User talk:SMcCandlish

As of 2012-02-12 , SMcCandlish is Active.
I'll reply to your message within 24 hours if possible.

WikiStress level

Unresolved old stuff

Cueless billiards

Unresolved: Can't get at the stuff at Ancestry; try using addl. cards.

Categories are not my thing but do you think there are enough articles now or will be ever to make this necessary? Other than Finger billiards and possibly Carrom, what else is there?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 11:12, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Crud fits for sure. And if the variant in it is sourceable, I'm sure some military editor will fork it into a separate article eventually. I think at least some variants of bar billiards are played with hands and some bagatelle split-offs probably were, too (Shamos goes into loads of them, but I get them all mixed up, mostly because they have foreign names). And there's bocce billiards, article I've not written yet. Very fun game. Kept my sister and I busy for 3 hours once. Her husband (Air Force doctor) actually plays crud on a regular basis; maybe there's a connection She beat me several times, so it must be from crud-playing. Hand pool might be its own article eventually. Anyway, I guess it depends upon your "categorization politics". Mine are pretty liberal - I like to put stuff into a logical category as long as there are multiple items for it (there'll be two as soon as you're done with f.b., since we have crud), and especially if there are multiple parent categories (that will be the case here), and especially especially if the split parallels the category structure of another related category branch (I can't think of a parallel here, so this criterion of mine is not a check mark in this case), and so on. A bunch of factors really. I kind of wallow in that stuff. Not sure why I dig the category space so much. Less psychodrama, I guess. >;-) In my entire time here, I can only think of maybe one categorization decision I've made that got nuked at CfD. And I'm a pretty aggressive categorizer, too; I totally overhauled Category:Pinball just for the heck of it and will probably do the same to Category:Darts soon.

PS: I'm not wedded to the "cueless billiards" name idea; it just seemed more concise than "cueless developments from cue sports" or whatever.— SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 11:44, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

I have no "categorization politics". It's not an area that I think about a lot or has ever interested me so it's good there are people like you. If there is to be a category on this, "cueless billiards" seems fine to me. By the way, just posted Yank Adams as an adjunct to the finger billiards article I started.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 11:57, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Cool; I'd never even heard of him. This one looks like a good DYK; just the fact that there was Finger Billiards World Championship contention is funky enough, probably. You still citing that old version of Shamos? You really oughta get the 1999 version; it can be had from Amazon for cheap and has a bunch of updates. I actually put my old version in the recycle bin as not worth saving. Heh. PS: You seen Stein & Rubino 3rd ed.? I got one for the xmas before the one that just passed, from what was then a really good girlfriend. >;-) It's a-verra, verra nahce. Over 100 new pages, I think (mostly illustrations). — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 13:41, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

If I happen to come across it in a used book store I might pick it up. There's nothing wrong with citing the older edition (as I've said to you before). I had not heard of Adams before yesterday either. Yank is apparently not his real name, though I'm not sure what it is yet. Not sure there will be enough on him to make a DYK (though don't count it out). Of course, since I didn't userspace it, I have 4½ days to see. Unfortunately, I don't have access to ancestry.com and have never found any free database nearly as useful for finding newspaper articles (and census, birth certificates, and reams of primary source material). I tried to sign up for a free trial again which worked once before, but they got smart and are logging those who signed up previously. I just looked; the new Stein and Rubino is about $280. I'll work from the 2nd edition:-)--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:16, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Hmm... I haven't tried Ancestry in a while. They're probably logging IP addresses. That would definitely affect me, since mine doesn't change except once every few years. I guess that's what libraries and stuff are for. S&R: Should be available cheaper. Mine came with the Blue Book of Pool Cues too for under $200 total. Here it is for $160, plus I think the shipping was $25. Stein gives his e-mail address as that page. If you ask him he might give you the 2-book deal too, or direct you to where ever that is. Shamos: Not saying its an unreliable source (although the newer version actually corrected some entries), it's just cool because it has more stuff in it. :-) DYK: Hey, you could speedily delete your own article, sandbox it and come back. Heh. Seriously, I'll see if I can get into Ancestry again and look for stuff on him. I want to look for William Hoskins stuff anyway so I can finish that half of the Spinks/Hoskins story, which has sat in draft form for over a year. I get sidetracked... — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 14:29, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

It's not IPs they're logging, it's your credit card. You have to give them one in order to get the trial so that they can automatically charge you if you miss the cancellation deadline. Regarding the Blue Book, of all these books, that's the one that get's stale, that is, if you use it for actual quotes, which I do all the time, both for answer to questions and for selling, buying, etc. Yeah I start procrastinating too. I did all that work on Mingaud and now I can't get myself to go back. I also did reams of research on Hurricane Tony Ellin (thugh I found so little; I really felt bad when he died; I met him a few times, seemed like a really great guy), Masako Katsura and others but still haven't moved on them.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 18:31, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Ah, the credit card. I'll have to see if the PayPal plugin has been updated to work with the new Firefox. If so, that's our solution - it generates a new valid card number every time you use it (they always feed from your single PayPal account). — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 18:37, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

PayPal Plugin ist kaput. Some banks now issue credit card accounts that make use of virtual card numbers, but mine's not one of them. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 19:49, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for trying. It was worth a shot. I signed up for a newspaperarchive.com three month trial. As far as newspaper results go it seems quite good so far, and the search interface is many orders of magnitude better than ancestry's, but it has none of the genealogical records that ancestry provides. With ancestry I could probably find census info on Yank as well as death information (as well as for Masako Katsura, which I've been working on it for a few days; she could actually be alive, though she'd be 96).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:52, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Sad...

How well forgotten some very well known people are. The more I read about Yank Adams, the more I realize he was world famous. Yet, he's almost completely unknown today and barely mentioned even in modern billiard texts.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:47, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Reading stuff from that era, it's also amazing how important billiards (in the three-ball sense) was back then, with sometimes multiple-page stories in newspapers about each turn in a long match, and so on. It's like snooker is today in the UK. PS: I saw that you found evidence of a billiards stage comedy there. I'd never heard of it! — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 15:17, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Jackpot. Portrait, diagrams, sample shot descriptions and more (that will also lend itself to the finger billiards article).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 01:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Nice find! — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 06:07, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Cite4Wiki

Unresolved: New version for FireFox 4.x not released yet.

Updates to this are very welcome, thanks. One thing though - it doesn't seem to use the vertical form any more, could this be fixed (or added as an option) in future releases? pablo 12:28, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Working on it. Probably won't release until FF4.x is out of beta (if it isn't already - haven't checked in a few weeks). Vertical format will be an option, but one that you have to manually enable. Have no had time to work out the code for actually installing an Otions menu and supporting functionality. Going with horizontal layout by popular demand, though I prefer the vertical format myself. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 01:21, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Every time I think about messing with it other stuff comes out, and or another version of Firefox hits public beta... — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 16:23, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Look at the main page

Unresolved: Katsura News added (with new TFA section) to WP:CUE; need to see if I can add anything useful to Mingaud article.

--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:37, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Since you don't appear to have seen this near to the time I left it, it might be a little cryptic without explanation. Masako Katsura was today's featured article on January 31, 2011.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 20:26, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Supah-dupah! That kicks. WP:CUE's (and your?) first TFA, yes?! And yeah I have been away a lot lately. Long story. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 01:22, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, my first, though I have another in the works (not billiards related). I think François Mingaud could be a candidate in the near future. I really wanted to work it up to near FA level before posting it but another user created it recently, not realizing my draft existed, and once they did realize, copied some of my content without proper copyright attribution and posted to DYK. I have done a history merge though the newer, far less developed content is what's seen in the article now. I'm going to merge the old with the new soon. Glad to see your back.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 16:15, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

My front and sides are visible too. ;-) Anyway, glad you beat me to Mingaud. I'd been thinking of doing that one myself, but it seemed a bit daunting. I may have some tidbits for it. Lemme know when your merged version goes up, and I'll see what I have that might not already be in there. Probably not earthshaking, just a few things I found in 1800s-1910s books. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 16:21, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Template:Cuegloss

Unresolved: There's actually still one bug going on there.

Hey Stanton. Something's going on with definitions linked through {{cuegloss}}. I see them as not very noticeably underlined with a dotted line, rather than linked in blue like a regular wikilink. Is it just me or is this some wider change?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:00, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

That's something intentional being tried out with <dfn> markup. Most of the time (when cuegloss is used in an article outside of the glossary article itself), it should also be a blue link. If you are never seeing it blue-link, that's evidence of a problem... — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 16:44, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Below is a screenshot of what I'm seeing (an excerpt from Cue sports) containing 9 cuegloss links:

File:Problem with linking.png--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 19:56, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Not that bad, but not what was intended. It should look that way inside the glossary itself, since the links are not to another page. Anyway, the idea is to reduce the "sea of blue" effect a bit by having terms that need definition for some readers and marked up with <dfn>, either just have a definition in a mouseover tool-tip, and look like what you screencapped, a style that's becoming kind of a de facto standard around the Web, or be a link to a glossary entry if one exists (with a tool-tip in this case giving the glossary and entry name). What should happen in those latter cases is that it should show up as a blue link, since it is a link out of the article, but also have the subtle underlining and tool-tip since it is also a definitional item and not an indication of a link to a full-scale article on the term. But the blue's not showing up now. I think this means someone's messed with the cuegloss code or the code of the underlying meta-template or something since last I looked at it. The appearance we're seeing at articles like cue sports is what we should see at glossary of cue sports terms itself, since the cuegloss links are internal to the article, but this "minimalist" effect shouldn't happen in other articles. I think someone's made or making a template that works similarly for Wiktionary links; it would underline them like this to indicate a purely definitional link, but also use the light blue external link color like it would normally for an offsite link like that. Anyway, I'll look into the geeky details and see why the CSS isn't working right. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 07:52, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

If it helps at all, I'm seeing this in Firefox and Safari on two different computers, both macs. Are you seeing this as well?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:37, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Yeah. Someone changed something. Whilethe underline should be there to indicate it's just a definitional link, the blue should be there too, outside of the glossary itself. At least that was the theory last time I looked. Probably not a huge deal either way - it all still functions. Will look into it shortly. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 16:22, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

It appears to be fixed now. Whether that's the result of your action or not, thanks for looking into it.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 18:20, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Some more notes on Crystalate

Unresolved: New sources/material worked into article, but unanswered questions remain.

Some more notes: they bought Royal Worcester in 1983 and sold it the next year, keeping some of the electronics part.[1]; info about making records:[2]; the chair in 1989 was Lord Jenkin of Roding:[3]; "In 1880, crystalate balls made of nitrocellulose, camphor, and alcohol began to appear. In 1926, they were made obligatory by the Billiards Association and Control Council, the London-based governing body." Amazing Facts: The Indispensable Collection of True Life Facts and Feats. Richard B. Manchester - 1991[4]; a website about crystalate and other materials used for billiard balls:[5]. Fences&Windows 23:37, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll have to have a look at this stuff in more detail. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 15:54, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

I've worked most of it in. Fences&Windows 16:01, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Cool! From what I can tell, entirely different parties held the trademark in different markets. I can't find a link between Crystalate Mfg. Co. Ltd. (mostly records, though billiard balls early on) and the main billiard ball mfr. in the UK, who later came up with "Super Crystalate". I'm not sure the term was even used in the U.S. at all, despite the formulation having been originally patented there. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 21:04, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

WikiCite project in development

Hello SMcC, the m:WikiCite project proposal is gaining some interest again. Your insights and suggestions would be welcome. – SJ + 04:11, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Cite4Wiki and Jetpack

I saw Cite4Wiki mentioned on foundation-l and, on downloading it, noticed that it wanted me to restart and hadn't been updated to the latest Firefox. I'm going to go look at your code, but I thought you might be interested in Jetpack to help you with maintaining the extension since it would mean you wouldn't have to worry about Firefox versions or force people to restart Firefox to get it to run. I happen to be good friends with the guy who runs the project, so even if you aren't interested, I'm going to see what it would take to get Cite4Wiki ported to run there. — ☠MarkAHershberger☢(talk)☣ 16:44, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Sounds good! It needs work. For one thing, it needs a proper settings window that allows you to set options like whether to use vertical or horizontal formatting. I never did figure out how to do that (previous author apparently didn't either). — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 23:43, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Do you have a source code repository somewhere? I'd like to work from that if I could. — ☠MarkAHershberger☢(talk)☣ 00:18, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Not yet, but good idea. I still have a SourceForge account, so I guess I can use that. Is everyone using Git these days? They offer Git, SVN and Mercurial but not CVS any longer. Looks like I need new version control software... Any preference? — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 00:43, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

If you don't have a preference and don't currently use a VCS, then I'm going to say git. Not that it is easy (Torvalds isn't know for creating easy-to-use software), but it is pretty good. And we can pull from each other. I think I can get a repository set up in git hosted by the WMF. I'll probably end up putting it there anyway, unless you have some objections — ☠MarkAHershberger☢(talk)☣ 01:07, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

But, now that I think about it, would you mind if I put it in the SVN repo hosted by WMF? I can do that right now. I'm not sure if I can do gerrit right now.

Sure. I honestly don't even use SVN yet; I've been using CVS since the dawn of time. Which of the post-CVS alternatives to use isn't something I have a set mind about. :-) IIRC, the version that's publicly available is stable but missing some stuff I've added to it. I guess I can commit that stuff later as a beta. I haven't touched it in 6 months, so I don't remember where I left off anyway. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 01:15, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Ok, committed. Now, to understand Jetpack. — ☠MarkAHershberger☢(talk)☣ 14:53, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Also, you should apply for Commit_access. — ☠MarkAHershberger☢(talk)☣ 15:08, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Okay. And vice-versa, you should register as a Mozilla add-on developer, so I can give you access to the "official" distribution channel. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 15:15, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Cite4Wiki4Chrome...

Hi there! I was just wondering if a Chrome port of Cite4Wiki was on the cards at all? I tried messing with the source code but I have no real knowledge of JS, XUL and the rest so can't really do anything about it. — Joseph Fox 15:39, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

I hadn't thought of one, since I just use Firefox. Maybe after the stuff mentioned above is done a port will be easier. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 00:42, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

---

New stuff

Notice concerning an action at ArbCom

A request has been filed for the Arbitration Committee to look at long-term issues with editing in the Article Titles and MOS areas at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Article titles/MOS. I have added your name as a party, since it is clear that you have been involved at pages that are within the scope of the action. Noetica^Tea? 05:25, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Article titles and capitalisation case

An arbitration case involving you has been opened, and is located at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Article titles and capitalisation. Evidence that you wish the Arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence sub-page, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Article titles and capitalisation/Evidence. Please add your evidence by February 12, 2012, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can contribute to the case workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Article titles and capitalisation/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, Alexandr Dmitri (talk) 14:59, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Arb case

I removed your statement from the main case page, as the note at the top says it shouldn't be edited. Up to you whether to move it to the talk page or the evidence page. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 02:02, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

I was named as a party. Why would my statement not be included? Like, how did the other ones get there if not be parties editing the page to put them there? Honestly, I pay little attention to ArbCom and various other forms of wikilawyerly bickering, so I'm not very familiar with the procedures. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 02:16, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

This is why it is better to allow the case clerks to handle such matters. Not only are we experienced in arbitration procedure and how to explain it to parties, we are also neutral outsiders, and our actions tend to be better received than when they are performed by the filing party.

Back to the matter in hand: the case has been accepted by the Arbitration Committee and opened with the statements as things stood at the time of the request, and no further amendments should be made to the case page. The case is now in the evidence phase, and evidence can be entered here. Your statement looks like the basis for evidence, though of course it should be backed up with diffs, and it contains a link to evidence in userspace, which is prohibited by policy.

If you have any questions, I am at your disposal, as is User:Worm That Turned, although as a trainee working on his first case, he may not as yet feel as comfortable with dealing with certain questions as some of the more experienced clerks. Regards --Alexandr Dmitri (talk) 15:15, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Well severe egg on my face, as I see you have posted both on the case talkpage and entered evidence; I really ought to have spotted that before posting advice. --Alexandr Dmitri (talk) 16:04, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

• For whatever it's worth, Alexandr is correct that belated statements aren't added to the case page (for accuracy's sake), but I see you since have added a statement to the case talk page, which is acceptable. However, you also submitted evidence that largely exists of narrative material, with a link to a page in your userspace that contains evidence. I would recommend you delete your current evidence section and replace it with the subpage material, because annexed material is not taken into account. If you require assistance with other aspects of the inane (but necessary) bureaucracy of our proceedings, please contact me, another drafter, or a clerk. Thanks, AGK [•] 16:30, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Ah so! Okay, I'll try to fix it up later tonight or tomorrow and file these procedures in memory in case there's a next time (hopefully not; I've been on WP for something like 6 years w/o ever having to deal with ArbCom stuff). — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 00:35, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

I believe that the evidence I've posted conforms almost entirely to the requirement that "Evidence should include a link to the actual page diff in question, or to a short page section; links to the page itself are insufficient." I'm linking to specific discussions (i.e. sections) in talk pages. While I have provided some diffs with regard to specific allegations I've make on the talk page of the case, I think it's now a matter of paring the evidence down to the most crucial so it's under the 500-word limit. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 10:28, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Your Arbitration evidence is too long

Hello, SMcCandlish. Thank you for your recent submission of evidence for the Article titles and capitalisation Arbitration case. As you may be aware, the Arbitration Committee asks that users submitting evidence in cases adhere to limits regarding the length of their submissions. These limits, of 500 words and 50 diffs maximum, are in place to ensure that the Arbitration Committee receives only the most important information relevant to the case, and is able to determine an appropriate course of action in a reasonable amount of time. The evidence you have submitted currently exceeds at least one of these limits, and is presently at 2179 words and 1 diffs. Please try to reduce the length of your submission to fit within these limits; this guide may be able to provide some help in doing so. If the length of your evidence is not reduced soon, it may be refactored or removed by a human clerk within a few days. Thank you! If you have any questions or concerns regarding the case, please contact the drafting Arbitrator or case clerk (listed on the case pages); if you have any questions or concerns about this bot, please contact the operator. On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, HersfoldArbClerkBOT^(talk) 08:01, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Argh. I hate all this legalese stuff. I'll see what I can do. But most of the evidence I'm providing would not be very useful as diffs, because it's not "User324324 posted this uncivil attack on Tuesday [diff]", it's "this entire sprawling conversation demonstrates that members of this project are tendentious and that the rest of the system simply doesn't agree with them". I would prefer that the material be removed after a few days than refactored, as the issue is complex enough that refactoring is likely to introduce errors. Not sure how long it will take me to produce something that gets the gist across without losing context and key material, but it probably will take longer than one day. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 08:18, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

You are the second user I have seen in two days yelling at a poor defenseless bot:-)--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:29, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

All this ArbCom process-for-its-own-sake is tiresome. I did realize it was a bot, but figured one or another of the above-commenting ArbCom clerks would be watchlisting or at least checking back. I added a note at my too-long evidence post that I'm working on paring it down. Besides, beating on bots is more fun than on straw men; they make nice clanking sounds. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 04:34, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I actually came here to give you some advice about presenting evidence, as you are still working on reducing it to within the limits, and I wanted to help you spend your time usefully. The approach you need to take in the evidence phase is that of summarising the main aspects of the case. The format that works best is "X, Y and Z did A (diff), B (diff), C (diff) which results in such and such problem/flouts WP:RULE_A". As things are, you write "WP:LONG LIST LINK TO ARCHIVE OF SOMETHING narrative" which is taking up lots of words. Secondly, you have an entire paragraph about you compiling evidence which is better suited to the talkpage. Alexandr Dmitri (talk) 19:33, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I will keep that all in mind. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 19:36, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Article titles capitalization

What's going on at article titles by some of these people is sickening. I have been very involved in the past. I started writing a long post in opposition to the pre-disambiguation nonsense and realized doing so would just get me drawn into what will be an intractable dispute while I'm in the middle of a FAC and took it off my watchlist a few weeks ago (though I have not been following though I get the picture that born2cycle is being strung up for how he's gone about his opposition, but of course he's the voice of reason in the dispute).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 05:02, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Yep, though I think bigger issues are going on, like Christian viewpoint-pushers insisting on always capitalizing "virgin birth" even when it's wrong to do so, etc. Lots of people are monkeying with capitalization in article titles and using that to ungrammatically capitalize the crap out of everything in the prose. I almost think this is some secret German plot to get back at the US and UK for kicking Deustche butt in two world wars. >;-) At the ArbCom, I basically felt free to add the "my Mexican Jay was eaten by my Domestic Cat, so I got a Guinea Pig and a Horse instead" issue into the wikilawyerly fray. I was very proud of the fact that I'd never been an ArbCom party on any side, so if I'm being forced to, even though uninvolved, I'm going to make it worth the personal hassle and the burning of one of my favorite wikicap feathers. Anyway, I agree that "pre-disambiguation" is just stupid. I revert it with a move every time I encounter it (when I can; not having the mop disallows me to do a lot of moves because of edited redirects). — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 05:24, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

The sentence with species in title case is a very effective model to drive home the point. They will argue that it's irrelevant because titles are different than running text. It's not just predimambiguation but this idea of generic/vague titles and the terrible conflation going on there when speaking about that issue between descriptive titles and named things. Everything is generic/vague if you don't already know it. If you had never heard of Pink Floyd and I asked you what it was what would you think? A type of sea coral? Very few named things can be recognized unless you are already familiar with them. So they turn to more obscure things that are just as much named things as Pink Floyd but few people know them on sight and say in effect "see, we can't recognize it so it should have a descriptive name even though it has an actual title, so that we can recognize it from its title alone."--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:57, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

The "titles are different" thing is a vacuous argument, since we already have naming conventions that call for sentence case (same goes for headings), and a cadre of people trying to change that are going to meet great wall of resistance. So, on WP, titles simply aren't different than running text. I actually find both of these instances of sentence case weird, since virtually all other publications use title case for the content of article titles and section titles within them (a lot of science journals seem to be an exception, with article titles like "The flux capacity of unobtanium resistors"), but I gave up fighting about it here in 2005 or so, and as if by magic it suddenly didn't bothered me any longer. Same thing happened to the people who fought like hell to keep date linking. After a bit, they just forgot about it and moved on. I think the same thing will eventually happen with The Rampant Capitalizers. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 19:35, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

The tools

Resolved: Just a chat.

I thought about going for RfA again, so I can do things like maintain my own darned templates that people keep full-protecting, but this new debate would probably just get every member of WP:BIRDS to vote against me out of spite. I was going to try again last year, but basically every time I get ready, something controversial pops up that I'm not willing to ignore. The process is so politicized that you basically can't become an admin any longer unless you do nothing whatsoever other than write articles but run away from every content dispute, and do gnomish, uncontroversial "admin trainee" stuff like clerking on process pages. I'm a big fan of the proposal to make "non-lethal" admin tools available to trusted users. I don't need the ability to block people for a month or permprotect pages in order to fulfill an editprotected or a requested move, or fix a bug in a template, or temporarily protect an article being editwarred. I don't even want the power to block people. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 05:24, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Regarding edited redirects barring moves, you can use {{db-move}} to (hopefully) get the same result though obviously it's a hassle you could do without. Breaking up the tools has been suggested numerous times and every time that I've seen it has met with significant opposition such that it's made it onto the list of perennial proposals. Regarding becoming an admin, I'm not sure you want to put yourself through that gauntlet again. I don't think you would succeed. Sorry if that comes off as harsh but I think you know that because you are emphatic in discussions, do not mince words and are persistent, you have made many if not enemies, then detractors—the fact that those traits have fuck all to do with whether you would abuse the tools notwithstanding.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:57, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, sure I can use {{db-move}}; I do so all the time. And I use {{editprotected}}, and so on. My point is, I shouldn't have to. I've been on this system for six and a half years, never been blocked, never been ArbCom'd, never been personal-RfC'd, and I don't even recall being ANI'd (if I was, it was probably years ago by Slimvirgin or Jossi during the WP:ATT fiasco; I was one of the leading opponents of that abomination and their camp were always trying to brand me with WP:DE, and no one bought it). My first RfA was sabotaged by a sockpuppet, and my second bombed because I notified my biggest detractors of the past, like Jossi, and got accused of canvassing (it was anti-canvassing, really - I was inviting people with severe criticisms of me to make them again if they felt it necessary). Few ever become admins after failing two RfAs. The system is really missing out by not having me as an admin, because very, very often I avoid fixing things that need to be fixed here and go do something else like pet the cat or watch a movie or shoot some pool, because the hassle of filing a db-move and waiting 7 hours for someone to get around to it and not actually bother to do the move, leaving me to clean up after it, is just too much. Or whatever other pain in the butt is forced on me, by too many useful tools being only available to those with "life or death" powers of banning and article nuking. It's just paranoid and it's badly hurting the entire project. It's one of the many reasons great editors are leaving (out of "I'm locked in a playpen like some child" frustration) and good admins are leaving (bogged down in routine maintenance crap that any user with, say, 6 months, 1000 edits and no blocks should be able to do, instead of being able to focus on important and sensitive admin work that requires a much greater level of trust).

I've seen (and supported) a more recent proposal to "trial-balloon" the making of certain admin tools available to non-admins, and it seems to have more traction that previous proposals, though I have not followed it in a month or so, so maybe it's already died. I don't even remember what page it's on.

Anyway, I haven't tried a third WP:RFA for a reason, and it's the one you pegged. I seriously thought about it in December, since it had been about 2 years, and I had actually been studiously avoiding major conflicts for many months in preparation for it, but then various other issues popped up and I got into them, so that's that. I'll see how I feel in another 6 months or year. I actually did take the criticisms seriously and have become vastly more civil and less prone to argument in the last 2 years, so I don't think I have no chance, just no chance right now because of this capitalization brouhaha. If some basic admin tools finally become available to trusted non-admins, I'd never bother, because I have zero desire for "power" over other users, I'm just constantly hemmed in on practical wikiwork by excessive restrictions. I can bide a lot of time, and have confidence that the system will change eventually. When Jimmy Wales laments in interviews in external publications about the crisis of editors and admins quitting faster than they can be replaced, that's a sign. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 14:06, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Here's a great example: Template talk:Quote. I can fix every single problem reported there in probably 3 hours. I've already filed two editprotected requests to fix a couple of them, but now I'm pissed off, so I'm going to go read a book instead of working on it further, since they'll probably be ignored for a week, and then denied because I didn't follow some anal test cases procedure that isn't needed for dirt-simple fixes. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 17:19, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I feel your frustration and knowing and working with you I also know you wouldn't abuse the tools but the process at FAC is a shallow examination. Well, if you want to take you frustration out on a problem, maybe you can head over to the glossary and fix footnote eleven? Not sure what's going on, but it's from the WPBA reference which I think you added on December 25.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:05, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Fixed! It was a stray <ref name="WPBSA 2011" /> inside {{Reflist|30em|refs= ... }} that kept it from ever finding the <nowik></nowiki>. Took a while to figure the one out. (Had to progressively reduce the text in a sandbox down to nothing but the definition with the broken ref and the refs section and then start paring the latter down until I finally noticed that "WPBSA 2011" was in there twice, once with the wrong markup.) — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 05:02, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Great, thanks. Usually ref issues are obvious but I had taken a quick look at the code and scratched me head. By the way, the glossary's traffic has increased. It gets over 1,000 hits a day.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 11:38, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Definitely no waste of time then! — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 15:25, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Lower-casing

Every time I read one of your rants I am motivated to go move some articles to lowercase. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 17:43, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Please do, but not in birds, plants or winged insects articles, or some people will flip out; there needs to be a clear site-wide consensus on this, a la the de-linking of dates, and not putting spoiler warnings, and other controversial stuff that took years to resolve, got resolved, and suddenly wasn't controversial any more because the entrenched opponents finalize realized WP:Wikipedia is not about winning. In the interim, however, a zillion articles on great cats, squids, antelopes, spiders, etc., etc. have Stoopid Capitalization in them, and MOS has been clearly saying not to do that for at least 4 years now, so any lower-casing cleanup help there is a Good Thing. I'd avoid messing with capitalization of names of breeds like Maine Coon, and American Quarterhorse and German Shepherd; that's another, less raging, debate, and one that actually has some quite different arguments. Species, types, landraces, groups of breeds, varieties, subspecies, clades and anything else not recognized by a major fancier/breeder organization as an official, formal, registered breed is fair game for lower-casing though. I just recently did this at Przewalski's horse and St. John's water dog, and no one's head asplode. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 04:25, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, looking forward to the site-wide debate. I'm pretty much just doing non-avian tetrapod species articles for now, no breeds or birds. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 04:40, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

If people scream at you, lemme know. >;-) — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 04:41, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Chapeau

... for this one! Cheers - DVdm (talk) 20:20, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! I actually like hats. :-) Your readability tweak was a good idea. I was a little concerned about it myself, but I'm not a cards editor, so I wasn't sure if there was a typical way of making hands more legible. (Also not sure if people conventionally use the card symbols that are available in Unicode, etc.). I do edit a lot of games articles, but almost exclusively in cue sports and related. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 12:49, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

I specially like hats when there's a set of dice under them :-)

Perhaps you don't know, but overhere we use the name chapeau for the cup and, by extension, for the game itself. As you can see here—als je Nederlands een beetje in orde is—, we play an entirely different game with it, a game where one can practice the fine art of subtle bluffing, downright lying, assessing oponents' behaviour, and accurately estimating probabilities. We also play the "Mexican" variant, which is even subtler. Check it out and cheers! - DVdm (talk) 18:26, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

I didn't know that, about the chapeau. I thought you were awarding me a virtual hat. :-) . I am familiar with the bluff game (possibly the Mexican version, since I learned it in California), but have always played that one with regular dice. Anyway, if you like what I did in the English version, certainly feel free to "port" it to the Netherlands Wikipedia. I may be able to work through the Dutch enough to add something about the other variants to the English article here, since it is rather paltry. Heh. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 04:04, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Actually, it was meant as a virtual hat award as well - I had seen a hat on your user page :-)

Porting from there to here could be a bit problematic, as there's not many sources around, alas. - DVdm (talk) 17:40, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I'll have to dig through my game encyclopedias and stuff. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 17:45, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Ok, if you find something, please let know. I'd be glad to work on it together. Cheers and happy digging. - DVdm (talk) 20:20, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Barnstar comment

Resolved: Just a personal chat.

Hello. You have new messages at Djathinkimacowboy's talk page.

Don't delete this! -

		The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
		For behaving in a genteel fashion, as if nothing were the matter, and for gallantry. --Djathinkimacowboy 03:27, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Sankyu beddy mush! Hardly necessary for me just behaving properly. Heh. But I appreciate it anyway. I left you a note at your page about that Guidance rename idea. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 04:43, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Shou ist werie velcum. I think the 'Guidance' name and the way you simplified it into a short statement is very good! And people should give out more barnstars. They are very merited and it isn't as if they cost us anything.--Djathinkimacowboy 10:19, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Bande à part vs Band of Outsiders

FYI: Just a notice.

In light of your previous participation in titling issues, the discussion at Talk:Bande à part (film)#Requested move may be of interest.—Roman Spinner (talk) 22:06, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll have a look. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 22:15, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Barnstar Point

Well, thank you. I may cite that in making the point for ArbCom. JCScaliger (talk) 18:34, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Some comments

• My comment was more directed at you than the process. I'm sick to death of this fight, and I haven't taken any stand against your proposal (at least on the proposal page). I was merely addressing the point about attacks. Unbraiding Kim about attacks and percieved attacks while engaging in attacks, well, you get my point. If you feel you weren't attacking, well, perhaps the fight has just gone on too long.
• I have never supported rampant capitalisation. Where I have spoken up for capitalisation in the past outside birds was more in the spirit of allowing wikiprojects and groups of editors maximum autonomy in working in the subjects they know best. It used to be the case that the Mammal people had their own opinions and had gone the same route as we had, but were less numerous and less able to fend off the grammar peeps when they noticed and came angrily rampaging in. The mammal people fought for a while but lost. A lot of the capitalisation you object to is actually just fossils of a time before the grammer people noticed the animal people were plowing their own furrow.
• There has been a trend towards greater uniformity and conformity in the years I have been here, and with it a corresponding amount of rule creep. Policies are decided (or more commonly amended) on pages and then suddenly appear to ambush editors. Yes, the discussions are open, but Wikipedia is so vast that it is impossible to keep up. And me, I prefer the lighter touch and decentralised attitudes towards governance. If a bunch of people are working towards improving a set of articles, leave them the hell alone and let them do that. I gather this is a philosophical difference in our views, but that is where I come from. I resent being told what to do by people who care little about the effect it will have on my work or my motivation. That is also why I have supported the mammal people in the past, and why I've supported the flora wikiproject in their choice to use binomials over common names. The editors who wok in those fields know their subject best and leave them be.
• If, as you say, A process we're ensuring leaves your project alone if you'll just let it., then that is great. I guess we all suspect its the thin edge of a wedge to lay the groundwork on forcing us to move in the future. We'd all rather work on the stuff we do best rather than fight another fight about this. If you're certain that this will be enough to leave us the hell alone, I'll support it. Sabine's Sunbird talk 04:52, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
• Some other thoughts - You probably don't notice it, but it's a massive problem all over Wikipedia, and it greatly hurts our credibility - of all the problems wikipedia has, a lack of conformity of matters of style is possibly the least damaging to our credibility. I can't speak for the whole of wikipedia, but in the bird project we have massive amounts of un or poorly sources articles, articles with rampant point of view fights, flat out lies here and there that we've undoubtably missed (we once has a guy make up dozens of species of extinct Hawaiian bird that we didn't notice until they turned up at AFD), and the fact that avian taxonomy changes so quickly we can't keep up and our family, genus and species articles don't match up. Oh, and we're still trying to get all our names to match the IOC. Without adopting their taxonomy (I had a famous bird writer roll his eyes at me a few weeks ago when I told him that gem). So, while I don't think it is a problem anyway, I really don't think it is a problem compared to the million we already have.
• Finally, and this amuses me but perhaps not you, I never gave capitalisation of names a moment's though until I joined Wikipedia. I assume I must have encountered both styles beforehand, but I never adopted the current style until I started writing about birds on a daily basis here. I dimly recall thinking it was novel, but I accepted it and in time found it preferable. Sabine's Sunbird talk 05:28, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for getting back to me. I do appreciate it. It's nice to inject one-on-one human contact into what often feels like parliamentary debate across a room full of shouting people.

• I'm not upset at Kim for perceived attacks like calling me and everyone else who disagrees with her (him? the name can be either gender) ignorant and suggesting that their opinions are worthless. I have a thicker skin that that. I just note it as evidentiary of an insular "private club" pattern, that you also evince frequently. That said, yes, I realize that I can be a forceful debate opponent. I am a logician by nature, from toenails to hair-tips. I detest fallacious arguments with a passion, and rarely hesitate to point them out. I consider it a duty, especially in policy discussions. I'm also aware that it ticks people off sometimes. One thing I learned from my dad very early was "The surest way to fail is to try to please everyone." I have picked a path, and that is (when it comes to WP) doing what is rationally best for the encyclopedia, even when it tweaks my own pet peeves, and even if it greatly upsets some people whose interests are more divided. I don't mean bad, just less focused. Yours, for instance, are heavily slanted toward the interests of birders and their experience of Wikipedia. I don't care even 0.0001% more about their experience than the experience here of pool players (I am one) or Azerbaijani goat farmers or race car drivers. Anyway, to get back to your criticism: Yes, I know I can be abrasive. I am very, very careful not to attack people; I may relentlessly deconstruct flaws in their arguments, point out fallacies, show how I believe their behaviors violate policies, even suggest that certain patterns or incidents are disruptive, but I'm addressing ideas and actions, not personalities or souls. I'm sure you and Kim are both wonderful people. I just see holes in the arguments you've advanced on this topic. And yes, sometimes this issue has made me angry, and I am feeling the fight has gone on too long. I've said as much to you directly and at WT:MOS. I mean, I could have filed an ArbCom case, or a big RfC or whatever. Instead I've tried to find a way to let you have your cake, without bending MOS over a barrel in the process, and while fixing the rampant caps problem. I have no doubt that the "WTF is this capitalized birds stuff?!?" flamewars will erupt again. Seven years of fighting strongly suggest it, but a respite would be nice. Also, I feel personally responsible (mostly - DarkFrog didn't help) for Kim almost quitting the project. I'm not blind to the fact that this debate can become emotional to different people differently, and that I personally can have a strong effect on someone positively or in this case negatively. I may be a curmudgeon but I try not to to be a WP:DICK, and do have some empathy. I should probably tell Kim some of this, but I'm not sure a post from me would be welcome on her/his talk page. That said, I have a firm belief in the "you own your own emotions" principle. I can be more polite or whatever, but I have no control over the fact that some people are temperamentally unsuited to engage in debate or compromise.
• When I'm critical of past behaviors of WP:BIRDS I'm not always talking about you. :-) Anyway, WP has changed quite a bit over time. If I bring up something like "WP:BIRDS clearly advanced a pro-caps position at WT:TOL" I'm not saying "Die, evil scumsuckers!" I'm saying "part of this problem of rampant caps all over the place is WP:BIRDS's responsibility/fault, and it behooves you to help find a solution instead of fighting like rabid wolves every time capitalization and animals is mentioned in the same discussion." Someone(s) from WP:BIRDS derails the discussion every single time it arises, even when you're not the subject or "target" as you guy put it. In this case, the proposal is actually in your favor, yet some of you, Kim especially, are flaming it to death anyway. Re: "allowing wikiprojects and groups of editors maximum autonomy" – that was a nifty experiment. It failed. ArbCom shot it down several times, and WP:LOCALCONSENSUS policy was written to put an end to it, because it led to factionalism, inconsistency and fighting, instead of open collaboration and mutual expectations. I've read lots and lots and lots of this stuff, and I do not see any evidence that WP:MAMMALS, WP:CETACEANS, etc. gave up capitalization in fear of "grammar warriors". They had mostly quiet internal discussions and came to their own conclusions that doing what generalist publications do was what made sense for the encyclopedia. WP:FISH did this in face of one of the larger fish taxonomy organizations going the IOC route (see bottom of my archive page about the debate; I link to publication of the announcement). WP:CETACEANS did something similar. WP:MAMMALS didn't "give up", they came to an internal conclusion that the most authoritative org in their sphere (I forget the acronym right off hand) actually forbade the style, so they should too (i.e. they used your logic, it just happened to have opposite facts to which to apply that logic; so they didn't give up at all). In other words, I think you may be projecting a bit. As in, WP:BIRDS has felt put upon, so surely every other project who once used or thought about using caps must have felt attacked, too. The evidence strongly suggests otherwise. Even in plants, where at least in certain fields the journals prefer caps, and many of the articles here are cap'd, just 'cuz someone did it that way, no one has taken the sort of trench warfare position that your project has. You speak clearly in terms of "us" vs. "them" all the time, and no one else is doing that, not even in lepidoptery or other areas where capitalization is something of a convention in specialist lit. Basically, no one else cares. What's more, the evidence – namely that you and only a handful of other editors ever speak up about this from your project – strongly suggests that most WP:BIRDS editors DGAF about this; they're here to write articles. I've also seen, and have diffs, of members of that project questioning/criticizing the practice as inappropriate here. And, the issue for me of you and others from WP:BIRDS "helping" push the caps idea or "supporting" it when it came up here and there in other projects, is diffs from the same time period at WT:BIRDS of you and others insisting that you were only promoting the idea for orn. articles. I'm not saying "you're a big fat liar!", but at very least your actions did not appear to agree with the assurances you were giving. But, hell, the same can probably be said of me right now. I've not suddenly stopped being an opponent of bird caps. I'm asking you to take on faith the idea that for now I'm not gunning for that issue, I'm trying to do something else entirely, and actually compromising a bit in your direction in order to get closer to that more important goal. I'm not promising I'll never criticize bird caps again.
• "the grammar warriors when they noticed and came angrily rampaging in": A superb example of what I mean about us vs. them attitude. If editors from all walks of life and all sorts of areas of interest are objecting to this, constantly, for seven years straight, it's a very, very, very strong indication that the majority of our readership are bewildered, irritated, disgusted or otherwise put off by it, and that insisting on it because it suits your professional or avocational preferences is a terrible mistake.
• Uniformity, conformity and rule creep vs. decentralized governance: Yes, this is a natural and generally unavoidable part of the process of organizational growth. There are entire volumes on the social science of this. Google for phrases like "stages of organizational development" and so on. Resiting it is kind of futile. But I do, too, in my own ways (see my contribs log today for me ripping WT:HRT a new one about their anal over-protection of every template that has anything to with a template that has anything to do with an actual high-risk template, making it impossible for non-admins to even finish what they were doing on templates they were working on. The difference is process for its own sake isn't always what's happening. It is not irrational for editors of one frame of mind to want maximum uniformity of grammar/style site-wide, for a seamless reader experience. It's also not irrational for editors of another frame of mind to want to see the practices of their profession accurately reflected. The devil is in the details of the interaction of these two frames of reference.
• Editors working to improve, leave them alone: Sure, but you're taking it too personally. Lower-casing bird names has no effect on your article output except that in the few cases like Template:The Mexican jay vs. Mexican jays generally, one has to write sentences with a bit more care. Oh well. No one's going to keel over and die. If it has a big effect on your motivation, consider re-prioritizing. Or just WP:IAR and do as thou wilt, realizing that sometimes people will revert you. C'est la vie. There are loads of things I could get bent out of shape about, but I've had to let them go. It used to drive to me hairpulling distraction SeaMonkey wasn't merged with Brine shrimp, or that we use sentence case in headings instead of title case, or that we bottom post threads, not just entries in threads, on talk page. Just had to let them go, or I would've quit.
• Something that never seems to sink in at your project is that everyone else on the system "resents being told what to do" by snooty academics and obsessive hobbyists with weird grammar/style ideas that contradict every generalist reliable source. That, right there, is why you meet so much continual resistance. If WP:STARWARS or WP:NASCAR came around and told everyone they had to capitalize misc. nouns like "Starship" and "Planet" or "Tires" and "Bumper" we'd all laugh in their faces. Your project has been treated with an astonishing amount of deference. Mostly, I think, because of outright tendentiousness. You (the project; I don't mean you personally) simply wear down the resistance until the critics go away, scathed and bleeding, and find something to do that doesn't make them want to jump off a tall building rather than deal with you guys again. The reason you're sick of me in particular is I don't scare that easily and have debatory hide like a dragon.
• "I guess we all suspect its the thin edge of a wedge to lay the groundwork on forcing us to move in the future": Well, sure, that's a natural suspicion, but this is a wiki. There's no secret bomb I can plant under your WikiProjectCar. The wedge you fear was driven in back in 2008, when MOS adopted a very clear "lower case for common names" standard (it was actually already essentially adopted but not codified, I recently learned, at VPP the year before that; I haven't added that to the archive yet). I can't promise I'll never tap that wedge to drive it deeper, but it is already there and what I'm doing at MOS right now has nothing to do with that (see the box with "My actually preferred version"), and everything to do with firewalling your project so that the caps "standard" stops leaking out of it all over the place, at the expense of having to compromise in your favor. In order to do that without a shitstorm, MOS kinda just has to let you have your way, but it can't do that in a way that opens the door to every project on the system demanding an exception for every random whim. That's why it has to say something like "it remains controversial on Wikipedia" or "it doesn't have site-wide consensus" (both of which are proven true.) MOS can't endorse what you're doing. It would open a Pandora's box, and would violate WP:LOCALCONSENSUS policy anyway. Furthermore, it would be a gross violation of MOS's purpose and scope: MOS is not ArbCom; it is not MOS's job to declare the raging, 7-year debate over and state what the outcome is. That debate is very much still ongoing. Every single point in the proposal already has clear consensus, including the "birds exception" being notable controversial. It's just a matter of wording.
• It won't "be enough to leave you alone". It'll be enough for me personally to not pick a bird caps fight any time soon, unless one is forced on me (one is kinda being forced on me right now by being dragged against my will into an ArbCom case about capitalization bitchfests, in which I'm presenting the evidence I have, because I have it, but I've demanded to be released as a party, because I wasn't actually involved in the case). But I think I'm the least of your worries. DarkFrog and others have far stronger feelings than I do and more willingness to pursue those arguments. I pop up once a year or so and make some noise. Others are determined to get rid of your caps practice. I have been in the past, but I'm way more concerned about Mountain Goat and Eastern Newt than Mexican Jay. Not because I don't think birds matter, but because you at least have some kind of rationale for what you are doing. There's no rationale at all for "Grizzly Bear", and it's leaking even farther. I'm increasingly seeing things like "Carrom Board" and "Bowling Ball" and so on. This wasn't happening much 4 years ago. It's everywhere now. Anyway, for my part, I'm tired and want to work on the Manx (cat) article or something. If one of the proposed wording bits were installed in MOS I'd probably be mollified indefinitely, though if someone opened an RfC against bird caps, I'd have to support lower case. I was originally going to do this myself, way back when, but have far bigger fish to fry, and have lost the taste for "the chase". I've also just recently radically shifted away from opposition to capitalization of recognized formal breeds of animals and cultivars of plants (for reasons that don't relate much to cap'ing common names of species), and I once felt very strongly against that, so who knows. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 06:46, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
• PS: I'm not suggesting capitalization of bird names, consistently throughout articles, and with a rationale behind it (even one I disagree with, but one that is not crazy or stupid, just differently motivated than I am and than MOS is), is among WP's biggest problems. But one of WP's biggest PR/public perception/reader experience issues is the appearance of professional vs. "I'm 10 and gots a compooter" writing. A major hallmark of ignorant-kid writing is overcapitalization, and it is running rampant, worsening rather than improving. (Because – the big point – MOS has been unclear, naming conventions have been wishy-washy, guidelines contradict each other, etc.). No one is going to trust a source that capitalizes things like "Lions" and "Horse". It look's frakkin' retarded. This is not an idle concern, and has been raised by many other editors (and external readers) long before I made any noise about it. It's actually a key point in the anti-cap piece in The Auk going back 30-odd years now. I certainly agree that the poor sourcing is a more serious problem, but it's one that the reader doesn't see instantly like bad grammar. "First impressions matter." — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 06:46, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

• That is quite a reply and I am way too drunk now (It is a long weekend in New Zealand, sorry!) to deal with all of it. I will deal with some of the points (I agree with you on a number of issues, if with different levels of emphasis I should note) , but quickly, Kim is female, WP:Local Consensus is exactly one of those rule creeps that snuck up on me and I was unaware of (I'll leave it to you assess how that makes me look) and I almost immediately retracted the grammer warriors and replaced it with grammer peeps, pretty much for the reasons you gave. Oh, and that we are arguing about a slightly narrower point than you imagine. I agree that common nouns are not in caps. Really, I do. It is just that as a biologist I think of species as not being common nouns. One analogy I can think of is human. Human is generally not treated as a common noun (human rights, for example), but in sci-fi would you treat Klingon, Shi-ar or Martian, so why not Human? I realise this isn't an argument you haven't seen before, but it would be nice if you didn't strawman our position as wanting a widespread adoption of caps for nouns, and instead accept that we are looking at biological concepts in a new way. Biologists have long treated the binomial in a way that still seems to vex some. You have written about writing in a manner that follows popular texts as opposed to more specialist texts. And every time I wince, recalling the times I have seen esteemed sources like the Times of London or the BBC render binomials in ordinary text instead of italics, or getting the caps wrong (I'm sure I don't need to tell you but caps for genus, species un). I don't think you realise how much pain that causes. Sabine's Sunbird talk 07:19, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Right; none of that's a big shock to me, other than you think I honestly believe that you want to see caps spread around for nouns in general. That would be a straw man certainly. I don't think that. The issue is that the birds practice in combination with guideline chaos, especially the bovine dung at WP:FNAME, has led directly to caps all over the place, but inconsistently, which in turn has led to a zillion editors at every other project saying "Hmm... if bird lit capitalizes birds, and [x] lit capitalizes [x]s, and both types of article get caps here, too, that means, ah HA!, since my videogaming manuals capitalize Controller and Console and Game, and my metallurgy textbooks capitalize Steel and Arc Welder and Nail, I should capitalize all that too!" Remember that the specialist publications in innumerable fields, from marketing to fandom to physics, capitalize Important Things having to do with that field in publications for members of that fields to "bignote" what they do and care about. I realize that WP:BIRDS has an argument (I don't personally buy it) that their case is different because IOC or whoever have published an "official" list of bird common names, that this makes the case special and different, even that it makes them proper nouns. That argument's been hashed over again and again, with no clear resolution. But virtually no one else even has an argument like that available. They're capitalizing anyway, often, and it's because of the guideline mess. I want to stop that, and leave the birds issue for later resolution, which could take another 7 years, basically. Anyway, the crux of that debate is that, yes, I and most other editors do think about writing from the viewpoint of generalist works ("popular" doesn't necessarily come into play) and guides, not specialist ones. MOS is happy to, even insistent on, doing what specialist ones do except when doing so would directly conflict with general grammar rules. This is why MOS recommends (and so do Chicago Manual of Style, Hart's Rules theNew York Times style guide, the Guidarian style guide, and every other style guide I've ever seen, proper Genus species style); that a few newspapers mess that up sometimes doesn't mean there's not a style guide they should have been following. The caps thing violates all these style guides, though (unless you buy the argument that bird common names are proper nouns, which very few do, even in WP:BIRDS).

My tuppenceworth

I saw your comments on Sabine's Sunbird's page. I haven't come across you before today, but I suggest that you read this and this. Sabine's, Casliber and MeegsC have contributed far more to this project to this project that the wikilawyers and endashers (that's not aimed at you, just a generalisation since I haven't checked your contributions), and I would be reluctant to see them walk, although I'd probably join them. I'm sick of this constant sniping at VOLUNTEERS who are doing a great job. If you want us all to conform to every last dotted i and crossed t (I'm sure there's an MoS error there - Oh no), then please pay us.

I'd like to see this go the the way of the absolutely serious proposal when I started contributing that everything should be in American English, rather than having inconsistent spelling from article to article. If you are sick of caps, perhaps you might want to give that one another run around the block? Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:26, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm aware the above looks a bit negative, so how about this as a constructive and much more important MoS suggestion. There are about a million articles on en-wiki with no references at all. It would improve the credibility of Wikpedia no end if all articles remaining completely unreferenced for more than a given time (a year? three months?) were summarily deleted. that seems more important to me than harassing unpaid volunteers with nit-picking "rules" Jimfbleak - talk to me? 11:50, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I have a thick skin; no worries. Sabine and I are actually having a plenty civil and good-faith assumptive discussion (on her page and mine, immediately above). It's very long-winded, but it's not as angsty as it might look to other parties. I have no doubt that you're right that the most active members of WP:BIRDS have made more and content-wise more useful contribs than the average pundit at WP:MOS, least on a per-capita basis, but it's not a fair comparison (apples and oranges), assumes that only mainspace contributions count, and a dangerous generalization (I have over 70,000 contribs, for example, over 25,000 in mainspace, and before you think "all the rest are on policy pages", most of them are in template space and talk spaces). It wouldn't be a good argument anyway. "I've built more and bigger houses than you" doesn't means "the house you built sucks". The oppose may be true. The American English thing: Apples and oranges again. This is really a WP:COMMONALITY, not WP:ENGVAR matter: There is no English dialect on earth in which it is grammatical to capitalize the common names of species or capitalize other non-proper-names. (NB: Even as an American, I'd oppose that old proposal if it came back; if anything it should go the other way, since American English is split off/variant/whatever of, necessarily, English English.) I agree with you on article nuking, and have supported such proposals in the past. In the longer discussions with Sabine this issue also came up; the short version of the response is that you have to dig into an article to find out it is unsourced; Ungrammatical Correction Just Slaps You in the Face Instantly; and "first impressions count". All that said, please reali[z|s]e that the current debate at MOS, as much as people have re-argued bird points in it, is about firewalling WP:BIRDS and getting everyone else to stop capitalizing things like Mountain Lion, Domestic Cat, Eastern Newt, etc. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 17:38, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Just so you know, Sabine's Sunbird is a he, Sabine as in Joseph Sabine or Sabine Baring-Gould rather than the girl's name. Just to reiterate, we are all volunteers, not press-ganged. There is room for some variety — even at WP:FA you can use any referencing style, spelling convention or layout you like as long as it's consistent. In the project we have consistency across the whole project, every article has at least one reference etc. I think many of the most active contributors (mainly non-Americans) see this as the thin end of the wedge for the eventual imposition of a one-size-fits-all diktat — obey or walk. Obviously the AE thing wasn't serious, but a better argument for BE is that I suspect that it's used my more people (don't forget all the millions of fluent speakers in the Indian subcontinent, Africa and much of northwest Europe). Jimfbleak - talk to me? 17:57, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the gender clarification; I thought Kimvdb was a male (because of debate style, and there being plenty of men named Kim, especially outside the US). The thin edge of the wedge you fear was already driven in, in 2008, when MOS adopted a very clear "don't capitalize" default (actually, in 2007, when a majority clearly supported it at WP:VPP). The changes being proposed simply firewall WP:BIRDS from so much direct assault, and way more importantly (to everyone but birds editors, I guess) helps make it clear that people need to stop capitalizing things like Domestic Cat and Mountain Elm and Red-tailed Deer and Neon Tetra. There couldn't be an obey-or-walk diktat because WP:IAR is policy. Another way of looking at it: I detest the birds capitalization practice, with a steaming passion, but at least you have some kind of rationale for it. There is no rationale at all for capitalizing Lion or Pacific Giant Salamander, yet it is happening all over the place. I'm compromising, a lot, and leading a charge against the rampant capitalization of willy-nilly species, at the cost of making it far more difficult for me or anyone else to ever get rid of bird capitalization, by semi-enshrining it MOS, because what you're doing can be compartmentalized and is far less of a problem than Domestic Cat and Saguaro Cactus all over the place. On BE: Oh, I agree. But I'm biased. While I'm American-born and mostly-raised, I learned to read and write in England, have spent a lot of time in Ireland, and have lived in Canada, so I ain't wedded to none o' them-there 'Mercan Ainglish. Anyway, make no mistake that people will continue to come after bird capitalization, because it isn't a practice that many feel makes sense in a generalist encyclopedia. And I'll vote my party line on that one when the debate comes up. But the current proposal should actually fend off the anti-caps hordes for a while. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 18:38, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't usually get involved in these interminable discussions, which always seem to generate more heat than light (even WT:FAC had to be suspended by admin action a few weeks ago while the blood was mopped up — made this look like a model of restraint!), so I (probably) won't make any further comments after this. What it comes down to for me is that, illogical or not, species capitalisation is something that WP:B is 100% behind and feels strongly about (you may have noticed). There are far more damaging things happening to Wikipedia than caps, with its growing emphasis on tons of crap, rather than better quality, and the periodic subversion of WP:GA and WP:DYK. For me, the important thing is that we are volunteers trying to do something worthwhile. If your proposal can cut us some slack, at least until the next time around, that's good. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:04, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Sure, it's obvious that WP:BIRDS will never stop capitalizing. That why I've said, here (in discussion above), at Sabine's page, at WT:MOS that I've basically thrown up my hand about it and am just focused on getting MOS in shape to stop "Common Cat" and "Goldfish", and leave your project alone. Doesn't mean anyone else will leave your project alone, though. I agree with you entirely that there are other problems of greater importance, which is why I've been trying to compromise. In Dec. I was hell-bent on going after WP:BIRDS, then I realized that at least your practice was consistent and has sources. I don't agree with the rationales, but the rationales are not stupid or crazy; reasonable people can disagree. For capitalizing Eastern Newt and Pallas's Cat and so on there usually are no rationales at all, and where there are anything they are exceedingly weak, far weaker than yours. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 07:27, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Finally, a little story. There was a long running battle whether Gavia immer should be Great Northern Diver (original variety of English used for the article) or Common Loon (the majority breed in NAm, although they are a common winter visitor to European coasts). The organisation that standardises bird names, the IOC came up with... Great Northern Loon! A made-up name never used in real life, but settled the argument for good. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:04, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I've seen that sort of thing before in herpetology. I don't have a degree in it, but I'm an experienced amateur amphibologist. At one time I probably had more different salamander species in one collection than anyone on the continent, natural history museums included. Then an unusual Asian newt I bought at 9th Avenue Aquarium in San Francisco (I hope search engines pick this up) had a virulent disease, and it wiped out the entire menagerie in less than a week. I found out later that they're notorious for diseased animals and should be shut down. I've never gotten another salamander. Broke my heart too much. I just stick to a couple of a cats. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 07:27, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Comments, again

• I will address some of your other points later (RL, ugh), but quickly If you'd actually quit Wikipedia over it, you need to re-examine your priorities and perhaps your reasons for participating in this project at all. - Okay, look, the thing is that it isn't that we love capitals (we love birds), it is that being forced to do something we strenuously object to would fundamentally alter the relationship between ourselves and the Wiki. It is hard to explain, and perhaps the relationship has already changed and we're in denial. In which case we're just trying to put off leaving. But people do leave because of philosophical differences, as hard as it may be to break away from something you've invested in.
• Sure, it's obvious that WP:BIRDS will never stop capitalizing. I disagree. If the strongest adherents are driven out for the reasons above, like WP:Mammal I think the rest would give up. But I think that the birds will continue to be capitalised for years after any switch. There are 10,000 species, around 3,000 genera (I think) and hundreds of family and order articles. I can't imagine that WP:BIRD would have much enthusiasm for the task. We've been moving the articles to the IOc names for years and still haven't finished and that is a much smaller task that we actually chose to do. And I don't imagine for a second the people who have been pushing us for years would be there eager to help us. Sabine's Sunbird talk 20:53, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

• Understood. I don't need to get into details, but I think you understand by now that many, many people all over WP feel exactly this way about being forced by your project to capitalize bird names, and they're a much larger number, if scattered, than your entire project. I do genuinely understand your sentiment, though, and have felt it too, since I've been around almost as long as you, and have bsen WP become more and more rulebound. I was, on the basis of WP:NOT#PAPER policy, one of the staunchest opponents of WP:N, back when it was a pre-guideline proposal. When I first started reading MOS in detail, I tried to change about 50 things in it, in one day. I've also, I think, mentioned that the leaving of early "visionarty" types in response to increased rules and rigidity is a normal, well documented aspect of organizational growth. I have thought about leaving several times, but I get drawn back in by the value of the project. I've had to realize that I'll never be an admin here, unless hell freezes over, and that pains me, because I could be very useful as one, and I feel I deserve the trust that I wouldn't abuse the tools (being a forceful debater doesn't mean I'd ban people or delete articles for the wrong reason). I've had to realize that I could spend every waking moment for the next five years fighting the detestable practice of sentence case in headings, and I'll never get anywhere, and just give myself an ulcer. WP:BIRDS people will have to go through similar soul-searching. I have no doubt that some will leave, but, really, how many editors with over 5 years of regular contributions are there on the system at all? People come, people go.
• Agreed. I was a bit facetious of me to say that. What I really meant is that the current cadre of most vocal editors at the project are unlikely to give the practice up, and some will clearly quit, at least for a while, over it if "made" to do so [me, if I were that dead-set on it, I'd continue doing it under a WP:IAR basis.]. The "go on strike" proposal shows this. The fact that KimvdLinde almost did quit (and still might - her userpage still has {{retired}} on it), is one of the reasons I've backed off so much. (We've actually agreed to mediation, which I initiated last night.) With regard to WP:MAMMAL, it was more complicated than that; the preponderance of the evidence was that there's an actual explicit convention against capitalization of mammal common names (not as strong, I think, as IOC's case for it in bird), and only scattered support for it in some specialities; the idea collapsed on its own, not because of "outsider attack". I think you are probably right on all the "fallout" predictions. It would be a lot of tedious work, and unhappy work for birders, meanwhile others wouldn't be volunteering to help, at least not much. I actually do sometimes take an hour or whatever to de-caps an article and usually do lots of other cleanup in it. I've done that recently with Przewalski's horse, St. John's water dog, mountain dog, domestic short-haired cat, etc. But I'm probably unusual. Someone on my talk page above, though, says they've been at it, too. Who knows. I'm just tired of the debate and want people to stop capitalizing things like Przewalski's Horse. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 21:21, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

• The tightening of WP:RFA is one of the many trends that worry me about WP. I used to assume that I would never be an admin, and was really surprised that I was made one. But things have gotten worse at a time when we need more of them than ever. But yeah I know that things change as a organisation grows. That doesn't mean we can't fight some of the changes, if for no other reason that to make that change prove its worth. I guess it is worth remembering that Wikipedia is still highly valued by the world in spite of our vandals, inconsistencies, messiness and other associated faults. Sabine's Sunbird talk 00:06, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

• Heartily agreed on all points, even if we don't see eye to eye on exactly which changes to resist. :-) — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 01:28, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Nomination for merging of Template:Sc

Resolved: Good idea. I !voted at TfD.

Template:Sc has been nominated for merging with Template:Smallcaps. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. OwenBlacker (Talk) 22:31, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Heroic Barnstar

		The Original Barnstar
		For your recent work at WP:MOS: A model of unflagging effort, precise analysis, institutionally broad and historically deep vision, clear articulation, and civil expression under great pressure. Unforgettable. DocKino (talk) 06:14, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I do my best. At this point I'm being attacked on multiple pages in a concerted effort of harassment, and suspect that their goal is to get me to simply quit the project. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 18:17, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Found an answer

Hello. You have new messages at Worm That Turned's talk page.

(Also Elen of the Roads replied too) Worm^TT · (talk) 15:49, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Noted, thanks. I am of course being savagely attacked for even bringing the matter up. <sigh> — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 16:45, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Reply to comments at WP:Birds

Hi. I'm copying this here because you implied you might not come back to reply at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Birds#Renewed_capitalization_discussion_at_WP:MOS.

There are a number of points to respond to here, but I'll start with one. There's no "1000 to 1" or any other such vast majority who think capitalized common names look "stoopid", and we're not writing just for ornithologists. In 1996, the total sale of Peterson field guides was estimated at 18 million (Diane Schmidt, A Guide to Field Guides). On the one hand, some people have more than one. (I have two of their bird guides and one of their wildflower guides, all of which capitalize common names.) On the other hand, birdwatching has been growing rapidly in popularity and is one of the most popular hobbies in the United States [6] and Britain [7]. And more than one person in a household may have looked at their field guide. And probably many birdwatchers these days don't have a Peterson guide at all. And if people aren't interested enough to get a field guide, they may still look at Web sites such as All About Birds and WhatBird (site blocked). Furthermore, some field guides on other subjects (such as The Kaufman Guide to Insects) capitalize, as do Web sites such as BugGuide (see for example this species page), although others don't. So I would estimate that a substantial minority of literate Americans are used to seeing capitalized species names in their sources for authoritative information on species. Presumably these people are overrepresented among people who look at our bird articles.

In general (as you'll have observed), most people don't care about style points. I very rarely hear complaints about it (outside Wikipedia, maybe once). Of those who care about this one, I think it's quite possible that the majority prefer capitalization. I think it's even more likely that the trend will be toward capitalization, not away from it. But in any case, please stop saying that all the soccer moms dislike capitalization.

I realize this is irrelevant to your "firewall" proposal, but you do keep bringing it up. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 16:26, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Of course there are 1000:1, more like 50,000:1 or more, of people who do not think it is proper to capitalize common names of animals, any more than they'd capitalize Shoes and Truck and Flowerpot. Otherwise all the major style guides like Chicago and Hart's and so on, would all say "capitalize the common names of animals" (or birds more specifically or whatever level you want to argue this on). The only people who think it's "right" are specialists in a few fields (and not even all of them in those fields). The fact that lots of people buy bird field guides and don't rise up in arms to burn down the publishing house or whatever doesn't mean that all of those people also agree that the capitalization used in the field guides to make the common names stand out is what should be done in an encyclopedia or any other non-specialist work. Otherwise most or all non-specialist works would do it, yet virtually zero of them do. This has nothing to do with whether birdwatching is popular, only to do with whether what is done in ornithology journals and bird books has jack to do with how to write an encyclopedia. Seven years of other editors, from all walks of life and fields and experience and viewpoints, telling you it doesn't should have sunk in by now.

I don't understand why your project and most editors in it continually pretend not to hear the basic argument: What is done in specialist publications is not what the majority of people think should be done in a general encyclopedia. This has been demonstrated at VPP more than once, and is why MOS has had a default against capitalization of animal names for over 4 years, despite your project doing everything in its power to derail every debate about animal capitalization that arises. I don't know what you mean about Peterson guides... I re-read, and do get it now. No one cares, because it's not about what bird field guides do, it's about what encyclopedias do: Which is never capitalize the common names of animals, including birds. If the trend were toward capitalization, we'd've already seen that, not the opposite. Every time the issue comes up outside your own talk page, the majority of respondents oppose it (except when, as in this case, someone like KimvdLinde canvasses your project to show up en masse and dominate the debate with circular arguments and IDHT "noise".

What your project is doing is insisting that what is done in specialist literature like bird guides and bird journals must be done in an encyclopedia, when the real world shows you otherwise in every single case. There is no encyclopedia on the planet (judging from from previous debates where people have spent large amounts of time looking at non-specialist reliable source style) that obeys your caps convention. With one single exception, even non-orn. biology & science journals will not use it when publishing orn. articles! But whatever. I'm tired of having circular debates about this. Your entire project simply pretends that the arguments against your practice have never been made and that evidence has never been presented, and that your own have never been refuted, when the opposite is the case, x7 years. And I'm not even trying to stop you any more, I'm trying to stop Domestic Cat and Lion and Goldfish. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 17:01, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

PS: Sorry if that reply came across as testy; it's been a stressful day. I honestly don't care any more what your project does, I just want MOS to firewall it so that people stop capitalizing everything else. At least your project has a rationale for doing so. I and others disagree with it, but it's not crazy or stupid, and the fact that you can point to an international body that has published an official list of [capitalized] common names, that all ornithologists use, is different from any other field. It's a weak excuse, but other fields have none whatsoever. The fact that this random website or that capitalizes or doesn't isn't relevant. Take WP:FISH for example. They note that a major website they like to cite does not capitalize, and that a major ichythological body (I forget which - too many acronyms!) does. The project doesn't, probably because they don't want 7 years of flamewarring like your project has had to withstand, with plenty more to come from plenty more people who want to follow plain-English grammar rules in a plain-English encyclopedia. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 19:38, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Chicago states explicitly to follow the rules in the relevant specialist literature. That is what we do. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 17:41, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Actually, Chicago names specific literature to follow, and yours is not included: "For the correct capitalization and spelling of common names of plants and animals, consult a dictionary or the authoritative guides to nomenclature, the ICBN and the ICZN, mentioned in 8.118. In general, Chicago recommends capitalizing only proper nouns and adjectives, as in the following examples, which conform to Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary...".— SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 17:54, 7 February 2012 (UTC) PS: Since neither the ICBN nor the ICZN have ever issued a standard for or against capitalization, only for what the names are, the Chicago advice on capitalization specifically is actually only "consult a dictionary"; they simply phrased it badly. All of this has already been told to you before, here specifically, just like everything else in the debate that you keep re-re-re-recycling just to make more and more text to cloud the debate and wear everyone out. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 18:24, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the apology, and I'm sorry I added to your stress. I may not be able to answer substantively till Thursday. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 22:08, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

RfC

Hello. I got your email. I believe that, at this point, an RfC may not be necessary. The most inflammatory member of the pro-cap side just expressed acceptance of some compromise text. (It's almost identical to something I proposed last month, but whatever; now it looks good to her, so okay.) That will probably be enough for your original plan of synching all the guidelines so that they no longer contradict each other. Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:58, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Excellent! But, I'm already meeting great revert-war resistance even at WP:MOSCAPS just trying to get it to agree with what MOS says right now, much less what's been the subject of dispute (the "is controversial"/"doesn't have Wikipedia-wide consensus" bit). Two editors at that subguideline have been mass-reverting every single change I've ever make there, regardless what it is. Trying to get WP:FLORA and especially WP:FNAME to go along is going to be ... interesting. I may just sit that out and let others deal with it, because there's too much of a "burn SMcCandlish at the stake" witchhunt going on right now. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 20:04, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I am not the best equipped defender of a proposal at this level but I don't think an RfC needs to be started by a defender, just someone who can present the question in a neutral manner. If its decided at Talk MOS to move to an RfC and no one more qualified steps up I am willing to organize it once details are ironed out. I think the question should cover all exceptions to organism common name capitalization. Jojalozzo 19:32, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Sure. Makes sense to me. I think that the latest iteration (i.e., use existing guidance, and put reliably sourced alt-caps version[s] in the lead, use lower case otherwise) is the obvious proposal to lead with since it's requires the least change and would just ask the community to reaffirm practices we already use. In that event, there's no need to individually cover every alleged exception to common name capitalization, since it's a bit of a moot question. Besides, we can't know what those are without doing a lot of research; some of them are controversial within their fields; only WP:BIRDS makes a big deal out of this; and so on. I.e., avoid opening worm cans unless fishing. The last thing we need is to encourage, say, fans of capitalizing "Blue Whale" and "the Great Apes", ideas long since rejected (specifically) by consensus even in their own projects, to come out of the woodwork to cloud the debate by demanding "new" "exceptions". There shouldn't be any exception at all; anyone who wants one can cite WP:IAR and see if people buy it. The biggest hurdle is really going to be the specialist straw man fallacy, which caps proponents invariably use to derail discussion, so an RfC that pre-emptively addresses it will be less likely to be shunted off its tracks by misdirection. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 19:46, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Sounds good. I'll see how it goes at WT:MOS... (did you see my note at Wikipedia talk:Specialist straw man) Jojalozzo 00:02, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Just now. That was a good idea. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 00:45, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Persian

FYI: Just a pointer.

In case you missed it, I replied to your comments on Talk:Persian_(cat) a while back.--Dodo bird (talk) 20:27, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I hadn't seen that; thanks for the note. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 20:47, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

How specialized is Wikipedia?

One of the issues highlighted for me by the debate on the capitalization of English names of species is the level of specialization appropriate to Wikipedia. I only started editing seriously when I semi-retired in 2009, and I work almost entirely on plant-related articles, since that's my hobby interest. The level I've aimed for has been determined by what fellow plant editors thought appropriate and the articles they rated highly; for example Nepenthes rajah – a GA and a plant that interests me.

As I write this I have behind me several shelves of field guides to wild flowers, gardening encyclopaedias (such as the Alpine Garden Society's Encyclopaedia of Alpines), specialist gardening books (e.g. on bulbs or specific genera like Iris), Anderson's 776 page book The Cactus Family, etc. It seems to me, looking at what you have written on talk pages, and the list of works you collected to exemplify the appropriate style for species name capitalization, that you think that many if not most of these books are more specialized than Wikipedia should be.

But Nepenthes rajah couldn't be written using only sources of this level. The list of references shows that many original scientific papers were consulted. Of course the material has not been reproduced at the same level as these papers, but nevertheless, this article is at a far more specialized and technical level than any of the books on my shelves I've listed above.

I recently managed to take Schlumbergera to GA status. I own the definitive book on this genus; it's one of the more specialized works on my shelves. Yet I still had to use a journal paper as well, and to get the article up to the standard I'd really like (which means more on phylogeny and evolution) I need to use three or four more journal papers which I'm still digesting.

I'm confident now (I wasn't six months ago) that I understand the level that editors of good plant articles are aiming for. At one time WP:SECONDARY bothered me, but it's clear that really good plant articles can't be written without using journal articles. [Ironically, it seems to me that this level is actually beyond the level at which British books capitalize plant names (e.g. field guides) and is closer to the level of scientific monographs which are much less likely to do so. However this post is most definitely not about that debate!]

So to some questions – all genuine, not rhetorical or debating. Am I mis-understanding what you mean by "specialized"? Do you think that articles like Nepenthes rajah are at the right level for Wikipedia? How about these (unfinished) sections I've just added to Cactus: Cactus#Taxonomy and classification, Cactus#Phylogeny and evolution? Or this at most C class article I wrote (one of a set on species of Roscoea): Roscoea cangshanensis? Have science-related articles in Wikipedia perhaps changed since, say, 2007, becoming much more overtly scientific in tone? Is there a difference between science-related articles and others? Peter coxhead (talk) 22:26, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

For me it's a matter of always, always keeping the general readership in mind. I've not read every word of Nepenthes rajah, but what I did read seemed to be doing this appropriately. WP:ENC says Wikipedia "incorporates elements of general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers", and this seems like a good description. Because WP isn't paper we're not forced to exclude specialized information for reasons of space, only to remember that our readership is the most general in the world, so if we're going to cover technical/specialist topics or include specialized information in general topics, it needs to be written in a way that speaks to the broadest number of readers. This isn't "dumbing down" – it's not omission of or glossing over facts because we haughtily think too few readers could grasp it, or writing in Simplified English, its just taking the time and care to make the prose parseable and well-linked enough for people who don't have advanced degrees in whatever we do, if anything.

I think Cactus#Taxonomy and classification does this admirably well. Cactus#Phylogeny and evolution is a bit more challenging and could use some more linking (e.g. right at the top, "Bayesian" is used with no link). I'm not sure that all readers of this section will walk away with the probably-intended implication that there's a major problem in cactus naming and classification, namely that they've largely been classified on the basis of appearance, but modern genetics is showing that a large number of them aren't actually closely related, even in the same genus, which is a pretty shocking. From the reader perspective this is big news, but it's kind of buried in jargon. Just adding a summary sentence at top and conclusion sentence at bottom of that section would fix this. I agree Roscoea cangshanensis is about C-class, and may be a bit dense, but for many species (even of more "dull" animals like various species of salamanders only found in one location but which aren't notably unusual in any other way) there's not much of a way to "jazz up" such an article and make it more reader-engaging. We just have facts, and there they are; we can't help it if the facts are dry sometimes.

I would say that there are two countervailing forces at work that together continually produce better science articles:

1. Increase in the scientific detail level in articles – this is happening because more specialists are devoting time to WP editing, more and more sources are easily available online, more standardization (e.g. of what sections a biological article should have and what info should be in each) means non-specialist editors can make useful contributions adding missing bits here and there with the easily-found sources, and so on.
2. Increase in copyediting – there's a whole Guild of Copyeditors project and a plenty of editors focused primarily on "massaging" text for easier reader consumption rather than adding sourced facts.

I do think articles are increasing in scientific richness, and that this can result in "geeky" articles sometimes, but that at least for higher profile articles, the ones more people are likely to read like cactus, and even Nepenthes rajah (carnivorous plants being a favorite schoolboy essay topic, along with dinosaurs, robots, gladiators, rock stars and spaceships), the copyediting force balances things out. Articles on topics like albinism (which has forked per WP:SUMMARY into subarticles like oculocutaneous albinism) have vastly improved in just 2–4 years, in both level of medical detail and in readability by mere mortals. :-) I spent a lot of time on that one.

I am hoping that most WP articles on plants would be better than their entries in field guides. This wouldn't, despite the arguments of some people at WP:BIRDS, mean that "Wikipedia is also a specialist work", because the audience hasn't changed, only the richness of the sourced information. I actually do think, based on statements some of them have made, that members of some projects like that one are in fact writing articles with other specialists in mind rather or at least more than English-speakers generally, and this can be problematic. To the extent such editors simply add "geeky" information and don't get in the way of copyeditors trying to make it more friendly, they do more good than harm of course, but this isn't always the case, unfortunately, and they can become entrenched and like a private article-controlling club.

The difference I personally see between science articles here and many (not all) other types is a higher expectation of very reliable sourcing (we also have this expectation of bios of living people and I think I detect it with regard to matters of political debate pretty frequently). This is unfair, but I think it's kind of natural. People don't really care all that much whether, say, the details cited at three-ball or The Flintstones are perfectly sourced, but because science is precise and based on reliable evidence, the expectation is that articles on it here will be, too.

So, anyway, to answer what I think the underlying question is, the difference between a science Wikipedia article and a "specialist source" is in the writing and its intended audience, not the complexity- or detail-level of the scientific information in it. There are WP articles with far more detail about a plant or animal than various journal articles (which after all are often about one narrow detail, like a specific allele) centered on the same organism, but WP remains a generalist work, because it's written by generalists and some specialists, for the world's most general audience, using plain English to the extent this is feasible.

That's my pair of coins, at any rate. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 23:23, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Very interesting, thanks. I'll certainly try to act on your helpful suggestions re Cactus#Phylogeny and evolution. I just wish there were more active copyeditors who could be called on. I've spent my working life writing for university students and other academics; I know I can write clearly for them (students quickly made it clear if I didn't!), but writing for a more general readership isn't easy for me. I used to think that something like Scientific American would be a guide, but many science articles in Wikipedia now are much more technical than it is.

I think there are problems with trying to maintain a unified style (which I definitely regard as the ideal) when Wikipedia is both so diverse and so deep – it really doesn't have a comparator now, I think; no paper encyclopaedia is ever going to be able to compete in either respect. (This point isn't about the capitalization discussion, by the way, which I regard as a very parochial issue.) Sourcing and referencing is a much more important one: there are, as you picked out above, major differences between parts of Wikipedia in this respect. I'd never heard of three-ball, so you've contributed to my education (I am quite a fan of snooker). When I read the article, I immediately wanted to add {{citation needed}} to this statement "The game involves a somewhat more significant amount of luck than either nine-ball or eight-ball, because of the disproportionate value of pocketing balls on the break shot and incresed difficulty of doing so." (I refrained from doing so!) I can see that source and referencing is treated very differently in different areas of Wikipedia, but I'm not convinced that it should be. Anyway, enough said for now. Thanks again for your interesting comments. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:50, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree that our sci. articles are these days getting more technical that Scientific American. I'm not sure this is terribly problematic as long as the lead is general, and each section has an intro/outro that "eases the passage" of the denser material. The three-ball comment should have a {{citation needed}} on it, though there essentially are no reliable sources on the game at all, since it's a folk pastime. I think I'm even the one who added the objectionable observation, which I saw as basic statistics, thus needing no citation, when I added it; but my views on sourcing have become stricter as WP has moved from an eventualist experiment to the immediatist reality of being one of the top 5 most-use websites in the world. I agree that the sourcing shouldn't be treated differently, it just has been because of people's perceptions. PS: And thank you for bringing the discussion up. :-) It's nice to talk about something other than letter case for a change! — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 15:21, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

PS: I inherited a whole roomful of epiphyllums. Structurally, they mostly look at lot like Schlumbergera, though much less floral. They grow very fast! — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 23:28, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Actually if grown well (sorry for the implied criticism!), they should be more floral. I have somewhere a photo of a display of epiphyllums in flower in a commercial nursery in England (I'll try to find it), and they are just breath-taking; covered with flowers. But an epiphyllum is hard to grow well in a house, I think, as it seems to need more humidity and higher temperatures than a Thanksgiving, Christmas or Easter [C/c]actus. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:50, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I have a "black thumb". Can hardly keep a lawn alive. That humidity thing must be it. I live in New Mexico and don't have a greenhouse, so they're probably very unhappy. The 2 that have flowered in 2 years have produced a grand total of less than a dozen flowers, and those lasted around 2 to 10 days. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 15:21, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Cheers!

		A beer on me!
		for all of the thoughtful posts through the extended discussion at MOSCAPS. I've appreciated it. JHunterJ (talk) 13:52, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank ya verra much! I was thirsty. >;-) — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 15:10, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Natatores

Resolved: My query at WT:BIRDS was answered.

Natatores is a clade containing loons and some other swimming birds, not a "class" or "order" or some such thing. I don't know that it's controversial, but it's being displayed due to it being in the Automatic taxobox hierarchy (which presents a standard agreed upon classification across all articles). It's actually a bit too broad for that specific page and I'm not sure why it's showing up there but I'll look into it. MMartyniuk (talk) 14:01, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Keen-o. Just seemed weird that something with no article that doesn't correspond to a normal taxonomical level was included, is all. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 15:10, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (royalty and nobility)

Resolved: Done.

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Template:Dfn

I temporarily reverted your last edit to this template, as it created a Template loop error message. I'm not entirely sure I understand the code, so thought it best to revert and let you know. Regards, —WFC— 05:13, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I forgot to test before saving. Durrr... — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 05:16, 12 February 2012 (UTC)