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Articles for deletion

08 May 2024 – Gerrit bij de Leij (talk · edit · hist) was AfDed by Lee Vilenski (t · c); see discussion (2 participants)

Old stuff to resolve eventually

Cueless billiards

Unresolved

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

Extended content

Categories are not my thing but do you think there are enough articles now or will be ever to make this necessary? Other than Finger billiards and possibly Carrom, what else is there?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 11:12, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Crud fits for sure. And if the variant in it is sourceable, I'm sure some military editor will fork it into a separate article eventually. I think at least some variants of bar billiards are played with hands and some bagatelle split-offs probably were, too (Shamos goes into loads of them, but I get them all mixed up, mostly because they have foreign names). And there's bocce billiards, article I've not written yet. Very fun game. Kept my sister and I busy for 3 hours once. Her husband (Air Force doctor) actually plays crud on a regular basis; maybe there's a connection. She beat me several times, so it must be from crud-playing. Hand pool might be its own article eventually. Anyway, I guess it depends upon your "categorization politics". Mine are pretty liberal - I like to put stuff into a logical category as long as there are multiple items for it (there'll be two as soon as you're done with f.b., since we have crud), and especially if there are multiple parent categories (that will be the case here), and especially especially if the split parallels the category structure of another related category branch (I can't think of a parallel here, so this criterion of mine is not a check mark in this case), and so on. A bunch of factors really. I kind of wallow in that stuff. Not sure why I dig the category space so much. Less psychodrama, I guess. >;-) In my entire time here, I can only think of maybe one categorization decision I've made that got nuked at CfD. And I'm a pretty aggressive categorizer, too; I totally overhauled Category:Pinball just for the heck of it and will probably do the same to Category:Darts soon.

PS: I'm not wedded to the "cueless billiards" name idea; it just seemed more concise than "cueless developments from cue sports" or whatever.— SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 11:44, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have no "categorization politics". It's not an area that I think about a lot or has ever interested me so it's good there are people like you. If there is to be a category on this, "cueless billiards" seems fine to me. By the way, just posted Yank Adams as an adjunct to the finger billiards article I started.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 11:57, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Cool; I'd never even heard of him. This one looks like a good DYK; just the fact that there was Finger Billiards World Championship contention is funky enough, probably. You still citing that old version of Shamos? You really oughta get the 1999 version; it can be had from Amazon for cheap and has a bunch of updates. I actually put my old version in the recycle bin as not worth saving. Heh. PS: You seen Stein & Rubino 3rd ed.? I got one for the xmas before the one that just passed, from what was then a really good girlfriend. >;-) It's a-verra, verra nahce. Over 100 new pages, I think (mostly illustrations). — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 13:41, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If I happen to come across it in a used book store I might pick it up. There's nothing wrong with citing the older edition (as I've said to you before). I had not heard of Adams before yesterday either. Yank is apparently not his real name, though I'm not sure what it is yet. Not sure there will be enough on him to make a DYK (though don't count it out). Of course, since I didn't userspace it, I have 4½ days to see. Unfortunately, I don't have access to ancestry.com and have never found any free database nearly as useful for finding newspaper articles (and census, birth certificates, and reams of primary source material). I tried to sign up for a free trial again which worked once before, but they got smart and are logging those who signed up previously. I just looked; the new Stein and Rubino is about $280. I'll work from the 2nd edition:-)--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:16, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm... I haven't tried Ancestry in a while. They're probably logging IP addresses. That would definitely affect me, since mine doesn't change except once every few years. I guess that's what libraries and stuff are for. S&R: Should be available cheaper. Mine came with the Blue Book of Pool Cues too for under $200 total. Here it is for $160, plus I think the shipping was $25. Stein gives his e-mail address as that page. If you ask him he might give you the 2-book deal too, or direct you to where ever that is. Shamos: Not saying its an unreliable source (although the newer version actually corrected some entries), it's just cool because it has more stuff in it. :-) DYK: Hey, you could speedily delete your own article, sandbox it and come back. Heh. Seriously, I'll see if I can get into Ancestry again and look for stuff on him. I want to look for William Hoskins stuff anyway so I can finish that half of the Spinks/Hoskins story, which has sat in draft form for over a year. I get sidetracked... — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 14:29, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's not IPs they're logging, it's your credit card. You have to give them one in order to get the trial so that they can automatically charge you if you miss the cancellation deadline. Regarding the Blue Book, of all these books, that's the one that get's stale, that is, if you use it for actual quotes, which I do all the time, both for answer to questions and for selling, buying, etc. Yeah I start procrastinating too. I did all that work on Mingaud and now I can't get myself to go back. I also did reams of research on Hurricane Tony Ellin (thugh I found so little; I really felt bad when he died; I met him a few times, seemed like a really great guy), Masako Katsura and others but still haven't moved on them.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 18:31, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, the credit card. I'll have to see if the PayPal plugin has been updated to work with the new Firefox. If so, that's our solution - it generates a new valid card number every time you use it (they always feed from your single PayPal account). — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 18:37, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

PayPal Plugin ist kaput. Some banks now issue credit card accounts that make use of virtual card numbers, but mine's not one of them. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 19:49, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for trying. It was worth a shot. I signed up for a newspaperarchive.com three month trial. As far as newspaper results go it seems quite good so far, and the search interface is many orders of magnitude better than ancestry's, but it has none of the genealogical records that ancestry provides. With ancestry I could probably find census info on Yank as well as death information (as well as for Masako Katsura, which I've been working on it for a few days; she could actually be alive, though she'd be 96).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:52, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sad...

How well forgotten some very well known people are. The more I read about Yank Adams, the more I realize he was world famous. Yet, he's almost completely unknown today and barely mentioned even in modern billiard texts.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:47, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Reading stuff from that era, it's also amazing how important billiards (in the three-ball sense) was back then, with sometimes multiple-page stories in newspapers about each turn in a long match, and so on. It's like snooker is today in the UK. PS: I saw that you found evidence of a billiards stage comedy there. I'd never heard of it! — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 15:17, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Jackpot. Portrait, diagrams, sample shot descriptions and more (that will also lend itself to the finger billiards article).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 01:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Nice find! — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 06:07, 27 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Look at the main page

Unresolved

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

Extended content

Look at the main page --Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:37, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Since you don't appear to have seen this near to the time I left it, it might be a little cryptic without explanation. Masako Katsura was today's featured article on January 31, 2011.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 20:26, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Supah-dupah! That kicks. WP:CUE's (and your?) first TFA, yes?! And yeah I have been away a lot lately. Long story. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 01:22, 18 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, my first, though I have another in the works (not billiards related). I think François Mingaud could be a candidate in the near future. I really wanted to work it up to near FA level before posting it but another user created it recently, not realizing my draft existed, and once they did realize, copied some of my content without proper copyright attribution and posted to DYK. I have done a history merge though the newer, far less developed content is what's seen in the article now. I'm going to merge the old with the new soon. Glad to see your back.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 16:15, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My front and sides are visible too. ;-) Anyway, glad you beat me to Mingaud. I'd been thinking of doing that one myself, but it seemed a bit daunting. I may have some tidbits for it. Lemme know when your merged version goes up, and I'll see what I have that might not already be in there. Probably not earthshaking, just a few things I found in 1800s-1910s books. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 16:21, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Some more notes on Crystalate

Unresolved

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

Extended content

Some more notes: they bought Royal Worcester in 1983 and sold it the next year, keeping some of the electronics part.[3]; info about making records:[4]; the chair in 1989 was Lord Jenkin of Roding:[5]; "In 1880, crystalate balls made of nitrocellulose, camphor, and alcohol began to appear. In 1926, they were made obligatory by the Billiards Association and Control Council, the London-based governing body." Amazing Facts: The Indispensable Collection of True Life Facts and Feats. Richard B. Manchester - 1991wGtDHsgbtltnpBg&ct=result&id=v0m-h4YgKVYC&dq=%2BCrystalate; a website about crystalate and other materials used for billiard balls:No5 Balls.html. Fences&Windows 23:37, 12 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! I'll have to have a look at this stuff in more detail. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 15:54, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've worked most of it in. Fences&Windows 16:01, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Cool! From what I can tell, entirely different parties held the trademark in different markets. I can't find a link between Crystalate Mfg. Co. Ltd. (mostly records, though billiard balls early on) and the main billiard ball mfr. in the UK, who later came up with "Super Crystalate". I'm not sure the term was even used in the U.S. at all, despite the formulation having been originally patented there. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 21:04, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

WP:SAL

Unresolved

– Not done yet, last I looked.

Extended content

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

I'll take a look at the page shortly. Thanks for the nudge. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 23:19, 2 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Your free 1-year HighBeam Research account is ready

Unresolved

– Needs to be renewed

Extended content

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Unresolved

– Needs to be renewed.

Extended content

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Thanks for helping make Wikipedia better. Enjoy your research! Cheers, Ocaasi 17:22, 22 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yay! — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 10:50, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Circa

Unresolved

– Need to file the RfC.

Extended content

of Style/Abbreviations&diff=530110577&oldid=530110478 This edit explains how to write "ca.", which is still discouraged at MOS:#Abbreviations, WP:YEAR, WP:SMOS#Abbreviations, and maybe MOS:DOB, and after you must have read my complaint and ordeal at WT:Manual of Style/Abbreviations#Circa. Either allow "ca." or don't allow "ca.", I don't care which, but do it consistently. Art LaPella (talk) 15:41, 28 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like a good WP:RFC. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 17:52, 28 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's been hard to get opinions on circa in the past. Anyway, can I undo that edit, until when and if someone wants to edit the other guidelines to match? If we leave it there indefinitely, nobody will notice except me. Art LaPella (talk) 20:17, 28 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't care; this will have to be dealt with in an RfC anyway. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 20:44, 28 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Done (now I don't need to wonder if the RfC will ever be acted on :) ) Art LaPella (talk) 21:08, 28 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You post at Wikipedia talk:FAQ/Copyright

Unresolved

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

Extended content

That page looks like a hinterland (you go back two users in the history and you're in August). Are you familiar with WP:MCQ? By the way, did you see my response on the balkline averages?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 15:54, 6 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I did a bunch of archiving yesterday. This page was HUGE. It'll get there again. I'd forgotten MCQ existed. Can you please add it to the DAB hatnote at top of and "See also" at bottom of WP:COPYRIGHT? Its conspicuous absence is precisely why I ened up at Wikipedia talk:FAQ/Copyright! Haven't seen your balkline response yet; will go look. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 21:34, 6 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hee Haw

Unresolved

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

Extended content

Yeah, we did get along on Donkeys. And probably will get along on some other stuff again later. Best way to handle WP is to take it issue by issue and then let bygones be bygones. I'm finding some interesting debates over things like the line between a subspecies, a landrace and a breed. Just almost saw someone else's GA derailed over a "breed versus species" debate that was completely bogus, we just removed the word "adapt" and life would have been fine. I'd actually be interested in seeing actual scholarly articles that discuss these differences, particularly the landrace/breed issue in general, but in livestock in particular, and particularly as applied to truly feral/landrace populations (if, in livestock, there is such a thing, people inevitably will do a bit of culling, sorting and other interference these days). I'm willing to stick to my guns on the WPEQ naming issue, but AGF in all respects. Truce? Montanabw^(talk) 22:40, 6 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Truce, certainly. I'm not here to pick fights, just improve the consistency for readers and editors. I don't think there will be any scholarly articles on differences between landrace and breed, because there's nothing really to write about. Landrace has clear definitions in zoology and botany, and breed not only doesn't qualify, it is only established as true in any given case by reliable sources. Basically, no one anywhere is claiming "This is the Foobabaz horse, and it is a new landrace!" That wouldn't make sense. What is happening is people naming and declaring new alleged breeds on an entirely self-interested, profit-motive basis, with no evidence anyone other than the proponent and a few other experimental breeders consider it a breed. WP is full of should-be-AfD'd articles of this sort, like the cat one I successfully prod'ed last week. Asking for a reliable source that something is a landrace rather than a breed is backwards; landrace status is the default, not a special condition. It's a bit like asking for a scholarly piece on whether pig Latin is a real language or not; no one's going to write a journal paper about that because "language" (and related terms like "dialect", "language family", "creole" in the linguistic sense, etc.) have clear definitions in linguistics, while pig Latin, an entirely artificial, arbitrary, intentionally-managed form of communication (like an entirely artificial, arbitrary, intentionally managed form of domesticated animal) does not qualify. :-) The "what is a breed" question, which is also not about horses any more than cats or cavies or ferrets, is going to be a separate issue to resolve from the naming issue. Looking over what we collaboratively did with donkeys – and the naming form that took, i.e. Poitou donkey not Poitou (donkey), I think I'm going to end up on your side of that one. It needs to be discussed more broadly in an RFC, because most projects use the parenthetical form, because this is what WT:AT is most readily interpretable as requiring. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 00:12, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I hate the drama of an RfC, particularly when we can just look at how much can be naturally disambiguated, but if you think it's an actual issue, I guess ping me when it goes up. As for landcraces, it may be true ("clear definitions") but you would be doing God's (or someone's) own good work if you were to improve landrace which has few references, fewer good ones, and is generally not a lot of help to those of us trying to sort out WTF a "landrace" is... (smiles). As for breed, that is were we disagree: At what point do we really have a "breed" as opposed to a "landrace?" Fixed traits, human-selected? At what degree, at which point? How many generations? I don't even know if there IS such a thing as a universal definition of what a "breed" is: seriously: [6] or breed or [7]. I think you and I agree that the Palomino horse can never be a "breed" because it is impossible for the color to breed true (per an earlier discussion) so we have one limit. But while I happen agree to a significant extent with your underlying premise that when Randy from Boise breeds two animals and says he has created a new breed and this is a problem, (I think it's a BIG problem in the worst cases) but if we want to get really fussy, I suppose that the aficionados of the Arabian horse who claim the breed is pure from the dawn of time are actually arguing it is a landrace, wouldn't you say? And what DO we do with the multi-generational stuff that's in limbo land? Montanabw^(talk) 00:41, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not really certain what the answers are to any of those questions, another reason (besides your "STOP!" demands :-) that I backed away rapidly from moving any more horse articles around. But it's something that is going to have to be looked into. I agree that the Landrace article here is poor. For one thing, it needs to split Natural breed out into its own article (a natural breed is a selectively-bred formal breed the purpose of which is to refine and "lock-in" the most definitive qualities of a local landrace). This in turn isn't actually the same thing as a traditional breed, though the concepts are related. Basically, three breeding concepts are squished into one article. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 00:52, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Side comment: I tend to support one good overview article over three poor content forks, just thinking aloud... Montanabw^(talk) 23:01, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sure; the point is that the concepts have to be separately, clearly treated, because they are not synonymous at all. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 02:07, 8 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Given that the article isn't well-sourced yet, I think that you might want to add something about that to landrace now, just to give whomever does article improvement on it later (maybe you, I think this is up your alley!) has the "ping" to do so. Montanabw^(talk) 21:55, 8 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Aye, it's on my to-do list. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 22:25, 8 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Although I have been an evolutionary biologist for decades, I only noticed the term "landrace" within the past year or two (in reference to corn), because I work with wildland plants. But I immediately knew what it was, from context. I'm much less certain about breeds, beyond that I am emphatic that they are human constructs. Montanabw and I have discussed my horse off-wiki, and from what I can tell, breeders are selecting for specific attributes (many people claim to have seen a horse "just like him"), but afaik there is no breed "Idaho stock horse". Artificially-selected lineages can exist without anyone calling them "breeds"; I'm not sure they would even be "natural breeds", and such things are common even within established breeds (Montanabw could probably explain to us the difference between Polish and Egyptian Arabians).

The good thing about breeds wrt Wikipedia is that we can use WP:RS and WP:NOTABLE to decide what to cover. Landraces are a different issue: if no one has ever called a specific, distinctive, isolated mustang herd a landrace, is it OR for Wikipedia to do so?--Curtis Clark (talk) 16:21, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have been reluctant to use landrace much out of a concern that the concept is a bit OR, as I hadn't heard of it before wikipedia either (but I'm more a historian than an evolutionary biologist, so what do I know?): Curtis, any idea where this did come from? It's a useful concept, but I am kind of wondering where the lines are between selective breeding and a "natural" breed -- of anything. And speaking of isolated Mustang herds, we have things like Kiger Mustang, which is kind of interesting. I think that at least some of SMc's passion comes from the nuttiness seen in a lot of the dog and cat breeders these days, am I right? I mean, Chiweenies? Montanabw^(talk) 23:01, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The first use of the word that I saw referred to different landraces of corn growing in different elevations and exposures in indigenous Maya areas of modern Mexico. I haven't tracked down the references for the use of the word, but the concept seems extremely useful. My sense is that landraces form as much through natural selective processes of cultivation or captivity as through human selection, so that if the "garbage wolf" hypothesis for dog domestication is true, garbage wolves would have been a landrace (or more likely several, in different areas). One could even push the definition and say that MRSA is a landrace. But I don't have enough knowledge of the reliable sources to know how all this would fit into Wikipedia.--Curtis Clark (talk) 01:01, 8 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Landraces form, primarily and quickly, through mostly natural selection, long after domestication. E.g. the St Johns water dog and Maine Coon cat are both North American landraces that postdate European arrival on the continent. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 20:16, 9 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I see some potential for some great research on this and a real improvement to the articles in question. Montanabw^(talk) 21:55, 8 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yep. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 20:16, 9 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Redundant sentence?

Unresolved

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

Extended content

The sentence at MOS:LIFE "General names for groups or types of organisms are not capitalized except where they contain a proper name (oak, Bryde's whales, rove beetle, Van cat)" is a bit odd, since the capitalization would (now) be exactly the same if they were the names of individual species. Can it simply be removed?

There is an issue, covered at Wikipedia:PLANTS#The use of botanical names as common names for plants, which may or may not be worth putting in the main MOS, namely cases where the same word is used as the scientific genus name and as the English name, when it should be de-capitalized. I think this is rare for animals, but more common for plants and fungi (although I have seen "tyrannosauruses" and similar uses of dinosaur names). Peter coxhead (talk) 09:17, 3 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I would leave it a alone for now; let people get used to the changes. I think it's reasonable to include the "general names" thing, because it's a catch-all that includes several different kinds of examples, that various largely different groups of people are apt to capitalize. Various know-nothings want to capitalize things like "the Cats", the "Great Apes", etc., because they think "it's a Bigger Group and I like to Capitalize Big Important Stuff". There are millions more people who just like to capitalize nouns and stuff. "Orange's, $1 a Pound". Next we have people who insist on capitalizing general "types" and landraces of domestic animals ("Mountain Dogs", "Van Cat") because they're used to formal breed names being capitalized (whether to do that with breeds here is an open question, but it should not be done with types/classes of domestics, nor with landraces. Maybe the examples can be sculpted better: "the roses", "herpesviruses", "great apes", "Bryde's whale", "mountain dogs", "Van cat", "passerine birds". I'm not sure that "rove beetle" and "oak" are good examples of anything. Anyway, it's more that the species no-capitalization is a special case of the more general rule, not that the general rule is a redundant or vague version of the former. If they're merged, it should keep the general examples, and maybe specifically spell out and illustrate that it also means species and subspecies, landraces and domestic "types", as well as larger and more general groupings.
I had noticed that point and was going to add it, along with some other points from both NCFLORA and NCFAUNA, soon to MOS:ORGANISMS, which I feel is nearing "go live" completion. Does that issue come up often enough to make it a MOS mainpage point? I wouldn't really object to it, and it could be had by adding an "(even if it coincides with a capitalized Genus name)" parenthetical to the "general names" bit. The pattern is just common enough in animals to have been problematic if it were liable to be problematic, as it were. I.e., I don't see a history of squabbling about it at Lynx or its talk page, and remember looking into this earlier with some other mammal, about two weeks ago, and not seeing evidence of confusion or editwarring. The WP:BIRDS people were actually studiously avoiding that problem; I remember seeing a talk page discussion at the project that agreed that such usage shouldn't be capitalized ever. PS: With Lynx, I had to go back to 2006, in the thick of the "Mad Capitalization Epidemic" to find capitalization there[8], and it wasn't even consistent, just in the lead. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 11:11, 3 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well, certainly "rove beetle" and "oak" are poor examples here, so I would support changing to some of the others you suggested above.
I think the main problem we found with plants was it being unclear as to whether inexperienced editors meant the scientific name or the English name. So you would see a sentence with e.g. "Canna" in the middle and not know whether this should be corrected to "Canna" or to "canna". The plural is clear; "cannas" is always lower-case non-italicized. The singular is potentially ambiguous. Whether it's worth putting this point in the main MOS I just don't know since I don't much edit animal articles and never breed articles, which is why I asked you. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:55, 3 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Will take a look at that later, if someone else doesn't beat me to it.
Beats me. Doesn't seem too frequent an issue, but lot of MOS stuff isn't. Definitely should be in MOS:ORGANISMS, regardless. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 00:46, 4 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Worked on both of those a bit at MOS. We'll see if it sticks. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 01:18, 5 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note to self

Unresolved

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

Re: Diacritics

Unresolved

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

Extended content

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

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

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

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

Excellent mini-tutorial

Unresolved

Extended content

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

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

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

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

Current threads

The Sustainability Initiative

Hello SMcCandlish: An invitation for you to check out the Sustainability Initiative, which aims to reduce the environmental impact of the Wikimedia projects. If you're interested, please consider adding your name to the list of supporters, which serves to express and denote the community's support of the initiative. Thanks for your consideration! North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 09:40, 5 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Will take a look at it. I hope this will address the problem of WMF's server farm being powered by coal engines and child labor. ;-)

DYK for William Hoskins (inventor)

On 12 February 2019, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article William Hoskins (inventor), which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that William Hoskins, the co-inventor of modern billiard chalk, also invented the electric heating coil, used to create the first electric toasters? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/William Hoskins (inventor). You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, William Hoskins (inventor)), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

– Amakuru (talk) 00:02, 12 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

My first DYK in something like a decade. And I got someone else to actually do the DYK process-y stuff. I am now becoming a WikiMiddleManager, and expect my hair to recede and my shape to get flabby any moment now. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 20:07, 18 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

SMcCandlish,

Hey, in case you are interested, here is the updated task list I've been going by, in case you have any comments or suggestions:

To-do list:

Continue encouraging creation of new portals
Assist Dreamy Jazz in further developing the link placer bot to deorphanize new portals
Convert old portals to new design, except those on the "maintained" list
Encourage participants to post wishes for new features at WT:WPPORTD
Fix portals in the "In need of immediate attention" category
Report buggy portals in that cat, and at WT:WPPORTD
Work on general portal tool (script)
Refine search parameters in new portals (so that DYK and ITN items show up)
Place panoramas at the top of portals
Add Recognized content sections to portals (that have a corresponding WikiProject)
Brainstorm and develop new portal components
Clean up (speedy delete) obsolete portal subpages
Figure out a way to automate these features:
- Anniversary/On-this-day section
- Quotes section
- Gathering and placement of panoramas
- Biography section
- Other topic sections
Revise/update the Portal support pages, including the Portals guideline
Develop a navigation footer builder script (navigation footers can be used to power portals)
Develop an outline builder script (outlines can also be used to power portals)
Keep portals notice section of the Community Bulletin Board up to date
Send out updates as news becomes available
Refine/expand the portal category system
Reduce portal load time (by making the lua modules more efficient)
Develop and test applications of existing portal components at User:The Transhumanist

Let me know if anything is missing.

Thank you. — The Transhumanist 14:05, 28 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@The Transhumanist: That's a long list with a lot of competing priorities. I would think for the short term that "Assist Dreamy Jazz in further developing the link placer bot to deorphanize new portals" (if it's not already completed) is very high, since orphaned portals are a) individual targets for deletion, and b) collectively an incentive for portal skeptics to seek mass deletion or even to attack the new portal system in general. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 17:52, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Dear SmcCandlish,

Dreamy Jazz Bot has been approved, is up and running, and is deorphanizing portals daily. It places 2 link types leading to portals: one on the corresponding root article page, and one on the corresponding category page. See its contributions – it has been busy.

Based on that page, around 400 portals have been processed so far with incoming links.

Thank you for your concern.

By the way, I've spelled out the current strategy in the latest issue of the newsletter, including the next stage in the evolution of portals. Active discussions on that are taking place at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Quantum portals.

Enjoy, — The Transhumanist 06:28, 15 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I've taken a closer look at the bot's ops. "Task 2" is the process that places links to portals. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dreamy_Jazz_Bot/Task_2

Apparently, it is processing new portals daily, so newly created portals are getting deorphanized soon after they are created. This means we are not adding to the orphan problem by creating more portals. Dreamy Jazz has certainly gone beyond the call of duty by producing this amazing feature.

During its monthly passes the bot checks all portals for incoming links. And since only about 400 out of the 4700 single-page portals have been processed by the bot, it doesn't look like it has done a monthly pass yet.

I've posted a message to Dreamy Jazz's talk page, congratulating him on a job well done, and to ask about the monthly. It looks like the orphan portal problem will soon be behind us. — The Transhumanist 20:53, 15 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Update: Concerning the disparity between the total single-page portals and the number the bot has added links for, Dreamy Jazz is working on it. — The Transhumanist 23:34, 15 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

(Talk page viewer) @The Transhumanist: Does the bot automatically do the work for all portals, or do they have to be categorized with Category:Portals needing placement of incoming links in order for the bot to find them? North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 02:53, 16 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- All, monthly, regardless. Answered further on user's talk page. — The Transhumanist 05:07, 16 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Follow-up discussion on portal specificity, merging

@The Transhumanist and Dreamy Jazz: I'm glad this aspect of the process is well in-hand. I still think there will still be issues with unnecessary/redundant portals, e.g. some of the food ones. There was a thread about this back in October or November, I think, mostly focused on food portals, but just using them as an example. The issue in a nutshell is that we have no need of Portal:Bacon, Portal:Ham, etc., when a single Portal:Pork will do and will actually be more useful. I do note that we have a merged Portal:Pasta and not a bunch of Portal:Spaghetti, Portal:Rigatoni, etc., so this is improving. There are some obvious issues though, like Portal:Capsicum and Portal:Chili peppers which are the exact same topic (the portal should be at the more common name, even if the botany wikiproject has gotten its wish and convinced people to allow scientific names in plant article titles).

In some cases, topical overlap may be desirable; Portal:Fruits isn't entirely redundant with Portal:Apples, Portal:Grapes, etc., because such plants come in a bewildering array of cultivars, have different domestication histories, etc., etc.; there's enough "meat" to support a sub-topical portal. Similarly, Portal:Poultry and Portal:Chicken aren't a problem; they're different "classes" of portals, as it were. But separate portals for different cuts of meat from the same animal is probably an issue. (In anglophone countries alone, there are over 50 named cuts of pork, and if you count up all the kinds of processed pork – prosciutto, back bacon, soppressata, pepperoni, etc. – there are hundreds at least, a large subset of which would be covered at Portal:Sausages, which is discrete enough a topic to be a portal.)

We also need redirects that prevent the creation of more obviously redundant portals; Portal:Cucurbita isn't at a name many readers will use, but Portal:Squashes, Portal:Pumpkins, Portal:Zucchini should redirect there both so people find the portal and so they don't make redundant ones. (Yes, in theory, it might be possible to make non-redundant portals on the pumpkins and zukes, as major human-use plants with many cultivars, if someone wants to put in the manual work to make such portals "not suck"; but auto-generated ones are going to be redundant with the Cucurbita portal.) "Squash" is just a general classification, essentially synonymous with the genus Cucurbita (though Portal:Squash should probably be about the sport).
— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 20:41, 17 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, there may be an issue of perspective here -- that is, from where the portals are being viewed. It seems like you may be viewing from the top down. Viewed from an article, the question becomes "Will this page benefit from having a link to a like-named portal?" If the answer is "yes", then we build the portal. So, from the bacon article, if the user wants elaboration, he clicks on the Portal:Bacon link, and that is what he gets: more coverage on bacon. Pork would be somewhat off-topic, and would include ham, which is not what he is currently reading about.

Bacon ice cream, anyone? — The Transhumanist 21:07, 17 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Pork would not be off-topic if it includes bacon. I'm not trying to "lay down the law" here, I just have been doing categorization, merging, MFD, and other processes long enough to have what I think is a good sense of tolerable and intolerable levels of redundancy, over-precision, etc., and I've been paying attention to the rationales of people who have issues with the current "portals 2.0" rollout. It's not that I want to remake the new portal system in my own image (or I'd've been much more involved in developing it), I just want to prevent it being unmade (or a bunch of interminable drama seeking to unmake it) all because it's gone 5% too far in a particular direction. Another way to think of it: I'm not demanding an outcome but predicting one.
PS: I have actually had bacon ice cream, back in the days of that bacon-everything fad, around 2008 or so. I wouldn't recommend it. For weird ice cream, garlic was better, as was hot red-chile chocolate. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 21:33, 17 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't write that it would be off-topic, but that it would be somewhat off-topic, that is, partially off-topic. In other words not a close match. After all, pork is not the subject, but the parent subject of bacon, and includes the entire animal from its nose to its tail. If you crave bacon, you probably aren't interested in pigs feet. So, if you go to the library to read about Germany, you probably won't be that happy if the librarian hands you a book on Europe, or Countries of the World. There's a whole section on the shelf specifically about Germany, and that's where a good librarian will direct you. When you want something specific, more general just won't do. From the viewpoint of focused study, more general isn't. We're talking navigation aids here. All of the navigation systems are analogous to each other. So, if you were studying bacon, you would go to Category:Bacon. It would be much harder to learn about bacon on the Category:Pork page. Here's an experiment for you. Let's say you want to read about penguins. Let me know which portal 1) you learn more about them on and 2) find material more easily about them: Portal:Birds or Portal:Penguins. Which one is someone looking for material on penguins more likely to want to read? — The Transhumanist 23:53, 17 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You mentioned you have been paying attention to the rationales of people who have issues with the current "portals 2.0" rollout. I'm very interested in all types of feedback. Could you provide links to those please? — The Transhumanist 00:20, 18 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Upon rereading your post carefully, I've come to the conclusion that we are on the same wavelength. You stated, "In some cases, topical overlap may be desirable", which boils down to "on a case-by-case basis", which I totally agree with. If the subject has enough distinct coverage to warrant a portal, then build it. (And I'd still like to see the links to the 2.0 issues you mentioned above.)

— The Transhumanist 02:57, 18 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah; my earlier material is pretty clear that birds and penguins would be separate portals (but not every bird species is going to have a portal). And maybe bacon, due to the annoying bacon fad of the 2000s, is actually portal-worthy. But the 50+ other cuts of pork probably are not, nor are the 500-ish kinds of prepared/processed pork. It's going to end up being a lot like categorization and navboxes.

The community just organically develops and enforces criteria (very mergist criteria) for such things, especially if they generate pages to maintain. The criteria are very similar, except where they actually need to diverge, for differences between the purpose/functionality of different kinds of nav; some rationales for having (or eliminating) a category are different from those for a navbox, and the same will be true of portals. But the reasoning applied in arriving at and applying such criteria is remarkably consistent. This isn't accidental; regulars at CfD, MfD, RfD, and talk page discussions about navigation (of which portals are a form) take pains to be aware of all this stuff and to not produce conflicting guidelines and decisions. I'll reaffirm that I'm not trying to come off as a "topic-snob" portal deletionist. I'm just firmly predicting a wave of mergers and outlining some of the "meta-notability" and over-specificity reasons the merging will happen, based on what we already do and have been doing since the 2000s [since bacon "became a thing" – a coincidence or a conspiracy?]
— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 20:03, 18 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

PS, re "I didn't write that it would be off-topic" – I wasn't trying to straw man you; rather, I meant (as you did) that relevance is relative; then, for my part, I was suggesting that pork is relevant enough for most pork-related topics, in the same way that Category:Pork doesn't have a gazillion subcats (notably, the only mostly-pork-specific food item that does have one is bacon, so maybe it really is an exception to the general rule). Category:Sausages has substantial overlap, but is a different kind of topic, and thus Portal:Sausages is also viable for the same reason. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 20:17, 18 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Notification

Hello SMcCandlish, I hope you are, and have been well. I mentioned you in this discussion but my alerts notification did not show that mention as having been sent? I am curious, since this marks the first time it has ever happened to me: have you set your preferences in some way that blocks others from sending you an alert that your name has been mentioned? If not, I'll pursue a technical answer, if so, a technical solution. Thank you.--John Cline (talk) 11:01, 16 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@John Cline: I've not done anything to block pings. Pings are rather "brittle". If there's a typo in the ping template, or you don't put the ping and a new sig in the same save it won't work. E.g., if you forgot to ping or didn't ping right the first time, you can't just go back and add the ping, you need to self-revert the original post, then re-add it with the [fixed] ping and a new sig. Or, if people have already replied, then add a new post-script with a ping template and sig. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 18:03, 17 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

PS: It also doesn't work to add the ping and a new sig to an existing post. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 18:38, 17 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you SMcCandlish, your reply is filled with good information (some of which I knew, and some I've learned thereby) and the post script seemed, most plausibly, to explain. It seems, however, that something else has occurred when considered in concert with the following, previously unmentioned, nuance: a second ping, within the same posting, was delivered as yours, inexplicably, should also have been? If you are befuddled by this, as I remain, I'll next seek that technical explanation of earlier mention. Thank you again.--John Cline (talk) 20:26, 17 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm at a loss to 'splain that one. I have long considered that the ping system isn't just a bit mis-featured, but actually has some outright bugs in it. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 20:30, 17 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Here's one that has me stumped

Here it is:

Vernal is to spring, as

Autumnal is to fall, as

________ is to summer, as

________ is to winter.

What goes in the blanks?

All I can come up with is "Summer" and "Winter", respectively. Are there corresponding adjectives besides these? — The Transhumanist 03:04, 18 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Not common, but the Latinate names are estival (summer) and hibernal (winter). --Izno (talk) 03:27, 18 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

British-wise it's aestival, and you can be extra fancy-pants with æstival. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 19:45, 18 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Fame (no fortune)

Hello. Finally I got my chance to help get your essay up and running for the next issue of the Signpost. I edited it slightly so if you see something you don't like it, feel free to edit anything you want.

Best Regards, Barbara ✐✉ 14:12, 18 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Barbara (WVS): Oh, ha ha, I'd almost forgotten about that one. I don't mind it being edited a bit, but there should be a link somewhere to the "canonical" version, e.g.: "This essay is available as a template that will use your username and other customization options.", or even just "The original version of this essay is at User:SMcCandlish/It.". PS: I'm seeing broken wikimarkup at both top and bottom of that Next_issue page. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 19:41, 18 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds like something I don't know how to do. I'll let you when I'm done and then could you do what want me to do? Best Regards, Barbara ✐✉ 21:30, 18 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I think the code gibberish I'm seeing toward the top of the piece is an intentionally commented-out Signpost template, and at the bottom it's a truncation of template-related material from my original (which I would just replace with an explicit cross-reference like I suggested; I can just go add one). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 21:53, 18 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I am going to snoop around all your subpages-for entertainment tonight. Best Regards, Barbara ✐✉ 21:39, 18 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Barbara (WVS): Don't take everything seriously! There's some very goofy ancient stuff in there that I keep just to laugh at myself, like this silliness from 2007. Most of my actual essay material is catalogued at User:SMcCandlish/Essays. Some of it's been influential, like WP:SSF (which needs to be compressed to about 1/3 its present size), and some of it's been completely ignored, like WP:Consensus venue (though it probably isn't actually wrong). There's some pretty new stuff in there, like WP:Don't teach the controversy and WP:Reducing consensus to an algorithm. Of them all, I think the serious one that needs more attention than it gets is WP:Race and ethnicity, because the average person's (goes double for the average American's) pseudoscientific "understanding" in this area is intimately bound up with a lot of perpetual WP:BIAS, WP:POV, and WP:DRAMA issues. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 21:53, 18 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

After all the negative comments I have experienced late last year I will have to take your word on that. My 'job' is to find funny stuff we can all laugh at. I have been banned, scolded and threatened with a review from Arbcom. Quite the let down, needless to say. If you find something in your rounds that is funny, let me know. I would like to try creating an essay but the humour article is similar in function. Thanks for your honest and transparent comments. Best Regards, Barbara ✐✉ 22:42, 18 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

"Been there, done that". I ended up taking an entire-year wikibreak once, and have had several long but not that long ones since then. As for humor stuff, much of what I do in essay-subspace is in that vein, at least in part. There's a lot of other good material out there; I don't mean to blow my own horn. It's even a bit easier to find these days; I did a lot of work re-organizing and properly tagging in the Category:Wikipedia essays tree. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 22:53, 18 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

In this sentence...

Nine days after far-right advocate Jeremy Joseph Christian allegedly stabbed three men on the Portland TriMet transit system, Gibson hosted a rally on April 2, 2017, which was met by thousands of counter-protesters.

the phrase "Gibson hosted a rally on April 2, 2017" is not in any way, shape, or form parenthetical. A parenthetical phrase is conceptually an aside, this is not, it's the absolute core of the sentence, You and Curly Turkey are dead wrong, but I'm tired of this shit, so...

Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:37, 19 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Beyond My Ken: You're misunderstanding: ", 2017," is structurally parenthetical in the same way that ", Jr.," is in "Sammy Davis, Jr., died in 1990". You're not getting the meaning of "parenthetical" here (it's about the orthographic layout and the function of the punctuation, not about the priority of the semantic content; different meanings of "parenthetical" or "parenthesizing" or "bracketing"), and you mistook the term for being applied to the entire "Gibson hosted a rally on April 2, 2017" clause, which isn't any kind of sensible interpretation.

Look, I don't have time for he-said-she-said semantics rehashing, nor for re-re-re-arguing the original issue with you. Just go read any general-English style guide from a major publisher, like Chicago Manual of Style or New Hart's Rules AKA Oxford Guide to Style AKA Oxford Style Manual. Direct quote (reformatted to suit this medium) from CMoS (16th ed., sect. 6.17, "Commas in pairs"), since I have that handy in digital form:

'Whenever a comma is used to set off an element (such as “1928” or “Minnesota” in the first two examples below), a second comma is required if the phrase or sentence continues beyond the element being set off. This principle applies to many of the uses for commas described in this section [No, I'm not pasting in the entire section]. An exception is made for commas within the title of a work (third example): June 5, 1928, lives on in the memories of only a handful of us.; Sledding in Duluth, Minnesota, is facilitated by that city’s hills and frigid winters.; but Look Homeward, Angel was not the working title of the manuscript.'

That's just from the segment specifically about the "micro-issue" of commas an American-style dates and in multi-element geographical names (I'm almost willing to bet cash you wrongly try to delete those commas, too). The chapter goes into the entire class of these constructions in more detail (the "many of the uses for commas described in this section" that I didn't over-quote), including apposition phrases, titles appended after names, etc. WP really doesn't care that some news publishers have their own house styles that drop a lot of punctuation, including various commas (presumably where you got the idea from); WP is not written in news style as a matter of policy.
— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 08:56, 19 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 333: / Line 333: @@
 [[User:Beyond My Ken|Beyond My Ken]] ([[User talk:Beyond My Ken|talk]]) 06:37, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
+:{{ping|Beyond My Ken}} You're misunderstanding: ", 2017," is structurally parenthetical in the same way that ", Jr.," is in "Sammy Davis, Jr., died in 1990".  You're not getting the meaning of "parenthetical" here (it's about the orthographic layout and the function of the punctuation, not about the priority of the semantic content; different meanings of "parenthetical" or "parenthesizing" or "bracketing"), and you mistook the term for being applied to the entire "Gibson hosted a rally on April 2, 2017" clause, which isn't any kind of sensible interpretation.
+:Look, I don't have time for he-said-she-said semantics rehashing, nor for re-re-re-arguing the original issue with you. {{strong|Just go read any general-English style guide from a major publisher}}, like ''Chicago Manual of Style'' or ''New Hart's Rules'' AKA ''Oxford Guide to Style'' AKA ''Oxford Style Manual''.  Direct quote (reformatted to suit this medium) from ''CMoS'' (16th ed., sect. 6.17, "Commas in pairs"), since I have that handy in digital form:
+:* 'Whenever a comma is used to set off an element (such as “1928” or “Minnesota” in the first two examples below), a second comma is required if the phrase or sentence continues beyond the element being set off. This principle applies to many of the uses for commas described in this section [No, I'm not pasting in the entire section]. An exception is made for commas within the title of a work (third example): {{xt|June 5, 1928, lives on in the memories of only a handful of us.}}; {{xt|Sledding in Duluth, Minnesota, is facilitated by that city’s hills and frigid winters.}}; but {{xt|''Look Homeward, Angel'' was not the working title of the manuscript.}}'
+:That's just from the segment specifically about the "micro-issue" of commas an American-style dates and in multi-element geographical names (I'm almost willing to bet cash you wrongly try to delete those commas, too). The chapter goes into the entire class of these constructions in more detail (the "many of the uses for commas described in this section" that I didn't over-quote), including apposition phrases, titles appended after names, etc.  WP really doesn't care that some news publishers have their own [[house style]]s that drop a lot of punctuation, including various commas (presumably where you got the idea from); WP [[WP:NOT#NEWS|is not written in news style]] as a matter of policy.<br /><span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — [[User:SMcCandlish|'''SMcCandlish''']] [[User talk:SMcCandlish|☏]] [[Special:Contributions/SMcCandlish|¢]] 😼 </span> 08:56, 19 February 2019 (UTC)