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May 2021

First sentences in lead section

Hello, I see that you have been involved with editing WP:LEAD. I'm curious to ask, for a film article, do you think it matters the order of characteristics? It seems like the assumed "default" order on numerous editors' part is to always put the director first. I think this is faulty to assume beyond directors who are household names, and that the first opening sentence should identify the most noteworthy characteristic of the film, as reflected by reliably-sourced coverage. Sometimes there can be competing characteristics, and I think there can be ways to prioritize them for proper flow. To share an example, The Mauritanian had this, which I find to say nothing immediately meaningful of the film in the first sentence, and I rewrote it to this. Another example that became contentious for me was Sound of Metal, where another editor insisted on putting the director first because for them, the director should always come first. I find for that example that the actor and/or the premise should be the noteworthy elements introduced first, based on coverage of the topic, with Marder following right after. Curious to know your thoughts on what matters or not, for film articles' opening sentences. (And if it can apply to TV series too, like how WandaVision doesn't name the starring actors until the second paragraph.) Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 22:28, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

@Erik: I agree with your edit at The Mauritanian. There is certainly no rule or even an informal consensus that directors should be listed first, and doing that is sometimes nonsensical (e.g. when the producer has more influence and/or when the director doesn't attach their name to it formally; both happened with Caligula, which was mostly directed by Tinto Brass then completed by producer Bob Guccione after a creative falling out). Anyway, this (pretty much exactly what you've written above, minus reference to me in particular) would be a good discussion to open at WT:MOSFILM, with a crossreference at WT:MOSTV since the outcome could affect TV show articles, too. Or write it up as a formal RfC to introduce particular guideline wording.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:39, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks! I appreciate the feedback. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 11:52, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

(talk page watcher) - FWIW, I would have thought the most defining characteristic for any film would be the genre, not the director. It's a little like putting the studio who produced a video game first, rather than what it is. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 12:05, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Lee Vilenski, I agree with you. The vast majority of film articles open with the year and the nationality and the genre, unless the nationality or the genre are hard to classify. I was thinking more of what should come after "film". I do worry that works based on comic books suffer from prioritizing companies over other elements. Like with WandaVision, the actors who play Wanda and Vision respectively aren't even mentioned into the second paragraph. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 16:08, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Catching up

I'm back, but am playing catch-up. Something like 30 threads to go through (that I've been notified of).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:20, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Edit summary

The level of ignorance in your edit summary here suggets to me that you would be well advised to withdraw from discussions about British English. The commas I removed have no place there. I think you are behaving very badly on that article and its talk page. DuncanHill (talk) 09:34, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Cite sources, or find something else to do. Given that I've been collecting style guides for 30+ years, I would bet cash money I can out-source you. But this is all moot. WP has a style, it is not journalism style, and WP does not write in journalism's bad habit of dropping every possible comma. If you can't understand this, then you should probably find a different hobby that doesn't involve extreme levels of textual precision for an entire world of readers, of differing levels of English mastery. This is not GreatBritainPedia.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:11, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

A user interaction

I note your interaction with Keith-264. I have had problems with this editor (Talk:Channel Dash/Archive 1#Retrograde edit - not a short read, I am afraid, but only overwhelming detailed reference to sources seems to have any leverage) and the article concerned is poorer as a result of his ownership. Quite a lot of his output disregards sources (there are citations, but they tend not to support the article fully). It is possible to "win" (I dislike this word in this context, but cannot find better) on a small element of text, but too exhausting to get other bits of the article fixed.

Just a bit of sharing of exasperation. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 11:51, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

@ThoughtIdRetired: Users who are long-term combative and disruptive and such tend to get topic-banned and/or indeffed eventually. I've learned to have patience. Either their behavior will adjust along WP:HOTHEADS lines, or the community will have enough of it at some point. I don't like it, either, when an article is in worse shape because of someone's PoV pushing, etc., but "there is no deadline" and it will work out in the long run.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:23, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

RfC on racial hereditarianism at the R&I talk-page

 Done

An RfC at Talk:Race and intelligence revisits the question, considered last year at WP:FTN, of whether or not the theory that a genetic link exists between race and intelligence is a fringe theory. This RfC supercedes the recent RfC on this topic at WP:RSN that was closed as improperly formulated.

Your participation is welcome. Thank you. NightHeron (talk) 22:49, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

OP failed to mention that this RfC appears premature and highly inappropriate, as they rushed to open it[1][2] while there is ongoing discussion at RS/N about how best to word it, and where to hold it. Stonkaments (talk) 23:12, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the notes. I'll look at both discussions.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:41, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

"Proposal to start a new RFC" is already closed (as I kind of expected) because the RfC was running, whether it was opened prematurely or not.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:46, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

I've commented in the RfC, which is verging on WP:SNOW anyway.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:52, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Please look at the timestamps. At the time when the current RFC was opened on the talk page of the race and intelligence article, there was an emerging consensus at the RS noticeboard that the new RFC should occur at the NPOV noticeboard, and more importantly that it should address the issue of misrepresented sources that has been the main source of dispute on these articles. NightHeron was the only editor who rejected this proposal, and he stated that he was opening the new RFC under his own terms in order to ensure that the widely-supported proposal at RSN could not be implemented. Then, after the new RFC had been opened in a manner contrary to the consensus at RSN, the proposal at RSN was closed.

To understand what the main source of dispute over these articles has been, see the summary given here by Ferahgo the Assassin, as well as the summaries given by Literaturegeek, Gardenofaleph and Stonkaments that she linked to in her vote directly below. It seems pretty clear these sources are being misrepresented, but every attempt to correct the misrepresentations has been rejected as incompatible with the decision to classify the hereditarian hypothesis as a fringe theory. That's what this dispute really is about, but the current RFC is framed in a way that will make this issue impossible to address. The wording of the current RFC does not make it clear that as a practical matter, this RFC is about whether or not the article must include the material that probably misrepresents its sources, and that votes in favor of classifying the hereditarian hypothesis as a fringe theory will be interpreted as supporting the inclusion of this material. --AndewNguyen (talk) 14:13, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Adding to this comment: I remember you from last year's RFC, and you were one of the least ideological editors among those who were in favor of classifying it as a fringe theory, so I know you'll listen to reason. Could you please read Ferahgo's summary of the sourcing dispute that this RFC actually is about? It would be very valuable if you could leave a comment in the RFC explaining that for everyone who has not been following this dispute over the past few months. It isn't possible for me to comment in the RFC myself, because it is occurring on an EC-protected page, which excludes all users who have less than 500 edits. --AndewNguyen (talk) 16:05, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Feedback request: Society, sports, and culture request for comment

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MOS:FOREIGN

Can we close this discussion and/or implement your proposal that seems to be generally supported?

It's been more than three months since I've started it, two weeks since the date you aimed (21 April), and it's exactly the day that I asked for (a month since 6 April). Yet it's a week until the discussion will be archived, which we definitely shouldn't miss.

I'm pretty certain that your proposal can be overall considered successful (even the one who initially opposed didn't continue to do so after your clarifications), I'm just not sure how exactly to perform the closure. So I'm relying on your experience on that matter. — Mike Novikoff 05:01, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

@Mike Novikoff: I've asked for a closure at WP:ANRFC. And posted a note about that request to the discussion itself, which should be enough to reset the archive timer.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:12, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Two RM queries

 Done

Hi SMC, as someone who understands most policies/guidelines far better than me, I'm wondering if you have any thoughts on these two potential rms. I saw Reception of J. R. R. Tolkien, and am wondering if the Reception history of Jane Austen should be moved to Reception of Jane Austen and Reception of Johann Sebastian Bach's music to simply Reception of Johann Sebastian Bach. The former because "history" seems implied in reception, and the latter because it seems more WP:CONCISE, but I remain unsure. Aza24 (talk) 19:07, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

@Aza24: Well, we definitely should have a consistent titling pattern. What you might do is something like:

{{subst:Rm
|current1=Reception of J. R. R. Tolkien
|current2=Reception history of Jane Austen
|current3=Reception of Johann Sebastian Bach's music
|reason=We should have a [[WP:CONSISTENT]] title convention for such articles. See below for a list of possibilities, and feel free to add additional ones. They range from a focus on [[WP:CONCISE]] to a focus on [[WP:PRECISE]], and all are [[WP:RECOGNIZABLE]] and arguably [[WP:NATURAL]].
}}

# Reception of [name]
# Reception history of [name]
# Reception of [name]'s works
# Reception of [name]'s [kind of works]
# Reception of the works of [name]
# Reception of the [kind of works] of [name]
~~~~

===Comments===

* [Aza24 actual recommendation and rationale here.] ~~~~

If you like that, you can just copy-paste the entire block. Leaving out |new1=, etc., will generate "?" in place of a suggested new titles (thus "• Reception of J. R. R. Tolkien → ?", etc., in the list of pages to move).

It's probably worth looking for additional pages to add to this multi-nomination.

Personally, I would favor no. 3 on this list as maximally consistent and less ambiguous (as I often say, "any attempt at disambiguation that introduces a new ambiguity is, by definition, a failure"). "Reception of [name]" is too easily misunderstood as reception of the person into society in general, e.g. reception of their socio-political positions, etc., etc. Consider the lit-crit and fandom reception of J. K. Rowling's novels, versus public reception of her stance on trans issues in the UK. Big difference, even in the minds of the same person (e.g., a lover of the Harry Potter stories who is appalled at Rowling's TERFism). Similarly, Ralph Nader has a very different reception for his published works on consumer safety and similar topics, versus his abortive but repeated efforts as a would-be politician. However, I don't think we need to use "Reception of J. R. R. Tolkien's writings", "Reception of Johann Sebastian Bach's music", etc. (or the "Reception of the [whatever] of [name]" versions). It's over-precision when "works" will do. I would propose "works" here because "work" is again ambiguous (Nader's political campaigns qualify as "work" in the mass-noun sense, and so on). And MoS uses the count noun "works" when refering to published works, not "work" (except in specifically singular phrases like "For a work published in a language other than English ...").  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:53, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

SMC, this is exceptionally helpful. Your formatting for the RM seems great—I dare not set it up right now as I've been on Wikipedia way too much today. I'll do so sometime soon and let you know; after reading your rationale I would agree that #3 seems ideal. Aza24 (talk) 06:37, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Now done at Talk:Reception history of Jane Austen#Requested move 8 May 2021 Aza24 (talk) 04:51, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

I've commented there.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:44, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Feedback request: Maths, science, and technology request for comment

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Feedback request: Maths, science, and technology request for comment

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Race and intelligence

Most of the "arguments" there (other than flat assertion) are something like "I don't think X is a valid concept so any sources that use it are wrong". Surely as an experienced editor you realize that your opinion of what is a valid concept is irrelevant? Clearly those academics that correlate race and intelligence think they're well defined and predictive enough to be valid (e.g. they typically define race as ancestry groups, try typing "ancestry" into PubMed, same thing with a different term). Do Wikipedia editors trump academic sources now? Churchyard Dog (talk) 11:14, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

WP consensus on what is encyclopedic absolutely trumps speculative primary research (primary sourcing) that is contradicted by other research, yes. Conflicting views of this stuff in the sciences will be covered only in a WP:DUE manner. And, no, "ancestry" is not synonymous with "race". See WP:R&E. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:15, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Well this is the problem here. Your personal opinion that "race is not ancestry" is contradicted by the sources. Scholars who correlate race and intelligence define race genealogically, as did Blumenbach and Darwin. Is that "primary research"? It seems rather that 20C Western neo-Lysenkoist race denial pseudoscience is primary. Your personal essay is full of vaguely "science sounding" confused nonsense. "Ancestry is haplogroups, which is contradicted by genetic diversity". What? Whether two people share ancestry versus a third person has exactly nothing to do with haplogroups or genetic diversity. Do you not share ancestry with your brother because of "haplogroups" and "genetic diversity"? By extension do Europeans not share ancestry versus Africans? (Hint, they do) It's just nonsense upon nonsense. Antique Hatstand (talk) 07:13, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Your ignorance of human genetics is staggering. Start with haplogroup and school yourself. I'm not going to respond further to you, per WP:DENY.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:07, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Your arrogance is matched only by your unwitting stupidly. People like you are why Wikipedia is a joke. People like you are why Western civilization is a joke. 84.58.163.202 (talk) 08:10, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

"As such, membership of a haplogroup, by any individual, relies on a relatively small proportion of the genetic material possessed by that individual."

Two people can share ancestry and have different haplogroups dumbass. Two people can have the same haplogroup and share less ancestry than a third person. And what does junk DNA "genetic diversity" have to do with whether people share relative genealogy. Hint: nothing. Applied nowhere in taxonomy other than woke pseudoscience. Sad that absolute ignoramuses like you edit Wikipedia. 84.58.163.202 (talk) 08:14, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

And again the main point is that your and the other's half-witted pop-sci opinion that "race isn't real" is completely irrelevant to weighing sources. 84.58.163.202 (talk) 09:14, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

This is the Dunning–Kruger effect in full swing. In case any drivers-by read this: Our socky fellow here is proving my point for me. The very fact that genes, chromosomes, and haplogroups are what transmit traits between generations, but two people with the same general geographical/ethnic ancestry (which Mikemikev here wants to incorrectly distill to "races") can have different haplogroups, obviously disproves the idea that having a certain overall ancestral ("racial" or ethnic) stock determines one's traits. All it can actually do is preclude you from having certain haplogroups and the chromosomes and genes they carry (if unique to a particular haplogroup), and even that is only theoretical. E.g., if I have absoletely zero ancestors of even partial Sub-Saharan African ancestry within the period of biologically modern humans, then it would not be possible for me to have ever inherited the African sickle-cell anemia gene, by any means, because it is only found in some haplogroups native to that population (more than one, but closely related; genese can jump haplogroups). In reality of course, it simply is not possible to be that certain of ancestry, and a genetic heritage so non-mixed as to be near-certain is extremely unlikely except among very isolated peoples (Trobriand islanders, etc.), because humans have been moving around and interbreeding like mad since prehistory, and do so orders of magnitude more today than in ancient times. More to the stupid racism point here – and this is almost always about trying to make African-Americans out to be hereditarily under-performing – anywhere from 40 to 80% of any given Af.-Am. person's ancestry (not counting recent immigrants from Africa) is European.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:12, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

FYI this user has been blocked as a sock of Mikemikev. Generalrelative (talk) 21:11, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

I had my suspicions. No one who is new editor runs right to that topic and then starts making policy and procedure arguments on people's talk pages.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:15, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Misplaced comment

 Fixed

You've placed Special:Diff/1022345496 on the page for the original nomination, 3 April, however the discussion has been relisted twice since then and is now at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 April 20#MOS:Naming convention. I've not moved your comment but you will want to if you want the closer to see it. Thryduulf (talk) 10:09, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

@Thryduulf: Oh! Right. Thanks.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:41, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

May 2021

Constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, but a recent edit that you made has been reverted or removed because it was a misuse of a warning or blocking template. Please use the user warnings sandbox for any tests you may want to do, or take a look at our introduction page to learn more about contributing to the encyclopedia. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you may leave a message on my talk page.
This includes your abusive use of a DS notice. Since you can't, or won't, use user talk pages appropriately, I'll ask that you stay off mine. Thank you - wolf 23:10, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Books & Bytes – Issue 43

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WT:WikiProject English Language

 Fixed

Where are you archiving the threads you removed here? (The user you pinged there is indef-blocked btw.) Nardog (talk) 05:53, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

To /Archive_1; I forgot to put a {{Archive box}} on it. Will go fix that.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:36, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
And I hadn't yet actually saved the archive page; done.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:42, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

@Nardog: PS: Yes, I have a script that shows me whether a user is blocked. But the thread/proposal is still reasonable and deserved being addressed. It's probably cleanup I'll do myself, at least as to normalizing the examples.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:41, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

About FS

I was the one who speculated [3] that FS wanted to be banned from the project. The reason I state this is two fold; (1) It is clear from a long contribution history that FS is very far removed from being an idiot; FS knows full well what they have done and (2) the continued patterns of abusive, edit warring behavior despite umpteen warnings. The two points can not be reconciled except to conclude that FS wants to be banned from the project. I don't think a topic ban is warranted or workable. The reasons for that are that their abuse has continued for many years, and has gone on despite many, many blocks regarding the same sort of behavior. Where FS works on the project is not going to change the behavior. The behavior hasn't changed, despite many blocks, many warnings, and years of effort by others. To topic ban FS is only to move the problem from one part of the project to another. I'm not suggesting or asking you to amend your comment at the AN/I thread, but rather to offer some insight on why a topic ban would almost certainly fail. --Hammersoft (talk) 23:36, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

@Hammersoft: Your prediction would quite possibly bear out, but I like to "make the try". It's been my experience that when you remove editors from topics in which they are problematic, they sometimes become less problematic. Maybe it's only a 20% chance or something, but it's still a chance. That said, I'm not going to pitch a fit if the ban is enacted. FS has been a thorn in my side (for unclear reasons) since sometime around 2008; my best guess is it's a grudge about an argument we got into over the draft of what eventually became WP:NBOOK. Whatever it was, I've been on his perpetual shitlist for over a decade, and am rather tired of his "SMcCandlish said something, so oppose it reflexively and rudely regardless what it actually says" behavior. My skin's thick, though, so I've never treated this as block/ban-worthy. If he's habitually this sort of aggressive and anticollaborative to many, many editors (as more and more seems the case), then I can see the case for a ban.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:13, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

• From what I can tell, that's very much his habit. From the time I've spent investigating this, I've seen a fair bit to support that position and nothing that disagrees with it. It's the outright abuse of fellow editors that greatly concerns me, and the reality that it's been going on for years, with many blocks having no impact. FS is knowledgeable, but the cost is having an editor who is incapable of editing in a collaborative environment. Some people just can't do it. I'm sure some of the most brilliant minds the world has ever seen were incapable of working in a collaborative environment. Being brilliant doesn't mean one is collaborative, nor vice versa. Its the lack of collaborative ability and inability to amend his behavior that precludes his ability to be on the project. Anyway, that's where I stand. I'd be happy to be convinced otherwise. A community ban is a serious thing. I'm open to alternatives, but even your own comments above lend fuel to the community ban rather than increase my confidence that another option would work. --Hammersoft (talk) 11:10, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

  From what I see, a topic ban - meaning exclusion from the topics FS is good at - would not work. What - as far as I can see - might work is an interaction ban with everybody else. I have tried, really. How about FS may write his own articles, but never revert in article space (only suggest reverts), never make comments longer than 250 chars each (it's stealing our time having to reading all that), and never make more than two comments in a given discussion. I invented the latter restriction, they (the arbs) turned it against me, and I found it a blessing: make your point, then go away and do something useful. I won't comment on ANI but feel the way FS has treated Mathsci, me, Nikkimaria and Aza24, and all this recently, needs would be good to stop. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:43, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

  Seems to be a done deal now, so such ideas are kind of moot at this point. I agree that the uncollaborative behavior needed to stop, and it has been ongoing for a very long time. So, as with JLAN below, I think the indef was the correct call. My "what about a T-ban?" point was assuming that a good unblock request would be written after a while showing actual learning from the blocks for a change. It was all a long-shot really, so I'm not surprized at the C-ban outcome. An alternative that presented another chance was probably something for a year or two ago.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:41, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

  • Hi, SMcCandlish! Just wanted to thank you for raising at least the possibility of an alternative solution in that discussion. I went to it with that intention, but found the consensus and the feelings so strong that it didn't seem appropriate to dissent; I'm glad that you tried at least. Note: I've nothing but admiration for the way the indef block was handled, correct in every way. This is just a note of thanks, no reply needed. Regards, Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 21:20, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

    I don't like us to completely lose any productive editor, even if they're only sometimes productive. >;-) I took the same approach with a certain years-running disrupter (along nationalistic lines) of MoS, RM, AT, etc. I urged against a block and supported a T-ban; then against an indef after a block was imposed along with a T-ban and the block ran out but wasn't learned from; then in favor of reinstatement as long as the T-ban and a later I-ban remained in place. I.e., compartmentalize the editor away from trouble areas. But it didn't go that way in that case either. [sigh] User remains indeffed.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:41, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

Yes, agree, and didn't support a ban. His Brandenburg Concerto is sooo much better than them all. - Thank you for improving articles in May, and for improving editor interactions! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:27, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

See my talk today, - it's rare that a person is pictured when a dream comes true, and that the picture is shown on the Main page on a meaningful day. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:39, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Commonwealth English

Template:Commonwealth English has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. RGloucester — ☎ 16:41, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

By the way, Mr McCandlish, don't take my nomination of this template for deletion as opposition to your goal of reducing the number of these templates overall. I'm currently working on a plan of action to effect precisely that goal. However, I don't believe that this template is the way to do it, for a number of reasons as expressed in the deletion nomination. I hope we can work collaboratively to rid ourselves of this sort of nonsense. RGloucester — ☎ 17:06, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

@RGloucester: The deletion discussion is largely boneheaded. People are mistaking a template about English as typically written in an encyclopedic register in most Commonwealth countries (generally indistinguishable from British English at the same formality level) for a template about an alleged dialect called "Commonwealth English". It's a clueless trainwreck. But it's a lost cause at this point. I hope whatever your plan is, it works out better. The real problem here isn't just a profusion of templates, per se, but a two-fold issue of A) nationalistic editors using such templates as minor WP:OWN/WP:VESTED bludgeons and yet another thing to battleground about; and B) too many of the language templates being huge obnoxious WP:BITEy banners that are at the top of the talk page or, much worse, abused as editnotices, so people get to be browbeaten with them again and again and again. All of them should be reduced to the top-of-the-wikicode silent templates that do not display anything to readers or, other than that one line in the source, to editors. And all those (whatever their output formatting) for spoken dialects that either do not have a formal written register (Barbadian, etc.), or varieties which do have one, but one that is effectively the same as British, should be deleted. It's not so much the number of templates, but the number of pointless and misleading ones, which are put to unhelpful uses and purposes.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:45, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

I agree with you entirely, and I have actually been working toward the deletion of a number of these templates. A few have been successfully removed. Where I do not agree, however, is that 'English as typically written in an encyclopaedic register in most Commonwealth countries' is a monolithic entity that can be reified in the manner done by this template. I think it was clear in my nomination that I was not referring to 'dialect', but to a a Commonwealth 'written standard of English', which unfortunately, as far as can be gleaned from RS, does not exist. I would argue that this endeavour to conjure up a purported 'Commonwealth English' is in fact an attempt to appease certain types of editors who cannot accept the idea of a 'British English' template being applied to articles about countries other than Britain, and therefore it simply reproduces the exact sort of disruptive logic that has created most of these templates in the first place. Instead of engaging in that behaviour, I think we should establish a clear criteria for what a 'variant' is, based on RS, and implement the subsequent categorisation on that basis. That is to says, in an ideal world, we would identify the few reasonable variants (and, frankly, the word 'variant' should be replaced with 'written standard') that actually exist, i.e. British, British with Oxford spelling, American, and Canadian, and apply the relevant templates without concern for nationalist ideas about language. That's what I am trying to do now, but it will undoubtedly be a long and hard process. RGloucester — ☎ 13:33, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

A Commonwealth "written standard" of English does exist, in the form of the Oxford (especially) and Cambridge (mostly for learners not professionals) style guides, which are used in most Commonwealth countries, except Australia and Canada which have developed multiple reputably published style guides of their own (and which consequently have more divergent writing). There is no Indian or South African or Jamican or Hong Kong or Belizean edition or rough equivalent of New Hart's Rules and Fowler's Modern English. People in these countries rely on the British editions (which may even be printed locally, especially for India; OUP doesn't like to ship books across oceans if it doesn't have to). This is one of the reasons that Commonwealth English as a general pattern of writing exists. People in these countries are neither using American style guides like Chicago, nor writing their own (except as self-published dreck). It's telling that Cambridge Guide to Australian English Usage is actually just a copy of the British Cambridge Guide to English Usage, word for word, page by page, except tweaked in a handful of places for Australian norms. Even when Australians have their own style guides, they still buy and follow British ones as long as the publisher throws them a bone. There are very few giveaways, aside from informal vocabulary, that a writer is Australian or NZ rather than British (TV program without -me is one of the only obvious ones).

But we absolutely should not, as Wikipedia, refer to such things as "written standards". That's not what they are. Every style guide is just the opinion, the prescriptive advocacy, of its writers and publishers. Chicago and Garner's are not "standards" either. To the extent any standards in English can be said to exist, they exist in aggregate behavior, which can only be gleaned through a combination of observation of contemporary usage, and all the major style guides for that variety of English examined in the aggregate and their conflicts normalized away (again by analysis of actual usage). And that's not really what "standard" means, much less "written standard". One of the reasons as a certain rather nationalistic editor got topic-banned from MoS then eventually indeffed from the project was an insistence on falsely treating off-site style guides as "written standards" and trying to impose them on material here. Please don't go down that path!
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:59, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

Forgot to ping: RGloucester.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:00, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

Those are not 'Commonwealth' written standards, but British ones. If the Commonwealth includes Canada, for instance, then clearly one cannot say that those style guides are equivalent to a 'Commonwealth' standard, and I've seen no evidence of any reliable sources referring to them as such. Moreover, there are countries that are not in the Commonwealth that use those very standards, such as Ireland. Again, I am perfectly aware that many countries follow the British standards, and indeed, many other countries follow the American ones. I simply disagree with labelling the British standard as 'Commonwealth', because again, this is not representative of actual reality, and no on reliable sources classify it as such.

As for 'written standards', I take that as meaning to refer to spelling specifically, rather than styling. We don't have ENGVAR for typography or vocabulary on Wikipedia...we have universal styling as found in the MoS, and COMMONALITY proscribing the use of dialectal terminology. The point of moving away from the 'variant' terminology is to prevent the repeated misconstruction of TIES and ENGVAR as allowing for the writing of the encyclopaedia in 'dialect', which of course is something we should not and do not do. But, perhaps there is a better phrasing than 'written standard'. RGloucester — ☎ 03:16, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

@RGloucester: Not sure why we're having communication difficulties about this. To the extent such manuals and the English-writing results they produce could be called "standards" at all – a WP:OR position one must be very careful with – the simple fact that the British-published manuals are used almost universally Commonwealth-wide (except in .ca and .au, mostly, though they do sell in those countries as well, since they cover much else besides spelling) makes them in practice a de facto Commonwealth English standard. I think you're commingling the ideas of a standard-in-practice and an official standard, and also commingling the notion of place of origin and geographical range of use/impact. By way of analogy, The Lord of the Rings and related stories are British fiction originally published in the UK, but Tolkien fandom (the use/application/effect/impact) is not a British phenomenon.

Moving on (and I'm sorry this is sounding like "let's get in an argument" mode), your distinction between "spelling specifically" and "styling ... typography or vocabulary" is illusory and actually incorrect. Spelling is a subset of style (as are typography, many vocabulary choices, punctuation, and much else). ENGVAR does in fact cover vocabulary; it is not permissible to go around changing British automobile articles to use "trunk" and "hood" and "curb" instead of "boot" and "bonnet" and "kerb", as just one example. ENGVAR also covers other matters in limited ways (e.g., punctuation: British English typically does not end an abbrevaition with "." if the abbreviation is a contraction that begins and ends with the same pair of letters as the full word, thus "Dr Marten's" and "St John", but "Prof. Tolkien"; and grammar, including inflectional morphology, such that whilst is permissible in British, Irish, and Commonwealth English generally, but is not used in North American English, where it becomes while). But ENGVAR is not tied only (just primarily) to nationality; e.g., Oxford spelling (colour and programme but realize) is permissible and is among the "declarable" ENGVARs, as you seem to already be aware. We also have IUPAC spelling (and templates for it, which cross national lines). I know you mean well, but I think your absorption of some of the principles involved is a bit incomplete.

"No reliable sources" is a very bold statement. It is trivially easy to find source material, including dictionaries, journal articles, etc. that treat Commonwealth English "as a thing", just by spending a few seconds on Google [4][5][6][7]. And then there are all the works addressing Global[ised] or World English as a metadialect (generally based on British and effectively synonymous with Commonwealth English). [8][9] Have you ever read any of this material? I have. It's not like I made up from my own imagination that British-published style guides dominate the global market for writing manuals in English, and that they have a palapable effect on written English globally. But resort to sourcing is not actually necessary here; WP internal terms for things are a matter of editorial consensus and are not part of the encyclopedia content. It's preferectly fine for us to use a descriptive term like "Commonwealth English" as a categorization label for our own purposes. (And it's also fine for editors like yourself to propose using something else.)

"But, perhaps there is a better phrasing than 'written standard'." Surely, though exactly what to use would depend on the sentence. What we're really trying to get at here is distinguishable varieties of written English in an encyclopedic register, which differ programmatically enough that we need to annotate that the article uses one or other to prevent editwarring over style. That basically boils down British/Commonwealth (which really also includes Irish, but we'd have to separate it for political reasons), American, Canadian, and Australian/NZ. After a lifetime of collecting style guides, I can tell you firmly that other dialects are spoken and informal-writing varieties, and do not have reputably published style guides of their own. That's the sourcing that matters. There is no evidence whatsoever that something like Trindadian or Zimbabwean or Singaporean English exist as distinguishable dialects in a formal register; when writing formally, speakers of those dialects code-switch to Commonwealth/British. Even formal Indian English is effectively identical to British, other than some use of krore numerics. (While that's a style matter we cover in MOS:NUM, it's really much more akin to US/Imperial vs. metric measurments and other maths-related handling than it is to dialect per se.) Is it worth having a "use Indian English" template? Yes and no. Because krore counting is permissible in articles that pertain to the Indian subcontinent (as long as regular base-10 units are also provided), we have an editorial reason to mark articles in which that numeric style is appropriate (otherwise editors are apt to edit-war to remove and, and we know that from actual practice not from supposition). But "Indian" is unnecessarily, potentially disruptively, nationalistic. We should instead have an Indic English or South Asian English template that also included Pakistan and Bangladesh and Sri Lanka and such. (That would be preferable to a profusion of templates for each country, those redirs should probably exist for "use Pakistani English", etc.). It's the same problem as labeling Irish a subset of British/Commonwealth (and Rep. of Ireland is not a Commonwealth member), except we don't seem to have a useable blanket term for "British + Irish" the way we do with Indic/South Asian.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:59, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

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