Talk:Phineas Gage/Archive 4

This is an archive of past discussions about Phineas Gage. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

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Checking back

I've unavoidably been away, and I want to check back now about how things are going with the content dispute that I was informally mediating. I see that most of the talk page discussion has now been archived. The part that I am the most concerned with can now be found at Talk:Phineas Gage/Archive 6#WP:BRD. More discussion starts around the middle of Talk:Phineas Gage/Archive 4, and continues through all of Talk:Phineas Gage/Archive 5 and Talk:Phineas Gage/Archive 6, as well as at #Another to-do list (sort of), above, as well as at User talk:Tryptofish#Inquiring minds (and brains) want to know, User talk:Tryptofish#Gage matter, and User talk:Tryptofish#Gage again.

I see that, recently, CFCF removed the dispute tags, because things have been very quiet for a while. Since EEng and ChrisGualtieri were the main disputants, I'd like to know what each of you two, in particular, would hope to see happen next.

My personal opinion is that it would not serve the purpose of improving the page simply to let things sit because the dispute has quieted down. I would hope that EEng, in particular, would work on implementing some of my advice at Talk:Phineas Gage/Archive 6#WP:BRD. Not necessarily everything I said, of course, but maybe meet me part way. Thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:06, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

This article is still a miserable pile of conjecture and assumption spoken as if fact and EEng has not relented in the least. I got better things to do then deal with one article that is deliberately and willingly being stifled by an editor who will not drop the stick and be open and objective about the content or the POV being expressed. The vast uncertainties and repeated hostile attacks on other scholars and their motives are all indicative of numerous problems. Its ambiguous, out of date and just plain wrong. It is sad to say this, but I don't have any intention of wasting further time on this matter if EEng is permitted to edit this article further. He's failed to take the hint and he's just overtly hostile - I'll not deal with him or editors like him anymore. The past conversations and the COIN discussion are all indicative of EEng driving good editors away - including the previous GAN and that says volumes about the future of this page. Thanks for trying to assist Tryptofish, but I'll have to pass. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 04:52, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for responding, Chris. Putting this in plain and unemotional language, it seems to me that it now behooves EEng to work to incorporate the suggestions at Talk:Phineas Gage/Archive 6#WP:BRD and perhaps elsewhere. It also seems to me that, if EEng fails to make a genuine effort in this direction, that would be an indication of WP:IDHT. --Tryptofish (talk) 13:49, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

I believe sanctions would be required to deal with EEng's COI and POV issues, specifically a topic ban. I've since returned the Macmillan book and other materials - it'd take me probably a month to get those back. So its not going to be fixed, in the short term, if a topic ban is issued. Though yes, your analysis was great and hopefully helpful for the future efforts to tackle this page's issues. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 17:07, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

I've asked EEng not to reply to what you have said about him personally, and I hope that he will resist that temptation. But I do very much want EEng to respond to what I have said about Talk:Phineas Gage/Archive 6#WP:BRD. Let's see what we can accomplish there, and not get ahead of ourselves. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:46, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

I've unavoidably been away as well -- traveling -- and though I've been amusing myself with some lightweight non-Gage articles, I haven't had the quiet time (or even a desk) necessary for this giant project, though I hope to have some leisure for that soon.

You'll recall we discussed your comments here and there, but in thinking about how to continue the discussion I ran into the following very serious problem.

I was pursuing the BRD process last-in-first-out, because it's far easier, technically, to revert or revise multiple changes by working backward in time rather than forward. Unfortunately, that also meant that my edit summaries often referred (explicitly or implicitly) to questions of balance, consistency, and so on, that can only be judged in light of aspects of the article not present in the version visible at that step in the process, due to earlier changes by CG )mostly deletion of content and sources) which the BRD process hadn't yet worked back to. Thus over and over I found myself wanting to say, "Well, if you look in this version [link to some old version], bou'll see that this point is explained [etc etc]" and it just got too complicated. Remember the giant multicolored table explaining about birth and ancestry or whatever it was -- how exhausting!

I'm hoping that with the distance lent by the intervening weeks some fresh approach will occur to me.

EEng (talk) 18:13, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

For a start, at least, I suggest not overcomplicating the issue. Please just look carefully at what I said at Talk:Phineas Gage/Archive 6#WP:BRD, and indicate here your reaction to what I said there. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:58, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

EEng, since I asked you the question immediately above, you have made a very large number of edits to the page. I've examined them, and they do not look to me like any sort of implementation of what I suggested at Talk:Phineas Gage/Archive 6#WP:BRD, and indeed a fairly large amount of it seems to me to go in the opposite direction of what I recommended there. I want you to understand that I am very serious here. If you disagree with what I suggested at Talk:Phineas Gage/Archive 6#WP:BRD, and can justify why, I'm happy to listen. But I will not go along with ignoring me. If you would rather respond in user talk, OK, but please respond to my question: what is your reaction to what I said at Talk:Phineas Gage/Archive 6#WP:BRD? --Tryptofish (talk) 23:37, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm not ignoring you. I'm restoring the article to the point that we can talk about what to do without referring constantly to missing material and missing cites. Some of your comments can't be addressed until then, but I'll comment on those I can now. EEng (talk) 00:08, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm noting here, because EEng told me on my talk page, that EEng has entered some replies to my comments in Archive 6, by editing the archived material. I'm putting the archive page on my watchlist now, because, like most editors here, I assumed that archived talk pages would not be edited further – really, that's very unusual. I don't want to ask anyone else who may be interested to watchlist the archives, so I'm going to copy to here any comments to which I'm replying. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:46, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Tryptofish's summary of the current situation

First, I see that EEng has made these two edits: [1] and [2], that take on board some of the suggestions that I have made. Thank you very much, and I appreciate it!

Second, I've given careful thought to EEng's replies to me at:

At #1, EEng correctly points out that I was incorrect in my assumption that the sources allow us to conclude that a note was written by Harlow. Consequently, I would revise the sentence that I suggested there to: "An anonymous 1850 note[cite] sometimes attributed to Harlow[cite] called Gage "gross, profane, coarse, and vulgar", but it has been observed[cite] that Harlow, and Gage's friends and family, may have been reluctant to describe Gage negatively while he was still alive."

In #4, EEng and I seem to have a small consensus that "is from a comprehensive Gage genealogy" can be changed to "is from a Gage genealogy". From my perspective, that's a very, very small point, and it is the only place where I can see EEng agreeing with me about anything. Through all the rest, EEng appears to genuinely disagree with me, and to believe that I am failing to understand various things. I've read and re-read all of it very carefully, and I believe that I do understand, but that I just plain have a different opinion about it.

At Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive829#Personal attacks and OWN violations, John said that it was unlikely that I, by myself, would succeed at bringing editors here to consensus. With regret, I have now concluded that he was right. I don't think that my informal mediation is going to get us any further. I still would like to find a way to resolve this disagreement as a content dispute, without having to put anyone in the position of sanctions for conduct. At Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard/Archive 86#Phineas Gage, the closing statement recommended that, if my efforts proved not to be enough, we try the Mediation Committee. I'm going to wait a day or two to see if there are any further comments here, and if not, I'm going to follow that advice and open a MedCom request. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:56, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

#2, #3: As it happens, I completely rewrote those sections, so maybe things are going better than you thought. And lest anyway get the wrong idea, that was last night, before T-fish made his post just above.

#5: I'm sure we can work something out, but it goes to the heart of the trouble in recent months, so I'd like to take it carefully. For starters, please consider the following:

The following from WP:Reliable_sources_and_undue_weight#Aspects_of_reliability (yes, just an essay, and these are excerpts):

In assessing the suitability of a source for the purposes of research a number of aspects should be considered:

Expertise of the originator with respect to the subject
Declaration of sources – A source which is explicit about the data from which it derives its conclusions is more reliable than one which does not, ideally a source should describe the collection process and analysis method.
Age of the source and rate of change of the subject – Where a subject has evolved or changed over time a long standing source may not be accurate with respect to the current situation.

The source ranking here:

To determine scholarly opinions about a historical topic, consult the following sources in order:

1. Recent scholarly books and chapters on the historiography of the topic

2. "Review Articles", or historiographical essays that explicitly discuss recent scholarship in an area.

3. Similarly conference papers that were peer reviewed in full before publication that are field reviews or have as their central argument the historiography

4. Journal articles or peer reviewed conference papers that open with a review of the historiography.

5. Earlier scholarly books and chapters on the historiography of the topic

6. Single item "book reviews" written by scholars that explicitly discuss recent scholarship in an area.

7. Introductions to major scholarly works on the topic or introductions to edited collections of chapters often represent a survey of the historiography

8. Signed articles in scholarly encyclopaedias

EEng (talk) 23:11, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

I've been trying to deal with wide-ranging English Wikipedia problems for quite some time - there are a lot of systematic bias and other issues which are deeply engrained in the psyche of the culture. In my time, Mediation Committee is toothless and our priorities get locked up in silly things. I mean what can Mediation do if there is an impasse? As a scholar, EEng doesn't even recognize how poorly written the article is and refuses assistance. I've been fairly up to date with Macmillian, but at least his stance on the Gage story is as compelling as it is wise. I think when EEng better reflects on this he'll be more apt to work together with others, but the page is deeply personal to him. As for Mediation, it won't be fun and nothing good will come of it. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 05:09, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

user:Tryptofish, I also dont see the need for MedCom at this juncture. The article is gradually improving again. There are quite a few discussions that could be had, and a few were started but now we have discussion occurring on archived discussion pages! I think we could have a detailed and productive discussion here about how to phrase the rod burial issue (and I'll restart a proper discussion about that shortly lest the discussion continues in the archive), and others. I would really like to understand broadly what issues you see with the current content of the article, and see them thrashed out on the talk page, a few at a time I think. If you are trying to get 'consensus' from only the original parties of the old disputes, you will likely fail. But that is neither necessary nor desirable. If the regulars on this page cant agree, the appropriate course of action is to bring in other people with WP:3Os, WP:RFCs, etc.(p.s. feel free to {{ping}} me any time.) p.s. Chris, it was a much better article before you broke it. Some aspects have been improved on since then, but overall it has regressed, you are responsible, and you've not done simple things like restore citations that you removed. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 12:25, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

OK, three of you have expressed discomfort with the idea of Mediation, and your arguments have, paradoxically, convinced me that Mediation should be the next step. EEng is more optimistic than I am about his ability to come to consensus just with me, without a more structured discussion. I, in turn, think that a more structured discussion is worth trying. Chris observes that Mediation will not be fun, and he may well be correct. I happen to agree with Chris on a fairly large number of points about how to improve the page. But if I, instead, follow the alternative approach that I am considering, which is to seek conduct sanctions against editors who are giving rise to the impasse, I'm pretty sure that both EEng and Chris will find themselves unable to edit this page at all, and that is not my idea of fun. And John V thinks that Chris "broke" the page; past experience tells me that I could also find other editors who would say the same about EEng. By the way, John V, please see Talk:Phineas Gage/Archive 6#WP:BRD for my take on at least some of "what issues you see with the current content of the article". And as much as having a discussion on this talk page of the type you propose ought, in principle, to work, been there, done that. Whether or not anyone besides me chooses to participate in mediation is, of course, entirely voluntary, but I'm now definitely going to pursue it. And if it doesn't go anywhere, I'm definitely going to pursue sanctions for conduct, in which case it just might be in editors' best interests to have given Mediation a good-faith try. Otherwise, I'm pretty sure that it won't be fun. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:11, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

@John Vandenberg: I know you mean well, but EEng is the source of that problem. It is entirely and completely his fault for the half-complete details in that shabby state because he objected MID-restoration. There was so much conjecture and sloppy research intermixed with general "conclusions" that the entire article needed to basically be nuked and rebuilt from scratch. Macmillan's conclusions are not evidence of anything and should be ripped out or marked properly. Numerous times Macmillan's 2000 work was outright wrong and EEng through a barrage of personal attacks and pettiness that was highly inappropriate, all in the name of protecting his colleague. Macmillan's error needs to be noted and EEng was acting like it was suddenly non-existent when its ambiguously corrected as some tiny note on a website. The pile of misinformation, errors and conjecture-as-fact was removed and I find it disgraceful that EEng would make blatant attacks on scholars and other universities. Call the effort to restore it what you wish, I was not done yet. Though if you want to look to current issues, it is EEng who is holding back information and giving gross omissions from content that he should eagerly want included. Such misinformation (still present no less) should be removed promptly and dealt with swiftly, but I think Tryptofish is aware of quite a few of the cases. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 03:21, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Phineas Gage. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:09, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm out

It's become clear to me that editors here do not want to participate in mediation, so I have withdrawn the mediation request. I've spend a lot of time and effort trying to help editors with this page, even though I am only peripherally interested in the subject matter. I have better things to do with my time. I cannot help people who do not want to be helped. I also do not want to be bothered with asking that those who engage in WP:IDHT here be sanctioned, but if other editors pursue that, I'll be happy to contribute to the discussion. But for here, for now, I'm out. Please do not ask me to answer any further questions about the writing or content of this page, or ask me to return to these discussions, and please do not waste my time any more. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:52, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

I hope you'll be receptive to my saying that I'm sorry it has come to this. I can certainly understand your feeling that you've put a lot of effort in which has yielded zilch, and I take partial responsibility for that, particularly in my not responding as promptly as I could to your BRD comments (though much -- but not all -- of that delay was unavoidable) and in my giving vent (a coupla times) to my own frustration in sub-optimal ways. Perhaps in some halcyon future, when peace and love are again ascendant here, you will find yourself able to participate again. EEng (talk) 20:36, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for saying that – I at least try to make it my editing style not to be angry at the people who are behind the edits (not that I always succeed). And I'm not concerned about any delays in responding to me, only about the nature of the responses when they happened. Now, allow me to leave some advice to the editors here (not just to you). You have unresolved disagreements about this page. Instead of letting those disagreements fester, try to focus them down to discreet questions, and open content RfCs about them, on this talk page. Maybe you can get some new eyes that will help. Don't try to "win". Treat every edit you make, and every talk comment you make, as though it will be subjected to scrutiny, perhaps by ArbCom, because that very well could happen in the future. Don't let anyone have reason to think that you try to "own" the page, that you personalize the disagreements, that you call anyone else names or are sarcastic towards them, that you don't really listen to what other editors are saying, that you are fillibustering, or that you are unwilling to meet someone else half way. As I said, this looks like something that could find its way up the dispute resolution ladder, on the conduct side, and it's my personal observation that ArbCom has become very willing to site ban editors who come before it, on both "sides" of disputes. Again, I'm saying that to everyone here, not just to any one editor. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:30, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

ArbCom is like mutually assured destruction - and they don't deal with content disputes in the typical sense. I left a whole editing area to spare another editor the banhammer, many people are quick to punish. The whole matter of forgiveness is something that seems strange when editors have power over others and the connections are impersonal. The Phineas Gage page is relatively important to Wikipedia, but its a single page and I much rather have a scholar on Wikipedia than a no scholars. I may not like EEng's actions, but as I've said months back - I'm not going to press the issue and the matter unless directly challenged. It was the direct challenge which lead to this - whatever. I got some 40,000 more articles to watch and I have no concept of ownership over pages. Sometimes its hard to see the forest through the trees, but I see a bunch of seedlings that need nurturing... each day spent on this mess is another page or two that sorely needs expansion from 6+ years of being a stub. I see EEng is doing some other pages, its a self-discovery thing at this point, hope it goes well. See ya round the wiki everyone. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 05:44, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Ready for GA?

I note that this article is in a pretty good state for a GA candidate, if rather heavy on notes and images. I have "boldly" removed disputed claims - some of many months' standing - to make way for a possible GA nomination. I am aware that this trimming may feel uncomfortable to some editors, but I suggest that the changes are really very minor (mainly to notes, not the main text), and leave the article in a cleaner and more defensible state. I'd also remind everyone that it is not the role of a Wikipedia article to speculate or to take sides in disputes about content or historical fact, but just to describe the evidence: this I think the article now does. Given the amount of work that has gone into the article, it should really not find GA much of a hurdle this time around. My tuppence worth. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:23, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your edits—they look good. Re cleaning the wikitext: there are still 37 {{hyp}} and 5 {{hyphen}}—I think they should be replaced with hyphens as well in order to give simple wikitext that editors expect. On that line, why not replace {{ndash}} and {{mdashb}}? Are all the {{nbsp}} and {{zwsp}} needed? There are still a few page number ranges using a hyphen (some using a template) rather than an en dash. Johnuniq (talk) 10:35, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Done some more. I think the nbsp chars are probably all right; the zwsp chars are likely not needed but a matter of opinion. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:46, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

It does look massively better, I fully support the Wiki markup corrections and note that there is a clear consensus for those changes, previously I and other editors have removed them only for it to be repeatedly restored. As part of the GA matter, I still believe there are some significant issues here related to improper OR and such. The "CavendishVermont_1869Map_Beers_AnnotatedPhineasGageLocations.jpg" is an OR created by EEng that does not exist in any published source. I see no reason to use quotations like "abrupt and intrusive visitor" instead of appropriate writing. The article still needs a copyedit by most means and there is still an issue of the omission with his known appearances and return to New Hampshire. The issue of the date of death needs to be covered properly because Macmillian's actual book makes an error in the details itself. Also, despite evidence and several accounts that say Gage was buried with the tamping rod, the sources didn't come from Harlow's text. The names and circumstance of the exhumation were given and how Harlow came to possess the item - things which Harlow did not recount. Quotes being used without citation as per WP:MINREF are an issue to. Nevermind the Notes section issue. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 16:12, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

I also support making a lot of the formatting more standard, per typical good Wikipedia pages, and even some paring back of the footnotes. If GA review will improve this page in those ways, then I think that it will be a good idea. I also feel the need to point out the possibility that such changes to the page may end up being contentious, and so anyone seeking to be bold may need to be prepared for that eventuality. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:46, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Also, please see Talk:Phineas Gage/Archive 6#WP:BRD for a lengthy list of issues that ought to be fixed as part of a GA review. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:49, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

I've restored the removed material, with cites where they had been missing.
I've also reverted most of the markup changes. As MOS says, "Where more than one style is acceptable, editors should not change an article from one of those styles to another without a good reason." Making the markup more like "typical" pages (read: what certain editors happen to be used to seeing) is not a good reason -- otherwise there would be only one way to do things, which there isn't; and note that WP:Good_article_criteria has nothing at all to say about formatting. MOS explicitly encourages use of many of the elements that were removed e.g. {{mdashb}} and {{thinsp}}.

EEng (talk) 05:30, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

And EEng continues to repeatedly return all the faults to the article. Apparently, EEng does not care that templates within cite templates messes up the data. Also it seems that EEng's invisible comments, like that of what he finds "attractive formatting", are supposed to be allowed to remain despite not performing a usable function. EEng seems more content to let editorial comments and other issues like Template:Shy matter remain indefinitely. Gosh, this is a bad case of WP:OWN and WP:IDHT which is highlighted by EEng's continued ignorance of the matter despite numerous attempts to inform, by myself and others. Not only that, despite three editors in this very discussion, EEng chose to revert them again and continue the matter from many months ago. It seems EEng has a big problem with MOS and I'll place a formal notice that the MOS is also under discretionary sanctions by Arbcom because it seems the problem is continuing on the actual discussion pages as well. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 05:54, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Actually, EEng was already made aware and the filter seems to have noted that it has not been one year since last posting, or so it seems. I also noted this in July. Though I am not keen on going through more of this MOS and other issues with EEng. It is like SSDD and not even pointing out that the templates being used offer any advantage to readable characters, or even function, seem to give pause. @Chiswick Chap:, another editor, @Bgwhite: further highlighted the problem with EEng's persistence of using templates within cite templates and removed them. Discussions with EEng have been useless and this is becoming a problem. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 06:04, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

I have to agree that removing most of EEng's peculiarities is a good thing. Other users will be editing this page, not just EEng. Having strange and unnecessary formatting only complicates things. From MOS:MARKUP, "The simplest markup is often the easiest to edit, the most comprehensible, and the most predictable." Majority of the zwsp, nbsp, ndash templates should be removed. There are cases where it is needed. nbsp just before ellipsis per MOS:ELLIPSIS for example. Just because {{nbsp}}, {{mdashb}} and {{thinsp}} can be used, doesn't mean they have to be used. In the case of this article, over used. EEng reverts of mine goes directly against cite template documentation. It appears EEng is editing against consensus. If this is the case, ANI or other forum should be used. Bgwhite (talk) 06:38, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

@Chiswick Chap, Bgwhite, and ChrisGualtieri: EEng, just reverted me as well. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:45, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

They also reverted all changes made by Frietjes. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:47, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

Contrary to what ChrisGualtieri says, I don't have "a big problem with MOS". What I have a problem with is editors who clothe their personal preferences in the aura of nonexistent MOS provisions:

In that regard, how amusing that Bgwhite invokes MOS:MARKUP, which says "An HTML entity is sometimes better than the equivalent Unicode character, which may be difficult to identify in edit mode" i.e. MOS recommends against the most widespread of the changes being pushed here -- the substitution of literals for symbolics.

I've looked in vain in Help:Citation Style 1 for anything about not using templates in citations. Maybe it's somewhere else -- can you point us to it?

Template:Cite_web#COinS Bgwhite (talk) 07:31, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Now I understand. Thanks. EEng (talk) 04:12, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Hidden comments are specifically endorsed at Help:Hidden_text. Many of them simply ask that page numbers be confirmed and so on; if you don't have time to do that yourself, why remove the note so others can't either?

Help pages don't count. Not policy, guideline or MOS. Bgwhite (talk) 07:31, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

I appreciate your taking the time to engage on this. Here's what WP:MOS#Invisible_comments says:

Editors use invisible comments to communicate with each other in the body of the text of an article. These comments are visible only in the wiki source...

Invisible comments are useful for flagging an issue or leaving instructions about part of the text, where this is more convenient than raising the matter on the talk page. They should be used judiciously, because they can clutter the wiki source for other editors.

The question, then, is what "judiciously" means, so that the clutter doesn't outweigh the usefulness of whatever's being communicated. The following illustrates the functions that a large proportion of the hidden comments serve:

As Kihlstrom put it:


{{quote|[M]any modern commentators exaggerate the extent of Gage's personality change, perhaps engaging in a kind of retrospective reconstruction based on what we now know, or think we do, about the role of the frontal cortex in self{{hyp}}regulation.{{efn-ua|
{{r|kihlstrom}} See also Grafman:{{r|grafman|page=295}}
"Although <!--the classic story of the nineteenth-century patient Gage who suffered a penetrating PFC lesion--> [Gage] has been used to exemplify the problems that patients with ventromedial PFC {{bracket|[[prefrontal cortex]]}} lesions have in obeying social rules, recognizing social cues, and making appropriate social decisions, the details of this social cognitive impairment have occasionally been inferred or even embellished to suit the enthusiasm of the story teller{{mdashb}}at least regarding Gage" (citing Macmillan 2000).{{r|okf}}

}}}}

You'll notice that part of the quotation has been commented out, replaced by [Gage]. I do it this way (instead of simply deleting the unused words) so that other editors can judge whether the replacement is "fair".
When templates are embedded in other templates the braces can become confusing, especially where they pile up at the end. The END NOTE / END QUOTE are to help keep them straight.

These two "use cases" are about half the hidden comments. They are intended to help other editors understand what's going on, but if you guys think it has the opposite effect, I have no objection to removing them. After that we can discuss the remaining instances. But first -- thoughts on the two use cases above?

EEng (talk) 04:12, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Chiswick Chap's changes were made under the color of "GA", but as noted the GA criteria have nothing at all to say about formatting, much less the markup that achieves it. Against that (again repeating what I said in my earlier post) is the directive at the top of every MOS page not to change from one format to another without good reason. Good reason requires reasons. Even several editors saying "I like it better this other way" isn't a good reason -- in fact it's not a reason at all. This is even more manifest when one considers that almost none of the changes changed the rendered page at all -- just changed to equivalent markup which does the same thing.

Beyond My Ken wrote a very insighful passage on this some time back:

The flip side of "ownership" is the problem of editors who come to an article with a particular agenda, make the changes they want to the page according to their preconceived notions of what should be, and then flit off to their next victim, without ever considering whether the page really needed the change they made, or whether the change improved the article at all. These hit and run editors certainly never take the time to evaluate the article in question, consider what its needs are, and spend the time necessary to improve its quality. Their editing is an off-the-rack, one-size-fits-all proposition, premised on the idea that what improves one article, or one type of article, will automatically improve every other article or type of article. In the grand scheme of things, "ownership" may cause conflicts when two editors take the same degree of interest in a particular article, and disagree with it, but mostly it helps to preserve what is best in an article. On the other hand, hit-and-run editing, including the plague of hit-and-run tagging that's defaced so many Wikipedia articles, is a much more serious problem, because it's more difficult to detect, frequently flies under the flag of the MoS (and therefore is presumed at first blush to be legitimate), and is more widespread. Wikipedians should worry more about those who hit-and-run, and less about those who feel stewardship towards the articles they work so hard on. 03:04, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Just because the markup here isn't like markup you're used to doesn't mean it's inadmissable or inferior. Maybe it's better. Or maybe some of it's better and some of it's not. Where would you like to start the discussion?

EEng (talk) 07:19, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Name calling does no good. I don't see Chris, Chiswick, or Tryptofish as "hit and run editors". Stop your name calling. Bgwhite (talk) 07:31, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

I'd also like to point out that EEng appears to have created Template:Mdashb in January and that it has just 87 transclusions. The "Thinsp" one is primarily used for Talk page mark up has a spattering of main space uses, many of which can be traced to EEng.[3]. The markup you see today is a fraction of what it used to be. Aside from EEng's hack of hacks type of false references, there were over 900 templates being used when they did not need to be used. EEng has repeatedly reinserted the formats and attacked editors who disagree. Take a look at this edit with the summary: "There's no reason for you to care about the internal, reader-invisible formatting of an article in which you show zero interest except for dropping in periodically to support your fellow gnomes and MOS Nazis". Yes, EEng insisted on keeping invisible comments like that.

As the article's used to be

==Gage's injury== {{anchor|ratiu_video_external_link}} {{external media | float = left | width=18em | video1 = [http://www.nejm.org/action/showMediaPlayer?doi=10.1056%2FNEJMicm031024&aid=NEJMicm031024_attach_1&area= Video recon{{shy}}struc{{shy}}tion of tamping iron passing through Gage's skull] (Ratiu et al. 2004).{{zwsp}}{{efn-ua|name="ratiu_hinged"}} }} [[File:PhineasGage BostonPostStory.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3 |<ref group="Fig." name=post_notice></ref>{{thinsp}}The ''[[Boston Post]]'' for Sept.{{nbsp}}21, 1848 (under{{shy}}stat{{shy}}ing the dimen{{shy}}sions of Gage's tamp{{shy}}ing iron and overstat{{shy}}ing damage to the jaw).{{zwsp}}{{efn-ua |name= note_post |(See{{nbsp}}<ref group="Fig." name=post_notice/>)''[[Boston Post]],'' Septem{{shy}}ber{{nbsp}}21, 1848,{{r|anonymous_bostonpost}} crediting an earlier report (unknown date) in the ''Ludlow Free Soil Union'' (Ludlow, Vermont). This early report misstates the length of the tamping iron, and confuses its circumfer{{shy}}ence with its diameter. Also, despite its reference to the "shatter{{shy}}ing [of the] the upper jaw", that did not in fact happen. See Harlow (1868) for a descrip{{shy}}tion of the iron's path.{{r|harlow1848|page=342}} }} ]] [[File:Simulated Connectivity Damage of Phineas Gage vanHorn ProbablePaths.jpg|thumb|upright=0.70 |<ref group="Fig." name=vanhorn_hinged></ref>{{thinsp}}Gage's skull "hinged" open as the iron passed through.{{efn-ua|name=ratiu_hinged}} ]]

If you want to see just how unintelligible EEng made the article, I suggest examining this version. Just a bit of a warning, most editors will be completely floored by noting that the above snippet is not actually the worst part. Though it does show that EEng's complete confusion by going so far as to insert a Template:Shy and nbsp into an invisible comment. None of us are "hit-and-run editors" like tagging a page that problems exist and failing to try and discuss, but this problem has persisted for over a year. I seriously believe that EEng was attempting to make the article so difficult to edit that it would deter others outright. I simply cannot find any logical reason that such ignorance would come with such complex markup. And for the record, EEng, has direct ties to this pages appearance - as both the author of its sources and as working for Professor Macmillan, whose sources comprise the great majority. The WP:COI matter came to a lot of WP:IDHT on EEng's part, but I find the markup concerns to be an attempt to further WP:OWN this article. @Magioladitis:, I do not think this is "drama board"-level, but EEng has a history of reverting back to his template-ladden version whenever others look away. And this sparked the matter now, but I believe some 8-9 people have already been involved in this (and other pages) and disagreed with EEng. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 14:24, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

My opinion has not changed since I last commented here. I still agree with the majority of editors in this discussion. I also left EEng a note about 3RR. --Tryptofish (talk) 14:51, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Me too, actually. I understand that EEng has contributed largely to the article over the years, but this does not add up to ownership, something that Wikipedia does not endorse, and we should go with the majority opinion here. This is a worthy article and as I said earlier, perfectly ready for GA as long as we have it in a tidy state, for instance the way I left it. We do ne to move on here, one way or another, and I'm open to any reasonable suggestions. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:48, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

As WP:Consensus#Consensus-building in talk pages says,

In determining consensus, consider the quality of the arguments, the history of how they came about, the objections of those who disagree, and existing policies and guidelines. The quality of an argument is more important than whether it represents a minority or a majority view. The arguments "I just don't like it" and "I just like it" usually carry no weight whatsoever.

I'd really appreciate it if you'd join the discussion I'm having with BGwhite, above, about specific formatting issues.

EEng (talk) 04:12, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for all the great work you have done on this article EEng, but it's time to move on now. Johnuniq (talk) 04:40, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

+1 to what Johnuniq said. EEng, I hope that you will believe me, when you ask editors here to join the discussion about specific formatting issues, that I've spent a lot of time over the past few months thinking hard about those issues, and I've read and thought about every comment in this discussion thread, so I'm not just tossing out an inadequately considered "I don't like it". I've looked at it carefully, and I've reached an opinion, maybe incorrect, but in good faith, and I'm not seeing you persuade anyone else. Please, let it go. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:34, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Moving on

ChrisGualtieri points out that it was I who created {{mdashb}}. And guess what? Within a few months the following was added to MOS:DASH:

Also, it is recommended to use templates that provide formatting improvements over plain versions of dashes, such as ... ‍—‌, which inserts an em dash while allowing a line break after it.

The lesson? That at least one of the formatting innovations you tsk-tsk here is now a standard option for Wikipedia at large. Who knows? Maybe some of the others will end up in MOS too, if they're not strangled in the cradle in the name of anodyne uniformity.

There being no opinion expressed on the question (in the Discussion section, above) I'm gone ahead and deleted the two types of comments mentioned there (unused quote material, START/END markers) since I gather editors find them to have low signal-to-noise ratio.
However, I've restored many of the deleted notes, which were typically things like:

These are exactly the sort of the material that belongs in hidden notes.

I've added cites to the material tagged cite-needed.
Per the guideline BGwhite pointed to, I've deleted templates from cite templates

EEng (talk) 05:31, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

That addition to MOS was by a single user without much discussion who meant well, but seemed unaware it caused issues with data when contained in other templates. Please stop your name-calling, you were the one who decided to use those templates in invisible comments. Explain to me why you insist on restoring template markup in an invisible comment that does not render on the page itself. Then we can begin moving on. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 15:00, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

What "template markup in an invisible comment"? Please locate what you're talking about in the current version (permalink) and say what section it's in, and give a search string, or quote some text, so I can tell what you're talking about. Just so you know, I have to go out again tonight and don't know when I'm back, and tomorrow I'll be at the dentist (yikes!) from the early morning for an unknown amount of time. EEng (talk) 20:28, 28 August 2014 (UTC) P.S. Oh wait -- tmw's Friday and I'll be traveling for the wkend.

You fixed them, I didn't see it in your last edit! Sorry. The section was  Though you fixed this and all my major concerns with the last edit before it was protected, as seen here. Perhaps it was text from before that was commented out, can't be bothered to worry or check about it now.... You removed some of those invisible notes that were helpful...but you did fix all the CS errors and resolved them all quite nicely, even gave quite a bit of ground on things that really didn't need to be changed. Look, I think much of the matter is blown out of proportion on ANI - I don't think you need to be blocked. This is a subject you are an expert in, but I find it sometimes quite difficult to work with you. I just wish it could be like this type of positive interaction back and forth. I don't mind being pointed out when I am being dumb or making a mistake - it happens to the best of us. I'm just afraid to bring up the matter of the text again after the last time. But one thing at a time, right? ChrisGualtieri (talk) 00:34, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Cite errors

I noticed that there are two citation errors in the references list, for undefined refnames. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:53, 8 September 2014 (UTC) Acually...

One is a "used but not defined" for "name=blakesmore" -- there's a "blakemore" and a "blakeslee" and it looks like I struck a compromise. Now fixed.
The other is "defined but not used", left over from this edit [4], which we're currently discussing. I just left it until we've decided what to do.

EEng (talk) 23:13, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Fully-protected edit request 28 August 2014

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Please fix the citation template for references #41, used in note T, and fill in the missing title as The Process of Compensation and some of its Bearings on Prognosis and Treatment. G S Palmer (talk • contribs) 13:55, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Not done: The page's protection level and/or your user rights have changed since this request was placed. You should now be able to edit the page yourself. If you still seem to be unable to, please reopen the request with further details. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:22, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I already did it. I meant to come back and update this request, but forgot. G S Palmer (talk • contribs) 16:39, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Grumble

I just noticed that the page has a "bots-deny" template, with the hidden text, "kindly excuse this article from the ministrations of these bots, which have chronically made damaging, worthless, or trivial changes e.g. changing _ to space in img filenames, removing or changing markup without previewing to be sure rendered page is still OK, adding unwanted whitespace". So this page becomes malformatted if an image filename has _ changed to a space? Good grief. No, don't explain it to me. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:21, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Since others are watching I feel I should explain anyway. Changing _ to space comes under the category of -- not damaging -- but rather worthless and trivial. [Bolding added -- see below] We've all had the experience of losing a complicated edit to a slip of the finger in the wake of an edit conflict -- that's just life -- but how infuriating to find that the conflicting "editor" is a mindless bot implementing someone's dream of an unterstreichenrein Wikipedia [5]. (Such trivial cleanups would be unobjectionable if piggybacked onto an edit which corrects something which really does need correcting, but to waste others' time and clutter edit histories for these ridiculous tinkerings is absurd.)

In the category of actually damaging are e.g. the edits being reverted here [6] and here [7]

I've been putting up with this for years. Plenty more examples of time wasted cleaning up after "cleanup" bots and their script-drunk masters, who are too busy to preview changes before saving, on request. EEng (talk) 04:46, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

removed it. denying particular bots doesn't really address the issue, since there are many more editors using AWB and simply denying these three bots won't stop the problem. if a particular bot is repeated breaking the article, then we should address the problem by fixing that bot. there are enough people watching this page that any breakage won't go unnoticed. note that even frequent editors forget to preview (e.g., the error fixed here and here). Frietjes (talk) 18:28, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Tried that route several times, and got the usual oblivious certainty from Bgwhite and his pals. [8] (For the record, I never did -- as Bgwhite says I did -- tell him to fuck off. He's probably got me confused with someone else pissed off at his wasting their time.)

Not sure what you think is demonstrated by exhibiting errors I've made. We all make errors, but as I mentioned in a recent edit summary, "there's a difference between an error made in the course of adding to or improving the article, and one made while merely scratching one's obsessive-compulsive itch."

I agree that denying these bots (notice I didn't list bots that have a history of making only, or mostly, useful changes, such as Anomiebot) is only a partial solution to the problem of automated or semiautomated timewasters, but in an imperfect world it's something at least.

Experience shows that others watching do not fix bot-induced breakage. But tell you what. If you're volunteering to fix all these things as they happen, I've got no problem omitting the deny for now. Let's see how you do. EEng (talk) 19:12, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

I was not arguing that we should delete the deny-bot template, by the way. There are plenty of valid reasons to deny bots on certain pages, and I'm fine with that. My issue was with the assertion that the page would be made worse if the underscores in image filenames were to be changed to spaces. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:13, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

...which you now, I hope, understand I wasn't asserting. See bold text above. EEng (talk) 20:57, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

That's clear here, but wasn't clear in the now-deleted hidden text. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:01, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

I think the hidden text was ambiguous as to which examples fell in which category, but let's drop it, shall we? I'm really glad you've managed to put up with all these silly things we get into sometimes, and persevere in participating in the real discussions about the article. EEng (talk) 21:12, 21 September 2014 (UTC) P.S. You better not turn out to be my old roommate or something.

Together again!

This section appeared originally on my talk page, but since it so clearly relates to the development of the article and is linked to from the article talk page, I am archiving it here. --Mirokado (talk)

Remember last year we talked about adapting the citation system seen in Anne McCaffrey for use in Phineas Gage? I'd like to get going on that. Can you be available to act as Senior Supervising Creative Consulting Overlord Editor? EEng (talk) 03:50, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes I do remember and will be happy to contribute in the suggested capacity... Mirokado (talk) 23:10, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

<Rubs hands together.> Good. Goooooood! My plan is working perfectly! <Laughs diabolically.> BTW... you know how resistant people can be to change, so do you know of an FA/several FAs (or even just GAs) that use the same system, or variations? EEng (talk) 05:34, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Tintin in Tibet and Æthelwold ætheling are probably good examples to look at. I prepared this table of the referencing systems used in the September 2014 FAs. --Mirokado (talk) 22:42, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! But that table... I wouldn't have thought compiling it was humanly possible. EEng (talk) 05:30, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Question: Suppose I want to do something like:

A big book said something.{{bracket|[[#B1]]}}

==References==

*{{cite book|title=A big book|author=John Scholar|ref=B1}}

(Since you put together that incredible table I'm pretty sure you get how that's supposed to work.) And here's the question: Isn't there template (taking B1 as its parameter) to do the callout, without all that manual stuff? EEng (talk) 16:08, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Have a look at {{SuperScriptLinked}}. --Mirokado (talk) 17:31, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

OK, I guess that could be adapted. (How do you know all this stuff, anyway?) I'm vaguely aware there's a syntax by which an arbitrary page can be invoked as a template, so is the best way to sandbox a new template (without cluttering the real template space) to create the experimental template as a subpage in my userspace/sandbox/whatever and invoke it from my sandbox/whatever? Or is there a more streamlined setup hidden somewhere for such activities? EEng (talk) 23:20, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Well it looks as if {{superScriptLinked|#B1|B1}} is just what you would need, but it is currently not used in any articles, so you would once again be going out on limb with it. If you do need to develop a new template, there are always {{X1}} etc. Don't forget documentation and testcases (which help during development anyway) for a new template... --Mirokado (talk) 23:59, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Oh. I thought it was understood that would be your part of the collaboration. ;) First I need to mock up what I have in mind and then we can talk more. EEng (talk) 04:47, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

You may also be interested in Wheelchair trainer where I used [[#a-aerobics|[aerobics]]] a few times to provide descriptive callouts for groups of references. Distributing the brackets like that avoids having to escape them. Ping @EEng: since BB trod on my edit summary. --Mirokado (talk) 01:15, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the bracket syntax. Wow. Didn't you get pushback re the long callouts,^[aerobics] the lack of backlinks from the refs back into the main text, etc?

Remember we talked about putting the sources in alpha order. But I also like the ^[3]^: 355 style for page numbers, instead of the intermediate thingees^[3]

3. ^ Senders (2005), p. 355

What I want to do is something like this:

Cats are furry.^[S3]:3-5 Dogs too.^[S5]:355

Sources and further reading

For general audiences

J3. Johnson, Adam (1958). The Bird Book.

S2. Samson, Joan (1977). The Cat Book.

S3. Sanders, Ted (2003). The Cow Book.

For specialists

J5. Jones, Bill (1968). The Snake Book.

S5. Senders, Jim (2007). The Dog Book.

S7. Stimson, Dorothy (1993). The Dinosaur Book.

Unfortunately this means the designators J3 etc. have to be manually assigned. There are some not-completely-clear-what-to-do questions about how to do that, but what do you think so far. Or can you think of some better way? Remember, all this fuss is basically because there's no way to get list-defined references (called out via < ref>) into a certain desired order. EEng (talk) 05:56, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

That is quite good, but just one letter and one digit look a bit too much like index numbers, I didn't get it at first. I have seen in some books and articles references of the style [Jo1958] (Two letters for the first author surname, more letters to disambiguate if necessary, you may need four digit years as the refs span three centuries) for Johnson 1958. That would be obvious enough to be self-explanatory. It might occasionally be necessary to use 1958a, 1958b etc, but that is already accepted for sfn and friends so should not be a problem. Having the full years would be good since there are several references of historical value. Thus your example (I'm thinking no need for the keys before the author names and this is an example where explicit bold is preferred to the semicolon markup as it is bit friendlier for screenreaders) would look like:

Cats are furry.^[Sa2003]:3-5 Dogs too.^[Se2007]:355

Sources and even further reading

For general audiences

Johnson, Adam (1958). The Bird Book.

Samson, Joan (1977). The Cat Book.

Sanders, Ted (2003). The Cow Book.

For specialists

Jones, Bill (1968). The Snake Book.

Senders, Jim (2007). The Dog Book.

Stimson, Dorothy (1993). The Dinosaur Book.

I had no pushback on that article, but I suspect very few people are watching it. The natural grouping of those references into four blocks meant that the limited use of the unconventional links added value to the article in that particular case. --Mirokado (talk) 23:05, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

I absolutely love working with you. My problem with Jo1980a is that the callouts ^[Jo1980]^: 223 become visually intrusive. (In your wheelchair example the long callouts ^[aerobics] seemed appropriate because there were few of them, and as a group they helped the reader see the structure of the article.) Worse, the most common sources (Macmillan, Harlow) will also require a b c,^[Ma2000a]^: 223 making them even longer!

To refresh your memory re groupings into General, Specialists, etc., take a look at this old version [9]. The current article [10] has about twice as many sources, broken down something like this (approximate, since current article's sources are all mixed up):

General (Gage): 6
General (portraits): 8
Middle school: 1
Researchers: 15
Historical interest: 80

So this gives me some ideas. (This plan would still require that the sources-list entries be labeled. Personally I don't mind the labels, though if they're confusing at first -- as you found them -- then we need to fix that somehow.)

1. In general make the labels of the sources be authors's first two letters, except in about 20 of 100 cases add a digit (e.g. Sm1, Sm2) for uniqueness. Thus these are mostly two digits, sometimes three -- compact!
2. For a few authors who each have 4+ publications (Macmillan, Damasio, Harlow, Wilgus) we can use M1, M2, M3, D1, D2, D3, etc. What I like about this is that these are also the most-cited sources, so we've made the most cited the most compact. (Or, following your approach, use last two digits of year: M86, M99, etc. But again this gives up compactness.)
3. The VERY most cited -- Macmillan 2000, Harlow1868, Bigelow1850 -- could be just M, H and B. Unfortunately Barker, Harlow1848, and a few others are also cited a lot, and B and H are already taken, but too bad. OR... really, it's not necessary that the whole scheme be uniform and consistent -- Barker could be C (next letter available given B is Bigelow) and Harlow1848 could be I.
4. In fact, since we won't be using < ref>, arabics are available as well. Maybe the General/Middle school could be 1-9, A-F or something (for maximum compactness), and the Aa/AaN system used for Researchers and Historical. BTW the General groups will change hardly ever if at all, so renumbering a 1-9A-F system would hardly ever be needed.

Of course, some authors appear in multiple sections so it's not as clean as I'm making it sound.

BTW, to avoid confusion between these new source labels and text footnotes (which are now A B C etc.), change text footnote labels to lowercase a b c. (Since there are no abcde backlinks from sources back to article anymore, lowercases are available for that now -- of course the backlinks are semantically disjoint from ^[a] etc, but I always thought it would be way to confusing to use ^[a] in an article that also has a b c backlinks from the refs.)

So NOW what do you think? A special role I hope you can play is keeping this from becoming unnecessarily baroque (baroque is OK, but unnecessarily barouque we should avoid) because you know how the villagers get upset when things are too unfamiliar -- they want to storm the Doctor's castle with their torches, rakes, and pitchforks. EEng (talk) 05:25, 15 October 2014 (UTC) Ha! I just realized we could use e.g. ^[[[#B1|B1]]]</nowiki> for the callouts! (Just kidding ... sort of.)

A bit too late for me to start looking at this tonight – bis Morgen. --Mirokado (talk) 23:46, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Long night? EEng (talk) 17:48, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, 'fraid so, and too late for a careful response now, but I will get to it on Saturday. --Mirokado (talk) 21:21, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Ref tags

I think a fairly uniform schema would be easier for editors to understand than one with lots of trickery to get the number of characters to an absolute minimum. Readers would be helped if the callouts have a small number of recognisable patterns. I've had a look at the distribution of names and dates and it looks as if the following would be a good starting point:

first two letters of the name, if distinct
first two letters of the name plus last two digits of the date, if distinct
- add suffixes a, b, c if the key for a year is duplicated

This is implemented in the following table (with a couple of full names without date), any fine tuning could I think be done by hand. This schema would be distinct from either^[a] or^[A] for notes. I would prefer^[a] as none of the others would start with a small letter. I don't think there can be any confusion between callouts and backlinks as they occur in different contexts. --Mirokado (talk) 02:26, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Script-generated original

Tag	Ref
Au	Austin 1977
Ba	Barker 1995
Be91	Beaumont 1991
Be50	Bennett 1850
Bi50	Bigelow 1850
Bi68	Bigelow 1868
Bl77	Blakemore 1977
Bl94	Blakeslee 1994
Br88	Bramwell 1888
Br76	Brown 1976
Bu	Burton 1849
Ca51	Campbell 1851
Carey	Carey
Ca94	Carlson 1994
Ch	Changeux 1985
Co40	Cobb 1940
Co43	Cobb 1943
Cr	Crider 1983
Da83	Damasio 1983
Da94	Damasio 1994
Da96	Damasio 1996
Da69	Davidson 1869
Di	Dimond 1980
Du	Dupuy 1911

Tag	Ref
Fe77	Ferrier 1877
Fe78	Ferrier 1878
Fl	Fleischman
Fo69	Folsom 1869
Fo38	Fowler 1838
Fu	Fuster 1897
Ga64	Gage 1964
Ga42	Gall 1942
Gr02	Grafman 2002
Gr82	Groves 1982
Ha96	Hamilton 1896
Ha48	Harlow 1848
Ha49	Harlow 1849
Ha68	Harlow 1868
Ha75	Hart 1975
Ho97	Hockenbury 1997
Ho08	Hockenbury 2008
Ho09	Hooper 1809
Hu	Hughes
Ja49	Jackson 1849
Ja70	Jackson 1870
Je	Jewett 1868

Tag	Ref
Ka	Kalat 1981
Ke	Kean 2014
Ki	Kihlstrom 2010
Ko	Kotowicz 2007
La	Lahey 1980
Le	Lena 2010
Ma96	Macmillan 1996
Ma00	Macmillan 2000
Ma01	Macmillan 2001
Ma08	Macmillan 2008
Ma09	Macmillan 2009
Ma10	Macmillan 2010
Ma11	Macmillan 2011
Ma12	Macmillan 2012
Me	Merwin 2002
Mo12	Moffat 2012
Mo96	Morris 1996
My	Myers 1995
Nu	Nuland 2011
Or	Ordia 1989
Ra	Ratiu 2004
Re	Restak 1984

Tag	Ref
Sa	Sacks 1995
Sc20	Schneider 1920
Sc48	Scott 1848
Sd	Sdorow 1990
Si	Sizer 1886
Smith	Smith
Sm84	Smith 1984
Sm85	Smith 1985
Sm09	Smith 2009
St	Stuss 1992
Su	Sutton 1850
To	Tow 1955
Tw	Twomey 2010
Ty	Tyler 1982
Va47	Van Hoosen 1947
Va48	Van Horn 1848
Va00	Vanderstoep 2000
Wilgus	Wilgus
Wi09	Wilgus 2009
Wi48	Williams 1848
Wi79	Wilson 1879
Ya	Yakovlev 1958

EEng started playing with the tables - with my permission.

Tag1 and Tag2A -- Defunct!

For general audiences (Gage)

Tag1	Tag2A	Ref
Ha68	H	Harlow 1868
Ke	Ke	Kean 2014
Ma00a	M	Mac2000 (OKF)
Ma08	M4	Macmillan 2008
Ma09	M5	Macmillan 2009
Ma11	M6	Macmillan 2011
Ma12	M7	Macmillan 2012

For general audiences (portraits)

Tag1	Tag2A	Ref
Le	LM	Lena & Macmillan 2010
Tw	Tw	Twomey 2010
Wi09a	W	Wilgus 2009a
Wi09c	W3	Wilgus 2009c
Wi10	W4	Wilgus 2010

For middle-school students

Tag1	Tag2A	Ref
Fl	Fl	Fleischman

For researchers and specialists

Tag1	Tag2A	Ref
Ba	Ba	Barker 1995
Bi50	B	Bigelow 1850
Fu	Fu	Fuster 1897
Gr02	Gf	Grafman 2002
Ki	Ki	Kihlstrom 2010
Ko	K	Kotowicz 2007
Ma96	M1	Macmillan 1996
Ma00b	M3	Mac 2000 ("Restoring")
Ma01	M4	Macmillan 2001
Ma10	ML	Macmillan & Lena 2010
Ra04a	R1	Ratiu 2004a
Ra04b	R2	Ratiu 2004b
Ty	TT	Tyler & Tyler 1982
Va00	Vd	Vanderstoep 2000
Va48	V	Van Horn 1848

Other works cited

Tag1	Tag2A	Ref
Au	Au	Austin 1977
Be91	Bm	Beaumont 1991
Be50	Bn	Bennett 1850
Bi68	B2	Bigelow 1868
Bl77	Bm	Blakemore 1977
Bl94	Bs	Blakeslee 1994
Br88	Bw	Bramwell 1888
Br76	Bn	Brown 1976
Bu	Bu	Burton 1849
Ca51	Cm	Campbell 1851
Carey	Cy	Carey
Ca94	Cn	Carlson 1994
Ch	Cx	Changeux 1985
Co40	C1	Cobb 1940
Co43	C2	Cobb 1943
Cr	Cr	Crider 1983
Da83	D1	Damasio 1983
Da94	D	Damasio 1994
Da96	D3	Damasio 1996
Da69	Dv	Davidson 1869
Di	Di	Dimond 1980
Du	Du	Dupuy 1911
Fe77	F1	Ferrier 1877
Fe78	F2	Ferrier 1878
Fo69	Fs	Folsom 1869
Fo38	Fw	Fowler 1838
Ga64	Gg	Gage 1964
Ga42	Gl	Gall 1942
Gr82	Gv	Groves 1982
Ha96	Hm	Hamilton 1896
Ha48	H1	Harlow 1848
Ha49	H2	Harlow 1849
Ha75	Hr	Hart 1975
Ho97	H1	Hockenbury 1997
Ho08	H2	Hockenbury 2008
Ho09	Hp	Hooper 1809
Hu	Hg	Hughes
Ja49	J1	Jackson 1849
Ja70	J	Jackson 1870
Je	Jw	Jewett 1868
Ka	Ka	Kalat 1981
La	La	Lahey 1980
Me	Me	Merwin 2002
Mo12	Mf	Moffat 2012
Mo96	Mr	Morris 1996
My	My	Myers 1995
Nu	Nu	Nuland 2011
Or	Or	Ordia 1989
Re	Re	Restak 1984
Sa	Sa	Sacks 1995
Sc20	Sn	Schneider 1920
Sc48	Sc	Scott 1848
Sd	Sd	Sdorow 1990
Si	Si	Sizer 1886
Smith	S1	Smith 1886
Sm84	S2	Smith 1984
Sm85	S3	Smith 1985
Sm09	S4	Smith 2009
St	St	Stuss 1992
Su	Su	Sutton 1850
To	To	Tow 1955
Va47	Vs	Van Hoosen 1947
Wi09b	W2	Wilgus 2009b
Wi48	Wm	Williams 1848
Wi79	Wn	Wilson 1879
Ya	Yk	Yakovlev 1958

--Mirokado (talk) 02:26, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Let's agree right away on one of your suggestions:

Labels beginning with a capital letter e.g. [M] [Ma] [Ma2] [Ma24] -- whatever -- are always sources (not "explanatory notes" or anything else).

Not sure about what to use for notes -- I sometimes think something very explicit such as ^{[Note 1]} or ^{[Note a]} might be good, because otherwise some readers may never realize there's "more to know down below". But we can leave that for later.

Is there some significance to the way the table is broken into 4 pieces?

I added a column to the table for an amended system -- yours is Tag1, mine is Tag2. I just kind of hacked it out and it's not done yet so don't comment too much. EEng (talk) 20:05, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

OK, we can agree on that! No, I just wanted four columns to make things more compact while still having a table and each entry on a new line in the source (easy to generate). Carry on, I won't panic. --Mirokado (talk) 20:42, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Let's add another rule:

First letter of label is always first letter of author's last name (first author's last name, if there are multiple authors)

Now (bouncing around a little)... Last year we agreed that the grouping of sources was a good idea. But what do you think about the particular group headings (used in the Dec 2013 version linked a few posts back):

For general audiences (Gage) Short list of highly readable sources, mostly online (Macmillan 2000 is very dense in chapters on background medical history, but completely accessible in the chapters on Gage himself)
For general audiences (portraits) Also highly readable, but only about the portraits -- didn't want to mix them in with first group since that would be frustrating for readers wanting to know about Gage
For middle-school students
For researchers and specialists Sources not accessible to laymen
Of historical interest Older sources, primarily used in the Distortion section

EEng (talk) 23:56, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

OK, so now I've done a couple of things -- and I hope you'll forgive my mutilation of your table.

I've put the sources into their groups. I wanted to do this to bring out one thing, which is that because there are four groups, there are really four parallel alpha sequences of author names. As a result, no matter what we do the sequence of tags is going to be somewhat broken, with "Jo05" and "Jo06a" in one group, and "Jo06b" two groups later. It's partly for this reason I don't mind the somewhat arbitrary was I've formed the two-letter tags. At least, I think I don't mind.
The most-cited sources are the ones with tags in bold -- together they're about 275 of the 350 callouts in the article. I've compressed their tags, where possible, to a single letter.
I've used (as you can obviously see) arabics 1 2 3 instead of year-last-2-digits. The great thing about year-last-2 is it gives you a 98% certain non-collision when new sources are added, even for someone with a common name like Smith i.e. if we're adding Sm76, it's unlikely there's already a Smith, or Smothers, with a paper published 1976 to cause a conflict. On the other hand, I do like those visually compact callouts!0

Too baroque? Or just over-tinkered? Please opine. I don't think I need to explain most of it to you -- ask if it's unclear why something's the way it is. I also wasn't all that careful so there are probably errors, but I wanted to bring out the general look.

Again, this is just a somewhat different, more organic approach to forming the tags than your very systematic one. I'm not saying this is what we should do. Let's just see how they both feel. EEng (talk) 05:34, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Changed Of historical interest to Other works cited. EEng (talk) 03:20, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Horrible, mean response from Mirokado that made EEng cry! ;)

Well, I would say that is both too baroque and over-tinkered! Please ask yourself questions like:

Q1. how will anyone notice if there are problems with the tags, such as M2 missing in the table above?

Q2. if they notice, how should they attempt to correct them?

Q3. why do we have W, W3 and W4 in the first group and W2 in the last group?

Q4. if someone adds a new reference, how will they decide what tag to give it?

These questions indicate that such a scheme will be virtually impossible to maintain. I can almost guarantee that other editors will not accept it. In particular, extensive use of hand-maintained index numbers is I think a no-no. I have been thinking about ways of supporting the splitting of citations into thematic sections, several come to mind, and will post again, perhaps tomorrow evening. No more time now. --Mirokado (talk) 00:06, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

EEng gets over his sulking

Certainly a good alternative idea for splitting into sections would be very welcome. In the meantime...

Partly because of you friendly un-enthusiasm, and partly because I got pooped before I was really done thinking 2A through, I've reworked to create 2B (below), which I think you'll find somewhat less crazy. Basically, it gives more weight to uniformity than to other goals I had. I doubt it fixes your concerns (not all of them, anyway) but, well, take a look and see if this altered scheme isn't at least easier to wrap your mind around.

Answers to your questions:

A1. M2 wasn't missing -- it got compressed to just "M". (If that doesn't really make sense, don't worry about it.)

A2. Not sure what to say. If you make a mistake, go back and redo it without making the mistake.

A3. Series like W, W1, W2 might straddle groups as an unavoidable consequence of there being several "W" sources, in various groups. However, the fact of such splits should be less distracting in the 2B version than it was before. At least I hope it is.

A4. The facial answer to this is the same in Tag1, Tag2A, and Tag2B i.e. To add a new source, think of a candidate tag, see if that tag is already in use, and if it is, fix that.

The differences between Tag1 and Tag2B (forget 2A -- defunct) are these:

Tag1 has much lower chance of collision in the first place, because they're long and occupy this big space of AaNN, where collision frequencies are unlikely. Tag2B's way of constructing tags is more compressed, and depends on whether you're in the one of the first four groups, or the "other" group. (See if you can see the pattern of how Tag2B's tags are formed, and why I did it that way.) And...
If there is a collision, Tag1's way to "fix it" is to add a suffix a or b or whatever. In Tag2B, you add a suffix 1 2 etc.

You say, "extensive use of hand-maintained index numbers is I think a no-no", but actually I don't think the Tag1 and 2B schemes are as different as it seems in terms of the difficulty of adding a new source. Although Tag1 has a smaller chance of an initial collision when adding a sources, you still have to check for a collision, and you have to make that check globally, not just locally in the group the new source is joining -- same in Tag2B. (Actually, the tags in the first 4 groups are disjoint from those in the Other group, so you either have to look through the first 4 groups or through the last group, but not both. Also, the tags are always in alphabetical order within any group, the looking much easier.)

So really they're both hand-maintained. I think the main difference is the more nuanced way 2B's tags are formed. Bear in mind, as well, that the article is very well developed at this point, and new sources will be added very seldom.

So, again, see if 2B gives you less of a headache, and feel free to repeat your concerns in its context. And certainly if you can think of some other way of indicating "groups" -- especially if it somehow makes for one linear alphabetic list, instead of the several smaller sequences -- by all means speak up.

BTW, just in case it's not clear the bolding is just to remind us which are the most-used 14 sources, comprising about 80% of the callouts. The bolding isn't part of the actual encoding and wouldn't be in the actual article.

Tag1 and Tag2B

For general audiences (Gage)

Tag1	Tag2B	Ref
Ha68	H	Harlow 1868
Ke	K	Kean 2014
Ma00a	M	Mac2000 (OKF)
Ma08	M1	Macmillan 2008
Ma09	M2	Macmillan 2009
Ma11	M3	Macmillan 2011
Ma12	M4	Macmillan 2012

For general audiences (portraits)

Tag1	Tag2B	Ref
Le	L	Lena & Macmillan 2010
Tw	T	Twomey 2010
Wi09a	W	Wilgus 2009a
Wi09b	W1	Wilgus 2009b
Wi09c	W2	Wilgus 2009c
Wi10	W3	Wilgus 2010

For middle-school students

Tag1	Tag2B	Ref
Fl	F	Fleischman

For researchers and specialists

Tag1	Tag2B	Ref
Bi50	B	Bigelow 1850
Bi68	B1	Bigelow 1868
Ba	B2	Barker 1995
Fu	F1	Fuster 2008
Gr02	G	Grafman 2002
Ha48	H1	Harlow 1848
Ha49	H2	Harlow 1849
Ki	K1	Kihlstrom 2010
Ko	K2	Kotowicz 2007
Ma96	M5	Macmillan 1996
Ma00b	M6	Mac 2000 ("Restoring")
Ma01	M7	Macmillan 2001
Ma10	M8	Macmillan & Lena 2010
Ra04a	R	Ratiu 2004a
Ra04b	R1	Ratiu 2004b
Ty	T2	Tyler & Tyler 1982
Va48	V	Van Horn 1848

Other works cited

Tag1	Tag2B	Ref
Au	Au	Austin 1977
Be91	Ba	Beaumont 1991
Be50	Be	Bennett 1850
Bl77	Bk	Blakemore 1977
Bl94	Bl	Blakeslee 1994
Br88	Bm	Bramwell 1888
Br76	Br	Brown 1976
Bu	Bu	Burton 1849
Ca51	Cb	Campbell 1851
Carey	Ce	Carey
Ca94	Cl	Carlson 1994
Ch	Cn	Changeux 1985
Co40	Co	Cobb 1940
Co43	Co1	Cobb 1943
Cr	Cx	Crider 1983
Da94	Da	Damasio 1994
Da83	Da1	Damasio 1983
Da96	Da2	Damasio 1996
Da69	Dd	Davidson 1869
Di	Di	Dimond 1980
Du	Du	Dupuy 1911
Fe77	Fe	Ferrier 1877
Fe78	Fe1	Ferrier 1878
Fo69	Fs	Folsom 1869
Fo38	Fw	Fowler 1838
Ga64	Gg	Gage 1964
Ga42	Gl	Gall 1942
Gr82	Gv	Groves 1982
Ha96	Ha	Hamilton 1896
Ha75	Hr	Hart 1975
Ho97	Hn	Hockenbury 1997
Ho08	Hn1	Hockenbury 2008
Ho09	Hp	Hooper 1809
Hu	Hu	Hughes
Ja49	Ja	Jackson 1849
Ja70	Ja1	Jackson 1870
Je	Jw	Jewett 1868
Ka	Ka	Kalat 1981
La	La	Lahey 1980
Me	Me	Merwin 2002
Mo12	Mf	Moffat 2012
Mo96	Mr	Morris 1996
My	My	Myers 1995
Nu	Nu	Nuland 2011
Or	Or	Ordia 1989
Re	Re	Restak 1984
Sa	Sa	Sacks 1995
Sc20	Sc	Schneider 1920
Sc48	St	Scott 1848
Sd	Sw	Sdorow 1990
Si	Sz	Sizer 1886
Smith	Sm	Smith 1886
Sm84	Sm1	Smith 1984
Sm85	Sm2	Smith 1985
Sm09	Sm3	Smith 2009
St	St	Stuss 1992
Su	Su	Sutton 1850
To	To	Tow 1955
Va00	Vd	Vanderstoep 2000
Va47	Vh	Van Hoosen 1947
Wi48	Wm	Williams 1848
Wi79	Ws	Wilson 1879
Ya	Ya	Yakovlev 1958

EEng (talk) 04:47, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Continued discussion

Yes that suggestion is better than your previous one. I agree that the article refs may be relatively stable now (particularly new refs for a given author are quite likely to be later than refs we already have). The general point I wanted to make with my questions is that having to worry about what tag to choose, and particluarly maintaining indexes spanning groups, is probably too complicated. We are lucky if editors bother to add refs even approximately matching an existing format, let alone even noticing how a new citation might interact with various others. A complicated schema imposes a maintenance burden on future article custodians.

You will get pretty short callouts with the vanilla sfn mechanism which also has fairly low maintenance overhead and high consistency. Unfortunately the intermediate list linking callouts and citations would be quite long for this article. You could make that intermediate list shorter by keeping the page numbers with the callout, but you might get asked to justify that, if only because we then lose the consolidation when the same page number list is referenced many times.

The combination of callout and page numbers can get quite long^{[42]:9,11,51[1]:119,331} ...

I do agree that grouping the citations is a good idea.

--Mirokado (talk) 23:21, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm hoping that someday someone will set up a template suite to handle this with less manual intervention, or at least some error checking e.g. to see if a tag has been assigned to two different sources.

I agree we're "lucky if editors bother to add refs even approximately matching an existing format" but don't we have that problem even with sfn? For example, in Æthelwold_ætheling there's Miller 2004a and 2004b, and doesn't someone have to manually recognize that and assign the a and b? As already mentioned that happens a lot less with the Harvard approach (Naaaame YYYYa) but it still happens and still has to be checked for and handled when it comes up, so it's not qualitatively different, only quantitatively.

sfn requires you to list all the sources (right?) in the order you want them (alpha, or alpha-within-groups, or whatever) so that's the same in both systems.

Let's have some terminology. We've got the "callouts"

Dogs have tails.^[37] Most have wet noses.^[38]

and "intermediates"

37. ^ Scholar 2004, pp. 6-9

38. ^ Scholar 2004, p. 11

and the "sources"

Scholar, James (2004). A book on dogs. Tailwag publishers.

There are about 350 callouts in the article, and maybe 300 of those are unique combinations of source+page# (just guessing). So with the system above we'd have about 300 intermediates. And, to actually see what the source of anything is, you've got to first click the callout to get to the intermediate, then click the intermediate to get to the source.

If we move the pg#s into the callouts, the two intermediates collapse into one, and we get this.

Dogs have tails.^[37]^: 6–9 Most have wet noses.^[37]^: 11

37. ^ Scholar 2004

Scholar, James (2004). A book on dogs. Tailwag publishers.

In this setup, there's exactly one intermediate for every source -- 103 sources, 103 intermediates -- and the intermediates are just deadweight -- meaningless steppingstones to the sources. This is what I want to get rid of.

Look at callout [32] here [11] and trace it through the intermediate to the source. Note that the ref string Dragonholder was manually assigned. (This article is a bit of a mishmash of automatic and manual stuff.) Now, wouldn't this look cleaner if all those intermediates [32]-[41] were gone, and the callouts just included the page #s i.e. ^: 74 etc.? The problem (and this is the nub of the whole thing) is we don't want the callout to be ^{[Dragonholder]}^: 74 but rather ^[Dr]^: 74 or ^[Dr1]^: 74 or something. So that's where we are, and thus we have this question of assigning these little tags, if you accept my reasoning and choices so far.

So what do we do? Give up and go with straight sfn and have 300 intermediates? Still use sfn but move the pg#s into the callouts, and have the 103 utterly stupid intermediates? Or use something like the scheme I've described, with the compact tags but more difficult maintenance? Or can you think of something better? (I hope so!)

On another note, none of this is made simpler by the 5 groups, each with its own alpha order. I've thought about having just one big alpha order with some kind of designator that tells you which group the source is in, but that sprinkles the seven "For general readers (Gage)" sources among 100 other sources. But we want these 7 to be the easiest to find! Any bright ideas on this?

OK, enough for now. Thanks for keeping with this. Maybe someday all articles will use the Mirokado-EEng citation system! EEng (talk) 06:21, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

A major simplification

Tag1 and Tag2B

For general audiences (Gage)

Tag1	Tag2B	Ref
Ha68	H	Harlow 1868
Ke	K	Kean 2014
Ma00a	M	Mac2000 (OKF)
Ma08	M1	Macmillan 2008
Ma09	M2	Macmillan 2009
Ma11	M3	Macmillan 2011
Ma12	M4	Macmillan 2012

For general audiences (portraits)

Tag1	Tag2B	Ref
Le	L	Lena & Macmillan 2010
Tw	T	Twomey 2010
Wi09a	W	Wilgus 2009a
Wi09b	W1	Wilgus 2009b
Wi09c	W2	Wilgus 2009c
Wi10	W3	Wilgus 2010

For middle-school students

Tag1	Tag2B	Ref
Fl	F	Fleischman

For researchers and specialists

Tag1	Tag2B	Ref
Ba	B	Barker 1995
Bi50	B1	Bigelow 1850
Bi68	B2	Bigelow 1868
Fu	F1	Fuster 2008
Gr02	G	Grafman 2002
Ha48	H1	Harlow 1848
Ha49	H2	Harlow 1849
Ki	K1	Kihlstrom 2010
Ko	K2	Kotowicz 2007
Ma96	M5	Macmillan 1996
Ma00b	M6	Mac 2000 ("Restoring")
Ma01	M7	Macmillan 2001
Ma10	M8	Macmillan & Lena 2010
Ra04a	R	Ratiu 2004a
Ra04b	R1	Ratiu 2004b
Ty	T2	Tyler & Tyler 1982
Va48	V	Van Horn 1848

Other works cited: [1] Austin 1977; [2] etc

i.e. just use the usual < ref> machinery for these -- they won't be in alpha order but this isn't a "Suggested reading" list like the other groups, so it doesn't matter. Any new source added by a casual editor will end up in this group; if need be, it can be "promoted" to one of the other groups, and given a custom tag.

That looks promising. Unusually, I have no immediate quibbles! --Mirokado (talk) 13:21, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

That's a shame, because your quibbles have always led to improvements. This last design change makes the whole scheme suddenly much less trouble to just install, to see how it really looks. Do you think I should just do that (putting a pointer on the article Talk to this discussion)? EEng (talk) 15:04, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes I think you could do this. I've been looking at recent contributions to the Journal of the Society for the Propagation of Simple Section Names. Please post to the talk page to give other editors a heads up before starting. I suggest you add {{in use}} with the first edit so people don't panic if all is not perfect immediately. With so many citations, I think we should have the citation definitions in the reflist and the much shorter named ref callouts in the article source for the plain-old-ref references, <ref name="Austin-1977"/> or whatever. --Mirokado (talk) 16:03, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Implementing in sandbox

Actually, I'm developing it in User:EEng/sandbox, and will add a pointer to this discussion at Talk:PG before installing it -- not sure whether that can be today, but in any event please keep an eye since there will likely be some consternation, even though I'll explain it's just an experiment.

One thing I did, just to see what it looks like, is try upper-romans for the explanatory notes -- not sure what to make of that, but anyway...

One problem is how to get the indenting, etc. of the 4 "manual" sections to be just like "Other" section, which is generated by the usual < ref> machinery. The only way I've been able to come up with is to use a borderless table.

Not sure I understand what you mean in the sentence starting "With so many citations..." -- I think it's already like what you're saying. One point, though, is that (at least according to my experiments a yr or more ago) the explanatory notes cannot be "list-defined" -- they have to be embedded in the main text. The reason is that if the {{efn}} text itself includes {{r}} or < ref>, it all blows up, randomly and unpredictably, if you try to put the efns at the end in a reflist.

There is a certain detail I'd like your thoughts on, but it's best explained after I develop the sandbox better. EEng (talk) 20:01, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Looking good so far. You already have the other citations defined in the reflist so I've struck that comment. Yes I agree we can't have the notes in the reflist. I'll think about the list section indentation. --Mirokado (talk) 20:39, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

As you can see I've used nbsp to hack in alignment of column contents, compensating for one- versus two-character tags, etc. I find the syntax of tables infuriatingly confusing, but maybe you know what to do about this. I think the idea is to have a fixed col width of a few ems for the first col (the tag) and have the second col take up whatever width is still available in the window (or column -- speaking here of the column-of-page set up by {{refbegin}}, not of the columns within the tbl). EEng (talk) 20:51, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Har. I wasn't expecting you to use tables in the reflists! That was just a convenient way of generating the initial summary information. The tables don't break nicely into multiple columns so I don't think they will work for the real article. I usually leave the lists of citations full-width anyway, since they are all quite long, you could try leaving the 33em off the refbegin invocations so you just have a single column for the enclosing reflists. -- Mirokado (talk) 22:55, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Well, one column or two, a table is the only way I've been able to get the first 4 groups to line up exactly with the Other group -- no combination of :-indents and so on does the trick. (Some items still aren't quite right because there are some old nbsps left over from attempts using colon-indents.)

Now, as just as I'm writing to you, some stupid thing is happening causing one source to have it's tag (left column) on at the bottom of the left side of the page, but the body of the citation at the top of the right side of the page. It's your fault. You jinxed it! But we'll figure it out. Can you do me a favor? Can you figure out the syntax to make all entries in one column (the first column, with the tags) right-aligned? It seems to me there ought to be some syntax involving column headers using !align="right" or something, but I can't figure it out and of course we don't actually want a column header. But even if you do that, I won't be satisfied. I also want you to figure out how to add a whitespace padding on the right side of that column, i.e. enforced whitespace between these right-aligned values and the dividing border with the next column. This pad is to allow the position of the tags to match the position of the tags in the Other section. Does that make sense?

This is a lot of goddam work just because the geeks who maintain reflist can't get off their asses to allow control of the order in which the ref items are output. EEng (talk) 00:05, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

You can use a combination of scope and width to set the width for a whole column:

| scope="col" width="28px" |B.||{{cite journal

The align="right" attribute works, but only if you specify it individually for each cell in the column. I don't think that is necessary: it is at least as arguable as anything that the initial capital letters should be aligned to help the reader navigate the list by eye.

I also had a look at

{{refbegin}}
{| border="0" style="margin-left: 1em;"
|- valign="top"
| scope="col" width="18px" |B.||{{cite journal

which doesn't look too bad to push the first column over a bit. I'm not sure that the "px" is necessary in "18px", since it didn't seem to make any difference when I said "18em", but in any case there are some parameters to play with. --Mirokado (talk) 20:40, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

OK, so here's [12] the first use of our brand new {{ranchor}} ("reference anchor") template. Whaddya think? EEng (talk) 06:10, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Not too bad. The brackets enclosing the callout display are missing in the documentation expansions. If this is taken into use, the documentation can be expanded to be the same format as used for {{r}}, but that can come later. Ideally we also want a template which can define each line of the reference list without using tables and hiding whatever trickery is necessary from the user. --Mirokado (talk) 20:40, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Installed live

I used some of your code above in a new template {{rma}}. Overall it works really quite well, but there are still some alignment problems and I'm crosseyed after switching the article over to the new system. If you're inspired to adjust the column width, padding, whatever, please feel free. Otherwise, what do you think? I guess it's time to move the discussion over to Talk:PG. EEng (talk) 07:21, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

No catering to the ballistics inclined?

Seen as I posted this to EEng's talk page and I don't want to cause any suggestion of soliciting edits clandestinely, I thought it was best I put it here too:

Hello again, I believe the article Phineas Gage is potentially going to be a featured article soon and I was wondering, seen as we had that discussion a few months ago here in the talk page archive Talk:Phineas_Gage/Archive_7#A_source_touching_on_projectile_speed, I was wondering if you could assist the edit process so that some mention to speed/velocity is in the article, specifically the most certainly sub-sonic speed of the projectile given your journal reference, and our back of the envelop calculations. - Ordia, JI (1989). "Neurologic function seven years after crowbar impalement of the brain". Surgical Neurology 32: 152–155. discusses the significance of projectile speeds below 1000 ft/sec in reduced concussive damage.

Thanks, as I can't imagine leaving the article with all its (to me) superfluous info but failing to even mention speed or that no contemporary sources ever calculated the likely speed etc. it's like going to buy a car and the sales rep is frustratingly lecturing you all about the minutae of the trim and electronic crap you don't want to know about, you just want to know, or even get an estimate on, how fast can it go and what is its fuel economy. 92.251.141.157 (talk) 04:26, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

I've added a footnote [13] summarizing sources' commentary on this point. Eventually this should be part of a larger discussion of "why" Gage survived (perhaps in the main text instead of a note) but this is a start on addressing your request, anyway. However, there's no way we can bring our own back-of-the-envelope estimates into the article. EEng (talk) 06:59, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Talk about misattributed behaviors!

Another thought. I would also be willing to go through the page and boldly delete every occurrence of "shy" in words shorter than some number of letters (in the main text, leaving captions and boxes alone). Could you live with that? --Tryptofish (talk) 21:48, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

Holy bleep, EEng, I just looked – and there aren't any! My apologies! I looked closely at the "shy's" for the first time, and I only find them in image captions, not the main text. I had just assumed that they were in the main text, too, based on the complaining by other editors. As for the image captions, I'm more amenable to using the template there, because of the small amount of text and space. Perhaps, though, it would be better to have just one "shy" template per word – pick the one place where a hyphen if needed makes the most sense. Anyway, I am not shy about admitting it when I am incorrect about something (and you, EEng, might want to try that too!). --Tryptofish (talk) 20:06, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) ~~I admire your boldness, but there aren't any {{shy}}s in the main text. I could add some if it would give you pleasure to then remove them. EEng (talk) 21:51, 2 November 2014 (UTC)~~

As to my "trying that too", you wound me a bit there, because since junior high school (I was indeed a precocious brat) I have tried to conduct myself, according to the following passage from J.S. Mill's On Liberty:

In the case of any person whose judgment is really deserving of confidence, how has it become so? Because he has kept his mind open to criticism of his opinions and conduct. Because it has been his practice to listen to all that could be said against him; to profit by as much of it as was just, and expound to himself, and upon occasion to others, the fallacy of what was fallacious. Because he has felt, that the only way in which a human being can make some approach to knowing the whole of a subject, is by hearing what can be said about it by persons of every variety of opinion, and studying all modes in which it can be looked at by every character of mind. No wise man ever acquired his wisdom in any mode but this; nor is it in the nature of human intellect to become wise in any other manner. The steady habit of correcting and completing his own opinion by collating it with those of others, so far from causing doubt and hesitation in carrying it into practice, is the only stable foundation for a just reliance on it: for, being cognisant of all that can, at least obviously, be said against him, and having taken up his position against all gainsayers—knowing that he has sought for objections and difficulties, instead of avoiding them, and has shut out no light which can be thrown upon the subject from any quarter—he has a right to think his judgment better than that of any person, or any multitude, who have not gone through a similar process.

In short, I love to find out I'm wrong about something, because that means I know more than I did before. And it doesn't embarrass me to do so, because I know that this is a habit of the kinds of minds I try to emulate, and I know that people whose respect is worth earning understand that. EEng (talk) 21:51, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

(Tryptofish, grinning, replies to John Stuart Eng): OK, then, timestamp 20:06, 2 November 2014 (UTC), and then timestamp 21:51, 2 November 2014 (UTC). Those software developers really ought to get to work on fixing that time lag, because that's way too long for an acceptable edit conflict. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:52, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

You have to be careful, because it looks like Wikimedia isn't making the same timezone adjustment to both timestamps you quote -- unless I miss my guess if you look at the Saved (not raw or Preview) version of them, one is (UTC) and the other is tagged (UTC - [something]).

In database terms the conflict arises because I opened the edit window ("read"), took a break of hours and hours somewhere during composition, then finally attempted to save the edit ("write"), during which time you made a conflicting edit ("read" and "write"). This would be the log R1[x]R2[x]W2[x]W1[x], which is not serializable i.e not equivalent to any serial log, so as long as we remain within the read-write serializability model there's no possibility of automated resolution of the situation -- so don't blame any developers. This is intended, of course, to impress you mightily. When I was a young undergraduate P.A. Bernstein was my advisor [14] and for many years this kind of mumbojumbo was the center of my professional work. Believe it or not I know more about this stuff even than I know about Gage. EEng (talk) 23:47, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

For your sake, I hope that you do! (Evil laughter, and not personal attack) --Tryptofish (talk) 23:51, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Page ranges

Welcome back, EEng. About [15], it seems to me that most pages use n-dashes for page ranges. If there is a problem with the lengths of callouts, an alternative solution is to shorten the callouts. And CITEVAR isn't really what this is about. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:54, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

There's no problem with the length of the callouts, but there's no use making them any bigger than they need to be. Contrary to what many editors think, the choice of hyphen versus endash in many situations is not one of correctness but of just plain what looks better. In the teeny superscript citation callouts, endash and hyphen are close to indistinguishable at best (or at worst, endash looks oversized) so hyphen is either just as good a choice or the better choice. That's just my opinion of course.

Of course, MOS gives direction on hyphen versus endash in many cases, but when it comes to citation style, WP is very catholic (small-c catholic, of course), and many style guides allow or even dictate hyphen for page ranges. So where CITEVAR comes in is its injunction that

Editors should not attempt to change an article's established citation style merely on the grounds of personal preference, to make it match other articles, or without first seeking consensus for the change.

As you know, many things were changed over the last year under the banner of consistency among articles, as if that's a fundamental desideratum, which of course it's not except where MOS says so. One example was the change from hyphens to endashes in callouts, so I've changed them back. (Notice that endashes continue to be used for ranges outside of superscript callouts, as MOS directs.) Of course, if you think endash really looks better, we can discuss that. This is a question to be worked out among editors on a particular article, not one of global enforcement by those with a taste for such activities.

In the meantime, I contacted an editor who worked extensively on the article last summer -- our work was interrupted by the outbreak of the recent war. We got talking about how to implement certain decisions we'd made last year before the commencement of hostilities, and... Well, take a look Talk:Phineas Gage/Archive 7#Together again! EEng (talk) 22:47, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

I've looked at that discussion, and, well, it certainly is complicated. From it, I followed the link to your sandbox version, and I think that categorizing the sources as you are starting to do, such as differentiating between general interest and specialist, is a very promising idea. I think it's a good idea to pursue. For me (maybe not for all the other editors who have disputed with you about this page), what matters most isn't so much some abstract idea of making this page more like other pages, but making it like other pages in the sense of being written for the same general audience as the other pages. Take a look at WP:NOTHOW, items 6, 7, and 8. Even if the language is lucid (as it is here), formatting can make the page feel like a complicated academic text. Oh, and that passage you quoted from CITEVAR, that's about changing from one kind of citation style to another, not about little details within the style, such as hyphenation. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:42, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

I think a citation style does include all the little details, but we can talk about this, and everything else, more after I catch my breath. See next section. EEng (talk) 07:31, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

But changing a little detail doesn't change the kind/category of citation style (changing hyphens to n-dashes doesn't change the style from MLA to Harvard) which is what CITEVAR is talking about. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:04, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

I don't think that's right [16]. EEng (talk) 03:47, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Am I wasting my time discussing these things with you here? --Tryptofish (talk) 21:01, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Well, I certainly don't think so. After a long period of wasted of time (as I see it) attempting to address the frequently incomprehensible plaints of an another editor, I think there's been significant improvement to the article due largely to your suggestions -- the conversion of several notes to main text comes to mind right away.

On this particular point, I happen to put great value on the attractive presentation of words -- this is a tradition in mathematics and computer science especially -- and, within the bounds of what MOS allows I see no reason not to pursue that to the extent possible. There is no progress without deviation from the majority, and most of what's desirable and good in standard Wikipedia/Wikimedia practices and facilities started as someone's deviant desire to do better than what most pages achieved. For reasons I've explained I think the hyphen looks modestly but definitely better in superscript callouts, so if your only concern is that ndash, not hyphen, is used for page ranges in other WP contexts (though very few pages use {{rp}} -- i.e. page ranges in superscript callouts -- in the first place) then I'd like to ask that you allow me to exercise that judgment on this page, and encourage others to allow it as well, absent an counterargument other than "I don't see that on most other pages!" EEng (talk) 21:38, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps I am wasting my time. It seems to me that if I make an edit or a suggestion with which you happen to agree, everything is just fine. But if I make a suggestion with which you disagree, then you always want to be allowed "to exercise that judgment on this page". You still haven't given a good reason not to implement what I suggested about the sources for all those mis-attributed behaviors. Do you realize how insulting it was to me that you quoted [17]? First, it wasn't about CITEVAR, and second, I replied to that linked comment back then, so your quoting it back to me was like saying that my reply back then was of no value, that I should just allow "the professional" to edit without interference. The way to make progress about deviation from the majority isn't simply to edit however you wish and expect that everyone will be persuaded by your edits. If someone, like me, raises questions, and you respond to those questions by asking me not to prevent you from making progress about deviation from the majority, then you haven't really made any progress at all. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:55, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

I used the link only for its references to CITEVAR and external styles that use hyphens for page ranges. You should know better than to think I number you among the slaves of misinterpreted guidelines, and defunct grammarians, who have lately come and gone.
The fundamental difference between us, Tfish, is that you keep saying that the article ought to "look more like most other articles" (or variations on that), and I reject that as a desideratum per se. I just don't see how "looking like most other articles" trumps consideration of what just plain looks good, reads well, and serves the understanding of the reader (remembering that we have different kinds of readers, working, as always, within whatever latitude MOS allows).
I didn't, and never have, asked you to give me carte blanche "to exercise [my] judgment on this page", rather I've asked that in matters of utterly trivial import within the latitude allowed by MOS (like hyphens versus ndashes for page ranges in superscript callouts -- what an obscure question!) that we just leave things be and spend our time on things that really matter.
I have several times told you why I think your citation approach for the "misinterpreted behaviors" is a really bad idea: it makes it impossible to tell which of 30 cites support which of the 20 behaviors, and I think that violates WP:V. No article should ever piles a dozen cite callouts in a row -- that's either overciting, or a verification nightmare. EEng (talk) 05:50, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

I keep saying variations on that? Just above, I said "For me (maybe not for all the other editors who have disputed with you about this page), what matters most isn't so much some abstract idea of making this page more like other pages, but making it like other pages in the sense of being written for the same general audience as the other pages." That is not "of utterly trivial import". So, now you have explicitly said that you want me to defer to you on matters "within the latitude allowed by MOS" because they do not really matter. If they do not really matter, you sure act like they matter a lot to you. And yes, you've said several times that you want the cites for the behaviors to be behavior-specific. But your most recent comments to me about it before now were of the form: "I have some minor cleanup, wording/citation fixes, page #s to fill in, etc. that have stacked up recently, so during that time I'd like to spend on those what little brainpower I'll have available here. It's likely that along the way inspiration will come to me re integrating further note material into the main text, so you may find yourself pleasantly surprised along those lines as well. OK?" And I said OK. I've been very accommodating of you. I was hoping to be pleasantly surprised. Now, I'm unpleasantly surprised. I see you asked Looie for a third opinion, so I'll give a little time for that. But if it ends up still being just the two of us, you can expect an RfC. Please understand, I'm not angry at you personally, not at all. But I am dissatisfied with how this page is coming along. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:55, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

I made 4 separate points above, and you've kind of merged what I said about one into what I said about the other. (I've now added bullets to make the separation clearer.) To clarify:

I didn't say that the general style of the page (e.g. "should be for general readers" -- and I agree with that) is of trivial import. I said that hyphens-versus-endashes is of trivial import (in the larger scheme of things, that it -- it's not trivial if you care about the clean typographic appearance of the page).
I did not ask you to defer to me on matters "within the latitude allowed by MOS" because they do not really matter -- I suggested that when such things do not really matter, that we spend our time on things that really do matter. So far I haven't even heard that you care about hyphens-ndashes -- throughout this thread you haven't even expressed a preference.
I'm sorry I wasn't, in fact, able to pleasantly surprise you over the last 4 weeks -- the source grouping project, and the heave-ing, took much more of my attention than I expected. Thus my prediction that "inspiration will come to me re integrating further note material into the main text" didn't come true -- so sue me.
Look, obviously we agree that the article's first priority must be to serve the general reader. Good. Beyond that, you seem to think that it currently fails to do that as well as it could, but I'm still unclear why. Is it the presence of footnotes? If so I still need that explained to me. As I've said so many times, notes are a place where additional detail can be added (for the benefit of specialist readers) that might overwhelm the general reader if it was included in the main text. We get the best of both worlds. Is that what you object to? I don't get it. (And as also mentioned before, plenty of FAs have extensive footnotes, though admittedly not as extensive as those here -- but is this really a quantitative question?)

Nonetheless, many notes came into being because, at the time they were written, there was no place in the main article for that stuff to go, and you've pointed out many places where notes now do have a place in the main article. Six months ago there were something like 40 notes (as I recall), and now there are 22 or something. You and I made a list somewhere above of maybe 5 more that we were talking about doing something with. Can't we just continue that discussion? Can't we all just get along? EEng (talk) 03:25, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

I see that Looie has, rather more wisely than I, decided not to get enmeshed. As for #Comparison of proposals, I could, if you would find it helpful, work up a third version, in which all of the behaviors would be indicated for the sources they are taken from. Would it be helpful if I did that? Or would it be better if I went straight to an RfC? --Tryptofish (talk) 21:44, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

My major concerns are (a) that the reader be able to tell which specific source(s) ~~support~~ assert or discuss each behavior (or small group of related behaviors), so he doesn't have to wade through a huge undifferentiated source list to find the one or two sources relevant to a particular behavior; and (b) that the main article text not look like the ugly thing I had originally [18], with every single word overshadowed by it cites. If there's some way, that you like, to achieve those I'd love to see it. EEng (talk) 21:51, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

[I've clarified a bit above, because it appears that my choice of the word "support" misled one of my esteemed fellow editors [19].] EEng (talk) 21:55, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Good. It will take a bit of time, but I think I might be able to do that. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:47, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Source groupings

I've reimplemented the grouping of sources in, well, groups (e.g. "For general readers"). This idea was first discussed in this very long discussion [20], and a very strange way of implementing it tried (by yours truly). This new method relies on more standard machinery, after an also-very-long discussion at Talk:Phineas Gage/Archive 7#Together again! EEng (talk) 07:18, 28 October 2014 (UTC) P.S. I thought this might affect the "bundling" question we suspended some weeks ago (above), but in the event it looks like it doesn't. Deep breath, then time to get back to that, I guess. EEng (talk) 07:23, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. I guess one thing I am learning from watching this page is about the existence of all kinds of Wikipedia templates that I never knew existed. So, does template:ranchor generate rancor?

I do like the concept of source groupings. If possible, I'd like to see that very long miscellaneous group at the bottom categorized like everything else. If it isn't obvious where those sources go, then I would say that they default to being for researchers or specialists. And I think that putting that one Fleischman source all by itself in a kiddies section is a bit pointy. If it's suitable for middle school students, then it's another source for general audiences.

By "bundling", I figure you mean our discussion about all those behaviors that were misattributed to Gage. I'm still looking forward to getting back to that discussion when you are ready. I think that, perhaps, one possible way that source groupings could affect notes etc. is that, once we have identified content that is sourced to references that are specifically for people who are academic specialists, as opposed to general readers of Wikipedia, then we will be in a better position to determine what belongs on this Wikipedia page and what does not. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:00, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, that's the bundling discussion I was talking about.

The function of the all but the last group is to highlight sources for readers who want to learn more either about either (a) Gage ("general readers" and "middle school"); or (b) Gage's place in medical history, or technical medical details ("researchers/specialists"). The "other works cited" group is for sources that aren't reasonably useful for that, but are there for the reason 99 44/100% of sources are there in all articles: WP:V. I don't see any point in subgrouping this pile here, just as they're not grouped in other articles. What further grouping did you have in mind?

Also, as Mirokado pointed out in the discussion linked above, we need at least one group of sources that use the usual < ref> machinery, so that if a casual editor adds a new source in the usual way (i.e. using < ref>), that source will actually be displayed instead of just an error message (as we'd get if there was no {{reflist}} section).

Worse, every source that's grouped, instead of just "Other", must be manually assigned a tag (like M, K1, etc. in the current source list) and the burden of doing that for all 100+ sources -- and keeping them consistent and nonduplicative as new sources are added -- almost sank the entire grouping scheme. You'll see that in the linked discussion too.

EEng (talk) 04:31, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

For me, the value of bundling is to distinguish between sources for the general reader (the typical audience of Wikipedia) and sources for the academic specialist (not the typical audience of Wikipedia). That's basically two groups. It shouldn't be that difficult to figure out which of two groups a source fits into. As for the other issues that you point out, there is an alternative solution, which is to format this page like most Wikipedia pages. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:06, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Wait, I think we're confusing bundling (the question discussed at #Comparison of proposals and so on) with source grouping (identifying a small group of sources as "For general readers", "For specialists" etc.). As mentioned in the discussion linked at Mirokado's talk page, this approach to formatting (or at least something very like it) is used in many other WP articles, even if not most. EEng (talk) 21:38, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

I've archived the source grouping discussion mentioned above at Talk:Phineas Gage/Archive 7#Together again! since it so clearly relates to the development of the article (links fixed). --Mirokado (talk) 00:34, 11 November 2014 (UTC)