User talk:Tony1/Archive 6

MOS quotation marks

Miguel Chavez, picking up where Darkfrog24 left off (Darkfrog24 was one of two or more users who Admin Rootology threatened to block for edit warring about the MOS's guideline for quotation marks), continues to restore, as the opening paragraph, the irrelevant, misleading, and incomplete discussion of British vs American English practices on this issue. I posted on Rootology's Talk page (User talk:Rootology#Quotation marks again!), but he hasn't answered and his Talk page warns that he might not be available to respond for awhile. I also responded to Chavez's response to you at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Grafting national sentiments onto an issue?. If I revert again, I'll be at 3RR, and I don't want to go there. Could you and some of your MOS experts help out on this one? Also, Darkfrog24 and Chavez are watering down the language of the long-standing guideline on logical quotation. They seem to think that 2 or 3 like-minded editors who spend all their waking hours arguing this issue at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style constitute a consensus for change. Thanks for any help you can provide. Finell (Talk) 12:48, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree with your take, but ArbCom has recently expressed its concern at instability in the style guides. They should not be treated as sandboxes, and I'm pleased to see that the matter is likely to be hashed out in the appropriate place: the talk page. It's a pity that some editors felt emboldened to lash out and edit the style guide itself, when they knew it would be controversial. Tony (talk) 16:15, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

The main MOS page is now full protected indefinitely because of the edit warring on this issue. I have proposed that the edit warriors be blocked instead. This is what Rootology agreed he would do if this edit war resumed, rather than protect the page. I welcome comments from you and other MOS experts at User talk:Rootology#Quotation marks again! Thanks. Finell (Talk) 03:12, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually, that wasn't me. The only change I made during that time period was here: [1]. I had made some edits changing the indicative to imperative--something that we'd already discussed on the talk page, which the Duke of Waltham reversed. In his edit summary, however, he referred to MChavez's addition of the new paragraph, not the change of tense. I figured that he'd hit my changes by mistake and put them back. I've also tossed Duke of W a talk page message asking him if this is indeed what happened, but he has yet to reply.

Frankly, guys, I took one look at the back-and-forth over whether or not the paragraph should be there and decided to take no on-page part in it. Darkfrog24 (talk) 23:24, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you for your message, Tony. No problem at all. I'm traveling out of the U.S. for next 2 weeks, using my hosts' laptop sporadically. I may check back in here after I return. Enjoy! :-) [07:30, 7 June 2009 NYScholar] [Added time stamp in signature. --NYScholar (talk) 23:14, 8 June 2009 (UTC)]

ABC Radio National on cyber stalking, libel and privacy: this will be a growing issue for WPians

Cyber stalking and online libel, 2 June 2009: audio file downloadable for two weeks; transcript available permanently.

Oh, what a tangled web. I firmly believe that using one's own name on WP should be the norm, not the exception, especially for those in a position of power such as admins and arbitrators. However, we must at some stage evolve policies and procedures for dealing with stalking and privacy on the site. The law in anglophone jurisdictions is clearly not keeping pace with the evolution of anti-social behaviour on the Internet.

A key problem is defining where the boundary lies beyond which behaviour is stalking, whether on- or off-wiki. "... if you look at each individual piece of conduct, it seems innocuous out of context, it's the cumulative effect." "The essence of it is that there's an intention ... to cause physical and mental harm, or for the victim to fear for their own safety or the safety of others." Stalking is a legal term, but cyber stalking is not. Does cyber stalking refer to email, placing information on the Internet, or unauthorised access to a computer? The US "requires what's called a credible threat, typically, because of their First Amendment, free speech protection. So they have much tighter stalking laws", which make it harder to prove an offence.

This causes me to wonder about the following issues:

1. Are our perceptions of the risk of using our real names exaggerated? (I certainly hope they are, but I'm unsure.)
2. To what extent is WP/WikiMedia itself exposed to legal liability where WPians are stalked or otherwise suffer unreasonable invasion of privacy, in either on- or related off-wiki communications?
3. Should WPians avoid on-wiki commentary on their employer, and to what extent are WPians' track records used against them by prospective and current employers?
4. To what extent are we exposed to email hacking by communicating with other WPians by email?
5. Is there a case for appointing one or more specialist admins to manage this issue, and should a centralised register of stalking patterns, suspected or confirmed, be maintained? It appears to require particular specialisation beyond the standard CU and Oversight functions. Tony (talk) 14:43, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

1. No, they aren't exaggerated, there are countless examples of it, recorded both onwiki and offwiki. There are actually websites dedicated to helping people do those very things.
2. No liability whatsoever to the WMF, there are disclaimers at the bottom of every page to this effect. US law would hold them as a service provider who only has a duty to not give out information, which the WMF respects rather strongly with its policies.
3. Depends who the employer is, WP is a public site indexed on Google. Anything said can be found and used according to the laws of your country.
4. Very small risk of email hacking, no more than hacking if someone gets your business card.
5. I've handled about half a dozen cases that ended successfully for the most part. The ArbCom asked the community in both WP:BADSITES and WP:CHILD to address the issue, however the community could not come to agreement and rejected steps beyond oversighting personal information inadvertently disclosed. MBisanz ^talk 14:58, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your responses, MBisanz. No matter what the disclaimer, I believe this aspect of the law is in a state of flux, and the multi-jurisdictional aspect of the Internet still hasn't been resolved in the law. There is already the phenomenon of shopping for the jurisdiction with the strictest libel laws to sue the ISP/author. (I think two of your responses were out of order: I switched them.) Tony (talk) 15:16, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Tony, it's certainly a valid question to raise. Would using real names help with credibility? Probably, especially if users knew that the IDs were confirmed by the Foundation, and that there was a one-editor, one-login policy. However, when you factor in the complete lack of privacy, it changes the game. Pages are archived across the Internet, often in places you might never expect it, and editors who take on more controversial roles can easily become targets. A search on the names of some of the more active admins can demonstrate this, and (speaking from personal experience) it isn't fun to deal with a cyberstalker. I think you might lose a large portion of the admin corps if real names were required, not because users are unwilling to take responsibility for their actions, but because they are not prepared to run the risk of a clash moving off-site and into the real world. (You and I might disagree strongly about aspects of the MoS, but we're unlikely to take it off-site. The hatred involved in some vandalism, however, and in some of the bitter and protracted disputes that arise over nationalism, religion, and other such topics is entirely different.)

Perhaps an alternative would be a system where users register with their real names, but edit via their chosen screen name. For example, you might register with the Foundation under your full real name, along with some real-world verifiable contact information. You would edit under your chosen user name, being allowed only one, and the real-world information would never be connected on-site. That way, users would know that the Foundation has verified everyone, without having to unnecessarily expose your personal details. --Ckatz^chat_spy 18:00, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Ckatz, this is the best policy proposal I've heard in a long while. I've never understood why multiple accounts were ever allowed—it's an open invitation to deception (by a minority)—it's potentially disruptive and erodes trust between editors. Your idea of registration with real name under security (recoverable, I presume by a CU officer) seems to solve the issues. It deserves to be taken much further. Tony (talk) 18:14, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

The only way that would work is if the Board added such a thing to wmf:Policies, which means convincing them to allocate the money for it, etc. It isn't something the community could even vote to be done since it is a Foundation matter. Highly unlikely at the moment I am afraid. MBisanz ^talk 18:22, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Matthew, wouldn't it require just a tweak to the registration process—two extra lines for real name and address, and a slab of text declaring privacy, but that names can be recovered under certain circumstances (rather like the text displayed when you wiki-email someone? I'd have though it was a minor job. Yes, WMF would have to agree to it, but if ArbCom and Mr Wales were on-side, I'm trying to think through the possible objections to it the Foundation might have. The amount of extra storage would be trivial. I presume it's this policy you're referring to:

Resolved, the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, consistent with its long-standing commitment to minimizing the data retention of users and editors, adopts the policy of retaining the least of amount personally identifiable information consistent with maintenance of its services, with its privacy policy, or as required by state or federal legal provisions under United States of America law. (Approved by: Domas, Florence, Jan-Bart, Jimmy, Kat, Michael)

I wonder why and when this was approved. Tony (talk) 18:37, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

It was approved April 2008, the discussion is at wmf:Minutes/April_5-7,_2008#Data_retention_policy. MBisanz ^talk 18:59, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I noticed jurisdiction of internet issues was brought up above. As a fellow Australian, Tony, you may be interested (if you were not previously aware) of the principles behind the High Court decision in Dow Jones & Co. Inc. v Gutnick. While it is about defamation and not stalking, the principle that plaintiffs can bring an action in Australia (where the effect of the defendants action occurred), rather than the jurisdiction of the defendant (where the actual action occurred), is one which I would submit can be applied to a multitude of internet-related cases, including stalking. Yes, it may make enforcement difficult, but in some cases simply getting a summary judgment can be enough for a 'moral victory' of sorts. Daniel (talk) 00:47, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, Daniel is correct, I believe Italy and Australia are two nations that have rather liberal long-arm statutes. The UK also has defamation laws that are much broader than the US. On the more specific point of why the Foundation wouldn't want to collect addresses or names. Once a US website collects such information, it is required to collect other information, like verifying the person is above the age of 13, etc. This increases its legal liability by a large factor as now it has a duty to protect minors, report criminals, etc. I don't know the exact reason it passed the resolution above, but I suspect it was in response to some law that cast larger liability to corporations that retained any excess data. MBisanz ^talk 03:26, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Daniel, the extraordinary Gutnick case was just what I had in mind (Worldwide implications for Gutnick defamation case: "Australia has some of the toughest libel laws in the world, and now, thanks to the High Court, there appears to be no escaping them, even if you publish overseas. The Australian High Court's judgement today, in the case of mining magnate Joseph Gutnick versus the Dow Jones News Service, may have implications for news organisations around the world.... The court dismissed an appeal by Dow Jones to have a defamation action against it heard in the United States, rather than in Melbourne.")

Your point, "Yes, it may make enforcement difficult, but in some cases simply getting a summary judgment can be enough for a 'moral victory' of sorts."—I think the bigger the defendant, the easier to extract money, and the smaller the defendant, the less they'd want to pay expensive lawyers in another jurisdiction. What I call "location dissonance" between plaintiff and defendant in an internet libel or stalking case appears to be an unresolved issue.

But does this impinge on giving WP's CheckUsers, ultimately, the ability to verify who's who? This ability would almost certainly have the effect of constraining identity deception on the site, a major drawback I'm sure we're all heartily sick of whether it involves ordinary users or high scandal at ArbCom. Matthew, why can't WWF collect real names along with a tick-the-box declaration that a user is over the age of ?13. Surely there are many information and other sites that do this without a blink. I don't see the difficulty. Is it the privacy of 13-and-unders or their possible exposure to stalking or rough play as an editor that would be at issue? Matthew, you say "it has a duty to protect minors, report criminals,..."; but nine-year-olds already edit here every day. Is there a legal precedent for institutional liability when a nine-year-old has lied in ticking the age box? Would a porn site be liable for psychological damage if a minor lied about their age upon entry? Is it really the ostrich defence at the moment—bury your head in the sand and you're safe?

I just don't want the WMF to be the test case, and allowing smoke and mirrors and shadows to abound in the corridors of WP is a great way to expose the organisation. Tony (talk) 04:53, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

PS I see this prominent point in the notes for the WMF decision on information retention, as linked by Matthew above:

Needs further explanations in future to define what information is retained.

Tony (talk) 04:57, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Yukon Quest FAC

Given the recent failure of the Yukon Quest FAC, I was wondering if you'd be willing to analyze it for weaknesses. I understand that you don't typically look at articles not undergoing a featured item review process, but you were the primary opposer to the last FAC, and I'd appreciate your input. If you're unwilling or unable to contribute, could you suggest an editor who might be able to do so? I plan to get several people to look at it before undergoing the next attempt, but your comments would be extremely helpful. Thank you. JKBrooks85 (talk) 05:53, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Logical quotation

Hi Tony. Sorry to bother you, but seeing this mess, I don't really want to ask at WT:MOS. I've been helping with some of the MOS fixes at the Ten Commandments FAC, and I'm after clarification on a very minor point to do with logical quotation. Hopefully, it shouldn't take up too much of your time, but I was wondering if you'd be able to nip through to Sandy's talk page to offer your take. Completely understanding if you're a bit busy, Steve ^{T • C} 10:52, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Verb agreement question

I don't know how familiar you are with this, but I always trip over verb agreement when it's British English. See Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Luton Town F.C./archive1. Thanks, Dabomb87 (talk) 14:15, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Diocletianic Persecution

I have had a hasty look. I won't have time to really look at content this week; try Andrew Dalby.

The nominator has been doing odd things with the footnotes; where a modern secondary source has specified the ancient primary source, our editor has given both. He claims, now, to have consulted all the primary sources listed, even the Bollandists; could you see whether the present footnotes describe the situation clearly? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:18, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks very much for looking at this one, PMA. Your advice was expressed in authoritative terms. I'll have a look tomorrow and will contact AD later for a final check. Tony (talk) 16:59, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Hello, Tony1. You have new messages at Kleinzach's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Hello, Tony1. You have new messages at Kleinzach's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/TNA X Division Championship/archive1

All your concerns at the above FAC have been taken care up. If you have anymore would you please admit them at the FAC? Thank you for your comments, they have been very helpful!--WillC 11:16, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Currency

Hi, thanks for the message. However you might want to get in touch with a real economist, or an economic historian. --Philcha (talk) 15:45, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

You have been nominated for membership of the Established Editors Association

The Established editors association will be a kind of union of who have made substantial and enduring contributions to the encyclopedia for a period of time (say, two years or more). The proposed articles of association are here - suggestions welcome.

If you wish to be elected, please notify me here. If you know of someone else who may be eligible, please nominate them here

Please put all discussion here.Peter Damian (talk) 10:26, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

AdminReview: major statement

Statement here. Tony (talk) 05:42, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

WAS Protocol

I like your "WAS protocol" idea for dealing with uncivil established editors. I think you should make it into an essay. If I find myself in a situation where it would be helpful to use the WAS protocol, I'd like to be able to link to a page elaborating on the idea. rspεεr (talk) 05:46, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I am very pleased to hear that you think the protocol—as part of admins' options—might be of benefit to the project. I'll write the essay and link you to it. Tony (talk) 06:02, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

My RfA

Thanks for the congratulations. I would note that it was a "Reconfirmation for Adminship", in that I am a sysop of two years standing. While the process was not generally considered desirable, it may be that suggesting an admin re-apply for the tools could be an outcome of the AdminReview process. Just something to consider as you seem to be re-applying yourself to the process again. Regards, LessHeard vanU (talk) 10:23, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Date delinking

This arbitration case has now closed. The final decision may be reviewed on the case page. A synopsis of the final decision is provided below.

• All mass date delinking is restricted for six months
• Date delinking bots will perform in a manner approved by the Bot Approvals Group.
• Lightmouse (talk · contribs) is: banned for 1 year; topic banned indefinitely; prohibited indefinitely from using automation, from using any account but "Lightmouse"
• Tony1 (talk · contribs) indefinitely banned from editing any policy or guideline page related to article or editing style, as well as any related template page; placed on a 12 month editing restriction
• Greg L (talk · contribs) indefinitely topic banned, placed on a 12 month editing restriction
• Ohconfucius (talk · contribs) is: topic banned indefinitely; prohibited indefinitely from using automation; prohibited indefinitely from using any account but "Ohconfucius"; placed on a 12 month editing restriction
• The Rambling Man (talk · contribs) admonished for not pursuing appropriate dispute resolution methods.
• Kotniski (talk · contribs) reminded to pursue appropriate dispute resolution methods, topic banned for 3 months
• Placed on a 12 month editing restriction: Dabomb8 (talk · contribs), 2008Olympia (talk · contribs), Colonies Chris (talk · contribs), SkyWalker (talk · contribs), HJensen (talk · contribs), Dudesleeper (talk · contribs), John (talk · contribs), Tennis expert (talk · contribs), and G-Man (talk · contribs)
• Pmanderson (talk · contribs) is topic banned for 12 months.
• Locke Cole (talk · contribs) is topic banned indefinitely, banned for 6 months, and placed on a 12 month editing restriction
• Kendrick7 (talk · contribs) is topic banned for 12 months
• Arthur Rubin (talk · contribs) admonished for threatening to use his administrator tools to advance his position in a dispute.

Notes: (1) for "topic banned", read "banned from style and editing guidelines, and any related discussions"; (2) an "editing restriction" is a prohibition from reverting any changes which are principally stylistic, except where all style elements are prescribed in the applicable style guideline.

For the Arbitration Committee,

AGK 20:03, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Awaiting correction of the notification in relation to me. Tony (talk) 05:18, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Delinking common terms

Can I use Lightmouse's editing script to delink common terms if I don't do it too fast? Has there been any decision on date delinking? RainbowOfLight ^Talk 06:51, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, there has been a decision, thank god—four months too late—although there's still no correction of the notification above in relation to me. Yes, you can use the script, but with sensitivity and at a speed that shows you're gnoming not just a single aspect, but making at least one or two other improvements in the articles you visit. That's my take. See this for more. PS I certainly don't visit an article and leave "English" linked. Ridiculous dilution of our potentially superb wikilinking system. Tony (talk) 08:43, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Tony, sorry to interject but with respect to this, there is not widespread consensus to delink so-called "common terms" such as country names, especially if it involves removing all such links (i.e. stripping out all links to United States, rather than just leaving one). I would think the more useful approach would be to focus on cleaning up actual inappropriate links, and avoid using the aspects of the script that rely on an arbitrary set of terms. (For example, the script includes a list of countries and cities that are supposedly "common terms", but that list is based on the personal opinions of the script's author and contributors rather than on widespread consensus.) --Ckatz^chat_spy 10:19, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't use the script to do this, although I have done, but always with scrutiny. I rarely see links to the major anglophone countries that are justified by the relevance test that is long-established in the style guides. Certainly, in historical pages on the US, in related pages such as "Economy/geography/demography of the US", of course there should be one, initial link. But these are, I'm sure, not what Rainbow is referring to (are you, Rainbow?). It's every reason that a considered approach should be taken, I grant you. And I see far too little use of section links to those country articles: this would be consistent with the recommendation at MOSLINK. That is of greater concern, and cannot be performed by script. What irritates a lot of users is the blanket, automatic linking of "English" or "Australian" or "American" in the opening sentence of every sportsperson, musician, scientist, etc. It is blindly done by newbies who naturally copy the patterns they see, good and bad. Tony (talk) 10:30, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Minas Geraes

Hey Tony. I replied to your comment left on Brazilian battleship Minas Geraes's FAC; if/when you have a moment, could you go back and reply? Thank you, —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 02:51, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

H.M.S. Pinafore

Hi, Tony. I remember that you helped with my last FA project, Noel Coward. I have now nominated Pinafore at FAC: Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/H.M.S. Pinafore/archive1 If you have a chance, would you kindly take a look? All the best! -- Ssilvers (talk) 05:12, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Intellectual Impostures (the sequel)

Oh dear.

Irrelevantly, Sir, can you read though the MoS-brandishing indignation here with eyes open but yet without laughing? -- Hoary (talk) 15:20, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

External link: Oh ... my ... god. PS Online academic journals are coming to our neighbourhood very very soon—apparently the better ones will make the transition and you'll pay to be published (that is, your university will redirect its current library budget for buying dead-tree journals, plus more, into departmental funds for such publications). The mediocre journals will continue to kill innocent trees. Tony (talk) 16:00, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

signature

Thanks for the advice on signing my posts Tony . Do I type in the tildes myself or click on the blue tildes on the bottom of the discussion page . I have tried both at times with varying results .I will try and do better Lejon (talk) 00:20, 19 June 2009 (UTC)11

Lord Patten on health and international relations

Never did I think I would be following with delight the career of an ex-minister of the Thatcher Baby-Snatcher government; but I am doing just that. Patten is a brilliant, original thinker and public speaker, with piercing insights into geopolitics and the interactions between health and social inequality. His recent speech at Oxford University, of which he is chancellor, makes good listening for any WPian who contributes in these fields. Tony (talk) 14:26, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Benzos

Tony, when you have a moment, would you spot check your oppose at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Benzodiazepine/archive1? It's been a while and many editors have been involved. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:12, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Do we want change?

I've started a ball rolling here User:Giano/The future all comments welcome - whatever their view! Giano (talk) 07:39, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Projects for checking texts and images

Here are 16 projects for checking texts and images. (I do not know which projects are already familar to you.)

• Wikipedia:Cleanup
• Wikipedia:Typo Team
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Check Wikipedia
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Copyright Cleanup (added 04:48, 24 June 2009 (UTC))
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Fact and Reference Check (added 04:48, 24 June 2009 (UTC))
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Fix common mistakes
• Wikipedia:WikiProject General Audience (believed to be inactive)
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Grammar
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Graphic design
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Images and Media
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Infoboxes
• Wikipedia:WikiProject League of Copyeditors (currently inactive)
• Wikipedia:WikiProject League of Copyeditors/proofreading (currently inactive)
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Manual of Style
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Punctuation (believed to be inactive)
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Typography
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Writing Captions (believed to be inactive)
  

-- Wavelength (talk) 16:41, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
I am striking out two entries because they pertain to articles on topics related to graphic design and typography respectively, instead of pertaining to checking articles for errors or problems in graphic design and typography. (I suggest a clear bifurcation in naming WikiProjects, so that "Wikipedia:WikiProject Typography articles" and "Wikipedia:WikiProject Typography checking", or some such names, can be more readily recognized.) Also, I am adding two entries. -- Wavelength (talk) 04:48, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Dash question

Do you know the answer to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Dash spacing in categories? Thank you. --NE2 05:49, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Game-playing at WT:DATEBOT

Have you noticed a couple of vote changes going on - editors switching votes from neutral or support to oppose? These were never likely supporters of delinking by bot, so their ultimate vote is hardly surprising. Ohconfucius (talk) 12:56, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't know what is happening, but I do know that the ongoing change in relative proportions of supports and opposes must be a striking example of sampling error. <po-face> Tony (talk) 13:27, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Tony1. You have new messages at Greg L's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

John Vandenberg ^(chat) 15:13, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Michael Jackson

Regarding his voice type, I'm not sure what you are questioning: The source used states "As a musician, Jackson cut a wider and more sustained swath. It began with a soaring high voice that had both the androgynous sheen that made gender irrelevant and the coiled, inner muscle of a Baroque countertenor." There's also a less tactful article here: "Surely, had puberty done its thing, his voice would have dropped to the normal tenor range and his body would have shown the masculinity puberty produces in men. I could imagine that this voice was falsetto, the forced counter tenor voice of an intact male. But in all his interviews that amazing counter tenor voice remains and endures." The Bookkeeper (of the Occult) 09:56, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

List of skin-related conditions nominated as featured list candidate

I have continued to work on the list of skin-related conditions, and recently nominated it for FL status. If available, your comments would be greatly appreciated at the nomination page. Regardless, thank you again for your work on wikipedia. ---kilbad (talk) 06:25, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

I have just added a hanging hyphen to two instances of an expression (result: "Monocyte- and macrophage-related") in that article, and now I wish to rename the corresponding category accordingly: from Category:Monocyte and macrophage-related cutaneous conditions to Category:Monocyte- and macrophage-related cutaneous conditions. How can a category be renamed? -- Wavelength (talk) 14:18, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

I think this may qualify for a speedy rename. ---kilbad (talk) 15:01, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree. Well-spotted, Wavelength. Thank you! Tony (talk) 15:03, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I added it at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Speedy#Add_requests_for_speedy_renaming_here. Thanks again! ---kilbad (talk) 15:07, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Discussion at arbitration case

Hi Tony. I've commented at the section you started at the Mattisse proposed decision talk page. See here. I'm going to try and get this case moving again towards closing, but wanted to tie up loose ends on the talk page first. Would you have time to comment there again? Carcharoth (talk) 10:30, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Re: ArbCom policy Draft 2: query

Good point. I had thought that I'd specified somewhere that the appointments would only last until the next regular election, but apparently I was mistaken. Something to add in draft #3, I suppose. Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 15:51, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

That's a possibility; but given the activity levels we've been seeing this year, that particular clause is really just a contingency plan anyways, to account for the scenario when half the Committee resigns or something of that sort. Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 18:09, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Feedback requested

Please point out to me how I caused the implosion at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Benzodiazepine/archive1. I made two short comments on the FAC page.[2][3] I would appreciate your sincere feedback. Thank you. Regards, —Mattisse (Talk) 15:13, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I am very disappointed that you refused to provide me with feedback, and made a statement at my arbitration only when an arbitrator asked you, and then only in the context of multiple quotes by another editor that were untruths about me and continued the aura that my behavior was somehow faulty in that instance. I have tried to support you in the past, on the over wikilinking issue and such, and do not understand why you would seek to spread untruths about me as my arbitration is winding down. It is these sorts of comments, accepted uncritically by those who want to see me fall, that are the source of the wiki drama that surrounds me. I plead with you to decline to contribute any further to the many unfounded charges that are the baggage that follows me around. Regards, —Mattisse (Talk) 08:30, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Hyphen question

Hi Tony. I have a question about hyphen usage in a situation (if it is necessary): Here's the sentence:

"Slim also hosted the Super Bowl of Poker, which was the second most prestigious tournament of its day."

Are hyphens required in the phrase "second most prestigious tournament"? If so, where? Dabomb87 (talk) 23:36, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

I probably wouldn't use two hyphens: "second-most-prestigious tournament" if I couldn't work out a different wording (I can't, here). But I probably wouldn't remove them if I saw them in an article. One hyphen alone is wrong, I think. North American writers are less likely to use hyphens here, and I think I agree with them, nowadays. When it's this construction: "A 28-kilometre-long highway", I much prefer to reword to avoid the triple-bunger ("a highway 28 kilometres long"), if possible. Tony (talk) 03:29, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Ellipses question

Hi. SandyGeorgia referred me to you. I just have a quick question: Why do we need a space *before* ellipses? That seems to me a bad choice typographically, so I wonder why the MOS requires it? Can you explain it? Best regards, -- Ssilvers (talk) 17:11, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi Ssilvers. Yep, ellipsis is a little black hole remaining at MoS (main page). There was activity on it about 18 months ago, but alas, it was inconclusive. I'm going to ask User:Noetica for an opinion on this one: apart from his expertise, he has all of the major style guides on his shelves. My personal view is that ellipsis dots are visually easier to read with the space; where the more spaced out ellipsis triple-dot symbol is used (not preferred on WP, I suspect), the space before is inherent, I think. The exception is where the dots come where there was a sentence-final period/stop: in that case, I think the widely accepted practice is four dots unspaced on the left.... Tony (talk) 18:13, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment. You imply that it is a good thing that the space on the left makes the ellipses easier to see; but in my opinion, we should minimize the visual impact of the ellipses - they are a technique to show that something has been omitted, but the casual reader does not need their attention drawn too distractingly to that fact - it is, IMO, merely a signal for the scholar who wishes to follow up and, perhaps, look for the full quote in the source cited. As I say, I think it looks neater and less intrusive to eliminate the space on the left, and I think that is standard typography for most publishers. Any how, I would be interested if there is an attempt at any time to reconsider the MOS guideline. All the best! -- Ssilvers (talk) 18:30, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

See Ellipsis#In English and The Ellipsis. -- Wavelength (talk) 19:28, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

When I see a spaced ellipsis, I think of the omission of one or more words from a phrase or sentence. When I see an unspaced ellipsis, I think of the omission of one or more letters from (the beginning, the middle, or the end of) a word. If a remaining part of a word is itself a complete word, then the presence or absence of a space is important for disambiguating the meaning of a phrase or sentence. (Please lend us a hand ... chief; Please lend us a hand...chief.) -- Wavelength (talk) 00:33, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Wavelength. It looks like there's no more discussion on this, so I'm de-watching Tony's talk page. If any more information or discussion about this crops up, please let me know at my talk page. Thanks! -- Ssilvers (talk) 18:23, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

RFC: Role of Jimmy Wales in the English Wikipedia

An RFC has been launched by five co-proposers to determine community support for:

• establishing ArbCom elections as a direct expression of the community's will rather than as merely "advisory" to Mr Wales as now;
• establishing the elections as bringing the number of arbitrators to a total of 17 at the start of each year (no default size has previously been set), with a normal term of two years for new arbitrators;^[A]
• relying for appeals solely on ArbCom's well-established procedure for that purpose, which renders unnecessary Mr Wales's theoretical power to modify ArbCom's remedies and enforcement actions, and his role as court of appeal for ArbCom decisions.

Whatever their ideas on the matter, all users are invited to inspect the proposal and to make their views known at the RFC. Tony (talk) 18:07, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

ANI

With all due respect, I'm extremely confused. By "voting" neutral in an RfC, I'm inherently involved, and thus disallowed to participate in related discussion? –Juliancolton | ^Talk 17:11, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

I was under the impression that admins only were entrusted with supporting or opposing a watchlist notice. Is this not the case? Tony (talk) 17:19, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

No, all users are allowed to participate in discussions regarding the watchlist-notice. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 17:24, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Stewards

WRT to [4], Jimbo was de-stewarded in February of this year [5]. He does have a global Founder right that is similar to that of a steward, but he is not a steward for any purposes of handling interwiki issues, de-righting people, SUL, etc; it is just a board-mandated expression of his Community Founder seat. Also, stewards have an internal policy of never intervening in content decisions and never intervening on a wiki where another user can perform the action in question, so I do not see how they could assist enwiki with news-suppression (or any DR task for that matter), since there are no Special:ListGroupRights implications involved. MBisanz ^talk 09:01, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

This is going to be very long, so I'm going to not indent it, hope that is ok.

In 2005 Tim Starling, a bureaucrat, developer, and steward made Jimbo a founder on Enwiki with these userrights:

• Edit all user rights (userrights)
• Make users into Administrators or Bureaucrats (makesysop)

This means he can add and remove any other userright on Enwiki.

From February 2006 to current Jimbo has held the Meta right of steward which as you noted, includes:

• Administrate global accounts (centralauth-admin)
• Edit all user rights (userrights)
• Edit user rights of users on other wikis (userrights-interwiki)
• Make global blocks (globalblock)
• Make users into administrators or bureaucrats (makesysop)
• Remove global blocks (globalunblock)

I should note the terms used on Meta are different than on Enwiki, so the term a global block actually means an IP block. A block on a user account on all WMF wikis is term a global lock and it done through the centralauth-admin feature, which is not actually for changing userrights, but changing a user's access level to the SUL function of MediaWiki.

However, centralauth-admin on Meta doesn't really work, since it is a global function. So in May 2008 when the globalization feature was brought online, Meta stewards were converted at a technical level to global stewards whose list of rights can be seen at m:Special:GlobalGroupPermissions/steward. At that time Jimbo was moved over with all the other stewards to the global system. But, in February 2009, Jimbo failed reconfirmation as a steward and his authorization as a global steward was removed per m:Stewards/confirm/2009#Jimbo_Wales. He had the WMF pass a resolution making him a global founder, which is described at m:Special:GlobalGroupPermissions/founder. His Meta steward right was not removed for some reason, probably because the Meta steward right is still used for some forms of interwiki userrights changes and because no one remembered to revoke it when the switch from global steward to global founder was made for him.

Now as to how he actually uses those rights. There are four sets of logs where his actions with userrights could be logged:

• Local action using the Global Founder or Global Steward right

• Global action using the Global Founder or Global Steward right

• Global action using the Meta Steward right

• Local action using the Local Founder right

As you can see, he has never used his global rights to change userrights. He did historically use his Meta Steward right to desysop several people on an emergency basis during the Pedophilia userbox wheel war and the Daniel Brandt deletion wheel war. Also, he has used his Local Founder right more recently in the Zscout370, Bedford, and Scarian incidents, and at my request WRT to a former employee, Jasonr.

Now to your question of who may desysop. At a local level (see WP:ADMIN), a desysopping if valid if done by Jimbo or done by order or Arbcom, this order would be carried out by someone with the technical ability and authorization to do so. At a global level, Stewards are authorized to change userrights only when it cannot be done by a user with a lower access level such as a bureaucrat, Sysadmins are authorized to change their own rights in the course of their employment to the Foundation, and per m:Founder, Jimbo's authorization to change rights globally is left as undefined. At a technical level, Jimbo acting locally or globally, a Steward acting globally, or a Sysadmin acting globally may change userrights.

Hope that gives a bit more of a background on the definitions we are dealing with. MBisanz ^talk 20:36, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks heaps for all of this information, Matthew. It will take me a day or two to visit all of those links: I will. Tony (talk) 12:06, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Your comments at Wikipedia:Civility/Poll just now

Extremely well said. ++Lar: t/c 18:46, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Identifying socks through forensic language analysis

Users may wish to skim through this MailOnline article, which shows the potential—by analogy with criminal investigations—for spotting the textual fingerprints that can give away who is behind a sockpuppet. Tony (talk) 08:12, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

I've thought for a long time now that's the obvious way to spot socks. I even implemented a simple version on one forum I used to run. --Malleus Fatuorum 08:29, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Interesting; can you elaborate? I suspect we need to skill up a few editors to provide further evidence where CUs based on IP area and editing hours alone are inconclusive. Provide the word-sleuth with a few samples of text by each, and ask (i) what are the suspicious similarities, if any, and (ii) how certain can you be of your conclusion (yes or no) on a scale from "very uncertain" to "no brainer". Tony (talk) 08:35, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Not much to say about it really. I had access to the database of postings, so it was easy to run simple checks on things like word usage, sentence lengths and so on if I became suspicious. I was just looking for similarities between the writing styles of two users, rather than comparing against a body of "standard" writing. --Malleus Fatuorum 08:48, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

This has been done for years at WP:SPI. Comparing the types of changes made by users is the default method to resolving sockpuppetry, with edit time analysis and checkuser used when it is unclear based on the contribution history. MBisanz ^talk 20:38, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

If there are textual analysis tools routinely employed before presenting at WP:SPI I'm not aware of it. I'd be grateful for pointers to such tools that work on wikitext. ++Lar: t/c 18:46, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Are there formal tools that do this? No. I was speaking generally of the practice of looking at edits for common themes, like British/American English usage, styles of referencing, etc, which I and I believe other clerks do at SPI before passing on cases to checkusers. MBisanz ^talk 23:00, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

I was reading what you were saying as (given what Malleus said about having a way to "run simple checks", implying to me a tool of some sort Malleus could use) that there was automation to do this already. Hence my surprise as I'd never heard of such. ++Lar: t/c 23:45, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

One tool I do love is User:Ais523/editcount.js, which lets me quickly do time analysis of edits. MBisanz ^talk 23:53, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

I'd never seen that page. It strikes me that admins and others have to spend a ridiculous amount of time managing the sock problem. A secure method of ID with the WMF would save this and increase community trust. Tony (talk) 12:06, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

A secure method of ID is contrary to the principle that anyone can edit. (but see my post here: [6] ) ++Lar: t/c 18:46, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Whenever I think about tackling this issue, I look at m:Founding principles#2 and decide that the amount of time involved with convincing 1,000s of enwiki users, 10,000s of WMF users, the devs, the paid staff, and the Board to go about changing it, makes it not worth tilting my windmill at. MBisanz ^talk 23:00, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

I have no expectation that it will ever change. Don't confuse that with feeling it's a needful change. ++Lar: t/c 23:45, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

custard

Tony, i was a little slow with the plain english, but i'm there now. so isn't it more prudent for you to eliminate your comment? don't want you getting in trouble if we can help it Sssoul (talk) 10:07, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Helen Mirren line, in State of Play

Howdy. You mentioned that 'line' at Bishonen's talkpage. A simliar line was used by Robert Duvall in the movie Falling Down. -- GoodDay (talk) 16:12, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Hehe, so those SoP script-writers weren't as original as I thought! Tony (talk) 16:50, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Nope. GoodDay (talk) 16:52, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't mind

I'm cool with your move. But next time, please ask before moving. Thanks--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) (talk) 00:58, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Tony1. You have new messages at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/International Space Station/archive3.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Colds7ream (talk) 17:50, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

MoS unprotect?

Darkfrog24 responded to your question on his talk page as follows: "I don't quite understand what you're getting at with regard to instability." That is not encouraging. After the MoS was protected for edit warring, Darkfrog24 asked if he was one of the edit warriors referred to—after the admin who protected the page warned Darkfrog24 against edit warring on Darkfrog24's talk page. Therefore, his response to your question is not unprecedented. Am I alone in the perception that, on MoS Talk, he argues about practically everything, incessantly, sometimes solely for the pleasure of it? That his agenda is to undermine what little prescription there is in our MoS? Finell (Talk) 19:58, 8 July 2009 (UTC) (To preserve the continuity of the conversation, I will watch for your reply here on your Talk page.)

Darkfrog's response wasn't encouraging. I'd be inclined to practise zero-tolerance on that count if the page were unprotected, reporting him to ANI rather than reverting the page immediately. We could put a strong note at the top about gaining consensus before editing the page in any way that is likely to be contentious. I don't see why the whole page should have to be locked down because of one person. Tony (talk) 00:32, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Italics

Please see the MOS discussion for my response to your views on italics in Delaware. stilltim (talk) 11:02, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/MCW Heavyweight Championship/archive1

Can you return to the above FLC? All your comments are fixed or have been replied too.--WillC 11:25, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia: Governance review

We have been asked to publicise this broad community discussion as widely as possible. Wikipedia:Governance_review Tony (talk) 16:22, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured article review/Woody Guthrie/archive1

Hi Tony. Can you have a look at this please? The only thing the nominator raised was 1a. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:39, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

My age, etc

I've been harassed, both on-wiki, off-wiki, and in real life as a result of my administrative actions. I've had entire hate-sites and YouTube videos dedicated to me. As such, I would feel extremely uncomfortable disclosing my exact age; I'd rather fail an RfB than compromise my security. I hope you can understand. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 14:11, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Oh, that's terrible. I'm sorry this is the case, and even though I don't understand why the exact age would make you more vulnerable, I would assist you to fend off nasty users/attacks if were ever in a position to do so. YouTube? You're joking ... obviously not. Tony (talk) 14:51, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. Normally I wouldn't be too concerned, but given that I use my real name as my username (a bit of a mistake), I tend to be more cautious. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 16:40, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Tony, I just wanted to mention that there are laws to protect minors (federally and locally in the US) which prohibit requiring specific age identifications for the very reason that people could find identifying information on minors. To demand a specific age would be a risky position to take. Ottava Rima (talk) 17:50, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Ah, Don Murphy is after you? --Apoc2400 (talk) 18:29, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Overriding the protect at MoS

Carrying on a conversation as if I wasn't there makes me think User:NE2 had not realized it was on my talk page, or was being rude.

This is a further example of the poor manner in which you all have supposedly attempted to inform someone of a guideline, which began with you providing a link to your request that someone inform me of it. Hyacinth (talk) 18:25, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Noun plus -ing

Tony, some time ago you promised to respond to the points I raised at your talk page on this issue. Have you had a chance to think of your response? Ricardiana (talk) 00:24, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Featured list criteria discussion

Take a look if you can at Wikipedia talk:Featured list criteria#Alt text, as we may need to amend the criteria with regard to alternative text. Your word-smithing skills would be welcomed. Thanks, Dabomb87 (talk) 18:01, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm unclear about the situation. "If necessary" has been put in and taken out. Is there a draft proposal? Tony (talk) 08:11, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Any chance of a favour?

Would you have time to write a very short article (four to six paragraphs, perhaps cut down from one of your other pieces) introducing basic copy-editing to newbies? It's for the Milhist Academy. If you have time it would be great ...  Roger Davies ^talk 18:17, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

PS: I'm glad you liked the copy-edit and thanks for the very useful input.

Roger: I love WP's MilHist and will be pleased to do this. Tony (talk) 02:26, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. I was very much hoping you'd say that.  Roger Davies ^talk 18:45, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

And (Oh, the shame!) I can't believe I misspelt plagiarism not only on the acdemy page but also on the saintly Awadewit's.  Roger Davies ^talk 08:33, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

No, I think I exceed you in the bad-spelling department, Roger! The other day, my work-mentor sighed again at my "compliment" for "complement" and said "Tony, that's embarrassing". I'll try to help in a number of sections there—could be a good model for other WikiProjects. But it will be spread over a week or two. Tony (talk) 16:39, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Choral symphony

Thanks very much for your insightful and thought-provoking comments on this article at FAC. I do have one question, which I left for you here. Jonyungk (talk) 19:06, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Rejoinder supplied; Jon (I hope that's your name), I'll try to revisit it soon. Tony (talk) 16:35, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Category:Wikipedia adminship

Category:Wikipedia adminship contains pages about being a Wikipedia administrator. -- Wavelength (talk) 02:16, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Wavelength; a few of these might be useful links for User:Tony1/AdminReview. Tony (talk) 07:37, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I'll have a crack at the flow chart for that tomorrow. Regards --Joopercoopers (talk) 16:40, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

RfC

Hi, happy to, but it's going to take a concentrated period of reading and assessing, which I wont have for a few hours - I've currently got just little snippets of time onwiki and that's insufficient for digesting this. Happy to wait? If not, I'll not feel slighted! --Dweller (talk) 11:50, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Dweller. Sorry, I didn't mean to put you through an elaborate exercise when you're busy. Matthew is being very helpful. Tony (talk) 16:24, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Rio de Janeiro bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics

Hello Tony! Yesterday I requested a Peer review for the article Rio de Janeiro bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics. The first comment comes from User:Casliber, who said that the article did not satisfy the Criterion 1a of the Featured article criteria. Well, he told me take a look of your famous page How to satisfy Criterion 1a. Brilliant! You should have received endless praise for this page. However, I was tired just to scroll the entire page. I am a 16-years-old Brazilian, my English is horrible, and is very difficult to understand all that text. I know that may sound crazy and you might not reply to this message, but... If possible and if you are not busy, could you participate in the Peer review? It would be an honor. :) Regards; Felipe Menegaz 02:54, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

RfC

Thank you for your implied trust in asking me to close the RfC you co-proposed. I have now done so.

Please see Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Role_of_Jimmy_Wales_in_the_English_Wikipedia#Notes and the subsequent section. I am sorry to say that I did not find consensus for the proposals. Please review my closure and let me know if you think I have made any errors, either in interpratation or administration. --Dweller (talk) 17:47, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Dweller; much appreciated. Tony (talk) 07:51, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

1968 Illi. earthquake

Hi, Tony. I've been trying to patch up all the errors in this article, having just (somehow) endured and withdrew an RfA, along with being away from home half the day. Anyway, could you explain some of the comments you made on the FAC? I think I comprehend your suggestions, but I'd just like to have clarification on the points you made, particularly two and five. Malleus and another copy editor ran through the text, so I think it's much closer to FA prose. ceranthor 15:03, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Just to clarify, I only went through part of the article; I stopped after I became concerned about the similarity of some of the text to what was contained in the sources.[7] --Malleus Fatuorum 15:12, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Malleus, note that I said "ran", conveying a quick read-over. ceranthor 17:16, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Extension:LiquidThreads

You can read about a new discussion page system at Extension:LiquidThreads. -- Wavelength (talk) 21:30, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

WT:SOCK

I was wondering if you had a chance to look at my scenarios at Wikipedia talk:Sock puppetry#Highly restrictive policy on second accounts.3F. I am interested to see how you would respond to them. MBisanz ^talk 00:31, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Drat. Get better. MBisanz ^talk 08:56, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Tony sick

Hi, Tony asked me to let you all know that he's quite sick right now with a strain of the swine flu. He should be alright by the weekend, but he is battling severe flu symptoms right now. Regards, Dabomb87 (talk) 14:12, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Get well soon, T-man. --Laser brain (talk) 14:32, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Lucky you… acquiring the immunity now, while it's still safe :) --Goodmorningworld (talk) 20:44, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Hope you're fully recovered and returned to us soon. All the best, Steve ^T • C 21:44, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

I will put in a request to block User:PigFlu Oink. --NE2 21:53, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Get well soon! ---kilbad (talk) 20:41, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Get, better as - soon as you 'CAN'! I need someone to correct myself's redundant and over-the-top and poor gramar. DId you catch it through delinking dates?! The Rambling Man (talk) 20:46, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

The Sunday Times has an odd article today about the flu today. The columnist considers exposing her children to the virus now in the way some parents do to chicken pox - to get it out of the way! I'll await your report before offering similar advice to parents, but if you're off-wiki for this length of time, it doesn't look good :-) Joopercoopers (talk) 20:49, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

All the best Tony. Hopefully you'll be feeling better shortly. Fortunately, my mother decided for some reason to buy all our family some Tamiflu so hopefully I'm prepared for the inevitable! Take as much time off as you need - I'm sure someone will sort out the sick pay for you! ;-) Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 20:55, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Wishing you a cosy convalescence and a speedy recovery. :) SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 21:03, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

sorry to hear this news, I hope you recover fully and quickly. dm (talk) 12:39, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Thinking of you always, Tony; quite worried about you, and I hope to hear you're recovered soon! Always, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:51, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Hi Tony. Sorry that you're so sick but pleased that you will never have to worry about immunity to swine flu again. Michael Glass (talk) 14:58, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Srsly. No more of this. Get better and come back. --Moni3 (talk) 15:14, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Please do get well soon. NW (Talk) 18:44, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Best wishes Tony, love Graham. Graham Colm ^Talk 20:06, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks to all of these well-wishers. It is heartening to receive such messages. I'm more than 3/4 better, but it's a slow rise. WP seems like hard work! Tony (talk) 03:05, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Question for you

You recently opined, "cooling-off" blocking is forbidden, and so is punitive blocking. The onus is on the blocking admin to explain, when queried, why a block is necessary to prevent damage to the project; that onus is encapsulated in WP:ADMIN's policy on communication."

I'm just coming back into the loop after a hiatus. I read the policy, but as written, it's not clear to me exactly what you are describing a "punitive block." In my experience if a (particularily new) editor is writing a bunch of - for example - racist or insulting material, then he gets blocked in fairly short order. As far as "cooling off," isn't that what most temporary blocks are actually intended to accomplish? I'm confused. Regards, Hamster Sandwich (talk) 03:08, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for your enquiry. The situation you described would normally require prompt action to protect the project. Thus, it is not considered to be a "cooling off" or "punitive" block. Presumably, there would be simultaneous communication on the user's talk page explaining why the protection is required. If the user doesn't get it, further protection may be required.

It is where there is no case, or only a weak case, that a block is necessary to protect the project, that questions start to be asked as to whether the block was of the punitive or cooling-off variety. Sometimes, the boundary is not hard and fast, in which cases we rely on the good judgement of admins. Tony (talk) 03:24, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the prompt response! In a nutshell the vast preponderence of blocks I have instituted have been cut-and-dried vandalism, but I seem to re-call blocking someone for a few seconds once... I think they were just losing their temper about something or other...I was a neutral party...I should look through my block logs to find that one! Anyhow, you can be sure I always want to stay current on policy whatnots! Thanks again! Best Regards, Hamster Sandwich (talk) 03:39, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Love your username! Tony (talk) 04:51, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

FAR

Hey Tony. How are you? Well I'm trying to promote the article "4 Minutes (Madonna song)" for FA. I have copyedited the article quite a bit and refreshed the prose also. But do you think the prose can still be better. If so, how do you suppose an improvement can be done? Regards, --Legolas ^(talk2me) 06:56, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Your habit of making unjustified, false accusations

Tony, frankly, this has to stop. You have a bad habit of making unfounded accusations against people, and of reacting to situations without fully considering what is actually going on. You've done it to me personally on many occasions now, the most recent of which was a few minutes ago on a third party's talk page. ("Link extremist"? "Stalking"? Come on...) It is tiresome in policy discussions, it is tiresome in edit summaries, and it is tiresome on user talk pages. I'm posting here in the hopes that this time, you will do more than just pay lip service to the concerns and then carry on with the same behaviour. Please do so, in the interest of avoiding needless wiki-drama. --Ckatz^chat_spy 10:41, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Are you stalking me? It is obvious to me, but I'll consider reasonable evidence to the contrary. And I believe the drama arose from your reversion of my edit to bring an article into compliance with the style guides (without a substantive edit summary, mind you). In addition, you have not, I believe, provided correct or balanced information to the third party you mention. Care to explain? Tony (talk) 10:45, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

FYI, I'd appreciate it if you could please review WP:STALK (and any other guideline or policy you wish to quote to me) thoroughly before making false accusations. You know full well that accusing someone of something - even when you know it is untrue - still damages the accused party, and you should know better than to use that tactic in order to further your goals. Good faith is one thing, but I've been on the receiving end of this from you (and seen you use it on others) too many times to consider it accidental behaviour. --Ckatz^chat_spy 10:50, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Per your note above, how is it not "correct or balanced"? You rewrote the guidelines last July, without discussion. You did it because you wanted to clear out the "sea of blue" (as you describe it). If you like, I can give Patrick an extensive series of diffs to show just that - but I'd hate to have to do so as it would be counterproductive. I'd really rather just resolve this habit of yours of making false accusations, so that the problem doesn't repeat itself. We don't agree about your blue-link preferences, but at least we should be able to disagree in an adult manner so that the discussion can evolve. --Ckatz^chat_spy 10:55, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

(e.c. before your last post) First, no shouting on my page, please (I've unshouted it). And I'd appreciate it if you toned down your own accusations and orders ("this has to stop. You have a bad habit of making unfounded accusations ...). Second, I did leave an "out", in which I said I'd consider reasonable evidence to the contrary—which you have not provided. It seems statistically vanishingly unlikely that you would visit shortly after I did articles so diverse as "Anglican Communion" and "Andorra", unless you just happened to be dealing with articles starting with "An...." at almost exactly the same time.

Second, you've provided no reason for reverting. If you believe the style guide needs to be changed, please raise the matter there—although I think you have done so in the past and failed to gain consensus.

Third, it would have been productive if you'd provided more focused alternatives for the links, as I've suggested. If such links are so important, they need to be focused. I don't believe they are important in the scheme of things (observe the higher-value links in the vicinity?); but that would be a better starting point.

Fourth, I'm well aware of the stalking policy, and of the civility policy. I believe a number of aspects of your previous posts here are in question WRT latter, since you raise it—but to pursue that line is not my style.

Fifth, I apologised when I got my information wrong a few months ago in relation to your actions: wasn't that enough? And do I know that my assertion here was untrue, as you claim? I'm unsure I do.

I hope we can find a more productive way of interacting; I'm sorry that you're upset. Tony (talk) 11:04, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

No, Tony, it's really not enough, because you continue with the same behavioural patterns time and time again. You say "to pursue that line is not my style", but in actual fact it is very much your style. You make a rash accusation, be it on a personal talk page, an article or policy discussion page, sometimes even to an official forum, only to have it revealed that there was no basis whatsoever for the accusations. It's not just me, either - you've done it to many people. (Again, I can easily provide diffs if you like, although I would really rather address the problem rather than get bogged down in that.) As for your unfounded accusation, many editors do have large (7000+) watchlists, and when a page pops up with an unnecessary change, they address the problem. (Not that it is any of your business, nor should I have to explain my edits to you, but I happened to have to deal with an issue on all of the country articles from A through B a few days ago, so Andorra was on my list.) --Ckatz^chat_spy 18:38, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

"Your reversion of all my work on the Chile article"

Would you please explain your remark on my talk page at de-wiki? Neither my bot nor myselve did any reverts to Chile except that my bot removes a iw link to ext:Chili of cause this page has been deleted. -Xqt (talk) 16:48, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Tony, you are mistaken here, Kilcock (talk · contribs) did the reverting: [8]. Regards, Woody (talk) 16:52, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Woody: I've just been to the talk pages of both the German bot-runner and Kilcock to explain. Tony (talk) 16:53, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

No problem, we've all misread diffs in our time! ;) That diverted me from the reason for heading over here, could you take another look at VC for Oz FAC please. I have responded there. Many thanks, Woody (talk) 16:57, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Dashes and hyphens

Hi Tony, can I ask a quick question? I noticed your correction of "Franco-Russian" to "Franco–Russian" and was wondering if there are any usage differences between Sino and Franco. Would "Sino–Russian" be correct? I ask because MOS:ENDASH states that Sino lacks lexical independence and should be hyphenated.

By the way, thanks so much for the tutorials, which I think are an under-advertised but immensely valuable resource for the community. Pslide (talk) 14:52, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

He's right, I goofed: my reply. Tony (talk) 14:56, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia Policies and Guidelines Statistics

I found Wikipedia Policies and Guidelines Statistics while seeking something else. -- Wavelength (talk) 02:34, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Your questions

Hi, I've answered #1. You might need to wait a little while for answers #2 and #3, as my head is booming like the Rank man's gong would have done (if it hadn't, apparently, been a papier mache fake - a fact I don't think we have on Wikipedia yet). --Dweller (talk) 15:46, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

All 3 answered. Don't worry, the headache wasn't caused by you. Mostly. --Dweller (talk) 10:44, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Asking for guidance on MOS talk page

Hi, Tony. I have started a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Guidance for bulleted lists that refers to an edit you made to the Manual of Style long ago. If you can help to shed some light on the issue, I would be grateful. Thank you. —Bkell (talk) 18:03, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Charles Stewart (Canadian politician)

Hi there. You asked for a copyedit at the above FAC. Main editor had approached someone but I hopped in and did a run through in the meantime. I've left some non-copyedit Qs for the nominator at the FAC discussion, but thought I would let you know a copyedit had been done so you could see where you stand on this one. Cheers. hamiltonstone (talk) 00:52, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

People's nationality

See [9]. AdjustShift (talk) 07:53, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your response; it seems that you also judge people on the basis of merit rather than their nationality. :-) AdjustShift (talk) 08:22, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Well yes. National identity leads nowhere good, IMO. I'd burn national flags if I had the chance. Cultural/linguistic identity, if not of the xenophobic type, may be different. But I have little respect for the 19th-century concept of nation-state that Europeans forced on the world and which is greatly responsible for the current mess. Tony (talk) 08:48, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Sydney meetup

I was going to phone you about this one, I will try really hard to make it this time. I suggested the Belgian Beer place before but failed to attend....from yer friendly neighbourhood guv'ner Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:26, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/ThaddeusB

I wanted to take a moment to delivery a personal thank you (not "thank spam" :)) for your involvement in my RfA. (It passed 117-2-7 in case you hadn't seen.) I appreciated that you took the time to ask me a couple questions. I enjoyed answering them and was glad that you found my responses worthy of your support. I look forward to serving the community in my new role.

Thanks again, ThaddeusB (talk) 05:01, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

No problem. My best wishes for a fruitful and satisfying adminship, Thaddeus. Tony (talk) 07:37, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Appeal Committee

Just curious but have you seen the above. Seems to duplicate User:Tony1/AdminReview. Cheers. Enter CambridgeBayWeather, waits for audience applause, not a sausage 13:07, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Attalus

My weak keep is because I haven't bothered to look up the references myself; I assume Paul August is doing so in good faith. I have no objections to it, and suspect Hamiltonstone's conjectures are not well-founded.

In case it is not clear in context, my last two comments are about Theramenes, which Hamiltonstone is holding up as a model which Attalus I should follow; it's not much of a model.

On a similar note, would you look at Senedd if it goes back to peer review? Its last FAC failed primarily through lack of interest, but it seemed well-written to me. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 12:55, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

FWIW, I was not holding up Theremenes as a model in general, a point i made on the FARC discussion before Septentrionalis made the post above. I'll post direct to Sept on this, but my point is (and it applies to all sorts of WP articles) that a discussion of the sources may be of value before one relies on those sources, particularly if the principle source for an entry is a roman historian writing two hundred years after the events or life in question (Attalus I). Cheers. hamiltonstone (talk) 03:07, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Hamilton. Your point seems to be correct; I'm only sorry that I'm unable to content-review this one, since it's very distant from my knowledge base. Tony (talk) 03:10, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Unwarranted comments

Hey Tony, I'm sorry that you were offended. Perhaps a better way of handling your hurt would have been to post on my talk page, or via email, and let us work things out. I don't think I would recommend the route you took, of posting on my talk page that you had "complained" to the two FA delegates, and also posting at length in FAC. Did that make the process regarding this article better or fairer? Did that make me more likely to accept your comments as borne of a genuine desire to improve Wikipedia? My comment, which was on another editor's talk page, was born of frustration. Tony, what emotion sparked you to post what you did on the FAC page for the article, and on Karanac's talk page, and on SandyGeorgia's talk page, and then to tell me what you had done? Was that the right thing to do? Think about it please.--Wehwalt (talk) 02:00, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Don't lecture me on how to complain about your appalling comments. Tony (talk) 02:42, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Why would you need instruction in "how to complain"? Past master, I say!--Wehwalt (talk) 04:22, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

As an admin, you are supposed to be setting an example in areas such as civility. Are you acting within the policy? Tony (talk) 04:48, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm no great fan of the the civility policy, but I've been blocked for less than that. What I didn't understand then though was that it's only the serfs who can be uncivil, their masters are immune from that charge. --Malleus Fatuorum 04:54, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Ignore it Tony. You know that Sandy does take your comments seriously, never mind the theatrics. —Preceding unsigned comment added by YellowAssessmentMonkey (talk • contribs) 07:43, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Negative comment

Darkfrog, the page remains locked because when, a few weeks ago, I tried to arrange for it to be unlocked, you stuck a knife into that move. Tony (talk) 02:54, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

To what is this in reference? I can't find anything in your discussion about whether to unprotect the MoS that would correspond to such feelings. Could you perhaps have attributed some of Pi Zero's suggestions to me? Darkfrog24 (talk) 03:14, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, here: "if there is a page for which being less accessible to editing would not necessarily be a bad thing, it's this one. Darkfrog24 (talk) 1:44 am, 9 July 2009" Tony (talk) 04:51, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for clearing that up. I can respect your feelings, but I would appreciate it if you wouldn't phrase it that way on the talk page. It makes it look as though the non-passage of your suggestion was due solely to me, and certain parties already seem to have gotten the wrong idea. Darkfrog24 (talk) 04:58, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Done. Tony (talk) 05:04, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Darkfrog24 (talk) 05:06, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Cane toad

Gave it another run YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 07:43, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm glad to see it was promoted. Well done. Tony (talk) 15:36, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

FYI, this was an FAR, not an FAC. Dabomb87 (talk) 15:44, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

That's why I couldn't find it in the list. Thx, Dabomb; I'll look tomorrow at the article text. Tony (talk) 15:55, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Moved discussion

Discussion moved from Sandy's talk page to here on prompting of others. Ottava Rima (talk) 14:29, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Tony: In case I did not make myself clear, I do apologize for my comment, which was not appropriate. I hope we can work together for the improvement of Wikipedia.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:18, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Alt accounts

Let us examine your case: someone and his alt both vote in an RfC. As things are, if someone is caught doing this, one or both accounts will be blocked. Do you have a counterexample? (Is this "disruption"? What difference does it make?)

Your original amendment adds nothing to this (I will consider your new wording); nor does it help catch them. If you had an account Ynot which never argued at MOS, never voted in your polls, and stayed away from FA (and, as I read WP:SOCK, all of these would be blockable offenses, including arguing on the other side) what harm would it do? how would anybody tell, unless you admitted it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:40, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

It's an invitation to do wrong, and too high a proportion of users can't resist. It's human nature, and we create a millstone around our necks with such a loose policy. I can't understand your objection to tighter rules; nor what great advantages you see in the operation of alt accounts in all but a very narrow set of circumstances. They are currently used for "fun" by some people; this is highly regrettable. Tony (talk) 14:50, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

And, God knows, having fun while editing Wikipedia would be the worst thing ever. Wikipedia is SERIOUS BUSINESS! -67.164.37.179 (talk) 15:05, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

It is serious business. But while I'm not a total killjoy, ID deception has gone too far and needs stricter measures to combat its proliferation. If, for every 10 "fun" or trivial undisclosed usages, there's one double vote at an RfC or avoidance of the 3RR rule, or intimidatory tactics in a discussion through greater numbers—or worse, at a CU, OS or Arbitrator election—it's just not worth it. The degradation of trust that arises from such deception is a serious psychological suppressant for honest, fun-loving editors. Tony (talk) 15:22, 31 July 2009 (UTC) PS, the discussion started here and proceeds to the bottom of the policy talk page, minus one small interceding section. Tony (talk) 15:25, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Referencing in Ralph Bakshi

I removed some of the unneeded citations. Is the current revision OK? (Ibaranoff24 (talk) 21:38, 31 July 2009 (UTC))

MUCH better. Tony (talk) 15:04, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Wondering if you're interested...

Dear Tony. Pretty much the only thing I've done on WP is turn the Philip Larkin article from a shallow grave to a respectable tribute. Recently an editor nominated it for GA which it passed. That experience was as unpleasant as I expected it to be. Some people have said that they think it is getting towards FA standard. I'm not so sure about that myself, but that's not important. At any rate I'm expecting that sooner or later someone will try to get it to FA. Suffering from terrible ownership problems over the article as I do, I would find the whole process a lot more bearable if the nomination were done by someone very experienced and competent. So I thought of you. Firstly, in a rough estimation (no need for any details) do you think its in the FA ballpark? Secondly, if it were, would you be interested in nominating it? If not, is there anyone you would recommend? The editor who did the GA review took the trouble to get to know the sources, so a good team could be put together, as long as there was someone strong overseeing it. Another editor has put a lot of work into the article, but doesn't actually know anything about the topic ... which is weird. If it were nominated, he would almost certainly get involved; hence the need for someone experienced in the ways of FACdom. Thanks for reading this; apologies if it is of no interest to you. Yours, almost-instinct 16:04, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Hi Almost: If I nominated an FAC it would be the kiss of death for it. I made a few tweaks at the top, and put a space after the ref pp./p. It looks well within reach of working up to FAC standard. Tony (talk) 05:01, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, thanks for looking, and for helping the page :-) BTW, the page has never been attended to by someone who could call themselves a MOS specialist... almost-instinct 09:41, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

After a little more thought and looking again at the page, I was wondering if I may ask your opinion on a couple of matters:

1. Structurally, does the article comply with MOS guidelines? I think it does but how it stands at the moment was a compromise between myself and an editor with greater concern for following the letter of the law than I.
2. Looking through the content are there any areas which to your eye seem thin or underdeveloped? Between myself and another editor we are in a position to add pretty much anything.

On a completely unrelated note, I was delighted to see that you like Tippett! The Midsummer Marriage is one of my favourite operas. almost-instinct 12:28, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

I've never seen a Tippett opera, save the re-enactment of an excerpt from that very opera on a TV documentary on the composer many years ago (wish I could locate it—Melvyn Bragg was the producer/interviewer).

I'm a little fussy about my likes and dislikes WRT his output, but what I do like, I really love with a passion and has had a profound effect on me (Symphonies 2 and 3, the Triple Concerto, the Concerto for Double String Orchestra—these are desert-island works). Two friends of mine did the walk with Tippett around his property; one of them, Professor Peter Denison, later introduced me to his music, in the 1980s.

An occasional WPian has posted on YouTube a number of videos of Tippett from his private collection from the ?1960s, among them exceprts of Tippett's rehearsing of the Leicester Youth Orchestra; mostly not what I'd put up as representative of the great genius (he was no great conductor, I'm afraid, and the playing is mostly so-so), but there's interesting stuff there.

Pity the WP article on Tippett isn't better.

I'll look tomorrow at the Larkin article. Tony (talk) 15:16, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Boldface in film articles

Hello, I was wondering if I could get a word of advice from you about boldface in film articles. A portion of the articles bold the actors' names and the names of their roles in the "Cast" sections. I always remove this formatting for bulleted items that neighbor each other within one or two lines since it's pointless to have emphases so close together. More senior editors seem to accept boldface, though, for some bulleted items that are multiple lines in length. However, MOS:BOLD does not mention that boldface is suitably applied for this. Do you think that such "Cast" sections should survive without any bold formatting? I'm considering an RfC to overcome any traditional mentality that may linger with editors under WikiProject Films. Do you agree, or do you suggest another way to go about such a change? —Erik (talk • contrib) 16:54, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Bolding within the main text is one of my pet hates: it's just too striking, and competes with the subtitle formatting. It often looks messy, especially if more than one item is bolded. I reluctantly accept the practice of bolding the topic right at the outset of an article. Where is this being discussed? Tony (talk) 15:03, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

WT:MOSFILM#Bold formatting in "Cast" section; it hasn't garnered much attention yet. I'm mainly concerned with dealing with people who are used to bold formatting in the main text, and I would like to pursue the formatting's removal, at least for the Good and Featured Articles under WikiProject Films. It would be in line with MOS:BOLD, anyway. —Erik (talk • contrib) 17:26, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

City of Manchester Stadium

Needs a prose check for its FAR, if you have the time. Cheers, Dabomb87 (talk) 18:47, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

United States Senate election in California, 1950

Tony:

Would you consider withdrawing your oppose? Mattisse has done a very thorough copyedit of the article now. Again, I'm sorry for my intemperate words, which I've stricken at Mattisse's talk page. Best,--Wehwalt (talk) 20:14, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Overlinking

Tony, I don't have time to follow Wikipedia talk:External links#Merge from WP:Linking, so you might want to keep an eye on it, since I saw mention of Build the Web and a trend towards overlinking. (Glad to see Wehwalt's post above.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:33, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

There's also been a huge (mostly undiscussed) overhaul of WP:LINKING. Dabomb87 (talk) 20:55, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Review request

Hi there! I'm trying to get some fresh eyes on Yukon Quest before I submit it for another go at FAC. You voted against it two months ago, and after I reflected on the article for a while, I realized you were right. That's why I'm trying to gather more outside reviews before entering the FAC process for the third (and hopefully final) time with this article. I'd love to have a full copy edit by someone with the devotion to grammar that you have, but I completely understand if you have neither the time nor willingness to do that. Even a quick reading of the article and a few comments about areas to improve prior to FAC would be helpful at this stage. Thanks in advance for any help you might be willing to give. JKBrooks85 (talk) 10:57, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Replied on user's talk page. Tony (talk) 15:01, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll get to work on those ideas. JKBrooks85 (talk) 23:14, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

J. C. W. Beckham

Thanks for your comments on my FA nom of J. C. W. Beckham. The nomination closed with no consensus. I responded to your comments, but never received any further feedback from you. Could you please respond on my talk page and let me know if my responses sufficiently addressed your concerns and what else I need to do to garner your support for promoting the article. I would like to take care of this before I nominate it again. Acdixon ^{(talk • contribs • count)} 12:19, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Had to hunt down that archive. You responded: "Regarding an independent copy-edit, one has already been done by User:Prestonmcconkie, who I have found to be very good. I'm probably too close to the prose to identify problems, so if you could provide a list of them or recommend someone who could, that would be immensely helpful." OK, previous copy-edits weren't really relevant to the state at the time; if you'd pinged me, I'd have tried to help in finding an appropriate copy-editor (research edit-histories of similar articles, especially FAs, to see who the good prose nerds are). Sorry, I often don't have time to revisit FACs without prompting. Tony (talk) 14:38, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

My fault. I thought it was common practice to follow FACs you'd commented on. Just a contrast of styles, I guess. I'm probably going to list the article for peer review, since I'm hoping to nominate a different article for FA by the end of the week, and I can't have two FACs open at once. I'd still appreciate your suggestions for good copy-editors. Please just leave any suggestions on my talk page. Acdixon ^{(talk • contribs • count)} 13:25, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

aided by Ottava Rima

I think the above is a little off. I pointed out that when you state some comments that are wrong or are vague, it is upsetting to people. It was not a comment on anything but a specific set of actions and the generalized feeling to them. Yes, a lot of your reviews are thorough and -not- vague. However, I saw some vague statements in that review. I do not say that Wehwalt's actions were correct. I am only explaining -why- they came about. FAC is very frustrating for people and if you are not clear people become upset. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:39, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

• I'm a little surprised by that comment above. FAC reviews and critiques/criticisms are an indivisible. If comments are vague, the correct course of action is to request clarification. However, there appear to have been unprovoked personal attacks against Tony in that review which made me think Walt was sensitive to criticism from Tony. Here, I can only speculate perhaps that he had been jilted before. Ohconfucius (talk) 11:51, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

British Birds Rarities Committee

Hi. Could you take a look at the changes I've made in response to your comments on British Birds Rarities Committee at FAC, and let me know (at the FA nomination page) if they've been addressed. Thanks SP-KP (talk) 16:08, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your copy-editing and further comments. I've addressed (or suggested solutions to) most of these now. Please take a look at my responses and let me know your thoughts. SP-KP (talk) 17:11, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

SOCK?

FYI-You are being discussed on my talk page ttonyb1 (talk) 04:28, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

MOS

Ok. DAFMM.

He says, without the auto-sig, which was the subject of my note. <sigh> Tony (talk) 09:48, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Film series numbering controversy

You may like to comment here: Talk:Film_series#Requested_move - Robsinden (talk) 14:23, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Wind Watch

It's just the opposite of what you think; Wind Watch is very much an anti-wind power site. See the homepage: www.wind-watch.org. The most prominent quote on the page reads:

This web site provides the information that promoters of industrial wind do not. Armed with knowledge beyond their sales pitches, you can decide for yourself whether the elusive benefits of large-scale wind energy development are enough to justify the further destruction of communities, the environment, and individual lives.

It doesn't really make a huge difference in this case, of course, but it seems better to use sources from elsewhere when possible. As far as NPOV and Wikipedia's authority goes, I think that we'll be exactly as credible as our sources -- nobody (hopefully) is going to just take a Wikipedia article at face value unless it has strong sources backing it up. Certainly an NPOV article will be more trustworthy, but if we use a broad selection of good sources (from credible peer-reviewed journals when writing about scientific topics, for instance) then we'll end up with an NPOV article naturally. I also think there's sometimes a risk of giving some things undue weight in an effort to make an article appear more NPOV, and actually undermining NPOV as a result -- presenting every marginal viewpoint doesn't necessarily make for an NPOV article. --Aquillion (talk) 05:15, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with this. However, just one point: (from credible peer-reviewed journals when writing about scientific topics, for instance) then we'll end up with an NPOV article naturally"—pharameceutical companies are well-known for funding lots of studies of their products, but vetoing the publication of all but those that cast the products in a positive light. WP can't escape the need to assess, summarise, choose, and that by itself is hard to differentiate, on occasions, from the NOR doctrine. This is not widely enough acknowledge, IMO. Tony (talk) 07:02, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Falkland Islands

Your comments on the talk page are out of order, please consider revising them. Justin talk 13:28, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

WP is bound to consider all perspectives—even those of non-English-speakers, and especially where cultural sensitivities may be at issue. We need to take this into account in revising the article, I think. Tony (talk) 15:48, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Right so we cater for cultural sensitivities by posting gratuitously offensive edits on the talk pages of articles completelty unrelated to the subject at hand? Again I would urge to reconsider your comments. Justin talk 16:01, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Well no, I don't think they are entirely unrelated issues. Tony (talk) 10:41, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

re:Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/South Park (season 1)/archive1

The article did undergo through some cleanup. Are you still opposing the FAC? Nergaal (talk) 19:34, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

British Birds Rarities Committee

Hi. Have you had a chance to take a look at my responses to your most recent comments? Could you let me know what you think. Thanks SP-KP (talk) 16:11, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Here's the link, Tony. Dabomb87 (talk) 01:22, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Procedural question

Hello again Tony. I've apparently kicked over a real anthill here, which wasn't really my intent but what's done is done. I'm growing concerned that the Ares I talk page is an inappropriate venue for this discussion, though. Is there an accepted procedure to move the discussion to someplace more general, such as the Village pump? If so, do you have a recommendation for an actual location?
— Ω (talk) 21:05, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Request for arbitration: Date delinking amendment motion

A request to amend the dates delinking arbitration case (filed 19 July 2009) has resulted in a motion (filed 2 August 2009) that proposes to change the restrictions imposed on you as a result of the case. The proposed amendment would affect the restrictions pertaining to 16 editors, all of whom are now being notified of the proposed amendment. Given that the proposed amendment affects your restrictions, and further that the proposed amendment will restrict the filing of further proposed amendments for a period of 30 days, your input is invited at the amendments page. You may view an unofficial table of the proposed changes here. Comments from affected parties are currently being considered by the Arbitration Committee. If you would like the arbitrators who have already voted to reconsider their votes in light of your comments, please indicate that in your comments.

For the Arbitration Committee

Seddσn ^talk|^WikimediaUK 03:10, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

FAC recheck

Tony, want to have a fresh look at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/United States Senate election in California, 1950/archive2 now? Best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:06, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Also, even if original source has strange punctuation on direct quote, do we have to keep it? [10] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:08, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Have confirmed on the article talk page.[11] that the original source has a comma followed by a dash as in "slow modification,—each modification".[12] If preferred we could change the dash to a space, but this might modify the meaning subtly. . dave souza, talk 14:56, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Dave, probably safer to leave as is, although I know User:Noetica is all for regularising quirky things like that.Tony (talk) 16:10, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, will go along with that. If there is further sicussion, the talk page now sets out the groundwork. . dave souza, talk 16:17, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Expedition to the Barrier Peaks/archive1

I think the issues you raised have been addressed. I took out a lot of redundant refs, but I'm not sure if I should put the ones back where there's a quote in the sentence. Tell me what you think. Thanks. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 15:53, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Re: Anchor

It allows you to create a link to that section even when its name is different. For example, User:Tony1/Advanced editing exercises#Noun plus -ing works because that's the section's name, and User:Tony1/Advanced editing exercises#A common problem—noun plus -ing also works because of the anchor. Dabomb87 (talk) 18:35, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Question: do we hyphenate "a quarter"? Taken from "allow posthumous awards until 1920, but one quarter of all awards for the First World War were posthumous." See also Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of Victoria Cross recipients by campaign/archive1. Dabomb87 (talk) 21:38, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

4 minutes

I cleaned up the prose further to my best abilities. --Legolas ^(talk2me) 05:00, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

North Road (stadium) FAC

The article has now received a thorough copyediting from members of WP:GM, and we believe it is now ready for your perusal. – PeeJay 06:51, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Oops

I have moved User Tony1/Noun plus -ing to User:Tony1/Noun plus -ing. — RHaworth (Talk | contribs) 10:41, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, RH—What an incompetent typist I'm becoming. Tony (talk) 10:43, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Re: thanks heaps!

The closing </div> was added in this edit. I think the font size in the template is the same size as the content font size now. Gary King (talk) 03:23, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Gary; under your tuition, I may one day be computer-competent! Tony (talk) 10:39, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Avoid baffling newbies (praise for compelling reasoning)

I wanted to take a moment here to praise the reasoning you presented on the Ares I talk page (and elsewhere, I imagine) about the likelihood that newbies will be baffled by any kind of user-preference markup. This reasoning is very compelling for those of us who believe in "lowering the barriers to entry" for new wikipedia editors. I share your concern about whether dateformat markup is worth the complication, and wish there were an effort underway to simplify wiki editing for newbies! (sdsds - talk) 22:32, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your kind words, Sd.Tony (talk) 23:44, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Flown the coop

I haven't been away for a year. The cage-door is now open, and this old bird is going south to ski, 12–22 August. Limited or no Internet activity. All editing on WP must cease in my absence. Tony (talk) 23:44, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

This is your chance to do something that results in a ten day block! :-)  HWV258  03:50, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

enjoy your outing! Sssoul (talk) 05:50, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Break a leg! Oops, wrong wish! Hope you have plenty of snow, and have a lovely time. Ohconfucius (talk) 06:37, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Take care. Dabomb87 (talk) 15:34, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Arbitration motion regarding Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Date delinking

Per a motion at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Amendment:

Having considered all the requests for amendment and requests for clarification submitted following the decision in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Date delinking, the Arbitration Committee decides as follows:

(1) All remedies in the decision providing that a specified user is topic-banned from editing or discussing "style and editing guidelines" (or similar wording) are modified by replacing these words with the words "style and editing guidelines relating to the linking or unlinking of dates";

(2) All remedies in the decision providing that a specified user is "prohibited from reversion of changes which are principally stylistic, except where all style elements are prescribed in the applicable style guideline" are modified by replacing these words with the words "prohibited from reverting the linking or unlinking of dates";

(3) All editors whose restrictions are being narrowed are reminded to abide by all applicable policies and guidelines in their editing, so that further controversies such as the one that led to the arbitration case will not arise, and any disagreements concerning style guidelines can be addressed in a civil and efficient fashion;

(4) Any party who believes the Date delinking decision should be further amended may file a new request for amendment. To allow time to evaluate the effect of the amendments already made, editors are asked to wait at least 30 days after this motion is passed before submitting any further amendment requests.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Tiptoety ^talk 04:01, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Discuss this

British Birds Rarities Committee

Hi Tony, could you let me know whether all of your issues with this article are resolved? Thanks SP-KP (talk) 21:48, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Tony is on vacation right now. Dabomb87 (talk) 23:39, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikilinking discussion

Hi, Tony. I'm a some-time professional webmaster, and I have spent much time analyzing website stats. So, I'm in a position to give a general answer to the question you posed in discussion [13]. I left a detailed answer there.

Essentially, non-professionals assume that linking is very much more effective than it actually is. (It's a "Well, it's there, so it must be useful" conception.)

There is another point that I did not bring up to avoid muddling the issue. Part of the problem with links is that are a crude implementation of what might be a sophisticated system of cross-reference. I give an example. I'm a native English speaker. I don't need English vocabulary linked for me. No doubt very many others are the same. So -- just as a casual example -- what if there were two sorts of links? One, just for vocabulary, the other type, links to significant articles that amplify content. Then, I have a browser switch toggle "Turn off vocabulary links". I never have to see the vocabulary links. I'm not distracted by them. Not misguided by them. There are dozens of possibilities, unfortunately, people are shoehorned into considering only a simple, technically limited solution. Cheers, Piano non troppo (talk) 17:00, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

That's an interesting idea that could work in professionally published HTML. In my opinion, it has no chance of succeeding on a wiki, where it would be one more thing for participants to mess up and to argue about. Pardon me for butting in. —Finell (Talk) 18:13, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

<soapbox>Alternative thinking such as this illustrates the point I've been pushing for a while: namely that programmers shouldn't be allowed to enact policy by implementing features that are refined during programming. Rather, programmers should be implementing the wishes of the editing community (via specifications created prior to programming). Looking at some of the features on WP confirms the old saying: if all you own is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.</soapbox>  HWV258  23:24, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Couldn't agree more. Let's get the cart and the horse back in the right order. --Malleus Fatuorum 23:28, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Yep. Now, gimme some more nails please... ;-) Ohconfucius (talk) 03:50, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

These are valuable points. Thanks, indeed, Piano, for lending your professional expertise to the topic. Tony (talk) 09:37, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Noun+ing question

Your essay on noun+ing was very informative. One question: is the noun+ing construction always problematic? For example, is there anything wrong with "There are submarines heading in our direction"? If there are exceptions to the rule, how would you define them? Thanks. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 09:37, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Cats' or Cats?

Hi Tony, I'm unsure about this sentence "Another adaption to dim light are the large pupils of cats' eyes, relative to their lenses." is this "cats'" (plural possessive) or just "cats"? Tim Vickers (talk) 18:02, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Hi Tim. Tony is on a Wikibreak till tomorrow. Your sentence is better like this:

Another adaptation to dim light is the large pupils of cats' eyes, relative to their lenses.

Adaption is a decidedly inferior variant; and is, unlike are, agrees with the singular subject adaptation. Cats' is correct. You would do best to rework the sentence like this:

The pupil of a cat's eye is large relative to the lens: another adaptation to dim light.

I hope that helps.

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 03:29, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Noetica. Tim, you might also consider a dash instead of the colon, unless you need a "drumroll" there: "... lens – another ...". Tony (talk) 09:25, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks' everbody! ;) Tim Vickers (talk) 16:12, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Dashes in chord progressions

Can you take a look at 4 Minutes (Madonna song)#Composition, specifically "The song has a chord progression of D—G—C—F—A♯—D."? Thanks, and welcome back. Dabomb87 (talk) 17:24, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Also, can you come up with a more engaging lead sentence for List of brain tumor patients? Thanks. Dabomb87 (talk) 19:42, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

I was asking what date autoformatting meant...

...but found the info I was looking for. The left arrow? You mean this?----occono (talk) 03:45, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/NuclearWarfare 2

Hey there Tony. I just wanted to come by and tell you that I answered the questions you asked at my RfA. Best of luck, NW (Talk) 20:11, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Noun plus -ing

Hi Tony! Your page on Noun plus -ing was brought to my attention when you inadvertently introduced it to the mainspace. For me, this was a real eye-opener, especially since I use English as a second language. I recently caught myself using the construction in the sentence: "It would be a shame if the tremendous work you do with actor bios should be unnecessarily encumbered by you feeling obligated to cite every single credit." Upon examining the sentence (which is probably also flawed in other ways), I was unable to come up with a decent alternative that removes the "noun + -ing" issue, and I was wondering what you would suggest. Thanks, decltype (talk) 09:18, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for chiming in uninvited, but I come across the issue often during FAC reviews. All I really want to say is that "unnecessarily encumbered by your feeling obligated" doesn't sound alien to me at all; indeed, where it concerns a person or people, using the possessive feels completely natural ("my running a marathon", "we enjoyed their singing"). I usually recommend recasting the sentence where inanimate objects are introduced, as it's only then that it begins to sound odd to me ("the table's being wiped"). Anyway, I'll leave you to it. :-) All the best, Steve ^T • C 09:32, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. Tony uses the examples "I object to him being there", and "Us going to the movies tomorrow?", however in the latter case he seems to suggest that "[u]s" could be replaced with the possessive "our". If I understand correctly that is basically what you are suggesting (replacing "you" with "your"). decltype (talk) 09:45, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Exactly, yes. On a basic level, the gerund is a verb that's been conned into thinking it's a noun, so it helps to think of how you would form the sentence with the latter (e.g. you wouldn't say "me table" but "my table"). Therefore "you feeling" becomes "your feeling". On the "I object to him being there" example ... I don't know if it's just because of my becoming overfamiliar with the "correct" use after being introduced to it several years ago (gerund zero!) but to me "I object to his being there" sounds fine. Steve ^T • C 10:10, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Very interesting. That sounds somewhat similar to what we in Norwegian call "verbalsubstantiv" (lit:verbal noun), which is a noun formed from a verb by adding -ing. But that still leaves caught myself using which I consciously inserted into the second sentence. decltype (talk) 10:35, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

That might be where the participle comes in and I ... roll into a ball on the floor. Luckily, Tony seems to be working down his talk page as I type, so should be along shortly to correct my muddling. :-) Steve ^T • C 10:47, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I've had no time to read these entries properly, which I'll do when I return 22 August. No authority out there seems to say much about this phenomenon. My hunch is that there has been a slow collision between two quite different constructions that—morphologically—look the same:

"Watch me jumping through the hoop" (where "jumping through the hoop" is a kind of adjectival phrase that qualifies the (pro)noun "me", accusative because you'll be watching me)—compare with "Watch me jump through the hoop" and "watch me as I jump through the hoop, where in each I think the grammar is different).

and this possessive construction:

"Watch my jumping through the hoop", where I own the action of jumping through it.

The collision between adjectival and possessivel constructions seems to be largely unrecognised by speakers, who have been tending towards the adjectival choice over a couple of centuries, at a guess. What this leaves us with is a residue of expressions that are very awkward indeed, where my choice is often to go for the possessive construction, especially where it rolls off the tongue easily ("I object to your [not "you"] being there"). I suspect it comes down to the formulation of a few informal guidelines for when it's best to go for the possessive type (certainly not always), and when the adjectival construction is clear and not inelegant. Pronouns usually make me want to rush for the possessive rather than the accusative—they seem oddly exposed, perhaps because they are the only items in English that show case morphologically. Tony (talk) 00:05, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Actually, there are a number of authorities, as it turns out, that discuss this issue, although they use different terms to do so. Two prominent authorities to discuss this construction are Otto Jesperson and W.H. Fowler. I am working on a survey of these texts in one of my sandboxes (very much in progress, but it does contain a list of some texts). Suffice it to say, there are many discussions of the topic, but there is no consensus. Ricardiana (talk) 02:52, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Which article in Fowler? Steve: You appear to doing splendidly with your ESL! —Finell (Talk) 18:06, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

The long article in Fowler's Modern English Usage is called "fused participle". But there is just one line and an example in Strunk and White: "Gerunds usually require the possessive case: Mother objected to our driving on the icy roads'". There is one page, (p, 360) on this in "Words into Type" and it refers to Fowler. Section 7.28 of "The Chicago Manual of Style" describes the use of the possessive as "This practise, elegant if followed appropriately, requires caution" and there's a couple of pages (pp. 190–91) in "Line by Line". The latter says, "sometimes...there's no getting around the grammatical need for a possessive that the idiom proscribes. Faced with this dilemma, many writers forgo grammar, but strict contstructionalists avoid the issue by recasting the sentence. The necessary rewording can be quick and easy." Graham Colm ^Talk 18:44, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I understand the "rule", but did not know where to find it in Fowler's. You really know your style guides! I encourage you to contribute to Wikipedia's MOS and other style guides. Your combination of knowledge of style and skill in communicating with other Wikipedians would make you a valuable asset on those pages. I do see that you contribute a lot of valuable time and energy elsewhere on Wikipedia. Thanks again. —Finell (Talk) 19:29, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

This is why I cringe whenever Sandy mentions us in the same sentence. Different league. Cheers, Colin°^Talk 19:54, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I first thought I'd screwed up that exercise, but is Colin being way too modest? <smile> Tony (talk) 00:10, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Possible clerical error (date delinking case amendment)

Hi Tony. I noticed a few days ago that the amendment to the date delinking case (which Tiptoety left you a note about above) seems to have not been implemented in the case of remedy 9.3. I think this was a clerical error in the implementation. I have pointed it out to the arbitration committee (by e-mail to the mailing list), but nothing has been done yet (things can take a long time to get a response that way). I had hoped this could have been sorted out before you got back from holiday. To get a faster response, I'm going to drop a note off to Tiptoety about this, and wanted to let you know because someone could theoretically (though it is unlikely) think you shouldn't be making edits like this. I do recall that you also had questions for Brad about the "template" and "policy" wording of your restriction - whether you want to raise that as well, I don't know (but note that there is now a restriction on filing further clarifications for a period of 30 days, though I hope this doesn't include the postulated 'stability review', which falls just before that deadline). I have some other clerical matters to point out to Tiptoety, and have mentioned them and my post here to you, in the section on his talk page where something else relating to the date delinking case has been raised. Carcharoth (talk) 16:31, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for the confusion. Tiptoety was very efficient and made this edit before you read my note. This meant that the link I provided which had pointed to what the remedy said before, is now pointing to what it says now. What I should have done was provide what is known as a permanent link (to a version in the page history): like this. That shows what the remedy read between 17 August (when the motion passed) and 22 August (when Tiptoety fixed the omission). So confusion all cleared up hopefully. See also the edit here by Tiptoety (confirming that this was a simple error) and the edit here by Brad (which should help if you want any further informal clarification). Again, apologies for confusing you there, and I hope this hasn't confused you further! Carcharoth (talk) 00:09, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

FSC

I put up a request a while ago (with a couple weeks allowed for objections, which didn't happen) to drop back down to including the nominator in the 3, because a few things had been sitting on the page with three votes for months. If the current spate of activity continues, I think we can safely go back to excluding the nominator, but I think letting things set for - I think it was two, three months some of them when I proposed the change - just isn't really fair on anyone, and it doesn't really seem fair to fail them just because we lack enough people checking WP:FSC. Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 200 FCs served} 01:00, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure what to do about the participation problem. I'm kind of hoping that if we treat our new participants right, and demonstrate competence in being able to deal with things, the problem will sort itself =) Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 200 FCs served} 01:07, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I mostly agree, though I think that, if percentages are being considered (which we aren't really doing, since we do require opposes to be dealt with, or have it explained why they aren't valid), it's reasonable to include the nominator in the percentage. That said, I think 2 (excluding nominator) is probably a better stance for the process to take in the short term. It does no-one any favours to race to up the number too fast, it just makes a lot of people upset at the incompetent process where things take months to clear.

All featured processes eventually become able to attract better talent, raising the bar. We might not be able to raise it as quickly as we might like, but, provided the process remains viable, we'll get there in the end. =) Shoemaker's Holiday ^{Over 200 FCs served} 01:37, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Back?

Hi, Tony. Are you back? Hope you enjoyed your time off. I'm wondering if you have any thoughts for Also, I was wondering if you might have any thoughts on this. Best, Matthewedwards :  Chat  04:34, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Re: FA

Indeed. By the way, given the attention that the lead receives/received, it would be great if someone other than me could rework the lead. (I wrote it originally; needless to say, I was not happy with it then myself.) Maybe you could? Cheers, - Jarry1250 ^{[ In the UK? Sign the petition! ]} 10:28, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Look of scientific notation template

Hi Tony,

Back in 21 March 2008, as memorialized here on WT:MOS Archive 97, you, Srleffler, and SamBC had differing opinions on the best looking format for scientific notation. Some thought no spaces on each side of the times (×) symbol worked and/or looked best (see examples, below), and others thought a space worked and/or looked best. At that time, I suggested a compromise using thinspaces and all agreed that was a workable solution.

The template that eventually came out of all that originally used thinspaces but was later tweaked to use non-printing, non-selectable, Cascading Style Sheet-based visual gaps (using <span>‑based gaps. It appeared to me that the CSS gaps were exceedingly close to the full-width regular space and this might displease those who prefer no spaces at all. So I want to run the proposed tweak by you and see if you are at peace with what I think best achieves the spirit of that compromise.

Here is the proposal (bottom) with comparative examples:

• 6.0221412579×10⁻²³ kg (no spaces)
• 6.0221412579 × 10⁻²³ kg (full-width, non-breaking spaces)
• 6.0221412579 × 10⁻²³ kg (Original compromise: thin spaces)
• 6.0221412579×10⁻²³ kg (Proposed: The tweak of the CSS version of thinspaces)
  

If you are satisfied with the appearance of the proposed tweak, please advise here on WT:MOSNUM.

Greg L (talk) 22:30, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

• Tony, I originally had the list on the MOSNUM page in a different order than what I posted here on your page and those of the other two editors. The proposed option was at the bottom here on your talk page but was in the middle on WT:MOSNUM. I’ve now made them identical. Sorry for making that confusing. Do I trust correctly that when you referred to “the bottom” option, you meant the proposed one? If so, your answer on WT:MOSNUM is now in the same context (bottom) as here. Greg L (talk) 01:21, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Mastery

Any reaction to this? -- Hoary (talk) 13:46, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Yup; this! Tony (talk) 13:52, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Hi

Hey, Tony! Can I direct you to Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/1968 Illinois earthquake/archive2? ceranthor 11:44, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

The article is in dire need of a review now. Would you mind revisiting it? Steve and I worked on the prose, and Malleus helped with copyediting a bit. I hope the prose is "shining". ceranthor 15:26, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

See, now you're just tempting fate... :-) Steve ^T • C 15:54, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Done; it's a good one. Tony (talk) 00:08, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Hahahaha, okay, maybe I was exaggerating a bit. ceranthor 00:56, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Re:US state

Normally, I'm against linking for the sake of linking. However, since Alaska is a US state, I think it could be handy for non-US readers who don't exactly understand the nature of a state—political subdivisions differ from country to country. Dabomb87 (talk) 02:46, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Re:Yukon edit

Hi, are you sure the "neither" edit was correct? I think it operates internally within its sentence rather than referring back to the previous one, doesn't it?Tony (talk) 13:51, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I found the previous state to read rather awkwardly (ie. repition of they, and reading as if it were a list of things that can't be done). I considered the "neither", in its current use, to refer to both the internal "nor accept..." and to establish a connection to the previous sentence. If you can propose another set up I would gladly discuss it. MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 13:59, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

It's just that the meaning has changed now; well, it kind of falls apart halfway through the sentence. Tony (talk) 14:35, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't see how the meaning has changed, myself. I've reworded it again, so perhaps I could have your verdict on that? MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 16:47, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Nice fix. Tony (talk) 23:54, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. I hope it's adequate. Regards. MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 09:35, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Otomi language/archive1

The article has been thoroughly copyedited in the last few days by no less than two extremely serious copyeditors. I would ask you to return to the article to see if your concerns have been duly adressed.·Maunus·ƛ· 02:03, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Your civility proposal

I couldn't see where the centralized discussion is supposed to take place, so I will drop the comment here. I'm not crazy about (d) Judgmental tone in edit summaries or talk-page posts (e.g. "snipped rambling crap", "that is the stupidest thing I have ever seen");, even though I agree with the main thrust. I frequently will delete material with an edit summary of "gibberish", which I suspect many people would think meets this criteria. The most recent example would be removing the sentence "The 2nd Single was also created as a doll" from an article. That certainly passed judgment on the text, and described it accurately: I couldn't repair the text because there was no way to even figure out what the editor was attempting to convey. I don't think it qualifies as being uncivil, though. We need language that distinguishes being judgmental towards an editor as opposed to having passed judgment on a piece of text. The first is off-limits, the second may or may not be reasonable.—Kww(talk) 02:14, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Kww. The subsection you're looking for is here. BTW, I think "gibberish" would be safer as "incomprehensible"; you never know when you might need that person. Tony (talk) 04:21, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

A little help

Hi Tony. I read your essay on "How to satisfy 1a". Its brilliant and a very engaging article to an outsider. I came here as I am facing a problem regarding this line: It carries a message of social awareness, and was inspired by Madonna's visit to Africa and her witnessing the suffering of the people there. The word "it" refers to the lyrics of a song. But the second part of the text uses two "and" so looks a little dragged along. Can you suggest what can be done in cases like these? Shall we separate the line completely? If we do that then the first line will become an unnecessary stub. Suggest please. --Legolas ^(talk2me) 03:39, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Legolas, thanks for your kind words. In fact, you've reminded me to go trim the gigantic section on list formatting in that article.

It would be nice to see the previous sentence that contains the referenent for "it" (if "lyrics", I wonder whether plural is required). I've no problem with the two ands, because the comma makes the different function of the first and (to join the clauses) clear from that of the second (to join two nominal groups. Tony (talk) 04:25, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Here is the full text preceding that line: "4 Minutes" is an uptempo dance song with an urban, hip hop beat; it features instrumentation from brass, foghorns and cow bells. The song also incorporates Timbaland's characteristic bhangra beats. It carries a message of social awareness, and was inspired by Madonna's visit to Africa and her witnessing the suffering of the people there. I do believe that something is wrong in the construction of this part; I even took out a printout and went through it. But somehow I have not been able to grasp it. If we replace it with The lyrics, then also a repetitive flow comes in the picture. I could only think of constructing the sentence like Timbaland used his characteristic bhangra beats in the song. The lyric carries a message.... --Legolas ^(talk2me) 08:23, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

OK, the ordering of the ideas is also at issue. What about this?

"4 Minutes" is an uptempo dance song with an urban, hip hop style that incorporates Timbaland's characteristic bhangra beats. The unusual instrumentation includes brass, foghorns and cow bells. The lyrics carry a message of social awareness, having been inspired by Madonna's visit to Africa and her witnessing the suffering of the people there.

To avoid "beat" and "beats" in the same sentence, I subsituted "style". I'm hampered by not having inside knowledge of the topic. Tony (talk) 08:33, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

"Style" will convey the same message. That is fine by me. But what about the last line? inspired by Madonna's visit to Africa and her witnessing the .... Her? Doesn't it sound an odd construct? --Legolas ^(talk2me) 08:38, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

I think "her" is fine, and because that word is both accusative and possessive (unlike "him/his"), it could be the noun + -ing construction in either guise. You could insert "of" after "suffering" if you think it's better, and chop the last bit ... "having been inspired by Madonna's first-hand witnessing of human suffering in Africa"? Tony (talk) 08:50, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. This seems a fine construction by me. As you say in your 1a essay, we need to chop up the snake isn't it? :) --Legolas ^(talk2me) 08:55, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Another small thing. In your exercise User:Tony1/Advanced editing exercises, I found that there is no exercise regarding articles on songs. A large amount of Wikipedia is dedicated to the music related articles. Hence it may be better if you could incorporate some exercises in this area. I recently submitted the article "4 Minutes" for FA. There are many comments in the FAC regarding the prose and better wording in the technicality. Maybe you can incorporate from there? Just a thought. --Legolas ^(talk2me) 09:09, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Bishonen/Jimbo Wales redux (what, again?)

In case you're interested, Tony, I have posted a question on Carcharoth's well-hidden page User:Carcharoth/Arbitration philosophy and pledges. It addresses a rather depressing ArbCom matter. No... let's call it a bracingly aggravating ArbCom matter. Bishonen | talk 14:53, 28 August 2009 (UTC).

Talkback

Hello, Tony1. You have new messages at WP:Featured article candidates/Unification of Germany/archive2.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

are all your comments addressed? Auntieruth55 (talk) 18:00, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Your writing tutorials

Tony, I created User:Tony1/Writing exercise box as a central repository of links for your writing exercises, and have pasted the box in every tutorial. Any time that you want to edit the directory, you can edit that one page instead of having to edit every individual exercise page. Dabomb87 (talk) 16:04, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks very much, dabomb: will save the fussing and the glitches. Tony (talk) 00:40, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

The Chaser's War on Everything

Hello, User:Soundofmusicals' has reverted your edit. Aaroncrick (talk) 01:19, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Resolved. Thanks for letting me know. Tony (talk) 10:15, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

upright image sizing

You're right. I just now added a section to the picture tutorial about this; please see WP:PIC#px vs upright. Eubulides (talk) 06:00, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's right. People who set their default image width to 300 pixels can be assumed to have wider screens/windows and shouldn't have any trouble with 600-pixel images. One can't go overboard, of course; currently WP:PIC#upright recommends not going above "upright=3.0" unless one is using a panorama template or suchlike. Eubulides (talk) 06:35, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Speaking as a user who at times sets the default width to 300px, yes, I can assure you that it's quite irritating when somebody sets a thumbnail width to 220px (or whatever) and gives me an image that is smaller than what I've asked for. Your 24" iMac has a screen 1920 pixels wide, and with a half-width browser window (i.e., 960 pixels wide) you should have no trouble displaying "upright=3.0" images with your default settings, as these images will be only 540 pixels wide. Often people who ask for big images are doing this because of mild visual impairment, and people in this category use bigger fonts and wider browser windows and want to see bigger images. If the image has fine detail and should be displayed larger than usual, these users want to see images bigger than their 300-pixel default. Eubulides (talk) 07:05, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Got it! Tony (talk) 10:15, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Donnchadh, Earl of Carrick

Hi Tony. I heard the snow was pretty wet and getting stale, so I hope your trip was still a great break. First of all thank you for your regular work at FAC - you do a lot of 'heavy lifting' there. It is connection with a recent FAC that I'm dropping a note to you now. You may or may not remember Donnchadh, Earl of Carrick, which met a rather unhappy end. The nominator, User:Deacon of Pndapetzim, and most of the rest of us, thought the problem was the views of one editor regarding the nomenclature in the article (particularly, but not only, "Donnchadh" versus "Duncan"). Deacon, as you can see from the redlink, got pretty upset with the whole show and stalked off to regroup, or at least the rest of us hope so. I had been the article's GA reviewer, and began a discussion at the article talk page, with a view to getting it passed at FAC, but it turns out that the nomenclature wasn't the main issue with the article: see this interchange between Deacon and SandyGeorgia. All of this is to say, I would like to take this article back to FAC and get it through, but I've not been at FAC before as a nominator and certainly know little of Donnchadh. I wonder whether as a favour you would consider doing an actual copyedit on this article, rather than waiting to give some pointers at FAC? I'd hate a repeat of the last FAC discussion, so I want to try and narrow the scope of problems in advance. Let me know what you think, or drop in to the discussion at the article talk page. Best wishes. hamiltonstone (talk) 11:38, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

You must live in Canberra. Someone said to me recently that the only reason to live there is its proximity to snow; damned unkind, I think that is. Yes, it was mush after 10:30 each day, and there were complaints to our noble leader about our mass booking (43 people), which is edging later and later each year.

Donnchadh: it's well within reach in terms of the prose. I see the problem link in the lead is still there, but help is at hand: it has its very own little exercise here. Can you do something about the garish map with the tiny print and the intrusion of the ungainly title on the map? Mr Anderson was complaining about this too. Please let me know if you have control over the map. Actually, Anderson might be willing to share the copy-editing: do you feel like asking him, too? Tony (talk) 13:27, 30 August 2009 (UTC) PS The family tree is tiny: can it be redone so that you can actually read it in the article? Larger print? I think readers shouldn't have to divert to the original file to see the info. Tony (talk) 13:30, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

St Matthew Passion

Tony, I was wondering if you could help me indentify this version of the St Matthew Passion. Robots are treathning to delete two files from the same recording. Sorry to bother you, and thanks either way. Ceoil (talk) 19:24, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Ceoil, oh for a time when the world gets over its copyright obsession. I'm afraid that it's ruled out of contention and should be deleted because the source is unknown (the copyright owner must be clearly identified on the description page—see WP:NFCC). I don't know who the performers are; sounds professional. Pity.

As an aside, in 2005 I was given permission by the copyright owner to use two tracks of JS Bach's music in that article; they were deleted and a fight ensued. I lost. Tony (talk) 01:38, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

It annoys me, as the people driving this are tidy up people rather than than anybody who has an understanding of free culture or is interested enough to give a damn. Its a sport for them. Note my message to you was reveted twice, as if anybody alive or dead could care less. We are chasing phantoms. Ceoil (talk) 01:48, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

It's a great pity, when other large sites such as Yahoo and YouTube get away with murder. But WP is more exposed, since it promotes the fact that it can be freely reproduced anywhere, in any form. We are hamstrung for the good of that pledge. Tony (talk) 01:55, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Note: I didn't revert the posting of the message outright. I only removed the direct posting of the sound file on the talk page, which was a violation of the Non-free content criteria, specifically "Non-free content is allowed only in articles "; the exemptions didn't apply here, and that page says "[non-free content] should be linked, not inlined, from talk pages when they are the topic of discussion". Opinions on the necessity of the policy don't really don't come into play here; I was just enforcing it. Dabomb87 (talk) 03:35, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Yep. Ceoil, as much as I'm on your side emotionally, I fully support the work done by the editors at NFC: they are skilled, experienced, and dedicated, and put up with a lot of abuse. Unfortunately, there's no way out of it, and WP needs to protect itself legally until the world accepts the reality that in the medium- to long-term it's futile to maintain strict copyright rules. Classical music suffers more than popular, since the argument will be made that since the music itself isn't copyright (unless written/published less than 70 years ago), it's easily reproducible. This, of course, ignores the practicalities and the elusiveness of achieving high-quality performances. Tony (talk) 03:44, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

4 Minutes

Hi Tony. Would you please take a look at the above mentioned title? Well I have been sizing up the prose quite a bit since its last FA nomination. do you find any discrepancies in the flow in your eye? --Legolas ^(talk2me) 03:49, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Crown Fountain/archive4‎

You supported the prior FAC and the current article is greatly improved. Please comment at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Crown Fountain/archive4‎.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 05:50, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Economic history of China (pre-1911) FAC

I've reduced the number of links in the article. I believe the "overlinking" you spoke about is mainly in the intro rather than in the main body of the article.Teeninvestor (talk) 15:08, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Crit 2

Please see Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates#Crit. 2 of WP:WIAFA. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:12, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

GBS link pruning

Excellent work. Thank you! Wugo (talk) 17:25, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Re: Distributed/massed learning

Hmmm... well I'd already proposed merging Distributed learning and Spacing effect, and following your comment I suggested "Distributed and massed learning" as a possible title at Talk:Spacing effect (hope you don't mind me mentioning you by name).

Huge kudos for all the exercises... The redundancy exercises have also been appreciated by non-Wikipedian PhD students in my lab. And all the best with the WAS protocol, which strikes me as eminently sensible. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 15:49, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Adrian, and I'm glad the tutorials are finding use outside WP—I'm hoping they're a way of drawing a few good editors into the fray, too. Tony (talk) 16:04, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

An update on the British Birds Rarities Committee FAC

Tony - I thought I'd just nudge you about this again before your tidying-up bot removes it from your talk page. Would you be able to indicate which issues you believe are now resolved? Note that the FAC discussion has been closed so is no longer open for editing, but I've copied the discussion here. I think there are relatively few issues left and the FAC failed due to running out of time, but would like to be certain that this is the case before I resubmit it. Thanks SP-KP (talk) 09:31, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your work on the lead. I've deleted the two comments where you've queried your edits as those changes seem fine. Can you look at the reworded bit about "detail" and let me know if that addresses the issue - basically, when these critics are talking about detail, they mean detail in the description of the bird - so structure, plumage, calls, behaviour. SP-KP (talk) 09:44, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Hi again. Can you let me know if you're going to be able to find time to identify which of the issues you've raised have been closed off? If it helps, I can collect them all together on a single page for you to check. SP-KP (talk) 11:52, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

California's 12th congressional district election, 1946

It's been ce'd moderately, with special attention to long sentences. Feel free to revisit it. You didn't oppose.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:13, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

4 Minutes again

Hi Tony. I donot know whether you were able to take a look at the above mentioned article, but I have a question regarding one MoS. Suppose if we say "The song became Madonna's thirteenth number-one single in UK." Here we are using "number-one" as hyphenated since it is denoting a single entity. However, in some lines for eg: "In Italy it reached as high as number one on the chart." Here we are not hyphenating because the "number one" denotes a position. Am I doing anything wrong here? --Legolas ^(talk2me) 10:10, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I'd prefer "... thirteenth No. 1 single ..."; the is required before "UK" as a noun. Tony (talk) 01:12, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Reply

Hi Tony1. Standard format for musician infoboxes is to link all pertinent information. MOS says don't link anything twice. From most experiences and comments from veteran editors - link the box to avoid overlink within the articles main content. Seems to work fine. Several hundred thousand music-related articles whether it be musician, album or song all blue-link the box to stop an overpowering amount of blue text within the article body. No need to have to back-track now. Music projects already have too much on their plates. Having to backtrack and start editing every box will just take away from any new/constructive contributions. Reviewing your recent edits even you have attempted some blue-link cleanup but have done so in an inconsistent manner leaving infoboxes which look as though they are unfinished. Many editors seem to have fallen in behind you and undone your infobox edits for this reason, not just me. Better to propose your changes to the musician project and wait for a consensus. Either every word is link. Or no words are linked. But only doing words that you consider 'common' is very subjective and causing a lot of un-required work. Wether B (talk) 01:22, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

I provided good reasons why carpeting infoboxes with blue, just because they are infoboxes, is not helpful. I'm not suggesting that editors specially work on fixing hundreds of thousand of infoboxes; equally, after an article is audited for overlinking (they all need that, but clearly it will be gradual), it would be a misdirection of their efforts to switch back to blue-carpeting. I'm afraid that editors have been following some kind of unfortunate tradition rather than using wikilinking to direct readers to the more useful items in infoboxes. Most infoboxes on WP do not blue-carpet every item, so the "unfinished" look you mentioned, I think, is in the eye of the beholder. Tony (talk) 01:33, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

As per 'eye of the beholder" - another bit of historical conversation goes way back to the period before the current Musician infobox was put in place. At that time the Guitarist project had their own infobox specific to guitarists which contained very detailed 'instruments' different from the current box. It was an infobox that was much superior to the current musician box. Instead of just saying guitar for "guitarists" it used to specify "slide" or acoustic" or "electric" or etc. The insistence, at that time was, that those words, being project specific, must be linked. And the project agreed to depricate that box and use the, at that time, newly updated musician infobox but only if the specialised fields and formatting of their original box were maintained. Deciding on which words are "common" and which ones aren't is subjective. No real guideline within the musician project has ever been discussed and no consensus ever reached over whether guitar is common and ukulele is not. So to go through and "cleanup" based on personal opinion as to what is a common word and what isn't is, as I mentioned, just going to result in a bunch of "unfinished" looking boxes. Avoiding the "sea of blue" should not be aimed at by deleting the linking brackets from user-choice-common-words. It should be attained by removing the superfluous words altogether. The Guitarist Project no longer tries to input 10 different guitars into instrument fields. The Guitarist Project is OK with just saying 'guitar' because the key rule for formatting the musician box is "aim for generality" So if everyone would just follow that "aim" the "sea of blue" would be avoided and there would be no subjective choice as to what a common word is what isn't. Hope that is helpful. Wether B (talk) 01:53, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

I did not mean myself. When editors like Wiki Libs and Peter Fleet and others who have been around this project for many years are correcting infoxes that have been left in an inconsistent state with edit summaries such as "repair formatting" then it must be something fairly noticeable. Wether B (talk) 02:09, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

PS You should propose your suggestions on changing the box to the musician project and related projects such as the "genre" projects and the Guitarist project. It would seem a better path to have a group of editors mocing in the same direction rather than just one. Wether B (talk) 02:11, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

• "You should ...". Well, actually, you might consider raising this at the MoS guideline WP:LINKING. If we took no proper calls on rationing the linking of common terms, en.WP would end up being the terrible mess that fr, ge and it WPs now are. It is a discipline, and while not every editor may draw the boundary in exactly the same way, our readers are expected to know the meaning of common English words (even less common ones, but perhaps not unusual or technical ones). Who is going to divert from the infobox to the article on "guitar" or "singer" or "musician". How do these articles help a specific understanding of these terms? They don't. "aim for generality" – I do not understand this concept; links are meant to be as specific as possible, so if Jimi Hendrix played certain types of guitar, those articles or article-sections should be linked, not the general article (much of that and readers soon learn not to hit links, because they waste their time). Otherwise, link the specific types of guitar down in the body of the text, where they're discussed – not in the infobox, which is intended to be a general introduction /sweep through for time-poor readers. It is not the place to divert to targets that have little or no specific relevance. Please take it up at WT:LINK if there's a problem. Tony (talk) 02:29, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

post

I have been camping out in the northern wilderness for a almost a week (and am heading back up north in just a few minutes) I would have liked to have seen your link proposal several years ago when the first version of the musician infobox reared its ugly head. But now we are too far gone and too late to turn back... I think. If it were a controversial thing regarding content and how it mught be portraying information incorrectly then maybe it would be worth looking into. But MOS isn't a policy it is a series of helpful guidelines and many topic specific projects with Wikipedia do not follow MOS by the letter... sometimes by accident... but have their own editing guidelines. Or use a branch of MOS and expand on it for articles related to their project but do not use these expanded sections on unrelated articles. I would love to see major changes done to the musician infobox. But I know they won't happen. I have been here almost 6 years so I know where to pick my battles. BTW. Some of your project page posts contain stealth WP:NPA violations buried in a backhanded way pointing towards an editor who is a very good vandal fighter. ( I saw this pointed out already on one of those pages) I would suggest an apology. If I return to civilisation in a week and see that a few editors have decided to forge ahead with your suggestion and remove the occasional wiki-link... I only hope they intend to stay busy. Because I predict that for every three links removed, two will just be put back by someone else. And that process doesn't move the Wik forward at a very productive pace. You efforts on Wikipedia are terrific. You do a lot of work that no one else wants to look at. But removing all the wiki-links from the Musician infobox is quite the make-work project to have to take on. Especially if you end up going solo on it. Have a nice day(week) So you around when I come back from the woods. Cheers! The Real Libs-speak politely 05:00, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

I think I reject just about everything that this editor says here the suggestion that I apologise to the editor in question; and if someone is possibly stalking me, you bet I'll bring it up. But thanks for your encouraging and discouraging remarks, Wiki libs. Tony (talk) 06:39, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

You reject the assertion that your efforts on Wikipedia are terrific? Waltham, The Duke of 15:48, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

FAR

There's a whole pile of them verging towards keep. Would you loke to have a look at any them for 1a? Thanks YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 01:26, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

This includes most of the ones not yet in FARC because the work has already been done YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 01:29, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Content question

I'm developing Trans-Alaska Pipeline System with the goal of ultimately pushing it through FAC. It's not ready for submission yet, but I was wondering if you could take a look at it and see what areas of the article need further development. What questions do you have about the project that should be answered? Are there any aspects that have been overlooked or underdeveloped? I don't think it's quite ready for a copy edit—but you're more than welcome to give it one :). Thanks for any comments you might have. JKBrooks85 (talk) 08:21, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

JK, thanks for your inquiry. On a brief look through the lead (which I tweaked a little too:

• The images could be a bit larger (particularly the Denali Fault one). I cannot read the text in the graph; it could be enlarged as a whole, and if you constructed it or have control over it, the text could be enlarged within the graphics. No period end of caption since it's not a proper sentence (MoS). Without going overboard, we could provide a better sense of the massive scale with more generous sizes of photographs. Wonderful landscape.
• "several hundred miles"—you can't be more precise? Then we could have a metric conversion, too.
• There are 12 pumping stations on the map, but the lead says 11.
• Passes through the north pole? You sure of that?
• Infobox: Please make editors spell out "United States" first time unless it screws the layout, and "USA" is not recommended in MoS, anway.
• "North-South" -> "North–south" (see MOS:DASH.
• Some editors disagree, but even in infoboxes I'd go easy on "chain" linking, where the first link itself links to the second. And "Alaska" is linked once already at the top of the infobox. Pipe-linking reduces the blue and highlights the remaining links visually much better. Revert if you don't like what I did. More urgent, though, in the text: "from Prudhoe Bay, to Valdez, Alaska" is much better as "from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez, Alaska". Again, "Alaska" was linked 1.5 seconds before. "Second World War" not useful enough to link in this topic. Let the valuable links breathe?
• miles that convey: OK, technically it's a plural noun, but idiomatically we'd see it as a section of the pipeline: "pipe" is fine as the noun ... "conveys".
• One of the "built"s you could change to "constructed"?
• provoked -> prompted, or led to? "after the oil crisis provoked the passage of legislation designed to remove legal challenges". Can it be "legislation that removed"? Otherwise, there's a slight sense that maybe it didn't actually achieve its goal. Didn't like "effort", and there were two of them. Ration and alternate between "project", "construction", and "building". "Boomtown" is pretty obvious: check that the link-target is worth it. What is such an "atmosphere", anyway? All prostitutes and drink?
• "The first barrel of oil traveled through the pipeline in 1977, and full-scale production began by the end of the year." Tension between "traveled" and "production"; the second one could be changed to "operation" to avoid this. Comma may not be needed.
• "Since going online"—I'm thinking "booting up my 'puter". Solve the updating issue (MoS) by replacing it with "As of 2009" (if the data are that recent).

It's got legs, but needs TLC on the prose. Looks like a really interesting topic. Go for it! Tony (talk) 11:27, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for my ignorance, but what does "TLC" mean? Dabomb87 (talk) 12:29, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Tender loving care! Tony (talk) 13:59, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

• Thanks! I'll get cracking on that. JKBrooks85 (talk) 20:42, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Naming conventions

You may or may not be aware that there are a number of naming conventions in which Pmanderson is/was active, and it would not be surprising if he has been 'active' there. It may be an idea to check these, and if necessary, widen the Enforcement request accordingly. Ohconfucius (talk) 11:53, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

• Oh, it looks like the case will be dismissed. Ohconfucius (talk) 12:03, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Ohconfucius. Actually, I'm pretty sure those subsidiary NCs have the status of style guidelines, and thus are off-limits to Mr Anderson. Tony (talk) 12:05, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Regarding this comment—are you sure? The MM/DD/YYYY format is ambiguous, as some might interpret it to be DD/MM/YYYY. Dabomb87 (talk) 02:40, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Re: Practice/se

Gah! Sorry I screwed up my "fix". Actually the practice/se was just a typo in my edit summary... what I meant to question was whether the "a" was also redundant in "a lack of practice". Probably beside the point of the exercise, anyway. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 07:50, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, that raises a pet peeve of mine: increasingly, scientists and journalists omit "a" or "the" from expressions where (to my understanding) it's required: "We now seek timing of the release of the next draft of ArbCom's policy"—my rule of thumb is that where there's an "of" to the right, put a "the/a/an" to the left. What do you think? It helps second-language speakers from non-"the" origins to fix about half the "the" problems in their writing. Tony (talk) 07:57, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

User:Tony1/Silliest wikilink of the month award

So who is the winner of the August nominations? Dabomb87 (talk) 21:24, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Dabomb, are you volunteering to be the judge? Actually, monthly might be too small a timeframe. I could move the page to "Silliest wikilink of the year", I guess. I like to think my unlinking of vomit in AC/DC is a contender, but Ohconfucius has found a few clangers! Tony (talk) 02:47, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

• It's amazing what some people see fit to link. It seems to be some sort of compulsion.

  We need to get a few more entries... Having said that, I don't mind being the winner occasionally. Ohconfucius (talk) 08:57, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

• If this is the nominations page I'd like to nominate woman. I'll be back shortly with a link to the article it was wikilinked from. --Malleus Fatuorum 09:03, 12 September 2009 (UTC)
  • Here it is. --Malleus Fatuorum 09:11, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

FLRC delegate election

Hi Tony1! I'm just dropping by to let you know of the FLRC delegate election that begins on Tuesday. You may run in the election by following the instructions on the page. If you don't wish to run, please come and vote sometime next week! The election starts Tuesday and ends Saturday. For more information, check out the opening section of the page. Cheers, iMatthew ^talk at 19:37, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

RFC: Removal of exceptions to "use common names" passage.

This is to inform you that the removal of exceptions to the use of Common Names as the titles of Wikipedia articles from the the Talk:Naming_Conventions policy page, is the subject of a referral for Comment (RfC). This follows recent changes by some editors.

You are being informed as an editor previously involved in discussion of these issues relevant to that policy page. You are invited to comment at this location. Xandar 22:44, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikilinking

Tony, thanks for spending time doing the pages on wikilinking, Tom B (talk) 13:04, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I think Tom is referring to the Build your linking skills tutorial page. It is very kind of him to leave a message! Tony (talk) 13:09, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Battle of Grand Port

Thankyou very much for your comments at the FAC for the Battle of Grand Port. The article has now passed, and your interest and comments during the process were much appreciated.--Jackyd101 (talk) 21:58, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

FSC candidate

Heya pal,

I noticed that you participated at Wikipedia:Featured_sound_candidates/Livery_Stable_Blues. Since your comment, an edited version of the file that removes hiss from the from file, has be suggested as an altenate version. Please return to the the FSC to see whether or not you support the editted version or not. Seddσn ^talk|^WikimediaUK 01:10, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Copy-editing essentials

I was wondering whether you're likely to still have the time to finish this off? If not, I'd be very happy with a cut-down/overview of one of your excellent extant copyediting pieces ...  Roger Davies ^talk 12:54, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Spelling out months

Tony, please see my 20:59, 15 September 2009 post, here on WT:MOSNUM and reply there as you see fit. Greg L (talk) 21:02, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Punctuation, inside or outside AGAIN!!!!!!!!!

AGAIN!!!!!!!!! —Finell (Talk) 21:25, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

New-look Manual of Style

A few weeks ago there was extensive discussion on FAC talk about the vast size, complexity and instability of the Manual of Style, which concerns the FAC and FLC processes through the operation of their criteria. On reviewing the text of the MoS, I agree that the Manual is much larger than necessary to cover the areas it does: about 20 thousand words. In particular:

• it is often wordy;
• it provides more examples than necessary;
• it lectures around some of its points in a way that is not strictly necessary;
• it is a little repetitive and disorganised.

As a service to nominators, reviewers and editors at larger, I've created a new, user-friendly version of the MoS that is only 40% of the size of the full version. There are no intended changes in substantive meaning. The new version has the following features:

1. brevity and directness of language, including the default use of active voice and contractives;
2. new inline headings for every point, for ease of navigation;
3. the removal of highly specialised points about numbers and dates, which are treated by MOSNUM;
4. the removal of a few other sections that appear to be on the fringe, including Blason;
5. the addition of a Currency section, summarised from MOSNUM.
6. improvements in structural organisation;
7. the use of links by asterisk, to reduce clutter.

Any changes to the full MoS as reflected in the new version will be notified here, at the start of each month. Your feedback is welcome on the talk page.Tony (talk) 02:46, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Pink-div dates

Tony, see the latest on the pink-div proposal. What is the next proper step? Greg L (talk) 20:51, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Military history coordinator elections: voting has started!

Voting in the Military history WikiProject coordinator election has now started. The aim is to elect the coordinators to serve for the next six months from a pool of sixteen candidates. Please vote here by 23:59 (UTC) on 26 September!
For the coordinators,  Roger Davies ^talk 22:09, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Dylan sound files

Hi Tony, I replied here [[14]] Mick gold (talk) 08:10, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Mick, I'm checking with the experts at WP:NFC. Tony (talk) 10:03, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Welcome!

Hi, and welcome to the Military history WikiProject! As you may have guessed, we're a group of editors working to improve Wikipedia's coverage of topics related to military history.

A few features that you might find helpful:

• Our navigation box points to most of the useful pages within the project.
• The announcement and open task box is updated very frequently. You can watchlist it if you are interested, or you can add it directly to your user page by copying the following: {{WPMILHIST Announcements}}.
• Important discussions take place on the project's main discussion page; it is highly recommended that you watchlist it.
• The project has several departments, which handle article quality assessment, detailed article and content review, writing contests, and article logistics.
• We have a number of task forces that focus on specific topics, nations, periods, and conflicts.
• We've developed a style guide that covers article structure and content, template use, categorization, and many other issues of interest.
• If you're looking for something to work on, there are many articles that need attention, as well as a number of review alerts.
• The project has a stress hotline available for your use.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask any of the project coordinators or any other experienced member of the project, and we'll be happy to help you. Again, welcome, and we are looking forward to seeing you around! Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 11:21, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

WT:FAC

You were asked for by Fowler to opine. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:31, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Delinking

Thanks for responding while I was sleeping. Colonies Chris (talk) 12:45, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, thanks Tony. Could you answer my follow-up that I posted, if it's not too much trouble. There, here, or on my talk page is fine. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 22:39, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Short MoS

If you haven't already, I'd recommend inviting User:Dank and User:SandyGeorgia and User:WhatamIdoing and User:John Broughton to your projectpage. I've seen their names provide useful commentary/activity on MoS redundancy in the past few years. Possibly also invite these 3 projects, Wikipedia:WikiProject Manual of Style and Wikipedia:Help Project and Wikipedia:WikiProject Policy and Guidelines, if you haven't already. (Oh gods. the overlap, the redundancy, the madness!). -- Quiddity (talk) 21:53, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Quiddity, thanks for your suggestions. I've alerted Sandy to it (twice), but she's on slow connection at the moment, and always horrendously busy with FAC. WikiProjecdt MoS seems to have died, which is a real problem. The issue of redundancy is at two levels: within each styleguide and between them. The new version of MoS main page is designed to remove only the "within" type of redundancy. To tackle the hopeless mess of the MoS pages as a whole will take a revitalised Wikiproject MoS and probably an RfC or two to establish a panel of users with a bit of muscle to audit, coordinate, delete, merge. MOSNUM vs MoS main is the first concern. Tony (talk) 11:03, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

How long?

What are your thoughts on how long a FA can be? I'm working on Nikita Khrushchev and it just passed the 100k mark. I don't think it is unduly long for a superpower leader who served a decade--Ronald Reagan and Franklin Roosevelt are very long and Khrushchev will probably be about the same length when I am done, but I hate to trim to get it under an arbitrary figure (Reagan and FDR are FA's).--Wehwalt (talk) 11:14, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Star Trek: First Contact/archive1

Just letting you know I believe I addressed your first batch of concerns listed. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 02:25, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

FAR

Talbot Tagora and Cape Feare look like they might be kept. CAn you take a look please? YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 07:51, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

YYYY-MM-DD numerical dates

Hello Tony, the latest at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)#What_the_....3F is that most of us think that YYYY-MM-DD is never necessary in citation footnotes, and should therefore be avoided because it can be an obstacle to understanding. A minority disagree, and think we should say that it can be used in footnotes. Could you possibly have a look and advise us what should happen next? A few days ago you mentioned letting the community know via VP and Centralized Discussion. Thanks, -- Alarics (talk) 09:55, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for adding your view there. Unfortunately you've written "dd mm yyyy" (which everybody already agrees is unacceptable) when I assume you meant YYYY-MM-DD. Could you edit your contribution please? Thanks, -- Alarics (talk) 07:54, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

# in articles

I know the MoS has recently changed to deprecate the use of # in articles. This is a convention within the comics industry, so it has become a convention at WP:COMICS, and consequently is used in a number of articles. Now I've had a go at trying to set up AWB to try and amend the instances, but I wonder if you can put me in touch with someone who can do it better, because we get a lot of instances where the # is used in section linking, and there are instances where we need to replace the # with issue and instances where issues is better. Appreciate any help you can offer, Hiding T 11:23, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

• Thanks Tony. I'm not overly bothered about slow if it means better precision. I don't really understand reg expressions, so I'm hoping someone can clue me in better than I'm doing. I'd keep an eye on AWB, I don't pretend to understand anything about it, but it looks like they're moving away from relying on IE for something called screen-scraping, so maybe that will mean it will be mac compatible. But then it may mean nothing of the sort. It's all to do with something called API. Maybe it could mean it will be easier for a Mac techie to do a mac version? Hiding T 12:50, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

• To avoid links, you could match only #'s preceded by a space and followed by a digit. That's s/ #(\d)/ No. $1/g in a regex. I forgot how regex's are entered in AWB though. --Apoc2400 (talk) 12:57, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

• That's what I was hoping was possible in the question I asked Colonies Chris, [15]. I'll try and work this all out later on. Hiding T 13:44, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Best style

Tony, Apoc2400 is helping me out with the technical side, but I want to run past you the best style. We're dealing with comics here, so the standard in the trade is to use "issue" rather than "number", so is it better to say Action Comics issue 1, Action Comics number 1 or even Action Comics issue number 1? Also, I'd assume issue and number would only be capitalised if they were at the beginning of a sentence, yes? What do we do about picture captions, for example if you look at Superman#Creation and conception, the image caption at left currently reads "The Reign of the Super-Man" in the fanzine Science Fiction vol. 1, #3 (June 1933). What's the best way to write that? I'd assume the vol. would need to be expanded given we guide against no.? Sorry to bother you, I just want to get this nailed down before I start forwards on changes and the inevitable selling of it. Hiding T 11:11, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Hiding, some academic journals have a really neat way:

"The Reign of the Super-Man" in the fanzine Science Fiction, 1(3), June 1933

But there are many ways, and WP doesn't have rules for all aspects—and I presume the WikiProject Comics doesn't either. My second preference is for upper-case V and N: "Vol. 1, No. 3", with the dots. I haven't looked recently at the Mos discussion about what to do about #, but I hope it will be "No." and not "number". If it has to be spelled out fully, I'd prefer "Number", as it has a titular feel about it—almost part of the title. I'd be inclined to insert a comma before "Vol.". Erk, the # is really off-putting in that caption!

I'd be inclined to link to "fanzine" on its first occurrence (preferably not in the already partly blue caption).

But they are my personal preferences only. Perhaps you might ask at WT:MOS, since the whole matter of # has come up there. Tony (talk) 12:25, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

• Okay, I've gone to WT:MOS## in British English. Amended the style guide as well. Feel free to chip in. Hiding T 13:47, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Re:archives and big flashing red signs

Hi Tony. I fixed the archive for you. As for the "big red flashing" sign, that is the {{Statustop}} template. Paste it at the top of your talk page or user page (or both) and editors can see if you're online, sleeping, or busy (there are a couple more). Of course, the caveat is that you have to update it manually or it's no use. Dabomb87 (talk) 12:41, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the fix, db. So I woke you up? Pity someone doesn't invent a template that can be set to show your sleeping times automatically. That would be useful. The excellent User:Adrian J. Hunter is uncovering glitches in a few of my tutorial pages. Tony (talk) 12:45, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Forced pixel count allowed?

Oh dear. Why? Is there a discussion on this on the MOS? While I admit that 180 was too small, the answer should not be (an apparent) free-for-all on image sizing. Ie, on U2 i think the images are now too big, and inconsistently sized. But that is my opinion - at least previously there was some direction given by the MOS. It would be nice if the default size could have been 220px or 250px - consistent but as you say, not "wasteful" such as 180. But I'd rather have 180 than people inconsistently tell me what size i should view.

Would like to hear what you know and think. cheers--Merbabu (talk) 12:15, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Can you give me a link to the discussions. I must be looking in the wrong place. :-) thanks --Merbabu (talk) 00:42, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Is there a link you can provide - I'd really like to see the background for the change. cheers --Merbabu (talk) 01:54, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Here is one batch of changes. The discussion, I guess, is in the archives leading up to that time. However, the guidelines did not say the default thumb size had to be used even before that change. We are dealing with a software system that is very hard to change, and yes, the default should be much larger than 180. But images need to be sized on an individual basis, anyway. Tony (talk) 02:00, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Picture size preferences

You were going to see if you could find the number of people with thesew set (MoS talk recently). Did you manage to find out? Johnbod (talk) 15:01, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, the typo makes it hard to understand your meaning. Tony (talk) 15:07, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Ah, I think I see what you're referring to—thumbnail size prefs. Yes, and I forgot to post it. The answer I received was, in part:

"Eventually, User:Splarka gave a response (see link below). The response was extensively discussed in a few places after that. How_to_count_number_of_editors_that_actually_set_date_preferences." Does that help? Tony (talk) 15:14, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes thanks - I see the figures there of 150k to 275k was it, are somewhat higher than the "about a hundred" quoted in the debate. I see Lightmouse has disappeared, can you suggest another dev to run a query? Thanks, Johnbod (talk) 15:52, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Err, no; not really my thing. I wonder whether someone at WT:BAG might be able to help. User:Jarry1250 would be my first port of call. Tony (talk) 16:12, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I've asked him, thanks Johnbod (talk) 16:55, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

International Space Station

Hello there! As an editor who has posted a comment in one of the recent Peer Reviews, GANs or FACs of International Space Station, I was wondering if you wouldn't mind commenting in the current Peer Review as to whether you feel your original comments have been dealt with, if you see any new issues with the article, and whether or not you believe the article will meet the criteria for Featured Article status. Any new comments you have would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks, Colds7ream (talk) 16:59, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Sky the color of "Piss Christ"?

How's the weather been down there, mate?

This discussion of declining (not!) standards of English has moved on to this; feel free to join the fun! -- Hoary (talk) 12:11, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

"Mate"? Hoary, you know I see myself as an outsider, pompous as it may sound. In any case, I've always felt that, for the listener/reader, "Mate" assumes "You're str8", and that I am decidly not (this may be a subcultural nicety or my personal interpretation alone). I've spilled on your page about declining standards; read it with an RP accent, please, in tones even more strangulated than those of Lady Thatcher. Tony (talk) 12:25, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Frightfully sorry, old larrikin. But hasn't "mate(ship)" yet recovered from the matey Mr Hawke? (I hadn't quite realized the depths of his awfulness till I read Pilger's A Secret Country.) I must bone up (?) on Australia; my most recent input was via DVD, from Muriel's Wedding and Proof, both of which I found surprisingly good. ¶ Thatcher? -- Hoary (talk) 13:04, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Muriel's Wedding? My interest was confined to the four-second shot of the delivery man at the door; I'm extremely superficial in that regard. Thatcher, Thatcher, baby snatcher? No, I haven't "swallowed whole the mythology"; evidence of that is at the Falklands Island article, where in a grumpy mood I took it to task, without success, for its skewed version of the history and identity of that little corner. And in my disbelief that Chris Patten could ever have served in her cabinet. We are feeding the 220 people who watchlist this page, aren't we ... Tony (talk) 13:23, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Let's hope that the nitwits are temporarily off WP, getting their fix of great Literature. -- Hoary (talk) 13:33, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Your literature link: wow, it's like having a laugh standing around a car acident. To match it, an amusing anecdote—T[t]he Guardian's review of Mr Brown's T[t]he Da Vinci Code was pursed-lipped with flared nostrils, and didn't even mention the author's name! Nowhere. Zilch. Niente. Null. Zèro. It's a delicious form of damnation. Tony (talk) 14:04, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Wow, I had no idea. I've read The Da Vinci Code, but that was years ago and in translation, which probably dilutes the effect. Here's a top-20 of Dan Brown's literary pearls for those who want a good laugh. Waltham, The Duke of 20:56, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Similar thing, but worth sharing ... for years now, whenever I've had to convince someone that Dan Brown's writing doesn't exactly represent the, um, best that American literature has to offer (hell, even the best American religious conspiracy thriller literature) all I've done is forward them this link. EDIT: Ha, didn't notice it was referenced in the Telegraph article—never mind. :-) Steve ^T • C 21:26, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I hope that your correspondents notice and act on the list of links at the foot of Pullum's article. Most (all?) are also collected in Far from the Madding Gerund, which I recommend. -- Hoary (talk) 22:55, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

• This quote from Professor Pullum's piece is worth recording here:

"Brown's writing is not just bad; it is staggeringly, clumsily, thoughtlessly, almost ingeniously bad. In some passages scarcely a word or phrase seems to have been carefully selected or compared with alternatives."

I've bookmarked Language Log. Tony (talk) 02:09, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Be sure not to miss their new feed. Great stuff. Maralia (talk) 02:25, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Collaborative memory

You can read about collaborative memory in the four-page article "Are two heads better than one?" at http://www.thepsychologist.org.uk/archive/archive_home.cfm/volumeID_15-editionID_89-ArticleID_491-getfile_getPDF/thepsychologist/dec02thompson.pdf. -- Wavelength (talk) 22:54, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

FL red link criterion discussion

See here. Cheeers, Dabomb87 (talk) 01:55, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Reply to your Sept. 15th message

Thanks for your message, Tony. I'm sorry I didn't respond sooner, but as the e-mail headers warn, the e-mail account I use for Wikipedia is one that I don't check as regularly as I used to, and I just saw it about half an hour ago.

I don't think any of this is confidential enough that we can't use regular talk pages, but of course it's your best judgement as to what's sensitive or might provoke unneeded concern in others.

Without having thought it over very much, my first reaction is that perhaps a "zero-based" approach to the MOS/MOSNUM might be the best way to start. Start with the things that absolutely have to be observed by editors, in order to keep articles readable, clear and safe from potential danger to the project or to readers. This includes accessibility (within reason), and the avoidance of ambiguity, confusion, obscurity, mistake and unintended insult.

For example, everyone's agreed that most (I think all) all-numeric dates will inevitably perplex and quite possibly mislead readers who don't know what convention has been used. Some comma errors can confuse the meaning of a sentence, while others are just distracting. Capitalis/zation really only matters when (1) there's some tangible difference in meaning between upper and lower case forms, (2) lower-case names would give needless offens/ce, or (3) using the wrong form interferes with searches and links. (Why oh why oh why is Wiki's software case-sensitive? Thousands of hours have been utterly and uselessly wasted in often-unsuccessful searches and broken links because of this.)

Then we'd have an idea of how much room is left for averting glaring illiteracies.

In theory, there's a temporary price to be paid in the overall tone of Wikipedia (e.g. computing or popular-music articles written by teenagers that grate on my inner ear and would flunk everyone's proofreading) but many of these, one hopes, would be managed in the normal process of editing, discussion and give-and-take, without the need to appeal (often wrongly) to the MoS. A looser and longer but non-prescriptive "WP:Guide to Style and Punctuation" could tell rank-and-file editors what's commonly-accepted usage and why.

Good Articles and Featured Articles should avoid confusing readers with the basic errors, and should be required to correct things like all-numeric dates, but other felicities or infelicities of style could be judged as part of the overall quality of writing rather than as some binary test ("violates K57, MOS:SEMICOLON").

Once we have a core MoS, we could decide what things are so ugly, or so likely to distract readers by their incongruity, that they should be added to the Manual(s). But the price to be paid by getting too swallowed up by among/amongst or the less-important points of "logical" vs "U.S." vs "Commonwealth" punctuation within quotations, would be clearer.

¶ I'm trying to reduce or at least limit my time on Wikipedia, and direct more of that time towards direct work on articles, tables and the Reference Desk. So I haven't read the entire Manual or MOSNUM from start to finish, let alone proposed substitutes or refinements, or even all of the thousands of words that land on MOS Talk every day. But by all means, let me know your thoughts.

If you prefer to use e-mail again, I might notice it faster if you stick a note on my Talk Page.

Best wishes —— Shakescene (talk) 23:18, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply, Shakescene. I emailed you only because I hadn't launched the Concise version of the Manual of Style and am vain enough to have restricted access while it was still a bit messy. It turned out to have little glitches after its launch, too, of course.

You speak of a new structure for the MoS and its application to articles; I guess the trim version is rather more conservative in its strategy, merely expressing (almost) the whole scope of the MoS, with only a few superficial structural modifications, in fewer words. There's a natural tendency for bloat in a wiki, and I conceived it as a model for how the MoS itself might be expressed, as well as an alternative for most editors who are put off by its size and verbosity. Tony (talk) 08:57, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

US Studies Centre: four-minute interviews

I recommend recent posts of historians Richard White and David W Blight, who present entrèes into historical iconography, memory and mythmaking that may be useful for editors of articles on US history. Tony (talk) 06:27, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Re: The Who and "chain" links

Actually I'm not the one who relinked London and United Kingdom. :) All I did was fix the link to Queen. :) --User:Woohookitty ^{Diamming fool!} 06:42, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Not offended

Oh I'm not offended, just trying to push the debate away from the comics page to focus on the whole process itself. I'm not sure there should be a formal process, but I can understand and sympathise with the view that there should be, and I think it's better if I stay away from the debate as to whether there should be one because that's one better left to interested parties. I'd be a disinterested one. I really don't mind what gets agreed, as long as justice is seen to be done, if you catch my drift. I'm quite happy to leave it in your capable hands, but where I see people discussing "children's diversions" and asserting they equate to an entire art form, I find I have to speak up and correct such errors before they become widespread. Heaven forfend policy or guidance is settled or even in part based on such a misapprehension. If someone wants to re-factor the discussion so as to concentrate on the important issue rather than the not very amusing and not very necessary side issue, they have my blessing. I tend to agree with you and Shakescene that we shouldn't actually be discussing the comics form or the comics page in specificity at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style, but I think it's important someone who knows what they are talking about is at hand to correct inaccuracies. I am possibly more in the dark as to why we are discussing it there than you are. And obviously, if I have offended you I do apologise. That would have been the last thing I wanted too. Hiding T 11:08, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely: I'd glossed over the comments about any one page. Now I'm thinking about the best strategy to achieve a change in the overall process. Tony (talk) 11:49, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, I think you are on the right track with User:Tony1/Beginners' guide to the Manual of Style. My advice, such as it is, is to have one core MoS page, and spin the other pages off as supplements. Then it might be possible to strip these supplements of subject specific stuff that belongs in the MoS, and expand the MoS to two pages, maybe, one of general advice and one of subject specific advice. And then you've kind of established a system where people propose stuff for addition to the MoS. If you word your supplement tag correctly, that should solve a lot of issues: "This supplemental page is maintained by WikiProject whoever. It is intended to supplement the manual of style, but is not considered a part of it. It instead represents consensual approaches agreed upon in certain situations by editors operating in this field. To discuss reasons behind the guidance offered and to suggest amendments or additions, see some talk page." You get my drift. Most projects will support such a move I should think. All we're looking for is to avoid having to discuss something for the fiftieth time without good reason. But I don't know what the goal is with changing the MoS process. If the goal is a longer MoS, you'll probably want to ignore my advice. Regards, Hiding T 15:31, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident

Hello Tony, would it be OK, if I ask you to give your evaluation on this issue? Thank you in advance. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 19:31, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Re: Advanced editing exercises

No worries. Yeah, crazy wikitext does make copy-editing difficult... I assume you use wikEd? Helps a bit.

Drop me note and a link if you'd like me to check out your new guide. Poor writing is a frequent source of disappointment for me, be it in the work of undergrad students or in peer-reviewed science articles, so it's something I'm happy to help with.

Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 08:36, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Ah, yes the concise MOS seems like a very good idea. My contributions are restricted at the moment though as I've lost internet connectivity at home (temporarily I hope – dang Optus). I'll try to take a look when I can. Not sure how helpful I can be on the Mosco issue as I don't have a lot of experience dealing with WikiProjects, though at a glance it would seem there's one thing that needs to be clarified all-round – are the project-specific guides supplements to, or alternatives to, the main MoS? I'd have certainly thought the former, though sections such as Wikipedia:WikiProject_Comics/Style_guidance#Flag_icons which have no obvious connection to the parent project are consistent with the latter. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 07:51, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Incivility

I never go to User talk:Jasepl's talk page nor i bother about his edits. He's the one who is just making comments all the time. I controlled a lot, but sometimes you have to act "when the water level touches your neck". Thanks (Druid.raul (talk) 15:36, 29 September 2009 (UTC))

Ok, I won't do it again. (Druid.raul (talk) 15:41, 29 September 2009 (UTC))

User Druid.raul

Hi Tony - I prefer leaving said user's comments where they are, because he does have rather a long and colourful history. But you may be right, it might be time to write him up again, because he's not mended his ways. A year ago, he used to edit under another name (Rhp 26 - even claims so on his user page) and was banned for unacceptable uncivility (and that's putting it mildly).

Here's just a few examples of his comments directed to me, as well as many other users:

Examples

• Well more than Editing i like to revert your worthless,Pointless,Useless edits. You don't no anything and your edits are meaningless,ur a cancer on Wikipedia that needs to be eradicated as soon as possible.......LOL.......
• Shut up u Uncle!!!!!! u shuld be busy in ur office work then wikipedia.....GET A LIFE MAN.......ur an old uncle.......u know nothing......90% of ur edits are just reverts......and by the way......u havent done any proper edit till now......Really GET A LIFE u uncle.....
• SHUT UP UNCLE............lolzzzzzzzzz
• you can make it 30 infinite times.......I will simply revert it back...........LOL
• CORRECTED THE ARTICLE FROM STUPID LOSERS WHO DO NOT KNOW HOW TO EDIT
• I ACHIEVED MENTAL SATISFACTION by reverting ur edits.....
• Your always Wrong U OLD UNCLE.
• THE FLEET CHANGES EVERYDAY BECAUSE THE PLANES ARE BEING MANUFACTURED FAST BY YOUNG PEOPLE, NOT OLD USELESS UNCLES, WHO TAKE 100yrs to make 1 plane :)
• Please don't teach me aviation/airline related stuff, i was on Wikipedia much much before you were
• YOU BLOODY LOSER UNCLE
• u dont have ne work or what? ur in the age group of 26-35.u shuld be working in office instead of on Wikipedia. i believe Wikipedia is for Students and not Uncles....hahahaha
• DON'T CHANGE IT JUST TO INCREASE THE MUSLIM POPULATION
• ur info is bullshit
• GET A LIFE UNCLE, DON'T YOU HAVE ANY WORK OTHER THEN EDITING ON WIKIPEDIA WHICH IS MEANT FOR STUDENTS AND NOT FOR OLD UNCLES LIKE YOU. YOU STUPID UNCLE, YOU PATHETIC LOSER, SEE HOW PATHETIC YOUR LIFE IS THAT BEING A MAN YOU HAVE NO WORK BUT TO COME WITH YOUR PATHETIC SELF AND DO WORK THAT IS NOT MEANT FOR PEOPLE OF YOUR AGE

And in his previous avatar - as Rhp 26. He was blocked for his unbelievable language, by the way.

• This is my last Revert,I promise i won't do it again....This Revert is to prove that my Race is greater and better that Caucasian Race ...LOL....I surrender........)
• its not my fault if you Americans/Europeans/Whites are Blind and Brainless.
• You Europeans/Americans should concentrate on ur own pathetic aviation industry which is in Turmoil
• Shut up you Foolish German.Are'nt there enough Skin Heads in Germany that i have to face people like you on Wikipedia as well?
• I can do whatever i want.Stop me if you Cannnnnnnnnnn ;-)
• this is not the 1940s dud (oops i mean dude,i sincerely hope your not the opposite of dude).
• You block me i will start another account,and for heaven sake don't tell me to be "Civil".
• I am more than Civil.My Life Style,Manners as well as my English is better then yours.....LOL ;-)
• The Word "Civil" does'nt suit European/American/White People.
• As for being Civil,I am Civil to only Asians and Africans from Africa not Whites and African Americans. Because according to my Principles being Civil to "Whites and African Americans" is against the Laws and Rules i follow.And in the first place why should i be Civil to Americans/Europeans/Whites?they are so Racist. i "learnt" being "UnCivil" from you Americans/Europeans/Whites. No matter what happens i am going to revert the edits you and your "Fellow Americans/Europeans/Whites" do.You don't Scare me dud (oops i mean dude)......LOL ;-)
• Dude you can't stop me from doing anything,NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES YOU REVERT THE EDIT I HAVE DONE I WILL BRING IT BACK AGAIN.
• IF YOU BLOCK ME FROM WIKIPEDIA I WILL MAKE ANOTHER ACCOUNT AND START IT AGAIN.........
• Ohh God y do Americans act so STUPID,even though they look like one..........hmmmmmmm hahahahahaha

Jasepl (talk) 16:09, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Jasepl, you are very calm and forgiving. For the community's sake, I think action needs to be taken now. I will take it to ANI unless you advise me against such action. Tony (talk) 16:21, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks... but a saint I'm not (from any angle!). But I do agree, that something does need to be done - especially since I'm not the only one who's been at the receiving end and the abominable behaviour just doesn't stop. So I've no objections at all to ANI. Thanks for your efforts! Jason (talk) 17:39, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

New user talk header layout

I see you've been trying to better organize your talk page's header layout. How about the one I just created? It's certainly more organized than before. Gary King (talk) 01:18, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

I have, with dabomb's assistance. You've made it better, Gary: thanks! However, the list of "self-help writing tutorials" seems to be squashed into the middle, like a skyscraper. Perhaps is could go either side? Tony (talk) 02:52, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

How's that? Gary King (talk) 03:21, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

NIIIICE! Thanks, Gary! Tony (talk) 03:37, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

YYYY-MM-DD numerical date format in footnotes

Hello, an RfC is now open for your comments on this issue at Wikipedia:Mosnum/proposal_on_YYYY-MM-DD_numerical_dates. -- Alarics (talk) 09:13, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

1982 British Army Gazelle friendly fire incident

The article's has had an independent copyedit, would you mind taking a look now please and letting me know what you think? Ryan4314 (talk) 10:25, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

FYI

Wrong page. You wanted WT:AC/N--Tznkai (talk) 02:08, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

thumb sizes

Hi – figured I might as well dive on in and set up a proposal, tried to get it linked to a RfC but failed miserably :-/ any idea how to fix it up? Hopefully it'll all come good in the end... --mikaul^talk 07:36, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Never mind, it's been fixed, hence the red link. --mikaul^talk 05:13, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks - I've commented & alerted the Visual arts project. Johnbod (talk) 12:38, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Socks

Hi, I agree with your "no alternate accounts except in exceptional circumstances" line. I've already posted at User talk:Moni3 as Moni3 has also opposed alt a/cs, and told her I'd be willing to help set up a RfC on the topic. Likewise I'd happy work with you this, and I'm sure Moni3 would be happy to see you get involved. --Philcha (talk) 11:28, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Phil, I'm very pleased to hear this, and I would support an RfC to stop the rot. This diff of WP:SOCKPUPPET since 30 August shows pushing and pulling in different directions, although it's hard to work out what is happening. I see my "strongly recommended" (the provision of links between alt accounts) has been watered down to "generally required": too vague, IMO. And worse, this has just been removed:

1. Administrators discovered to be using a second account in an abusive or forbidden manner have been summarily desysopped.
2. Candidates for adminship should normally disclose any past accounts they have used. Adminship reflects the community's trust in an individual, not merely an account. Administrators who failed to disclose past accounts have usually lost their administrator access.

I've asked User Sandstein whether it's possible to briefly summarise the direction changes to the policy have taken over the past month or so. Tony (talk) 13:07, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Tony, I interpret the diff you mentioned differentyl - which suggested its' badly worded. Since it says exceptions need authorisation, I think "generally" (of need for cross-links) means "in all cases not covered by the exception below", i.e. it strengthens the policy - but the wording is less clear than it should be.

I confess I see no need for sockpuppets and would happily seems them outlawed, excepts where given dispensations that would be reviwed at least annually. --Philcha (talk) 13:32, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

I can think of at least one legitimate use of a sockpuppet. Suppose you were an administrator who sometimes used a public library PC for regular editing. Perhaps one day you forget to log out. What's better left logged in? A regular editor's account or an administrator's account? --Malleus Fatuorum 14:26, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree, Malleus, that that is a legitimate use of an alternate account. But if policy is tightened to clarify what is acceptable, I think it should be stated that such an alternate account should be very obvious that it is a regular user's alternate public account, as in User:Moni3publicaccount. I don't think much of account renames unless in the case of stalking or personal info breaches not the fault of the user in question. I don't think it a good idea to rename oneself when one gets a wild hair up one's ass to do so, but I recognize I may be all alone on that issue. --Moni3 (talk) 14:41, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

(e.c.) People use Internet cafes / library computers for a lot of security-related business, especially when travelling. There are different risks in using wireless in a hotel room or lobby (very insecure, actually). A key part of being a responsible WPian (especially admin) is to log off properly from public computers, just as one remembers not to leave one's credit card in the slot in an automatic teller (although I learned that the hard way many years ago). I don't think it's a good enough reason, and it opens the floodgates for every admin to run an alt account, which is part of what is getting us into strife in the first place. Perhaps logging off needs to be stressed in the standard message to successful RfA candidates? Tony (talk) 14:46, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm surprised to see you say that Tony. Remember that most administrators are children, with an attention span that would embarrass a goldfish. --Malleus Fatuorum 14:59, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

No Moni, you're not alone in that view. There's more than one (ex) administrator who seems to have made a career out of name changing/blaming someone else. The key is openness and transparency, two things that wikipedia evidently lacks, big time. --Malleus Fatuorum 14:56, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

• What about my attention span in leaving my credit card in the slot? Rare accidents aside, I think we have to trust WPians to behave responsibly with their accounts. And if an admin account appears to have gone rogue, the people affected would learn very soon. I think we're overstating the statistical likelihood of irreversible damage, and for the sake of cleaning up the sock rot, I'm quite prepared to get tough. No other self-respecting site would allow the risk of multi-gobbledy smoke and mirrors, which has turned out to be much more damaging to this project than an accidental non-logging-off at a public 'puter. We can really do without the drama. Tony (talk) 15:08, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

• Actually, I agree. As for your own lapse in concentration, well we're none of us getting any younger Tony ;-) --Malleus Fatuorum 15:13, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

If we actually want to improve the situation, I suggest:

• We either go straight to a RfC or, per Moni3, start with an article in WP Signpost and aim to get feedback, including situations none of us has encountered or heard of.
• Either way, the first thing we need is evidence of the harm socks / alt accounts have caused, and of cases where use of a sock / alt account was fully justified rather than just a convenience.
• It would help if we could recruit expert editors / admins / whatever who share our concerns, as they will be able to provide further evidence and possibly an outline of discussions off-wiki, e.g. on the admin IRC. --Philcha (talk) 15:26, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

The "leaving the card in the slot" analogy isn't right. The issue is that admin accounts have to have a very strong password, in the wake of a lot of high-profile compromised accounts in 2007-08 (I don't know if it still happens, but at one point someone would run password-cracking scripts on every admin account, and sent you sarcastic emails if they managed to crack it). Thus, a lot of admins have a second, throwaway, account for use on the move, to avoid having to remember a 30-character random alphanumeric string. – iridescent 2 15:34, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Alternate accounts should be difficult to apply for. They should be arduous and pain-in-the-ass to process, discouraging users who don't need them from using them. It should be policy that once an alternate account is obtained, it should be linked to the original user account and a statement placed on the original user page saying "Alternateaccount2 is me. I use it when I travel." or similar. Socks and the original user, therefore, should be blocked. All editors going through RfA, ArbCom, CU, OS, should divulge previous/current alt accounts and socks. They should have their rights stripped immediately if found to have lied. This underhanded mode of communication, no matter how lighthearted, is quite simply an evasion of clarity. I see the humorous edits by alternate accounts belonging to Bishonen, Durova, Outriggr, Ceoil, and The Fat Man Who Never Came Back, and yes, an element of fun would disappear, but the anonymity is leading to abuse. At best, policy nonsense is made more confusing and takes time from actual activities relating to janitorial issues regarding articles and creating a culture that completely surrounds the editors who entrench themselves behind the scenes at ANI and ArbCom. At worst, socks and alt accounts compromise content by being deceptive in discussions and article editing. This site needs to figure out where its priorities lie. Following that discussion, so do I. --Moni3 (talk) 16:20, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Moni, what you say makes a lot of sense. Tony (talk) 17:08, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

It's been noted that alternate accounts should be clearly identified on the account's user page. While this is important, it does require that users navigate to that page in order to discover the connection. Perhaps, in addition to significantly tightening the rules about when alternate accounts are permissible, there should be a policy requiring that any such accounts are clearly named to reflect the lead account. (For example, if I were to use an alternate account, it would have to be incorporate "Ckatz" and some sort of "alternate account" wording as part of the user name.) Alternatively, the MediaWiki software could perhaps be adapted to allow sub-accounts, again tied directly to the lead. In such a case, I might log in over unsecure connections as "Ckatz/ontheroad" (or whatever). While this would require input from the developers, it could potentially allow for a common talk page approach, common watchlist, and so on. (It seems to me that one of the few reasons for an alternate account would be the security issue. Subaccounts could allow login without, say admin functions, but with the ability to follow up on messages and keep on top of watchlisted items.) --Ckatz^chat_spy 17:44, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Risker made some good comments about this too [16] Karanacs (talk) 17:55, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Your suggested RFC on Sock Policy

Hi, Tony. A RfC on the removal of "generally" seems a little over the top. However if you create one, I'll support it. --Philcha (talk) 05:53, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Code of conduct

Are you working on input here, Tony? Or rolling your own maybe? Bishonen | talk 09:22, 2 October 2009 (UTC).

I think it makes sense to work on this, in the hope of getting it ready for the upcoming election. Then candidates can be asked if they're willing to abide by it. But to make that work, we have to get a workable version in place. It can't be too harsh, but it also can't be full of loopholes, or be so detailed and legalistic that no one wants to read it. Short, sharp, and reasonable is what's needed. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 12:40, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

MegaMoS

I have an idea so whacky I thought I'd suggest it to you first, rather than risk looking silly in front of a wider audience.

The idea is to merge all the MoS-related pages of general applicability into one giant page. I'm including MoS, MOSNUM, MOS:ICON, WP:ACCESS, WP:LINKS, and so on, but not MOS:DAB, WP:MOS-MANGA, MOS:MUSIC or any other pages that only apply to a specific subset of Wikipedia articles, which includes most of the Wikiproject guidelines. The combined page would be similar to your condensed MoS in length and detail. The difference would be that instead of linking to more detail using asterisks, all other detail would be present on the same page, accessable by expandable boxes, rather like the ones in your redundancy exercises. A reader who wondered why we use straight quotes rather than curly quotes would click a box labelled "EXPLANATION". A reader who wanted examples to clarify "leakage" of bold and italics into surrounding text would click a box labelled "EXAMPLES". Most readers would be spared the distinction between kilobytes and kibibytes by a collapsed box labelled "MULTIPLES OF BYTES". And so on.

Advantages:

• Elimination of masses of redundancy
• Elimination of contradictions between pages (there'd only be one page)
• All MoS-related discussion would be centralised (there'd only be one talk page)
• Easier navigation for readers (clicking an expandable box is easier than opening a new page and scrolling to find what you want)

The page intro would make it clear that the essentials would be visible without expanding any boxes; the boxes would just be there for the curious or for advanced editors or rare situations. All current shortcuts would be retained and point to the relevant section of the new MoS.

The only disadvantage I can see is lots of bytes --> long page loading time, though perhaps there'd be a technical fix for this.

Anyway, I thought I'd mention it to you before trying to formulate a detailed proposal because you might know if this had already been discussed, or if there's some reason I'm missing as to why this is undesirable. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 16:12, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

*Yawns* Yeah last night was my bounceback after suffering wiki-withdrawals from my internet connection being down. Hmmm... I can see that load time is a big problem. My ideal solution would be to have the software automatically detect a user's internet connection. If it's decent, the page would load normally; otherwise, it would load only what you see, with banner contents loading only when clicked. Whether this is technically feasible, I have no idea.

On a related note, I argued ineloquently for red in the MoS last night (Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#An_idea:_markup_for_bad_examples). Not sure how much sense I make writing so late. Do you still oppose? The proposed change could be easily reverted by redirecting the bad example template. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 15:11, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Methinks you're a night-owl all the same. I certainly am: just trying "temperature therapy" as espoused by an authority on Radio National's The Health Report: very hot bath two hours before desired sleep onset is supposed to make you sleep like a baby.

The red is fine by me, although I'm a little concerned it will look messy on the page. Willing to give it a go. The concise MoS would be fairly easy to adjust. Tony (talk) 15:19, 2 October 2009 (UTC)