User talk:Tony1

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REAL-LIFE WORKLOAD: 2

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

Please note that I don't normally copy-edit articles.

RCC FAC

Further threats and abuse posted here will be removed immediately. TONY (talk) 02:38, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Tony, per this request on my talk page, I've moved your comment to the FAC talk page. Only a few days after a restart, that page has already passed 200KB (for the fourth time), with complaints that the page won't load, so posting anything not directly related to WP:WIAFA to the talk page might help towards focusing that page on resolving actionable opposes and lowering the personalization of issues. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:46, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

FAC

Ok.--Andrea 93 (msg) 07:27, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Brian Horrocks

I have asked an outside editor to carry out a further copyedit on Brian Horrocks, and I hope it now meets your standards. If you have the time, I'd appreciate it if you could revisit the article and your comments. Leithp 13:06, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Warren County NY highways FLC

Anything else that needs done? I've solved everything you listed. If you could give the article a lookover and post more, it would help. Thanks!^Mitch32^contribs 14:42, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

WP:BOLDTITLE

Tony, are you on board with logical and sensible bolded titles being removed from articles per this new interpretation of boldtitle, regarding descriptive titles? Doesn't seem logical or sensible to me. Today's mainpage article: [1] [2] I went around on this with the Roads WikiProject until I gave up; it seems that this is another of those cases where a rewrite of a MOS guideline flew under the radar, and it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. It's one thing to say you don't have to bold the title if it can't be done sensibily, but it's another to remove bolded article titles that work and make sense. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:19, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I ran into the same issue on the Roads articles; kind of unclear how "descriptive" is being defined on some articles and by whom. Well, if you don't see an easy way to fix it, I guess I'll just put my head in the sand. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:36, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I have always been in favour of bolding, unless, of course, it leads to awkward phrasing. Not only does it act as a visual anchor for the lead, but it indicates which are the names by which the subject is most well-known, which are not necessarily given in the title. Plus, it is important to bold names that permanently redirect to the page, quickly showing to the reader why they are redirected to that page.

Now, about that distinction you mention... No idea. Waltham, The Duke of 18:20, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

RCC FAC

This message is being sent to all opposers of the Roman Catholic Church FAC. Thank you for taking the time to come see the page and give us your comments. I apologize for any drama caused by my imperfect human nature. As specified in WP:FAC, I am required to encourage you to come see the page and decide if your oppose still stands. Ceoil and others have made changes to prose and many edits have been made to address FAC reviewers comments like yours. Thank you. NancyHeise (talk) 23:49, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Date links

Hi - yes, I'd be happy to participate, though the amount of contiguous time I can spend on organization of arguments, etc., is pretty small. Tempshill (talk) 01:23, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

I would like to say thanks for your article on FA/MOS changes. Very informative. miranda 16:15, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

May FAC reviewer award

		The Order of the Superior Scribe of Wikipedia
		To Tony1, For your superior reviews of at least 25 Featured article candidates during May, thank you for being one of the top reviewers this month and for your careful work and thorough reviews of prose to help promote Wiki's finest work. Your footprint is growing as you also work to train others (even though some of us are hopeless :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:03, 8 June 2008 (UTC) Special thanks to Ling.Nut—a retired editor who had a strong commitment to excellence in content review—for designing this award, and to Maralia for running the stats for May.

Oh yes, Maralia's an asset. Ling.nut's gone? ... Pity. TONY (talk) 08:56, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

(butting in) Why retired? --Efe (talk) 09:01, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Quick WP:CITE question

Tony, just back from hols, recovering. But something that I've tried to enforce but perhaps missed in the WP:MOS, do we mandate citations should be in numerical order anywhere? It's an issue I encounter often but haven't found anything (besides common sense) I can refer to to mandate it? The Rambling Man (talk) 19:11, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

"Dogs eat dog food.^[26][35]" certainly looks neater on the page than "Dogs eat dog food.^[35][26]". Matthewedwards (talk · contribs · count · email) 05:56, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it's mandated anywhere (at least if it is, I've never seen it). I often see people asking for it, and it looks nicer, but it's certainly not required. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:08, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Ok Sandy, that's what I thought, but perhaps it should be mandated? The Rambling Man (talk) 06:10, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

ah, that's another issue :-) If you're up for having a months-long discussion at WP:CITE over it, help yourself :-))) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:21, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

TRM, "recovering" sounds like jetlag, and jetlag sounds like a trip to ... the west coast of North America from the UK.

In this case above, 35 could be the ref that the author thinks is the more important of the two, or the logical one to look at first? If cardinal order is to be mandated, it should be one of those "unless there are good reasons for doing otherwise" ones; that should stop the naysayers at wp;cite in their tracks. I agree with you, generally. TONY (talk) 09:02, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

For what it's worth, this is one of my pet peeves: I would ban consecutive footnotes if I had my way. So I'd want "Dogs eat dog food.^[26]", and in the References section, "[26] For the fact that they are dogs, see X; for the food, see Y." Otherwise, it's inevitably confusing. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 16:32, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

The old FA of the month idea

Tony, see here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:40, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Benjamin Franklin Tilley

I may have left you a note here already and if I did, I apologize. I have made corrections as you suggested on the Benjamin Franklin Tilley article. Can you please take a quick look and see if this addresses your concerns? Thanks! JRP (talk) 02:51, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Brian Horrocks FAC

Hi there. Just letting you know that I got the nominator to ask some people to copyedit this (Since I noticed you, among other editors, had highlighted the prose poor at the FAC). Finetooth (talk · contribs) has now copyedited it. — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 06:54, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Anna May Wong

Another copy-edit has recently been done on this article, and you might want to give it another look. Thanks. Dekkappai (talk) 16:22, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Please remove your personal attack.

Johnbod (talk) 17:26, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

From where? I don't recall having made any personal attacks. However, I recall that you've been littering one of my pages with your own gripe. TONY (talk) 01:21, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

1995 Japanese Grand Prix

Seeing as the FAC failed last, month, could you possibly leave comments on the talkpage about the problems with the article and what needs to be improved. D.M.N. (talk) 17:28, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Why do you ignore comments on your talkpage? You could at least respond with a simple "Will do when I have time"; "I'll get to it shortly"; instead of ignoring it. In my view, it's pure ignorance to ignore others comments. D.M.N. (talk) 12:48, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Again... please comment back. I'm not going to bite your head off... all I want is a response. D.M.N. (talk) 13:10, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Donald Bradman FAC

Hi Tony. I think the newly-buffed article is ready for FAC. I assume you saw my detailed responses at the (now closed) PR. It was probably one of the most interesting PRs I've worked on; it certainly raised some thorny issues, but I think with my old pal consensus in tow, the result is good. I would like to list it at FAC now, but don't want to be "previous" (as we Cockneys say). I'm sure you can spot some fine detail issues, but do you think broadly it's ready? I wouldn't normally bother you, but it's been such a labour of love for me for so very long, I appreciate my normal FAC antennae may be, erm, wonked. --Dweller (talk) 21:35, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Emmy Noether

Tony, you had mentioned a problem with overlinking at Emmy Noether; we've since had two run-throughs to eliminate this problem (carried out by myself and LaraLove). You had also mentioned that you planned to check the prose for quality status, having stated that you felt it looked good at first glance. (Wackymacs is weak-opposing because of prose quality issues, but we can't get anything definite from her/him about what's wrong.) Thanks in advance for stopping in when you have a minute. – Scartol • Tok 20:35, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Out of fear....?

OK, I am trying to think of a way to rephrase this:

Because of its reputation for being venomous and despite protection by the laws of Arizona and Nevada, the Gila Monster is often killed out of fear.

The idea is that is is venomous but very slow, but it was killed out of an (overrated) fear really. The above for me just scans oddly inside my head but I can't think of an alternative...Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:39, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

"Though the Gila monster is venomous, its slowness means that it represents little threat to humans. However, it has earned a fearful reputation, and is often killed by hikers and homeowners, despite the fact that it is protected by state law in Arizona and Nevada." --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 23:48, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Fearsome would be preferable, I think, to fearful; although the two words are used interchangeably to mean both causing fear and being afraid, fearsome is more closely related with being scary. Maybe because it sounds more like fierce? Risker (talk) 23:55, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

"Fearsome" is good. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 00:01, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Yep. like it. taken/done/used/incorporated etc. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:56, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

:) --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 23:59, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

(And I should admit I'm absurdly pleased by the hikers/homeowners alliteration. Oh, small pleasures...) --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 00:01, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

fearsome?...awesome.... :) Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:03, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

• This all happened while I was snoring. Well done, folks. TONY (talk) 04:24, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

RC + FAC

Hi Tony. What's your take on the WP:SIZE issue? --Dweller (talk) 12:59, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I was under the misapprehension that it was well over 100K and hammered it for it. Having checked, I find it's c.75K. I still think that's quite a bit too much. Evidence: it's crashed my browser once. At the FAC, I've suggested the history section is too long. The authors seem to think not a jot can be moved to daughter articles without falling foul of comprehensiveness. I doubt that, but have not enough expertise in the topic to suggest what could be pruned. At least it doesn't seem to be suffering recentism! All in all, I've toned down from a strong object (on this issue) to a persuadable object. I was curious which way you might influence my thinking. --Dweller (talk) 13:49, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Ah. Sorry, the section heading may be a little vague! Roman Catholic church. NB seen my input at Wikipedia talk:Featured article criteria? --Dweller (talk) 13:53, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

RCC Cabal

"75.127.78.190, the anon above: is that you, Lwnf? It shows the same casual indifference to apostrophes as you do. If it's not you, I wonder whether it's another of the RCC cabal whose nose is out of joint .."

Har dee har harr. But no, I sign all of my posts, and if I forget (and notice) I go back and add the signature. The cabal comment is fair. I, and I assume the others, get very defensive about representations of our religion which are inaccurate or biased, so the criticism sets us in particularly bad mood. I first got the vibe that you were pounding on the article out of inherent dislike for it. It was about a day later that I found out that you are (at the insinuation of others) some kind of "prose master," and that you do that to all of the FA noms. I want to apologize for what I said about you, and say that I don't hold any kind of grudge or ill feelings toward you.

What do you mean by "casual indifference to apostrophes?" It is rare that I screw up their use in either contractions or possessives. I have been told that their use is "frowned upon" in formal writing, but I have never been given an explanation that I felt was satisfactory, particularly in regard to the possessive. Do you have an explanation about avoidance of the possessive that is coherent and argumentatively solid? Lwnf360 (talk) 05:20, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

And this may sound snarky, but it's not really meant to be: if you want further grammar advice, can I suggest you work on your relative pronouns, and in the meantime remove the corresponding userbox on your userpage? --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 05:50, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and I have no idea where you get the notion that possessives are to be shunned in formal writing; contractions, of course, are another matter entirely.

For what it's worth, I'd be happy if someone went through every article on Wikipedia and systematically changed all instances of the clumsy "the X of the Y" formulation, to the far more readable "Y's X." I'm endlessly having to fix this. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 05:48, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

I presume that by "casual indifference to apostrophes," Tony was referring first to the one missing in the phrase "this editors 'preferences'" and, second, to the similar lack in the phrase "its totally the latter." HTH. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 05:31, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

• Thanks for your comments, JBM. Yes, "its" and "editors" were my referents. And, Lwnf, I don't usually pick at people's talk-page comments like that, but I did feel you'd taken a negative stance. As for supernatural religion, you'll see on my talk-page that I more than dislike it—I think it's one of the greatest con-jobs ever perpetrated on humanity. I'm sorry to see that you've been sucked in, Lwnf; that's purely a personal feeling, of course, not an attack on you. But I announced in the previous FAC for RCC that my attitudes to supernatural religion have nothing to do with my reviews: WP needs a good article on RCC, since the institution is central to understanding some of our history and current geopolitics. My concern is that we get the angle right, so that WP is describing at an objective distance; that's hard when the writers are passionately part of the topic. TONY (talk) 06:32, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

  An idle question, Tony... Do you distinguish between supernatural religions and other forms? ;) --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 10:14, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Monthly updates

Maybe you can add WP:LAYOUT to your monthly updates, or just start following Dank55 around to see what he's up to, because another important change flew under the radar until it popped up on a FAR. Wikipedia talk:Layout#Portals in See also. In fact, it appears he rewrote a lot of that page in May. Any chance you can get him to keep your Update page apprised when he rewrites MoS pages? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 09:31, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Okay, Sandy, you've got my interest. I take it you'd rather Tony deal with this, which works for me, I trust him. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 13:17, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Tony, I have to finish my review of mechanical engineering this morning, then I can get to the archiving you wanted. I continue to have some RL stress, but I can get things done around here. Sandy obviously has some concerns about me. Whatever you want me to do more or less of, let me know. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 13:21, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Dan, not at all: I think we all appreciate your input. Sandy's asking me to include the changes to the Layout guidelines in the monthly update. I think I did look at the diff, but decided the changes were either not significant enough to include (or perhaps I didn't understand them). Can you point me to the bits you think are substantive? No hurry; RL is more important. I can even include these as an addendum next month if you can't manage soon. TONY (talk) 14:28, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Not concerns, Dan; just that I thought we had a means of helping people (like me :-) keep up with MoS, yet this didn't make it into the Monthly updates. It's a regular item of review at FAC and FAR. I'm pressing for better updates to the updates by the "MoS regulars", since I've come to depend on the Monthly Update. (And I don't like to look stupid when asking for a change at FAC or FAR that has disappeared from MoS with no discussion, and this keeps happening :-) I'm sorry about the RL stress; I hope it is resolved soon for the best. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:43, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 16:13, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

How's this? TONY (talk) 16:35, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Looks good. Can you see any path to increased stability on the MoS pages? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:32, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

I put some other changes at WP:LAYOUT between Apr 1 and now on my talk page. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 18:12, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Re: increased stability, on the pages I patrol, just listening and responding to what the Young Turks are saying works most of the time (and sometimes improves the page), and sometimes I make the argument for increased stability. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 18:25, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Late addition: PBS just inserted "normally" into "external links are normally limited to the "External links" section" at WP:LAYOUT. Too soon to see if it will "take". - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 23:32, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm not going to object, because I have seen (a very few) cases I didn't object to; rare, but done. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:34, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

OK, so if it survives until I take the monthly "snapshot", the place to notify is here. TONY (talk) 02:44, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

request for comment

Hello. I would appreciate your comments here and here. Thank you. Thunderbird2 (talk) 18:40, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Logical quotation

Hi, Tony. Does the final fullstop here belong before or after the quotation mark?

The president remarked, "This is pilot error. It's unbelievable that somebody would do this. The guy must have had a heart attack."

Many thanks. Epbr123 (talk) 22:07, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Where a single quote includes internal full-stops, I'm more likely to assume that the last portion of text is actually a complete sentence in the original; in that case, the example above is correct, and we just put up with the fact that the higher-level WP sentence in which the quote is embedded loses its own full-stop (two jostling full-stops, even separated by the closing quotation-marks, would be worse). TONY (talk) 02:47, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Translation? (Since Epbr123 was working on logical puncs in an article for me.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:52, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, this is where the application of "logical" punctuation varies. My personal preference is to retain the full-stop outside the final quotation-marks unless you really need to show that the final portion of text (The guy must have had a heart attack) is a complete sentence, ending in a full-stop in the original. It would be unusual to need to do that—in fact, I can't imagine where. However, strictly speaking, the way MOS is currently worded allows either the example above or this:

The president remarked, "This is pilot error. It's unbelievable that somebody would do this. The guy must have had a heart attack".

I do regard it as more important for the reader to see WP's (higher-level) sentence in proper formatting; that is, starting with a capital letter and finishing with a full-stop. I guess I'd be happier if MOS laid that down as a rule, such that the default is the "outside" full-stop unless it's important to show that the original ended in a full-stop; after all, if the original didn't end in a full-stop, and the quotation therefore stops mid-sentence, you'd expect ellipsis dots, like this:

The president remarked, "This is pilot error. It's unbelievable that somebody would do this. The guy must have had a heart attack ...".

So in the absense of ellipsis dots, you'd expect a full stop in the original: that is my preference. But there's been so much bad blood about this issue, particularly from North Americans, that I just don't have the energy to raise it again. The ellipsis section of MOS remains messy, and Noetica never got to it before he stomped out of MOS in disgust at ... I won't say who. SMcCandlish is also good on these matters, but where is he? The guidelines on final punctuation and closing parentheses needs to be looked at in relation to this as well.

I just don't dare raise it, for fear that we'll end up having to accept internal punctuation as a default. TONY (talk) 03:17, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Archiving

I changed WT:FLC to archive after 10 days inactivity per discussion on that page, and I changed WT:Featured List Criteria to 20 days per your request. WT:MOSNUM looks like it's done already. Have you had any problems with the archiving at WT:MOSNUM? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 03:08, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Dan, thanks so much! I don't watchlist MESSNUM any more, since it's been taken over by an extremely aggressive cabal that I find discourages collaborative discussion on anything but their own terms. TONY (talk) 03:18, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

FA-Team Mission 4

Mission 4, a series of articles on the Everglades, could do with help from the FA-Team! Thanks! Awadewit (talk) 13:07, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Singular or plural? (aka I may have goofed...)

OK, here's an interesting one - normally the convention is to make species etc. in biological articles singular. However Ant I guess is a special case as it is talking about the family of all different ant species. I copyedited para 2 of the lead on colonies and made it singular as I felt a unified entity. sounded funny as a plural. However, now it is sinular and the rest of the 3 paras in the lead are plural. Do you reckon the colony para flows better as singular or plural? Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:15, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

No, no - this one:

The highly organised colony may consist of millions of ants; these are mostly sterile females ("workers", "soldiers", and other castes), with some fertile males ("drones"), and one or more fertile females ("queens"). Able to occupy and use a wide area of land to support itself, the ant colony is sometimes described as a superorganism as it appears to operate as a unified entity.

Would you have 'colony' as singualr or plural throughout text? Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:37, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

OK, back to plural then..Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:47, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Ignoring other users

Tony, I'm starting to get a little annoyed that you are constantly ignoring my comments above about the FAC. If you continue not to respond, I will be filing a WikiQuette alert against you. Please also see this discussion at ANI. If you wish to comment, please do so at the ANI discussion. Regards, D.M.N. (talk) 15:28, 16 June 2008 (UTC)