User talk:SMcCandlish

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User talk:SMcCandlish/IP

Old stuff to resolve eventually

Cueless billiards

Unresolved

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

Extended content

Categories are not my thing but do you think there are enough articles now or will be ever to make this necessary? Other than Finger billiards and possibly Carrom, what else is there?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 11:12, 18 January 2010 (UTC) Crud fits for sure. And if the variant in it is sourceable, I'm sure some military editor will fork it into a separate article eventually. I think at least some variants of bar billiards are played with hands and some bagatelle split-offs probably were, too (Shamos goes into loads of them, but I get them all mixed up, mostly because they have foreign names). And there's bocce billiards, article I've not written yet. Very fun game. Kept my sister and I busy for 3 hours once. Her husband (Air Force doctor) actually plays crud on a regular basis; maybe there's a connection. She beat me several times, so it must be from crud-playing. Hand pool might be its own article eventually. Anyway, I guess it depends upon your "categorization politics". Mine are pretty liberal - I like to put stuff into a logical category as long as there are multiple items for it (there'll be two as soon as you're done with f.b., since we have crud), and especially if there are multiple parent categories (that will be the case here), and especially especially if the split parallels the category structure of another related category branch (I can't think of a parallel here, so this criterion of mine is not a check mark in this case), and so on. A bunch of factors really. I kind of wallow in that stuff. Not sure why I dig the category space so much. Less psychodrama, I guess. >;-) In my entire time here, I can only think of maybe one categorization decision I've made that got nuked at CfD. And I'm a pretty aggressive categorizer, too; I totally overhauled Category:Pinball just for the heck of it and will probably do the same to Category:Darts soon. PS: I'm not wedded to the "cueless billiards" name idea; it just seemed more concise than "cueless developments from cue sports" or whatever.— SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ Contribs. 11:44, 18 January 2010 (UTC) I have no "categorization politics". It's not an area that I think about a lot or has ever interested me so it's good there are people like you. If there is to be a category on this, "cueless billiards" seems fine to me. By the way, just posted Yank Adams as an adjunct to the finger billiards article I started.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 11:57, 18 January 2010 (UTC) Cool; I'd never even heard of him. This one looks like a good DYK; just the fact that there was Finger Billiards World Championship contention is funky enough, probably. You still citing that old version of Shamos? You really oughta get the 1999 version; it can be had from Amazon for cheap and has a bunch of updates. I actually put my old version in the recycle bin as not worth saving. Heh. PS: You seen Stein & Rubino 3rd ed.? I got one for the xmas before the one that just passed, from what was then a really good girlfriend. >;-) It's a-verra, verra nahce. Over 100 new pages, I think (mostly illustrations). — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ Contribs. 13:41, 18 January 2010 (UTC) If I happen to come across it in a used book store I might pick it up. There's nothing wrong with citing the older edition (as I've said to you before). I had not heard of Adams before yesterday either. Yank is apparently not his real name, though I'm not sure what it is yet. Not sure there will be enough on him to make a DYK (though don't count it out). Of course, since I didn't userspace it, I have 4½ days to see. Unfortunately, I don't have access to ancestry.com and have never found any free database nearly as useful for finding newspaper articles (and census, birth certificates, and reams of primary source material). I tried to sign up for a free trial again which worked once before, but they got smart and are logging those who signed up previously. I just looked; the new Stein and Rubino is about $280. I'll work from the 2nd edition:-)--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:16, 18 January 2010 (UTC) Hmm... I haven't tried Ancestry in a while. They're probably logging IP addresses. That would definitely affect me, since mine doesn't change except once every few years. I guess that's what libraries and stuff are for. S&R: Should be available cheaper. Mine came with the Blue Book of Pool Cues too for under $200 total. Here it is for $160, plus I think the shipping was $25. Stein gives his e-mail address as that page. If you ask him he might give you the 2-book deal too, or direct you to where ever that is. Shamos: Not saying its an unreliable source (although the newer version actually corrected some entries), it's just cool because it has more stuff in it. :-) DYK: Hey, you could speedily delete your own article, sandbox it and come back. Heh. Seriously, I'll see if I can get into Ancestry again and look for stuff on him. I want to look for William Hoskins stuff anyway so I can finish that half of the Spinks/Hoskins story, which has sat in draft form for over a year. I get sidetracked... — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ Contribs. 14:29, 18 January 2010 (UTC) It's not IPs they're logging, it's your credit card. You have to give them one in order to get the trial so that they can automatically charge you if you miss the cancellation deadline. Regarding the Blue Book, of all these books, that's the one that get's stale, that is, if you use it for actual quotes, which I do all the time, both for answer to questions and for selling, buying, etc. Yeah I start procrastinating too. I did all that work on Mingaud and now I can't get myself to go back. I also did reams of research on Hurricane Tony Ellin (thugh I found so little; I really felt bad when he died; I met him a few times, seemed like a really great guy), Masako Katsura and others but still haven't moved on them.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 18:31, 18 January 2010 (UTC) Ah, the credit card. I'll have to see if the PayPal plugin has been updated to work with the new Firefox. If so, that's our solution - it generates a new valid card number every time you use it (they always feed from your single PayPal account). — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ Contribs. 18:37, 18 January 2010 (UTC) PayPal Plugin ist kaput. Some banks now issue credit card accounts that make use of virtual card numbers, but mine's not one of them. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ Contribs. 19:49, 8 February 2010 (UTC) Thanks for trying. It was worth a shot. I signed up for a newspaperarchive.com three month trial. As far as newspaper results go it seems quite good so far, and the search interface is many orders of magnitude better than ancestry's, but it has none of the genealogical records that ancestry provides. With ancestry I could probably find census info on Yank as well as death information (as well as for Masako Katsura, which I've been working on it for a few days; she could actually be alive, though she'd be 96).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:52, 9 February 2010 (UTC) Sad... How well forgotten some very well known people are. The more I read about Yank Adams, the more I realize he was world famous. Yet, he's almost completely unknown today and barely mentioned even in modern billiard texts.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:47, 21 January 2010 (UTC) Reading stuff from that era, it's also amazing how important billiards (in the three-ball sense) was back then, with sometimes multiple-page stories in newspapers about each turn in a long match, and so on. It's like snooker is today in the UK. PS: I saw that you found evidence of a billiards stage comedy there. I'd never heard of it! — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ Contribs. 15:17, 21 January 2010 (UTC) Jackpot. Portrait, diagrams, sample shot descriptions and more (that will also lend itself to the finger billiards article).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 01:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC) Nice find! — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ Contribs. 06:07, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Look at the main page

Unresolved

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

Extended content

Look at the main page --Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:37, 31 January 2011 (UTC) Since you don't appear to have seen this near to the time I left it, it might be a little cryptic without explanation. Masako Katsura was today's featured article on January 31, 2011.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 20:26, 1 February 2011 (UTC) Supah-dupah! That kicks. WP:CUE's (and your?) first TFA, yes?! And yeah I have been away a lot lately. Long story. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ Contribs. 01:22, 18 February 2011 (UTC) Indeed, my first, though I have another in the works (not billiards related). I think François Mingaud could be a candidate in the near future. I really wanted to work it up to near FA level before posting it but another user created it recently, not realizing my draft existed, and once they did realize, copied some of my content without proper copyright attribution and posted to DYK. I have done a history merge though the newer, far less developed content is what's seen in the article now. I'm going to merge the old with the new soon. Glad to see your back.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 16:15, 20 February 2011 (UTC) My front and sides are visible too. ;-) Anyway, glad you beat me to Mingaud. I'd been thinking of doing that one myself, but it seemed a bit daunting. I may have some tidbits for it. Lemme know when your merged version goes up, and I'll see what I have that might not already be in there. Probably not earthshaking, just a few things I found in 1800s-1910s books. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ Contribs. 16:21, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Some more notes on Crystalate

Unresolved

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

Extended content

Some more notes: they bought Royal Worcester in 1983 and sold it the next year, keeping some of the electronics part.[3]; info about making records:[4]; the chair in 1989 was Lord Jenkin of Roding:[5]; "In 1880, crystalate balls made of nitrocellulose, camphor, and alcohol began to appear. In 1926, they were made obligatory by the Billiards Association and Control Council, the London-based governing body." Amazing Facts: The Indispensable Collection of True Life Facts and Feats. Richard B. Manchester - 1991[6]; a website about crystalate and other materials used for billiard balls:[7]. Fences&Windows 23:37, 12 July 2011 (UTC) Thanks! I'll have to have a look at this stuff in more detail. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ Contribs. 15:54, 16 July 2011 (UTC) I've worked most of it in. Fences&Windows 16:01, 17 July 2011 (UTC) Cool! From what I can tell, entirely different parties held the trademark in different markets. I can't find a link between Crystalate Mfg. Co. Ltd. (mostly records, though billiard balls early on) and the main billiard ball mfr. in the UK, who later came up with "Super Crystalate". I'm not sure the term was even used in the U.S. at all, despite the formulation having been originally patented there. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ Contribs. 21:04, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

WP:SAL

Unresolved

 – Not done yet, last I looked.

Extended content

No one has actually objected to the idea that it's really pointless for WP:SAL to contain any style information at all, other than in summary form and citing MOS:LIST, which is where all of WP:SAL's style advice should go, and SAL page should move back to WP:Stand-alone lists with a content guideline tag. Everyone who's commented for 7 months or so has been in favor of it. I'd say we have consensus to start doing it. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 13:13, 2 March 2012 (UTC) I'll take a look at the page shortly. Thanks for the nudge. SilkTork ✔Tea time 23:19, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Your free 1-year HighBeam Research account is ready

Unresolved

 – Needs to be renewed

Extended content

Good news! You are approved for access to 80 million articles in 6500 publications through HighBeam Research. Account activation codes have been emailed. To activate your account: 1) Go to http://www.highbeam.com/prof1 The 1-year, free period begins once you enter the code. If you need assistance, email "help at highbeam dot com", and include "HighBeam/Wikipedia" in the subject line. Or go to WP:HighBeam/Support, or ask User:Ocaasi. Please, per HighBeam's request, do not call the toll-free number for assistance with registration. A quick reminder about using the account: 1) try it out; 2) provide original citation information, in addition to linking to a HighBeam article; 3) avoid bare links to non-free HighBeam pages; 4) note "(subscription required)" in the citation, where appropriate. Examples are at WP:HighBeam/Citations. HighBeam would love to hear feedback at WP:HighBeam/Experiences Show off your HighBeam access by placing {{User:Ocaasi/highbeam_userbox}} on your userpage When the 1-year period is up, check the applications page to see if renewal is possible. We hope it will be. Thanks for helping make Wikipedia better. Enjoy your research! Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 04:47, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Your Credo Reference account is approved

Unresolved

 – Needs to be renewed.

Extended content

Good news! You are approved for access to 350 high quality reference resources through Credo Reference. Fill out the survey with your username and an email address where your sign-up information can be sent. If you need assistance, ask User:Ocaasi. A quick reminder about using the account: 1) try it out; 2) provide original citation information, in addition to linking to a Credo article; 3) avoid bare links to non-free Credo pages; 4) note "(subscription required)" in the citation, where appropriate. Examples are at WP:Credo accounts/Citations. Credo would love to hear feedback at WP:Credo accounts/Experiences Show off your Credo access by placing {{User:Ocaasi/Credo_userbox}} on your userpage If you decide you no longer can or want to make use of your account, donate it back by adding your name here Thanks for helping make Wikipedia better. Enjoy your research! Cheers, Ocaasi 17:22, 22 August 2012 (UTC) Yay! — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 10:50, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Circa

Unresolved

 – Need to file the RfC.

Extended content

This edit explains how to write "ca.", which is still discouraged at MOS:#Abbreviations, WP:YEAR, WP:SMOS#Abbreviations, and maybe MOS:DOB, and after you must have read my complaint and ordeal at WT:Manual of Style/Abbreviations#Circa. Either allow "ca." or don't allow "ca.", I don't care which, but do it consistently. Art LaPella (talk) 15:41, 28 December 2012 (UTC) Sounds like a good WP:RFC. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 17:52, 28 December 2012 (UTC) It's been hard to get opinions on circa in the past. Anyway, can I undo that edit, until when and if someone wants to edit the other guidelines to match? If we leave it there indefinitely, nobody will notice except me. Art LaPella (talk) 20:17, 28 December 2012 (UTC) I don't care; this will have to be dealt with in an RfC anyway. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 20:44, 28 December 2012 (UTC) Done (now I don't need to wonder if the RfC will ever be acted on :) ) Art LaPella (talk) 21:08, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

You post at Wikipedia talk:FAQ/Copyright

Unresolved

 – Need to fix William A. Spinks, etc., with proper balkline stats, now that we know how to interpret them.

Extended content

That page looks like a hinterland (you go back two users in the history and you're in August). Are you familiar with WP:MCQ? By the way, did you see my response on the balkline averages?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 15:54, 6 January 2013 (UTC) Yeah, I did a bunch of archiving yesterday. This page was HUGE. It'll get there again. I'd forgotten MCQ existed. Can you please add it to the DAB hatnote at top of and "See also" at bottom of WP:COPYRIGHT? Its conspicuous absence is precisely why I ened up at Wikipedia talk:FAQ/Copyright! Haven't seen your balkline response yet; will go look. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 21:34, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Hee Haw

Unresolved

 – Still need to propose some standards on animal breed article naming and disambiguation.

Extended content

Yeah, we did get along on Donkeys. And probably will get along on some other stuff again later. Best way to handle WP is to take it issue by issue and then let bygones be bygones. I'm finding some interesting debates over things like the line between a subspecies, a landrace and a breed. Just almost saw someone else's GA derailed over a "breed versus species" debate that was completely bogus, we just removed the word "adapt" and life would have been fine. I'd actually be interested in seeing actual scholarly articles that discuss these differences, particularly the landrace/breed issue in general, but in livestock in particular, and particularly as applied to truly feral/landrace populations (if, in livestock, there is such a thing, people inevitably will do a bit of culling, sorting and other interference these days). I'm willing to stick to my guns on the WPEQ naming issue, but AGF in all respects. Truce? Montanabw(talk) 22:40, 6 January 2013 (UTC) Truce, certainly. I'm not here to pick fights, just improve the consistency for readers and editors. I don't think there will be any scholarly articles on differences between landrace and breed, because there's nothing really to write about. Landrace has clear definitions in zoology and botany, and breed not only doesn't qualify, it is only established as true in any given case by reliable sources. Basically, no one anywhere is claiming "This is the Foobabaz horse, and it is a new landrace!" That wouldn't make sense. What is happening is people naming and declaring new alleged breeds on an entirely self-interested, profit-motive basis, with no evidence anyone other than the proponent and a few other experimental breeders consider it a breed. WP is full of should-be-AfD'd articles of this sort, like the cat one I successfully prod'ed last week. Asking for a reliable source that something is a landrace rather than a breed is backwards; landrace status is the default, not a special condition. It's a bit like asking for a scholarly piece on whether pig Latin is a real language or not; no one's going to write a journal paper about that because "language" (and related terms like "dialect", "language family", "creole" in the linguistic sense, etc.) have clear definitions in linguistics, while pig Latin, an entirely artificial, arbitrary, intentionally-managed form of communication (like an entirely artificial, arbitrary, intentionally managed form of domesticated animal) does not qualify. :-) The "what is a breed" question, which is also not about horses any more than cats or cavies or ferrets, is going to be a separate issue to resolve from the naming issue. Looking over what we collaboratively did with donkeys – and the naming form that took, i.e. Poitou donkey not Poitou (donkey), I think I'm going to end up on your side of that one. It needs to be discussed more broadly in an RFC, because most projects use the parenthetical form, because this is what WT:AT is most readily interpretable as requiring. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 00:12, 7 January 2013 (UTC) I hate the drama of an RfC, particularly when we can just look at how much can be naturally disambiguated, but if you think it's an actual issue, I guess ping me when it goes up. As for landcraces, it may be true ("clear definitions") but you would be doing God's (or someone's) own good work if you were to improve landrace which has few references, fewer good ones, and is generally not a lot of help to those of us trying to sort out WTF a "landrace" is... (smiles). As for breed, that is were we disagree: At what point do we really have a "breed" as opposed to a "landrace?" Fixed traits, human-selected? At what degree, at which point? How many generations? I don't even know if there IS such a thing as a universal definition of what a "breed" is: seriously: [8] or breed or [9]. I think you and I agree that the Palomino horse can never be a "breed" because it is impossible for the color to breed true (per an earlier discussion) so we have one limit. But while I happen agree to a significant extent with your underlying premise that when Randy from Boise breeds two animals and says he has created a new breed and this is a problem, (I think it's a BIG problem in the worst cases) but if we want to get really fussy, I suppose that the aficionados of the Arabian horse who claim the breed is pure from the dawn of time are actually arguing it is a landrace, wouldn't you say? And what DO we do with the multi-generational stuff that's in limbo land? Montanabw(talk) 00:41, 7 January 2013 (UTC) I'm not really certain what the answers are to any of those questions, another reason (besides your "STOP!" demands :-) that I backed away rapidly from moving any more horse articles around. But it's something that is going to have to be looked into. I agree that the Landrace article here is poor. For one thing, it needs to split Natural breed out into its own article (a natural breed is a selectively-bred formal breed the purpose of which is to refine and "lock-in" the most definitive qualities of a local landrace). This in turn isn't actually the same thing as a traditional breed, though the concepts are related. Basically, three breeding concepts are squished into one article. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 00:52, 7 January 2013 (UTC) Side comment: I tend to support one good overview article over three poor content forks, just thinking aloud... Montanabw(talk) 23:01, 7 January 2013 (UTC) Sure; the point is that the concepts have to be separately, clearly treated, because they are not synonymous at all. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 02:07, 8 January 2013 (UTC) Given that the article isn't well-sourced yet, I think that you might want to add something about that to landrace now, just to give whomever does article improvement on it later (maybe you, I think this is up your alley!) has the "ping" to do so. Montanabw(talk) 21:55, 8 January 2013 (UTC) Aye, it's on my to-do list. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 22:25, 8 January 2013 (UTC) Although I have been an evolutionary biologist for decades, I only noticed the term "landrace" within the past year or two (in reference to corn), because I work with wildland plants. But I immediately knew what it was, from context. I'm much less certain about breeds, beyond that I am emphatic that they are human constructs. Montanabw and I have discussed my horse off-wiki, and from what I can tell, breeders are selecting for specific attributes (many people claim to have seen a horse "just like him"), but afaik there is no breed "Idaho stock horse". Artificially-selected lineages can exist without anyone calling them "breeds"; I'm not sure they would even be "natural breeds", and such things are common even within established breeds (Montanabw could probably explain to us the difference between Polish and Egyptian Arabians). The good thing about breeds wrt Wikipedia is that we can use WP:RS and WP:NOTABLE to decide what to cover. Landraces are a different issue: if no one has ever called a specific, distinctive, isolated mustang herd a landrace, is it OR for Wikipedia to do so?--Curtis Clark (talk) 16:21, 7 January 2013 (UTC) I have been reluctant to use landrace much out of a concern that the concept is a bit OR, as I hadn't heard of it before wikipedia either (but I'm more a historian than an evolutionary biologist, so what do I know?): Curtis, any idea where this did come from? It's a useful concept, but I am kind of wondering where the lines are between selective breeding and a "natural" breed -- of anything. And speaking of isolated Mustang herds, we have things like Kiger Mustang, which is kind of interesting. I think that at least some of SMc's passion comes from the nuttiness seen in a lot of the dog and cat breeders these days, am I right? I mean, Chiweenies? Montanabw(talk) 23:01, 7 January 2013 (UTC) The first use of the word that I saw referred to different landraces of corn growing in different elevations and exposures in indigenous Maya areas of modern Mexico. I haven't tracked down the references for the use of the word, but the concept seems extremely useful. My sense is that landraces form as much through natural selective processes of cultivation or captivity as through human selection, so that if the "garbage wolf" hypothesis for dog domestication is true, garbage wolves would have been a landrace (or more likely several, in different areas). One could even push the definition and say that MRSA is a landrace. But I don't have enough knowledge of the reliable sources to know how all this would fit into Wikipedia.--Curtis Clark (talk) 01:01, 8 January 2013 (UTC) Landraces form, primarily and quickly, through mostly natural selection, long after domestication. E.g. the St Johns water dog and Maine Coon cat are both North American landraces that postdate European arrival on the continent. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 20:16, 9 January 2013 (UTC) I see some potential for some great research on this and a real improvement to the articles in question. Montanabw(talk) 21:55, 8 January 2013 (UTC) Yep. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib. 20:16, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Redundant sentence?

Unresolved

 – Work to integrate WP:NCFLORA and WP:NCFAUNA stuff into MOS:ORGANISMS not completed yet?

Extended content

The sentence at MOS:LIFE "General names for groups or types of organisms are not capitalized except where they contain a proper name (oak, Bryde's whales, rove beetle, Van cat)" is a bit odd, since the capitalization would (now) be exactly the same if they were the names of individual species. Can it simply be removed? There is an issue, covered at Wikipedia:PLANTS#The use of botanical names as common names for plants, which may or may not be worth putting in the main MOS, namely cases where the same word is used as the scientific genus name and as the English name, when it should be de-capitalized. I think this is rare for animals, but more common for plants and fungi (although I have seen "tyrannosauruses" and similar uses of dinosaur names). Peter coxhead (talk) 09:17, 3 May 2014 (UTC) I would leave it a alone for now; let people get used to the changes. I think it's reasonable to include the "general names" thing, because it's a catch-all that includes several different kinds of examples, that various largely different groups of people are apt to capitalize. Various know-nothings want to capitalize things like "the Cats", the "Great Apes", etc., because they think "it's a Bigger Group and I like to Capitalize Big Important Stuff". There are millions more people who just like to capitalize nouns and stuff. "Orange's, $1 a Pound". Next we have people who insist on capitalizing general "types" and landraces of domestic animals ("Mountain Dogs", "Van Cat") because they're used to formal breed names being capitalized (whether to do that with breeds here is an open question, but it should not be done with types/classes of domestics, nor with landraces. Maybe the examples can be sculpted better: "the roses", "herpesviruses", "great apes", "Bryde's whale", "mountain dogs", "Van cat", "passerine birds". I'm not sure that "rove beetle" and "oak" are good examples of anything. Anyway, it's more that the species no-capitalization is a special case of the more general rule, not that the general rule is a redundant or vague version of the former. If they're merged, it should keep the general examples, and maybe specifically spell out and illustrate that it also means species and subspecies, landraces and domestic "types", as well as larger and more general groupings. I had noticed that point and was going to add it, along with some other points from both NCFLORA and NCFAUNA, soon to MOS:ORGANISMS, which I feel is nearing "go live" completion. Does that issue come up often enough to make it a MOS mainpage point? I wouldn't really object to it, and it could be had by adding an "(even if it coincides with a capitalized Genus name)" parenthetical to the "general names" bit. The pattern is just common enough in animals to have been problematic if it were liable to be problematic, as it were. I.e., I don't see a history of squabbling about it at Lynx or its talk page, and remember looking into this earlier with some other mammal, about two weeks ago, and not seeing evidence of confusion or editwarring. The WP:BIRDS people were actually studiously avoiding that problem; I remember seeing a talk page discussion at the project that agreed that such usage shouldn't be capitalized ever. PS: With Lynx, I had to go back to 2006, in the thick of the "Mad Capitalization Epidemic" to find capitalization there[10], and it wasn't even consistent, just in the lead.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  11:11, 3 May 2014 (UTC) Well, certainly "rove beetle" and "oak" are poor examples here, so I would support changing to some of the others you suggested above. I think the main problem we found with plants was it being unclear as to whether inexperienced editors meant the scientific name or the English name. So you would see a sentence with e.g. "Canna" in the middle and not know whether this should be corrected to "Canna" or to "canna". The plural is clear; "cannas" is always lower-case non-italicized. The singular is potentially ambiguous. Whether it's worth putting this point in the main MOS I just don't know since I don't much edit animal articles and never breed articles, which is why I asked you. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:55, 3 May 2014 (UTC) Will take a look at that later, if someone else doesn't beat me to it. Beats me. Doesn't seem too frequent an issue, but lot of MOS stuff isn't. Definitely should be in MOS:ORGANISMS, regardless.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:46, 4 May 2014 (UTC) Worked on both of those a bit at MOS. We'll see if it sticks.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:18, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

---

Note to self

Unresolved

Finish patching up WP:WikiProject English language with the stuff from User:SMcCandlish/WikiProject English Language, and otherwise get the ball rolling.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:22, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Re: Diacritics

Unresolved

 – An anti-diacritics pseudo-guideline is a problem and needs an RfC.

Greetings. I was referring to conventions like "All North American hockey pages should have player names without diacritics.". Cédric ^{HATES TPP.} 23:26, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

@Cedric tsan cantonais: Wow, thanks for drawing that to my attention. Don't know how that one slipped past the radar. That is actually a bogus WP:LOCALCONSENSUS "guideline" and needs to be fixed! My point still stands, though, that "any" covers both this any any new proposal someone might come up with. :-) Anyway, I'm not sure how to deal with the "screw the MoS, we're going to ban diacritics in hockey" crap, other than probably an RfC hosted at WP:VPPOL.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  23:30, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

For your information, I'm using "any and all" on the template so both our grounds can be covered. Cédric ^{HATES TPP.} 05:05, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Fortunately, the universe did not implode.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  18:30, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Excellent mini-tutorial

Unresolved

 – Still need to do that essay page.

Somehow, I forget quite how, I came across this - that is an excellent summary of the distinctions. I often get confused over those, and your examples were very clear. Is something like that in the general MoS/citation documentation? Oh, and while I am here, what is the best way to format a citation to a page of a document where the pages are not numbered? All the guidance I have found says not to invent your own numbering by counting the pages (which makes sense), but I am wondering if I can use the 'numbering' used by the digitised form of the book. I'll point you to an example of what I mean: the 'book' in question is catalogued here (note that is volume 2) and the digitised version is accessed through a viewer, with an example of a 'page' being here, which the viewer calls page 116, but there are no numbers on the actual book pages (to confuse things further, if you switch between single-page and double-page view, funny things happen to the URLs, and if you create and click on a single-page URL the viewer seems to relocate you one page back for some reason). Carcharoth (talk) 19:10, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

@Carcharoth: Thanks. I need to copy that into an essay page. As far as I know, the concepts are not clearly covered in any of those places, nor clearly enough even at Help:CS1 (which is dense and overlong as it is). The e-book matters bear some researching. I'm very curious whether particular formats (Nook, etc.) paginate consistently between viewers. For Web-accessible ones, I would think that the page numbering that appears in the Web app is good enough if it's consistent (e.g., between a PC and a smart phone) when the reader clicks the URL in the citation. I suppose one could also use |at= to provide details if the "page" has to be explained in some way. I try to rely on better-than-page-number locations when possible, e.g. specific entries in dictionaries and other works with multiple entries per page (numbered sections in manuals, etc.), but for some e-books this isn't possible – some are just continuous texts. One could probably use something like |at=in the paragraph beginning "The supersegemental chalcolithic metastasis is ..." about 40% into the document, in a pinch. I guess we do need to figure this stuff out since such sources are increasingly common.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:29, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Yes (about figuring out how to reference e-books), though I suspect existing (non-WP) citation styles have addressed this already (no need to re-invent the wheel). This is a slightly different case, though. It is a digitisation of an existing (physical) book that has no page numbers. If I had the book in front of me (actually, it was only published as a single copy, so it is not a 'publication' in that traditional sense of many copies being produced), the problem with page numbers would still exist. I wonder if the 'digital viewer' should be thought of as a 'via' thingy? In the same way that (technically) Google Books and archive.org digital copies of old books are just re-transmitting, and re-distributing the material (is wikisource also a 'via' sort of thing?). Carcharoth (talk) 23:13, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

@Carcharoth: Ah, I see. I guess I would treat it as a |via=, and same with WikiSource, which in this respect is essentially like Google Books or Project Gutenberg. I think your conundrum has come up various times with arXiv papers, that have not been paginated visibly except in later publication (behind a journal paywall and not examined). Back to the broader matter: Some want to treat WikiSource and even Gutenberg as republishers, but I think that's giving them undue editorial credit and splitting too fine a hair. Was thinking on the general unpaginated and mis-paginated e-sources matter while on the train, and came to the conclusion that for a short, unpaginated work with no subsections, one might give something like |at=in paragraph 23, and for a much longer one use the |at=in the paragraph beginning "..." trick. A straight up |pages=82–83 would work for an e-book with hard-coded meta-data pagination that is consistent between apps/platforms and no visual pagination. On the other hand, use the visual pagination in an e-book that has it, even if it doesn't match the e-book format's digital pagination, since the pagination in the visual content would match that of a paper copy; one might include a note that the pagination is that visible in the content if it conflicts with what the e-book reader says (this comes up a lot with PDFs, for one thing - I have many that include cover scans, and the PDF viewers treat that as p. 1, then other front matter as p. 2, etc., with the content's p. 1 being something like PDF p. 7).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  08:07, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

---

Current threads

Hi

Seeing that Kingsindian and myself understand Version 2 completely differently over at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment, could you please tell us what your opinion is, about the situation on Mausoleum of Abu Huraira: did editor C break the rules' according to Version 2, or not? (I have no intention of reporting anyone, but I really need to know,....or I will be reported next, if I have gotten it wrong.) Thanks, Huldra (talk) 20:22, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

@Huldra: Well, given that it's an open question at ArbCom, I'm skeptical anyone would be addressed under version 2 until after ArbCom decides that is the interpretation to apply, if they do so. I would need to see specific diffs to know what "danger" you or the other editor might think they're in. I would think in the interim that acting as if version 2 is in effect is safest, because the Arbs chiming in so far are leaning toward that direction (or were as of yesterday – I haven't looked since then), and it's the safer interpretations if some admins already use that interpretation, and it's more in keeping with the spirit/point of it, and of course WP:THEREISNODEADLINE.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  02:46, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Well, to repeat: I have no intention of reporting anyone, BUT: I need to know, as I know with about 100% certainty that I will be reported if I break any rules. (I normally write Palestinian history, which means that......not everybody loves me, put it that way. The threshold of reporting me to the dramah boards is rather low, Ive been reported twice just this last half year, for basically misreading things, see [11][12])

As it is, at the moment, Kingindian and I have completely opposite opinion on how Version 2 is to be understood, and I really need a clear answer to which one of us is correct. Huldra (talk) 20:11, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

@Huldra and Kingsindian: Only ArbCom can give you one. Only the current ArbCom members can determine which interpretation prevails (or, technically, they could refuse to decide and leave it up to WP:AE admins' interpretation, but I predict they'll not do that because it would perpetuate rather than solve the conflict). I think the safe bet is to presume that version 2 will prevail (based on Arbs' responses so far), and further to assume that it means that if A reverts B, and C un-reverts B, and D re-reverts C, that for A, B, and C the "clock" starts from D's re-revert. It may mean more waiting (and ArbCom might not go that far with it), but I cannot see how that interpretation can go wrong as a "how to stay out of trouble" matter. Meanwhile, it's already been more than 24 hours since you raised this question with me, and what the "real" interpretation is remains an open question at WP:ARCA, so I don't think you or anyone else need worry about whether some edits from over a day ago might or might not technically might have been sanctionable. It's already stale, and if none of you are editwarring, especially in ways that seem to be system-gaming the confusion about what the the exact 1RR rule is in this case, then no one would take action against any of you, because sanctions are meant to be preventative not a form of retroactive punishment. Have some ice cream and watch a comedy; relax. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  06:29, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

To Huldra: as of this moment, you can continue as normal. If this widespread insanity actually results in a rule change to version 2, then you can really start to worry. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 06:54, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

The version 3 compromise looks promising.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  19:33, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

sorry i edited the blade runner article

can u tell me if it has robots though — Preceding unsigned comment added by Handbabyy (talk • contribs) 08:57, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

@Handbabyy: Please sign your posts (put ~~~~ at the end), and new posts go at the bottom (took me a while to get used to that, too). We have robots today, so there are surely robots in the Blade Runner fictional universe. However, The stories in Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049 focus on genetically engineered artificial life, not mechanical. I.e., they were grown in a lab, not built in a shop. So, depending on your definitions, the films either are not about robots at all, or are a "re-imagining" of and a continuation of robot-themed fiction into the era of genetic engineering, much as biological zombie and vampire fiction, in which those conditions are viruses, are a bio-era outgrowth of older genres about them as undead spirits. I don't know if our articles on the films really get into this sort of thing, but there are numerous books in the film studies vein that analyze the original Blade Runner in detail. Try an Amazon books search on "Blade Runner" [13]. I have several of these books and some of them are quite good (I liked Retrofitting Blade Runner and Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner), though not every bit of them is great. PS: Even in Philip K. Dick's original 1968 novel, which was about "androids", they had a biological as well as mechanical component, so that wasn't new to the film, just turned up a notch.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  10:20, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Thoughts

I disagree with your assertion, expressed elsewhere, that the mathematics wiki project is somehow a narrow focus group for the purposes of the mathematics manual of style. MOSMATH dates back to 2002 and is one of the earliest and most well-established parts of the MOS. The math project is the most knowledgeable group on the wiki about the actual styles used in mathematics articles, and members of the project have long collaborated on that page for the benefit of the wiki. It would be absurd not to point them to potential changes that would affect thousands of mathematics articles.

But the main reason I wanted to write is about the framing of the closed RFC. From my perspective, no MOS page has ever said that colons cannot be used for indenting displayed mathematical formulas. This is, undoubtedly, why featured articles continue to use colons. So I see no actual CONLEVEL disagreement. By claiming there is a disagreement, I believe you were saying that there is another MOS page which says colons cannot be used. I don't see any page that says so, so I interpreted the RFC as saying that you wanted to change the Wikipedia style to say that colons cannot be used (as was done for block quotes, but not for other indented content, in the past). That position was rejected in the RFC. And so there is still no conflict: no other MOS page says not to use colons for mathematical, chemical, or other formulas.

You have also described MOSMATH as a "fork", but MOSMATH predates most of the rest of the MOS, and the guidance about how to indent mathematical formulas is very well established (since 2002). So there does not seem to be any "forking" going on with the page. Moreover, I f there were a CONLEVEL disagreement because of language recently added to other pages, it seems that those other pages might not accurately reflect the long term consensus about how to format mathematical formulas - those other pages, in effect, would be attempting to fork the previously existing directions from MOSMATH.

I can also point out that I'm quite knowledgeable about HTML and programming. I have edited the Mediawiki source for my local installs and I wrote the WP 1.0 bot including its web interface. Our disagreements are not based on technical misunderstandings about how to generate HTML. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:03, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

That's a lot of mostly unrelated stuff to cover. I'm just going to listify these points for expediency (and if I seem angry in any of it, be assured that I'm not):

1. How old the wikiproject is, and how much people like it, and whether the people in it are smart and edit in good faith (of course they are and do) has nothing to do with whether it's narrowly topical compared to VPTECH, which is the only comparison I made.
2. It's correct that no MoS page has said "colons cannot be used ..."; the RfC didn't posit that one should say that, nor did the edit the RfC was about say that, either. You just made it up out of thin air, and misled the wikiproject that such a proposal was being made, so of course they all showed up and bloc voted against it in confused terms and with much hair-pulling and angsty wailing. Notifying the wikiproject of the discussion made perfect sense. Doing so in entirely misleading and alarming terms did not. I assume that happened out of misapprehension not craft, and blame myself in part for not having been clearer from the start about why not to recommend : markup when we have alternatives now and the problems with the old markup are now well-known.
3. The reasons FAs use colons for indentation are a) most of them pre-date the templates that do this more accessibly and MoS advice to use them, b) few MoS points are ever "enforced" at FAC (only those that reviewers happen to both notice and give a damn about), c) FAC "stewards" are frequently hostile (sometimes really excessively so) to MoS gnoming to bring old FAs into compliance with current standards, and d) this sort of markup usability thing is precisely the kind of MoS gnome geekery that hardly anyone works on and which only very slowly makes its way into the "live" code of the encyclopedia. Even if an actual WP policy mandated use of accessible code for this instead of abuse of <dd> list markup it would probably take years to implement (though of course it will never be a policy-level matter).
4. "[F]or mathematical, chemical, or other formulas" is completely irrelevant. What is on the right of the indent has nothing to do with the HTML and CSS markup used to induce the indentation; they're separate domains. It could be a poem or an interlinear gloss or a diagram of flies mating, and the means for indenting it all are identical, as are concerns about doing it in a crappy way just because it's easier by a few characters. It's a layout and accessibility and WP:REUSE and code maintainability matter, a meta-level above the topic of the content being indented.
5. If the maths people want to get the MW developers to hack <math> to support an indentation system within that x-tag, that's fine and dandy, but has jack to do with whether we should continue abusing <dd> list markup for visual layout. It's essentially the same debate as the ancient one about misuse of tables for webpage design layout.
6. Maths concerns are also completely irrelevant to the WP:CONLEVEL issues that are what the RfC was really about. Due to your misleading canvassing of WT:MATHS, none of that got discussed; it was all just a bunch of panicked off-topic noise from maths editors who did not understand the RfC because you confused them about it with a chicken-little story. That sounds more pissy than I really mean it. RfCs get derailed all the time, and I could have written that one better, and notified the wikiproject myself; live and learn. Reasonable discussions are emerging from it, despite the FUD, both at WT:MOSMATH and at Phabricator, so I consider it an overall step forward, despite the verbal abuse I've suffered at Nyttend's hands. I was never going to bother objecting to your canvassing until Nyttend forced my hand by accusing me of unbalancing the RfC when all I did was try to get some people to actually pay attention to what it said rather than what you told them it said.
7. I did not describe MOSMATH as a fork of anything. I described – entirely correctly – something happening at MOSMATH as WP:POLICYFORKing: the "I don't understand, I'm lazy, I don't like change, or this is my page anyway"-style reverting at MOS:MATH to prevent it from being updated to agree with WP:MOS and MOS:ACCESS in deprecating problematic markup and replacing it with demonstrably better markup. It's Not related in any way to how long a page has been around or how long it has said something; it's only about a maths MoS subpage trying to fight (without even any legitimate cause!) against the main MoS page and against the accessibility MoS page about an accessibility matter, which is not a maths matter. It's no different from, say, WikiProject Comics deciding the MOS:TEXT doesn't apply to them and topics they think they "owns" and thus they can go bold-face and ALL-CAPS and turn purple all the names of all superheroes in articles.
8. You keep recycling this argument that it's about "how to format mathematical formulas". It's not. It has to do with how to indent content of any kind. Nothing anywhere in this debate has any effect on anything between the <math>...</math> beginning and end tags. If it's still not clear, let me try this analogy: If your city statutes prohibit hunting animals within the city limits, you don't get a free pass to go around shotgunning rats just because you know a whole lot about rats and how to hunt them. Not even if you're sure something needs to be done about rats. Especially when you've been provided with well-tested rat traps as an alternative. Even if you really like running around shooting them instead. And even if your family's been shooting them since before the city was incorporated. Even if you're doing it on your own property. And even if you don't understand why its better to trap them than to go around shooting even. Even if you still don't understand, after people explain to you that you're injuring others in your shooting sprees. Even if you rabble-rouse your gun club with a false story that the ordinance against hunting in city limits is actually a statute that plans to take away all their guns. Even if the governor is a friend of yours and verbally abuses one of your city councilmen in public because the governor doesn't agree with the statute the city passed.
9. No one said anything about whether you understand how to generate HTML. It's as if you just don't give a damn whether the HTML generated is valid, conformant, and accessible, versus just expedient to generate with shortcuts like ":" even if it's wrong. "As long as it looks okay to me with my eyesight on my browser, that's good enough" is the message you're sending. I don't read minds, so I have no idea what your intent is. I don't work in intent, I work in actual results. Abusing : for visual indentation does not produce good results, any more than using White Out on your teeth to make them look clean from a distance is an actual tooth cleaning.
10. Finally, Accessible talk pages are a lost cause until we have better software for discussions. Accessible markup in articles is not a lost cause. We have template replacements for : that not only work great, they actually work better. The only cost is typing a few extra characters to use them. If maths people couldn't handle that, they also couldn't handled maths markup, or wikimarkup in general. You, me, and the other respondents to the RfC and related discussions have already spent more characters and time arguing at the guideline talk page, the RfC, and my talk page than would have been needed to fix hundreds of articles to use the better markup.
     — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  19:32, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Re (2): If no other MOS page says colons cannot be used, and MOSMATH says they can, there is no CONLEVEL issue to start with, because there is no conflict between pages. The only way to see a conflict is to believe that some MOS page forbids the use of colons. Indeed, just today you wrote that MOSMATH should "conform with current main-MoS and MOS:ACCESS advice" - but MOSMATH does agree with these pages, because they have always treated colons as an acceptable way to indent things, possibly apart from block quotations. This is why it was important, in my opinion, for the RFC to establish clearly that colons are an acceptable way to indent formulas, and why I focused on that issue in the RFC. The deeper issue here is not CONLEVEL, in my opinion, the issue is that other MOS pages might be misread to suggest that colons cannot be used to indent formulas. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:33, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

This isn't about whether anyone "can" use colons to indent (you "can" use any markup you can think of to do that, while others definitely also can replace it if it sucks). It's about editwarring at a subordinate MoS page to thwart advice from the main MoS page (which has precedence over all MoS pages) and from the accessibility MoS, both of which make it clear that colons for indentation are a problem and that it's preferable to use a more accessible solution. This is a matter that has nothing to do with maths but to do with accessible page layout and standards-conformant markup in general. This is about a conflict in guideline wording and about WP:CONLEVEL precedence.

No one can be punished for or utterly prohibited from doing anything by any guideline, so this whole "cannot" and "says they can" stuff is entirely off-topic. The indentation-related material at the main MoS is not about block quotations (which auto-indent) but about how to indent everything but block quotations; it's right there in plain English. The material at MOS:ACCESS on colon-indents being a poor idea for specific reasons has nothing to do with maths or quotes in particular but all indented content. The "use a colon to indent" idea you like at MOS:MATHS has nothing to do with maths, but about content behing shifted visually to the right. WP:Writing policy is hard, and if you're having trouble following three guidelines' wording in a row, this may not be your long suit, even if you're amazing with calculus. This is not about "indent[ing] formulas" in particular. Formulas are just content; this is about indenting content, which might be pictures or code snippets, or sports scores, or formulae, or anything else people happen to be indenting.

If you still do not absorb this, and want to recycle your "but maths ..." and "what I like isn't banned" and "there is no guideline conflict" arguments, just don't. The accessibility problem will eventually be fixed one way or another (next month, in 2027, who knows) whether you understand or not. You just go right ahead and keep using colons; others will replace them with better markup after the fact, just as we replace "teh" typos with "the", and add missing alt text to images, and so on.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  05:03, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

New Page Reviewer Newsletter

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Hello SMcCandlish, thank you for your efforts reviewing new pages! Backlog update: The new page backlog is currently at 12713 pages. Please consider reviewing even just a few pages each day! If everyone helps out, it will really put a dent in the backlog. Currently the backlog stretches back to March and some pages in the backlog have passed the 90 day Google index point. Please consider reviewing some of them! Outreach and Invitations: If you know other editors with a good understanding of Wikipedia policy, invite them to join NPP by dropping the invitation template on their talk page with: {{subst:NPR invite}}. Adding more qualified reviewers will help with keeping the backlog manageable. New Year New Page Review Drive A backlog drive is planned for the start of the year, beginning on January 1st and running until the end of the month. Unique prizes will be given in tiers for both the total number of reviews made, as well as the longest 'streak' maintained. Note: quality reviewing is extremely important, please do not sacrifice quality for quantity. General project update: ACTRIAL has resulted in a significant increase in the quality of new submissions, with noticeably fewer CSD, PROD, and BLPPROD candidates in the new page feed. However, the majority of the backlog still dates back to before ACTRIAL started, so consider reviewing articles from the middle or back of the backlog. The NPP Browser can help you quickly find articles with topics that you prefer to review from within the backlog. To keep up with the latest conversation on New Pages Patrol or to ask questions, you can go to Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers and add it to your watchlist.

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Please comment on Talk:List of areas of London

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Books and Bytes - Issue 25

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The Wikipedia Library Books & Bytes Issue 25, October – November 2017 OAWiki & #1Lib1Ref User Group update Global branches update Spotlight: Research libraries and Wikimedia Bytes in brief Arabic, Korean and French versions of Books & Bytes are now available in meta! Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:57, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

Power~Enwiki at DRV

I saw your note in the now-closed RFA, and I'm entirely puzzled: That DRV is still open with a day or two to go, and so the fact that the article hasn't been restored really doesn't say anything--and if you read the rest of the DRV, it certainly says that a lot of non-inclusionist admins also thought the A7 was improper. And... him invoking SNOW? Really? Cheers, Jclemens (talk) 06:12, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

@Jclemens: ah I had not noticed the DRV was still open. I tend to agree with the WP:NOT#BUREAU arguments made there. I also agree with you that Power-enwiki was mis-citing SNOW, but it is not a policy or guideline, so it seems immaterial. Even those seeking to overturn the deletion on technical CSD grounds are mostly !voting to send it to AfD – they don't think the article will be kept, only that it shouldn't've been speedied. I'm not in a frame of mind to castigate an RfA candidate for having their own interpretation of an essay, or for agreeing that a bad article is bad, or for not jumping on the "process is more important than common sense, and NOT#BUREAU policy doesn't apply when I don't want it to apply" bandwagon.

I had actually already concluded to oppose the candidate on other grounds, though, that are closer to my concerns about admins than "perfection" in deletion squabbling. (RfA was withdrawn before I got around to it.) Yes, I know many editors care more about that than just about anything, and even vote against candidates for "being wrong" in AfDs more than 5% of the time, or for ever even once having tagged something incorrectly (in the view of the RfA voter) for CfD. I'm not among these people. I'm way more concerned about the know-it-all attitude and temperament issues, plus general lack of experience (time-wise – he actually seems to meet my 10K edits threshold, though I expect little of that to be automated). Someone like TonyBallioni, for example, might have made a good admin that soon, due to conscientious, focused absorption of policy and process while also being an active content editor (I'm not meaning to toot TB's horn over-much, his RfA is just fresh in mind – he was a total shoo-in at 14 months, an unusual landslide support); but Power-enwiki isn't in that category, and most candidates are not. This is one of the reasons I've supported a one-year minimum for RfA the entire time I've been here (and I would even buy into 18 months or so). I know many people hate the idea, but it's a philosophical and emotional, not practical, objection.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  16:17, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

Wow, thanks for a fully detailed rationale, which is more explanation than I expected or I think you owe. I just wanted to point out something... and I find I agree with you on all of these points. A year isn't too much, when we're now treating admins as U.S. Federal judges, with for-life appointments. If I ever run for RFA again (which I have toyed with, but don't have enough time to invest for it to be worth the hassle, and I'm pretty sure some folks are still mad at me 5 years after I got voted off ArbCom), I would run with the condition of yearly reelection. That is, I think the best way out of RfA being too big a deal is the ending of "well, now I'm an admin, now I can show my true colors" problem. Jclemens (talk) 17:54, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

I'm a chatty cathy about internal stuff. :-) And I'm not perturbed in any way by people challenging what I say at RfA (or elsewhere); I just may argue a bit for my position if I thought about it hard before posting it!

Glad you brought this stuff up. Adminship's always been a for-life appointment, other than we've belatedly instituted inactive-admin auto-desysopping, for security reasons, and of course bad-acting admins can be removed, like judges who break the law. The community treating the position like something super-serious is ArbCom's doing, by inventing discretionary sanctions, which made it super-serious. While it has been somewhat effective at addressing a specific problem (uncivil, obsessive editwarring and battlegrounding in particular topic areas), DS is a blunt and heavy-handed tool, with little effective oversight. This has had consequences. It's exactly the same kind of double-edged sword as SWAT teams – great for taking out organized groups of heavily armed felons, but at the cost of public faith in "officer friendly", because a militarized police force is dangerous and abuses its power. Adminship was not a big deal ... only for as long as it was not a big deal. The power to arbitrarily issues block and bans of various kinds, and impose article-level restrictions (which lead to cascading series of blocks and T-bans), without any process other than an old case saying a topic area is under DS, and virtually no recourse (AE and ArbCom virtually never overturn a DS action) is very powerful, and all power leads to abuse.

I've also often thought of doing something like a promise of yearly re-election, when I temporarily forget I don't really want to be an admin. I would definitely support the idea that all adminships should be reconfirmed annually, though likely with lower criteria (50+%) passage. I think that would actually reduce the "adminship is a super-mega-huge deal" perception, for the reason you gave and an additional one: If we were pass-or-failing people (mostly passing them) every week, then new candidates would be subject to less of a hostile gauntlet, out of the process being more routine foo it not being as hard to get rid of "badmins". Our only process now is ArbCom, and it's nearly impossible to invoke successfully except against an admin so off the rails ArbCom has no choice but to act or face censure from the community. Another positive effect of such an annual reconfirmation change would be that losing adminship wouldn't be as huge a deal either; the community would be more apt to forgive after 6 mo. or whatever, rather than treat someone like a criminal for a decade. (That said, I can think of two admins who've regained the bit who never should have because their earlier abuses weren't errors but programmatic abuse of authority, which is a personality problem not a learning-curve issue.)

No system is perfect, and "political" ones are always far from it, the more so they more they are rooted in cult-of-personality and fear-of-change psychology. I'm in favor of anything that moves adminship and other aspects of WP's internal governance more toward meritocracy and further away from popularity contest.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  18:33, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

Failed ping notification

Resolved

 – Nothing to fix.

You have pinged by Zero0000 at WP:ARCA, but it failed due to a typo. You may wish to check the page. Best regards, Kostas20142 (talk) 11:58, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

I didn't try to ping Zero0000, I just mentioned the editor in passing (albeit misspelled as "Zero000"). Kind of a WP:DGAF; I have little sympathy for people who intentionally choose hard-to-remember usernames with strings of digits in them. I don't have a need for Zero0000 to respond there; while I disagreed with one of the editor's ideas, our mutual support for Callanec's "version 4" makes the matter moot, and the purpose of that page is to provide input on ARCA requests to the ArbCom members, not to engage in back-and-forth threaded conversation for its own sake.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  13:33, 16 December 2017 (UTC)