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November 2015

Halloween cheer!

Happy Halloween!

Hello SMcCandlish:
Thanks for all of your contributions to improve Wikipedia, and have a happy and enjoyable Halloween!
    – North America1000 01:29, 1 November 2015 (UTC)


Send Halloween cheer by adding {{subst:Happy Halloween}} to user talk pages with a friendly message.
Sent to users on my mailing list. To opt-out forever, just remove your name.
Thanks. It's still very much ongoing in my time zone, what with Halloween falling on a weekend. My neighbs are partying loudly and will probably be at it for another 4 hours. Guess I'll watch zombie movies. I usually go next door and join in their parties, but don't feel like it this time around. Will take too much effort to work out a costume from the stuff in my wardrobe. Last time, I did a smoking jacket, an old-fashioned hat, and a cravat, as the Thirteenth Doctor, but that lazy pseudo-costume only works once. I'll just wait until they have a non-Halloween party, heh.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  09:27, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Inventions and Sinfonias (Bach)

 Done

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Inventions and Sinfonias (Bach). Legobot (talk) 00:02, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 45, 2015)

no Declined
 – I have no interest in celeb articles. We focus on them too much.
Hello, SMcCandlish.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Allegra Versace

Please be bold and help to improve this article!

Previous selections: Comedy horror • Team sport

Get involved with the TAFI project. You can: Nominate an article • Review nominations

Posted by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:22, 2 November 2015 (UTC) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • Opt-out instructions

Topic ban belatedly lifted

Hi, I realize this somewhat late, but the discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive275#Request_to_lift_temporary_topic-ban has been closed and the ban formally lifted. As far as I'm concerned, you are retroactively unbanned as of a month ago. I realize that this is small comfort, since the ban only had 2 more days to run, but I don't think maintaining unsupported sanctions just because we're too lazy to lift them is a valid reason.

Happy editing.--Aervanath (talk) 21:07, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

@Aervanath: Thanks. I appreciate it, "just for the record" if nothing else. It was a pretty silly situation. Unfortunately, I'm eyeballs deep in "real work" right now, and don't actually have time to work on the WP stuff that I did have time to work on a month ago but couldn't because of the TBan. LOL. So it goes. Hopefully I can get back into that stuff in a week or so. The bulk of the source research is done, but the actual content writing will take considerable effort.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  11:39, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
  • Also just for the record, I only now realized (that's how little I hold grudges!) that Future Perfect at Sunrise, who issued the TBan that was just vacated, is the same admin who issued me a bogus short-term block last year, predicated on false facts and assumptions, and then pulled the no-response act, dragging it out until it was moot, despite being reminded multiple times "Administrators are expected to respond promptly and civilly to queries about their Wikipedia-related conduct and administrator actions and to justify them when needed." This is the second time the same admin has used punitive WP:AC/DS to muzzle me, after a dispute had already wound down, and did so in heavy favor of my opposite party in a content dispute (the first time, on the direct request of that party). Both times, the one-sided sanctioning action was taken on the basis of false accusations of wrongdoing and a total lack of understanding of what was actually happening. In both cases the admin refused to provide evidence of their accusations against me, to respond to my requests to clarify, and to respond to multiple other parties' (including other admins') requests for justification. This is not exactly a trust-inspiring pattern of admin tool use, and there's a procedural remedy for dealing with that which I'll avail myself of, for the first time in my ten+ years here, if it happens again. Many editors would already have done so, but I trust that it will simply not be repeated. We all have better things to do here.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  16:21, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Arguments in News discussions

Can you create an essay WP:Arguments to avoid in News discussions or an essay about arguments in WP:ITN/C discussions? --George Ho (talk) 02:02, 5 November 2015 (UTC)@

@George Ho: Someone could, but I have almost no contact with ITN, so I wouldn't be familiar enough with the "frequently made arguments" there. I'd be more in a position to write WP:Arguments to avoid in style discussions. Anyway, see WP:Arguments to avoid on discussion pages for starters. Are the ITN problems ones that are not already catalogued there?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  11:44, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
You can do an essay about arguments in style discussions... What are style discussions? George Ho (talk) 16:15, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
WT:MOS and the talk pages of the other style guidelines, and similar discussions at other pages. Discussions about writing style, punctuation, grammar, spelling, tone, dialect, layout, and other presentation style matters.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:22, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

Infoboxes and mobile

Just for info - Infoboxes are visible in mobile (at least in the version I'm using which I think is beta). They appear as a link "Quick facts" which expands to display the whole infobox including images. It's sidebars, navboxes, stub templates, hatted stuff on talk pages etc that are the problem! PamD 06:38, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Well, the solution adopted for infoboxes can probably be adapted to the other cases. Might even just be a matter of applying some existing CSS classes, though I have not looked into that yet. I don't spend much time on WP in mobile (meaning phone) browsers (lots of netbooks use regular browsers; "mobile" is a poor word choice, really, better describing the method of networking than anything to do with the display). If I'm hitting WP on my phone, its usually to look something up in the lead of an article. I've only tried editing WP from a phone a few times; not a pleasant experience. I think I did see something last month about all collapsed content being permanently inaccessible in the mobile skin. That's obviously a problem that needs fixing. It doesn't make any sense that the clickable widget to expand it would disappear in that skin. 06:56, 5 November 2015 (UTC) Ping: PamD.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  11:46, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Alternative theories of the location of Great Moravia

 Done

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Alternative theories of the location of Great Moravia. Legobot (talk) 00:01, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Political correctness

 Done

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Political correctness. Legobot (talk) 00:04, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 46, 2015)

no Declined
 – I have no interest in celeb articles. We focus on them too much.
Marie Serneholt at the 48th Guldbagge Awards.
Hello, SMcCandlish.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Marie Serneholt

Please be bold and help to improve this article!

Previous selections: Allegra Versace • Comedy horror

Get involved with the TAFI project. You can: Nominate an article • Review nominations

Posted by: EuroCarGT (talk) 00:34, 9 November 2015 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • Opt-out instructions

E-cigs PD talk page

 Done

Hi SM, Could you please to move your comments in Awilley's section to your own? I think it might be easier if you do it yourself rather than me moving them around. If you don't (want to / etc) let me know and one of the clerks will. Thanks, Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 07:26, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

@Callanecc: Okey-dokey.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  23:52, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

TAFI talk

 Done
 – I didn't have much to say about the central topic, though.
  • Hello SMcCandlish:
You are invited to participate in this discussion at the TAFI talk page regarding improving the automation of project processes and management of the project. Your input is appreciated.
Sent by Northamerica1000 using mass messaging on 15:12, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
You have new message/s Hello. You have a new message at Wikipedia talk:Today's articles for improvement's talk page. Message added 14:07, 11 November 2015 (UTC).

Request to revisit the discussion. North America1000 14:07, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Done. I opened a thread, Wikipedia talk:Today's articles for improvement#Pre-bot streamlining, on ways to improve the presently iffy usability. The page is on my watchlist.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  17:02, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Infoboxes; DS alert

If you want to issue DS alerts to all participants in infobox discussions who called their opponents something unpleasant, you will be a busy man ;) - thanks for logic I find convincing, btw. I use {{infobox person}} for all people, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:07, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

I've resolved to deliver them henceforth every time I see WP:ARBATC transgressed in a way that can't be denied, particularly in instances of imputing that another editor has a mental problem (insanity, fanaticism, obsession, etc.) Not because I think the recipient is a WP:JERK, but because this tendency to treat WP talk pages as if they were webboards or Usenet newsgroups (venues for sport debate and flamewarring) is decidedly anti-collaborative (and I say that as someone historically far too flamey). I expect this to have two long-term results (other than some additional being people irritated with me): a general increase in civility in these discussions, and an increase in awareness that the {{Ds/alert}} system is pointless bureaucracy that should be abandoned in favor of assuming that WP:AC/DS can be applied to any regular participants on pages / in processes subject to DS, on the basis that they can't help but know the DS apply after enough participation. I'd like to see the DS, at least in this topic area, either abandoned, or applied 10x more frequently, but more moderately (e.g. 1-day blocks, 1-week narrow topic bans). The present practice of singling out a small number of editors for lopsided punitive treatment has to end one way or the other.

Back to IBs: I default to {{Infobox person}}, but it's often not suited to topical bios where some particular convention has evolved. E.g. the typical snooker bio infobox (as at Ronnie O'Sullivan) has a large number of parameters that do not pertain outside snooker, and which would be onerous if manually coded as custom fields. I'm a little put off by the {{Infobox composer}} one, because it's clearly been "shaped" by a single editor to "forbid" certain kinds of information that would routinely be included (e.g. notable relative, unless there's a separate article on a whole "dynasty" of them). On the other hand, its limitation of the use of the works parameter to only be used for a link to a "list of works" article instead of someone's cherry picked inline list of favorites, is a great idea that should be propagated to other infoboxes, other than for subjects notable only for a very short list of total works. I'm not a "let a thousand flowers bloom" guy when it comes to interface elements and presentation methods, preferring a consistent user experience, but I favor "let 1,000 ideas get tested, and implement the best ones broadly".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  08:51, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Learning. Compare the first approach (Bach's 2013 birthday, archived) to the recent one which people could support. The arbitrators thought they could manage ib discussions by simply taking Andy and me out of the game, - as we see now nothing was solved. The belief in the influence of a single editor is amazing (and wrong). It is not one person responsible for a gender gap, and not two people the cause of unrest in composer ib wishes. Ask the future arbitrators questions about it! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:13, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
Oh, I know. At least three admins appear to be convinced that if that damned SMcCandlish is muzzled that disputes about style matters will stop. It's a fantasy. I quit WP for an entire year, other than to pop back in and answer some questions or respond to attempts to undo my template work when others notified me about it in e-mail, and nothing at MoS changed at all, other than for the worse. When it wasn't largely moribund, it was bent in project-unhelpful ways by people on various short-sighed pet peeve missions. The WP:BIRDCON brouhaha (which has notably resulted in a massive amount of calm about article title capitalization after the dust settled) was blamed on / credited to me, but was set in motion by an RM that happened while I was still away during that time, and kicked into high gear by a pro-capitalization editor who launched the RfC on the matter against my advice to let it lie (I'd returned by that point), and after threatening me with DS, by the way. All I did was provide the bulk of the evidence and logic against the pro-capitalization side. And I got sanctioned for proving the case against them because someone took me to AE for statements I made about their tactics that were already proven in their original contexts, and I wasn't given time to re-prove them at AE with another pile of diffs. We call his "railroading". I do more to resolve style disputes, in lasting ways, than I ever do to start any of them. It's just that some people get pissed off and raise holy hell if such a dispute isn't getting resolved their pet-peeve way.

In fairness, I was more vociferously argumentative ca. 2012–2013. But no amount of Judge Dredd admin behavior has changed my attitude toward how to approach content and policy disputes here. What has changed my mind is editors with sometimes opposing viewpoints, like Peter Coxhead, and Dirtlawyer1, taking the time and effort to suggest where I was too debatory and what some better approaches might be. Having people like Montanabw, and earlier Noetica, both of whom I had seemingly intractable long-term disputes with, come around and agree to truces was also very helpful. It takes two to argue, but also two to mend the fence. I'm willing to mend fences with anyone, even people I've not been able to see eye-to-eye with much for a decade. All it takes is some mutual effort. With a few, this doesn't seem practical, though I try to verbally support them any time I agree with them on minor stuff, even if I have to debate them on other things, so it doesn't seem like I'm opposing them just to oppose them. It's all to easy to respond only negatively, an effect that newspaper and PR people have know about for a century (if every letter of praise received represents the views of 5 to 10 times as many as a negative one, because people are spurred to action mostly when they're angry or afraid, not when they're content).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:15, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

I think you - kind of neutral - might be able to "mend" between those who think an ib is as normal to an article as images, and those who believe any ib damages the article. You met a few, and there are not many more. The Sibelius talk is probably not the ideal place to hold talks about the editors who take an article to GA/FA. Sibelius is none yet. The principal editor is Ipigott, not a fighter in the battle. Mirokado supports ibs. Sgvrfjs has good ideas on ibs for his compositions, see Talk:The Oceanides (GA). Those who commented so much last night after I had given advice how to avoid it barely touched the article. - Some neutral space for discussion the extra rights of people creating extra quality might be a good idea. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:43, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
I agree that proposing extra rights for some editors should be discussed elsewhere; I was just responding to the suggestion that they somehow already had extra rights. On IBs, I'm not all that neutral, and favor them, except for stubs that don't have enough info to bother with yet, and I'm "wikipolitically" opposed to wikiprojects trying to blockade the addition of infoboxes to any of 'their" articles, so I have two dogs in the same fight, as it were. Not sure I can be much of a moderating factor.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  18:23, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
No question that they believe they already have extra rights, including reverting an IB that was there for years (but talk about respect for a history without one), --Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:37, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
In a nutshell: Talk:Joseph (opera). I have potential arbitrators look at it. They tell me they are not brave enough ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:33, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
I'd thought there was a previous discussion about removing the old box, not just someone removing it. But I haven't dug into the history much. As for mediators not wanting to get involved, I'm not surprised. Admins in general seem to be increasingly avoidant of anything controversial; as much as I have an issue with 3 or 4 of them, most of them mean well and do pretty well, but take a lot of crap for it. That said, the classical IBox dispute doesn't seem all that bad, it's just tedious and drawn out.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  12:17, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

I just had reason (two questions by different users) to enter the minefield of Mozart, looking at the history. That of Joseph was easier: I inserted in 2013, was reverted, a bit of discussion, - now - with less restriction, I'm on parole, DYK? - I tried again going over the old cases. I should have looked at the history and the talk, but might have liked to check anyway if some people learned in two years. Of all operas reverted in 2013, Joseph is the only one which still is like that. - I think you could run some RfC about the extra rights of principal authors in general, where infobox is only one topic. There's also citation style, for example. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:27, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Citations needed tags on MoS pages

Resolved
 – Done

Hi, I hesitate to invite you to enter MoS discussions, given recent admin actions, but I'd like your opinion. I strongly object to the addition of "citation needed" tags to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Pronunciation. This is the thin end of a very long wedge, it seems to me. You have more experience than I do in these matters; I thought there was a clear consensus that MoS pages don't need citations to support decisions recorded there, although they can be added for information. See also Wikipedia:No original research/Noticeboard#Improper tagging.

Am I right in my view about previous consensus? Peter coxhead (talk) 12:14, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Right. {{citation needed}} is a WP:V template, and that policy applies to encyclopedia content, not internal documentation like policy/guideline pages, which are a matter of consensus. I thought there was only one editor who didn't understand this, but now it seems we have a pair of them [sigh]. I refactored the editor's concern (which may be valid) to the guideline's talk page. We do sometime use citation templates to provide external links when MoS is explicitly following a third-party standards document (see, e.g., footnotes at MOS:ACCESSIBILITY). But they are not "sources" for why MoS says what it says; the only existing or needed source for that is WP's own talk archives.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  13:59, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
Thanks. I think I need to add Category:Tired Wikipedians to my user page too. It does get tiring when we go over the same old ground time and time again. I think that the editor concerned may have a point, but the point is whether this a helpful convention for the English Wikipedia to use to represent English phonemics in its articles, given that some of it seems to be unknown elsewhere, not whether OR is involved or citations are needed. Sigh... Keep calm and carry on, I guess. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:15, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Muammar Gaddafi

 Done

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Muammar Gaddafi. Legobot (talk) 00:01, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

Template talk:Infobox language

 Done

Just a head's up, since you've been involved in this kind of thing, we (I) might have a problem with wording where our sources do not provide (reliable) data on the number of native speakers. Would value your opinion. — kwami (talk) 21:58, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. I chimed in, and it reminded me of something else, too.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  06:51, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 47, 2015)

A continuum of goods and services
Hello, SMcCandlish.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Goods and services

Please be bold and help to improve this article!

Previous selections: Marie Serneholt • Allegra Versace

Get involved with the TAFI project. You can: Nominate an article • Review nominations

Posted by: EuroCarGT (talk) 00:16, 16 November 2015 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • Opt-out instructions

EBSCO request

Hi SMcCandlish, I had tried to send you and email on 15 October regarding your application for access to EBSCO, but it looks to me like there may have been a problem with the email. Have you received it yet? I would be happy to re-send it if it hasn't gone through. -Thibbs (talk) 01:13, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

@Thibbs: I don't seem to have it; checked my spambox, too. I do have the "Email this user" featured turned on, and even got a notice that you'd left this message here.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  07:34, 16 November 2015 (UTC)
I'm currently conducting follow-ups for those who haven't responded to my first email. When I email applicants I usually retain a copy for my records that I can then re-send if there are problems but for some strange reason I can't find a copy of my original email to you. So it's quite possible I never sent it in the first place... If that's the case then I apologize for the lengthy delay. Anyway I just sent the email so we should be back on track now. Thanks for your patience. -Thibbs (talk) 11:25, 16 November 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for the followup. :-) I've submitted the form.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  12:12, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

I sent you a similar email for OUP but don't see a form response there either - did you get that email? Nikkimaria (talk) 17:13, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

@Nikkimaria: Oh, yes, it just got mis-filtered. I submitted the form just now.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  17:36, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Larry Sanger's NPOV

They have not wandered off. In fact, they want to rewrite the articles as lifestyle products. QuackGuru (talk) 19:33, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Good quote; using that on my userpage along with the Pakistan news. This is a much bigger problem than e-cig article manipulation. With WP in the top-5 sites in the world, and the world's most-used encyclopedia and general "databank", there are tremendous stakes involved, seeking to worm their way in for outright propaganda purposes.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  09:09, 19 November 2015 (UTC)
They are very active. There are socks everywhere. The problems are way too big. Nothing has been done about the problems on Wikipedia. They are accusing me of things they did. They do something against consensus and then they accuse me of what they did. They are accusing me of things I did not do. An editor is being accused of being a meat puppet account for agreeing with me. What would Larry Sanger do? I added about 90% of the content to the e-cig page this year. Now they want me gone rather than collaborate. Once I am gone they will rewrite the e-cig page and related pages. I have seen things like this before. I does not matter who is right or wrong. Larry Sanger's NPOV has been forgotten. QuackGuru (talk) 18:54, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Azov Battalion

 Done

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Azov Battalion. Legobot (talk) 00:01, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Ahem

Moved back to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style § MOS:ELLIPSIS

Re: [3] I'm hoping that based on you own reverts[4] you might be open to the possibility that this is quite unlikely to be either wiki-laywering/gaming. Having this in the middle of the discussion probably isn't going to help keep things focused. If you can find a solution that you're comfortable with to that, it would be really appreciated. —Sladen (talk) 21:52, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

@Sladen: I'm objecting to the "proceduralize this to death" approach. It does smack of wikilawyering. It doesn't matter why we arrived 8 years ago at something. It's been stable and has resisted change so there's a consensus for it. Consensus can change, but it does so by presenting a new rationale for why that change should happen, not second-guessing why a decision was made that long ago. We do not have a time machine and cannot go back and re-examine the entire decision-making process. The breadcrumbs left though old discussions are an incomplete snapshot of what the thinking was. We do not need an endless raft of people showing up at MoS claiming they can't find a decade-old consensus for some line-item that triggers one of their personal pet peeves. Nothing would happen at MoS every again, pretty much, other than dealing with people raising bogus procedural "appeals" against every single thing in MoS they want to change for their own personal reasons. The specific rules in MoS are less important than its stability. Zero editors agree with every single line-item in MoS, and zero line items in MoS have universal agreement. What we do agree on is to operate under it because any project of this sort has to have a style guide, which will necessarily contain many arbitrary things simply to settle disputes and prevent inconsistent usage. Every sport, by analogy, has to have a ruleset, and not everyone will always agree that each of them is perfect, but the game does not go on unless people agree to play by the same rules. If you have evidence that that rationales for the rule against the (for me, nearly impossible to make out) unicode ellipsis character are faulty, then present that evidence. It's a waste of time to try to "re-litigate" an eight-year-old consensus discussion on the merits of the arguments 8 years ago. If nothing else, it's a WP:DGAF matter. No one cares whether the arguments were good 8 years ago. We care what MoS should say now, based on arguments that make sense now. I see no case really presented for the benefit of using that character today. It's hard to read, hard to type, and may well still present font problems on some systems. Even if that last point is no longer true, it is not the only (present-day) rationale against that character. This is part of a wider-ranging set of issues, e.g. about using Unicode fraction characters and so on. Just because a character exists does not mean it is the ideal representation of something in an encyclopedia.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  22:39, 19 November 2015 (UTC)
Thank you for the very long reply. I particularly agree with "We care what MoS should say now, based on arguments that make sense now.", and I'm hopeful that conversation can focus on this. —Sladen (talk) 22:43, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

A drive-by thank you!

I truly appreciated your thoughtful and accurate explanation at ArbCom, re:GMO case. Atsme📞📧 04:30, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

I do my best.  :-)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  11:20, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
...which is exceedingly good. Thanks for sharing yourself. petrarchan47คุก 20:06, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
YW!  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  18:14, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Welcome

... to the cabal of the outcasts! You will have seen that there's WP:QAIPOST for news of project interest, such as: are the recordings of BWV 38 better as a list or a table. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:58, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

St Cecilia's Day
A Boy was Born

Music in your ears and heart! (in a box) - ideas? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:21, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

ps: What is it showing the image strangely displaced? Here a simple link, or see my talk today. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:25, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
Looks okay in my browser, if the intent was that it be floated to the right.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:50, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
Compare for example this, - when I added to your page, the image alone floated left, while the frame was right. I'll try. Now it works in preview, but it did before. Perhaps some html code in a message above?
St Cecilia's Day
A Boy was Born
Btw: I usually archive my talk when I get to 50 messages ;) - Did you see the revert on Sibelius? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:15, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
Now it works, the image that was removed from the article as pointy. Pointy yes: it points at the fact that our article name is not good. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:18, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Pings can't be fixed

Hi -- having seen your edit summary, I thought it might be useful to point out a "gotcha" that many editors fall into: it is useless to fix a malformed ping. The reason is that pings are only activated when the auto-signature at the end of a message is rendered. Once that has happened, the ping won't have any effect no matter what you do to it. Best regards, Looie496 (talk) 20:29, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Which itself is only a necessary condition. You actually need to start an entirely new block of text to ping a user. --Izno (talk) 20:54, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
Ping: Looie496, Izno – So, if you fix the username in the ping, it won't work even if you remove your sig and make a new one?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  03:39, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
I don't know. Looie496 (talk) 04:27, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
Correct. Other fun bits at mediawikiwiki:Manual:Echo. --Izno (talk) 05:40, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
Well, butt-nuggets. I guess next time I'll have to self-rv the entire block of text, then put it back in with a new ping and sig in a separate edit. This is really sub-optimal.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  12:33, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
As if it's a hack to deal around having wikitext talk pages. No, couldn't be that. ;) --Izno (talk) 19:46, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Iranian peoples

 Done

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Iranian peoples. Legobot (talk) 00:02, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Saw a comment at naming (persons)

I'm curious; do you know of any recent central discussion regarding the play of (particularly) WP:STAGENAME with WP:LOWERCASE (since STAGENAME as well as WP:TITLETM are probably the most likely to cause odd capitalization)? There's a guideline discussion related where I've been asked my preference whether odd capitalization is something to capture in article titles. Neither of the above really capture "go with RS", though you seemed to have an opinion on that that may or may not differ from the guidance of the above. --Izno (talk) 06:13, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

@Izno: Not right off-hand. I got a bogus topic ban from AT/MOS, and while it was lifted on appeal to WP:AN, it took most of Sept. – early Nov. to get that result, so I'm way behind on these topics. There's some amount of faintly related discussion at both WT:AT and WT:NCP, about rendering of nicknames and pseudonyms, and the gist of it is "follow our conventions, don't do what entertainment industry magazines do (they lack independence because their advertising dollars come from labels/studios, so they do what those $ sources tell them to), and don't do weird stuff to names/titles on WP unless general-audience sources almost invariably honor the weird style, as with "iPod" and "Deadmau5", but not "KISS" or "Ke$ha". See also the ongoing RM at Talk:JIRA, and the talk page and archives at MOS:TM, and quasi-recent RM and WT:MOSCAPS and WT:MOSTM discussions (Aug.–Sep.?) about overcapitalization in song titles. Not sure where else to look for recent material. Where's the discussion you're talking about? Sounds like one I'd want to put my $0.02 into (and I'm asking, so you wouldn't be canvassing :-).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  12:44, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
It's a listed RFC to which I've contributed in the past few days... it shouldn't be hard to find it through some basic stalking. :^) --Izno (talk) 19:32, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
What exact name to use varies on a case by case basis, so all this "Option 1", "Option 2" stuff is a waste of time. A more succinct statement of my position on the 'naming' point. :^) --Izno (talk) 16:31, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
I guess I did find it, then. Heh.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:45, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Bot automation at Wikipedia:Today's articles for improvement

Greetings WikiProject TAFI members!

Over the past two weeks, there has been extensive discussion on introducing bot automation to assist with maintenance of the Today's Articles for Improvement project. A bot has now been approved for trial and will carry out the weekly duties. The bots first run will occur around 00:00, 22 November 2015 (UTC) (midnight on Sunday).

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Read this... thoroughly!

Moved to User talk:Cebr1979
 – [5]   This is about you, not me.
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Don't you EVER put something back on to my talk page that I have removed. Ever.

I never even read whatever you added, nor will I.Cebr1979 (talk) 22:31, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

@Cebr1979: LOL. You need to actually read and understand the guideline you're citing like a weapon. No one owns their own user talk pages; they exist for the sole purpose of facilitating editor–editor communication to improve the encyclopedia via collaboration and to resolve inter-editor conflicts. It's entirely permissible to refactor something temporarily to simply enable a reply. We all know that you nuke everything off your talk page. You know that others find this disruptive and anti-collaborative when you do it so fast and so WP:POINTedly as to make communication difficult. No one takes seriously, for five seconds, your patent WP:GAMING attempt to WP:WIKILAWYER the user talk guideline to make other editors, attempting in good faith to use user talk pages for their intended purpose, look like bad guys and raise a bunch of WP:DRAMA; it's the very WP:LAMEst possible form of conflict generation. I don't know if it's going to take a week or a year, but the predictable ultimate result of this behavior, combined with all the other behaviors that lead people to rarely post anything on your talk page but objections and warnings, is an indefinite block for WP:COMPETENCE / WP:NOTHERE / WP:BATTLEGROUND / WP:DE patterns. I'm pretty sure everyone can see this but you. I think that result will be unfortunate, because some of what you've done here has been constructive, and it would not take any real effort on your part to stop this (It takes excessive, unproductive effort, however, to act as hostile and isolationist as you have been). The community has had no compunction in the past closing the gate to sometimes-productive editors who seem unable to get along collaboratively and who treat Wikipedia like some kind of deathmatch game. It doesn't matter whether you refuse to read what people post to your talk page; per the very WP:USERTALK guideline you cite, your deletion of such posts constitutes acknowledgement and understanding of them. There is no provision anywhere for "banning" anyone from your talk page if they have a legitimate reason for posting here (pointing you to applicable guidelines and policies, and their meaning, in the wake of your own excessively hostile, policy-misconstruing post on my talk page is a legitimate reason, and more to the point so is suggesting how to avoid further trouble with other editors here). The WP:ICANTHEARYOU game you're trying to play is a failure before it even begins. Finally, you have no business demanding that others read your talk page posts "thoroughly" if you make a point of ignoring everyone else's. See WP:KETTLE.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  18:49, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Don't you EVER come to my talk page again!

Resolved
 – This doesn't appear to be a legitimate dispute, just chestbeating.

I have said that to you before and this is your last warning! You understand "weapons" (as you called it) as much as you understand the English language (which is not at all, you're a joke both ways). Read this. NOW. And then stop acting like you know wikipedia (and the English language). You're an editor, not a scholar on anything. "LOL..." as you like to say (even though intelligent people are the ones actually "LOL-ing" at you and your nonsense. One more reminder: don't ever come to my talk page again. Cebr1979 (talk) 04:10, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

@Cebr1979: I'm not sure on what basis you're making assumptions about my level of scholarship. I never made any claims in that regard anyway. But it's a straw man fallacy; your grammar and punctuation behaviors, in those cases, are wrong because published style and grammar guides uniformly say they're wrong; denial of this fact, and pretense that it has anything to do with my personal views, doesn't make it go away.

Re: your demands: Again, you have no power to "ban" people from your talk page if they have legitimate business there. You'd be best served by abandoning this quixotic quest to treat your user talk page as if you own it. You do not, as a matter of clear policy at WP:NOT#WEBHOST, and as explained in further detail at WP:USERTALK. Some disused essay at WP:DRC (did you write that yourself? I can't be arsed to check) that no one but you seems to cite with any frequency doesn't trump mainline policies and guidelines, so your complaint is still invalid. Since it's not a valid dispute, I'd appreciate it if you'd stop leaving these weir, histrionic demands on my talk page. Feel free to use it if you have a legitimate editorial issue to raise, though. And if it makes you feel better, I have no intention of posting at your talk page henceforth unless I have another legitimate reason to do so. The rest of your venting doesn't appear to need to be addressed in any way other than by reference to WP:TEA and WP:MASTODON.

PS: You can, under especially egregious circumstances, get the community to genuinely ban someone from your talk page and otherwise from interacting with you; this is called an interaction ban or "iban", and you can seek one at WP:ANI. I would discourage you from doing so, since your complaint will not be taken seriously, and you'll get WP:BOOMERANG sanctioned for wasting ANI's time with a frivolous and vexatious demand. Your consistent hostility level toward all who approach you with dispute resolution attempts probably guarantees that at some point another editor will seek an iban against you, however, so you might as well know that the process exists and what it's for.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:44, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 48, 2015)

Hello, SMcCandlish.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Coffee production in Cuba

Please be bold and help to improve this article!

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ArbCom elections are now open!

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:08, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Phaedrus (dialogue)

no Declined
 – Not familiar enough with the subject matter.

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Phaedrus (dialogue). Legobot (talk) 00:03, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Wikicode on WT:MOS

Resolved
 – Fixed

At 22:21, 26 November 2015 (UTC), you added 43,506 bytes to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style, and something has disrupted the wikicode of the last section (Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Supports). I suspect that a few nowiki tags are not matched with /nowiki tags. Please try to find and remedy the problem.
—Wavelength (talk) 01:14, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

SMC, look at the paragraph following the phrase 'these journo stylebooks'. It appears that the wiki formatting has been lost in that paragraph (there are lots of naked square brackets). EdJohnston (talk) 02:31, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
 Fixed with this edit. GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 02:43, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
Thank you both for your help.—Wavelength (talk) 02:55, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
Pings: Wavelength, GeoffreyT2000, EdJohnston – Sorry about that; I was running late for a Thanksgiving party, and didn't preview closely enough.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  05:16, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Atlantis

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Atlantis. Legobot (talk) 00:01, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Succinct

Seriously, to be effective, get the message across quickly and succinctly. I've asked you to do this before, but it seems to have fallen on deaf ears. For what it's worth, I know nothing about the machinations of Arb sanctions, unlike you I spend a good portion of my time on Wikipedia improving articles and away from the drama boards, so your message was, frankly, wasted on me. Have a great weekend and remember, less is more. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:11, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

@The Rambling Man: I'm not sure what non-quick, non-succinct post you're referring to ("Huh? What are you talking about?" is a common reaction to overly compressed, rushed posts, BTW). Your opinion about how detailed others' posts may be to keep you satisfied does not create an obligation on their part to compose differently, no matter how frequently you browbeat them about it. The purpose of the {{Ds/alert}} template is to make people aware of the sanctions, so you now no longer know nothing about them. I spend nearly zero time on the drama boards, and a tremendous amount of time improving articles, but thanks for the dual false accusation anyway (not). Less is certainly more when it comes to such aspersion casting. If you're going to say something critical, be constructive about it. There's no need to add belittling falsehoods to it and then double the snideness with fake well-wishing. It just inspires people to write you off.

You're not in a position to criticize anyone for posting too much when your own debate technique consists of repeating the same material again and again, SHOUTING IT IN ALL CAPS AT PEOPLE when you don't get what you want, and then forum-shopping it by opening up a whole new subthread about your obvious-answer question. That's a far less concise and less collegial approach than simply making your point clearly, using multiple sentences if needed, the first time around. Even if I actually agree with you on the article in question and the arguments presented; the ends do not justify the means. Changing minds and swaying debates may not be most optimally done with wordiness, but just pissing people off and yelling until you get the demanded attention is the least effective approach.

Tl;dr version: See WP:KETTLE and WP:MASTODON.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  22:53, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Your response is a perfect personification as to why virtually no-one listens to anything you have to say. But thanks for trying, I would advise your attempts at dispute resolution are more succinct too otherwise you'll be losing your audience each and every time. All the best with that, although I dread to think what you'll end up doing to our community by boring them to death with your text walls... by the way, "forum-shopping" is not the same as opening up a new section of the same talkpage when a question (still unanswered, seven times hence) is a fundamental part of the discussion. But then again you just need to fill Wikipedia with your own speech, not worry too much about quality and action I suppose. The Rambling Man (talk) 23:01, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
P.S. Just a word of advice in your future roles, please stop with the links to essays and policies and guidelines and shit. It really doesn't help. Be selective, your overlinking "advice" to people immediately turns them off, and while I'm sure you're trying hard to be helpful, you're just doing the opposite. I've been here long enough to see what does and what doesn't help people, and your approach is simply not helpful mostly. Talk to people like a human, without all the easter eggs and without the overt verbosity, and you may find success in your quest to help the encyclopedia, otherwise I fear you're wasting not just your time, but everyone else's who has to wade through your walls of text and endless links. The Rambling Man (talk) 23:18, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
What was that about concision? How many times do you need to make the same "I think you post too much" point in the same thread? You don't seem clear on what the concepts of brevity and verbosity truly entail. I'm not interested in any more of your psychological projection. My input is actually frequently directly solicited by others. The fact that you don't listen to me says nothing about anyone but you and your uncollaborative attitude toward people you don't agree with. You don't want to link to things to support what you're saying? Fine. Then don't yell in all-caps when others don't do it to your satisfaction. And don't then re-reverse yourself and come pester others on their talk pages when they do link, but to things that aren't flattering toward your behavior. I'm detecting a pretty obvious pattern here of "I know what's best, I have a duty/right to tell everyone else how to communicate, and they'd damned well better not contradict or criticize me". Unsolicited, repetitive "advice" and venting is not a useful response to someone dropping off a prescribed ArbCom template. Also not interested in your wikilawyering. "It does not help develop consensus to try different forums in the hope of finding one where you get the answer you want." That reasoning applies to forking out pointless threads on the same page even if the examples at WP:FORUMSHOP are about using different pages or asking different admins. Finally, I didn't volunteer to fill a gap at DRN to give you yet another excuse to come here to make insulting predictions and demands. For someone self-declared as averse to drama, you sure seem to be trying every possible avenue and excuse to raise as much as possible with me.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:13, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

The Rambling Man, I'll try a restart in the interests of peace and progress: Yes, of course, I recognize that some more brevity on my part would be useful, and you are not the only one to suggest this. It's something I work on a lot, whether you notice any improvement in that regard or not. I hope you will also give my note about AGF/CIVIL matters in AT/MOS discussions some consideration. They are, after all, about policy compliance; there is no WP:BREVITY policy, though I concede that it does not require your compliance with that matter for me to also work on something I need to work on. I think you may be under the impression that I wrote all that verbiage in the template, and were reacting to it as a bunch of WP:BUREAUCRACY on my part. It's ArbCom's wording, no one is permitted to change or shorten it, and they do not permit any alternative "notice" about DS; see Template:Ds/alert. There's a thread open at WT:Arbitration Committee about how pointless this red tape is. All we're allowed to do is add |2=Personal message, like why I'm leaving you this template in the first place., and mine was plenty concise I think. I even inserted a horizontal rule to separate it from the boilerplate because the template itself is already a bit of a text-wall. I didn't make it that way, and it's unpleasant to be vented at for its lack of concision.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  02:37, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Sure, but your assumption that an admin would be conversant with the endless Arbcom nausea is ill-founded (to whit, your charming claim of "I'm pretty certain that as an admin you should already be aware that RM discussions are article title and style discussions under the "broadly construed" provision of the WP:AC/DS authorized for WP:ARBATC, and that this qualifies as personalizing a title/style dispute: "It's time now to start reacting against this kind of insidious editing, demand evidence and guideline or policy support for such single-minded and personally preferential edits."[6]). Your template also did nothing at all other than make me remove it. I don't even know what it really meant, it would be meaningful to actually address the issue. With your feedback, you should talk to Arbcom, for whom you've become a vessel, and try to reduce the spam and improve the quality and personal aspects of the messages. I have no issue with you personally, other than you continually, continually fail to note and respond to the fact that less is more. But that doesn't make you a negative, it just means your message gets lost again and again in the text walls. Just think about every template and embellishment you post and how much time that's wasting you and the recipient. Do something better instead. Good luck with your volunteering, I hope it improves for you and Wikipedia. I won't be continuing this discussion anywhere. The Rambling Man (talk) 23:31, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
The Rambling Man. I'm pretty sure that ArbCom assumes that admins are conversant with ArbCom's output, since it relies on them for WP:AE and WP:AC/DS and "holds them to higher standards" when it comes to the DS-subjected topics. I don't deny that the entire system is a bunch of red tape; I've already initiated at WT:ARBCOM (for whom I'm definitely no vessel; they view me as a gadfly) a thread of observations on how the DS stuff is not working, and it's led to some committee members and other admins agreeing that the system needs a review (the last one was in 2013). There seems to be an urge over there to pass the buck to the next batch of Arbs, next year, so no one should hold their breath. The meaning/purpose of the {{Ds/alert}} is just "be aware that this topic area is one of the DS ones", and it is the one and only prescribed way to deliver such a notice. Until ArbCom agrees to change it, there is no way to "improve the quality and personal aspects" and "reduce the spam" nature of the DS/alert template. If you think this is un-wiki b.s., I agree. Many of us suspected this kind of bureaucratic nonsense would result from the community accepting something like ArbCom. In the interim, we're stuck with it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  05:30, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure that ArbCom assumes that admins are conversant with ArbCom's output... - now that's the funniest thing I've read in a long time. Do a straw poll of admins, particularly those who are more interested in improving Wikipedia than lurking around the drama boards, and you'll probably down in single digit percentage points of those who are "conversant with ArbCom's output". Most of us are doing more important things. The Rambling Man (talk) 09:45, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
@The Rambling Man: Input to that effect might be useful at WT:ARBCOM. The lack of admins' "reality checks" there probably has much to do with why it's so far off the rails. That said, it's nice to see an admin essentially confirm what I've been saying for a long time with no one on the ArbCom/AE side seeming willing to believe it: There's a special "brotherhood" of "enforcer" admins who seem to do little on this project other than crack skulls at ArbCom's behest, while the rest do in fact seem more interested in working on an encyclopedia and avoiding drama – and it's pretty easy to tell the difference. When I point this out, I get called "incivil" (or "uncivil", depending on spelling preferences). I point out that speaking the truth plainly isn't actually a civility problem, but that, too, generally falls on deaf ears. The ArbCom/AE crowd seem to think that "civility" means "appearing to be obsequiously nice, even if you're really being a total dick and hiding it behind flowery words" and that "lack of civility" means "failing to kiss so much ass your lips fall off, even to make a simple observational point about behavior patterns." <sigh> The AE and ArbCom approach to what "civility" entails is increasingly diverging from the community's actual expectations and ground-truth norms.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  02:15, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Arbcom is over

See here. Only Larry Sanger can fix this. QuackGuru (talk) 23:33, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

LOL. Sanger quit years ago.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:14, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
They stopped paying him. Then he gave up. There is a slight difference. QuackGuru (talk) 01:16, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
True. I neutrally meant "Sanger has not been actively involved for years", not "Sanger walked out and shame on him" or anything like that.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  02:21, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
Anyway, I've looked over the AE material. Frankly, I think you dug your own hole on this one. The overall claim that you did not moderate your approach in any way in the wake of the ArbCom case seems to be a fair assessment. (For whatever procedurally improper reason, I wasn't notified of the case closing, despite being a party.) Ergo, my suggesting in article talk that you might just have to let PoV-pushers hang themselves with their own rope over 6 months or so appears it will be your involuntary "option". :-) That said, hopefully enough balance-seeking editors will remain involved that no particular PoV camp will actually be permitted to turn the article into a travesty. I also have to agree with some of the criticisms, not just observe that they were made. It really doesn't seem constructive to me to do things like hyperbolize nicotine toxicity as "lethal" and engage in similar edits. I'd defended you in the RfARB as a voice of MEDRS reason, so I'm disappointed to see that critical judgement lapse into a series of tweaks that seem designed to use weasel-wording to make implications that the sources don't really say. Hopefully your impending break from the topic will allow you to shake this all off and come back with a more careful, measured approach to the topic. Due to the heat it generates, I'm unlikely to wade into it much for a while.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  02:21, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
They are taking my edits out of context. I did make follow up edits. They are not showing the diffs where I improved the original edits. QuackGuru (talk) 03:24, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
I'm sure. That's why I say this is political now. The dramaboards are basically a really shitty UN simulation.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  05:52, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

E-liquid

You do know who created the e-liquid page, right? The sock has returned. One of socks was blocked when you were told they wandered off. QuackGuru (talk) 01:31, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

I generally don't pay attention to that stuff, just the content and its sources. The biggest jackass the world can create a page, and we can still do something with the material in it if it's not all crap. What we don't need is WP:POVFORK pages; these beg for merging.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  02:21, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
I have seen them do the opposite of what is best. Don't be surprised if they say the Electronic cigarette aerosol is a POVFORK, or is not notable or is duplication of the Safety page. Almost all the balance-seeking editors have left the page. Very shortly that will take turns replacing sourced text with OR, add MEDRS violations, rewrite part of the lede and so on. There is going to be a ton of edits to rewrite the page. QuackGuru (talk) 04:26, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
They're not all same "sorts" of editors with the same viewpoints. Many seem to want the same balanced approach I do, though I think some have at least a theoretical "stake" in the issue that I do not (I'm not an e-cig user, a smoker, a former smoker, etc.) I find myself increasingly disagreeing with some (not all) of your MEDRS interpretations. I suspect that you're basically just pissed off and burned out a bit on this topic and the hostility surrounding it, so every edit looks like a conspiracy that must be met with nuclear fire. For their part, many of the other editors on that page are also just pissed off at you personally, and looking to challenge everything you do even when it made sense. I've been commenting in support of whatever proposals seems to make the most sense to me, regardless who's making them or opposing them. Best I can offer.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  05:50, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
Greetings! I'm a real person, like you. Collaboration improves when we remember this about each other. I created the E-Liquid page. I am not a sock. Greetings! I'm a real person, like you. Collaboration improves when we remember this about each other.Mystery Wolff (talk) 09:26, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
I didn't say you were a sock; I reported that the creator of the "competing" article thought you were. Don't shoot the messenger. You also mistook my contradicting someone else's primary sourcing point with me contradicting yours, and posted an accusatory text-wall of a rant about it. Please pay more attention to what other editors actually write, instead of jumping on the most negative possible interpretation you can imagine, then posting in a reactionary manner based on such a negative but questionably plausible interpretation. It will save everyone a lot of time, effort, and blood pressure. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  12:48, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
Actually I was just saying to QuackGuru (that I was not a sock) grafted on some readily available text to front and back. I may not be perfect, but I am the original and only. Over and out Mystery Wolff (talk) 13:56, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
@Mystery Wolff: The socking suspicions are, I would think, raised because you arrived all of a sudden possessing quite a lot of knowledge about WP operations and policy – "just enough to be dangerous" as the saying goes, but enough that it's implausible you aren't a fairly long-term editor. That said, the obvious good faith assumption is that you were extensively editing as an anonymous IP editor, or even under another named account that you later abandoned, and aren't a sockpuppet of an active user (or, worse, a banned one). I myself was an IP editor for months before I finally created an account, so I don't have any difficulty making the good-faith assumption about why you're so ready to cite and quote policy (sometimes incorrectly, but with enough detail that it's clear you've been around). However, WP has changed a lot since my own early days here, and suspicions rise more easily now, especially in topic areas fraught with PoV-pushing and anger, so it's pretty natural that various editors will be suspicious.

You've come in at a bad time (for this topic) and have a handicap against you: This entire topic area is subject to discretionary sanctions, about which I see you've been alerted on your own talk page. A particular one, that's kind of unusual, is outlined here: "Accounts with a clear shared agenda may be blocked if they violate the sockpuppetry policy or other applicable policy". The "discretionary" part means that admins are empowered to make up their own minds about whether to apply such sanctions, without some community noticeboard consensus to proceed. Ergo, anything that looks like sockpuppetry is liable to be interpreted as being sockpuppetry, and admin action taken accordingly without further ado. Especially if it triggers one of the other sanction conditions listed there: "Accounts whose primary purpose is disruption or making personal attacks may be blocked indefinitely".

Given all that, it's in your best interests to a) not take WP:BATTLEGROUND-like positions and actions that make you appear to be editing with "a clear[ly] shared agenda" in a "tagteam" voting block with other editors who share your viewpoint, instead letting discussion proceed and consensus form more calmlyl and b) avoid disruptive "sport argument" on these articles' talk pages, like most of the objections you've been raising there, several of which were mistaken and pointless, and the rest of which were unnecessarily ad hominem and about the editor not the edits. The only agenda anyone should be advancing at that (and related) articles and their talk pages is producing balanced, well-written encyclopedic material for our readers. Hope this helps, and happy editing. (I mean that. We need more active and constructive editors, who can put aside their reactions and beliefs, and treat this like a collaborative project not a PR machine.)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:02, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: I am not a sockpuppet. I am a user of these products. I am a researcher, and have been known to work with InfoTrac and microfilm in libraries, prior to the internet. The assumptions that I was editing any of the topics in question prior to this account as an IP editor are wrong. The E-Cig topic was and is locked, you need an account too. I am known to read instruction booklets, and Wikipedia has a large one. I don't see the lock as being a handicap, I see it as one level of BS filter already applied, a good thing. I do believe smoking is health hazard, but I do not think the evidence against Nicotine is there. The FDA agrees with me on both.
I don't have a shared agenda, I am not operating in tandem with or tagteaming. I mentioned to a friend I was editing Wikipedia, and they said why bother. I guess Stephen Colbert and John Stewart really did some damage to the reputation of WP when they sent fans out to make changes and do screen captures. I know those changes would have been reverted out within minutes. I do think that Wikipedia is a value and resource.
When you call my some arguments pointless, that is a poor assumption of me that you mistakenly make. Your "good faith" assumptions about me...in the end, are errors. You can reflect on why you made those errors. or not. But they are error.
The item on the E-Cig talk page was a definitional error on your part. There is a disputed theory that low amounts of cigarette usage are equal harm to high count of cigarette users. That 4 cigarettes a day are as harmful as 2 packs a day. The citation that QuackGuru used was one of 3 individual patients, it was not a study. You already forced me to look up the information on proper primary and secondary sources, so we know the issues. Perhaps it would be wise to not put your personal stories into talk a pages, as a means to bolster support for an edit at controversy. You perhaps would not associate the application of proper WP editing associated with you. As you say the Article in under ARB already, don't put your personal sensibilities into the fray as support for edits.
In my research on WP, I read QuackGuru saying that he wrote 90% of what was on the Electronic Cigarette pages, and he did not want to see changes. My editing started around the 19th, my familiarity with the topic started years ago. My POV is the truth, and like a bell, it has a certain sound to it™. Houses made of straw need not apply. Mystery Wolff (talk) 07:39, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
I'm not doubting you; I said I'm assuming good faith, so you need not defend yourself against sock-puppetry suspicions with me. The topic has been so over-run with b.s., not everyone necessarily will assume good faith, though, especially if your primary activity on the articles' talk pages is picking fights over nit-picks that don't matter. I'm just advising how to not draw unwarranted suspicion. Some of your arguments are pointless, like going off on me for supposedly opposing the addition of sources you want to add, when I opposed QG's desire to delete them, and you simply didn't read it correctly. Etc. Let's just drop it and move on. I don't care if someone in particular claims to have written X amount of some article; I consistently (quite frequently in fact) argue against such "ownership" claims (cf. my recent-ish comments in classical composer infobox debates, etc.). Someone can write every single word of an article, and WP:5P, "mercilessly edited", still applies. You keep raising "what QG said" as if it's what I said. I've never said anything, anywhere, ever about whether nicotine itself poses health risks, for example. You're arguing with me about positions you think I'm taking or that I hold, that simply are not there. I've never argued for or against any view that low cig. usage is as bad for one's health as high levels of smoking, so you're again arguing against a straw man, and claiming I made "a definitional error" about it. That's completely imaginary. If anyone were to ask me, I'd say it's ridiculous that smoking a little has the same negative health effects as being a chain smoker; I've witnessed the difference, having had both chain smokers and light smokers in the family, and I remember who got cancer or emphysema and who didn't. And no this is not another opportunity for you to inject a mistaken accusation that I'm engaging in OR with anecdote; OR does not apply to people on talk pages explaining their own levels of skepticism. Can we give this a rest now?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  07:54, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes let's place it to rest. I have asked on the TALK page of ECigs to close out the edit line in question. Made it in such a way that there should be no confusion. If someone wants to keep the line, they will make a case for it there. The argument of what the effects of low cigarette usage are, is a point that is being asserted here http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/121/13/1518.full If you look at the studies cited by that author you will find its convoluted. They are combining studies which use different definitions of light smoking. I understand the message that people should not be light smokers. But it is also being used for the agenda that Electronic Cigarettes by the way of dual usage is not affecting harm reduction. Been a while since I dug all the way down on this study, but as I recall you go to the origin cites, and it does not reflect how its being characterized. The FDA has a process of quantification of population level health benefits written into the deeming of Electronic Cigarettes to tobacco product. That journal and its authors contest Tobacco Harm Reduction, by means of reducing cigarettes, in so called Dual usage. But yes I will REST here. Mystery Wolff (talk) 11:31, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

I don't disagree that the question has been raised in sources, and by other editors, it just wasn't raised by me. I haven't read enough of the dual usage material to formulate an opinion yet, and it would have a lot to do with source quality.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  22:19, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Hi

Resolved
  • You said "Where an editor is from (or where someone thinks they're from) isn't tied to what opinion they express anyway"
I appreciate your other comment, but this bit, sorry, but I didn't say it did, so would you mind withdrawing that comment rather than suggesting the idea that I did. "East Europe" is different from "Eastern European" editors. As the above context makes clear the reference of "East Europe" editors is to those working on the East Europe article corpus, whether they are "Eastern European" or not. I for example am not. Many thanks 13:10, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
Okay, but it's not a distinction many editors would have been likely to intuit.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  14:27, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 49, 2015)

The First Geneva Convention (1864) is one of the earliest formulations of international law.
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International law

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Template:User contrib CentralAuth

Hi,

I reverted your last changes to {{User contrib CentralAuth}}, because this template is designed to work with CentralAuth. I created a new template for tool introduced by you. It's here: {{User contrib GUC}}. problem Regards, --RezonansowyakaRezy (talk | contribs) 17:33, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

I appreciate the effort, but why? It would be more practical to rename the template than to fork it in a way that will almost certainly result in a merge at WP:TFD, in favor of the more accurate tool. And your revert also undid the fix to the broken link problem.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  18:35, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for fixing the link. Also we can use a native MediaWiki API to query deleted revisions (example). IMO CentralAuth prints enough information about user's contribution, without printing the list of last edits on each wiki. It's more handy in some cases. GUC is a god extension for CentralAuth's functionality, however that is not always needed, I think. IMO we should keep two templates, one more limited but using the MediaWiki software and the second, which use the external tools, like GUC and xtools-ec. Different design equals different purpose, so both are useful. And IMO not always the more sophisticated tool reflects the user's expectations, so it's good to leave him/her a choice. --RezonansowyakaRezy (talk | contribs) 22:14, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
I can see that, but this is just a userbox, and the one tool produces less accurate counts, so I've been skeptical about its usefulness for this.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  22:17, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
Why is CentralAuth counter less accurate? --RezonansowyakaRezy (talk | contribs) 00:35, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
@Rezonansowy: Not sure. At a guess maybe it does not count deleted edits, but it's hard to say for sure. It misses a notable number of them, though.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  18:17, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
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