User talk:SimonTrew

Closing RfD threads

Hello! I've noticed you've been closing some redirects for discussion discussions (appropriately) as a non-admin. When I ventured into this area a few months ago, some helpful admins passed on the advice that when closing an RfD, you should tag the talk page of the redirect with the {{Old RfD}} template to record that the discussion took place. I have tagged a few already that you have closed so I thought I would let you know. Cheers! Ivanvector (talk) 15:25, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

@Ivanvector: thanks for that. As you may see from WT:RFD I asked and Thryduulf replied, that if I could close so that it saved admins some trouble I would do so. I do think I know kinda how not to close something that I have had a hand in (hence some that I think are snowballing I have not closed), but technical advice like this is extremely welcome to me who has just lost his virginity with doing it. I'll continue to argue with you at RfD if that is OK with you, though: I find it a fascinating forum cos it's kind of the fags of all nations that almost anything can turn up there and I for one do appreciate your help and wisdom in doing so, even when I disagree with you. Si Trew (talk) 15:53, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, and agree to disagree! RfD has been an enlightening experience, and is far more civil than articles for deletion. I get tired of arguing to delete non-notable biographies and corporate fan pages, and it's invariably a sock drawer. I should have also told you about {{nac}} as a shortcut for non-admin closes. I think the advice at WP:NAC requires strongly recommends its use. Ivanvector (talk) 16:44, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

invitation to discuss Serge Guinchard rewrite proposal

As a contributor to Serge Guinchard, you may be interested in discussing a rewrite proposal on the Talk Page. Thanks! Mathglot (talk) 03:28, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Fictitous

Hello again! I see that you closed the Rfd on Fictitous as "redirect to fiction" and carried out the result. I was going to suggest revisiting the close, since fictitious was suggested as a better target, but administrator EurekaLott has done it themselves, effectively objecting to your close per WP:NACD. To eliminate possible contention/confusion, should you consider rewriting your close? Ivanvector (talk) 16:09, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

@Ivanvector: Hi Ivanvector, thanks for that. I thought it was uncontroversial close but presumably not. How would you suggest I rewrite it? Happy to do so if it clarifies the status quo. Si Trew (talk) 17:50, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't think controversial necessarily, but apparently the admin saw a different consensus. Maybe no action is necessary, I'm not sure. Ivanvector (talk) 19:30, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

On balance I did see that more went for "fictitious" than "fiction". I changed the closing noters – a slip on my part when closing, to get the wrong target. Si Trew (talk) 04:35, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Draft for Radiation Constants

Si, could you please look at the last three modifications of my draft (which I did after applying all your suggestions) and tell me if they are OK? (Maybe this got lost in the lengthy Redirection thread …) Thanks! Uli Zappe (talk) 00:11, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Module Draft:PageLinks

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NAC closes

Hi Si. Personally, I really appreciate anyone who wants to help with closes at RfD, but recent discussion has sort of confirmed that NACs can't be performed if the closer can't carry through on the result (i.e., if the result is to delete). I'm happy to overlook that in obvious cases, but it's probably not something you want to make a habit out of. In particular, your two closes at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2015 March 10 were just three days into their listing. WP:DRV would undo those in an instant. I don't think the outcomes were unreasonable, and I deleted Celtic sea salt myself. As the nominator for Jianada, however, I didn't feel comfortable doing so there. You should probably either try tagging it with {{db-xfd}} or revert the close. --BDD (talk) 13:47, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

• Ah, looks like Tavix reverted it. Probably for the best. I think the Celtic sea salt decision can stand, though. --BDD (talk) 14:15, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

One more request: please don't close discussions that you've participated in. You've done that several times recently, including a NAC on a discussion that you opened. It looks troublesome, even when it's done in good faith. The instructions at Wikipedia:Non-admin closure (specifically WP:BADNAC) are designed to avoid potential conflicts of interest. The withdrawn nominations are fine, but please take care in the future so that you can avoid the possibility of accusations. - Eureka Lott 14:13, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

However, there is guidance elsewhere (WP:RFC I think) stating that any editor can close a discussion if the outcome is obvious, and unless there is specific guidance at WP:NAC conflicting with that (^i.e. don't close if admin action is required, as BDD noted above) then I think it's fine for an involved editor to close. Rather, I think it's non-controversial. Any editor can re-open, anyway. I would point to there being no deadline, however we've recently seen that several RfD discussions fizzle and languish open for sometimes months, so maybe there should be a deadline for this process. Ivanvector (talk) 15:02, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

@Ivanvector: @Eureka Lott: That is a reasonable request, but hard to fulfill. The editor who usually closes them, User:Thryduulf, has not been around much, and so I have been kinda closing them if they seemed to be WP:SNOWBALLing or whatever. Perhaps I went overboard but I am sure you realise I was WP:AGF. There's just not many other editors/admins around to do the tidying up. I don't like closing my own either, because I can see it looks rather prejudicial, but in the cases I did, I thought it was fairly clear what the result was going to be. I haven't closed anything controversial (I think); if so it can be reopened. While there is no deadline, the problem arises that Wikipedia is extremely popular for search engines and so on, so if we have it "wrong" then millions of people get it wrong, so I think there is sometimes a matter of urgency. Si Trew (talk) 16:49, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I would avoid doing any NAC closures of discussions you've been involved in unless there is a problem of BLP or similar seriousness or the closure is significantly overdue, getting on for a week. While your closure of the Hitler's Aims discussion was the correct outcome, it was not a suitable one for you to close given you were involved, it was not overdue and had limited other participation. It's far better to close the ones you uncontroversially can first, leaving those you are involved with or are not suitable for NACs generally. This means there is less for others to do, making the task less daunting. If there is truly a backlog use the admin backlog template on the RfD page. If there are a small number outstanding you can't close, put up a request at WP:AN/RFC or ask an admin on their talk page. Thryduulf (talk) 16:52, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

@Thryduulf: Thanks for the advice. I've never wanted to be an admin, just was doing what I thought was routine gnoming under WP:BOLD and WP:NOTDEMOCRACY. Si Trew (talk) 16:55, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

You generally are doing good work (although NACs are not gnoming), but just be a little more cautious about it. Thryduulf (talk) 17:03, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

• I don't particuarly like my talk page being used for controversial discussions either. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. My talk page is not the place to discuss policy decisions, which is why I frequently blank it. Si Trew (talk) 17:01, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

There is a bot that will do that for you. See User:MiszaBot/Archive HowTo. Ivanvector (talk) 19:46, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Excuse me?

Now, here are some home truths for you, before you start taking the piss out of me. My wife and I live in one room. We have installed in it, a shower cubicle, inside WC, new electrics, we have decorated it, I have planted a new garden. We have done it all with our own hard work and bare hands and our own intelligence. I make sure my family is all right for money though I don't have much myself. I haven't had a proper holiday in ten years. We scrimp and save, I have never taken a penny off the state, I bung in taxes. I pull out three good meals a day for about two US dollars, and they would grace the cover of a cookery magazine, out of a little bachelor griller for which incidentally I supplied the stub article and the picture. I get on well with my neighbours, you probably didn't shift thirty kilos of shopping, a week's shopping, up a hill on your back this morning, with an hour's walk round trip: I did. And got it out of about ten dollars, and that includes fresh veg, milk, meat, eggs, and basically a week's rations for me the wife and the cat. The cat actually costs more to feed than we do. (Oh, see Rationing in the United Kingdom, to which I also significantly contributed). The cat is fed. The house is heated. All the bills are paid. All the lights work. It could could do with a spring clean, which is what I am doing. I've already done the kitchen but it is rather dusty.

So, before you start having a go at me, why not see, before you complain about the dirt on my glasses, make sure it's not the dirt on your own.

Si Trew (talk) 12:44, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

April 2015

Hello, I'm Bobherry. I noticed that you made a comment on the page User talk:Bobherry that didn't seem very civil, so it has been removed. Wikipedia needs people like you and me to collaborate, so it's one of our core principles to interact with one another in a polite and respectful manner. If you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page. You called me "very stupid" and threatened to punch one of my friends who is an admin. Watch it. I'm not removing it for now. Bobherry Userspace Talk to me! Stuff I have done 03:30, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Diffs are at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3ABobherry&diff=654502358&oldid=654498144 Bobherry Userspace Talk to me! Stuff I have done 03:33, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Look, @Bobherry:, I thought it was totally the wrong forum to play practical jokes. I thought I was perfectly civil if harsh, it is not the right place to do it. When you list something at WP:RfD, I and many other regulars will start hunting for alternatives, discussing possibilities, and so on. If you bothered to look back you may notice that I found an untagged redirect for Samuel Clements and marked it. Just because it is April 1 does not entitle you to make the encyclopaedia worse and cause other volunteers needless work. I thought I made that plain. Si Trew (talk) 04:35, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

I agree I shouldn't have but that's not a reason for you to want to punch an admin and call me very stupid. I replied on my talkpage. Bobherry Userspace Talk to me! Stuff I have done 04:43, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) Your comments on that page are beyond the pale, and over something so petty, so minor. Telling someone they're "[making] the encyclopaedia worse", calling them "VERY STUPID", condescendingly referring to them as "young girl", insulting their intelligence by suggesting they can't understand your language, labeling an innocent joke as vandalism, then turning around and attacking an admin who suggests you're being rude, suggesting that others aren't welcome to enter "your" area, and then outright saying you'd punch them in the face, and then turning around and saying "I thought I was perfectly civil" is absolutely unacceptable by any stretch of the imagination! Had you only said one of these things, not had a history of personal attacks, or seemed even a little apologetic for that behavior, I'd give you a warning and move on, but you're so brazen and unapologetic regarding your insulting conduct I have absolutely zero faith that it'd make a difference. Thus, you're blocked, this time for a week, and I'd strongly advise you to unilaterally retract your personal attacks and apologize to both users. Swarm ^{we ♥ our hive} 04:56, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Swarm, it sends the wrong message to emphasise that the person Simon attacked was an admin, no? Is it less objectionable to threaten to punch non-admins in the face? ekips39 (talk) 16:35, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

I didn't mean to emphasize that point whatsoever, and you're absolutely correct that it would be just as bad if he said that to any other user. Swarm ^{we ♥ our hive} 21:22, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

The irony seems to have gone awry. But look, I served my ban, and it is over. Let's try to make the encyclopaedia better (even if we have to spell it in the American way).... Si Trew (talk) 07:01, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
	For your apology and not leaving wikipedia after being banned. Have a nice day and happy belated birthday! Bobherry Userspace Talk to me! Stuff I have done 14:52, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Here's the discussion that led to Module:RfD to eventually be created...

Hey Si, in case you were wondering how Module:RfD came to be, the initial discussion can be found at the following location: User talk:Codename Lisa/Archive 12#Think you may be able to help edit Template:Rfd/core?. The discussion started on Codename Lisa's talk page, but the after realizing that my requested addition functionality was not possible in the "Template:" namespace, Jackmcbarn noticed the discussion, and eventually created Module:RfD. And for the short version: Module:RfD exists so that pages that have transcluded redirects that are nominated for RfD (such as template or file namespace redirects that are transcluded) do not also transclude Template:Rfd. Steel1943 (talk) 16:13, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

@Steel1943: thanks for that. The thing is at the moment it is kinda "blocking", because its author doesn't seem to accept it has bugs (I have over thirty years behind the belt as a professional software engineer) and will not acknowledge or accept a code review, a standard procedure in software engineering). So basically they have been WP:BOLD, all well and good, but will not accept any criticism. So delete it, then. I'd write it properly in about two minutes. The argument that "But you have been using it" is tu quoque because I haven't had a choice. My argument is also that it is entirely useless: We managed for many years without it and it just gets in the way. What value does it add? 17:19, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

What bugs? You have said more than once that the module has bugs but no-one else has reported them and none of the other editors who have looked at it can see them. Can you describe the bugs, i.e. describe what problems you are seeing, giving any reproduction steps necessary, here or on the module/template talk page: Template_talk:Rfd?--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 17:31, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

@JohnBlackburne: indeed. Inspecting the code, the "if args.cagegory then" has an "else" and another "else" but no tail case as a catch-all. So if it doesn't meet any of those conditions it fails. "return makeRfdNotice(frame.args) .. '\n' .. frame.args.content end" is also a bug in my opinion, becuse it basically says "I give up", it is not a code bug but an author bug. "if target and not target.isRedirect and target ~= pframe:getTitle() then" has no else statement so that falls through, and mw.uri.encode(deleteReason) category, isError and '[[Category:RfD errors]] also falls through. I can do that just by inspection because it is my job. Si Trew (talk) 17:41, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Everything you just described above is you misunderstanding how it works, not actual bugs. "the "if args.cagegory then" has an "else" and another "else" but no tail case as a catch-all. So if it doesn't meet any of those conditions it fails" Not true. The final "else" is the "catch-all". return makeRfdNotice(frame.args) .. '\n' .. frame.args.content end" is also a bug in my opinion, becuse it basically says "I give up", it is not a code bug but an author bug. That's not giving up; it's what it does if it doesn't think we're in a template. " "if target and not target.isRedirect and target ~= pframe:getTitle() then" has no else statement so that falls through, and mw.uri.encode(deleteReason) category, isError and '[[Category:RfD errors]] also falls through." Those fall-throughs are also deliberate, for the same reason. Jackmcbarn (talk) 23:24, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

{@JohnBlackburne: I'm more than happy if you copy/paste this off of my talk page to WT:RFD, I think that would be bettter. I argue vigorously but I hope always politely and in good faith. Si Trew (talk) 17:51, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Just to let you know, I have an interview for a new job with Ericsson in Budapest tomorrow, so I'm unlikely to reply tomorrow. Si Trew (talk) 17:55, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

I see where you mean but it looks fine to me, fairly standard code, pretty readable by the standards of WP programming, by Jackmcbarn. We don’t have formal WP coding standards but most people follow fairly sensible conventions and the Lua environment catches many errors and enforces various things. Most importantly though it works, which is the main standard for all our programming efforts. If we rejected code that worked but didn’t look right then we would have to reject all, or at least all complex, templates still using parser functions. I'll take Lua, even badly written Lua, any day over things like this: Template:CJKV.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 18:04, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

I've no problem with the language, I must have programmed 20-odd different languages over the years and still have a manual for CORAL-66 and a VAX/VMS software handbook is literally on my desktop propping up my screen. It's how it's written, I think more care should be taken. But then, I'm used to writing safety-critical software. You can't get away with errors like that when people's lives are at risk. Si Trew (talk) 18:20, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

• Well Si, if you ever get a bit burnt out with WP:RFD, I'd say give Wikipedia:Lua requests a look. Your experience might be valued there. Steel1943 (talk) 18:31, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

...Or Wikipedia:Lua/To do? Steel1943 (talk) 18:33, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Nice call. I just sometimes get a bit burnt out with life in general. I don't ask for much just a fag and a drink to go with it, but rarely get those. I do all the shopping, all the cleaning, and all the gardening and everything. I'm a bit of an insomniac and sleep about four hours a night but it leaves me four hours while others are sleeping that i can do nothing, it is not as if I can get the lawnmower out, and I just watch the shopping channels on late night TV, which can be quite funny, depending on what they are trying to flog you. No-no is on again on a one hour commercial but I don't think that would suit me, not with this beard I have been carefully growing. What is mor amazing is the number of sites adverstising bingo, and it is always women always has been, but they used to go down to the Mecca bingo hall or whatever, I think it is wrong to have gambling ads, they were'nt allowed when I was a kid. I have a fiver on the King George VI Stakes (usually run at Kempton Park) every 26 December but that is because it is my missus' birthday and it is kind a present as a bit of fun and it is an awful day to have a birthday, but I don't usually bet but I'll bet, as the pubs used to display for the 1968 Betting and Gaming Act, "Cribbage, Darts, Bar Billiards, Pool, Shove Halfpenny and Euchre may be played for small stakes on those parts of the premises licenced to the public", i.e. for tenpenny or a matchstick or whatever. (I was a licencee for a time, I've done a lot of things.) I looked it up once because people bet on mobile phones and I was unsure if it is illegal to do so in a pub, because it also said "betting and the passing of betting slips are prohibited". "Passing of betting slips" I think is pure poetry. But providing you bet for yourself on your own mobile phone, apparently it is legal. Sorry my grandfather was a bookmaker so I do know the trade and that is exactly why I don't bet! Si Trew (talk) 18:46, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Our articles on betting are actually in an awful state. About two years ago I started doing one on tic tac that is the hand signals that bookmakers' runners used to do (they all use mobile phones now) and I know top of the head is nine to two and on the shoulder is four to one (never take four to one when you can get nine to two, there's your "frac", i.e. advantage, doesn't mean you're going to win, nobody tells the horses, but if you do you get a bit more back). So I drew up all the tic tac signs like semaphore to put into the article, but for some reason never got around to finishing it. Si Trew (talk) 18:56, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

What bugs?

You keep claiming that my module has bugs and that I just won't acknowledge them, but you have never told me (or anyone else, for that matter) what any of these "bugs" actually are. Please describe one concrete situation where the module does the wrong thing (not just a critique of my coding style), along with steps to reproduce it, and I'd be happy to fix it. Jackmcbarn (talk) 23:24, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

How can I tell you, Jack? They are popups on Mozilla Firefox and I can't copy the text etc. I have done my best. If you have a bug report log, please point me to it. That is your job. I keep a software design record, bug report, don't care what you call it, for every single proect I do. It is easier now with Bugzilla and stuff. So, tell me where to log the bug, and I shall log the bug. Until then, I think I am entitled to grumble. Si Trew (talk) 17:11, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Your close of the Randi RfD

Hey Si. Just wanted to let you know that your close of Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2015 April 21#Randi may be against the guideline at WP:WITHDRAWN, given that a couple of editors agree with the nominator's initial proposal for the redirect to change. I'm not going to reopen the discussion since I'm both involved in the discussion and in all effects actually neutral on the outcome, but I thought I would let you know. Steel1943 (talk) 12:32, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Hi @Steel1943:. The thing is when I was closing it (and I as not involved in the discussion except in my closing comments) as a {{nac}} the final comment by @65.94.43.89: was not put in, according to my browser at the time I was closing it, and so it was not technically an {{ec}} by either of us, but I would think in practice it is kinda an ec in that the final edit by 65.94 was added while I was closing it: nobody's fault, just one of those things. I know we are all WP:AGF here, and in no doubt of that, but I thought best not to reopen it and revert my close, but to add a comment afterwards to explain why I closed it. If you think it better to reopen it, I'm happy with that, I didn't know what to do. So I went WP:BOLD and redirected it to Randi (disambiguation)], I think, but if I didn't someone else did. Si Trew (talk) 13:13, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

• Looks like the close has been reverted. That, and the edit above mine in the discussion to retarget to the disambiguation page also went against the nominator's intent to withdraw, so there was still one vote in the discussion that went against the nominator's intent to withdraw. Steel1943 (talk) 14:56, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

@Steel1943: Thanks for that. I stick with my Retarget, with little chance of winning, but I have translated a couple of Afrikaans articles, that were redirects, over the last couple of days, so I think I already paid my penance (never spoken Afrikaans before! Interesting language, a peculiar mix of Dutch and Engkish, as if they never read English as She is Spoke). Si Trew (talk) 18:29, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Closed and open discussions

• [1]

It's because the server has a cache for transcluded pages. So if you're reading the logs from WP:RFD rather than the logs for a specific date, edits to the RfDs take some time to propagate through the system. Deryck C. 10:42, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject Intertranswiki

Hi. In 2009 you joined up for the wikiproject Wikipedia:WikiProject Intertranswiki. The project has since ceased activity but is currently being given a kick start due to its importance and the coordination needed to translate content from other wikipedias. If you're still active and are still interested please visit the bottom of Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Intertranswiki and add a {{tick}} by your name within the next week so the project can do a recount and update. Thank you. --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 05:22, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Poetry and pleasure

Testing- _Fortuna ^{Imperatrix Mundi} 19:03, 6 May 2015 (UTC) Apologies for the bizarre sig earlier, I have no idea how that happened. Maybe cos I used small font? Anyway, I'm not an admin, I do have a talkpage, and here it is (hopefully!) _Fortuna ^{Imperatrix Mundi} 19:05, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

• Simon, why did you change Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi's signature, and then complain that it didn't link to his page? See here: [2]. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:06, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

p.s.: the only thing I can think of that makes sense is you tried to use ctrl-c to copy his username in your reply, and accidentally replaced it with "c" instead. If that's the case, you probably owe him an apology... --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:13, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

That must have been the case, well spotted User:Floquenbeam! No harm done, I'm sure we've all done similar. I was worried I'd *****ed up my mark up, that's all! Cheers. _Fortuna ^{Imperatrix Mundi} 19:18, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

@Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi:@Floquenbeam: oh sorry about that, that was just a slip on my part, I didn't mean to. Complete error (I could say worse) on my part, you can imagine, as I am involved in this ANI, but total mistake and not intentional. But shouldn't it be imperatrice to go with fortuna, surely feminine second conjugation? Si Trew (talk) 19:27, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

And mundum, while we're at it. Imperatrix fortuna mundum. now write it out hundred times. Si Trew (talk) 19:41, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Oi. You callin me a woman or something??? _Fortuna ^{Imperatrix Mundi} 20:02, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

I could call you worse than that. But Imperatrix would be the feminine, Imperor the masculine, surely? Si Trew (talk) 20:08, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Ha! Mea culpa. But in which case, this (second paragraph) needs editing!!! Cheers _Fortuna ^{Imperatrix Mundi} 20:14, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

That's a rubbish translation. It is correct word for word but doesn't keep the rhyme scheme of the original, which is hexameter. Edith Sitwell's tranlation I think is the best one. Si Trew (talk) 20:29, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

PDP-11 - old stuff - just FYI

Just happened to notice

" a PDP-11 had 9 byte computer words" (from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2015_April_30#Quadruple_.28computing.29 )

No. PDP-11s were 16-bit machines (integer register and basic address size), thus had 16-bit words, but were byte-addressable, bytes there being 8 bits. I know of no way to consider them as having 9-byte words, or 9-bit words either if that's what you meant. Don't know what you read in VAX-11 info but you must have misinterpreted it. Jeh (talk) 15:34, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

@Jeh: Yeah that was a bit of a throw-in just to pique people's interest. I think the PDP-10 had 9-bit words though. (Well it had 36-bit words, divide that by four...) I think this is somewhere in The C Programming Language by Brian Kernighan and Donald Richie, but I may be mistaken and it is an aside in The Art of Computer Programming by Donald Knuth, but either way very much an aside. C I think was written on a PDP-10 and Knuth used one regularly in the 1970s. Poor old Digital Equipment Corporation, up in Maynard, Massachusetts. I went past it not long after it closed, a sorry sight. Si Trew (talk) 15:39, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Oddly, and I got no satisfaction for this, in the C++ spec, even the latest edition, a byte is defined as a character and a character is defined as a byte. But nowhere does it say how long a byte is. I did point this out to the committee when they were asking for open revisions for the C++11 spec but nobody seems to have done anything about it. Si Trew (talk) 15:50, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

The -10 had 36-bit words, true... but 9-bit groups were not uniquely directly addressable and I never saw anything that handled characters that way. "Native" character handling on the -10 was done with either 6-bit characters (it long predated the rise of lowercase-capable terminals and printers) or with five 7-bit chars in a word. However it did have an interesting concept of a "byte pointer", a way of addressing any bit subfield of a word [3] ! So using that term, "byte" on a -10 could be anything from 1 through 36 bits! This heavily influenced the inclusion of the bitfield datatype in BLISS, and the bitfield instructions on the VAX.

C originated on the PDP-11, that being the second machine on which was implemented (after the -7).

Yes, poor old DEC. I hugely miss their engineering quality, both hardware and software. But they were out-innovated, first by the RISC-based Unix workstations and then by PCs and Macs. There was no way that organization could have matched PC or even Mac price/performance, no matter how good their hardware and OSs were. Jeh (talk) 16:17, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

@Jeh: Their huge mistake was assuming people wanted mainframes. The general logic, as far as I learned it was, a PC is something you can put on a table, a MicroVAX is a table, and a mainframe is something you can put a table into. Bizarelly, with "the cloud", we are coming back to mainframe computing, in that we don't store things on our own devices but let the "other end" do it for us. 3270 terminals are still quite fun though. The manuals for the VAX 11/750 ran to about 22 folders of documentation, they were nothing if not thorough. They also had to be fluid cooled. And I forget what they run at, but had 4Mb of memory of which 2Mb was reserved to the operating system and the rest of us shared the other 2Mb. 689Mb tape drive for backup. Si Trew (talk) 18:46, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Ken Olsen probably went to his grave saying "not everyone needs a computer on their desk", but completely missed the point that that was what people wanted to buy. I believe the only VAXes that were liquid cooled were the 9000 series, of which only a few were sold. 4 GB virtual address space, yes the OS took 2 of that but the other was instantiated per-process, hence not "shared" by "the rest of us". As for physical memory (RAM) I never heard of a VAX limited to only 4 MB (maybe the MicroVAX 1?), and physical memory was not allocated half to the OS. Half of physical address space was dedicated to I/O space, but that's a different matter and did not affect RAM availability to the OS and apps... I put in quite a few years of my career on VAX and VMS! Jeh (talk) 19:13, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

I imagine you are right in all particulars, I was just going off the cuff. I will still bludgeon you with 22 manuals, though, and I still have tha VAX/VMS Software Handbook, which has a 1970s woman perched over a teletype, what is that, a VT100 ? Nah that was a scren. VT80? Si Trew (talk) 20:52, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

I have that book (and the other two of the set) but it's in "deep storage" atm. If it was a DEC printing terminal it was likely an LA36 in the mid-to-late 70s, an LA120 later. Nice machines and hugely reliable if you didn't mind dot matrix. All "VT"s were video terminals.

22 manuals... must have been an early version of VMS, maybe VMS 3? The doc set kept getting bigger. Finally with V6 they abandoned the three-ring binders and went to perfect-bound books, which helped a lot. But I have to point out that if you printed out the programming doc for Windows and all of its API sets the result would be much, much bigger. Heck, the doc for WinDbg alone was 3000 pages the last time I checked! Doc set colors were also an issue. The one for VMS V4 came in Chinese Red binders and by the time V5 came around everyone in VMS Engineering in Spitbrook was very damned tired of looking at walls (bookcases) of what was commonly called "orange" and so very happy to go to a new version. Jeh (talk) 23:47, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

@Jeh: VMS 4, I think. Yes, of course you are right. I remember MSDN on CD and it was becoming intolerable in that there were about 600 CDs to file. Then they went over to DVD but still my MSDN Universal is two folders full of DVDs, which means if I have to travel with them I have to leave something else behind (the wife, with any luck). It's quite right that this is all documented, but far better now that it is all just online and you access it as you need it, rather than having to carry it all with you. When we moved a VAX 11/750 from British Aerospace in Stevenage to Filton we even had to have a military police escort, I am not sure why, but there was some kind of "military secret" on the thing (what? We'd taken all the drives out etc, but that's the Mod Plod for you). The processors were so incredily complex, VAX/VMS assembly language is just amazing in that you can do things like multiply two doubles, add three, take off the number you first thought of, and halt and catch fire, all in one instruction. I did however manage to "borro" first editions of all three volumes of [[The Art of Computer Programming}]], which I still have and are quite proud they are stamped "Property of British Aircraft Company". Si Trew (talk) 05:34, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Apostrophes

The USGS also seems to hate apostrophes. See FAQ #18 from its Geographic Names Information System. --BDD (talk) 16:32, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

@BDD: yeah, that's true. I think there are two still left, according to Bill Bryson in Made in America (book), Martha's Vineyard and somewhere else in New England that I forget, I was going for Devil's Dyke but I think that is wrong. But the USGS itself, according to Bryson, couldn't even decide on its own name: It was the Board of Geographic Names, then the Board of Geographical Names, then the Board of Geography Names, Board of Geological Names, and so on, before they settled on where it stands now. They moved titles quicker than we do on Wikipedia! Si Trew (talk) 16:43, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

(lost it) Five actually, Ike's point, John E's pond, Carlos Elmer's Joshua View (which is such a delightful name for a place, I want to move there immediately just to have that as my address) and Clark's Mountain in Virginia. Si Trew (talk) 16:52, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Your recent ANI involvement

Was this unexpected from an anon who has only edited at this one thread? (User talk:120.202.249.203) I was just wondering if this was a likely sock and if anything needed to be done about it. JZCL 19:54, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Slightly suspicious that the edits were during Calvin999's editing period. And he placed a welcome message on the IP's page 1 minute after their 2nd post. DISCLAIMER: I am NOT accusing Aaron/Calvin of sockpuppetry. JZCL 19:58, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm not interested, @JZCL:, just a wind-up merchant as far as I see it. I have a election to watch, to see if my vote counted much. Or we could have Feudalism of course, when every Count votes. Si Trew (talk) 20:45, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes, it will probably be the closest in years... I reckon Labour will outdo Tory by a couple of seats. But we shall see (I pity the 1% of people who bet on a Labour majority). Plus I like the dry, British, intellectual joke, just my type. JZCL 20:50, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

You're in a minority then, most people take me to ANI instead, it seems. Si Trew (talk) 20:56, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

I reckon lots of people just don't get the British culture - we're much more likely to be tongue-in-cheek (especially down South) or sarcastic. JZCL 21:02, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) An edit conflict on me own talk page, how ironic.

The thing is, look at the bookies. The Bookies make their money regardless of who wins (unless they are really bad bookies, like my grandfather, who somehow managed to lose on a book that should be 20% overround, so I never went to Eton). Ladbrokes, the magic sign (in tic-tac, going round your head like a halo) are quiet on the matter on their website, they probably have to be until the polls close, which they have just done. Now it will warm up. I don't think Labour will do too well actually, I think the votes will go to UKIP but they won't win many seats, maybe, just maybe, a couple. It will be Scottish National Party, I think, that has them by the balls, and that is just my first call as the polls are closing, but I reckon they will be the second party at Westminster. Si Trew (talk) 21:07, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, my mum just said that the exit polls are saying SNP will making up 49/50 seats in Scotland or something ridiculous. They're giving the Tories a better chance by having taken away all the Labour support! UKIP have considerably more support than LibDems, according to polls, but as you said will probably only get 4 or 5 seats because of the even spread compared to LibDem's 25 or so from a concentrated area. But anyway, I will sleep through it. Most of the promises are more than likely hollow anyway. Cheers, JZCL 21:16, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

As if Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Alistair Darling, Alistair Campbell ot the Labour party aren't Scottish. They might as well call it the Scottish Labour Party. Which is why, as a Labour voter all my life, I won't vote for them. Oh, David Cameron, Scottish name if i ever heard one. They are taking over. Just because they lost a referendum now they are invading. Half of the labour Front Bench were scottish. How much more representation do they want? They are over-represented in Westminster as it stands, my vote counts less than someone from Kirkcaldy. Si Trew (talk) 21:34, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

But it was William Hill who really started the art of political betting, well his progeny Grahame Sharpe, who still works for them and pops up from time to time on news broadcasts to give the odds. The Daily Mirror if I recall correctly led in 164 with 6/4 Harold Wilson as a front-page splash. Wouldn't be allowed to do that nowadays as it would be regarded as political adverstising, I think. The Sun famously came out after Thatcher's victory with "It was the Sun wot one it", but that was afterwards, not before: There are quite strict rules on what papers can say during an election campaign. Nobody seems to tell the politicians, though. Fact of it is, if you don't vote, you can't complain. I always vote. Don't always get the candidate I want, but that still entitles me to complain, if I bothered to go once every five years to put a cross in a box. 21:22, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Not a bad idea. JZCL 21:40, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

They let me out of my house once every five years... on a Thursday_Fortuna ^{[[User talk:cImperatrix Mundi]]} 22:29, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

@Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi: well the shouldn't. Insane peole are not entitled to vote, they are only entitlled to edit Wikipedia. (Almost by definition, what idiot would devote his or her time her for free when we could be making money? We must all be mad.) Si Trew (talk) 23:18, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Televisión y Radio de Campeche

Thanks for the prod, but the stations that were never built were expansion permits.

In the state of Campeche there are three main cities: Campeche, Ciudad del Carmen and Escárcega. These are the three cities that, really up until now, have had television stations.

TRC has one TV station on air, in Campeche (the state capital). Its permits for the other cities are the RfD. They were never built. It also has one radio station in operation, in the locality of Tenabo; while it has dropped off the IFT list, the issue is likely related to Mexico's herding of stations off of AM and onto the FM band. It is still operating.

I understand that Mexican television is a complicated beast. The RfD is for the expansion permits that would have enabled TRC to expand from one city in the state to three. TRC is not going away; in fact it has a critical authorization to convert its lone operating TV station to digital service, without which it would be gone at the end of the year. Raymie (t • c) 05:26, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

@Raymie: Hola. I forget what the prod was (I hope it was not a WP:PROD!) Thanks for all that info. So Mexico is doing like Britain did and turning off analogue service? I am not sure "expansion permit" is quite the right word but can't think really of an equivalent, "extended licence" (or "license") would seem more natural but there really isn't an equivalent, this is the license for the frequency i.e. airwaves, yes? Si Trew (talk) 06:48, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

Yep, they are going through the very convoluted digital switchover now. A few areas have already done it, mostly on the US border. The major commercial broadcasters have been putting new transmitters into service at a breakneck pace in the last six months, but the state networks are the biggest laggards.

These are actually permits in Mexican parlance (permits up until really recently were the noncommercial version of concessions, or as the US would call them licenses), and I call them "expansion" permits simply because the idea was to take TRC's signal and bring it to the rest of the state. Quite a few state networks only have one television station, usually in the capital city. (No muxes or Freeview-type system here because Mexico adopted the US standard.) And actually, it was a real PROD. I'm glad I caught it when I did.

I do pretty much all the article maintenance on television in Mexico, and I'm actually pretty knowledgeable on the topic and pretty fluent in Spanish. I did a massive rewrite-update of List of television stations in Mexico and its 32 subsidiary lists this past year, developed a new template to allow citing government sources with technical information on radio and TV stations, etc. Raymie (t • c) 07:12, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

@Raymie: And nicely done, I take my sombrero off to you. I lived in Texas, in Houston, for a couple of years so learned a bit of Mexican Spanish, but now living in Europe and my missus being in Madrid, I have to kinda re-learn Spanish Spanish. The words don't differ much but the pronunciation is different,, certainly in Madrid. I don't speak Spanish very well to start with but speak French and Latin pretty well so I kinda back translate that way, of course every now and again one gets a false friend but one just has to laugh that off. I think where it is really tricky is with technical articles, one would thin they would be relatively easy with just being full of Latin or Greek, but they can be quite hard to translate, for exactly the reason we have seen, you think how do I possibly translate "permission to broadcast" or whatever it might be. We do have Spectrum auction, but that's rather vague for the purpose of this article. Si Trew (talk) 07:47, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

Oh I certainly understand. A lot of technical information is either literally translated or just in English outright. For instance, Mexico is starting to think about its own repacking scheme and I'm even seeing the word repacking appear in the material. Spain is a good bit less forgiving about "Americanisms", so watch out. I've had trouble effectively translating terms back, too. A few years ago I did the Programadora article, on Colombian television history, and it's a bit rougher on the edges than what I can do now. Additionally in my support to TV DXers I had to somehow translate "equipo complementario de zona de sombra" (a term for a Mexican low-power television-relay) into something understandable. I came up with "shadow channel" which is a heavy corruption of the original term but is easy to comprehend and remember for the DXers. Raymie (t • c) 08:01, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

@Raymie: yeah that is a toughie. Umbrella zone (I realise Sombra is not rain and you don't need an umbrella in that sence, but Umbrella ult. from shadow) but the throw of the signal, the area it covers, how could one do that? I am not sure shadow channel is best, penumbra is closer but we don't have that. Signal reach is red too. Broadcast engineering is blue though, but perhaps too vague, too far away. Si Trew (talk) 08:17, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, it's the same in Hungary, that a lot of things are just in English and not translated into Hungarian. I'm a liar, penumbra is blue apparently, for some reason it was red when I first edited this, but I still wouldn't recommend it, just trying to throw out suggestions so you might catch one. Si Trew (talk) 08:23, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

The Simpsons strike again

Looks like your former mentor, Hugo Simpson, was Bart Simpson's evil twin on a Halloween episode of The Simpsons. He's not mentioned where the redirect pointed, though he is mentioned in a couple of other Simpsons articles. I converted the page into a dab, but if you want to write an article on the real guy, I'd certainly favor him at the base title with a hatnote to the character. I redlinked him as Hugo R. Simpson in the meantime, since he does seem to be known with his middle initial, but you'd know better than me if that would be ideal for a title. --BDD (talk) 13:32, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

@BDD: yeah, seems so when I wrote it, but I think should be DABBed somehow, which is why I left it stet. Si Trew (talk) 17:24, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Hmmm, @BDD:, the computer fellow is Dr. Hugo Simpson, but since we don't do titles here at WP that was no good for me. Si Trew (talk) 17:32, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

He also sponsored me for Membership of the British Computer Society, but I was too young at the time to gain entry. I am a professional member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology instead. So I have more letters after my name than in it. (But then, I do have a very short name.) Si Trew (talk) 17:36, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Mr. Fraud

Consider spending some time on Mr. Fraud#Plot. 27.97.25.89 (talk) 08:42, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

Deleted comments

Do you realise that you deleted mine and Jimp's comments at Template talk:Convert? (I have restored them.) —sroc 💬 13:59, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

@Sroc: Ooh, no I hadn't realised that. I didn't get an {{ec}} or anything. Sorry about that, thatnks for restoring it. Si Trew (talk) 14:03, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Hmm, I must have accidentally somehow just deleted the section when I went to save it, without realising it. Sorry once again. Si Trew (talk) 14:04, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

No dramas. It's weird, as though you were editing from an old version before those comments were added, perhaps. I only noticed because the edit history showed a difference of "(-1,223)" bytes for your edit, which made no sense for an added comment—if you had added a massive comment that resulted in a positive difference, I probably wouldn't have spotted it! —sroc 💬 14:14, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

It had been on my notification thingy for over an hour as I was gnoming away on the article. but I didn't look at the notification until I had finished tidying that up for WP:PNTCU, so I don't know why it would take the old version. But I don't really know how ec's are detected and I guess it fell through the net. Si Trew (talk) 14:23, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Redirects

When accepting/declining redirect requests, please remember to add {{afc-c|b}} to the bottom of the request, and sign your posts- you failed to here, which meant that all new posts were hidden. Joseph2302 (talk) 12:13, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

@Joseph2302: Yeah, I thought I'd fixed that, but looks like I didn't. Sorry about that. Si Trew (talk) 12:26, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

No problem. An IP address reported it to ANI and I fixed it. Joseph2302 (talk) 12:33, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Why didn't they just fix it, then? I didn't see anything saying non-admins couldn't do these closures, and since I am a regular non-admin at WP:RFD it seemed reasonable to decline the least controversial ones. (This is, after all, the Wikipedia "that anyone can edit", and if it is supposed only to be done by admins then it should be page protected.) Thanks for your intervention, anyway. Si Trew (talk) 12:48, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

I think they didn't know how to fix it, so decided the best way was to try and find an admin. The redirect they were requesting already exists as well. Joseph2302 (talk) 12:53, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Reference errors on 3 June

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• On the List of disparaging nicknames for settlements page, your edit caused a missing references list (help | help with group references). (Fix | Ask for help)

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Partially completed AFD

Did you mean to do this? I don't think that Sunni Islam will ever be deleted. -- GB fan 12:36, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

@GB fan: no, I didn't. There are stacks of redirects to it, which I've listed at WP:RFD, but I must have slipped in listing this, I didn't mean to, and thanks very much for pointing it out. I've removed the AfD notice at the target, need I do more? Have a look at WP:RFD#Sunnistan, stacks were created in the space of three quarters of an hour both to Sunni and Shia Islam. I didn't mean to list the article, that is a slip on my part. Thanks for pointing it out. Si Trew (talk) 12:47, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

I don't think there is anything else that needs to be done. Things happen, just wanted to check, thanks for the reply. -- GB fan 13:03, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Full of knowledge

You seem like the type of person who who knows a lot of random information. Have you ever thought about helping out at the WP:Reference Desk? I feel like that that would be the perfect place for you to help out if you have a little bit of extra time on your hands. People ask questions, and others like you try to find the answers for them. Tavix | Talk  19:59, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Indeed, I am a minefield of useless knowledge. Perhaps I shall. I quite like RfD for that, cos we get all kinds of things come up, occasionally – rarely – I have bugger all to say. But I am easy come, easy go (the Al Bowlly version is the best, I think.) Between thee and me, I do have time on my hands a little since I am between jobs, don't worry I have a roof over my head and don't owe anyone money, just searching for the next one: so in the meantime I contribute more to WP. Gives me a reason to get up in the morning. Si Trew (talk) 20:05, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

I also am an incarnation of the Usenet Oracle, but I tend to write my lessons in iambic pentameter. (I've created a few article stubs in iambic pentameter, too, but nobody noticed.) I'm still annoyed you didn't groan about my pun. I first got that in Paris, in a dubbed version of Hot Shots Part Deux, so I was back-translating and I was the only one in the theatre to groan. Alan Bennett says, people groan at a pun either because they wish they had thought of it, or have seen it coming and had time to duck. Si Trew (talk) 20:20, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Oh dear, I tried, but when the question was "What is the meaning of profiterole" I replied "It has the role of making a small bun into a large profit." Perhaps that is not quite the right forum for me, then. Si Trew (talk) 20:28, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

I got quite the laugh out of that one! You don't have to answer the first question you find, or really any question at that, just if you ever come across something you might know. I just made the suggestion because it seems like you have quite a bit of time on your hands right now and you've responded to just about every entry at RFD... All the best, Tavix | Talk  20:34, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

On my old navy passport, (you don't have it on the new EU ones), "Occupation" I just put "Expert". Not any particular expert, just expert. Baby stepps facile princeps, I'll start at Miscellaneous. I have filing cabinet with two drawers, marked M and W. W is for Whisky and M is for Miscellaneous. Si Trew (talk) 20:37, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

That sounds exactly like something you would do. Good luck! Tavix | Talk  20:40, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

I'm eccentric, I know, (I am probably the only person at RfD who is qualified to drive a double decker bus and also to run a public house, hopefully not at the same time) but to me I am normal, it is just the rest of the world that is a bit odd. Charles Rolls said to Henry Royce when they went their separate ways, "All the world is queer, save thee and me. And even you art a little queer."^{And how do I know that? Winston Churchill wrote "It is good for young men to read books of quotations"} Si Trew (talk) 21:05, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

I always say, if you couldn't laugh, where would you be? Germany. Si Trew (talk) 21:13, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

I. M. Walter. Ramsden

Doctor Ramsden cannot read The Times obituary today:

He's dead.

Let monographs on silkworms bí other people be

Thrown away

Unread.

For he who best could understand and criticise them, he

Lies clay,

In bed.

His body lies in Pembroke College where the ivy taps the panes

All night

That old head so full of knowledge, that old heart that kept the brains

All right

Those old cheeks that faintly flushed, as the port suffused the veins

Drained, white

They remember as the cortege on its final obligation

Leaves the gates

Buzz of bees on window boxes, kitchen din, cups and plates And remembrance of bump suppers of the long-dead generations

Coming in

From eights

Now Betjeman, now there's your man he know how he could mantle us With weepy song, it is not wrong, his granddad made the Tantalus He has a statue at St. Pancras, that he helped to save And every time I nod to him (though that is not his grave)

He made the ordinary special, a true gift as a poet And all I do is doggerel (as if you didn't know it) I can just put in meter but I cannot find the word But Betjeman, he always could, I know it sounds absurd

He loved suburban, normal life, the mix of town and rural And now I shall quite struggle to rhyme this with a plural But Betjeman's your man all right, if you want Metro-Land His legacy is there to see but not what he had planned.

Houseman says the cherry trees, but Betjeman the houses So Terence gets the fruit of loins, but Betjeman the mouses

See, that is just easy for me. Makes no sense and not very good, but I can do that just off cuff. But forever I am being told I am an idiot. I just think in a slightly different way. Si Trew (talk) 21:32, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

June 2015

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• == Ideal cipher == <!--- [[User:Strew checked for possible R to section but not sure on this from search, could mean other

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• @BracketBot: No, I'll leave it here. Presumably, if it is all right by you, if you don't mind, it is also OK to inform you that I think you should not be prowling around User:Talk space, and a bot should not go around editing users' talk spaces. In your infinite wisdom you injected your comment in the middle of my talk space which has now taken me a long time to get back to where it was before you started, so that real people can make sense of it. Which I could have spent better editing Wikipedia rather than my talk page that you cocked up. I am not the first one to ask you to be a little more discerning. And when you made your bot edit you kindly made an ec that I had taken half an hour to prepare. Oh poor bracket bot, alias User_talk:A930913, I missed a paren. I was sodding doing reference linking, one of the most boring and cumbersome bits of WIKIGNOMING I have to do. As part of my all round job as being a good editor. So yes, I am entitled to be annoyed when a bot tramples my work cos it thinks it knows best. What am I supposed to do, put an {{under construction}} or {{inuse}} or {{nobots}} tag on every page I edit? Or in the alternate, should I expect a bot to be responsible... hmmmm.... Si Trew (talk) 03:06, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

OK I was a bit angry, I won't apologise for being angry because I was, but I apologise if I took it out wrongly or it sounded worse written than it was in my head (I didn't even kick the cat, I fed him, but he got bored of this so he went out to dream about killing some wildlife.) But here's the beef: Bots are good, but not to come in too quickly. It's the rapidity that is the trouble, cos I could have spotted that myself, or another real editor could have. And when they get it wrong, as they did in this case, the real editor has to undo the work of the bot. And it is not just a simple undo cos the bot put its foot in the MIDDLE of it not at the end, as you can see here if you track the datelines. That is just stupid. Now you will probably say it is because I missed a trailing semicolon so it didn't recognise the end of a section. Means nothing to me, I am a software engineer of 25 years professional standing. Don't pass with me. Don't blame the user. Bot is faulty, bot gets stopped. When you fix it, bot comes back. Two complaints in two hours, I've seen bot's talk page at [User_talk:A930913]], bot gets stopped. ANY complaint about any bot, it gets stopped. Argue your case after it has stopped. Si Trew (talk) 03:21, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

I just spent quite some time cleaning up various messes you left behind, not just in that article, but also at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2015 June 10 where you blanked several threads. Now I accept that the latter may have been some bizarre software glitch, but I rather doubt you'll want to blame a software glitch for striking words within the article BracketBot pointed out. The mismatched parenthesis actually is one of the lesser problems with your edits there, which I largely reverted. With this coming on top of the recent "List of countries in North America" nonsense, I would strongly advise you to give a little more attention to the quality of your edits. Huon (talk) 05:19, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

List of countries in North America that are not the United States

Welcome, and thank you for your attempt to lighten up Wikipedia. However, this is an encyclopedia and the articles are intended to be serious, so please don't make joke edits, as you did to List of countries in North America that are not the United States. Readers looking for accurate information will not find them amusing. If you'd like to experiment with editing, please use the sandbox instead, where you are given a good deal of freedom in what you write.

Har har har. Very funny. Please don't do that in the future, though. You have 'autopatrolled', which means that you especially shouldn't be introducing "humorous" pages like that. Thank you. Reaper Eternal (talk) 02:55, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

No I didn't. Get an admin, check the history. Si Trew (talk) 17:53, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

And please don't f- up my talk page (there, not joking) with putting section subtitles on the same line as my own.

(talk page stalker)They're not likely to go looing for accurate information in that article anyway, are they son. _Fortuna ^{Imperatrix Mundi} 08:18, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

@Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi:: I am not sure whether to disagree or agree. The articles to be sure should be written in a serious, WP:N and so on, tone. There is no need for that to continue to the talk pages, where "regulars" if I may use the word know their own habits and know what the jest means and how it should be taken. Indeed, another editor here on my talk page has introduced a new icon for my and others' consideration, which I suggested having a template redirect for {{sarcasm}} (the icon is nice) but since that is essentially {{smiley}}, I do take this humour seriously.

Now, it would have been better to refer to the talk page where User:Reaper Eternal thinks I should not do that again and that I am some kind of newbie. In fact, that is a long-running joke at WT:RFD which I think I started some years ago,and as a recurring joke I use when I think appropriate to refer to WP:WORLDWIDE (to which it could, of course, have been redirected, but I imagine went WP:RFD#&D2]] unlikely search term).

WP:DYK has long-running jokes, as most fora do, call them memes if you like. They have Jargon too. Which makes things a bit confusing to WP:NEWBIES but I at least try to soften the blow with good humour (and bad jokes). RfD is somewhat of a backwater and interests people like me who have a breadth, but not a depth, of knowledge: I learn too when I look at the targets. Better than randomly flicking through an encylopaedia. Oh... er.. Special:Random... (Oops not allowed to joke).

So I made these comical (yet presumably inoffensive) remarks. Often, it helps calm down, or at least distract, people who are getting ill-tempered. Sometimes, with a pun or a bon mot, it allows others to think laterally rather than just go "Yes" or "No": I often give suggestions which myself I a think are no good but others pick up on and get a better result: User:Lenticel is particularly good at this, and occasionally will say "nice find" or some such when I find one. That's part of collaboration and how we get WP:CONSENSUS. An encylopaedia does not write itself, each of us has to type and hit every key, or in my case, about seven before I strike the right one. (oops, joking again).

I am not sure which forum my apparently my new editor remark was placed (I have been an editor here for eight years, always under the same nick for good or bad) but I thought it was the encylopaedia that anyone can edit and I am entitled to my style as each is to each. I do not insert bad jokes into articles, but talk pages are fair game: Most talk pages are dead, anyway. Try putting something on a talk page after translating it from French and see if you ever get any replies, even when questioning your own translation.

If I have unwittingly made a joke in an article, I didn't mean to, but I don't know that I have done so. Again, please point it out to me.

In conclusion, they are jokes, but not pointless jokes. But I'd rather say them lightly than seriously, and I am not of the generation that has to mark out a joke with countless smileys either side. Si Trew (talk) 17:36, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

I'm sorry to be so late in replying, but I have a real life too. (And that is not sarcasm.) Si Trew (talk) 17:36, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

PS. I didn't even create "Countries in North America that are not the United States", it was deliberately a redlink. (If you want, it is in Notes from a Large Country (UK title, as apposite to his Notes from a Small Island): I have the first editions in both UK and US editions, by Bill Bryson: in the UK edition it is ''Notes from a Big Country'' and in the US I'm a Stranger Here Myself). [I have both in woodware but here is the reference if you care reading it, in the chapter on his struggles with the Internal Revenue Service he remarks, jokingly (not allowed of course) that (and I quote just from memory, as an example of his parody of officialese in that chapter) "if you are unsure about contries that are not the United States, see Form [made up form number] Countries that are Not The United States" [http:amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=notes+from+a+big+country] at Amazon Books &nbsp? remember when they did books? &nbsp? leads you to both titles.) So not only a joke, but a WP:RS joke. Put that in your hat and punch it. Si Trew (talk) 18:36, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

This is WP:SPURIOUS, as Fortuna's edit comments on my talk page tend to indicate. I don't want to point fingers, well I will but I could well be mistaken because it was a while ago, but it may have been User:Tavix who did, who I believe lives in Canada, but if so it was certainly in jest when I had said something which she or he found UK-centric, and was taken in the spirit it was given (I believe I replied "Nice one!" or ("Nicely done!", but that is just from memory). Si Trew (talk) 17:50, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Precious

great right hand man
Thank you, Simon, editing the "good old fashioned way" with a bit of Hungarian and knowledge of the Law of lost things, for quality articles, especially translations from French such as Rouvre and Parc Jean-Jacques Rousseau, for gnomish help with typos, redirects, "translated" templates and navboxes, for changes to simple and factual, for offering help "cos I am a great right hand man", - repeating: you are an awesome Wikipedian (23 February 2010)!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:03, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Gosh thanks: Those translations were a long time ago, I didn't translate the captions or put trans-title in the refs, as I don't think we had it then. I'm just a WikiGnome. I like RfD as a Palace of Varieties and use that as my jumping-off point, sometimes WP:PNT but not much from French come sup there lately, though I did Marinière anad a couple of others (I've got a Belgian keyboard now so can do the French accents, and German ones too, without hunting around: but haven't plugged it in yet! Still on my Hungarian one, well fifth or sixth: One delight of working from home is one is allowed to smoke in the workplace, but the keyboards tend to die young of cigarette ash and roll-up tobacco flakes). With translation, one thing usually leads to another so I usually end up translating a few subsidiary articles until I get bored and call WP:NOTFINISHED. Churches and musical instruments are the hardest, usually, just the nomenclature is sometimes hard to translate, not so much the words but because of the Catholic/Protestant words tend often to be different for the same thing, so that can be a bit of a minefield.

I've done a few lately, Rabaska was one of my favourites to do, I rescued it from PNT or RfD I think, can't remember which. Quite often, once one makes a start and does the scaffolding, skeleton, as I think of it, then others will fill in the words better than I could. Many I think get drowned in the Wikipedia side of it rather than writing what they want to write about: I try to enable that by just being behind with the broom, or in front with the ladder. That is why I am a right hand man and not a boss.

But still, it is kinda nice to get a compliment once in a while. Si Trew (talk) 09:51, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

From gnome to gnome, my pleasure ;) - see church, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:15, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

I did a nice one about a church in the I think 13th arrondissement of Paris, could have been the XVIII, somewhere on the northwest anyway, a very modernist church (I mean the architecture not its preaching, which I think was reform church, can't remember). I do quite a few so I forget what I have done. Si Trew (talk) 14:43, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Speedy deletion declined: Augustin Andriamananoro

Hello SimonTrew. I am just letting you know that I declined the speedy deletion of Augustin Andriamananoro, a page you tagged for speedy deletion, because of the following concern: there is a sourced claim that he was a government minister (le ministre des Télécommunications, des Postes de la Communication et des Nouvelles Technologies). That is enough for WP:POLITICIAN, let alone A7. Thank you. JohnCD (talk) 13:44, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, as I said on your talk page, at least we have a line in the sand now. Je vais tradiuire. Si Trew (talk) 13:54, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Hiding the hidden

Re your tagging of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hidden variable theory: please note that if you tag a template for deletion, you should always bracket the speedy tag with <noinclude> </noinclude>. Because you did not do it, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2015 June 11 and a number of other pages landed up in CAT:CSD and I had to take action to "unspeedy" them. Indeed why did you not remove the link to the discussion page from the deletion log? (I have already mentioned that you did not remove the AfD tag from hidden variable theory.) — RHaworth (talk · contribs) 10:08, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

@RHaworth: complete cock-up on my part. Although I tend to preview and stuff, I hadn't thought about <noinclude>. (Twinkle added the speedy tag for me, but I should have checked.) Thanks for taking the action you did. I may, I am not sure, have just slipped and saved it before realising it: I was having a bit of Internet connexion trouble at the time. Thanks once again for remedying it and sorry to cause you the bother. Si Trew (talk) 10:31, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

A.P. Herbert, Uncommon Law

There are several additional collections (More Uncommon Law, etc.) that Herbert made subsequent to the original one. You might want to cite to them as well. Also, under test case where this is see also'd, you might want a # after the main URL to the section near the end, in which it is said that APH sought to motivate legislative change; it might otherwise be unclear why this is referenced in test case. Thx. PraeceptorIP (talk) 16:16, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

I'm quite aware of that, thanks. (I have them on my bookshelf, including a first edition of Uncommon law, which I found in a second-hand bookshop for fifty pence). At the APH article on the subject of legislative change, I think I wrote most of it: You are right, an R to section would make it clearer. But I am not a lawyer (but the text very much looks like my handwriting: wasn't it W. H. Auden who said "Every man likes the look of his own handwriting, just as every man likes the smell of his own farts"?). Si Trew (talk) 18:25, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

@PraeceptorIP: I changed the "see also" a bit, but unfortunately Leading case -> Lists of landmark court decisions whereas Test case (law) is mostly about US law I think: and the subtitle is I think "Or, 33 Misleading Cases In the Common Law", but we don't have Misleading Cases: Anyway, I'd suggest they should be merged, but would like your opinion before I go through the motions at {{merge from}} and so on. (Not trying to avoid procedure, but just sounding you out first: if as an expert you said that would be unreasonable, it would save everyone the hassle of my listing it.) Ohh oooh Judge Judy will be on CBS Reality in a few minutes time... Si Trew (talk) 18:37, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

It isn't clear what you want to merge. But at the very least there should be a cross-reference.

In US law, test case, leading case, and landmark case have slightly different meanings. A test case is one brought to establish a point not generally accepted. (The plaintiff has an agenda he wishes to advance.) A leading case is a much cited case, often the seminal case that established or clarified a principle in an authoritative way. A landmark case is similar, but historically more important, often for political reasons. (If a leading case is in a highly specialized area of law, it will not be considered a landmark case.) A case can be all three—Brown v. Board of Education is such a case. FTC v. Dean Foods Co. was a test case that is not a leading case, because history has superseded it with statutory changes. It is not a landmark case, at least not any more, for the same reason. (Also, not many people are interested in jurisdiction under the All Writs Act.)

BTW I used to be a test case lawyer.

PraeceptorIP (talk) 19:19, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

To merge Leading case and Lists of landmark court decisions. Now I missed Judge Judy. I think you have hit the nail on the thumb, though, in that we do have e.g. legal precedent and I used to like reading the leading cases in The Times so perhaps this is a question of WP:ENGVAR? Obviously both U.S. and U.K law (except for the State of Louisiana) are under the common law system, but to a WP:WORLDWIDE audience do we need to somehow distinguish these? It is not as if Jarndyce and Jarndyce is listed as a leading case. I'm not a lawyer, just an engineer. Si Trew (talk) 19:29, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Actually I am a bit mistaken, because we don't have a List of landmark court decisions but Lists of landmark court decisions, even though it does not list lists but decisions. I ain't a lawyer, but I am a language lawyer I think is sometimes the expression used in computer jargon: Though Wiktionary doesn't have it. Si Trew (talk) 19:40, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

RfA

But on the other hand, I do like John Betjamin, have all three volumes of Knuth on my shelf, and used to own the entire orange set of VMS manuals! BTW it's the First Lord of the Treasury that is PM, not First Lord of the Admiralty. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 12:45, 1 July 2015 (UTC).

@Rich Farmbrough: Rich, you are not a bad man. I do appreciate that you work very hard on Wikipedia, but you do have a marvellous ability to rub people up the wrong way. Perhaps kinda we need people to do that, in that kinda LETS JUST GET IT DONE way, but through the medium of text it can sometimes seem very very harsh: and you do tend to toss off others' grievances when your bot destroys their hard work. But I'd gladly buy you a pint any day. I don't know why you want or need to be admin; it's actually easier if you are, like Uriah Heep, so wery umble, rather than putting your head above the parapet.

Your sig is a constant annoyance to me "All the best" when you mean "I don't give a shit". But actually you do give a shit, and I do appreciate it. But you do get on my nerves and there is no point pretending otherwise. I bet in real life we'd be best buddies, just putting it down in text somehow ruins your exuberance sometimes (I am guilty of the same). Si Trew (talk) 20:11, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Betjeman, by the way. Si Trew (talk) 20:13, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

"TJE, TJE, that thrice accursed TJE!" (Summoned by Bells if my memory serves me.) Rich Farmbrough,20:19, 1 July 2015 (UTC).

Curséd I think, not accurséd. The fatal TJE. Betjeman's a German spy, shoot him down and let him die, Betjeman's a German spy a German spy a German spy.

I have it in a paperback but I picked up a first edition on a bookstall for fifty pence, a few years ago. John Murray was the publisher (for all his works) and I think 1960. I'm just going from memory.

His statue at St. Pancras station is wonderful, and any time I am there I doff my hat off to him, as he does to me. You can get a pint in the Betjeman Arms at the station, which for London prices and London pubs, is not bad either way, proper beer and reasonable +london prices. It's nice to sit outside with a cigarette and watch the world going by along the Euston Road when you are waiting for a train. I haven't enough money to get a Betjemann Tantalus (cabinet), but made the article, a couple of Dutch editors filled it in better. Si Trew (talk) 21:08, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

As I have only one decanter, and that moulded glass, I don't feel the need for a tantalus. It would be a fun project to make one though. Rich Farmbrough, 18:23, 2 July 2015 (UTC).

• Yeah would be. Try Poundland and charity shops for the decanters, but it took me lots of charity shops to get three matching (one in each). I was after crystal not glass. The really tricky thing these days is to get the stoppers that are proper glass crystal and not rubber on the stopper. It's a fairly easy bit of carpentry but the lock is a bit fiddly, but as you see from the article it only has to stop the hinge on the front, it is not very tricky, it's just am endstop. Si Trew (talk) 19:39, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

My mother had a hardback copy, though maybe she borrowed it from the library, some forty years ago. I recall the quality of the print and paper, though perhaps not the exact words. I may have his Collected Poemss somewhere... All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 18:33, 2 July 2015 (UTC).

Yes there is nothing like the feel of old paper, it kinda went out with lithography. I have quite a few marked "Property of British Aircraft Corporation" and suchlike, which technically I suppose I am a criminal under the Official Secrets Act, but they are so boring that they were just being chucked away. Theory of Command and Control was my favourite, when they put me in the loony bin and asked me to bring a book. Si Trew (talk) 19:33, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

@Rich Farmbrough:: It may please you to know, or not, that Richest man in the world came up at RfD. And I suggested you as a retarget. No other Rich people here, so you must be by default. (Spare me a sov, guv'nor) :) Si Trew (talk) 07:05, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

{{Infobox Hungarian settlement}} is doing all right, and tagged now as a specialised template, which we didn't have before many years ago. So things do get better, WP:OWNFEET add little to little and you have a great pile. Ovid. Si Trew (talk) 07:13, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

July 2015

You have been blocked from editing for a period of 2 weeks for making too many personal attacks and other trolling on your own talkpage. Where your talkpage is concerned, you get a lot of leeway, but you've used it all up. Once the block has expired, you are welcome to make useful contributions. Your ability to edit your talk page has also been revoked. If you think there are good reasons why you should be unblocked, you should read the guide to appealing blocks, then contact administrators by submitting a request to the Unblock Ticket Request System.  Bishonen | talk 18:01, 3 July 2015 (UTC)