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May 2019

Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals update #031, 01 May 2019

Back to the drawing board Implementation of the new portal design has been culled back almost completely, and the cull is still ongoing. The cull has also affected portals that existed before the development of the automated design.

Some of the reasons for the purge are:

• Portals receive insufficient traffic, making it a waste of editor resources to maintain them, especially for narrow-scope or "micro" portals
• The default {{bpsp}} portals are redundant with the corresponding articles, being based primarily on the corresponding navigation footer displayed on each of those articles, and therefore not worth separate pages to do so
• They were mass created

Most of the deletions have been made without prejudice to recreation of curated portals, so that approval does not need to be sought at Deletion Review in those cases.

In addition to new portals being deleted, most of the portals that were converted to an automated design have been reverted.

Which puts us back to portals with manually selected content, that need to be maintained by hand, for the most part, for the time being, and back facing some of the same problems we had when we were at this crossroads before:

• Manually maintained portals are not scalable (they are labor intensive, and there aren't very many editors available to maintain them)
• The builders/maintainers tend to eventually abandon them
• Untended handcrafted portals go stale and fall into disrepair over time

These and other concepts require further discussion. See you at WT:POG.

However, after the purge/reversion is completed, some of the single-page portals might be left, due to having acceptable characteristics (their design varied some). If so, then those could possibly be used as a model to convert and/or build more, after the discussions on portal creation and design guidelines have reached a community consensus on what is and is not acceptable for a portal.

See you at WT:POG.

Curation

A major theme in the deletion discussions was the need for portals to be curated, that is, each one having a dedicated maintainer.

There are currently around 100 curated portals. Based on the predominant reasoning at MfD, it seems likely that all the other portals may be subject to deletion.

See you at WT:POG.

Traffic

An observation and argument that arose again and again during the WP:ENDPORTALS RfC and the ongoing deletion drive of {{bpsp}} default portals, was that portals simply do not get much traffic. Typically, they get a tiny fraction of what the corresponding like-titled articles get.

And while this isn't generally considered a good rationale for creation or deletion of articles, portals are not articles, and portal critics insist that traffic is a key factor in the utility of portals.

The implication is that portals won't be seen much, so wouldn't it be better to develop pages that are?

And since such development isn't limited to editing, almost anything is possible. If we can't bring readers to portals, we could bring portal features, or even better features, to the readers (i.e., to articles)...

Some potential future directions of development

Quantum portals?

An approach that has received some brainstorming is "quantum portals", meaning portals generated on-the-fly and presented directly on the view screen without any saved portal pages. This could be done by script or as a MediaWiki program feature, but would initially be done by script. The main benefits of this is that it would be opt-in (only those who wanted it would install it), and the resultant generated pages wouldn't be saved, so that there wouldn't be anything to maintain except the script itself.

Non-portal integrated components

Another approach would be to focus on implementing specific features independently, and provide them somewhere highly visible in a non-portal presentation context (that is, on a page that wasn't a portal that has lots of traffic, i.e., articles). Such as inserted directly into an article's HTML, as a pop-up there, or as a temporary page. There are scripts that use these approaches (providing unrelated features), and so these approaches have been proven to be feasible.

What kind of features could this be done with?

The various components of the automated portal design are transcluded excerpts, news, did you know, image slideshows, excerpt slideshows, and so on.

Some of the features, such as navigation footers and links to sister projects are already included on article pages. And some already have interface counterparts (such as image slideshows). Some of the rest may be able to be integrated directly via script, but may need further development before they are perfected. Fortunately, scripts are used on an opt-in basis, and therefore wouldn't affect readers-in-general and editors-at-large during the development process (except for those who wanted to be beta testers and installed the scripts).

The development of such scripts falls under the scope of the Javascript-WikiProject/Userscript-department, and will likely be listed on Wikipedia:User scripts/List when completed enough for beta-testing. Be sure to watchlist that page.

Where would that leave curated portals?

Being curated. At least for the time being.

New encyclopedia program features will likely eventually render most portals obsolete. For example, the pop-up feature of MediaWiki provides much the same functionality as excerpts in portals already, and there is also a slideshow feature to view all the images on the current page (just click on any image, and that activates the slideshow). Future features could also overlap portal features, until there is nothing that portals provide that isn't provided elsewhere or as part of Wikipedia's interface.

But, that may be a ways off. Perhaps months or years. It depends on how rapidly programmers develop them.

Keep on keepin' on

The features of Wikipedia and its articles will continue to evolve, even if Portals go by the wayside. Most, if not all of portals' functionality, or functions very similar, will likely be made available in some form or other.

And who knows what else?

No worries.

Until next issue...    — The Transhumanist   01:33, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

@The Transhumanist: Thank you for this clear, thoughtful, non-reactive, invective-free update on what has been a real mess, with gross disruption alleged by both sides (actually three sides, which is weird). I think this newsletter is strong, maybe undeniable, evidence against accusations that you're negligent/incompetent with regard to portal deployment, failing to listen to complaints/criticism, being single-minded and defiant with regard to continuing in the same vein despite objections, and all the related accusations made by the other two "sides" (one now indeffed, and the other the subject of my own urging that ArbCom take a portals-related behavior case). Feel free to quote me on this should the need arise, since I'm not always active.

While I have not agreed with you on all this auto-portals stuff, and particularly warned against and predicted a backlash about both portals on too-narrow/specific/obscure/redundant topics, and portals with too little mainspace content behind them even if not in the former category, I deplore the pitchforks-and-torches attitude that has been directed toward you and the entire good-faith WP:WikiProject Portals (in which I have only participated as an MoS advisor). It's been a shameful episode, as has been the unbearable disruption of MfD with a tsunami of "kill all portals" nominations, many of them very ill-considered, followed by the two main instigators of that mess turning on each other like rabid animals over a minor difference of opinion in how to kill all portals. It's fuckin' nuts and nothing like it should ever happen again on this site.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:20, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Cyber Rights

I was amused to find various paragraphs about you in Godwin's book. :) Nemo 21:40, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, that was half a life-time ago – back when I had the energy to "carry the picket sign" every day.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:41, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Planned Parenthood 2015 undercover videos controversy

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 – It's The RfC Chain That Would Not Die.

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Please comment on Talk:Adam Leitman Bailey

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Laying down a marker here

I reverted your edits to {{Quote/doc/boilerplate}}, since I don't know any reason why {{quote}} shouldn't indicate that there are also other quotation templates available for use. This is a service to the editor I'd think. This is something that could be discussed and we can see how people fell about that.

Hi, you can pretend I'm an icon (like real templates have), except I'm cuter

I think it'd be best to let {{Quote/doc/boilerplate}} lie for the time being. My latest revert might be what the admins would call a "WP:3RR", so I'm laying down a marker here so's not to get in trouble. I think there's some template I'm suppose to put here, but I'm not big fan of templates except for new users. You can consider the equivalent of a template that says "Let's slow done, since what's going on at {{Quote/doc/boilerplate}} could be considered edit warring at this point, I guess." Herostratus (talk) 12:30, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

I've undone part of your revert because the "don't use this in articles" part does not pertain to one of the templates at which this is transcluded, and the other part has nothing to do with articles in particular. This was already explained to you, but you are WP:NOTGETTINGIT. I've already, for now, conceded on every other matter pending a broader discussion, opened that D part of BRD for you, and provided policy-based rationales for everything, but you are not matching this pace. Your blind and blanket revertwarring, relying on more WP:IDONTLIKEIT pseudo-reasoning, and clearly without understanding the meaning and applicability of the text in question, is not competent and is looking more and more like WP:WIN behavior. Please stop.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:29, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

@Herostratus: That came across as more testy than I intended. I don't think you have a general CIR problem, of course. Rather, you did not appear to be actually parsing the wording/code of the doc-snippet template and its applicability to the pages actually transcluding it, but reverting just to revert. I have no issue with discussing all this stuff in detail, and opened a thread to do that myself, but it can't have incorrect instructions in it, like telling people that the one template that MoS actually does call for shouldn't be used, nor make claims about block quotes which are factually wrong even if they might be applicable to pull quotes (if we were using those in mainspace, which has now been off the table for over a year).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:07, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

ಠ_ಠ

OK. I'll look at it later, reserving the right to roll back.

Let's move forward, maybe we can render this particular issue moot or something. I'll write something on the MOS talk page presently.
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Herostratus (talk • contribs) 22:57, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Kamarupi Prakrit

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ani

Resolved

With this edit you seem to have remove other users comments [[1]].Slatersteven (talk) 11:53, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

You fixed it, it happens.Slatersteven (talk) 12:05, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

There's some kind of issue with the beta edit-conflict resolver, but it's so intermittent I can't pin it down.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:14, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

FAe

 Done

 – Linked to the last ANI, which has a diff pile.

It would be nice to see a link to the sanctions they is under so we can judge. Could you post a link in the ANI?Slatersteven (talk) 12:05, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

opps, mistake hahahahahahaha … haa? So cute. cygnis insignis 12:21, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Not under sanctions; the sanctions were lifted. The condition under which they were lifted was that Fæ would not engage again in NPA/CIVIL breaches or canvassing in sexuality or gender disputes, but did both, and has continued to do so (at least with regard to the first part; dunno about further canvassing). I'll see if I can dig up some links.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:17, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Cheers, that is what I meant.Slatersteven (talk) 12:21, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

RfC closed

A request for comment you started: Proposal to make TfD more RM-like, as a clearinghouse of template discussions has been closed. With thanks. --qedk (t 桜 c) 16:11, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

@QEDK: Thankee.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:29, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy). Legobot (talk) 04:30, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Some snooker input, if you have time.

Hi SMcCandlish! I hope you are well. There's a couple things I'd appreciate your input on, if you have time. Please ignore if this is considered WP:CANVASSING.

1. WT:SNOOKER##To-do list
2. Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/2018 World Snooker Championship/archive1

Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 14:39, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Hardly canvassing to direct people in the snooker project to its to-do list and an FAC in it. :-) I chimed in at the FAC to try to help move it past the "which flag template, if any, to use" foundering point. I don't think I have much time these days to dig into project to-do lists (given the size of my own), and if I did, it would be the general cue sports one, since at least 9/10 of our active cue sports editors are snooker-focused already.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:45, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks! I once got caught out for canvassing, and I've been very careful since then not to do so.

1. thanks for replying on the FA. It did get a bit derailed. The semantics of the particular MOS is a bit beyond me, I'm happy to use whichever template, but it doesn't really mean the article should fail on flags alone.
2. the to do list isn't really that, it's more a list of things that were brought up during the world championships. One of the things I thought you might be interested in was a notability guideline for cue sports inside WP:NATHLETE after an AfD for Tian Pengfei. I'm also trying to get a new consensus on WP:LIVEUPDATES as until now, no one enforced it. As you most likely wrote the guideline, I would appreciate any input you might have.

Thanks for your time even if thats it! I know you're a busy man and always appreciated your input. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 05:57, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, the icons thing is a simple fix. Will look into the other stuff. I don't recall writing any of LIVEUPDATES (and it's kind of strange that shortcut goes to a snooker-specific page). I would actually move that into a general MOS:SPORT, but we don't have one. Always something I meant to work on, but never got around to it yet (huge amount of work, poring over all the sports-related MoS and NC guidelines, and all the WP:PROJPAGES for stuff that's actually guideline-worthy wording (versus, often, random opinion, or much worse, like active defiance of site-wide guidelines or policies by a few wikiproject people, e.g. WP:ICEHOCKEY for years was trying to "ban" diacritics in "their" articles, and so was WP:TENNIS). I've not editing WP:NATHLETE much, but did write most or all of WP:CUENOT, which oddly wasn't even mentioned there, so I fixed that with a cross-reference.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:57, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

thanks for your reply. WP:CUENOT is a great resource, but isn't guidelines, so usually gets chucked back in a deletion discussion. I'll potentially see what I can do to implement a MOS version, hopefully that's cool with you.

The FA nomination seems to have completely stalled, due to quite a disagreement regarding what the templates should actually do. Do you know where I could contact to get some experienced input? I've already contacted MOS:ICON, I don't really mind what templates are being used for this, just that it fits with MOS. Should be an easy fix, but I just get reverted if I do what I believe to be right. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 19:59, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

That's unfortunate, but it'll probably have to be re-approached much later because someone will not listen. If you can patch up the article without Tvx1 revert-warring you, that'd be great. But I think it's pretty obvious that the editor either just does not understand or is having some kind of WP:IDHT episode and pretending to not understand as some kind of lame WP:WINNING tactic. The Rambling Man and I know what we're talking about on matters like this. While FACs are sometimes passed despite guideline compliance problems it happens less and less, and only when there's a really good reason for it, and frankly only when the principal author of the article is a long-term FAC regular with a lot of allies, and the stickler for guideline compliance has pissed off some of them (e.g. Tony1's troubles). This kind of WP:ILIKEIT defiance without a real rationale is pretty poisonous to FACs, and unfortunately we don't have any control over when someone has a hare up their butt about "their" article and what tiny minutiae they feel like fighting to the death about.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:19, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Indeed, I will re-raise when/if this fails (it probably will). It's such a shame for me, as in comparrison, the GA process is significantly more friendly. To me t seems like such a non-issue. If icons aren't compliant, and doing find and replace will make the article FA, we should do it. It's rather stubborn for me. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 12:30, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Yeah. This is one of the reasons I don't FA-nominate things. I don't nom my own articles because I have too much history with too many FA regulars and they're likely use it as an excuse to re-start shit with me. I don't nom others' articles, because too often they have a myopic WP:OWN problem. You likely do not have the first of these problems, but no one can escape the latter. >;-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:55, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Fair enough. It's a bit sad, as the state of the article hasn't really been discussed at all. I'd work on more cue sports articles up to FA, but I suspect they'd have the same issue. Got quite a few GAs planned though, which I'm sure will not have the same issues. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 18:34, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

It is sad. It's down to blocking behaviour of disruptive editors that mean no-one is inclined to see past the obvious failings because it's a waste of time to get involved when the candidate will obviously fail through these MOS issues. As SMcCandlish notes, once the disruptive forces move onto other things, perhaps we can take another run at it. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:53, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, and frankly GA is much more important. GA marks the real test of an article as an actual encyclopedia article, and is focused on making it worthy of the term, including sourcing, being written sensibly, and having enough information. FA is just polishing chrome. I've said many times that improving Stub to B-class pages to GA level is far more important than making an already-good article slightly better. In the long run, I think FA is actually doomed. It's turned into an insular good ol' boys' club, with a very high barrier to entry, and a hostile, cliquish atmosphere. GA is open to everyone and while its analyses are less in-depth, they're actually more meaningful in the grand WP:ENC scope, and are performed by a far wider variety of editors, without a locus for WP:CONLEVEL problems to get ingrained.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:26, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Requesting to Reopen a Conduct Dispute in Order to Make Policy

Whack! You've been whacked with a wet trout. Don't take this too seriously. Someone just wants to let you know that you did something silly.

Not every conduct dispute involving unclear policy needs to be dealt with by dragging the conduct dispute out for a month to work out the policy when there is a common-sense solution to the conduct portion of the dispute. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:47, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

I would agree with you under normal circumstances, but this case fails every common-sense test imaginable. The conduct (and content) dispute is bogus; it is manufactured WP:HIGHMAINT noise generated by one person. affecting more and more other editors, and that person is very obviously not Macon. Topic-banning the real cause of the problem, which should have been done in January, and again in March, and again a few days before that ANI, in the ANI about the actual-problem editor, would be the direct opposite of "dragging out" the dispute; it would end it sharply and without any question. The ANI close under discussion, however, does nothing but open further questions and doubts. There is no "policy ... to work out", as our policies are already quite clear, and the close transgresses at least 6 of them. The problem is that too few people left in the community have the spine to stand up to extremist activism bullies who use accusations of "[whatever]-phobia" and "attacking minorities" and so on, to character-assassinate all their opposition. Most editors, including admins (maybe especially admins), are afraid the accusations will stick in the minds of other editors. A close like that is basically a new chapter in a manual for how to disrupt and slow-editwar and civil-PoV push (or even uncivilly push your PoV) and troll the entire community and break policies right and left to go after other editors, and get away with it. All you need is a small entourage of yes-persons who make a lot of false accusations behind the same shield of an issue most people are afraid to be accused of being on the wrong side of, and one admin, any admin, also in the same boat who's willing to close the deal in your favor, no matter how many policies are broken. The close is dangerous for the entire community. It's handing the keys over to the most histrionic NOTHERE advocacy mongers.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:49, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

@Robert McClenon: I've archived this faster than usual (possibly before you've seen it) for WP:BEANS reasons; it occurs to me after the fact that suggesting this is a roadmap for how to get away with long-term abuse is probably better not said on a talk page with a lot of watchers.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:19, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

PS: As I've long predicted, Fæ's topic ban was in fact reinstated; it just took a few more months.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:19, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Notability (academics)

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Got mail?

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Would you mind e-mailing me to try to see if it works? PPEMES (talk) 15:18, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Juul

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Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style

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Please comment on Talk:Ainu language

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Julius Evola dispute

 Done

Hi SMcCandlish. There is an ongoing dispute regarding a claim made in the lede of the article on Julius Evola. Since you were involved in a previous discussion on the subject, I was wondering whether you had any input or suggestions on how to proceed in the current discussion. 160.39.234.40 (talk) 15:36, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

Correction/response requested

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

I note at the top of your page here: "I'll probably see that I've erred, and will at least acknowledge that you've raised an objection." Please acknowledge not that I've raised an objection — which is already obvious — but that you in fact made the mistake you did. I'm not asking for an apology (though an apology would be in order), but simply a retraction of your presumably unintentional repeated misstatement. I note also: "If we have a dispute, usually it's something we can easily hash out and move past with no hard feelings." I would hope so, and certainly neither of us needs a continuing conflict. I think it's a pretty sure thing that I won't be requesting anything of you in the future, so I think you may view responding to my two present concerns as a quick and convenient way of winding things up. I hope you'll excuse my having handled a couple of things less than perfectly upon arriving in the discussion, and I think you'll find that I've acquired at least a bit of experience in depersonalizing discussions. But please be informed that your neglecting to correct your misstatements or answer my question is unsettling me, and if you're sincere about not wanting to offend or engender hard feelings, I hope you will act promptly to relieve me on this. It would also avoid further disputation on the matter, on the page or elsewhere. If you still don't understand what it was you repeatedly said that was untrue and to which I am objecting, then please let me know and I will again try to explain it to you. It's already there on the page, though. Thanks. –Roy McCoy (talk) 03:18, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

I stopped trying to plow through your repetitive WP:BLUDGEON posts days ago (I just respond to whatever point I first discern, and move on). So I'm not sure which thing(s) you're on about. If I run across them and they seem to need a response I'll make one. It's not a matter of being angry with you or anything like that; this simply has not been a productive expenditure of anyone's time. It's like two people in two different counties arguing with tree stumps and mistaking it for a conversation with each other.

Given what I last responded to, I think it must have something to do with sources you like. I'm don't think it makes any difference at this point. What SPS/UGC blogs say doesn't matter. What news-style and marking sources say doesn't matter (regardless whose they are, even Oxfords's). What a one-publisher internal stylesheet says doesn't matter (even Oxford's). That when you try hard you can find some non-news sources that agree with you doesn't even matter when they are house-style sheets, and nothing like the public-facing style guides that WP and the rest of the world treat as reliable sources on English usage. Those almost unanimously treat such commas as optional, and recommend including them any time ambiguity or confusion could result. On WP that is effectively 100% of the time, because we have no control from moment to moment over what the text says. "This is not ambiguous because it's short and the rest of the sentence cannot be read with any other interpretation" is only true right this second and may be false on both points one second from now, or next week, or in August.

This "someone at Oxford [in a non-relevant role] said ..." stuff is the same issue as "notability doesn't rub off"; reliability doesn't either. Internal documentation for a narrow one-publisher use ("how to write about Oxford U.", "how to submit something for publication by Oxford U.") are not RS publications on English usage, they're just primary sources for what some of Oxford's internal policies are. If they also have an internal policy that people may not leave open packages of food in the staff refrigerator over the weekend, this is not a reliable source that, in the wider world, leaving open packages of food in a refrigerator over the weekend is a problem. You've been confusing publication and publisher: not everything on paper or e-paper that came from some sub-entity of Oxford University is of equal reliability, relevance, or applicability in every context.

Anyway, no posited that it would be impossible to find any academic-leaning sources that agree with you. Rather, the argument is that what they prefer may make sense for their context, but doesn't (or, if you like, makes less sense and less clearly makes any sense) on Wikipedia. I've laid this out in almost excruciating detail multiple times. If you can't surmount that argument, on its merits, then it simply doesn't matter whether I responded to every single thing you've posted the way you wanted it interpreted. By way of analogy, if we're talking about avian evolution, and someone starts in with "Well, according to the Bible ...", it doesn't matter whether anyone else exactly follows the scriptural quotations, since they're simply not germane to settling a bio-evolutionary question.

If my argument doesn't work for you, then it doesn't; if you're not convincing me, then you're not. I'm not inclined to keep going over it again and again. Cf. WP:WINNING. See also WP:SATISFY; no is obligated to answer you, much less required to do so to until you are contented. Just dropping the matter is generally a better course when an argument turns circular.

Probably the key point throughout all of this, though, is EEng's: Absent proof that this comma is a matter that editors frequently edit-war over, and a clear consensus to advise one way or the other, it's not something MoS is ever going to have a firm line-item about. I.e., it's a moot argument to begin with, so no need to perpetuate it. As you put it, "certainly neither of us needs a continuing conflict". I'm also having connectivity issues right now; it's taken over an hour to get this response to submit to the server; so going and digging up more of the same material to respond to is not on the table right now anyway.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:11, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

There was no occasion for this. I didn't request further commentary from you in the first place – "commenting if you feel like it", I said, and this was only in relation to your finally having a look at the guide I had actually cited. I certainly didn't even suggest a further commentary now. The two points remain as before, though you've taken a step towards addressing the second one by citing EEng on the absence of a clear consensus. Does this mean that your answer to my question is "no"? This, again, is a yes-or-no question, and it in no way invites yet further unrequested commentary from you. Let's leave it clearly at that for the moment, since it seems necessary to simplify the matter even more than I've already simplified it. Please stick to the actual point here. I previously wrote: "I would appreciate it if you would acknowledge the absence (or possibly claim the existence) of a present consensus on the issue. [...] I'm asking you to [...] respond to the question of whether or not you think a consensus on the current comma issue exists." Could you please give me a yes or a no on that, speaking for yourself and not for EEng or anyone else? Thanks again. –Roy McCoy (talk) 16:53, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

I just now thought that it might not have been noticed – or perhaps it was later forgotten – that the initial message about the other Oxford style guide came from Number 57 and not from me. Could this explain the error? –Roy McCoy (talk) 04:50, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

No? cygnis insignis 18:00, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Good question. Perhaps it's being implied that I'm badgering an editor to state the obvious, except I don't think it's obvious. Actually it's kind of an interesting situation, in which it might be claimed that the answer is obvious both ways, yes and no. If that's the case then it actually isn't obvious at all, and hence my request to clarify something is in order and justified. It is indeed a request to clarify something and was expressed as such, as a request. Moreover, I'm clearly not pestering anyone to respond to a litany of debate points, nor to restate what anybody has already said clearly enough, nor to go into any detail whatever. Again, it's a simple yes-or-no question, and one may reasonably ask why it is not being answered.

I believe I read somewhere else that an editor is indeed not obligated to reply to a question, but that in that case he's supposed to announce that he's not answering it. If such a statement were to appear on the MoS talk page, without being obfuscated through burial in a mass of additional text, I don't suppose there would be anything I could do about it and I would not present a complaint on that account. Perhaps that's how this part of it could be settled. While waiting for a possible word on this I guess I'll do what the (curiously cited?) WP:BLUDGEON recommends and ask an uninvolved administrator, or perhaps several, for their opinion. Thanks cygnis. By the way, I agree that "Commas indicate a soft stop — really any kind of pause" was amusing. –Roy McCoy (talk) 00:01, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

You seem sensible and have good communication skills, so this time and effort seems misspent and displaced. Have a good one. cygnis insignis 13:51, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

^^^^^ What he said. EEng 00:53, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

We've already been over this. There certainly is no consensus in favor of your view on the underlying question; it's simply something MoS isn't going to address, mostly because there is no consensus on it, and in part because MoS doesn't address every imaginable point, only those matters that result in frequent editwarring and other problems, or it would be longer than Chicago Manual of Style. No, that is not me "walking back" anything at all; it's an observation I make frequently, and was making before EEng even arrived at WP; he just happened to make the point again, in that discussion, most recently. You asked for a response here and at WT:MOS, so "There was no occasion for this" doesn't make sense. I refer you to WP:SATISFY and WP:STICK, again. I'm under no obligation to answer you at all, much less to do so in a way that pleases you, or in a predetermined format. This is my talk page, not yours. Please don't respond here further unless it has something productive to do with encyclopedia work. Continuing to argue about this is a waste of my and your own time. And, no, there is no admin anywhere on WP who is going to force me to answer you in a way that makes you happy.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:27, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

I would have been very happy for our dispute to have been resolved prior to now, and I think I made this clear on your talk page before. You were correct about 3O's being for matters involving article content rather than user conduct; the links I was led through before didn't clarify this, but I now see through the previously unseen WP:DRR page linked to at the top of the MoS talk page that the appropriate place is WP:ANI. I have prepared a written complaint regarding your behavior and will most probably present it there unless the matter is resolved otherwise. In this regard, by the way, I don't know what happened to the "If we have a dispute, usually it's something we can easily hash out and move past with no hard feelings" text that I noted at the top of your talk page before. In any event I would prefer to settle the dispute without going to ANI, so I hope you will agree to discuss the problem here and now rather than there and later. This is the recommended and preferred way to handle such a problem, as I'm sure you are aware. Thank you. –Roy McCoy (talk) 03:01, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Knockya self out. You should probably familiarize yourself with WP:BOOMERANG first, since that's the likely result. "[U]sually it's something we can easily hash out and move past" has the word usually in it for a reason. It doesn't work when one side of the discussion is tendentiously pursuing some kind of "personal honor" WP:GREATWRONGS thing, and engaging in WP:BATTLEGROUND behavior. It's already been made clear at WT:MOS that others are damned tired of the discussion. Here, as there, it has turned circular, so there is no point in going over it any further. The substantive matter isn't something either of us are changing our minds about, and is a moot point because MoS is not going to change without clear consensus to do so. WP:Drop the stick. Your attempts to arm-twist and browbeat me in to giving you "satisfaction" are bordering on WP:HARASS at this point, as ANI will make clear to you if you attempt such WP:DRAMA, especially since you keep posting this shit to my talk page after being asked not to. When I said "Please don't respond here further unless it has something productive to do with encyclopedia work", I actually and obviously meant it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:50, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Please comment on Talk:Kamrupi dialect

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Please comment on Talk:Kamarupi Prakrit

Disregard

 – I closed this as an invalid RfC.

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User:SMcCandlish - Yes. My mistake, and yours. You closed it as an invalid RFC, due to an error on my part. Your closure was invalid, because you put a {{Discussion top}} template at the top, but didn't put a {{Discussion bottom}} template at the bottom. This had the unintended effect of making the page write-only. I would have appreciated if you had told me that I had made a good-faith error and needed to repost the RFC. (I don't really especially want to be running this RFC, but I am carrying out a task that has been assigned to me of resolving this dispute, which is not so much like herding cats as like trying to use cats to herd rabbits.) Robert McClenon (talk) 02:57, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Question about DS alerts

I can't seem to locate where (or if) it is a violation to post a DS alert on a user's TP after they have already been alerted of the sanctions that year. If it exists, can you point me to it so it can be included here? ^Atsme _Talk 📧 18:51, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

@Atsme: It's covered at either WP:AC/DS or at the Template:Ds/alert docs (maybe both). We're instructed to not leave redundant (within 1 year) alerts for the same DS topic area, i.e. the same {{Ds/alert}} {{{1}}} parameter code (or alias thereof). It's unclear what if any consequences there could theoretically be for doing it on purpose. As far as I know, 0 editors have ever been punished for it. Most transgressions of this supposed rule are tit-for-tat childish crap that happens once (i.e., you leave someone a {{Ds/alert|at}}, which also necessarily and automatically constitutes renewed notice to yourself (you can't be "unaware" of the DS if you're telling someone else about them), but then the recipient runs to your talk page and gives you a copy of it right back and tells you to go screw yourself. Happens all the time, and no one really seems to care. It's kind of hard to leave a duplicate notice accidentally, since when you try to save the template, it pops up the box of options to check the logs. If someone were to WP:POINTedly keep leaving the same editor redundant notices as some kind of intimidation antic, that probably would be actionable, most likely at WP:AE. (I don't think a WP:RFARB or WP:ARCA would be accepted over that; it's too trivial and is the kind of thing AE can deal with quickly.)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:58, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

@Atsme: Here at the deets:

• WP:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions § Alerts: "Editors issuing alerts are expected to ensure that no editor receives more than one alert per area of conflict per year. Any editor who issues alerts disruptively may be sanctioned. Editors may not use automated tools or bot accounts to issue alerts."
• Template:Ds/alert: When you attempt to save the alert on a user talk page: "Special rules govern alerts. You must not give an editor an alert if they have already received one for the same area of conflict within the last twelve months. Please now check that this editor has not already been alerted to this area of conflict in the last twelve months: [links to logs and stuff here]". The template's doc didn't include this information. I'm about to go add it, though I may get yelled at (supposedly only Arbs, their clerks, and maybe AE admins can edit that directly, but that's actually against WP:EDITING policy).

 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:22, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Perfect, Mac! Exactly what I needed. Will add to my ARCA request. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 09:41, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

• Whoever came up with this whole DS alert system is burning in hell. EEng 20:42, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

  Yeah. I tried to get rid of it, as applied to internal material like MoS, and more generally, and ArbCom is just flat-out addicted to it. I even did a WP:VPPOL RfC about it, roughly a year ago, and the (thin) majority of respondents were in favor of abolishing it. Didn't happen of course, but at least it was sufficient pressure to seriously revise the Ds/alert template.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:50, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Harassment

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Please comment on Talk:Kamarupi Prakrit

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Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Video games

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NPR Newsletter No.18

Hello SMcCandlish,

WMF at work on NPP Improvements

Niharika Kohli, a product manager for the growth team, announced that work is underway in implementing improvements to New Page Patrol as part of the 2019 Community Wishlist and suggests all who are interested watch the project page on meta. Two requested improvements have already been completed. These are:

• Allow filtering by no citations in page curation
• Not having CSD and PRODs automatically marked as reviewed, reflecting current consensus among reviewers and current Twinkle functionality.

Reliable Sources for NPP

Rosguill has been compiling a list of reliable sources across countries and industries that can be used by new page patrollers to help judge whether an article topic is notable or not. At this point further discussion is needed about if and how this list should be used. Please consider joining the discussion about how this potentially valuable resource should be developed and used.

Backlog drive coming soon

Look for information on the an upcoming backlog drive in our next newsletter. If you'd like to help plan this drive, join in the discussion on the New Page Patrol talk page.

News

• Following a request for comment, the subject-specific notability guideline for pornographic actors and models (WP:PORNBIO) was removed; in its place, editors should consult WP:ENT and WP:GNG.

Discussions of interest

• A request for bot approval for a bot to patrol two kinds of redirects
• There has been a lot discussion about Notability of Academics
• What, if anything, would a SNG for Softball look like

Six Month Queue Data: Today – 7242 Low – 2393 High – 7250

---

Stay up to date with even more news – subscribe to The Signpost.
Go here to remove your name if you wish to opt-out of future mailings.
Delivered by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of DannyS712 (talk) at 19:18, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Murder of Anastasiya Meshcheryakova

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Please comment on Help talk:Citation Style 1

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Please comment on Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard

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Please comment on Talk:Kamarupi Prakrit

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Kamarupi Prakrit RFC

SMc, I have collapsed some parts of the discussion at the Talk:Kamarupi Prakrit RFC since the lengthy and somewhat heated back and forth was IMO distracting from the subject of the RFC and was likely to drive away uninvolved editors from the discussion.
Your central objection to the framing of the RFC as a choice between two ledes versions in toto is still clearly visible and may well prove to be correct; if so, the RFC participants and closer will reach the same conclusion. But as you may have realized by now after looking at the talk-page archives, DRN, etc, the RFC itself is somewhat of a Hail Mary attempt to resolve a long niggling debate among a small group of editors. So it would be useful to give this good faith albeit unorthodox effort the best chance to succeed. Hope you understand. Abecedare (talk) 04:54, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Request concerning SMcCandlish

A case involving you is presently being initiated at WP:AE. –Roy McCoy (talk) 06:13, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Books & Bytes, Issue 33

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 33, March – April 2019

• #1Lib1Ref
• Wikimedia and Libraries User Group update
• Global branches update
• Bytes in brief

Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:41, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Thank you ...

May

Rapeseed
... with thanks from QAI

... for improving article quality in May! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:13, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Kamrupi dialect

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Notice that you are now subject to an arbitration enforcement sanction

Per the discussion at Special:Permalink/898254684#SMcCandlish, you are banned from interacting with Roy McCoy for six months, subject to the usual exceptions. If you wish to appeal this sanction, please see the instructions at WP:AC/DS#sanctions.appeals. GoldenRing (talk) 13:14, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Should have been a BOOMERANG against the filer, and you know it. I'll say this and otherwise just go do something else than Wikipedia for a while. This drama should have gone away and instead you and the rest of the AE admins just encouraged more of it. When you do things like this, you are teaching people how to game the system and get away with it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:53, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

Pretty bizarre, indeed. Next time don't let yourself by trolled by the likes of Roy. I have to admit I sympathized with EEng's "Both of you shut the fuck up" comment, but it appears that you had already shut up by then while Roy kept at it, and more than a week later filed a complaint, apparently because you declined to interact with him any further. So, yes, it was an obvious boomerang situation; hard to see why admin GoldenRing failed to realize that. Dicklyon (talk) 05:25, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

Reacting to problems, instead of acting toward solutions, keeps problem-fixers employed? I'm told this is a cynical view, but it always occurs to our disobedient impulses to seize the levers of control. My weird and meta thinking after reading this, as I'm considering how I can sublimate dissent into content. cygnis insignis 06:58, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

Crap!! Just saw this - 😢 ^Atsme _Talk 📧 14:32, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

@Dicklyon, Cygnis insignis, Atsme, and EEng: I'm back now. While I used an alt account here and there to fix some typos and mangled citations, and to chime in on a few RfCs and such, this bogus "arbitration enforcement sanction" – being punished for walking away from a pointless dispute and being harassed by the other party at my own talk page – cost this project about 98 to 99 percent of my usual Wikipedia work for 6 months, and GoldenRing should absorb that. Some of us will not tolerate being victim-blamed (especially without even being given a chance to have our own input on the matter considered). If it happens again, I'll probably just leave permanently. I found lots of other stuff to do while I was away.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:29, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Hush that nonsense, Mac. Your input is needed and I don't think I'm alone when saying we are not going to let you off the hook that easily...although I've been close to where you are now. As an eternal optimist, I made the decision to become even more involved by attending WikiConferences and am sooo looking forward to Boston in November! I hope to be able to attend at least one Wikimania event in the near future. We cannot institute positive changes if we are not here contributing. 😊 ^Atsme _Talk 📧 20:41, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

I've been to a couple myself. Definitely interesting.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:47, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

• California blackout, limited bandwidth, glad you’re back of course. EEng 03:45, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
• good to hear from you mate, I assumed you were busy elsewhere and taking a break is healthy. I'm inactive for a while, trying to keep my focus on others matters. Hope you are well. Regards ~ cygnis insignis 12:17, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

  @Cygnis insignis: Yar, I had a lot of other stuff to do in the interim. Used an alt account to fix typos and to chime in on RfCs I couldn't resist, but otherwise left the 'pedia to its own devices. Strangely, the site didn't fall apart without me. Heh.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:47, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

  jolly good. I'm having to peek at my notices on a phone, fairly pointless when I cannot easily act on them. Oh well, I'm getting through my pile of unread fiction and books on off-topic subjects ~ cygnis insignis 00:05, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Bayer designation

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Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Notability (academics)

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Please comment on Help talk:Citation Style 1

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Please comment on Talk:Iran

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Break

I would like to say that I'm vaguely aware of the recent developments and that I'm sorry about that. Most importantly, you've done a lot for the project and I want to thank you. What happened seems a minor issue for a non-involved person like me, but I can certainly understand the resulting frustration and temporary lack of motivation. If you decide to take a break, I just hope that you'll be back whenever you feel like it. Thanks again, —PaleoNeonate – 04:12, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

I appreciate the sentiment. I'm just tired of periodically being subjected to punitive measures due to other editors being disruptive but gaming the system to make themselves look like victims. It's severely corrosive to community morale and long-term retention of productive editors. Thinking back: with the exception of someone who died, every departed editor whom I miss was chased off the system by similar means.

At some point, the AE, AN*, and ArbCom admins have to start absorbing the fact that "we're too busy or uninterested to bother investigating the claims, and will just believe whoever whines the loudest" is a recipe for the inmates running the asylum. Admins are effectively immune to any repercussions from things like i-bans and short-term blocks. For all of the rest of us, they're nasty weapons that other editors will turn against us to WP:WIN, more often and more doggedly the more one participates in controversial areas (i.e., the "magnet" subjects for PoV pushers, and that certainly includes some internal subjects like MoS and AT/RM).

Maybe going on editorial strike in protest will not be effective – if I'm nearly alone in the practice – but it's worth trying, since formal appeal processes are totally useless. They always and strongly side with backing the admin who imposed the sanction. I call it the Myth of Administrator Infallibility, one of WP's weak spots that more and more WP:NOTHERE types are learning to exploit, especially after building up some WP:CIVILPOV strategies.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:50, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

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Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation

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