User talk:Sb2001

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Talkback

Hello, Sb2001. You have new messages at AldezD's talk page.
Message added 13:39, 30 April 2017 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

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

Question

Hello, Sb2001. You have new messages at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Removal.
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Gonejackal (talk) 01:54, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Sb2001. You have new messages at AldezD's talk page.
Message added 12:59, 3 July 2017 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

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

Talkback

Hello, Sb2001. You have new messages at AldezD's talk page.
Message added 19:15, 3 July 2017 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

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

Manual of Style

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

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

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

* 'You are not actually even following the "major UK style guides" you claim to be citing.'

The major UK style guides I follow, and the ones to which I was referring, are the Guardian, Oxford University, Cambridge University (and the Economist, sometimes the Telegraph, and an in-house style guide which I use for my writing). The first three are all listed on my user page.

* '"Equiv" does not qualify as such a contraction

I was (and still am being) educated in an extremely well-respected establishment in the UK. This is what I was (and still am being) taught to do. Also, if you read the Guardian style guide, it tells you NEVER to use full stops for abbreviations (p23).

* 'Your style manifesto at User:Sb2001#Frequently changed raises ...'

I have removed this, due to the negative reaction this designed-to-be helpful element obtained by certain editors.

* 'If the programmatic anti-MoS changes you are making do not cease'

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

* 'this will result in an examination of your editing pattern at the administrators' noticeboard of incidents and is liable to result in restricted editing'

There is no problem here. Most of my edits are GENUINE. All are done in good faith.

* 'You have less than 400 mainspace edits (sic)'

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

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

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

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

On WP editorial matters:

This sort of melodrama isn't helpful; only the material about being on some kind of style mission raised any concerns. I did not challenge your education in any way, nor did I suggest you have no style guides. I simply pointed out that you arrived here with an "enforcement" mindset, yet seem not to be following the style you wish to enforce; "equiv" is not standard British English, in any register; it's only found in news journalism produced by certain publishers. Our templating system is rudimentary; we're not supposed to leave anyone a {{uw-mos2}} without a recent {{uw-mos1}}, yet the latter includes "Welcome" language. It could probably be modified easily to not include that wording, with a parameter like |welcome=no or the like. "Program[me]" suggests the diametric opposite of "do it without thinking". A program[me] is a plan or (in computing) a set of specific instructions. Even in television, it refers to pre-planned, not random, content. I chose that word specifically because I was referring to your self-published plan to enforce your view of British style at Wikipedia. We don't need anyone to carefully consider and case-by-case implement their own personal style agenda here, nor any nationalistic one. We need people to write articles, to expand small stub articles, to find sources for unsourced claims in articles (or remove them if they fail verification), to provide photos for articles that don't have them, to clean up style to be consistent, and do other useful things for our readers. Removing punctuation and spacing to mimic your favourite newspaper is not among "useful things for our readers". Anything that makes content harder to parse is unhelpful; clarity is important here, but matching regional or field-specific text compression trends is not. I'm not undoing your edits, just making MoS-compliance changes to them. If you want to go through your own edits and undo you own "eg" and "4.01pm" changes, be my guest. But I would almost be willing to bet you will not, which would mean someone else has to do the cleanup. I'm diligent enough to do much else in the process, like fixing broken or incomplete citations, incorrect italicisation, grammar errors, etc. (and none of that looks like it had anything to do with you, it's just stuff that needs to get done). No one will care if you decide not to read MoS or to comply with it when creating new content. We want new content more than we want it to be perfectly compliant with a style checklist. However, people will object if you change compliant material to be non-compliant, so you'll eventually absorb MoS's main points anyway. And MoS compliance will be checked at the Good Article and Featured Article review stages. People will also object if you go out of your way to create new content that is as divergent from MoS as possible as some kind of "protest", since it wastes other editors' time. Since you stress good faith and that there won't be any such problem, I'm happy to take that at face value, and to consider the whole issue resolved, other than patching up some stray "eg" and "4.01pm" style. I do have to point out that if you were submitting an article to Nature or to The Guardian for that matter, you would probably read their style guide and conform to it, or at least not feel put-upon if an editor there changed your text to comply. I'm always a bit mystified when people treat WP any differently. "Anyone can edit here" doesn't equate to "there are no rules and this is a free-for-all, a textual deathmatch arena".  :-)

On style matters:

The Guardian style guide is just one newspaper's own house style for its journalists. It is not a linguistic reference work, and it does not reflect general British or any other norms. It sharply conflicts in innumerable ways even with the house styles of other British news publishers, such as The Economist. The section "abbreviations and acronyms" is downright aberrant, and directly contradicts most all other style guides on most points, and does not reflect the way people actually write outside of The Guardian and The Observer newsroom. They are doing this to "look different"; it's a branding move. The New York Times has its own style book that also does some (completely unrelated) things differently from almost all other publishers, for the same marketing reason. Wikipedia does not care what these news publishers prefer anyway; WP is not written in news style, but in academic book style, following our house style manual, which is based primarily on Scientific Style and Format (8th ed.), New Hart's Rules (Ritter ed., also published as The Oxford Style Manual and The Oxford Guide to Style), The Chicago Manual of Style (16th ed.), The Elements of Style (4rd ed.), Fowler's Modern English Usage (Burchfield ed.), and Garner's Modern American Usage (3rd ed.) Very new works like Garner's Modern English Usage, New Hart's Rules (Waddingham ed.), and Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage (Butterfield ed.) are too new to have had any effect on observable language use yet, and the latter two at least have severe editing errors which make them self-contradictory in places. Journalism style guides have had almost no influence of any kind on the WP Manual of Style; the only exception I can think of is handling of transgendered persons and their pronouns, something that Associated Press Stylebook and various British news publishers have caught up with – and amazingly actually been consistent with each other on it – while the academic guides mostly have not yet due to slower publication cycles. Please tell me you're not hinting above that you're a journalism student and that professors are actually requiring you to follow Guardian style. I shudder at the thought [of the latter part – I'm sure you'd make a good journalist], and it would seem unjustifiable given so many alternatives like The Economist Style Guide, BBC News Style Guide, The London Times Style Guide, Reuters Handbook of Journalism, The Telegraph Style Guide, the UPI Stylebook, etc. The Economist Style Guide (hereafter E) is actually intended as a style guide for public use, and is instructive in many of these regards. It's a higher-register and more respected publication than The Guardian (hereafter G), with a better reputation for both quality writing and editorial care, and at very least proves lack of consensus among British news publishers. E uses "AIDS" and "PDF" not the (internally inconsistent) "Aids" and "pdf" used by G. For initials, E also retains punctuation but not spaces ("V.P. Singh"), while G drops them both. E is mostly consistent with the British academic style guides and book publishers who follow them. Like most British news publishers, E likes to drop the points from the ends of abbreviations generally, but this is not advised outside journalism; both Oxford/Hart's and Fowler's (and Cambridge if I remember correctly, not that anyone buys their style guide) say to only do this with contractions that begin and end with the same characters as the full word: "Doctor" -> "Dr" but "Professor" -> "Prof." This is the norm in British book publishing, academic journals, fiction, and even some UK news journalism. To skim some of the others here: London Times and The Telegraph are inconsistent internally and with each other, and mostly are on the spectrum between the two British Journalism extremes, giving both "BBC" and "ICRC" but "Nato" and "Awacs"; yet LT has "IMAX" where T would likely have "Imax". LT uses "Prof." and "i.e." (as do the academic guides), while T (like G) uses "Prof" and "ie". But, rather backwardly, LT would use "V P Singh" while T would use "V. P. Singh" (dots and space), and G would use "VP Singh". The academic British guides use "ICRC", "NATO", "Prof." (but "Dr"), "i.e.", and "V. P. Singh" (sometimes without the space); aside from "Dr.", this agrees with mainstream North American usage, too. I think this is sufficient illustration why MoS exists and why it says what it does about these matters. And why people say there really is no particular British style, but a collection of conflicting styles. That's historically a bit unfair, since there's been a consistent book and academic journal publishing style, just not a news journalism one (because the UK lacks something like the AP Stylebook being treated as a standard by most of its news publishers). However, both the Butterfield Fowler's and the Waddingham New Hart's take an excessive "descriptive" stance and have stopped actually providing advice on most of these matters, probably under pressure from news publishers. Instead, they just observe chaos and throw up their hands, essentially saying writers should do whatever the hell they feel like. I would definitely bet real money that the negative backlash against this – style guides abandoning their roles as guides to masquerade as linguistics works not written by actual linguists – will cause this to be rectified in the next editions, if the works get new editions. It's noteworthy that the internationalised Garner's Modern English is also an Oxford University Press publication, in direct competition with their New Hart's and Fowler's volumes, and Garner's get better reviews; at some point someone will probably realise this doesn't make much business sense. To the extent anyone is even reading them, Waddingham and Butterfield are worsening rather than helping with the "British style chaos" problem.

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:29, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

I'll try bulletizing this stuff for convenience.

Details on each above case, and a summation:

WP (like most others) uses "Labour Party", "Republican Party", etc., not "Labour party" or "Republican party", unless the name of the party is something different and it's just descriptive, in which case even the first part might not be capitalized. E.g. "Sinn Fein is a republican party in Ireland", in a different (general, original) meaning of "republican" – though WP would not probably write it that way, because of ambiguity. Or, "the Democratic Party [proper name] is the main liberal, progressive, or left-wing party [just descriptive terms] in the United States". If the DP changed its name next year to the Liberal Party, that would be capitalized, as a proper name, though when separated only the unique part would be: "According to the Liberal [Democrat, Republicans, Labour, etc.] platform, ... [some claim goes here] ..., but this party [not 'Party'] position has been criticized by [whomever]." In the "West wing" and "Liberal party" edits, I think you're either pulling from some external style guide that has a down-casing rule that is even more "gung ho" against capitalization than Wikipedia is, or you're mixing different rules. A prime suspect for the latter is the one to not (any longer) capitalize things like the isolated, common-noun reference "universities" in the sentence "Oxford and Cambridge are in competition, but both universities are prestigious." A generation or so ago, "Universities" would have been capitalized by many publishers, on the basis that "University" is capitalized in the full names of the institutions. That usage only seems to survive today almost exclusively in house styles, usually in business writing ("Meeting tomorrow after lunch in the Board Room [overcapitalization, but 'the Johnson Memorial Board Room' would be a proper name] between the Marketing and Development teams [arguably okay if the departments are really named that and not something else like 'Public Relations and Marketing' and 'Product Development'] to resolve conflicts between these Departments [overcapitalization]"). I'm only aware of one even semi-recent style guide for general public consumption (a minor one) that would retain "Universities" in the original example, and it was in fact on the "'University' is capitalized in the full names" basis. Even news publisher no longer do this; I saw just the other day a reference to a conference of the National Association of Attorneys General (US), which referred to it as a regulation-drafting meeting attended by the attorneys general of most of the [US] states; it did not capitalize "attorneys general" or "states", despite the title of the guy from California being the Attorney General of California, and the formal name of California being the State of California. WP consistently follows this lower-casing convention. Even "the US state of Georgia" is written that way, as a reference to a place (the "State of Georgia" is a legal entity, a bureaucracy not a location). WP never, ever mixes range styles, as in "from x–y"; other comprehensive style guides also say to avoid it, as confusing. I'm unaware of any that advise doing it, and I own two book cases of English language style guides, collected over the last 30-odd years. This is covered at MOS:NUM, which is explicit about not mixing the styles. Whether "x-ray" is capitalized in physics or not is irrelevant (I think it is not, but would also have to go look); in this context it is not a reference to part of the electro-magnetic spectrum per se (just by way of metaphor); it's the name of part of a game, and is a proper name for that part of it like the other two that preceded it. The argument that such things are proper names only applies to trademarked games with trademarked segments, like Jeopardy! and its closing segment, "Final Jeopardy!". If you are playing Texas hold 'em poker and come to the segment of gameplay called the river, you have done just that; you are not playing Texas Hold 'Em Poker and have not come to The River. Specialized poker publications overcapitalize such things for emphasis, as innumerable specialty works do in pretty much every field and topic. WP never permits Caps for Emphasis, because it would result in virtually everything being capitalized (each speciality would insist on capitalizing its "special" words if one was permitted to do so), and en.WP would look like German, which capitalizes alles Substantive und Substantive Sätze ('all nouns and noun phrases'). WP:Specialized-style fallacy explains why "it's capitalized in my field or preferred publications" is invalid reasoning on Wikipedia, and why pursuit of imposing specialized style here is disruptive. Capitalization of elements and accoutrements of trademarked games and game shows also doesn't extend to generic references, e.g. it's "She was eliminated in the second round [not Second Round] in her third appearance [not third Appearance] as a contestant [not Contestant] on The Price is Right." Or, "He choked to death on a handful of Dungeons & Dragons dice" [not Dice]. Not a proper name? Don't cap it. Virtually no modern style guides recommend capitalizing academic or other subjects, except in proper names. It's "the Department of Classics at the University of [Whatever]", but "I got a terrible grade in gender studies last year", "she is a professor of physics" (contrast "Professor of Physics Julia X. Chang" or "Prof. Chang" as a title adhered to a person's name). You capitalized "Physics" above, but see our article at Physics, and our articles on every other discipline; such terms are never capitalized here. See also MOS:ISMCAPS; Wikipedia down-cases more than you probably think it does, including things like method acting, the adherents of which almost religiously capitalize. (It's a form of promotionalism: "our Method is magically special and better than your [alleged] lack of one".) There's no consistent British style on most of these matters. British fiction and journalism is increasingly picking up stuff from North American style, including more frequently "double 'then single' quotation marks" order, and handling of commas at the end of quotations). British journalism is also more often than its non-UK counterparts apt to drop points from all abbreviations, not just the contraction variety, and to drop spacing in various constructions. There are to-and-fro influences between one publishing circle and another, and some trends can probably be demonstrated. But they does not equate to a formal national style distinction (even when some writers like Bryan A. Garner incorrectly suggest otherwise without any proof; style guide writers love to over-nationalize because it helps sell books). In the end, it's a matter of what a cluster of publishers are doing with their own house styles. Sometimes a particular publisher like The Guaridian is in agreement with British (and other) general-audience and academic guides, sometimes with other journalism guides only, and sometimes with no one. There are very few points of complete publishing-world consensus, even within any particular country. Where there is universally recognizable overlap (as with "9:15 p.m." or "9:15 pm" time formatting), this is precious, and we have WP:COMMONALITY for a reason: every such instance is an opportunity to shut down a tremendous amount of productivity-wasting editorial conflict that would otherwise recur at article after article, day after day, indefinitely. Dead links: I meant external ones ("When a source URL is dead ..."); WP cannot be a source for itself. Archive.org is not used here for internal links (if a WP article was deleted it was for good reason). For internal links: see WP:REDLINK for the overview. The gist is that things that are red-linked which are very likely to be notable should be left linked, since this encourages article creation ("This important topic is still red? I'd better get to work to fix that!"). But things unlikely to ever have an article here should have the red links removed, as annoying visual clutter (sometimes also promotionalism, e.g. when a non-notable blogger comes here and links a reference to their own name in citation to an article of theirs that someone used as a reference). Most red-linking is innocent, the mistaken idea of noob editors that every proper name should be linked. General sum-up: I really hate the misleading title of WP:Competence is required, but the page covers much of this in a general way: "I was taught that ..." is an attitude that has to be dropped. We were all taught lots of things about how to write in the micro-style sense (punctuation, etc.), how to compose "good" prose and a "good" outline, what makes a good source, how to get our own ideas to shine through and be distinguished from a recitation of basic facts, and so forth. A large amount of this absorbed pedagogy (and even professional experience in other, non-encyclopedia contexts), goes right out the window when writing for Wikipedia. WP has its own rules on style, format, tone/audience, verifiability versus original research, source reliability, etc., etc. They're out of necessity for the goals of the project, and are not arbitrary (even if some particular choices are arbitrary ones between multiple available options; the necessity to make a choice and stick with it is not arbitrary). Absorbing the policies and guidelines, either by reading and studying them or by having them held up at you in objection then slowly absorbing them bit by bit is necessary to contribute well here. It's effectively required that one absorb the WP way of doing things and listen to other editors (as a community if not always individually) even if you'd rather that the rules were different. I frequently analogize this to sports and games: most players would probably change a rule or two, but they all agree that the rules are the rules, otherwise the game can't be played. And no one shows up to a football game with a baseball or cricket bat and asks who the first pitcher will be. Or, you don't use pool balls on a snooker table; they don't fit in the pockets. Both methods of absorption are painful and tedious in different ways, but the study method, rather than the "people keep grousing at me" method, is only a hassle for the single editor. Some of the material will seem nit-picky. Even how WP defines "primary" and "secondary source" differs from how some entire disciplines do it (and they have differing reasons, that don't apply here, for divergent source classification systems). These seeming nit-picks are there for important but not always obvious reasons, which can usually be discovered in the talk-page archives. Please consider that we've been at this for 16.5 years now; there's not likely to be an objection you'd raise that hasn't been raised and found wanting before (at least not until you've really been around, as a near-daily editor, for several years, with tens of thousands of edits – enough experience to identify a frequently recurrent problem, which is genuinely problematic for the project, which can with certainty be traced to a policy or guideline deficiency, and which isn't counterbalanced by some other factor as part of long-standing consensus compromise. Most "my kind of English versus your kind of English" conflicts are firmly in that last category; what we have at WP:ENGVAR is dialect flexibility for (but only for) A. stuff that can be proven to be a matter of national dialectal distinction, and B. something about which WP has no reason to prefer one option over the other (like clarity, precision, readability, commonality between dialects, etc.). Most of the changes you want to make do not qualify. Some of them do, like changing contractions to drop the dot in BrEng ("Mr. -> "Mr") and changing "July 12, 2017" to "13 July 2017" in the same UK context.

Hope this helps. My intent is not to belabo[u]r any of these points, but to address each in turn and fully. A long answer now is probably better than a dozen short ones in multiple places over an extended period.
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:59, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for this. No, I would much rather have a detailed response to something like this than either a rubbish half-answer or nothing at all. I did the 'Physics' thing without even thinking. I will certainly think about these things in future. Yes - you are right about 'X-ray'. I do not really understand how MOS:TM works: 'TK Maxx' is the actual name of the company; 'T.K.maxx' is the logo (well, sort of 1.); the article is called 'T.K. Maxx' - a style not even in the MoS (where – surely – it should be 'T. K. Maxx'). I will start a discussion on the article talk page. –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 15:52, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

MOS:TM is "difficult", especially since people have a hard time mentally reconciling it with WP:COMMONNAME. I wrote WP:COMMONSTYLE to help them. For the company you mention, I'll address that on its talk page. PS: Applied the requested moves template. Made a detailed WP:CONSISTENCY case, but overturning the J. C. Penney decision is a probably equally likely outcome.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:40, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

"Compared with"

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

It will be my mission over the summer to continue with this - extremely irritating. Thank you for the acknowledgement. –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 23:05, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

Most welcome; it was bugging me that I was surely coming across as overly critical when the intent is to help guide you better into the WP flow, not to blockade you. While you're doing that cleanup, please feel free to eradicate cases of things like try and for try to – "try and find", etc. Drives me nuts. (Which reminds me of a lame pirate joke.)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  22:03, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

Certainly, on it! –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 15:52, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

MOS:DATEUNIFY

Regarding this revert. The article was created with all dates as DMY, and the creator added the DMY tag themselves. Regardless of when the DMY tag was added, it was the accepted and the dates were uniform date format at that time. Months later, new dates have been added. While yyyy-mm-dd is certainly an acceptable date format, DMY is already specified and all of the older citations are using it. They need to be unified. Please undo your edit. -- ferret (talk) 18:01, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

You have a point with regards to yyyy-mm-dd, I do not see why the initial dmy tag should be changed, though. –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 18:11, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

I'm unsure what you mean. Do you mean the date in the "Use xxx dates" template? It is meant to denote the last time dates were unified, not when the tag was added. -- ferret (talk) 18:13, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Fair enough, I was under the impression that it was referring to when the tag was added. –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 18:15, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Ukraine

I can tell that you aren't really up on Ukrainian issues. As part of the decommunization of Ukraine in the Spring of 2016, hundreds of cities and villages had their names officially changed ([1]). Citations are not needed for this. --Taivo (talk) 17:20, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

User:TaivoLinguist: Hmm. I do not care. You need to provide the citation. The point is that WP helps people with little knowledge. Provide the citations to do so. If I do not have vast knowledge, good. I am like other people, who will visit the page. Help me and the thousands of other users by providing evidence for your facts. –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 17:23, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

The name change is described later in the article if anyone is interested. The official name of the city is Dnipro. Do you ask for citations for the official name of Washington, DC? --Taivo (talk) 17:25, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

The name of that article is the same as that mentioned in the text. I did ask for a citation on Conservative Party (UK), though, for the same reason. –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 17:26, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Rollback granted

Hi Sb2001. After reviewing your request for "rollbacker", I have enabled rollback on your account. Keep in mind these things when going to use rollback:

• Getting rollback is no more momentous than installing Twinkle.
• Rollback should be used to revert clear cases of vandalism only, and not good faith edits.
• Rollback should never be used to edit war.
• If abused, rollback rights can be revoked.
• Use common sense.

If you no longer want rollback, contact me and I'll remove it. Also, for some more information on how to use rollback, see Wikipedia:Administrators' guide/Rollback (even though you're not an admin). I'm sure you'll do great with rollback, but feel free to leave me a message on my talk page if you run into troubles or have any questions about appropriate/inappropriate use of rollback. Thank you for helping to reduce vandalism. Happy editing! Anarchyte (work | talk) 03:01, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

Re: Jamshedpur FC

Where did I only ask for mdy? I always advocate, for Indian football articles, dmy (1 November 2016 for example). --ArsenalFan700 (talk) 19:05, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

I looked into it. This was my mistake. I always intended to use dmy but when I created the Jamshedpur FC article I used my template at User:ArsenalFan700/Indian Football Team Template which I based off Seattle Sounders FC which uses mdy. I simply forgot to change it from mdy to dmy by accident. Sorry, don't need to be so harsh about it. --ArsenalFan700 (talk) 19:07, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

Fair enough. This sort of thing annoys me, though. As long as it was an innocent mistake rather than, 'I'll add the tag and then leave other editors to do the work' it is fine. I am sorry if I came across as harsh. I am – however – sure that you understand how frustrating off-loading editors are. –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 19:11, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

Ip Man 3

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

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

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

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

My thanks. In future, I'll remember to go to the talk page before making major edits. 86.185.4.168 (talk) 18:41, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Abbreviations

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Abbreviations. Legobot (talk) 04:30, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

 Done –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 14:07, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

Unused book in Ip Man 3

I removed the book The Legendary Bruce Lee from Ip Man 3 because it was not used anywhere in the article (originally it was used when the article had a "themes" section, which is not there now). The book source also has a field called "ref=harv", and if the book is not used as a source anywhere in the article, i.e. just kept under the "bibliography" section and not cited elsewhere, then it will read "Harv warning: There is no link pointing to this citation. The anchor is named CITEREFVaughn1986" (install User:Ucucha/HarvErrors.js and you'll see). --Kailash29792 (talk) 13:29, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

I have changed the section title to 'further reading', which is a better solution than simply removing it. Maintain sources wherever possible. You may wish to change the format away from a cite book tag, if this is flagged up by a tool. –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 13:55, 8 August 2017 (UTC)Update: I have changed the format of the book, so that it is not flagged up as an unused reference. –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 14:15, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport

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

Please comment on Template talk:Infobox television channel

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

15:39:01, 15 August 2017 review of submission by Sl29

Draft:Kamran_Khavarani Sb2001, thank you for taking your time to review my article. I have some questions about what I can do to establish my subjects nobility. So far I have referenced a book written on the subject by an art historian and a few articles discussing his artwork and early life. From my understanding they fit Wikipedia's guidelines. Is this not enough? Also are there any references that I should remove because they are not good?

I highly recommend that you make it really clear in the lead section of the article why this person is of significance. Write an essay-style introduction, selling their credentials and most famous works (without sounding biased). Sentences like 'Khavarani is perhaps best known for his ...' can help with this. I am really pleased with the work that you have done on the article. I will have a go at sorting out some of the stylistic impurities later, as I know a lot about the MoS. Once you have had a look at the lead, leave me a message, and I will be happy to publish the article. –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 19:54, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your feedback. I have revised the lead section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sl29 (talk • contribs) 22:49, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

User:Sl29: I have accepted the draft article which you submitted. At the moment, this means that two articles exist on the same topic. I will campaign for the removal of the old one, as the new one is better. The content of yours may need to be transferred across, should the administrators not see how much more convenient my suggestion is. –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 13:44, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

WikiProject Comics MOS

Hi, Sb2001. Just a quick notes that WikiProject Comics MOS is to use the number sign and not "No." See also WP:CMOS#CITESTYLE and Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Comics#Uniform cover artwork crediting convention. Thanks for understanding. --Tenebrae (talk) 19:50, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

Right. Totally stupid rule. I will raise this at the general MoS talk page. Thank you for letting me know. –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 19:55, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Images

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

User:Wikisbaldivia/sandbox

The comment you left there makes no sense at all, and is unintelligible. Please fix this at your earliest convenience. Nick (talk) 18:39, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

The comment I left advised the editor who submitted the draft to AfC to ask another editor—who I know has a lot of experience of meetups—for assistance. Further to this, I suggested that they research changing the location from US to UK, as I know that the editor to whom I directed them resides in the UK. Please explain to me how what I wrote was 'unintelligible', and why you feel it appropriate to criticise my well-written and helpful observations. I will also be leaving a message with the editor who reverted my comments, as I feel that this is unreasonable, also. –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 18:44, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Don't bother, I'm here. You should probably have said "please talk to user X" rather than just "see User:X". I actually removed the decline altogether, since I don't think it needs formal submission.

As an unrelated note, since I was going to drop by any way, this comment makes no sense, because you haven't actually told the user what to fix. I don't even know what you mean by Sort out the 'Works' section, and I've been doing this for years. Comments are only helpful if they actually say something. Primefac (talk) 18:48, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

The section entitled, 'Works'. This is helpful. I said that I would be happy to review the article, once they could resolve the section of which I have no knowledge: it is about someone of whom I have never heard. What is your problem with this? It makes perfect sense, and I have told them exactly what to fix. –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 18:52, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Not really. You said "sort it out", not "I don't know what this means, please clarify and let me know". Please tell me you know the difference between what I quoted above and what you just told me. Primefac (talk) 18:54, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

I think that the problems are pretty clear: they have strange styling, making them impossible to understand, they use ambiguous language, etc. Surely the editor would have been able to work this out. If not, they could have left me a message. –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 19:00, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

To say it again - what is clear to you is not immediately clear to everyone. I see no strange styling or ambiguous language in that section. Why would it be so hard for you to say what you just posted above in your comments? We're not giving out points based on brevity - I'd rather you write out a paragraph or two explaining your thoughts on a draft than say "fix this and get back to me". Primefac (talk) 19:03, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

The caps, the ellipses ... –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 19:16, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Also, in your clarification, you say "fix the problems" but you don't actually say what those problems are. This is exactly what I was talking about when you asked to join AFCH - it's often easier to fix it yourself. If you don't know, then you need to be very clear about what you want fixed. Primefac (talk) 18:57, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Plus, saying your comments made perfect sense, when the creator and two admins have no idea what you're talking about, means you need to re-evaluate what "perfect sense" means. Something that is "clear" or "obvious" to one person is not always the same to another. Primefac (talk) 18:53, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

"See User:Redrose64 for more information" is clearly not the same as leaving a clear and intelligible comment which says "You might find that the editor Redrose64, who has worked on meetups, can help you". The other thing I really don't understand, which is beyond unfathomable, which is giving me a bloody awful headache trying to work it out, is how the hell you telling someone to change their event from the US to the UK makes any sort of sense to anybody. It's insane. I assume what you tried to say and failed, was to tell the author that they should mention, when asking Redrose64 for help, that their event is in the US, but that's using all of my daily allocation of guesswork.

I think, in light of all of the above, you're needing to take a break from reviewing articles as you're clearly have competency issues, are rushing to review these things, lack the experience to provide genuinely meaningful advice, or a combination of all those issues. Nick (talk) 18:59, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

RR64 is a UK editor, therefore the advice they give may only be relevant in the UK. I am sure that it will not be that difficult to change the listing to US instead. I will assume good faith in your comments. They could be interpreted as very rude and insulting. I am sure that was not your intention. Calling editors incompetent is not appropriate. I hope you will be able to rephrase that. I am not 'rushing' to review things. I spend quite a while on each submission before clicking the button. And my advice is meaningful. If the editors themselves have problems, they should ask me. Otherwise, how am I supposed to know? –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 19:06, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

The editors are clearly struggling to understand your comments, because they're coming onto IRC and asking us in the help channel what on earth your comments mean. I would also add that what you left at User:Wikisbaldivia/sandbox bears absolutely no resemblance to the detailed explanations you've left here. If you had left a detailed, legible comment at the AfC review, we wouldn't be having this conversation, because I wouldn't have been having a conversation with a very confused Wikisbaldivia. Nick (talk) 19:12, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

There is no reason that they could not have asked me. I offered helpful advice, and if they chose not to deal with me, who—I would suggest—has more of an idea of what I meant, how am I supposed to know of problems. I would have clarified it. I will ask them separately. –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 19:16, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

I've removed you from AFCH at the moment. Discussion can be found at [2] concerning this. Nick (talk) 19:07, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

I see that you chose not to rephrase your comments. –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 19:16, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

You're perceptive, I'll give you that much. Nick (talk) 19:17, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

I am a student of English (I would add, quite a good one): obviously I look for details. –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 19:19, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Reflection

Looking back on this, Nick's comments were a little unclear, and lacked specific information as to what I did wrong, and how I could have improved it. To be helpful, I have written the sort of answer I would have liked to receive (other editors may have different preferences: 'You've left this comment ... and the creator of the page is having trouble understanding it. I must admit, I think that it is a little unclear. I interpret it to mean that you are suggesting they ... If this is the case, a better way of saying this would be ... It is important that you are really clear when leaving AfC feedback. It is necessary to spell things out in great detail, sometimes. If you are struggling with reviewing articles, you may benefit from spending a couple of days on something else. During this period, I shall be happy to guide you on ways to improve. There is also help located at ... Thanks.' I would have understood exactly what your concern was, and would have been grateful for you guiding me through things so precisely. I find it slightly amusing that I could not understand what you were saying in comments on my talk page when you had come to ask me about ambiguity in comments I had left. We all make mistakes; ours seem remarkably similar here. I would have really liked to know earlier on in the discussion that the meet-up arranger had expressed concern with my comments: I would have contacted them immediately, whilst I was still fairly calm. I was really pleased that Primefac offered my some help, by saying that 'You probably should have said ...' He did make some unnecessary side-comments, but so did I. As became clear through the conversation, I understood why I declined the two submissions in question. I should have expressed this clearly to the articles' creators. Primefac continued to offer me advice, recommending that it is better to leave long, tedious paragraphs to explain problems, rather than make it as succinct as possible. I must disagree that having extra time would have made no difference to my responses: I would have done what I am doing not—writing draft responses, checking them for clarity, and then putting it into Wikipedia. I imagine that I would have acknowledged that I was wrong; as I have now. As a student of English (I will get more into at which level later down the page), I express myself best with long, thorough, and well-considered strings of words. I will be posting on the meet-up editor's talk page, to apologise for the way in which I communicated with them. I was a little shocked that I was threatened with disciplinary sanctions at this point, though. I thought that I was being reasonable. –Sb2001 talk page 19:39, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

AfC

Hi, I'm afraid as a further admin, I have to concur with Primefac's: ..saying your comments made perfect sense, when the creator and two admins have no idea what you're talking about, means you need to re-evaluate what "perfect sense" means. Something that is "clear" or "obvious" to one person is not always the same to another. Although I may have express myself in a somewhat different way from my colleagues Primefac and Nick, I see noting hostile in their approach. I also note the extraordinary patience demonstrated by SMcCandlish in helping you over some of your misunderstandings of what it means to comply with the in-house MoS of the world's largest collection of knowledge. You may be good in school at English but this kind of comment is definitely not the way in which we prefer our reviewers to communicate with new users. You didn't reach the threshold for AfC reviewer until last month on which you immediately asked for it, and even there, your application was unclear and developed into an unusually long thread. I don't think that you are quite ready for reviewing drafts, but there are plenty of other tasks you could be helping out with. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:21, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

SMcCandlish was not patient. Read the MoS talk page archives and you will see. I sent him an email yesterday and am awaiting a reply—I needed to send this after he launched an unnecessary attack, quite simply, for asking too many questions. You should not assume that 'student' = school, also. I am not a reviewer any more, I will point out to you. Many users have shown hostility, EEng to name one. I did not ask for AfC right immediately, and only joined it to get away from the—for want of better wording—abusive and unwelcoming environment presented by the MoS. Thanks to all of the admins for now pushing me out of that! It is quite inappropriate that you take for granted that I will be willing to 'help'. I was helping, and, as I noted at the AfC talk page, I am being given no credit for the helpful AfC work I have done recently. The fact that the admin who approved my request chose to ask further questions has nothing to do with me. They did not for other editors, and I seemed to be picked out for including an extra couple of words. There are plenty of AfC editors I see who do poor work, as well as on programs like Huggle. I imagine that I would be pounced if I pointed out who they are, as they seem to have quite a high status. I will refrain from naming. Having two administrators with similar opinions hounding you is hardly fair. If making a complaint was easier, I would. You need some sort of anti-corruption group on WP (I am assuming that there is not already one) to deal with administrators who abuse their position, and do not offer the correct time to the editors who they happen to be pursuing. If there is not now, I will be requesting its creation. There should be a one-admin rule, to avoid this sort of unescapable situation up in which I ended earlier. Well, thank you to all of the administrators involved in this. You have further alienated a committed editor User:Primefac User:Nick. Focus on the editors who are actually doing something wrong, or being unnecessarily rude to others, eg EEng (even though I admire their user page). Get them off the project before coming for editors like me who spend many hours a day (often until after 4 am) trying to make a positive difference, and helping other editors, instead of telling them to get lost. –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 00:41, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

It is also things like User:Nick's 'don't need talkback templates, I've a watchlist'. This was a poor response to me trying to be helpful. Especially as they seemed to deliberately revert the edit, so that I would receive a notification. I would also point out the comma splice. Do not criticise my language and clarity when you do things like this. –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 00:45, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

I did indeed undo the edit so you would get a notification, it was my own attempt to return the favour and be helpful towards you. I thought I would try and save you some time by letting you know that I would notice further replies without the need for a talkback template being left. Nick (talk) 01:02, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

That is fair enough, but the tone used was cold. The addition of 'thanks' would have made all of the difference. –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 15:44, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

The vast majority of your edits are between 4:00 PM and 8:00 PM on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Only on a few rare occasions have you edited after midnight (generally in the early hours of Saturdays and Sundays when there is no school in the UK on those days). Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:28, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

I will say again: you have no reason to assume that 'student' = school. Anyway, it is the 'school holidays' at the moment. I would show you my email account, as well, which would demonstrate communication with numerous editors past midnight. You are missing the point. I am saying that I contribute many hours a day to the project, and AfC, often into well the night. The days have no significance. I have a life: I am very rarely stationary in the office for a number of days. –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 17:35, 19 August 2017 (UTC)If I was a school child, I hope that you would treat me with slightly more respect and tolerance than you are doing at the moment. –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 17:41, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

Reflection

Kudpung's comments were initially helpful, and I was grateful that another editor showed a little more understanding than the previous two administrators. (It was probably more that I was happy to see another name!) I shall start by making it clear that you are wrong about my age—I shall respond throughly in the next section. When conversing with Nick, there was a misinterpretation on my part, in the sense that I thought that him reverting my talkback template on his talk page was him being rude. Perhaps slightly more clarity on his part would have made all of the difference, however. I was disappointed to see Kudpung trying to debunk/weaken my arguments by stating my editing hours. Further to this, he commented on school again, after I had advised that he should not have been making such assumptions. That said, I did see the situation with a lack of focus. Him making the editing hours statement made me see him as administrator who had visited my page to have a go at me. –Sb2001 talk page 19:47, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

MoS-related aside

I think I have been patient, but whatever. I didn't see your e-mail until now, and have replied in similar depth. The short version is: constructive criticism is not an attack. Much of your talk page consists of constructive criticism and you're not listening to it. On the Manual of Style stuff: MoS is not broken and doesn't need fixing; it's a very hard-won compromise between thousands of competing views, and its principal value is stability not "correctness". You claim to be a linguistics expert, but what you post about English-language matters are uniformly just your own subjective and highly prescriptivist opinions based on personal interpretation of a handful of publications. Sometimes you present them in very insulting terms (like "stupid", recently, twice) in regard to others' style preferences. This is not collegial or helpful, regardless of constructive motivation.

Back to the actual topic of this thread (I'm not sure why me and my MoS-related comments were brought up to begin with): I can't see any particular reason you wouldn't be good at AfC. Figuring out if article drafts fit the core content policies is an entirely different skillset (mostly ability to contextually apply a detailed checklist) than being able to figure out whether a particular interpretation of a style rule meshes with long-term consensus, or understanding all the potential ramifications of a proposed MoS change, across thousands or millions of articles – those can only be learned by long-term experience. One thing anyone can learn immediately is that a "my way or the highway" attitude will never go over well here, regardless of the subject matter. Neither will dodging any self-reflection, and just referring to any critical input as "attacks" or "hounding". Nor will theorizing about "corrupt" admin conspiracies. Don't ascribe to collusion and malice what can adequately be explained by routine, tired response to exasperating behavior we've seen before. As I said earlier, it's a common new-arrival thing to trigger such exasperation, and one needs to graduate past that stage quickly, by absorbing rather than fighting against the community expectations. (You might like the essay I wrote after my own learning process, WP:HOTHEAD.)

Your desire to be helpful and to produce good output for readers probably make you a better fit for AfC work than for policy debates at this stage. PS: I also agree with Tony B.'s comments below, and his suggestion regarding orphaned articles, which definitely need the attention.
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  07:04, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

To note: I was referring to the fact that different rules should be applied to comics as stupid. It seemed/seems to defeat the point of having a general MoS. My grammar is not prescriptive. You suggested a while ago that prepositions could be succeeded by adjectives. No: prepositions may only be succeeded by nouns. You were brought into this thread because an administrator was trying to place a negative stamp on my profile—no other reason. Some of the administrator behaviour demonstrated was shocking. Really. I do not adopt a 'my way ...' approach, actually. I frequently adopt policy ideas from other people. MOS:TMRULES is confusing, and in need of review. I will continue to work with other editors on resolving that. Additional input regarding following a plain-text version of the company's official name or copying independent sources would be appreciated. I will reply to your email in due course. Many of your assumptions are wrong, and I will explain why in detail. –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 18:13, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

"I was referring to the fact that different rules should be applied to comics as stupid." Yes, I know. The fact that we've adopted these rules by consensus means, necessarily, that you think this was a stupid decision, ergo you're labeling other editors stupid. See what I said in the thread below about the kinds of flamewarring that an admin might actually act upon in relation to MoS's discretionary sanctions. Don't pick a fight that doesn't need to be one; a calm discussion is better. Please do read my WP:HOTHEAD essay; it covers in detail how to avoid doing this (which often happens inadvertently due to temperament). In the context of the #WikiProject Comics MOS above, the average editor (I can't speak for Tenebrae personally) would interpret your comment as hostile, as a snide insinuation that he/she is stupid for having asserted the rule you disagree with.

Next, it isn't possible for one minor, context-specific variance in a rule (and we have many) to "defeat the point of having a general MoS" or MoS would have been marked {{Historical}} long ago and we wouldn't use it. MoS is not a policy or a law, nor is it even comprehensive. So, please don't be hyperbolic, about it. The MoS sky is not falling. Even off-WP style guides have such contextual exceptions to general rules of thumb. Everyone who gets slapped by administrators feels it's "shocking" if the individual is convinced he/she is right and isn't listening to the reasons. I disagree with you that the reason was "to place a negative stamp on my profile", and those reasons were actually made pretty clear if you read what was said and distance yourself from your feelings about the criticisms. Read it as if it was written about someone else on a different wiki. Very frequently (and I also cover this at the essay), admins and the community do not care at all who is right about some bit of trivia, only whether one's behavior in addressing it is collegial versus disruptive. I agree you adopt policy ideas from others, but it's usually after considerable pressure. I'm this way myself, so I recognize it when I see it.

But that has little to do with our side topic, which was grammatical/style prescriptiveness, which your proposals and what you say about them clearly demonstrate, the most obvious case being the "9pm" news style you strongly prefer and advocated at rather extreme length, over WP's "9 p.m." style (which we hardly invented, but chose for clarity). TMRULE does, yes, have an issue; I think it will resolve itself. But it could have resolved itself much sooner with less invective. I don't need another e-mail from you defending yourself; any assumptions I may have made will dissipate of their own accord if your actions adjust. I actually have a very poor memory for "which pseudonym said what on which site", so in a few months, I won't even recall the details. I'll either be agreeing with you more often, or not, based on what you're posting at the time. It was the same with EEng and various others; I used to argue with them at length about many dimly recalled things, and now do so less, because they've mostly stopped proposing changes that suit their whims, and now recognize that avoiding change in MoS is important because of the fallout it causes across articles. We should only make a substantive change if consensus deems it necessary and important. Improving the TMRULE wording is probably among these, since it demonstrably was being misinterpreted and WP:WIKILAWYERed about.

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:30, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

Wait a second... when was I "proposing changes that suit [my] whims"? Prepare to defend yourself, sir! EEng 18:46, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

I'm unlikely to bother. It doesn't matter who's "right" here, it matters that the "SB2001 versus Wikipedia" or, for that matter, "SB2001 versus other Wikipedians" stuff come to an end.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:59, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

Please seek... I already DID that!

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

Speaking of which, I left you an update there!

2600:100E:B149:8DAB:F80C:D7D2:437F:F3BC (talk) 16:01, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

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

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

2600:100E:B149:8DAB:F80C:D7D2:437F:F3BC (talk) 16:31, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

It is informal and really quite unnecessary. You are accusing another editor of hounding you with abusive content. That is not good. –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 17:10, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

Nastygram is not a phrase, it's a word. I rather like it - a refreshing neologism to a retired lecturer of English. Probably not a very good word for our templated messages, but certainly nobody is going to be blocked for using it. I believe worse language is used in the bike sheds at Notts High during break time. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:52, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

Read the MoS talk page. This is the behaviour for which I am concerned a block may be issued. The NHS bicycle shed ... emerging from there in the morning = respect from teachers. My GCSE English teacher always was a fan. –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 18:17, 19 August 2017 (UTC) PS: User:Kudpung—where did you get the name of the school? –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 18:20, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

No one is going to be blocked or otherwise administratively addressed for using the word nastygram. What someone could be blocked for is excessively personalizing, in an ad hominem manner, style and title disputes. See WP:ARBATC#All parties reminded, which authorized "discretionary sanctions" (an admin can just block you or issue a topic ban without a bunch of process being invoked) for WP:MOS/WP:AT-related flamewarring. This is likely to including assumptions of bad faith, personal attacks, demonstrable harassment, and casting personalized aspersions without proof. Such blocks are rare and usually end up invoking lengthy process anyway. Most modern admins are loath to issue disciplinary actions without backup from other admins, because the community is today far more critical of questionable admin actions, and it is much harder to get (much less get back) the administrator bit than it was in the early days.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:08, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

Reflection

I was trying to help the IP address, offering to exchange emails advising how to deal with the MoS talk page with them if they created an account. Kudpung saying that nobody would have sanctions imposed/that 'nastygram' is fine was really an attempt to make me look bad (well, that is how I read it). I responded to Kudpung's NHS comments in a similarly light-hearted way, including a post-script message which was hardly a shout. –Sb2001 talk page 19:50, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

Unsolicited advice

Hi, I've noticed on a few pages that I watch that you've been having some disputes with other editors. That's fine: it happens. If you look through my talk page archives you'll see that I've had disagreements with people before too. Not a big deal, we work that out through talking about it on Wikipedia just like we do in real life. Also like in real life, though, it doesn't really help the situation if you don't listen to what the other people are saying and you just respond with long replies accusing the other parties of this or that. That just makes people mad at you and more likely to not actually listen if you do have a point to make.

Currently it looks like you're in disputes with Primefac, Kudpung, and Nick, and that you have been in the past with EEng. These four editors each have very different personalities, but they are each generally respected a lot around here for different reasons. If you have been in disputes with all four of them and come off feeling angry or like the situation didn't resolve itself in an amicable way, it might be worth asking the question as to if the problem always lay with the other person or if there was something in your style of interacting with them that made them angry: communication is very rarely just about being right, on Wikipedia and in the real world. I have no bone in whatever disputes are going on: WP:NPP is more my thing than AfC, and the only part of the MOS that I'm really familiar with is on article titles. I just thought that it might be helpful if someone who you hadn't been in disagreement with gave you a bit of feedback.

If you want to work in new content or find articles that are in need of cleaning up, please feel free to ask me. I'm willing to give some pointers if you want to areas that you can work in without requiring being on the AfC list or having the NPR user right. Anyway, hope you have a great upcoming week. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:09, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for this, TonyBallioni: EEng's thing was totally different—I proposed an MoS change that they thought was stupid. I took offence at their harsh dismissal. That's all.

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

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

Lately, I have become hooked with the 'random page' button, and enjoy going through articles to fix their impurities. I also use Huggle from time to time. Anything you can advise me to do would be greatly appreciated: I joined AfC to branch out from the other stuff. Sadly it did not go as well as I had hoped. I did really like the challenges it presented, though, and have a few loose ends to sort out. But, as I say, if you can direct me to other work, that would be really good. Once again, thank you for your comments—it is a welcome change to hear from someone civil after the last couple of days.

–Sb2001 ^{talk page} 00:35, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

Not a problem: I only mentioned EEng because I saw a comment above about him that seemed to fit into this picture even if it was a bit different. I obviously didn't look up the exact dispute, just thought it might be worth bringing up in the bigger picture. Full disclosure, I work very closely with Kudpung on Wikipedia and consider him a friend. I also like Nick, but don't know him nearly as well. That being said, I think it would likely be best to drop the matter: WP:ANI is not a fun place to be, and I think there are probably better ways to spend your time than making a case of it there. I'd give you the same advice even if it was an editor who I didn't like.

Re: ways to help out, something you might consider is going through Category:Orphaned articles from February 2009 and helping with that cleanup: many of those article haven't been touched in over a decade, and they all need to be deorphaned. You can find a lot of things to cleanup via copyediting if you want, and there are also a lot of articles from the early days of Wikipedia that would never be acceptable today that should probably be dealt with via WP:PROD. If you are interested in doing AfC and NPP work, having this to point to might be useful if you decide to apply to be put back on the list or get the NPR right. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:44, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

TonyBallioni: I shall get started on the orphaned articles tomorrow. I do not know whether I will go to ANI. Possibly not, if Kudpung replies to my post on his talk page, or leaves me a message here. Again, thanks for your help. –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 00:50, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Family Guy

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

Adam Cooley Article

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

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

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

Sent: Tuesday, August 22, 2017 8:36 AM
Subject: Wikipedia Administrators
ΑΣΚΙΚΑΤΑΣΚΙΛΙΞ ΤΕΤΡΑΞ ΔΑΜΝΑΜΕΝΕΥΣ ΑΙΣΙΟΝ KevinJardine (talk) 07:33, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

Please comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

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

Wikipedia:User_pages#POLEMIC

Could you please read through Wikipedia:User_pages#POLEMIC and then revert the problematic changes you've just made to your user page. Thanks. Nick (talk) 09:59, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

And I would second Nick.Winged Blades of Godric^{On leave} 12:09, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Nick: I am busy at the moment. I shall have a proper look a bit later. I imagine that there will have to be a sub-page which contains the supposedly offensive content. Although, I am not sure how you can complain about my user page, when I am having editors use this sort of tone towards me: Gee, thanks Sb2001! Yet another ignorant comment. Referring to your ignorant comments as ignorant is commenting on the content not the contributor. I am not going to be coy here at all: STAY OFF MY TALK PAGE. Leaving twinkle warnings is not required; there is nothing forcing you to demonstrate by action your misunderstanding of the policy WP:NPA. Any further posting by you on my talk page outside of policy required notifications (which your misapplied twinkle warnings are NOT) will be construed as harassment and dealt with appropriately. I do not need your ignorant advice. Anyone who would advise one of our most senior administrators to use AfC has nothing to say that I would waste my time reading. Have a good life; somewhere else. I expect no reply. Tell someone who cares. Screaming at otheer editors like this is really quite unacceptable, threatening, and hurtful; having editors follow me around, and telling me that I am a school child (with no evidence, other than me once using the word 'student', and some research they did into my editing hours), and having this used to patronise me; being removed from projects with insufficient time to provide a case in my defence; editors having a go at me for asking for citations; referring to me as a hornet; telling me that I am ignorant, and need to get over myself. I see no reason not to explain to other editors the sort of criticism/abuse to which I am subjected.I am sure that you can understand why I may feel slightly targeted. Making a comment about an experienced editor creating a very poor article (since deleted), which would not have passed AfC, should not prompt talk page stalkers to lay into me in this manner. It is personal, intimidating, and should be discouraged by administrators. It should not receive the sort of response Kudpung gave it last night: (BTW, I believe this is describing me, although maybe it is some other editor with whom Kudpung has a dispute) Stalkers They fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. One would have been good enough, but I didn't quite think I'd kill two birds with one stone. —Kudpung, 23:49, 23 August 2017 (UTC). To note; Nick, it would be good if you replied to my email. I am still willing to drop everything. –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 14:56, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Your e-mail to me did not request nor require a response. You threatened to report me to ANI at 2pm on 22 August. You didn't do that. I don't know quite what you're expecting or requiring me to say in any case. I'm certainly not going to add you back to the AfC reviewer list given your conduct since the removal, nor will I apologise, the reviewing issues and broader behavioural issues which prompted my removal of your AfC permission have continued and indeed, have significantly increased post removal, further vindicating my decision to remove you from the reviewer list. You're now failing to deal with the issue of your user page breaching Wikipedia:User_pages#POLEMIC which I've asked you politely to deal with, an offer which you've refused, claiming to be too busy to read a guideline and make an edit to your user page, whilst continuing to trouble Kudpung with unhelpful remarks and continuing to undertake further editing.
I am interested in your thoughts on how you intend to proceed here on Wikipedia, because as it stands, I am very worried about how long the community will tolerate your belligerent behaviour. Nick (talk) 16:42, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Nick: If either of you do have any final suggestions as to how this may be resolved in a less time-consuming way, please let me know. Neither of you have responded to this, so I am now assuming that you wish for it to be taken to ANI. I said that I would start writing my ANI draft at around 2 pm on 22/8—I am nearly there. My conduct since the removal? Please provide specific, linked examples. I shall have nothing more to do with you regarding AfC: Primefac and I have agreed a resolution, which includes me spending my time elsewhere for the time being, and reapplying in a month or two, should I wish to do so (I have not yet decided whether I will).

I have now read the policy page. (PS, I was too busy to do it earlier. If you want a full timetable of my day, I shall be happy to give you one. My personal life should not need to come into this, though. Especially which school I attended/still do attend (still waiting to hear from Kudpung on how this information was discovered).) It outlines some important information. I shall act upon this by removing the usernames of the editors.

I do want people to understand the abuse (such as the threatening attitude of John from Idegon (whom I shall not be tagging, quite simply, because I am scared of them), exhibited yesterday (this actually led me to log out because I was so upset ... I haven't logged out of Wikipedia in eons), which you and Kudpung seem to encourage) I have had to withstand during my time on Wikipedia.

Nobody has had any serious problems with my behaviour apart from you. Also, administrators are supposed to focus on content contributions. I have made plenty of these, and mostly very good ones. I work many hours a day on improving Wikipedia. Objecting to an editor not properly sourcing an article, or removing me from a project without giving me sufficient time to respond to the points raised (which even another administrator accepts was wrong (they apologised; why can't you?) is not really that bad. Complaining about an editor playing little 'school' games is very reasonable. I would like a response from you regarding whether you think that Kudpung doing this was OK.

Please let me know whether removing the usernames of the editors whose contributions are given on my user page is enough for you, whether you think the 'school' game was appropriate, whether you encourage the disgusting behaviour of John from Idegon and whether or not you are going to acknowledge that you should have given me longer to respond before removing me from AfC (and—ideally—whether you think that it was wrong for two administrators to ask me non-stop questions without giving me chance to consider my answers) in order for me to refrain from making a complaint at ANI (something I am perfectly willing to do. Not make one, that is). –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 18:01, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

You will need to lay out exactly what requirements I will need to meet in order for you to avoid making a report to ANI. Nick (talk) 21:37, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Nick: I have decided upon what I would like from you. I shall write as a list of points, with the main idea in bold;

• Acknowledge that you should have waited longer before removing me from AfC. I understand your decision, especially based on what had been discussed to that point. It was—though—an incomplete discussion, to which I had had insufficient time to respond with carefully-considered answers. I would have answered differently with more time and less pressure.
• Agree that only one administrator should have visited my talk page to question me. Since you and Primefac were taking off-wiki, this should already have been discussed. Since Primefac reverted my edit, maybe it should have been him. That said, you seemed to be the one in contact with the editor whose page I rejected on AfC. Looking back, I should have waited before posting on this editor's talk page. I was frustrated, and my tone was not appropriate for use with new editors. My second comment was well-meant, however. You interpreted it differently, issuing me with a threat of disciplinary action.
• Show recognition that Kudpung should not have tried to wind me up by playing 'school' games. You should have interjected here.
• Apologise for referring to me as a hornet. Even if it was in jest.
• Review the situation with John from Idegon. If you are going to complain about my behaviour, you need to deal with other users about theirs. This particular editor should not have been so aggressive when in communication with me. Understanding needs to be shown on your part that Kudpung should not be encouraging this sort of behaviour. I would like you to demonstrate that administrators do not accept behaviour such as this. You need to say that this is far worse than anything I did. Even so, some of my comments were inappropriately placed, and I should have considered them more thoroughly.
• Offer me suggestions on how I may improve as a reviewer. You should also assure me that I will be welcome to re-join AfC in a month or two. You should support my re-application when it happens. When I re-join, you should be welcoming and ignore my past contributions, instead focussing on what I do for the second time.

I shall make it clear that it is the treatment of me that is unacceptable. I do not have a problem with you removing me from AfC. I understand this, and accept that some of my comments left as an AfC reviewer suggested that I was not ready to review submissions quite at that point in time.

None of my demands are unreasonable, and I only ask you to apologise for one thing. Should you have a problem with anything for which I have asked, please let me know. –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 11:05, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

This is not how Wikipedia works. I'm sorry that I'm not going to be able to comply with your request, and I'll explain for why.

• If you now understand the key reasons surrounding my decision to remove you from AfC, then you'll understand that giving you extra time to respond would have made no difference. It was a decision that was arrived at after taking into account your initial response to my concern together with the complaint regarding the review you had just undertaken, and an examination of other reviews you had undertaken up to that point. I am genuinely sympathetic to your concerns here, but I also worry that no matter how much time had elapsed between my discussing the issue with you and removing your permission, you would claim that I was too hasty and things would be different if you had an extra 10 minutes/1 hour/1 day and so on. I think you need to accept the decision was taken in the best interest of the project, and move on to the stage where you can re-apply to the AfC project.
• The suggestion that only one administrator should speak to you at once is simply not viable, it genuinely is not how Wikipedia or the administrator corps operates. We are elected by the community to maintain and protect the project but we're all responsible for our own individual decisions and actions. This means that there's no way we would ever consider asking another administrator to undertake an action on our behalf for which they and not I would be accountable. I determined there was an issue with your reviews and subsequently, with your behaviour. I then raised those concerns with you. The combination of factors (as detailed immediately above) is why I took the decision to remove you from the AfC project, it's not something I could or would ever ask any fellow administrator (Primefac or anybody else) to do on my behalf. I am, however, pleased that you have recognised that the tone you used with a newer editor was not appropriate, you must similarly realise that we cannot have people such as yourself (i.e active in or recently removed from AFC) leaving comments for the editors they're supposed to be helping, criticising some of their behaviour. That can be a massive deterrent to their continued editing.
• I'm also unsure what action you want me to take with regards to Kudpung - I've not been following his editing particularly closely (and he edits at completely different times to me, we tend to pass like ships in the night) but it seems others have pulled him up on his edits, and I would further suggest that it's your responsibility not to get wound up, not the responsibility of the administrator corps. We can't be responsible for trying to control the behaviour of every user when exposed to some form of external stimulus. I note you've made a series of less than entirely helpful edits to Kudpung's talk page, such as suggesting he submits articles via the Articles for Creation process, in the grand scheme of things, I think Kudpung's game playing and your behaviour on his talk page are equally unfortunate and probably balance things out. It's either both people get shouted at, or nobody gets shouted at. I'm looking at things now and I'd go with nobody getting shouted at this time, since the issues were not at all severe and are now in the past.
• I'm going to jump over the hornet thing for a moment, and move on to John for Idegon. I'm again going to say your behaviour towards John and his behaviour towards you was basically tit-for-tat, and again, it's either both people get shouted at, or nobody gets shouted at. I'm looking at this again and again I opt for nobody getting shouted, because it's not at all serious and is again in the past. You issued a warning to John, a templated warning wasn't the best approach, a custom notice would have been better (the template warnings carry no additional weight, and can often cause offence, a custom message is, in my experience, the best approach).
• The hornet's nest thing. I'm sure you're aware of the idiom 'poke the hornet's nest' which doesn't actually label any person a hornet, but if it pleases you, I'll apologise if you believe I called you a hornet. I do think you need to develop a much thicker skin if you're going to survive on Wikipedia, this and the slightly more aggressive comment from John are incredibly tame compared to the abuse you may well encounter from other editors (now, administrators will try and help in such cases, but as I've said somewhere in this thread, we can't be everywhere all the time).
• It's also worth reminding you, at this stage, that I'm but one administrator, I can't keep an eye on everything that goes on with regards to you and others you're in dispute with, I can't be online all the time and I can't cover every time zone. I'm a volunteer just the same as you, and I'm here primarily to write content, which I've managed to do very little this week thanks to the enormous time sink dealing with the fall out you've created over your removal from the AFC process.
• Finally, with regards to your request about re-joining the AFC project, that would be something I can offer no guarantees about, I certainly will not commit to endorsing your application, that part of your request is tantamount to blackmail and vastly oversteps the bounds of propriety. I will review your recent edits and make a decision on whether to support or oppose your application as and when it happens. I would imagine, because I'm generally easy going with regards to permissions, that I'd give you the benefit of the doubt and support your application unless there are some really serious issues.
• Now some general advice - there needs to be a significant and serious change in your attitude before we can consider re-admitting you to the AfC project (but this is something I'm sure we all ultimately want to do). You do need to understand that as administrators, we're not picking on you, we're just doing our best to protect the project, similarly, that applies when we take a course of administrative action that you disagree with, experience tells us when to get involved, when to hang back, what to say, how to say it, and how to manage a situation. You're most welcome to ask any administrator about a course of action they have taken but it's not helpful to tell them they're wrong before they've had a chance to explain why they've done whatever it is they've done. The endless threats about taking people to ANI are very problematic - you're essentially using the threat of an ANI discussion to blackmail editors that you're in dispute with, and that's something that isn't good (even though that's probably not your intention). These threats really do need to stop. The question about what you think ANI will do also needs addressed - there's a vast gulf between what you think will happen when you report someone to ANI and what will actually happen. The first thing that will happen is that your own edits and overall conduct will be reviewed in microscopic detail and it's just as likely you'll be censured or sanctioned because of your recent behaviour (particularly in the recent cases where you've threatened to create ANI reports). The person you report may or may not be censured or sanctioned (it's unlikely in all of the cases above, where you've threatened ANI).

I hope you find all of this understandable and helpful. I realise much of it is not what you want to hear, but I've tried to explain either my position, or the more general way in which things work on Wikipedia, so you can understand the issues at play, why things have happened the way they've happened, and part of what you need to do to get back onto the AFC user list.

-- Nick (talk) 22:28, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Nearly two months ago long before I had even heard of you, SMcCandlish told you: 'Please stop imposing your preferred style against Wikipedia's Manual of Style' , and warned you of the consequences of disrupting the encyclopedia. Wikipedia is big, important stuff, a lot of it is written by people with PhDs and while we welcome input and edits from young editors, Wikipedia is not going to be told how it should be run by someone waving a Year 10 GCSE certificate for 16 year olds as if it is the final word on the English language. In that discussion, you already pompously claimed to be a pupil at a prestigious school. You then tried later to bluff your way out of being a schoolboy, but it was too late even when you were still claiming yesterday 'According to Kudpung, I am a school child.' There is only one school like that in Nottingham, a city I know well, and when I made a perfectly friendly quip about its bike sheds, you turned round and yelled at me: How come you know where I go to school?. Everything we know about you (and are not really interested), you have told us yourself, even giving clear clues to your age and your real name.

Cabayi has tried as an uninvolved editor to reason with you in no uncertain terms, but politely with this edit

DoRD as an uninvolved very senior admin has also tried here

I'm not as generous as Nick, because although I often take time to help young and new users, and actually wrote several of the Wikipedia advice pages for them, my patience finally wears thin. I also work in what we call the 'front line', which expressly means examining people's edits to see if they are complying with our guidelines and to help them if they are not, but I only do it when I already see someone doing something wrong or if someone has told me about it. However, I do also have a watchlist, and the two specific the areas I look after are AfC, New Page Review, and surprisingly I also run, together with John from Idegon, the Wikipedia Schools Project. John and I at some stage in our long careers, were school teachers.

Nobody has been playing games with you. You have turned my talk page into a stream of personal attacks and harassment to the extent that not one but two uninvolved users have had to step in and tell you to clear off my lawn. You have been upsetting a lot of people, many of them admins. Look at the list of users and admins you've been harassing, baiting, stalking, or just generally been winding up: Alex Shih, Nick, Primefac, EEng, John from Idegon, SMcCandlish, Martin of Sheffield, Jytdog, all of whom have simply been trying to help and explain things to you.

Policy states that we are not obliged to respond to threats or personal attacks or your special bulleted lists of 'demands', or even anything at all if we don't want to; we are supposed to forward to Arbcom the kind of TL;DR, threatening emails you've been sending out without replying to them. I haven't done that, nor has, I believe Nick. Because what could happen then is that your account might simply be quietly closed down by the committee. But where no response is forthcoming from us you continue hammering away your self-righteous drama on everyone's talk pages and even creating not one, but two pages of WP:POLEMIC in your user space. Now if you want to continue contributing to Wikipedia, win back some special tools one of the days, I suggest you take a moment to rethink how you would like to work with the people here, because you have gone well past the point where any uninvolved admin can now block you without further notice, under several policy violations and without even needing a discussion about you at ANI. We've assumed a lot of good faith, now it's up to you - Auxilium te, et auxiliatus sum tibi caeli. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:39, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

Reflection

I started my response to what Nick had to say by making irrelevant points. I was trying to demonstrate the sort of hostility to which other editors were subjecting me. My user page was a gallery of hostility. I did not realise that it was in breach of any guidelines. I tried to rectify the errors as soon as I could, after Nick informed me that it was not acceptable. I apologise for any offence caused, even though some editors were pretty harsh on me. Nick stated that I had 'threatened to report [him] to ANI'. This was not at all what I meant it to be. My email expressed that I was looking for a way to avoid making a complaint at ANI. To be clear: I do not/never did want to have to take anyone to ANI. After Primefac informed me that this was the only way to make a complaint, I questioned whether it was worth it. A combination of Kudpung going on about school, and Nick threatening me on another user's talk page made me decide that that was what I was going to do. So I informed N+K as such. I left Primefac out of it as they were offering me advice on improving my reviewing at AfC, and clearly wanted to help me to develop my skills. You can put my 'threatening' tone down to inexperience. That was totally the opposite of the effect I desired to achieve. It was supposed to be firm, but—at the same time—reasonably friendly. I wanted to move on from everything. I was, in my mind, giving you an opportunity to accept that you made a mistake, so that we could do so and be free from conflict. I did not intend to issue lists of demands. It was what I felt to be the best way of expressing the sort of thing which Nick should have done. I never expected responses to everything, and am very grateful for what he did write. It was far more than what would have satisfied me. I only kept mentioning ANI because I could not decide whether or not to go. Looking back, if I was going to do so, it should have been straight away—when I had some sort of a case. I tried (and failed, clearly) to stand up for another editor on Kudpung's talk page. I really wanted them to have their voice heard, and it looked like they were being shouted down by other editors. I should have left it alone after my first comment, and especially after World's Lamest Critic showed to me that they were ungrateful, by leaving edit summaries to the effect. I was—actually—joking about going through AfC: the trouble with short typographic exchanges is that it is difficult to portray tone accurately. I was making a light-hearted comment about the fact that I had been removed. I did not feel that the article (on which we were harsh: sorry) would have made it through AfC. John from Idegon misinterpreted me further teasing editors (this time, about French stereotypes) and chose to have a go at me. Maybe I should have made it clearer that I was not being serious. I thought that expressing my distaste for French cuisine would suffice in doing so. I was keeping the sub-page as a means to respond to Nick. I had found a discussion he was having with Kudpung, and stored it in my user space, so that I would find it again easily. I was pleased, maybe to your surprise, with I read from Nick. Maybe less so with Kudpung's attitude. I shall let that go, though. Right: school. You have got my age wrong. You are not far off, though. Part of my experience in language is as advising other people on style. I do proofing regularly, as a favour. I enjoy using different styles, even if I disagree with them. SMcCandlish may be surprised to hear that I have a copy of NHR, and have applied it to writing before any of the MoS issues here started. Excuse me for thinking that I have a good understanding of English. It is true. I may not be as qualified as people with PhDs in English Language, but I have a lot more to my name than that for which you give me credit. I never stated that I went to a privileged school. I understand where you read this: I actually stated that certain style guides were 'the most well-respected in my establishment'—the current one. I know that you must have read this as me saying that I am in a 'well-respected establishment'. I actually saw it as that myself when I re-read the thread. I was shocked that I would have said that: not at all me. You happened to get the school right, though. Well done. Cabayi did, indeed, make some comments at the AfC participants page. I responded to these in an evaluative manner. They did make some misconceptions. I wanted to correct these. For one, I did not use AfC to enforce what is listed on my style guide (genuine concerns, none of which go against WP's MoS. Corruption does not have to involve the transfer of money. I included 'seriously' in italics to mimic them. I should have included the template. You will have to explain what happened with Martin of Sheffield. I have no clue on this one. Please do not assume that all editors were trying to help me. I am sure that even EEng would accept that there was little offered in the way of help from that way. It was more 'your style is nonsense ... go away'. My first suggestion was referred to was a 'waste of time' fairly early on. I hope that this has been able to clear up some of the issues we have, and that we we will be able to leave them, and more on—collaboratively. –Sb2001 talk page 20:23, 26 August 2017 (UTC) If you'll remind me of what you're talking about I'll let you know what I do or don't accept. It's fascinating how much time you want to spend recapitulating who did what to whom. EEng 20:45, 26 August 2017 (UTC) EEng: Eg, ie, etc was the first one. Then it moved to the slightly more civil MOS:TIME discussion; your comment to me on this has pride of place on my user page. (Probably won't for much longer!) My god, your user page is a masterpiece. The first discussion included you calling my proposal 'absurd' and accusing writers of style guides favouring me of having gone 'berserk'. I get over these things, though. –Sb2001 talk page 21:04, 26 August 2017 (UTC) Well in my opinion I was being very helpful in calling your proposal absurd; had you believed me it would have saved everyone a great deal of time. Anyway, look, you really better stop whatever it is you're trying to do with all these posts and find a nice quiet article to contribute to. EEng 00:01, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

• Additional unsolicited advice since you seem to still be involved in the disputes I mentioned a few days ago: the best course of action in these sorts of situations (both here and real life) is to say "Thanks for the feedback. Sorry, no offense was meant. I'll take your concerns into account in the future." and move on, even if you are 100% right.
  Re: the userpage: if you haven't already I would suggest just rolling it back, not doing so would make it more difficult for people to believe you if you took my advice above. Note while I like all the editors currently involved I'm really only commenting here because this has gotten way too heated for an AfC helper script issue and I think everyone would be best served by moving on. TonyBallioni (talk) 20:59, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

  Hmm. Yes: most of the new conflicts have started in the last day or two. Various editors' talk page stalkers, largely. My concerns are often because editors complain about me, without thoroughly explaining exactly what it is they think I have done wrong. It can be difficult to remain calm in these situations. I have sorted the userpage. Hopefully that is me in the clear. I shall wait for the others to respond. I feel as if I have done the right thing, even if they do not. –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 21:12, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

  Great on the user page. I think that will go a long way. Re: moving forward, I think the concern is that you, probably unintentionally, have a combative style. Even if you are 100% right, people often don't like being told how right you are. Turns them off. You also happened to pick a fight with one of our more visible admins in the middle of a dispute they were having with another editor: that is going to draw attention.

  A lot of Wikipedia is just being kind to others and being willing to let things go and learn what battles aren't worth fighting. I'd suggest just to let whatever is going on now go (and I honestly can't keep track of what the fight is). None of the people who were pinged want to think about this anymore, I promise you. If they reply back, just say "thanks for the input" or don't reply at all if it doesn't need one, and move on. It's your call, but I really think people would be much happier this way :) TonyBallioni (talk) 21:30, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

Other editors are not "subjecting you to hostility"; you're being hostile and combative, and inviting a long-term block, a community ban, or at bare minimum a topic-ban from WP:MOS/WP:AT/WP:RM matters. It won't be the first one issued, nor the last. I'm not sure how many editors have to warn you are headed nowhere good, but it's starting to look infinite. This clearly indicates you will not listen anyway, and are just going to interpret any further constructive criticism as nonsense to attempt to mock. I have to be clear that those attempts are an abject failure. Pretty much every single other editor on WP is going to look at that list of complaints and advice and warnings (along with the rest, on your talk page) as the community giving you repeated WP:COMPETENCE chances, and you pissing on them. I've spent at least five hours of my own time, much of it off-wiki, trying to hand-hold you past these issues, but you're just WP:NOTGETTINGIT. The very fact that you're writing again on your userpage about what you're going to "enforce" [3], after various parties have urged you to remove your self-declared "style manifesto" [4], is pretty much the last straw for me. I'm done with you. This has become a clear WP:NOTHERE / WP:GREATWRONGS / WP:SOAPBOX problem. Look at this this way: If you behaved toward co-workers and working groups at your job the way you've been behaving here, you'd be fired (sacked) without hesitation, and it it would have happened months ago.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  22:29, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

SMcCandlish: I think you have misinterpreted what I am saying. I am acknowledging that I was wrong. I do not know why you are mentioning moves and article titles: the TK Maxx proposal was successful and I am working on an appropriate re-wording for TMRULES. There is nothing hostile/combative about my approach to this. I do not really know what you think I have done. Why would I have an MoS topic ban? I have not contributed to the MoS talk page other to than assist another editor in moving things on in a discussion. I actually did what you suggested. I say that I 'enforce' MoS sections to say that I respond to them, and change mainspace content to respect what they request. I am endorsing the MoS. Everything in my style manifesto is in-line with the MoS. I spent ages checking it, to make sure. I was asked to remove the old manifesto, ie the anti-MoS one. If you are referring to me removing the criticism section, I did that to avoid breaching the POLEMIC guidelines. My edit description was to that effect, and suggestive that I was willing to respond to what other editors have to say to me. I do not think that it is fair for you to say that I am 'pissing on' other people's efforts. Tonight's contributions to this page are supposed to be demonstrative of the fact that I understand what people are saying, and am grateful for their feedback. I hope it read as so. I do not understand why people keep threatening me with blocks, as all of my edits are made with my best intentions—seriously. I do not know how this reads, as you have led me to question my writing style completely. It is supposed to sound as if I am totally bewildered ... I am. And I am really, genuinely sorry that you feel as if I am not being responsive to what editors have to say to me. I must be far better at face-to-face communication than I am this, because I am exactly like this in real life. People actually like my debating manner. –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 22:52, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

New Page Reviewer granted

Hello Sb2001. Your account has been added to the "New page reviewers" user group, allowing you to review new pages and mark them as patrolled, tag them for maintenance issues, or in some cases, tag them for deletion. The list of articles awaiting review is located at the New Pages Feed. New page reviewing is a vital function for policing the quality of the encylopedia, if you have not already done so, you must read the new tutorial at New Pages Review, the linked guides and essays, and fully understand the various deletion criteria. If you need more help or wish to discuss the process, please join or start a thread at page reviewer talk.

• URGENT: Please consider helping get the huge backlog down to a manageable number of pages as soon as possible.
• Be nice to new users - they are often not aware of doing anything wrong.
• You will frequently be asked by users to explain why their page is being deleted - be formal and polite in your approach to them too, even if they are not.
• Don't review a page if you are not sure what to do. Just leave it for another reviewer.
• Remember that quality is quintessential to good patrolling. Take your time to patrol each article, there is no rush. Use the message feature and offer basic advice.

The reviewer right does not change your status or how you can edit articles. If you no longer want this user right, you may ask any administrator to remove it for you at any time. In case of abuse or persistent inaccuracy of reviewing, the right can be revoked at any time by an administrator. Alex Shih^Talk 21:22, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Due to concerns in regards to a history of combative posting and insensitive comments, the access has been revoked. I apologize for the inconvenience. Alex Shih^Talk 01:27, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Alex Shih: that is fine. I would like you to explain what prompted this decision, including specific examples. Thank you in advance. –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 10:33, 25 August 2017 (UTC) User:Alex Shih: innocently checking whether you have seen this. –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 14:47, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

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

@Sb2001: The more I read here the less there is to respond. I found it distressing that you conveniently left out the fact that you've been suspended from AfC review when you applied for NPR, as these two process are essentially interconnected. Alex Shih^Talk 22:08, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

Blank Huggle edit summaries

Moved to Wikipedia:Huggle/Feedback § Blank edit summaries

Not sure what exactly is going on, but numerous of your reverts with Huggle have blank summaries other than "((HG) (3.2.0))". Home Lander (talk) 23:12, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Home Lander: It does that for some reason. Other users do it also, so I thought it must be fine. Any idea how to change it? –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 23:14, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

I have no idea what would even cause it, honestly. I've had trouble installing 3.2.0 so I'm still using an older version, 3.1.22. Wonder if it's a bug with 3.2.0. Is it when you're just doing a basic revert? Home Lander (talk) 23:18, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Home Lander: It is, yes. I shall get onto the wizards at the support desk. They might have some idea what is causing it. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 23:39, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Alright, I figured it was some sort of bug. A generic revert should spit out similar to "(Reverted edits by Example (talk) (HG) (3.1.22))". Home Lander (talk) 23:42, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Also, if you're using the revert/warn combination button, it's not warning users. Example here. Home Lander (talk) 23:45, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

It seems to sometimes send the warning note, and always the welcome message for 'good' edits. I shall add this to the support discussion. –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 23:48, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Guess I'm glad I haven't gotten the 3.2.0 update to work. Home Lander (talk) 23:49, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

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

This revert

Hi, this revert of yours is questionable this one. I was adding sourced information and removing the unsourced information as asked on the talk page. I am readding my edit there. Thanks, 2.51.18.247 (talk) 13:37, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Sorry about that, 2.51.18.247. I was only shown one part of your edit (changing references → notes). I would not have reverted the whole thing ... good work! –Sb2001 ^{talk page} 13:42, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Thanks

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