Hope this helps. My intent is not to belabo[u]r any of these points, but to address each in turn and fully. A long answer now is probably better than a dozen short ones in multiple places over an extended period.
 * Thank you for this. No, I would much rather have a detailed response to something like this than either a rubbish half-answer or nothing at all. I did the 'Physics' thing without even thinking. I will certainly think about these things in future. Yes - you are right about 'X-ray'. I do not really understand how MOS:TM works: 'TK Maxx' is the actual name of the company; 'T.K.maxx' is the logo (well, sort of 1.); the article is called 'T.K. Maxx' - a style not even in the MoS (where – surely – it should be 'T. K. Maxx'). I will start a discussion on the article talk page. – Sb2001 talk page 15:52, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
 * MOS:TM is "difficult", especially since people have a hard time mentally reconciling it with WP:COMMONNAME. I wrote WP:COMMONSTYLE to help them.  For the company you mention, I'll address that on its talk page. PS: Applied the requested moves template. Made a detailed WP:CONSISTENCY case, but overturning the J. C. Penney decision is a probably equally likely outcome.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  21:40, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

MOS:DATEUNIFY
Regarding this revert. The article was created with all dates as DMY, and the creator added the DMY tag themselves. Regardless of when the DMY tag was added, it was the accepted and the dates were uniform date format at that time. Months later, new dates have been added. While yyyy-mm-dd is certainly an acceptable date format, DMY is already specified and all of the older citations are using it. They need to be unified. Please undo your edit. -- ferret (talk) 18:01, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
 * You have a point with regards to yyyy-mm-dd, I do not see why the initial dmy tag should be changed, though. – Sb2001 talk page 18:11, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm unsure what you mean. Do you mean the date in the "Use xxx dates" template? It is meant to denote the last time dates were unified, not when the tag was added. -- ferret (talk) 18:13, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, I was under the impression that it was referring to when the tag was added. – Sb2001 talk page 18:15, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Ukraine
I can tell that you aren't really up on Ukrainian issues. As part of the decommunization of Ukraine in the Spring of 2016, hundreds of cities and villages had their names officially changed. Citations are not needed for this. --Taivo (talk) 17:20, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
 * User:TaivoLinguist: Hmm. I do not care. You need to provide the citation. The point is that WP helps people with little knowledge. Provide the citations to do so. If I do not have vast knowledge, good. I am like other people, who will visit the page. Help me and the thousands of other users by providing evidence for your facts. – Sb2001 talk page 17:23, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
 * The name change is described later in the article if anyone is interested. The official name of the city is Dnipro.  Do you ask for citations for the official name of Washington, DC?  --Taivo (talk) 17:25, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
 * The name of that article is the same as that mentioned in the text. I did ask for a citation on Conservative Party (UK), though, for the same reason. – Sb2001 talk page 17:26, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Rollback granted
Hi Sb2001. After reviewing your request for "rollbacker", I have [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=rights&user=&page=User%3ASb2001 enabled] rollback on your account. Keep in mind these things when going to use rollback: If you no longer want rollback, contact me and I'll remove it. Also, for some more information on how to use rollback, see Administrators' guide/Rollback (even though you're not an admin). I'm sure you'll do great with rollback, but feel free to leave me a message on my talk page if you run into troubles or have any questions about appropriate/inappropriate use of rollback. Thank you for helping to reduce vandalism. Happy editing! Anarchyte (work  &#124; talk )  03:01, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Getting rollback is no more momentous than installing Twinkle.
 * Rollback should be used to revert clear cases of vandalism only, and not good faith edits.
 * Rollback should never be used to edit war.
 * If abused, rollback rights can be revoked.
 * Use common sense.

Re: Jamshedpur FC
Where did I only ask for mdy? I always advocate, for Indian football articles, dmy (1 November 2016 for example). --ArsenalFan700 (talk) 19:05, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I looked into it. This was my mistake. I always intended to use dmy but when I created the Jamshedpur FC article I used my template at User:ArsenalFan700/Indian Football Team Template which I based off Seattle Sounders FC which uses mdy. I simply forgot to change it from mdy to dmy by accident. Sorry, don't need to be so harsh about it. --ArsenalFan700 (talk) 19:07, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. This sort of thing annoys me, though. As long as it was an innocent mistake rather than, 'I'll add the tag and then leave other editors to do the work' it is fine. I am sorry if I came across as harsh. I am – however – sure that you understand how frustrating off-loading editors are. – Sb2001 talk page 19:11, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

Ip Man 3
In your user profile you say "If I am on Huggle and an edit appears which seemingly removes a large section for no reason (ie there is no edit summary), I will revert it. Do not expect me to self-revert back to your version if there is a legitimate reason for this edit. It is your own fault if you do not leave a summary." This is fair enough, however, in my edits to the Ip Man 3 article I did leave edit summaries explaining my edits. The majority of content I removed, the "Themes" section, I feel was out-of-place and the content more akin to trivia than themes. The quality of the content itself was bad, poorly justified despite being referenced: "Cha cha champion" is not a theme, it is trivia; "Symbolism of butterfly" is not a theme, it is trivia. None of the listed "themes" were themes of the movie, they were trivia points. As a whole, my edit encompassed a thorough revision of the article's standards and I can only ask that you compare the two versions properly and see for yourself the improvement in quality. I streamlined a lot of the clumsy writing in the Plot section, removing extraneous detail and improved on details that were lacking. I made the "Cast" section more in line with the other Ip Man film articles.

Given the amount of time I spent on this edit and my love of the Ip Man series, I am of course quite offended at it being undone. Please reconsider. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.185.4.168 (talk) 11:14, 31 July 2017 (UTC)


 * I will work on a solution, and get back to you. I imagine that I will restore your version and leave a message on the article talk page. – Sb2001 talk page 14:59, 31 July 2017 (UTC)


 * I have now restored your edit, and left a summary of it, and my objection, on its talk page. You should really be discussing all major changes like this on talk pages before going ahead. Hopefully, I have now provided a template for you to use in future. Editors will be very grateful for your contributions, but to avoid this sort of thing happening in future, you must first obtain a consensus before removing vast sections of an article. – Sb2001 talk page 15:15, 31 July 2017 (UTC)
 * My thanks. In future, I'll remember to go to the talk page before making major edits. 86.185.4.168 (talk) 18:41, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Abbreviations
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Abbreviations. Legobot (talk) 04:30, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
 * ✅ – Sb2001 talk page 14:07, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

Unused book in Ip Man 3
I removed the book The Legendary Bruce Lee from Ip Man 3 because it was not used anywhere in the article (originally it was used when the article had a "themes" section, which is not there now). The book source also has a field called "ref=harv", and if the book is not used as a source anywhere in the article, i.e. just kept under the "bibliography" section and not cited elsewhere, then it will read "Harv warning: There is no link pointing to this citation. The anchor is named CITEREFVaughn1986" (install User:Ucucha/HarvErrors.js and you'll see). -- Kailash29792   (talk)  13:29, 8 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I have changed the section title to 'further reading', which is a better solution than simply removing it. Maintain sources wherever possible. You may wish to change the format away from a cite book tag, if this is flagged up by a tool. – Sb2001 talk page 13:55, 8 August 2017 (UTC) Update: I have changed the format of the book, so that it is not flagged up as an unused reference. – Sb2001  talk page 14:15, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport. Legobot (talk) 04:33, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Template talk:Infobox television channel
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Template talk:Infobox television channel. Legobot (talk) 04:27, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

WikiProject Comics MOS
Hi, Sb2001. Just a quick notes that WikiProject Comics MOS is to use the number sign and not "No." See also WP:CMOS and Manual of Style/Comics. Thanks for understanding. --Tenebrae (talk) 19:50, 16 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Right. Totally stupid rule. I will raise this at the general MoS talk page. Thank you for letting me know. – Sb2001 talk page 19:55, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Images
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Images. Legobot (talk) 04:33, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

15:39:01, 15 August 2017 review of submission by Sl29
Draft:Kamran_Khavarani Sb2001, thank you for taking your time to review my article. I have some questions about what I can do to establish my subjects nobility. So far I have referenced a book written on the subject by an art historian and a few articles discussing his artwork and early life. From my understanding they fit Wikipedia's guidelines. Is this not enough? Also are there any references that I should remove because they are not good?
 * I highly recommend that you make it really clear in the lead section of the article why this person is of significance. Write an essay-style introduction, selling their credentials and most famous works (without sounding biased). Sentences like 'Khavarani is perhaps best known for his ...' can help with this. I am really pleased with the work that you have done on the article. I will have a go at sorting out some of the stylistic impurities later, as I know a lot about the MoS. Once you have had a look at the lead, leave me a message, and I will be happy to publish the article. – Sb2001 talk page 19:54, 16 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your feedback. I have revised the lead section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sl29 (talk • contribs) 22:49, 16 August 2017 (UTC)
 * User:Sl29: I have accepted the draft article which you submitted. At the moment, this means that two articles exist on the same topic. I will campaign for the removal of the old one, as the new one is better. The content of yours may need to be transferred across, should the administrators not see how much more convenient my suggestion is. – Sb2001 talk page 13:44, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

Unsolicited advice
Hi, I've noticed on a few pages that I watch that you've been having some disputes with other editors. That's fine: it happens. If you look through my talk page archives you'll see that I've had disagreements with people before too. Not a big deal, we work that out through talking about it on Wikipedia just like we do in real life. Also like in real life, though, it doesn't really help the situation if you don't listen to what the other people are saying and you just respond with long replies accusing the other parties of this or that. That just makes people mad at you and more likely to not actually listen if you do have a point to make.Currently it looks like you're in disputes with Primefac, Kudpung, and Nick, and that you have been in the past with EEng. These four editors each have very different personalities, but they are each generally respected a lot around here for different reasons. If you have been in disputes with all four of them and come off feeling angry or like the situation didn't resolve itself in an amicable way, it might be worth asking the question as to if the problem always lay with the other person or if there was something in your style of interacting with them that made them angry: communication is very rarely just about being right, on Wikipedia and in the real world. I have no bone in whatever disputes are going on: WP:NPP is more my thing than AfC, and the only part of the MOS that I'm really familiar with is on article titles. I just thought that it might be helpful if someone who you hadn't been in disagreement with gave you a bit of feedback.If you want to work in new content or find articles that are in need of cleaning up, please feel free to ask me. I'm willing to give some pointers if you want to areas that you can work in without requiring being on the AfC list or having the NPR user right. Anyway, hope you have a great upcoming week. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:09, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for this, : EEng's thing was totally different—I proposed an MoS change that they thought was stupid. I took offence at their harsh dismissal. That's all.


 * The new three irritated me by all pouncing on two fairly minor mistakes I made by being too brief. I became a little lost for words, and tried to say anything to get them to leave me alone. Having two admins asking you different questions at the same time is daunting. Then, one of them chose to cut the discussion shot, and remove me from AfC. I am not too bothered about Primefac, as they tried to help me before.


 * Kudpung has this obsession with school, and took 'student' to mean 'school' once; now they won't stop going on about it. By then, I was worked up by what the others were saying ... the little 'school' game got to me. More than this, they went through the minutia of what I was saying, and attempted to debunk it. I fully intend to raise complaints about Kudpung and Nick, when I have time. I perhaps did not respond in the right way, but it was only because of the situation in which I had been placed. I am generally considered to be a fairly helpful editor.


 * Lately, I have become hooked with the 'random page' button, and enjoy going through articles to fix their impurities. I also use Huggle from time to time. Anything you can advise me to do would be greatly appreciated: I joined AfC to branch out from the other stuff. Sadly it did not go as well as I had hoped. I did really like the challenges it presented, though, and have a few loose ends to sort out. But, as I say, if you can direct me to other work, that would be really good. Once again, thank you for your comments—it is a welcome change to hear from someone civil after the last couple of days.
 * – Sb2001 talk page 00:35, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Not a problem: I only mentioned EEng because I saw a comment above about him that seemed to fit into this picture even if it was a bit different. I obviously didn't look up the exact dispute, just thought it might be worth bringing up in the bigger picture. Full disclosure, I work very closely with Kudpung on Wikipedia and consider him a friend. I also like Nick, but don't know him nearly as well. That being said, I think it would likely be best to drop the matter: WP:ANI is not a fun place to be, and I think there are probably better ways to spend your time than making a case of it there. I'd give you the same advice even if it was an editor who I didn't like.Re: ways to help out, something you might consider is going through Category:Orphaned articles from February 2009 and helping with that cleanup: many of those article haven't been touched in over a decade, and they all need to be deorphaned. You can find a lot of things to cleanup via copyediting if you want, and there are also a lot of articles from the early days of Wikipedia that would never be acceptable today that should probably be dealt with via WP:PROD. If you are interested in doing AfC and NPP work, having this to point to might be useful if you decide to apply to be put back on the list or get the NPR right. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:44, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I shall get started on the orphaned articles tomorrow. I do not know whether I will go to ANI. Possibly not, if Kudpung replies to my post on his talk page, or leaves me a message here. Again, thanks for your help. – Sb2001 talk page 00:50, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Family Guy
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Family Guy. Legobot (talk) 04:27, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

Adam Cooley Article
I am resubmitting my proposed article. I have gone over it again and checked to make sure that all of my sources were correctly cited from reliable sources. I have gone over numerous wiki articles on other contemporary artists and did my best to "wiki-fy" my writing style, layout the article with a similar style to those contemporary artists already in wiki, to include a variety of documented media sources (and properly footnote them).

I can understand having my article rejected in the beginning as I did make mistakes in properly citing my sources, my writing style was a bit wordy, and I only included a few reliable sources at the time. I can appreciate wiki holding a high standard but I believe the present article I have written, the numerous reliable sources I have included, and the amount of concise bias free information I have included should more than enough in its present state.

I look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience. Thank you for your time.

Sent: Tuesday, August 22, 2017 8:36 AM Subject: Wikipedia Administrators ΑΣΚΙΚΑΤΑΣΚΙΛΙΞ ΤΕΤΡΑΞ ΔΑΜΝΑΜΕΝΕΥΣ ΑΙΣΙΟΝ  KevinJardine (talk) 07:33, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I have asked another editor to cast their eye over your work, which I think is generally very good (and mostly written in a good, encyclopaedic tone). I will work on the stylistic impurities tomorrow, when I have some time. I think that there is a good chance of this draft being accepted, but the new reviewer may not like the fact that you have not done anything since rejection. Some more citations would not go unnoticed, and this is why I rejected the article originally. I recognise your struggles in finding sources. As part of my editing, I shall add citation needed templates to unsourced content. After some time, this will be deleted. It might have been nice if you had found some more sources since my last visit, and it is not normal practice to re-submit without completing further work, but your explanation has helped me to understand why you might not have been able to make the necessary improvements.– Sb2001 talk page 01:54, 23 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Thank you for taking the time to take another look at it. I did take your advice and did a bit of editing and managed to add a few more citations. I hope this helps.


 * I look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience. Thank you for your time.


 * Subject: Wikipedia Administrators From: Kevin Campbell ΑΣΚΙΚΑΤΑΣΚΙΛΙΞ ΤΕΤΡΑΞ ΔΑΜΝΑΜΕΝΕΥΣ ΑΙΣΙΟΝ — Preceding unsigned comment added by KevinJardine (talk • contribs) 07:49, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy). Legobot (talk) 04:33, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Blank Huggle edit summaries
Not sure what exactly is going on, but numerous of your reverts with Huggle have blank summaries other than "((HG) (3.2.0))". Home Lander (talk) 23:12, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
 * It does that for some reason. Other users do it also, so I thought it must be fine. Any idea how to change it? – Sb2001 talk page 23:14, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I have no idea what would even cause it, honestly. I've had trouble installing 3.2.0 so I'm still using an older version, 3.1.22. Wonder if it's a bug with 3.2.0. Is it when you're just doing a basic revert? Home Lander (talk) 23:18, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
 * It is, yes. I shall get onto the wizards at the support desk. They might have some idea what is causing it. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. – Sb2001 talk page 23:39, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Alright, I figured it was some sort of bug. A generic revert should spit out similar to "(Reverted edits by Example (talk) (HG) (3.1.22))". Home Lander (talk) 23:42, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Also, if you're using the revert/warn combination button, it's not warning users. Example here. Home Lander (talk) 23:45, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
 * It seems to sometimes send the warning note, and always the welcome message for 'good' edits. I shall add this to the support discussion. – Sb2001 talk page 23:48, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Guess I'm glad I haven't gotten the 3.2.0 update to work. Home Lander (talk) 23:49, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

If it ain't broke, don't ... break it? – Sb2001 talk page 23:51, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

This revert
Hi, this revert of yours is questionable this one. I was adding sourced information and removing the unsourced information as asked on the talk page. I am readding my edit there. Thanks, 2.51.18.247 (talk) 13:37, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Sorry about that, . I was only shown one part of your edit (changing references → notes). I would not have reverted the whole thing ... good work! – Sb2001 talk page 13:42, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

User:Wikisbaldivia/sandbox
The comment you left there makes no sense at all, and is unintelligible. Please fix this at your earliest convenience. Nick (talk) 18:39, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
 * The comment I left advised the editor who submitted the draft to AfC to ask another editor—who I know has a lot of experience of meetups—for assistance. Further to this, I suggested that they research changing the location from US to UK, as I know that the editor to whom I directed them resides in the UK. Please explain to me how what I wrote was 'unintelligible', and why you feel it appropriate to criticise my well-written and helpful observations. I will also be leaving a message with the editor who reverted my comments, as I feel that this is unreasonable, also. – Sb2001 talk page 18:44, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Don't bother, I'm here. You should probably have said "please talk to user X" rather than just "see User:X". I actually removed the decline altogether, since I don't think it needs formal submission.
 * As an unrelated note, since I was going to drop by any way, this comment makes no sense, because you haven't actually told the user what to fix. I don't even know what you mean by Sort out the 'Works' section, and I've been doing this for years. Comments are only helpful if they actually say something. Primefac (talk) 18:48, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
 * The section entitled, 'Works'. This is helpful. I said that I would be happy to review the article, once they could resolve the section of which I have no knowledge: it is about someone of whom I have never heard. What is your problem with this? It makes perfect sense, and I have told them exactly what to fix. – Sb2001 talk page 18:52, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Not really. You said "sort it out", not "I don't know what this means, please clarify and let me know". Please tell me you know the difference between what I quoted above and what you just told me. Primefac (talk) 18:54, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I think that the problems are pretty clear: they have strange styling, making them impossible to understand, they use ambiguous language, etc. Surely the editor would have been able to work this out. If not, they could have left me a message. – Sb2001 talk page 19:00, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
 * To say it again - what is clear to you is not immediately clear to everyone. I see no strange styling or ambiguous language in that section. Why would it be so hard for you to say what you just posted above in your comments? We're not giving out points based on brevity - I'd rather you write out a paragraph or two explaining your thoughts on a draft than say "fix this and get back to me". Primefac (talk) 19:03, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

The caps, the ellipses ... – Sb2001 talk page 19:16, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Also, in your clarification, you say "fix the problems" but you don't actually say what those problems are. This is exactly what I was talking about when you asked to join AFCH - it's often easier to fix it yourself. If you don't know, then you need to be very clear about what you want fixed. Primefac (talk) 18:57, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Plus, saying your comments made perfect sense, when the creator and two admins have no idea what you're talking about, means you need to re-evaluate what "perfect sense" means. Something that is "clear" or "obvious" to one person is not always the same to another. Primefac (talk) 18:53, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
 * "See User:Redrose64 for more information" is clearly not the same as leaving a clear and intelligible comment which says "You might find that the editor Redrose64, who has worked on meetups, can help you". The other thing I really don't understand, which is beyond unfathomable, which is giving me a bloody awful headache trying to work it out, is how the hell you telling someone to change their event from the US to the UK makes any sort of sense to anybody. It's insane. I assume what you tried to say and failed, was to tell the author that they should mention, when asking Redrose64 for help, that their event is in the US, but that's using all of my daily allocation of guesswork.
 * I think, in light of all of the above, you're needing to take a break from reviewing articles as you're clearly have competency issues, are rushing to review these things, lack the experience to provide genuinely meaningful advice, or a combination of all those issues. Nick (talk) 18:59, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
 * RR64 is a UK editor, therefore the advice they give may only be relevant in the UK. I am sure that it will not be that difficult to change the listing to US instead. I will assume good faith in your comments. They could be interpreted as very rude and insulting. I am sure that was not your intention. Calling editors incompetent is not appropriate. I hope you will be able to rephrase that. I am not 'rushing' to review things. I spend quite a while on each submission before clicking the button. And my advice is meaningful. If the editors themselves have problems, they should ask me. Otherwise, how am I supposed to know? – Sb2001 talk page 19:06, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
 * The editors are clearly struggling to understand your comments, because they're coming onto IRC and asking us in the help channel what on earth your comments mean. I would also add that what you left at User:Wikisbaldivia/sandbox bears absolutely no resemblance to the detailed explanations you've left here. If you had left a detailed, legible comment at the AfC review, we wouldn't be having this conversation, because I wouldn't have been having a conversation with a very confused Wikisbaldivia. Nick (talk) 19:12, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
 * There is no reason that they could not have asked me. I offered helpful advice, and if they chose not to deal with me, who—I would suggest—has more of an idea of what I meant, how am I supposed to know of problems. I would have clarified it. I will ask them separately. – Sb2001 talk page 19:16, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

I've removed you from AFCH at the moment. Discussion can be found at concerning this. Nick (talk) 19:07, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I see that you chose not to rephrase your comments. – Sb2001 talk page 19:16, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
 * You're perceptive, I'll give you that much. Nick (talk) 19:17, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I am a student of English (I would add, quite a good one): obviously I look for details. – Sb2001 talk page 19:19, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Looking back on this, 's comments were a little unclear, and lacked specific information as to what I did wrong, and how I could have improved it.

To be helpful, I have written the sort of answer I would have liked to receive (other editors may have different preferences: 'You've left this comment ... and the creator of the page is having trouble understanding it. I must admit, I think that it is a little unclear. I interpret it to mean that you are suggesting they ... If this is the case, a better way of saying this would be ... It is important that you are really clear when leaving AfC feedback. It is necessary to spell things out in great detail, sometimes. If you are struggling with reviewing articles, you may benefit from spending a couple of days on something else. During this period, I shall be happy to guide you on ways to improve. There is also help located at ... Thanks.' I would have understood exactly what your concern was, and would have been grateful for you guiding me through things so precisely. I find it slightly amusing that I could not understand what you were saying in comments on my talk page when you had come to ask me about ambiguity in comments I had left. We all make mistakes; ours seem remarkably similar here. I would have really liked to know earlier on in the discussion that the meet-up arranger had expressed concern with my comments: I would have contacted them immediately, whilst I was still fairly calm.

I was really pleased that Primefac offered my some help, by saying that 'You probably should have said ...' He did make some unnecessary side-comments, but so did I. As became clear through the conversation, I understood why I declined the two submissions in question. I should have expressed this clearly to the articles' creators. Primefac continued to offer me advice, recommending that it is better to leave long, tedious paragraphs to explain problems, rather than make it as succinct as possible.

I must disagree that having extra time would have made no difference to my responses: I would have done what I am doing not—writing draft responses, checking them for clarity, and then putting it into Wikipedia. I imagine that I would have acknowledged that I was wrong; as I have now. As a student of English (I will get more into at which level later down the page), I express myself best with long, thorough, and well-considered strings of words.

I will be posting on the meet-up editor's talk page, to apologise for the way in which I communicated with them. I was a little shocked that I was threatened with disciplinary sanctions at this point, though. I thought that I was being reasonable. – Sb2001 talk page 19:39, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

Please seek... I already DID that!
Hey, what's your nastygram on my talk page for if I already DID seek consensus on talk pages?

Speaking of which, I left you an update there!

2600:100E:B149:8DAB:F80C:D7D2:437F:F3BC (talk) 16:01, 19 August 2017 (UTC)
 * WP obliges that you to wait for consensus, not enforce your preference in the meantime. I issued you with a warning for continuing to edit the MoS. And, it is strongly advisable to refrain from using phrases such as 'nastygram'. They could result in a block being issued by administrators. You should create an account. It is far easier this way, and means that editors may converse by email. You may find this more beneficial, and I will give you some strategies for dealing with MoS editors. If you do make one, leave me a message, to let me know that it is you. And, I issued the warning before you saved your TP edit. – Sb2001 talk page 16:05, 19 August 2017 (UTC)


 * I updated the talk again. Since when is "nastygram" a supposedly "prohibited" word here?


 * 2600:100E:B149:8DAB:F80C:D7D2:437F:F3BC (talk) 16:31, 19 August 2017 (UTC)
 * It is informal and really quite unnecessary. You are accusing another editor of hounding you with abusive content. That is not good. – Sb2001 talk page 17:10, 19 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Nastygram is not a phrase, it's a word. I rather like it - a refreshing neologism to a retired lecturer of English. Probably not a very good word for our templated messages, but certainly nobody is going to be blocked for using it. I believe worse language is used in the bike sheds at Notts High during break time. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:52, 19 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Read the MoS talk page. This is the behaviour for which I am concerned a block may be issued. The NHS bicycle shed ... emerging from there in the morning = respect from teachers. My GCSE English teacher always was a fan. – Sb2001 talk page 18:17, 19 August 2017 (UTC) PS: User:Kudpung—where did you get the name of the school? – Sb2001  talk page 18:20, 19 August 2017 (UTC)
 * No one is going to be blocked or otherwise administratively addressed for using the word nastygram. What someone could be blocked for is excessively personalizing, in an ad hominem manner, style and title disputes. See WP:ARBATC, which authorized "discretionary sanctions" (an admin can just block you or issue a topic ban without a bunch of process being invoked) for WP:MOS/WP:AT-related flamewarring. This is likely to including assumptions of bad faith, personal attacks, demonstrable harassment, and casting personalized aspersions without proof. Such blocks are rare and usually end up invoking lengthy process anyway. Most modern admins are loath to issue disciplinary actions without backup from other admins, because the community is today far more critical of questionable admin actions, and it is much harder to get (much less get back) the administrator bit than it was in the early days.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  20:08, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

I was trying to help the IP address, offering to exchange emails advising how to deal with the MoS talk page with them if they created an account. Kudpung saying that nobody would have sanctions imposed/that 'nastygram' is fine was really an attempt to make me look bad (well, that is how I read it).

I responded to Kudpung's NHS comments in a similarly light-hearted way, including a post-script message which was hardly a shout. – Sb2001 talk page 19:50, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

Thanks
Sb2001, I was notified that you mentioned me in this edit. Although I think your comments ended up inflaming the situation, thank you for coming to my defense on Kudpung's talk page. I know your intentions were good. World&#39;s Lamest Critic (talk) 21:25, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

AfC
Hi, I'm afraid as a further admin, I have to concur with 's:. Although I may have express myself in a somewhat different way from my colleagues Primefac and, I see noting hostile in their approach. I also note the extraordinary patience demonstrated by in helping you over some of your misunderstandings of what it means to comply with the in-house MoS of the world's largest collection of knowledge. You may be good in school at English but this kind of comment is definitely not  the way in which we prefer our  reviewers to communicate with new users. You didn't reach the threshold for AfC reviewer until last month on which you immediately asked for it, and even there, your application was unclear and developed into an unusually long thread. I don't think that you are quite ready for reviewing drafts, but there are plenty of other tasks you could be helping out with. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:21, 19 August 2017 (UTC)
 * SMcCandlish was not patient. Read the MoS talk page archives and you will see. I sent him an email yesterday and am awaiting a reply—I needed to send this after he launched an unnecessary attack, quite simply, for asking too many questions. You should not assume that 'student' = school, also. I am not a reviewer any more, I will point out to you. Many users have shown hostility, EEng to name one. I did not ask for AfC right immediately, and only joined it to get away from the—for want of better wording—abusive and unwelcoming environment presented by the MoS. Thanks to all of the admins for now pushing me out of that! It is quite inappropriate that you take for granted that I will be willing to 'help'. I was helping, and, as I noted at the AfC talk page, I am being given no credit for the helpful AfC work I have done recently. The fact that the admin who approved my request chose to ask further questions has nothing to do with me. They did not for other editors, and I seemed to be picked out for including an extra couple of words. There are plenty of AfC editors I see who do poor work, as well as on programs like Huggle. I imagine that I would be pounced if I pointed out who they are, as they seem to have quite a high status. I will refrain from naming. Having two administrators with similar opinions hounding you is hardly fair. If making a complaint was easier, I would. You need some sort of anti-corruption group on WP (I am assuming that there is not already one) to deal with administrators who abuse their position, and do not offer the correct time to the editors who they happen to be pursuing. If there is not now, I will be requesting its creation. There should be a one-admin rule, to avoid this sort of unescapable situation up in which I ended earlier. Well, thank you to all of the administrators involved in this. You have further alienated a committed editor User:Primefac User:Nick. Focus on the editors who are actually doing something wrong, or being unnecessarily rude to others, eg EEng (even though I admire their user page). Get them off the project before coming for editors like me who spend many hours a day (often until after 4 am) trying to make a positive difference, and helping other editors, instead of telling them to get lost. – Sb2001 talk page 00:41, 19 August 2017 (UTC)
 * It is also things like User:Nick's 'don't need talkback templates, I've a watchlist'. This was a poor response to me trying to be helpful. Especially as they seemed to deliberately revert the edit, so that I would receive a notification. I would also point out the comma splice. Do not criticise my language and clarity when you do things like this. – Sb2001 talk page 00:45, 19 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I did indeed undo the edit so you would get a notification, it was my own attempt to return the favour and be helpful towards you. I thought I would try and save you some time by letting you know that I would notice further replies without the need for a talkback template being left. Nick (talk) 01:02, 19 August 2017 (UTC)
 * That is fair enough, but the tone used was cold. The addition of 'thanks' would have made all of the difference. – Sb2001 talk page 15:44, 19 August 2017 (UTC)
 * The vast majority of your edits are between 4:00 PM and 8:00 PM on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Only on a few rare occasions have you edited after midnight (generally in the early hours of  Saturdays and Sundays when there is no school in the UK on those days). Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:28, 19 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I will say again: you have no reason to assume that 'student' = school. Anyway, it is the 'school holidays' at the moment. I would show you my email account, as well, which would demonstrate communication with numerous editors past midnight. You are missing the point. I am saying that I contribute many hours a day to the project, and AfC, often into well the night. The days have no significance. I have a life: I am very rarely stationary in the office for a number of days. – Sb2001 talk page 17:35, 19 August 2017 (UTC)If I was a school child, I hope that you would treat me with slightly more respect and tolerance than you are doing at the moment. – Sb2001  talk page 17:41, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

's comments were initially helpful, and I was grateful that another editor showed a little more understanding than the previous two administrators. (It was probably more that I was happy to see another name!) I shall start by making it clear that you are wrong about my age—I shall respond throughly in the next section.

When conversing with Nick, there was a misinterpretation on my part, in the sense that I thought that him reverting my talkback template on his talk page was him being rude. Perhaps slightly more clarity on his part would have made all of the difference, however.

I was disappointed to see Kudpung trying to debunk/weaken my arguments by stating my editing hours. Further to this, he commented on school again, after I had advised that he should not have been making such assumptions. That said, I did see the situation with a lack of focus. Him making the editing hours statement made me see him as administrator who had visited my page to have a go at me. – Sb2001 talk page 19:47, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

MoS-related aside
I think I have been patient, but whatever. I didn't see your e-mail until now, and have replied in similar depth. The short version is: constructive criticism is not an attack. Much of your talk page consists of constructive criticism and you're not listening to it. On the Manual of Style stuff: MoS is not broken and doesn't need fixing; it's a very hard-won compromise between thousands of competing views, and its principal value is stability not "correctness". You claim to be a linguistics expert, but what you post about English-language matters are uniformly just your own subjective and highly prescriptivist opinions based on personal interpretation of a handful of publications. Sometimes you present them in very insulting terms (like "stupid", recently, twice) in regard to others' style preferences. This is not collegial or helpful, regardless of constructive motivation. Back to the actual topic of thread (I'm not sure why me and my MoS-related comments were brought up to begin with): I can't see any particular reason you wouldn't be good at AfC. Figuring out if article drafts fit the core content policies is an entirely different skillset (mostly ability to contextually apply a detailed checklist) than being able to figure out whether a particular interpretation of a style rule meshes with long-term consensus, or understanding all the potential ramifications of a proposed MoS change, across thousands or millions of articles – those can only be learned by long-term experience. One thing anyone can learn immediately is that a "my way or the highway" attitude will never go over well here, regardless of the subject matter. Neither will dodging any self-reflection, and just referring to any critical input as "attacks" or "hounding". Nor will theorizing about "corrupt" admin conspiracies. Don't ascribe to collusion and malice what can adequately be explained by routine, tired response to exasperating behavior we've seen before. As I said earlier, it's a common new-arrival thing to trigger such exasperation, and one needs to graduate past that stage quickly, by absorbing rather than fighting against the community expectations. (You might like the essay I wrote after my own learning process, WP:HOTHEAD.) Your desire to be helpful and to produce good output for readers probably make you a better fit for AfC work than for policy debates at this stage. PS: I also agree with Tony B.'s comments below, and his suggestion regarding orphaned articles, which definitely need the attention. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  07:04, 21 August 2017 (UTC) — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  20:30, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
 * To note: I was referring to the fact that different rules should be applied to comics as stupid. It seemed/seems to defeat the point of having a general MoS. My grammar is not prescriptive. You suggested a while ago that prepositions could be succeeded by adjectives. No: prepositions may only be succeeded by nouns. You were brought into this thread because an administrator was trying to place a negative stamp on my profile—no other reason. Some of the administrator behaviour demonstrated was shocking. Really. I do not adopt a 'my way ...' approach, actually. I frequently adopt policy ideas from other people. MOS:TMRULES is confusing, and in need of review. I will continue to work with other editors on resolving that. Additional input regarding following a plain-text version of the company's official name or copying independent sources would be appreciated. I will reply to your email in due course. Many of your assumptions are wrong, and I will explain why in detail. – Sb2001 talk page 18:13, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
 * "I was referring to the fact that different rules should be applied to comics as stupid." Yes, I know. The fact that we've adopted these rules by consensus means, necessarily, that you think this was a stupid decision, ergo you're labeling other editors stupid.  See what I said in the thread below about the kinds of flamewarring that an admin might  act upon in relation to MoS's discretionary sanctions.  Don't pick a fight that doesn't need to be one; a calm discussion is better.  Please do read my WP:HOTHEAD essay; it covers in detail how to avoid doing this (which often happens inadvertently due to temperament). In the context of the  above, the average editor (I can't speak for  personally) would interpret your comment as hostile, as a snide insinuation that he/she is stupid for having asserted the rule you disagree with. Next, it isn't possible for one minor, context-specific variance in a rule (and we have many) to "defeat the point of having a general MoS" or MoS would have been marked  long ago and we wouldn't use it. MoS is not a policy or a law, nor is it even comprehensive. So, please don't be hyperbolic, about it. The MoS sky is not falling.  Even off-WP style guides have such contextual exceptions to general rules of thumb. Everyone who gets slapped by administrators feels it's "shocking" if the individual is convinced he/she is right and isn't listening to the reasons. I disagree with you that the reason was "to place a negative stamp on my profile", and those reasons were actually made pretty clear if you read what was said and distance yourself from your feelings about the criticisms.  Read it as if it was written about someone else on a different wiki.  Very frequently (and I also cover this at the essay), admins and the community do not care at all who is right about some bit of trivia, only whether one's behavior in addressing it is collegial versus disruptive. I agree you adopt policy ideas from others, but it's usually after considerable pressure.  I'm this way myself, so I recognize it when I see it.  But that has little to do with our side topic, which was grammatical/style prescriptiveness, which your proposals and what you say about them clearly demonstrate, the most obvious case being the "9pm" news style you strongly prefer and advocated at rather extreme length, over WP's "9 p.m." style (which we hardly invented, but chose for clarity).  TMRULE does, yes, have an issue; I think it will resolve itself. But it could have resolved itself much sooner with less invective. I don't need another e-mail from you defending yourself; any assumptions I may have made will dissipate of their own accord if your actions adjust. I actually have a very poor memory for "which pseudonym said what on which site", so in a few months, I won't even recall the details.  I'll either be agreeing with you more often, or not, based on what you're posting at the time.  It was the same with EEng and various others; I used to argue with them at length about many dimly recalled things, and now do so less, because they've mostly stopped proposing changes that suit their whims, and now recognize that avoiding change in MoS is important because of the fallout it causes across articles.  We should only make a substantive change if consensus deems it necessary and important. Improving the TMRULE wording is probably among these, since it demonstrably was being misinterpreted and WP:WIKILAWYERed about.
 * Wait a second... when was I "proposing changes that suit [my] whims"? Prepare to defend yourself, sir!  E Eng  18:46, 26 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm unlikely to bother. It doesn't matter who's "right" here, it matters that the "SB2001 versus Wikipedia" or, for that matter, "SB2001 versus other Wikipedians" stuff come to an end.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  21:59, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

New Page Reviewer granted
Hello Sb2001. Your account has been added to the " " user group, allowing you to review new pages and mark them as patrolled, tag them for maintenance issues, or in some cases, tag them for deletion. The list of articles awaiting review is located at the New Pages Feed. New page reviewing is a vital function for policing the quality of the encylopedia, if you have not already done so, you must read the new tutorial at New Pages Review, the linked guides and essays, and fully understand the various deletion criteria. If you need more help or wish to discuss the process, please join or start a thread at page reviewer talk. The reviewer right does not change your status or how you can edit articles. If you no longer want this user right, you may ask any administrator to remove it for you at any time. In case of abuse or persistent inaccuracy of reviewing, the right can be revoked at any time by an administrator. Alex ShihTalk 21:22, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Please consider helping get the huge backlog down to a manageable number of pages as soon as possible.
 * Be nice to new users - they are often not aware of doing anything wrong.
 * You will frequently be asked by users to explain why their page is being deleted - be formal and polite in your approach to them too, even if they are not.
 * Don't review a page if you are not sure what to do. Just leave it for another reviewer.
 * Remember that quality is quintessential to good patrolling. Take your time to patrol each article, there is no rush. Use the message feature and offer basic advice.


 * Due to concerns in regards to a history of combative posting and insensitive comments, the access has been revoked. I apologize for the inconvenience. Alex ShihTalk 01:27, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
 * that is fine. I would like you to explain what prompted this decision, including specific examples. Thank you in advance. – Sb2001 talk page 10:33, 25 August 2017 (UTC) User:Alex Shih: innocently checking whether you have seen this. – Sb2001  talk page 14:47, 26 August 2017 (UTC)


 * If you must know, I prompted it, because if you are not able to do AfC properly, you are certainly not qualified for NPR. He has provided you with a perfect explanation. Now stop harassing with your snide remarks, and remember he, like anyone else, is not obliged to respond to your taunts.  Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:50, 26 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I actually meant what I said: I was checking that you had seen my message. It was not taunting, neither was it harassment or intentionally snide. I apologise if it came across as so. – Sb2001 talk page 20:25, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

The more I read here the less there is to respond. I found it distressing that you conveniently left out the fact that you've been suspended from AfC review when you applied for NPR, as these two process are essentially interconnected. Alex ShihTalk 22:08, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

FYI
Adding a ping to an existing post doesn't work. There has to be a ~ somewhere in there for the ping machinery to prick up its ears. You need to add a new postscript with the U and a ~.  E Eng  00:56, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for telling me, . Loads of my pings will have failed then! Regards, – Sb2001 talk page 01:06, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

Discretionary sanctions notification
TonyBallioni (talk) 01:21, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: When I leave these, I actually mean what they say: its not a warning of any assumption of bad faith. Heck, I actually like you. I noticed that someone had already mentioned these to you, but that you were not formally alerted. Since these require formal notification with the scary template, I went ahead and placed it. All it means is to remember to tread lightly in the future around MoS, because they are under a special administrative area in regards to sanctions. I think your last post on these issues shows that you are trying to work with the community, that's good, but I did think it was important for you to get the formal alert since this is the area you have expressed the most interest in working in. All the best :) TonyBallioni (talk) 01:24, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I thought that my posts showed that, but evidently not. I do not know how much longer you will be seeing me around here, sadly, through no decision of my own. Thank you for the notification, though. – A very upset Sb2001  talk page 01:56, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Like I said, I'm neutral here, and wish no ill towards anyone in the conversation (and haven't been following the specifics close enough to tell you who said what when.) I did think you should have the template though since people have been discussing MoS sanctions. It just lets you know the principles under which WP:AE and WP:AC/DS work. Again, I really think a short note just saying that you appreciate the feedback and you'll think about it and take it into account would end this whole mess.Then go and edit a non-controversial area of Wikipedia for a while: the orphaned category I mentioned above could use some help. If there are any content topic areas you are interested in, I could also try to point you in the direction of where some articles might need improving, or at least point you to someone who might know :) TonyBallioni (talk) 02:09, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the advice, . I do appreciate it. I am going to stay well away from those with whom I am involved in disputes (unless—of course—they come to me), and hope that that shall be the end of all of this. I will continue with some tidy-up work on the orphans, and keep to totally inoffensive stuff like anti vandalism. When I can fix the problems with my Huggle account, that is. I do hope that I will be able to stay, and will certainly be staying clear of conflict to aid this. I really want this to be the end of it. I have done the best I can with my contributions last night, and hope that other editors will see them in the same way as you. Thank you again. – Sb2001 talk page 00:51, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Gary Gordon
Hello there, in regards to my 'disruptive' editing to the page of MSG. Gary Gordon; I will admit that some of my edits were superfluous or overdone. However, in describing the disgracing of Gordon's body by the Somali mob, the word "horrifically" was already present and not an extra-addition by me. Also, I did not insert the word by means of 'personal analysis', it was there earlier at "According to "America and Iraq: Policy-making, Intervention and Regional Politics" edited by David Ryan, Patrick Kiely, "his half-naked body was dragged horrifically through the streets of Mogadishu".

No disrespect was meant by this comment and I hope it cleared things up. Goodbye. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8800:5500:34:7C00:D8E5:9C1C:2C3F (talk) 22:51, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for letting me know. It is good to see that you did not insert it. It was flagged up by a piece of antivandalism software, which does not show the full article. I have to make the judgement based on the section it gives me.


 * I am really pleased that you are acknowledging that your edits were a little over-the-top. I am sure that you will make a good editor, and I wish you luck for your future on Wikipedia! – Sb2001 talk page 00:59, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not. Legobot (talk) 04:28, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Moving Draft:Takeoff (rapper)
G'day mate, you're not wrong in moving the Draft:Takeoff (rapper) article, however when this is done you can't leave a redirect from the mainspace to the majority of other spaces including sandbox and drafts. If you are moving more incomplete articles in the future, please request speedy deletion with a   (WP:CSD) template. Additionally you could request WP:Page mover rights to be able to not leave redirects when moving. Cheers —  IVORK  Discuss 01:19, 31 August 2017 (UTC)
 * sorry about this. It never crossed my mind to ask for speedy deletion; it seems obvious now. Thanks for the note! – Sb2001 talk page 01:21, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (television)
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (television). Legobot (talk) 04:29, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Moors
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Moors. Legobot (talk) 04:31, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Second Korean War
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Second Korean War. Legobot (talk) 04:36, 7 September 2017 (UTC)