User talk:Tony1

This editor is not an administrator and does not wish to be one.

Real-life workload: 7

• 1 = no work pressure
• 5 = middling
• > 5 = please don't expect much
• 10 = frenzied

Please note that I don't normally (1) copy-edit articles, or (2) review articles that are not candidates for promotion to featured status.

Temporary injunction in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Date delinking

The following temporary injunction has been passed in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Date delinking;

Until this case is decided or otherwise directed by the Arbitration Committee, all editors are instructed not to engage in any program of mass linking or delinking of dates in existing articles, including but not limited to through the use of bots, scripts, tools, or otherwise. This injunction is entered as an interim measure and does not reflect any prejudgment of any aspect of the case.

For the Arbitration Committee, Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 11:56, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank goodness I can always fall back on television.  HWV 258  22:05, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Admin actions

I was just wondering if you knew about User:JamesR/AdminStats? Might be a useful link for AdminReview. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 14:32, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Good link, you're likely also aware of the similar admin stats template which contains a simple box. All of the admin stats for that particular admin are listed. Here are mine. Lazulilasher (talk) 14:50, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

No I didn't but I've added it now and will wait for the bot to appear and work its magic. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 16:37, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

You guys are kind and helpful on that page, and I'm much appreciative. Just now, I'm kinda in a frenzy about this ArbCom case and significant injustice being done to me at an early stage. I'll get to those links you've provided soon. Tony (talk) 17:43, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Ah, I wouldn't worry too much about it; I think, here, that Cambridge & I happen to be using your talk page as a common discussion forum. Apologies! :) Lazulilasher (talk) 19:52, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Weasel Words

Tony, as your king of the English language ;) Could you tell me what the collective name is for words like "very" and "even" etc, that are used before a fact to give it more gravitas/emotion i.e.

The damage to the hospital was very bad.

Even the ship's captain condoned the action.

I always assumed these were "Weasel Words", but after after reading the article about it, obviously not. Would I be right in saying this sort of language is normally frowned upon on Wikipedia, and is normally seen in article's where there is some sort of political agenda by the editors. Ryan4314 (talk) 16:39, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

They're generically called intensifiers. As their intention is to affect the way that a reader feels about the information being presented, they're generally going to be inappropriate for an encyclopedia article. --Malleus Fatuorum 16:46, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the term is, but I recall Strunk & White frowned on "very", "really", and their ilk. There is no method to differentiate "bad" from "very bad"; therefore, they serve limited usefulness. I do not think they are appropriate for an encyclopedia (just my opinion). Lazulilasher (talk) 19:57, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates#FACs requiring extensive third-party copy-editing

Hi Tony, I know that you are busy with real life, the arbitration case and Adminwatch, but I thought that the above thread might be of some interest to you. Thanks for all you do, Dabomb87 (talk) 02:22, 14 January 2009 (UTC) P.S. We need you back at WP:FAC!

Also, Wikipedia:Featured article review/Lazare Ponticelli needs a revisit; the nomination seems to have stagnated. One reviewer has claimed that there are no more prose problems; is this the case? Dabomb87 (talk) 23:50, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Admins: why don't far more of them go nuts?

When I look at the ritual self-abasement that editors are expected to go through to become admins these days (and not in my day), I start to wonder why such a small percentage of them go rouge. I'd rather expect the fruits of this process to go around blocking people for months at a time just for their own amusement or because God told them to, or otherwise go batshit. My latest thoughts. -- Hoary (talk) 16:27, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

An eloquent support which I largely agree with. My own pet hate is the oppose which begins "... checking the contribution history I see no participation in admin areas." Err, yes, well, might that be because the candidate isn't an administrator? --Malleus Fatuorum 00:07, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you Sir. I was rather sleepy when I vented; a little later, Pascal Tesson put it better. AfD seems to have slowly developed toward a kind of mass (or anyway micromass) hysteria. My inner sociopathologist is blackly amused. -- Hoary (talk) 00:42, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I guess you meant RfA, not AfD? Sorry, my inner Freudian psychotherapist just had to have his say. ;-) --Malleus Fatuorum 00:50, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh yes, right, RfA, elsewhere in the alphabet soup. -- Hoary (talk) 13:55, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I am going to hazard a guess that you and I have vastly different opinions of what constitutes "abusive" or "batshit" behavior. Plenty of administrators already do institute "default" blocks of far greater than 24 hours - perhaps not "months at a time", but longer. Plenty of administrators play the game of teasing and torturing their now-captive target (kind of like a sick, twisted kid pulling the wings off a fly) trying to get a reaction to justify an even longer block or a talk-page locking.

And just as equally, I think part of the problem is that the selection of new admins comes solidly out of a pool, not of actual editors who really represent the community, but of admins and admin-wannabes who are looking for more people to support just the kind of behavior as seen above. The phrase "I see no participation in admin areas" means "I didn't see you supporting my abusive block on AN/I last month", nothing more. WW,QuisCustodio 02:21, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not certain who you were addressing your comment to as "you", but if it was me, then you really couldn't be further from the mark. The current system stinks, and what stinks even more is that so many are afraid to admit that it stinks. --Malleus Fatuorum 02:36, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Amend: I am going to hazard a guess that Hoary and I have vastly different opinions of what constitutes "abusive" or "batshit" behavior. WW,QuisCustodio 03:18, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't know if it stinks. It's certainly bizarre. I start to wonder if some of the more vociferous participants haven't just landed from some other, usually invisible, Shandean planet. They certainly have their hobby-horses. -- Hoary (talk) 13:55, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

While capitalism collapses and the permafrost melts, you're caught up in this meta-date-linking silliness. My sympathies, Tony. The RfA process is a lot nearer the latter than the former in degree of importance, but still ... you were working on AdminWatch till interrupted, and just today I came across something possibly related to that (or anyway to my whine that sparked this section) that amazed me. Try this and then this and then this. I'm not quite sure what message to draw from it, but it merits sustained attention and thought. -- Hoary (talk) 14:27, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I'd ask all of you to consider that many editors have off-wiki contact with each other. Husond's oppose wasn't because he was an admin, but because of off-wiki contact. There's not a method by which someone can provide evidence from those private contacts that would support a serious oppose for adminship, even if the opinion could be entirely justified by the content or nature of the (not able to be posted to Wikipedia) communication between the two parties. If you read these entire threads, you will note that Ecoleetage was indefinitely blocked not because of the RFA, but because he tracked down and telephoned the employer of one of his opposers to "report" him for using Wikipedia during business hours. AGF is important, but it's not a suicide pact. Risker (talk) 17:06, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I have to say, that whole fiasco has disturbed me greatly. That this can result directly in this is a pretty severe indictment of the RFA process and the community as a whole at the moment. And people wonder why we have so many admins quitting. Sheesh. --Closedmouth (talk) 14:38, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

People often say they are more afraid of wasps than bees because the latter die if they sting you. If admins were more like bees than wasps, their actions would be more focussed. Here are some thoughts:

• Most like a bee: each time an admin blocks an editor, they get blocked themselves for the same period.
• Less like a bee: if they block you, they lose their admin powers for the same period.
• Hardly like a bee but still contains a death of powers element: each admin power comes with a budget for a particular time period. Once the budget has been exceeded for that month (or other time period), the power lapses.

Lightmouse (talk) 14:44, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I've commented on the implications WRT admin policy at that page. Thanks for all your comments. Tony (talk) 15:07, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Um, but Mr Mouse, while I'm quite happy not to block anyone -- and indeed haven't blocked anyone for days, or anyway hours -- WP is unfortunately well stocked with people who have just enough alcohol/testosterone/racism/whatever swishing around their brains for their enforced short-term (and sometimes long-term) disappearance to benefit an encyclopedia. So somebody has to ban them. I think we need more admins as well as more watching over admins. I thought Tony would be good and ignored his "no I don't want to be an admin" notice and invited him, but then I realized that he was busy doing other stuff. And, as noted above, the process by which people do or don't become admins is now so hyped up that I really can't be bothered to do all the skeleton digging needed in order for me to recommend anyone I don't know as well as I know Tony. And I don't suppose I'm alone in this. (Plus I've probably screwed up my chances of nominating success thanks to the combination of my poorly proofread outburst linked to at the head of this section and the preternatural memories and appetite for diff-sleuthing of the voters there.) -- Hoary (talk) 16:37, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

RfA is shockingly bad for morale, encourages character assassination (as do ArbCom hearings), and worst of all, is ineffective at filtering out users who are likely to turn out to be bad admins. It needs to be mediated and more tightly controlled—otherwise things get out of hand. But I believe the time has come to completely revamp the system. I'd say a Board should be appointed to assess applications for promotion to and demotion from adminship, including the handing out of suspensions and the removal of certain powers where indicated. The Board might be appointed partly by ArbCom and partly by WPians at large. Anything's gotta be better than what we've got now. Tony (talk) 16:48, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

And thanks for your kind encouragement, Hoary; I'm too much a language and policy nerd to want to do the fine-grained stuff. I agree that we need more admins (good eggs) and more oversight of them. Tony (talk) 16:56, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand your response to me, Hoary. You write about the number of admins. I said nothing about that. Lightmouse (talk) 16:54, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, I'm an admin. I block usernames and IPs. On rare occasion, I even block them for months at a time. Even in retrospect, I think that an overwhelmingly high percentage of my blocks are justified. (But I would claim that, wouldn't I?) I'm reluctant to disable myself as often or as long as I disable others, because I like to think that: (i) aside from the occasional misunderstanding (which at least in principle and often in practice others will find and correct) my disabling of others helps the encyclopedia, and (ii) my contributions to the substance of the encyclopedia are on balance positive. Thus if, beelike, I were to block myself as often and as long as I blocked others, this would not only cripple my own editing/adminning ego (sniff) but it would also be a minor loss to the encyclopedia. If this were just me, no big deal: I'm expendable. But I'm probably a pretty typical example of a set that's not expendable: if each of us were to disappear for months at a time, the encyclopedia would I think soon suffer from a huge excess of blockworthy editors. Of course there are arrogant and unscrupulous administrators, and I think some administrators should not be administrators (even while I think that charges of "incivility" and the like against them, as against others, are often petty). A good, clear deadministratorification [?] procedure is probably needed. But it should be radically unlike RfA, an arena that seems to encourage near-hysteria, that probably doesn't produce enough admins, that's certainly an extraordinarily inefficient way of adding to their number, and that conceivably even helps screw up their heads while they are being produced. -- Hoary (talk) 02:08, 18 January 2009 (UTC) ......... PS I've just noticed that my latest addition to the Itsmejudith RfA debacle adds precisely 666 bytes. So my horns and forked tail are now in public view. -- The Beast 02:29, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

The current situation is that all admins have an unlimited budget. If you are on a computer game or a B-movie with a gun that never runs out, you can shoot as often as you like. If you have a limit, you have an incentive to be more careful. You may justify a large budget or even an unlimited budget. I am merely suggesting that the community would benefit if some admins had a budget that is lower than unlimited. Lightmouse (talk) 11:52, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, there's something in that.

I don't think I'm a particularly good judge of my own mental states, but my impression is that the more of certain kinds of administratorificizing I do, the darker becomes my view of human nature, and the more likely I become to see the worst in everything, which I suppose would color my blocking habits. Back in the days when anybody and his dog could merrily create new articles, there were periods when I'd take a quick look an average of a dozen or more new articles every day. (Of course thousands were being made, and some people were routinely checking fifty or more.) The great majority were horrible: they weren't decent stubs but instead for the most part unsupported assertions, often transparently about the author, his best buddy, his big brother, etc., and otherwise typically about the most trivial or ephemeral non-subject. Of course a number of these articles had the germs of the kind of thing that Nicholson Baker eloquently expounded on in his New Yorker piece, but these were rare. Why did so many people feel so compelled to aggrandize themselves, and why were so many lives devoted to this or that computer game? My mood got bleaker and bleaker, and it's likely that this aggravated my view of people making iffy or worse changes to legitimate articles. So I stopped this "new article patrolling" and felt a lot better.

Actually my empirically unsupported hunch is that administratifying in quantity is bad for the "soul", and thus that people should not be encouraged to do too much of it. But for this not to result in collapse at the hands of exhibitionists and sociopathic drunks and teens, a lot more admins are needed. And RfA in its present form can't produce many. -- Hoary (talk) 01:43, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I think you make an exceptionally interesting point. "Administratifying" isn't something that anyone ought to aspire to, but instead a chore that some need to take up. --Malleus Fatuorum 01:51, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes; my experience of the Recent changes page showed a striking proportion of rubbishy stubs, and that our admin resources are severely stretched in dealing with them. As well, Hoary is right, that too much of that work is not good for one. I loathe and disrespect that current RfA process; as in other areas, WP lacks expert boards/committees to do such things as appoint (and suspend/sack) admins. More admins, and cowboys screened out, is an imperative. Tony (talk) 02:11, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

We should be grateful for admins and for the fact that some of them are willing to take on the "chores" needed to keep this show on the road. It is rather like a janitor, great that they are there, cleaning up, but then again, they have the keys to the building. I personally would rather have to humbly ask for the key when I have forgotten mine, then to spend all the time admins do cleaning up. Regards, —Mattisse (Talk) 02:13, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Our gratitude for the good ones ought not to blind us to the need to eliminate the far too many bad ones. --Malleus Fatuorum 02:17, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Our preoccupation with the bad onces out not to blind us to the wonderful goodness of the work most (many) of them do. —Mattisse (Talk) 02:21, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm afraid I've never been good at sycophancy, so I'll decline to comment on "wonderful goodness". What ought to be clear though is that the impact of a small number of bad apples far outweighs their numerical inferiority. --Malleus Fatuorum 02:37, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh dear, I forgot the rules and said something nice about admins. And it was POV on top of it! (By the way, I have noticed that you are quite good at sycophancy - depends on the target - don't under rate yourself so much!) Ought not to be thankful for anything, you are saying? Show me the stats to prove your points. —Mattisse (Talk) 02:58, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh dear indeed. But this is not the place for you to further demonstrate your distaste for me. --Malleus Fatuorum 03:02, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh dear, but you can of me? Right? (I'm afraid I've never been good at sycophancy, so I'll decline to comment on "wonderful goodness".) You are just better at the fine points than I am. So, I will take this page off my watchlist. I get the drift. Regards, —Mattisse (Talk) 03:11, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Improving syntax in lead sentence for ~9,000 protein/gene pages

Over at WP:MCB, we're trying to fine-tune the introduction of about 9000 bot-generated protein/gene articles. A few suggestions have been made for better wording, but I thought to ask for your help in working towards an ideal lead sentence for the articles in question. Regards, Emw2012 (talk) 04:47, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

My little piglet

A prize piglet—cute, don't you think?

Rather than intending any offence, I do wish we could move on from the mud-slinging campaign at the ArbCom page. In a moment of frustration, I told Tennis expert he was "making a pig of [himself]"; however, I'm sure there's common ground, between him and me, and—as I've pointed out three times already—with Locke Cole. I'm rebuffed every time I hold out an olive branch; this is a great pity. Tony (talk) 14:58, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

The great pity is that you denied calling me that name until the irrefutable diffs were provided and the RFAr was started. Here is but one of your denials. Notice that I responded about 20 hours after your denial with the diffs, only to be met with silence from you. A person who truly intended no offense would have replied graciously and quickly. Tennis expert (talk) 13:37, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

But I didn't call you "a pig"; I said "you risk making a pig of yourself". It's two steps less: first, it's a figure of speech (as in "eating too much food", or here, just generally making things difficult for your colleagues); second, "risk" was a deliberate attempt to soften the remark. Risking is not being—far from it. Now get over it and move on. Tony (talk) 14:58, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I'd suggest that you quit Wikilawyering about it and apologize for all the incivil stuff you have said about me all over Wikipedia. Tennis expert (talk) 15:19, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I do indeed apologise if I upset you. Remember that your actions have upset quite a few people, including Colonies Chris, The Rambling Man and me. We believe that you went far beyond your brief as a member of the WikiProject Tennis, or of any editor, in conducting a campaign against our reforms. This has lost you respect among many editors, and you must expect that people will treat you differently because of this. Please do not use exaggeration as a technique to amplify your points; it immediately gets people's backs up. Here, it's "all over Wikipedia". It makes it hard to communicate with you on an even keel. Tony (talk) 15:25, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I asked you many times to stop with the incivility. You either ignored me or denied that you were acting in any way but properly. Stomping on other people's opinions, character, egos, and feelings was all a big insiders' game to you, or at least that's how I perceived it. So, I'm sure you'll understand why I now take your apology with a humongous dose of salt, especially given the microscope and pressure you're under now.

All the crap you've written about me is all over Wikipedia. On discussion pages. On talk pages. On MOS pages. I'd be hard pressed to find an area where the name calling directed towards me by you and a few others does not exist. And trust me, I always look hard to find it because it is being used against me by people who have never interacted with me before.

Once again, in your last post, you are spreading misinformation about my position. As I have told you many times in many ways, I believe that a local consensus, as evidenced by actual editing practices by hundreds of editors, overrides a general guideline like the Manual of Style. I also believe that the Manual of Style was never intended to be the club that a few editors can use to change millions of articles against the will of the editors who have toiled over those articles for years. My beliefs are based on clear Wikipedia precedent and have nothing whatsoever to do with my personal opinion about whether to link dates for autoformatting reasons. The exact circumstances under which this issue has arisen in Arbitration is completely and utterly irrelevant. I couldn't care less about your campaign for linking reform. I'm a lawyer. What's important to me are rules, process, precedent, consistency, protecting minority views, and respecting others. I believe that you and certain others have intentionally disparaged my opinions and my character, both in direct dealings with me and in conversations (what I call "gossip") with others. You and them have poisoned the atmosphere. You and them have run roughshod over what you believe are minority views. You and them have attempted to use technology (scripts, bots, and semi-automated editing) not only to impose your opinions on everyone else, but to make resistance futile and moot. I hope something meaningful is going to be done about all this during Arbitration. I am going to do everything possible to promote that goal. Tennis expert (talk) 18:50, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Quite moved to tears—until I got to the end. No matter what you would like to believe, they are "minority views", and it is not just Tony's opinions in effect. They are the opinions of (at least) thousands upon thousands of editors who have welcomed the delivered scripted changes to WP. If they hadn't been welcomed, there would have been edit wars all over the place—and that demonstrably didn't happen.

You say things like "rules", "process" and "consistency" are important to you, but then are happy when a localised issue "overrides a general guideline like the Manual of Style". However, there can surely be nothing less tennis-related than whether dates are linked. As you have now suggested that date-linking on tennis-related articles to be a matter for "local consensus", could you explain why it is more important for dates to be linked on articles to do with tennis than (say) articles to do with music (an area where the removal of date links has been accepted wholeheartedly)?

I also don't believe there has been your hoped-for "local consensus" in the tennis "court" (neatly addressed here).  HWV258  21:44, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Sarcasm does not warrant a response. Tennis expert (talk) 11:09, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Tony neglected to mention that you upset me a lot too, so much that my nerves are in tatters and I have to keep the light on to get to sleep at night. I am contemplating taking you to court for the emotional trauma you caused me by repeatedly hauling me through ANI and AN3. You kept responding to me all this time although I may not have felt like talking to you at times, so I guess you never took anything I said to be even mildly sarcastic. I would never have taken you to be a lawyer - your unforced errors are so numerous that I'll gladly take you up on a game of tennis, anytime. ;-) Ohconfucius (talk) 15:54, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

bearing in mind that vast majority of articles is frequented only by a handful of editors, "local consensus" appears to be some sort of bullshit shorthand for 'whatever rules I feel like adopting". Let us get this straight: there is no such thing as 'subsidiarity' here on WP. Ohconfucius (talk) 15:54, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

• • Tennis expert, if you are a lawyer, I'm surprised your text is so bloated and repetitive. A key skill lawyers learn quickly is to filter out their clients' irrelevant, emotional claims; yet these appear to be the basis of your seemingly endless diatribes.
  • Again, my olive branch (an apology, just what you asked for) is spurned and met with accusations; forgive me if I'm becoming cynical about interacting with you when you fling my apology back in my face. Now that's really nasty.
  • Ignored you? How? It was impossible to ignore your aggressive actions. It's not adult behaviour. Let's deal briefly with a few of your points:
  • "all around WP"—well, convince me this is true; I'm suspicious of the vagueness of the accusation, to begin with. And if others have have written about your aggressive actions concerning tennis articles (against the wishes of many of your colleagues at the WikiProject), it's not my fault—I'm not responsible for what others say, and perhaps you gave them reason to say whatever they said.
  • Please don't use bad language ("crap" etc) on my talk page.
  • Please moderate your language and avoid hyper-exaggeration: "stomp", "insiders' game", etc.
  • I'm "spreading misinformation about [your] position"? Um ... no, we've all been aware from the start of your line that somehow your interpretation of Tennis WPr. guidelines trumps all. It's a little hard to find people who agree with you, which is why yours been a one-person campaign, largely, to the irritation of a few other tennis regulars, including admin and FLC Director The Rambling Man, hardly a hot-headed fellow.
  • "Minority view": you sure are right about that. It doesn't sound like a minority when thousands of shrill decibels are being pumped out at so-called judicial processes as ArbCom, but a tiny minority it certainly is. The fallacy of those RfCs demonstrates this, in part.

I just don't have the time and energy budgets to do this circular carousel thing with you. I believe you are being ungracious and belligerent. However, I'm willing to bury the hatchet and develop a harmonious, even productive relationship with you. Read my lips. Tony (talk) 13:14, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks to Ohconfucius for removing piglet's last post, in which the apology he'd demanded of me was thrust back again in my face with the comment that it would never be adequate. OK, so it's just a mud-slinging match you wanted here? A little trap in which to engage me? Sorry to be cynical, but it's not adult behaviour. I was hoping for a meeting of minds. The offer of friendship is still open, though. Tony (talk) 16:45, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

On this day - just curious

Hi Tony. I'm sure we are all tired of the discussions about wikilinked dates and autoformatting. I am curious though. Do you know if the "On this day..." section of the Main page relies on wikilinked dates to locate things that happened on a specific date? If so, the Main page gurus may have to find a new method as more and more wikilinked dates disappear from articles. Maybe just use the search engine? Cheers. Truthanado (talk) 23:40, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

The Main Page OTD links to a date and several years, typically. In those articles, there's a navbox at the top for the same month–day in other years (usually plus linked month–days heading each line, which I disagree with), and in the year articles a navbox for other year articles. Why would the search engine be required? Tony (talk) 01:54, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

My, your, our, its, etc

Tony, I've a hunch that you, as somebody who actually knows stuff about language, find editing articles about language as frustrating as I do. Still, you might enjoy a short break from your other wikipreoccupations. And so:

This edit popped up on my watchlist, an edit to one of en:WP's stupidest-titled pages. Coffee deficiency led me to half-correct it, complete with embarrassingly wrong edit summary. Luckily I noticed the edit summary just after I'd perpetrated it, and thought I needed to make some edit to the article if only in order to provide a pretext for a new edit summary.

This is of course one of those articles that long ago fell victim to, not even conservatism, but to "Everything I need to know I learned in primary school (from an amiable dunce who didn't know what the fuck he was talking about)" ism. Of course you don't need to be a hardcore "Minimalist" or similar to reject the notion that these are "adjectives", I don't think anybody who's thought hard about them since at least as far back as Jespersen has so considered them. (I suppose some eccentric linguist could call them "adjectives", but that writer would then need to qualify this immediately with an explanation that they weren't really adjectives. Occam, where are you?)

Granted that they're not adjectives, what are they? This of course is where we start getting into trouble. I'd call them pronouns, I'd call pronouns a class of determiners, and I'd call each of "my brain", "me", "the article" and "Tony" a determiner phrase. However, I realize that this analysis is contentious. So, in a revision that followed my goof, I shied away from calling them determiners, instead settling for "weak possessive pronoun", as used by works that I don't hold in particularly high regard but that are intelligent.

With your informed but very different perspective, you might take a look. -- Hoary (talk) 02:45, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Our language in linguistics has been misleading. A pronoun sounds like a noun and is treated as one. A possessive pronoun sounds like a noun but is only treated like one when you use "This is mine/ours/yours/hers/his/its/theirs". On wikt:my, "my" is called a determiner and the word, "pronoun" does not show up in the English section. I have seen determiners like in "This is my/our/your/her/his/its/their thing" called possessive pronouns but they are treated like adjectives and are not substitutions for any nouns, so the term possessive pronoun is a misleading appellation best avoided for the second set. Signed, :)--Thecurran (talk) 21:27, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

First, I haven't a clue what you might mean by your first sentence. Possibly it's "The treatment of our language [sc. English] by linguistics has been misleading." If so, that's a potentially interesting idea, but you're going to have a hell of a time persuading people that every ambitious descriptive grammar since at least as far back as Jespersen has either summarily rejected the notion that these are adjectives or dismissed it as too silly to entertain. (These aren't even linguistics books; they are descriptions written by linguists [with widely and wildly divergent ideas about language] for the more intellectually curious aboard the Clapham omnibus.) And although I think I can parse the first half of your second sentence, I've no idea what you mean by it: I can hardly believe that you think that monosyllabic "it" sounds like polysyllabic "undercapitalization"; if you don't mean this kind of thing, then I don't know what you mean. If I'm talking about, say, a book, then mine in This is mine is most certainly not "treated like" a noun, because (meaning aside) I couldn't substitute "book" for "mine": "This is book" is syntactically unacceptable. Thus the pronouns of English are not substitutes for nouns, although if (like many linguists) you reject determiner phrases (or functional heads in general) you can say that they are substitutes for noun phrases. I'm sorry, I find it hard to believe that you have digested the article in question, let alone the relevant part of any serious descriptive grammar of English. -- Hoary (talk) 00:20, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh, something has to be done about that article, but I see that Anderson inhabited the talk page, so nothing much will be possible without a fight. Hallidayans class these words as deictics (not a good article at all)—words that orient the noun they qualify in the here and now (the spatial–temporal axis). The, a, this, and my all do this. This train, that train, my train, a train, the train. Some reference needs to be made to this. It may be a case of starting a new article on this function and/or cleaning up and adding to the current article, the title of which is misleading and possibly POV. I find the information in it hopelessly jumbled; the word-class boundaries it tries to make are not useful, and highly unlikely to help anyone to understand their function. The fixation on creating hard-and-fast boundaries between word-classes are one of the big problems in trad. grammar. Mostly, that's all that trad. grammar is, and deals only with idealised written sentences. Tony (talk) 02:57, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Woo -- my extremely limited understanding of your approach to linguistics had led me to expect that you'd disagree with me, but not quite so radically. That's an interesting point about deixis, but me and my more or less "trad."/Chomskyan [great pairing!] grammarians would point out that deictics such as here wouldn't fit, and that it's useful to explain why it wouldn't fit yet my and the would. Your description of trad grammar seems harsh but in its way fair. Well, I was deliberately bending over backwards to be trad, in the hope and even belief that while, um, certain parties might argue against newfangled works such as Huddleston and Pullum's, they could hardly argue against a consensus among Huddleston, Pullum and chums; Biber and chums; Quirk and chums; and even Jespersen.

Aside from my pretheoretical stance to this article, and talking about my RL mind, I'd say that creating hard and fast boundaries, and not the fixation on it, is the problem. I'm well aware that you won't like this. If I may impertinently recommend a book to lead you to at least reconsider, it would be Newmeyer's Language Form and Language Function. You'll probably hate it, at least at the beginning, but I've a feeling that as a thoughtful sort of chap you'll gradually come to have at least a grudging respect for it as you continue. -- Hoary (talk) 04:54, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Something called a pronoun sounds etymologically like it is meant to stand "for a noun". Personal pronouns like I/me/you/he/she/her/him/we/us/they/them, pronouns like it/this/that/these/those, and possessive pronouns like mine/ours/yours/hers/his/its/theirs may be used quite like noun phrases, such as proper nouns like Elizabeth, specified nouns like "the Queen" or "the queens", or generalized nouns like "a queen" or "queens". These may be used as subjects, direct objects, or indirect objects.

Good: Mine sent me flowers. I sent you mine. I sent mine flowers.

They may not be used to modify nouns or noun phrases, like adjectives can.

Bad: This is (the) mine book. This is (the) mine book on Geology.

If you think that a common adjective like "pink" can be used as a subject, direct object, or indirect object, you are actually using the abstract noun sense of the word

Good: Pink encourages me. I adore pink. I make posters for pink.

When one uses my/our/your/her/his/its/their, it, like an article or determiner like this/that/these/those, acts like a specifiying adjective phrase and may be placed before a noun or generalized noun phrase but it may not act as a subject, direct object, or indirect object. When linguists or grammar teachers call my/our/your/her/his/its/their a possessive pronoun like mine/ours/yours/hers/his/its/theirs, they do their students a disservice as the former is a determiner (a specifying adjective phrase), the latter acts as a noun phrase, and the term "possessive pronoun" intimates that it stands "for a noun", which is clearly not the case. As such, "possessive adjective" or even "pronoun possessive" is didactically more appropriate than "possessive pronoun". I hope this is coming across more clearly now. It may be confusing because this/that/these/those thing(s) (determiner sense) is logically equivalent to this/that/these/those (pronoun sense). :)--Thecurran (talk) 12:58, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Again, I hardly know where to start.

You say: Something called a pronoun sounds etymologically like it is meant to stand "for a noun". Yes it does. Well, that's [apparent] etymology for you: proverb looks as if it's something that's meant to stand for a verb, but it doesn't. Even if we're discussing genuine and not folk etymology, the meanings of words change over time. (There's probably some marvelous Latin term of rhetoric for the fallacy of an argument from etymology, but if so I can't think of it.) More importantly, the understanding of syntax changes over time.

A lot of linguists reject "proper noun" and would term each of "Elizabeth", "the Queen", "a queen" and "she" a determiner phrase, "queen" being a noun and "she" not being substitutable for "queen". However, this is a contentious area: Andrew Radford and Robert Van Valin (writers of introductory theoretical books from very different points of view) might come close to exchanging blows over it (yet each would make good arguments first).

You say: When one uses my/our/your/her/his/its/their, it, like an article or determiner like this/that/these/those, acts like a specifiying adjective phrase I don't know what you mean by "specifying adjective phrase", but none of these is an adjectival phrase. How are they not? Well, it's past my bedtime and this is anyway the kind of thing that is explained very well in grammar books (whether descriptive or theoretical, and whether the theory is MP or LF or something else). I really can't be bothered to summarize it all here, even if Tony would be happy for me to do so. It's clear that you're keen on language; do please get hold of a copy of Huddleston and Pullum's A Student's Introduction to English Grammar (ISBN 0521612888) a simple and pretheoretical guide to English morphosyntax designed for the bright and energetic beginner. And please digest it, free of notions such as that a word means what its presumed etymology suggests that it should mean, or that your childhood teachers actually had a particularly good grasp of what they were talking about. -- Hoary (talk) 16:21, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I am clearly not as well-read as you and applaud your ability to quote your sources on the spot, leaving me in the dust. I wish they were online sources so that I might digest them properly and get back to you. I still contend however, purely from an educator's standpoint, that my/our/your/her/his/its/their should be labelled as different parts of speech than mine/ours/yours/hers/his/its/theirs. I find it illustrative that Wiktionary notes..

• My and mine are essentially two forms of the same word, with my being used attributively before the noun, and mine being used in all other cases; hence:

  No, that's not my car. (attributive use)

  That car next to it isn't mine, either. (predicative use)

  Mine is the one over there, on the far right. (substantive use)

  Mine for only a week so far, it already feels like an old friend. (absolute use)

..but just the attributive use is enough that my is called a determiner and mine is called a pronoun. Perhaps, my grasp is not as great as yours, but when I exclude my/our/your/her/his/its/their every pronoun I can think of, possessive or otherwise, works like a noun phrase. Despite the importance of not tying oneself down to etymology, I would rather give up "my" as a pronoun so that all pronouns share more features than give up the etymology to allow "my" to fit. As such, I have no problem with "my" being called something like a possessive determiner and "mine" something like a possessive pronoun, so that they may both be called possessives; I just feel that some demarcation is necessary. :)--Thecurran (talk) 10:25, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Never one for trad. grammar word-classes, this shows up my limitations, since I don't know the systemic functional grammar explanation of the my/mine thing. I'll try to locate it in Halliday's Introduction to functional grammar, 3rd ed. 2004. Noetica and Hoary are good on this type of question. Tony (talk) 10:33, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Curran, the secret of my (sporadic) ability to come up with books is that I buy and possess lots of them, living as I do in a garret, dressed in rags; please sell your car and worldly possessions and start stocking up with dead tree, first among them H+P's little book. It's even wonderfully stocked with puzzle-like questions. If you're rich and have capacious shelves, consider buying their big book, which will not only impress all your friends and relatives but which in the hands of a fit grammarian can double as a shot. -- Hoary (talk) 15:27, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Well-received

In Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Date_ranges, you wrote:

I wrote a brief section into the style guide at the MilHist WikiProject, which was well-received.

I am puzzled. There is no mention of that section on the article talk page or your own and it does not appear to be under review. How can one then gauge if such a change is well-received? May it be assumed when a change is noticed but not dissembled in a day or two? Does this only apply to high-visibility pages? May it be inferred once someone has built upon your edit but only made minor changes? I rely heavily on explicit acceptance and go out of my way to seek it. I have trouble understanding implicit acceptance. :)--Thecurran (talk) 21:26, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Here and the archives of the WikiProject: but they're under some other heading I can't recall, and the archives—unfortunately—are thematised; always a bad idea. Probably in December, not November, somewhere there. Tony (talk) 01:17, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you; that was informative. :)--Thecurran (talk) 09:03, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Vanity capitalization

More crapola. -- Hoary (talk) 00:21, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Not sure whether I can add anything useful there. I did like your thematic equative "What mystifies me is the contrast between ...". Tony (talk) 12:16, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Charges of "sycophant" on your user page

Did you not notice that I did not call User talk:Malleus Fatuorum a sycophant. He indirectly called me one on your page. [1],[2] So I quoted his words. That is what you are blaming me for? I quoted him from his words right above on your talk page.[3] This shows me how hopeless it is. I hope you understand why this persistent misconstruing of everything I post is totally undermines my good will in this and other related situations. Others can call me a "sycophant" on your page and you defend that person. I no longer edit FAC and I have taken your page off my watchlist. I hope this end it. Regards, —Mattisse (Talk) 04:34, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

OK, sorry: I got it wrong. Tony (talk) 11:58, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Isn't that rather a selective reading? Here's what you actually said: "I have noticed that you are quite good at sycophancy - depends on the target - don't under rate yourself so much!" I wouldn't want to have to live on the difference between that and saying "You're a sycophant". I, on the other hand, made no personal comment whatsoever. --Malleus Fatuorum 22:27, 19 January 2009 (UTC)