User talk:SMcCandlish

Note: SMcCandlish's comments on Wikipedia are a work in progress, subject to the thread-mode disclaimer.

Archives   [?]
Note I do not archive everything automatically by date; some posts may remain on my talk page for a long time, if they contain something unresolved. When resolved, I archive them by date of last post in the thread. Archive 1 (2006) Archive 2 (Jan. 2007) Archive 3 (Feb. 2007) Archive 4 (Mar. 2007)

Logorrhoea

Hi there. I see you've done some work on the Logorrhoea article and was wondering whether or not you had read my comments on the discussion page there. IMHO the section on rhetoric is sub-par in many ways and actually I was considering expanding the mental health part and significantly trimming the rhetoric part, which mostly appears to be the opinion of people who don't like high-falutin' sentence structures.

Are you suggesting we split Logorrhoea into (use in rhetoric) and (use in medicine)? --PaulWicks 12:18, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Dicussion moved to direct e-mail (short version: YES. Better to split than to remove material.) --Smccandlish 05:39, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Note to self: Logorrhoea (rhetoric) should just be merged into Prolixity anyway. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] - 05:40, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

You managed to work the word "Logorrhoea" into an edit summary of some work I did on Labile affect. Nice. --PaulWicks 21:47, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Was vocabulary practice. I'd just been at the L. page, and thought I'd try making myself use it (and even use the UK spelling); I usually use "prolixity"; it sounds less insulting! Heh.  ;-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 21:50, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Out-standing: Article still not split. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 08:08, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Active guideline

Resolved

The consensus on the wikipedia:naming conventions (books) guideline *including notes on notability* was prior to wikipedia:notability (books) being started. There is no consensus on that new proposal. Until there is, Wikipedia:Naming conventions (books)#Note on notability criteria is the *active* guideline on book notability. --Francis Schonken 15:44, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Out of plain curiosity, I'd like to see evidence of that, specifically that the passage in question was present and substantively identical to its current wording at the pont of transition from a draft Guideline on book naming conventions to a non-draft one. But it's a moot point. It is almost ludicrously inappropriate for a non-controversial guideline on naming conventions to have a totally off-topic rider in it that attempts to set a guideline in one of the most hotly-debate spheres of Wikipedia, namely "notability". If this rider was present in the original draft naming convention for books, it is entirely possible that the only reason it survived is precisely because it was a hidden rider - few who would have any reason to object would ever notice it and weigh in. If it ever represented any form of consensus at all it was only a consensus among people who a) care about book naming conventions, and (not or) b) either support the vague notability rider, didn't notice it or didn't care either way. Ergo it it not a real Wikipedia consensus at all. But even this is moot. The existence of an active push to develop Wikipedia:Notability (books) demonstrates that there is in fact no consensus at all, period, that the notability rider in the naming article is valid. If it remains, I'm taking this to arbitration, because I believe the presence of the rider to be deceptive and an abuse of the Policy/Guideline formulation process and consensus mechanism. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 16:23, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

• From proposal to guideline, 09:07, 25 January 2006 — no changes to the "Note on notability criteria" section.
• From the day it became guideline to today, 16:29, 23 July 2006 — no changes to the "Note on notability criteria" section.

--Francis Schonken 16:37, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. But as I said, I think this is a moot point. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 17:03, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Warning

Further information: Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (books) § Notability criteria

Please refrain from removing content from Wikipedia, as you did to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (books). It is considered vandalism. If you want to experiment, please use the sandbox. Thank you.

You reverted the *consensus* version of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (books)#Note on notability criteria to the version you had proposed earlier today. That version of yours is not consensus, and you knew that when you reverted. For guidelines one needs a new consensus for major changes. Yours was a major change. It had no consensus. So I'm posting this warning on your user page, and will then proceed to revert the Wikipedia:Naming conventions (books)#Note on notability criteria section to the version that had consensus when that became a guideline about half a year ago.

You're welcome to discuss other versions of that section (whether that be a temporary version until Wikipedia:Notability (books) becomes guideline or a more permanent solution) on the Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (books) talk page. But consensus is needed before it can be moved to the guideline page. --Francis Schonken 16:24, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Cute, but a total misdirection (as to at least three claims, of consensus, my tacit agreement that consensus existed, and new edit not reflecting consensus, and possibly a forth, as to edit scope. I do in fact dispute, in more than one way, that the section in question represents any meaningful consensus, for reasons already stated and evidenced. I contend that it is someone's "pet" section and removable as such; that it is an off-topic insertion and thus subject to removal on other grounds; and that even if it had some merit at one point it has been superceded by the current Wikipedian editors' consensus on this topic (which is that the topic needs a Guideline, period, so one has been started as a Proposal; notably it is not a consensus that the rider needs editing and improvement; rather it is being replaced, to the extent its existence has even been acknowledged. To continue, I further assert that removing the rider would in fact be a consensus move. Wikipedia:Notability (books) would not be well on the way to becoming a Guideline if there were any consensus that the off-topic notability rider in the naming guideline already had any consensus support whatsoever. It is very notable that no one has proposed a section merger or in any other way addressed the rider as valid or worth even thinking about. It is simply being ignored. And I assert further that it is at least questionable whether it is a "major edit" to remove a small section that is more adequately covered by another article (whether that article is considered "finished" or not) that has a lot more editorial activity and interest, and replace the redundant section it with a cross-reference to the latter, as I did.

The fact that no one has even touched the rider at all since Jan. strongly supports my points that a) virtually no one who cares about notability of books is aware of it, got to debate its inclusion, or even considers it worth working on or authoritative in any way, because the topic of how to define book notability is generating quite a bit of activity on the other article; and therefore b) it reflects no consensus on the topic of book notability, period. Which is what one would expect, given that it's buried at the bottom of an article about spelling! I also dispute the notion that an approved Guideline on [Topic A] is also an approved Guideline on unrelated [Topic B] just because it happens to mention some ideas relating to how to deal with [Topic B]. If you are aware of another example, I'd love to see it.

PS: I'm posting most of this, with further (case-closing, in my opinion) facts, references and evidence, on the article's talk page, since otherwise the debate won't affect anyone's views other than yours and/or mine in User_talk.

— SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 17:03, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Update

Months later, the points I raised were never refuted or even questioned at the talk page in question, and Wikipedia:Notability (books) is well on the way to becoming a Guideline, meanwhile Wikipedia:Naming conventions (books)#Note on notability criteria was nominated two more times for removal, with the unanimous support of those who commented, and was replaced with a wordy wikilink to Wikipedia:Notability (books). I rest my case. One may wish to actually look into establishing what consensus actually is on whatever matter is at hand before presuming to lecture others about it. PS: The abuse of {{Test2a-n}} on my Talk page (it is intended, and instructed, to be used in series with {{Test1}} or a variant thereof) was very heavy-handed. I'm leaving it up instead of archiving it, because I think it says far more about abuse of the label "vandal" than it does about me. >;-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 10:12, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Eight ball

Gad what a mess eight ball is. I'm gearing up to rewrite it if I can figure out a logical way of doing so. Regarding you query on the section about the Mexican ruleset (where you wrote "Is there a name for this?"), I don't know of a name but I know the origin, and if I can get off my ass and do the cleanup I can take care of it. In short, after B.B.C. Co. Pool was invented, eight ball went through a number of distinct ruleset periods. One of them, which lasted for a number of years, had these exact rules. Once that is defined, it can be added that these rules are still used in Mexico.--Fuhghettaboutit 14:29, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. The blackball section could probably use expansion. My take on it is that it should dispense with the "possible" ruleset language, describe the intl. std. rules, and if/where they differ mention that the APA or VNEA or BCA or whatever rules differ on this little point[cite], and continue. Amat. variations like bank-the-eight and last-pocket should remain in a "rules variations" section. Yes? — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 14:40, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm really not sure exactly how to do it, and I agree that "possible variations" is clunky as hell, but here's what has been percolating 1) continue the history section I started, going into the variations up to the modern era. Then define the world standardized rules. Then the standard bar/recreational rules and how they differ from the BCA (with some explication of that there is no standard because no formal ruleset, but widely followed and explain that they vary). Then we can go into game variations such as last pocket, etc.. Last pocket, by the way, is apparently very, very widely played variation in South America.--Fuhghettaboutit

I'd suggest doing the WS rules, and interspersing them with Big League differences as needed (BCA/VNEA/Blackball/APA/IPT), just to keep it shorter - might be a bit frustrating to have follow-on sections like "BCA exceptions", "VNEA exceptions", etc.; then close with a section on amat./"bar rules" variations (which will need somehow to discourage additions of "in my neighborhood..." variants; I think the present HTML comment language is probably a good start). Agreed that last-pocket is huge in Latin America; was why I added it. EVERY native Mexican, El Salvadorean, Nicaraguan, etc., that I've met plays that way (and not the "magic side pockets" way detailed earlier in the article; I'd demote that to a minor variation), and without any differences (e.g. as to 2 free scratches, etc.) It seems quite uniform. There's a bar called City Club in the Mission district of San Francisco with really great players none of whom seem to speak a word of English where what I described are the house rules. The players are from all over Latin America, quite friendly to Gringos if we can figure out the rules, and they never internally argue about the rules - these seem to be the rules they've all played with their whole lives. It's a called ball-in-pocket (not called shot) game, e.g. "cinco en está lado" however way the five gets into the designated side pocket, which I forgot to mention, so it has a bit in common with the older (pre WS) BCA rules, I think. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 15:25, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Well maybe it's my POV, but the way I see it the article should start with WSR as the "official rules" and then in subsequent sections instead of defining the whole rulesets, siimply state how they depart from the official rules. For instance for bar'recretaional rules (which I do think need to be prominent as they are so widely played--probably the most wide ruleset for the most common game in the U.S.) all that needs to be done, is state that (in contradistinction to official rules): wins (or not) if eight ball made on break, choice of group is decided on the break, if both groups pocketed then it's choice, no foul rules but for scratches, scratch penalty is from the kitchen (and can move object ball to foot spot if none available), most but not all venues make you call every nuance of every shot (rather than "ball and pocket"), the Player loses sometimes if he doesn't contact the eight ball when it's his object ball, eight ball has to go in "clean", and the alternating racking crap. That's may not be exhaustive but there's not much more. If those distinctions follow a treatise on the correct rules, little defining should be necessary, so the section would not need to be very long.

Doing it by defining each separate ruleset's variation for each official rule would be confusing I think, and an invitation for endless parenthetical notes. Plus, the way articles evolve, people add a one-off difference from some game to one section and then go their merry way. So then we have each official rule followed by variations from some other groups of indistinct rules, with each official rule being treated separately, some getting variations some not from the same league rules. It seems to me it would lead to an organizational mess.--Fuhghettaboutit 16:06, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable to me. Just wanted to make sure that the VNEA, etc., variations get in there, and are differenced from the mess of "bar pool" variations; many of them predate the WSR by a long way.  :-) NB: "Rules variations" or "variants" seems like a good section heading, perhaps with a three-"=" subsection header for each set discussed? I'm thinking in terms of the promised but presently vaporware article "templates" at WP:CUE. I guess eight-ball is as good a place as any to start developing that. NB: Also thinking that the "rack" article could really be folded entirely or almost entirely into the articles about the various games it covers. I think this sort of opens the more general question of what to do about equipment articles. My present take is that I'm not sure we actually need articles about cues, chalk, racking, tables, etc., rather than general mentions at Billiards (side point: Should we move it to Cue sport now?) and more specific details under particular games (nine-ball, etc.) or game-type (carom billiards, snooker, etc.) articles. This is probably a better pack o' questions for Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cue sports but I don't see any reason to not come to a two-person initial mini-consensus on the direction here. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 16:24, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly agree that subtopic articles should only be taken so far, but I don't think articles on specific items of equipment or specific things such as racking are too far. Let's look at rack (billiards) for example (and of course the elephant in the room is that I wrote the majority of that article, but I'm not just being protective): First and foremost, I can see someone coming to Wikipedia interested in how racking is done across many billiard games. Second, I can see someone coming to Wikipedia seeking clarity because of the confusing multi-use of the word (physical object; various types; used to describe the balls in starting position; the verb for placing the balls, etc.). Third, there is a quite limited number of specific objects and things in billiards of which racking is one. We don't and never will need an article on the foot spot--how much history can be found on that topic? How much room for expansion? It's a blackhole of content, but when it comes to racking, breaking, english, I think they can all have subarticles if someone is willing to take the time to write them (citing ulitmately to reliable sources:-). There is much room for expansion of racking, from other games, to the history of it, to primary manufacturers, to the Sardo tight rack (and the controversy that has arisen in professional play over its use), etc. Or take cuetips, they have a fascinating history and there has been much written about them. Did you known leather cue tips were invented in debtor's prison by Captain Francois Mingaud around 1823 who was later accused of sorcery for the amazing things he was able to do on a billiards table using them? Regarding cue sports, I have not really been following the debate. I'm not too concerned since if it's done or not done, the information will be retained and having been following the debate too much. If you have consensus, go for it.--Fuhghettaboutit 17:35, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I guess the info will just have to be a little duplicative (in that the details on how to rack for eight-ball specifically need to be in the eight-ball article as well, etc. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 05:10, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Out-standing: Actually making the eight-ball article cover everything described, and as-described, above. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 06:45, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Polish interwiki

OK, sorry. I thought that Irish standard pool and english 8-ball are the same, looking at the pictures. Aren't they? Can you explain me the difference between these two billiard games? Thanks for information, Maciek17 21:30, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

They are very, very similar, which is why Irish standard pool has been slated for merging into eight-ball#UK just before eight-ball#UK forks off into the blackball (pool). Irish standard pool is not quite the same as UK-rules eight-ball - different enough that the interwiki is misinformation - but similar enough that the articles can be merged, and handled with simply an "Irish variation" section, if you see what I mean. Dealing with all of that is, I think, the 2nd-highest priority on my WP to-do list, so it will be taken care of very soon.  :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 21:37, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Out-standing: Article not split yet. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 08:15, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

{{Resolved}}

Thanks for the reply. I think when I clicked on the template it only brought me to the image, and not the description and talk pages. The link is back now. The template's been around for 10 months or so, and I'm surprised I'm only seeing it for the first time. I was a bit doubtful about it, because I can see some users pasting it in to guillotine an argument - but it's only an indicator with nothing final about it.--Shtove 11:35, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Guillotine usage should be reverted and criticized. I think the template itself should be udpated with a note that such use would be abuse. I think it does already say that if anyone thinks a tagged topic is not resolved they should just remove the tag. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 17:31, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Out-standing: Better template documentation. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 08:08, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Blackball

Hello Stanton,

My interest is in 'blackball' pool so I'd just like to offer assistance should you require it on that particular topic.

There are various articles on my sites relating to the subject which could perhaps prove useful. For example..... http://www.blackball.co.uk/articles.php?cat_id=1

At present I provide around 150 free 8ball pool related sites. Mostly for pool leagues and the UK pool community.

As you will know blackball was intended to unify the game of pool as it is played on the 'small table' (generally 7ft X 4ft). These tables are of course commonly found in pubs and clubs in which larger tables cannot be accomodated. Plus the game is now played to this set of rules at international level and sanctioned by the WPA.

Unification has not yet been fully acheived in that two sets of (small table) rules still exist side by side.... blackball and what are commonly called 'world rules', as administered by the WEPF.

Anyway, Stanton, if I can be of any assistance do please let me know.

Best regards,

Bill Hunter —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ukblackball (talk • contribs) 11:49, 13 February 2007 (UTC).

Thanks Bill! We do indeed need some help in this area. Probably the biggest article change upcoming is the forking of the eight-ball article into eight-ball and blackball (pool). When I or someone else from WP:CUE gets around to that, the new blackball article will need knowledgeable review. My present take on the subject is that the article should detail the WPA blackball rules, as the more pre-eminent/global, and address WPEF variations separately in asides or in a subsection, but generally consider the entire English-style eight-ball game to be "blackball", as a classifier. I think the end result for the reader would be more confusing if WPA blackball had an article, and WEFP "quasi-blackball" remained a subsection of the eight-ball article. Interested in your thoughts on this. I am of course aware that the WEPF ruleset predates the WPA one, but the WPA as an organization predates WEPF by a long way, and has a more global scope.

In the interim, I invite you to join WikiProject Cue sports and to see what you can do with the WEPF stub article, which I think has only existed for about 2 days.

— SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 19:51, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Out-standing: Blackball (pool) not yet split from eight-ball. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 08:15, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Welcome to VandalProof!

Thank you for your interest in VandalProof, SMcCandlish! You have now been added to the list of authorized users, so if you haven't already, simply download and install VandalProof from our main page. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me or any other moderator, or you can post a message on the discussion page. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 03:30, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Out-standing: I still need to actually install this.

Interesting

I am writing Baseball pocket billiards. In my search for sources I came across this patent application for a new game called "BLAZZ". Thought you might find it interesting (not the game itself, but the existence and methodology of the patent application).--Fuhghettaboutit 14:35, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

The format it is nice, the way Google does it in that PDF frame (well, nice if you have a PDF plugin installed, but I would think most of us do at this point). The text itself was also interesting in that it indicated that the 1974 ver. of the BCA rulebook includes games not listed in the later versions. Time to look for a copy! — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 16:04, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Glad you pointed that out. Can't find the 1974 edition, but earlier editions would likely have the same different material right? I just ordered the 1970 edition from amazon.--Fuhghettaboutit 16:43, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

And I just got the '71! I think we were both doing that pretty much simultaneously. Anyway, yeah, I figure any version at least as old as 1974 should have that material. I've been meaning to add something somewhere about the differences between the World Std.ized Rules and the old ones, anyway, so that'll come in handy for that as well. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 16:48, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Out-standing: Putting blazz into WP:CUEGAMES under "probably non-notable", but with notes about this ref. and the Shamos one mentioned elsewhere, in case it is later deemed worthy of an article. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 08:25, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Re: Non-authoritative

The problem is we have nothing better. My recollection of all this (based on bits and bobs that float about in conversations over the years) is that there is no real cast iron source on the origins - hence why it is regarded as a "accepted story" rather than fact. How do we source that? ! SFC9394 16:44, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd say, cite books about snooker than mention such details and say something, anything, about where they got the info from. I'm not saying the organization is inherently untrustworthy, by any means, just that they're obviously summarizing something else, and not bothering to cite it. They had to get the story from somewhere, right? — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 16:48, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I will have a browse, I do have one book which I will have a look at later in the week which may detail it - the thing is I don't know if such sources would say - this "story" really does seem to be some sort of handed down word of mouth line that dithered in army circles and snooker circles up until there was wider interest from the 50's onwards - at that point those word of mouth stories were then just recounted as "fact". SFC9394 17:23, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

If the books just say "this, by the way, is an aprocryphal story", that in itself is a citable fact to add to the article. :-) My issue with the World Snooker mini-article is that's just in a void; no author, no source, nothin'. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 17:32, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Cheers! I guess I am in one of those "If I am going to do it, I ma going to do it right" moods! Also, it is observable that the main failing point of FA candidates is sub-standard reffing. In the past with previous articles I have added major contributions to I have never really bothered with it all, but this is on a "nice" subject - the BBC site coupled with a few of the broadsheets can just about cover everything online (I am also trying to provide Waybackmachine versions where possible, and where not submit the sites to archive.org (through the alexa site) to ensure they will be archived in the next wee while and so at some future point the whole thing has a degree of future proofing about it. SFC9394 22:56, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

That sounds like a good plan. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 08:25, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

DYK

Resolved

On 2 March, 2007, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article William A. Spinks, which you created or substantially expanded. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.

--Yomangani^talk 13:41, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

• Congratulations. We should have a special template for first timers with champagne and fireworks. I must admit it was the pic that swung it, but I couldn't go with the alternative suggestion which was too much in the style of Do you care: "...that John Doe was born in 1919" or "...that trees are a type of plant". Yomangani^talk 15:38, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Danke! Yeah, that super-short alt. suggestion really made me cringe. Was that from a regular DYK admin, or just some random passer-through? — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 15:45, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

A regular. The alternative suggestion they made for another nom was very good, and I've put it in the next update. I just think they missed the point on yours. Yomangani^talk 16:01, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, pobody's nerfect! Maybe after a while they start to blend into one another... — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 16:26, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Cue Sports?

Hi,

I learned a new term today, thanks to the move of billiards to its new location. Since it seems from the talk page that you championed this, I thought I'd stop by to let you know. This doesn't constitute an objection, or anything, but I must concur with Robert West's observation that I wouldn't have guessed that article name in five trillion years. If you're keeping any kind of informal measure on the currency of the term, lump me in with the confused. In it's own way, this is very fitting, as I'm quite bad at all forms of the game! :) Best wishes, Xoloz 21:02, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

If you are bored and read the entire debate there (it is quite tedious, I warn you), I addressed West's issue that you raise here also. No one is suggesting that the average joe on the street says, "hey, Jane, let's go have a beer and play cue sports". The term is simply a classifier, and with this particular topic a disambiguator, because "billiards" means at least 4 different (conflicting) things to different people. The English folks were quite irritated that the main, general (now-) "Cue sport" article was (back then) "Billiards", because to them that word means "the game of English billiards, and no other". Meanwhile many but not all Americans interpret the term to mean "carom billiards games, as a class", as do many non-native English speakers. Other Americans mean "[[Pocket billiards|pool", period, not even being aware that carom billiards games exist, and yet other Americans, and many non-English speakers of English elsewhere (Hong Kong, New Zealand, etc.), and the rest of the non-native English speakers, mean "cue sports, in general" by this term. "Billiards" is just hopelessly ambiguous. I think it might even set a Wikipedia record for, well, uselessness as an article title. Kind of by default, we have it redirecting to "Cue sport". So, the unlikelihood of someone manually entering "cue sport" into the Wikipedia search box really isn't an issue. There are loads of articles like "Mike Smith (actor)", "Mike Smith (physicist)", "Mike Smith (Pokemon character)", etc.; no one is expected to literally enter those text strings as search terms either. Hope that helps explain the situation. PS: See also "water sports", as another example. If people want to go water skiing or surfing, they say so, not "let's go do water sports". That is, the everyday use of the term isn't really an issue at all; the value of the term as an unambiguous top-level classifier is where the value is.  :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 03:36, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Stanton, if I might chime in. While I agree with your summary above, I am concerned about its usage in the text of articles. I think we need it as a disambuation term for organizational purposes (I think you've heard me say this a few times but I don't think I've ever embellished), but I think its use in article prose should be minimized as much as possible for the very reasons detailed in Xoloz's post above. Oh, and on a complete tangent, remeber that patent url we looked at for the game Blazz? Well get this: the game actually has an entry in Shamos.--Fuhghettaboutit 04:09, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Wow, are we actually gonna argue for once? >;-) Gimme some examples of over-use, perhaps. I stand by the sourcing I did in the rename debate - it's a legit term, used (internationally) in the industry, and remains the only truly non-ambiguous blanket term for the whole shebang. I'm also trying to be sensitive to User:Alai and other Brits about "billiard[s]", without going too far in that direction. I'm thinking (favorably, I mean) of usages like the text in William A. Spinks that says "his lasting contribution to cue sports" - billiard chalk really does seem to apply across the whole board. And note I didn't call it "cue sports chalk". Heh. If there are other, dumber, examples I doubt I'd mind undoing them. There probably are some, but I'm not remembering any of them (or probably would have already dealt with it!) I tend to treat "pocket billiards" the same way. The industry has preferred this term for almost a century, but because it isn't used much by "real people" I try to only use it as a classifier in reference to the table type (e.g "snooker is a form of pocket billiards" - but emphatically not of pool, per se). I've probably poohed that screwtch a couple of times too, but I'm sure those can be edited away over time. Jist: Not trying to be particularly argumentative, but not aware of any particular, egregious "industry terminology geeking" instances. :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 04:25, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I think either you're reading more into my post than I meant, or I implied something I didn't mean to with loose writing. I've only noticed its use in prose crop up a few times and the one for which I objected to I edited it out (I forget which article). I don't really like the beginning of the main article cuesports, but I haven't thought of a good change. What I meant to say, is that we should strive to keep in mind that it shouldn't be used generically all over for the reasons Xoloz brought up, and we should keep an eye out for its overuse, without implying that it's currently a problem.--Fuhghettaboutit 05:14, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Right! I do remember the revert you are talking about; it was "back when", but I saw it and thought "oh, yeah, there wasn't really any reason at all to use that longwinded term there". Heh. Anyway, there probably are a few unnecessary uses of "cue sports" (and "pocket billiards") here and there. I'm with you that Xoloz's and (Robert West's) concerns have a valid ultimate base. If I go to the Efren Reyes article and see "is a Filipino professional pocket billiards cue sport player..." I'm going to cough up my own skull. >;-) I do think the terms have some value in introductory materials about the actual sports, as such, e.g. snooker, but thereafter do not need to be used in such articles at all. Also think the utterly general, all-inclusive stuff like Cue sport, Glossary of cue sports terms and Category:Cue sports are properly named, but would resist renaming billiard table and billiard balls, because literally no one actually uses phrases like "cue sports balls", even among industry marketing flacks. It's one thing to use cue sports as a generic classifier, but quite another to impose it as name, per se. Are our wavelengths any better synched now? If not lemme know. E.g. I'm not certain you'd agree with using the c.s. term to explicate what snooker is, for example, or concur with my use of it in William A. Spinks. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 05:44, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I think we're pretty jibed. Note that if I ever get around to writing it (I'm not touching it unless and until I get the Stein/Rubino encyclopedia back), I would call an article on the history of the sport, "History of billiards" because that is what it is called historically. Of course, writing all these articles with history is laying the groundwork for that eventual article, which, by the way, is the best prospect I see in the subject area for an article that would lend itself to being an FA.--Fuhghettaboutit 07:01, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Concur on all points, I think. "History of cue sports" is kind of plausible, but only from a late 20th to early 21st century perspective, and just doesn't sound right, even if Category:Cue sports does; the latter is a thoroughly modern classifier. I think I'd only go with "History of cue sports" if the article ended with "And this month's tournament winners are..." Heh. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 07:25, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I saw this discussion and thought I would add my 2-cents (which is too late since the matter has been resolved). The U.S. Patent Office has been dealing with descriptively classifying cue sports for a very long time and probably to as great of extent as any other organization. They actually settled on calling it "billards or pool",[1] which supports the idea that the term "billiards" or the term "pool" is not sufficient by itself to convey the topic name, even in the United States. I could not determine how the United Kingdom patent office handled the name issue. The analogy to water sports is good. In reply to a post above, if there is a desire to modify the beginning of the cue sports article, this description might provide some ideas. -- Jreferee 06:38, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the link; may come in handy, as someone has tagged the main article's intro as insufficient. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 06:52, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Billiards pics

On another topic, any ideas where I could get a picture to upload at commons of a leather shake bottle? Would be useful in a number of articles—kelly pool of course, and I am 80% done with a write up of bottle pool.--Fuhghettaboutit 07:10, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I just found my digital camera (now if I could just find the box that has my Shamos book in it...), and I happen to have a shake bottle (leather not plastic, though it is not an antique), and modern plastic pills/peas, so I guess I can do it after I charge up the batteries. Have intended to produce a boatload of pics for commons, on every other billiardy thing I can think of, but have been doing other stuffs — still working on William Hoskins in a sandbox, and have been building (maybe 15% done) perhaps the most badazz template of all time (a unified WikiProject talk page banner that can serve multiple projects at once, intead of having 5 on a page; initially inspired by the fact that we (WP:CUE, I mean) don't have the human resources for our own Assessment Dept. but could make use of the ones at WP:SPORTS, WP:BIO... long story about where it's going beyond that, to do with increasing community complaints about the "over-templatification" of talk pages, boneheaded attempts to hide all such templates in a "drawer" virtually no one will ever open, and so on; like I say, long story), and various other time sponges. So I just kind of backburnered the pics idea, but if you need that one now, I don't see why I can't produce one post-haste. Gimme a pointer to the draft bottle pool article, and I'll see if I can put together a pic or two that very directly address it (vs. Kelly pool). I don't yet have a set of clay balls for that old-tyme feel, though have been eyeing a few sets on eBay from time to time, much less antique peas. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 07:25, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

As with most articles, I am writing it offline. Note though that the bottle in bottle pool is a prop used in the game itself and peas aren't used at all. The bottle is placed upside down on the center spot and is a carom target that scores point if knocked over by either of the two cue balls used in the game after caroming off a ball, but loses a player their turn if knocked over by either of the two object ball in the game. There's more to it than that, but that's the gist. A picture of the bottle upside down at the center of a pool (with no view of pov background, people posters etc.) would be ideal.--Fuhghettaboutit 19:35, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Can do, but I just found my 2006 BCA rulebook, and it says 1 cue ball, and the #1 and #2 object balls. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 23:21, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

MoS type stuff

1. "Thou art God" - the greeting used in Stranger in a Strange Land.
2. Dates - there is near consensus about delinking years, however one or two of those that were anti, were vociferously so, mainly User:Rebecca, who has blocked users and done "admin rollback" on their edits, to the disgust of many other admins. WP:MOSNUM points out that context is key, it's as far as we could get with unanimity, with mere consensus we could have maybe gone a little further. I have certainly de-linked many hundreds of years with two complaints (both from "antis" in the long long debates) and a handful of queries. You can certainly point to WP:MOSNUM to say that default lining is not policy.
3. Combination links - I certainly agree with calcium carbonate, I suspect the place names depend partly on display style. I us pop-ups, so I see the link, but the browser hint is too far away for me. If you see underlines then that and the comma probably make the two links clearly seperate, if not the comma can appear (psychologically) blue. Also in the article you cite, since California is already linked to, the argument for leaving it unlinked grows stronger. I did think there was some guidance on this, but haven't been able to find it recently. Rich Farmbrough, 12:46 3 March 2007 (GMT).

1. I'd completely forgotten! Been a long time...
2. Hmm. My read of WP:MOSNUM and WP:CONTEXT are that it's kind of a toss-up. Darn.
3. WP:CONTEXT suggests strongly that using one link is better, but doesn't go very deep into the topic - that part could have been only intended to address on such situation, not all of them, so its again not very authoritative. Ah well.

— SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 23:26, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Biography articles by quality statistics modification request

Resolved

I noticed that you edited the Biography articles by quality statistics template on February 18, 2007[2] that thought that you might be able to reply to my request that I posted here. -- Jreferee 05:50, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I honestly wouldn't know a thing about KingbotK's workings; I only just installed it into my AWB today! The only effect I've had on the template in question is narrowing its left-most label field so that the template fits inside right-side infoboxes again (and even this trick I borrowed from another, similarly-formed, though very different-purpose, template that used a similar table. What you ask for seems like a good idea (esp. given I'm a bio article assessor myself, though I stick to B-class and lower; not sure my understanding of the criteria are truly deep enough yet for me to be determining something as A-class). But, I don't know enough about the background code to make the changes you are seeking (at least not without possibly breaking something). I'm sure someone else reading that talk page does, though. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 06:15, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

My warning of 71.183.11.205

Have a look at this person's history, he had edited the page twice when I came along and has since replaced and blanked several pages, I assumed bed faith because the page was being deleted progressively. Thank you for your concern but for tests (edits that change content in good faith) I do scale back the warning I give. I'm glad you assume good faith, but Adding insulting content is not good faith, and v3 is the minimum level that assumes bad faith. I'm sorry if you dissagree with this but I feel justified. Adam McCormick 03:01, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

I do disagree, strongly:

User vandalizes twice in rapid succession (first two edits ever), which counts as one vandalism since not warned between them:

19:55, March 4, 2007 (hist) (diff) Albinism (→Causes)

19:57, March 4, 2007 (hist) (diff) Albinism (→Types of human albinism)

You warned, using a level-3 warning...:

20:00, March 4, 2007 Alanbly (Talk | contribs) (Warned about Vandalism)

...yet user had not done anything at all other than the one vandalism until:

20:16, March 4, 2007 (hist) (diff) List of rabbit breeds (→British Giant)

(Those are my local timestamps, not UTC, but copy-pasted directly from history & contribs.)

It isn't right to ABF based on two edits. The assumption did turn out to apparently be a correct one, but it was simply an assumption, and if the user continues to do this, but is not warned properly (in numerical order), it is likely that AIV won't do anything about him/her/it, which is why I fixed the warning levels. The numbers in the uw- templates are not severity levels of infraction, they are counts of warnings in the last week.

PS: The fact that an edit deleted something or added something dumb or insulting doesn't necessarily mean bad faith. Lots of especially younger noobs goof off like this when they first get here because they don't really understand yet and can't believe they can actually change things but why not do so for kicks. I'm not saying that this is certainly this user's modus operandi, but it could be. The fact the the user tried to remove the warnings suggests someone possibly embarassed - outright malicious vandals rarely bother. I guess we'll see if he/she continues to do this sort of stuff and gets blocked.  :-) Anyway, I'm not trying to bite your ankles, just trying to help your uw tagging actually eventually get the desired results at AIV.

— SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 03:41, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know that there will be no action until someone is malicious four times, I had no idea that this was the user's first edit but I'll check before leaving a message next time. I'll just stick to uw-bv for easily identifiable abuse then instead of v3, I will endeavor to give new editors a long leash. Thank you for your concern Adam McCormick 04:23, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Keen (n.b. I didn't find anything uncivil about either side of the dicussion). Minor word of warning though: Over-use of uw-bv gets people upset too. It's better to go through the 4 step process. AIV rarely rejects a ban request that follows that process. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 07:16, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

hi

I started editing wikipedia again, if you don't mind.