User talk:SMcCandlish/Archive 205

Archive 200

←

Archive 203

Archive 204

Archive 205

December 2023

Precious anniversary

Precious

Six years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:14, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Feedback request: Wikipedia style and naming request for comment

Disregard

 – Already one this one, weeks ago. I wish the RfC bot could detect that and not leave redundant notices.

Your feedback is requested at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Emoji redirects on a "Wikipedia style and naming" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name.

Message delivered to you with love by Yapperbot :) | Is this wrong? Contact my bot operator. | Sent at 17:31, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

Feedback request: History and geography request for comment

 Done

Your feedback is requested at Talk:Battle of Bakhmut on a "History and geography" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name.

Message delivered to you with love by Yapperbot :) | Is this wrong? Contact my bot operator. | Sent at 06:30, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

Feedback request: Biographies request for comment

Disregard

 – I just skipped that WP:1AM mess, since no input from me was needed.

Your feedback is requested at Talk:Christopher Columbus on a "Biographies" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name.

Message delivered to you with love by Yapperbot :) | Is this wrong? Contact my bot operator. | Sent at 07:30, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Category:Sports facilities and venues task force articles

Resolved

 – Someone jumping the gun on a just-created category before it had time to populate.

A tag has been placed on Category:Sports facilities and venues task force articles indicating that it is currently empty, and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion. If it remains empty for seven days or more, it may be deleted under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and removing the speedy deletion tag. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 08:08, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Wow

I made your "Smartest things I've seen on Wikipedia list". I'm honoured. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 12:39, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Thought that adding your user name would have pinged you, but glad you saw it and found it a nice surprise. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:18, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

No pings (or at least not one that I saw). I'm a big proponent of making the MOS/policy into best practice and not dumbing it down just because it often gets flouted. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 19:21, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

I guess the ping parser doesn't do its thing when the username link is followed by a pre-existing timestamp, probably to stop it going off when discussions are copy-pasted from active talk pages to archives.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:46, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Editor experience invitation

 Done

Hi SMcCandlish :) I'm looking to interview people here. Feel free to pass if you're not interested. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 13:08, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Vertical entries in tables

Running this past you first before raising it at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers, but Bringhurst would be scathing about the table "General guidelines on use of units" at MOS:UNITNAMES. He writes " All text should be horizontal, or in rare cases oblique. Setting column heads vertically as a space-saving measure is quite feasible if the text is in Japanese or Chinese, but not if it is written in the Latin alphabet." I don't actually know but it seems very likely that a screen reader would barf at the Aspect column. Shall I raise it? I don't have an easy solution, unfortunately?

More generally, is there an MOS advice deprecating vertical column heads? --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 16:33, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

References

𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 16:33, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

@JMF: MOS:TABLES doesn't include the word "vertical" in it. MOS:ACCESS does, but none of the occurrences address this. The style is well-attested in the real world, on paper (I've seen it even in things like census tables as far back as the early 19th century and it's probably older than that), but is ultra-rare on WP and on other websites because of its readability problems. I suspect that it poses accessibility issues, though not all of them that one might imagine (screen readers aren't doing an OCR-style scan of the page, but operating on the HTML elements in the page source). There's also a WP:NOTPAPER argument to make about it; we have no dire need to save space (and the "solution" is to just make a normal horizontal header, and if something in one is long, use forced line-breaks in it or use CSS width controls on the columns). However, Help:Tables#Vertically oriented column headers is a whole section of instructions on how to do vertical headers like this, and there is a template, {{Vertical header}} for doing it. It appears to me that the guidelines have never addressed this because the feature wasn't available until HTML 5 and CSS 3; the guidelines have not caught up because this is done so rarely and there's been so little discussion/dispute about it, it hasn't bubbled up to guideline-level discussion.

I think I would raise concerns about this at WT:MOSTABLES, and post a pointer to that discussion at WT:MOSACCESS, Help talk:Table, Template talk:Vertical header, and maybe WT:MOSNUM, as well as an entry in the discussion list at the top of WT:MOS.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:02, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

 Done See Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Tables#Proposal to discourage vertically oriented ("sideways") column headers. Thank you for your advice: you will doubtless recognise some plagiarism of your reply above, thank you. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 17:10, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Will check it out.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:56, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Feedback request: History and geography request for comment

 Done

Your feedback is requested at Talk:Ezra Pound on a "History and geography" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name.

Message delivered to you with love by Yapperbot :) | Is this wrong? Contact my bot operator. | Sent at 06:30, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Formats for citing sources

First, I love what you wrote on this page: "My fault? If I've screwed up and broken something, say so and why/how; I'll probably see that I've erred, and will at least acknowledge that you've raised an objection. (Less hostility and more information will work better.)" Some complain that Wikipedia is getting hostile to editors, but we are ALL fallible. Thanks for reminding us all of that.

Regarding my recent edit on "Proverb", you suggested using a type of formatting when citing a source. However, I find it awkward, and it's not required: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_sources. Hope my edits help people learn. Hope my edits are gracious. Pete unseth (talk) 01:23, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Sure, it's not required, but it's standard and needed – or at least a manually formatted, non-templated citation is needed that uses the same citation-facts order as the rest of the citation output on the page that is received by the reader. (One of the fantastic things about the citation templates is they output the consistent citations no matter what order you put the parameters in.) Otherwise, your're just making a very confusingly inconsistent and hard-to-parse citation for no good reason, which someone else will have to clean up later. The lack of a rule forcing you to do something helpful isn't a compelling rationale to not do the helpful thing, as it were. The citation parameter names are pretty intuitive (except for some unusual ones). That said, of course it is better to cite a source even in suboptimal formatting than not cite one at all. PS: Sorry if the edit summary came off as testy or commanding; when plowing through the watchlist, one sometimes isn't ideally mindful about the wording, especially in such a short form.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:35, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for your explanation. We both edit under our real names and we both know that we cannot please everybody, not even ourselves. Merry Christmas! Pete unseth (talk) 19:17, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

True enough!  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:42, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

Sort keys and case-insensitivity

Regarding Special:Diff/1188842740. Just for your information, sort keys are case-insensitive on the English Wikipedia since the middle of 2011 (source 1, source 2: 5.3.1.0 ... 23 July 2011 ... Do not add DEFAULTSORT if case insensitively the same as article title, now that Mediawiki sort keys are case insensitive). For an example, see User:SMcCandlish/sandbox, User:andrybak/sandbox, and Category:X2. —⁠andrybak (talk) 22:25, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Well, I'll be. I had no idea. Meanwhile, I've encountered sort keys intentionally applying uppercase changes on purpose the entire time. Looks like a lot of sort keys need to be removed as just "noise" at this point.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:15, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

Question

Hi, I would like to dedicate this month's token question (I promised to do one every 30 days) to asking you a few things about cursive. I want to reassure you that I'm no longer thinking about italics, the two pages I will list below are pages I made changes to a month ago or more; I would like to ask you if "canzone napoletana" and "pizzeria" (and while we're at it, "pizzaiolo" too) should be put in italics. Thanks in advance. JackkBrown (talk) 05:23, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

Both "pizza" and "pizzeria" are fully assimilated into English as everyday terms; canzone napoletana and pizzaiolo are not, so should be in {{lang|it|...}} markup to italicize and language-identify them.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:07, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

Feedback request: Biographies request for comment

 Done

Your feedback is requested at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) on a "Biographies" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name.

Message delivered to you with love by Yapperbot :) | Is this wrong? Contact my bot operator. | Sent at 19:32, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

Nomination of MOS:VARS for deletion

 Done

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article MOS:VARS is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/MOS:VARS until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article until the discussion has finished.

Fram (talk) 16:54, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Feedback request: Politics, government, and law request for comment

 Done

Your feedback is requested at Talk:Javier Milei on a "Politics, government, and law" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name.

Message delivered to you with love by Yapperbot :) | Is this wrong? Contact my bot operator. | Sent at 23:30, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

		The Guidance Barnstar
		Thanks for helping fight policy creep and forks by proposing the merge of WP:SELFSOURCE and WP:BLPSELFPUB with WP:ABOUTSELF. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 06:11, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Thank you!  :-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:59, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Tevis

Glad I'm not the only Walter Tevis fan. Have you read Mockingbird? It's prophetic. Coretheapple (talk) 20:45, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

I haven't, actually! Maybe I should check it out.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:03, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

You won't be sorry. Coretheapple (talk) 21:15, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (television)#Move TV seasons from parenthetical disambiguation to comma disambiguation

Moved to Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (television)#Follow-up RfC on TV season article titles

The discussion was closed as "rough consensus to change from parenthetical disambiguators, however, there was no clear consensus for any of the options brought up during the discussion", with a call for an RfC on a replacement. I think there was actually a consensus for moving to no punctuation, and have expressed that to the closer, but absent some retroactive amendment to that decision, I guess our next step is to craft an RfC (but a better one than was proposed in the close). I raise this here because I think you were the most active participant in the discussion, but also pinging @Tavix, Bkonrad, Hyperbolick, StarTrekker, Alex 21, LaundryPizza03, and Bilorv:. BD2412 T 04:31, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Well, sometimes a guideline change takes a two-round RfC process. It's a butt pain, but not the end of the world. Personally, I'm not in favor the no-punct option, but that really doesn't have anything to do with whether the closer assessed it well. If it's not stark-obviously a bad close, it's probably better to just do a followup RfC than to try to get AN to overturn the close and re-close it. That way lies drama.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:42, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Just to note, I don't take it personally and there would be no drama from me if folks wanted to go the AN close review route. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:06, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Something like the closer's formatting would work, as it honed down the three most popular options aside from the status quo, but it would be most clear with a table of specific examples for disambiguated and non-disambiguated TV series titles. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 04:48, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Like this:

Options

No.	Description	Example 1	Example 2
1	Status quo	The Simpsons (season 8)	Hawaii Five-0 (2010 TV series, season 10)
2	Comma after series name	The Simpsons, season 8	Hawaii Five-0 (2010 TV series), season 10
3	Space after season name	The Simpsons season 8	Hawaii Five-0 (2010 TV series) season 10
4	Colon after season name	The Simpsons: season 8	Hawaii Five-0 (2010 TV series): season 10

–LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 04:56, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Yep, that would be helpful.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:57, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

If there is already consensus to move away from the status quo, does it really need to be an option? BD2412 T 14:17, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

It's actually helpful to see how bletcherous the status quo really is. E.g., all through that discussion I always had examples like "The Simpsons (season 8)" in mind, and the awfulness of "Hawaii Five-0 (2010 TV series, season 10)" wasn't really clear. If there's already a consensus to move away from that, then listing it again would be harmless; or it could be put above the table as a status quo line and not numbered as an option.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:46, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

PS: I just reviewed the re-close by Voorts [1], in which an options list kinda-sorta like the above table is shown, but which lacks the helpful examples and neither includes a status quo option nor includes the status quo as a non-option. I would thus propose more clearly to use this:

 

The status quo results in article title examples like these: The Simpsons (season 8) and Hawaii Five-0 (2010 TV series, season 10) and Dancing with the Stars (South Korean season 3).

There is a consensus to change away from this, but not yet a consensus on what to replace it with. The options are:

Options

No.	Description	Example A	Example B	Example C
1	Comma after series name	The Simpsons, season 8	Hawaii Five-0 (2010 TV series), season 10	Dancing with the Stars (South Korean TV series), season 3
2	Space after series name	The Simpsons season 8	Hawaii Five-0 (2010 TV series) season 10	Dancing with the Stars (South Korean TV series) season 3
3	Colon after series name	The Simpsons: season 8	Hawaii Five-0 (2010 TV series): season 10	Dancing with the Stars (South Korean TV series): season 3

 

(Also fixed two "season" for "series" typos.)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:59, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

This is way better than what I proposed, although I still think that the an example(s) with nationality and/or nationality+year should be added. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:09, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Didn't think of that. Have an example in mind? Short would be better, to keep the table concise.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:11, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Dancing with the Stars (South Korean season 3). The examples should also have italics for the series' names, no? voorts (talk/contributions) 00:21, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

A bit long; will see if I can find a shorter one. As for italics, this is strictly about the page title, and the italics might confuse people into thinking it has something to do with in-article writing about and linking to seasons.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:04, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Didn't really find a shorter example (lots of such ambiguous-title shows but most don't have their own season articles), so I integrated that one into the table above. It is good to include, since it wasn't obvious that in these unusual cases the title will actually be lengthened.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:14, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

I took a look at the guidelines, and naming conventions apply to article titles, not page names, so it should be displayed as italics. For the article Random Television Show Title, season 1, it would be displayed using: {{Italic title|string=Random Television Show Title}}. voorts (talk/contributions) 01:47, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

I understand that at the actual article we'd have an italic-title template in it; but doing it here would potentially confuse what the issue is, that we're talking about the strings that are used to build the article title, not how text is formatted inside articles.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:51, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Shouldn't participants see how it would actually appear as the article title? Some of the concerns in the prior discussion were regarding readability. voorts (talk/contributions) 01:56, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

I put the italics in, and hope this doesn't confuse the issue in the long run.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:04, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Shall we move forward with this? Having undertaken the initial discussion, I don't think I should be the one to launch the RfC. BD2412 T 19:50, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Done, at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (television)#Follow-up RfC on TV season article titles. "Advertised" the RfC to various pertinent project pages.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:53, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!

	A very happy Christmas and New Year to you!
	Have a great Christmas, and may 2024 bring you joy, happiness – and no trolls, vandals or visits from Krampus! Cheers SchroCat (talk) 09:28, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

"Wikipedia:SPECTRUM" listed at Redirects for discussion

 Done

The redirect Wikipedia:SPECTRUM has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Anyone, including you, is welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 December 20 § Wikipedia:SPECTRUM until a consensus is reached. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:17, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

New pages patrol January 2024 Backlog drive

New Page Patrol | January 2024 Articles Backlog Drive
On 1 January 2024, a one-month backlog drive for New Page Patrol will begin. Barnstars will be awarded based on the number of articles patrolled. Barnstars will also be granted for re-reviewing articles previously reviewed by other patrollers during the drive. Each review will earn 1 point. Interested in taking part? Sign up here.
You're receiving this message because you are a new page patroller. To opt-out of future mailings, please remove yourself here.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:10, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

December greetings

December: story · music · places

Thank you for what you do and stand for! I wish you a good festive season and a peaceful New Year! -- Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:17, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Today, I have a special story to tell, of the works of a musician born 300 years ago. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:59, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Solstice greeting

Sunlight entering the chamber of Newgrange

My best wishes of the solstice season and for the coming year. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 18:07, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

"MOS:VARS" listed at Redirects for discussion

 Done

The redirect MOS:VARS has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Anyone, including you, is welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 December 21 § MOS:VARS until a consensus is reached. Fram (talk) 09:15, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

New message to SMcCandlish

Hey, I just wanted to reiterate that I've appreciated every site or MOS-related discussion we've both been involved in over the past few months—I've always learned something valuable even if I seemed adamant in the moment, so thank for for your clear and unflinching dialogue. Remsense留 15:28, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

You're welcome. Not sure everyone appreciates the "unflinching dialogue" approach. But I've found it more practical (as a professional activist back in the day, and on-site now) to take a "This means X" and "We need to do Y" and "The Z approach is the best one for [reasons]" position rather than "I interpret this as X but I guess someone might think it means X-1", "We could do Y but some people prefer Y+1", "A way to do this that I like is Z" stance (or lack of stance), because little gets done or gets decided consistently (or often worse, the decision is to let chaos reign) with the latter approach. PS: FWIW, I generally just respond to arguments/ideas/interpretations/proposals on their own merits (in concert with the rest of the system), and I don't keep a list in my head of editors I've butted heads with; I mostly don't pay attention to usernames. So if I seemed vociferously opposed to some idea you liked at some point, it wasn't personal. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:53, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

It takes all kinds, is how I think I'd put it. We certainly need plenty of plain-spoken editors like you around. Remsense留 21:22, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Opinion on cat related edits

I realize you're probably busy, but am wondering if you could comment on whether I'm being too harsh in reverting Xhkvfq, or is there a tendentious POV issue with their edits? Geogene (talk) 19:25, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

@Geogene: I responded at Talk:Cat predation on wildlife and at Draft:Human–cat conflict and Draft:Cat predation on islands. Is there more?  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:14, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

I've reverted them [2] at Feral cat just today. This has been going on too long for me to remember all the disputed content, but I know I've been reverting their edits for long enough that the concern about OWNership they alluded to on the Cat predation on wildlife could be a legitimate issue. Geogene (talk) 21:24, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Addressed the issue there too, and in user talk. There is a consistent pattern of using WP:OR to denigrate various established positions and the reliable sources for them, taking unrelated facts and weaving a PoV-pushing, WP:FRINGE narrative out of them that isn't actually supportable by any of the WP:RS materials. If this doesn't drastically improve pretty soon, this probably needs to go to WP:ANI for a topic ban. There are too few editors actively watchlisting these articles for us to long tolerate someone trying to rework them to support a "cats are precious and harmless" viewpoint against everything the sourcing is telling us. That said, a handful of introductory or clarification sentences with appropriate sources can probably be distilled from this user's material, though it takes some work (I did some at Talk:Feral cat#Invasive species; and set up a discussion at Talk:Cat predation on wildlife about possibly doing something like that with some of Xhkvfq's drafts' cited sources (but probably none of the textual content in those drafts, which are just activism polemic).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:19, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!

~~~ Merry Christmas! ~~~
Joyeux Noël! ~ Buon Natale! ~ Vrolijk Kerstfeest! ~ Frohe Weihnachten!
¡Feliz Navidad! ~ Feliz Natal! ~ Καλά Χριστούγεννα! ~ Hyvää Joulua!
God Jul! ~ Glædelig Jul! ~ Linksmų Kalėdų! ~ Priecīgus Ziemassvētkus!
Häid Jõule! ~ Wesołych Świąt! ~ Boldog Karácsonyt! ~ Veselé Vánoce!
Veselé Vianoce! ~ Crăciun Fericit! ~ Sretan Božić! ~ С Рождеством!
শুভ বড়দিন! ~ 圣诞节快乐！~ メリークリスマス！~ 메리 크리스마스!
สุขสันต์วันคริสต์มาส! ~ Selamat Hari Natal! ~ Giáng sinh an lành!
Весела Коледа! ~ Meri Kirihimete!

Hello, SMcCandlish! Thank you for your work to maintain and improve Wikipedia! Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:57, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Spread the WikiLove and leave other users this message by adding {{subst:Multi-language Season's Greetings}}

Question

Hi, do you think "condottiere", "podestà", ballerina", "danzatrice" and "diva" are assimilated words in common English? Wishing you a Merry Christmas! JackkBrown (talk) 17:14, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

"Ballerina" and "diva" certainly are everyday English; the other two are not, so {{lang|it|condottiere}}, {{lang|it|danzatrice}}.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:34, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

And "podestà"? JackkBrown (talk) 21:05, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

The lead sentence's wording and markup '''{{Lang|it|Podestà}}''' ({{IPA-it|podeˈsta|lang}}), also '''potestate''' or '''podesta''' in English ... are already correct and, for that matter, completely self-explanatory. I'm going to advise for the sixth or seventh time that if you cannot intuit which words should and should not be italicized in English, you should not be changing the italicization (or language markup) of words at English Wikipedia. Just let other editors, the ones who are native speakers of English, deal with these matters. Please stop messing with this stuff. Also, you don't need to do {{ping}} at someone's own talk page.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:00, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Unfortunately, if I don't think about it, hardly anyone does, because these are Italian topics and the editors' interest is very much focused on American and British ones. JackkBrown (talk) 00:17, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

@JackkBrown: Fair enough, I suppose, but you can probably save a lot of time just by using Dictionary.com and other major dictionaries of English. If the word is listed in it (without a note indicating it's a foreignism), then it's probably assimilated enough into English to use it without any of the italicizing language markup (or bare italics). E.g., "podesta", "diva", and "ballerina" are listed as English words of Italian origin. If it's not included in the dictionary, then probably italicize it with the {{lang|it}} template. E.g., "podestà" with the diacritic is not in the dictionary, and "danzatrice" and "condottiero" are also not listed. "Condottiere" is a special case: It is listed with a derived meaning in English of 'any mercenary or soldier of fortune'; in the case of our article, we are not using it in this adapted, generalized/vague way at all, but in the original, literal, historical Italian meaning of 'a leader of a private band of mercenary soldiers in Italy, especially in the 14th and 15th centuries', so it should be italicized. An opposite example is Consigliere; English has adapted this term to refer specifically to a Mafia advisor to and representative of the family head. In regular Italian, it simply means 'couselor/councilor' and has no Mafia connections in particular. Thus, our article does not italicize the term at that article, about the Mafia role, but does italicize it under "Etymology" when giving its original Italian meaning. This stuff is subtle and complex, and a big part of why I think you should find something other to do that tweaking italics. PS: Happy holidays to you as well. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:46, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

I suppose "signoria" should also be written in italics. Merry Christmas! JackkBrown (talk) 00:57, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:16, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Season's Greetings

		Season's Greetings
		Wishing everybody a Happy Holiday Season, and all best wishes for the New Year! The Nativity scene on the Pulpit in the Pisa Baptistery by Nicola Pisano is my Wiki-Christmas card to all for this year. Johnbod (talk) 02:59, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

A Merry Christmas to you!

Hello SMcCandlish: Enjoy the holiday season and winter solstice if it's occurring in your area of the world, and thanks for your work to maintain, improve and expand Wikipedia. Cheers, Jerium (talk) 16:48, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Spread the WikiLove; use {{subst:Season's Greetings}} to send this message

Jerium (talk) 16:48, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Seasons Greetings

Merry Christmas, SMcCandlish! Wishing you Season's Greetings and a Happy Winter Solstice! As the year comes to a close, I want to express my appreciation for your dedicated efforts on Wikipedia and extend heartfelt thanks for your assistance throughout the years. May the holiday season bring you and your loved ones abundant joy, good health, and prosperity.

RV (talk) 09:06, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Star (heraldry)

Hi, I was just going through and resolving "by whom" tags, and I came across a note you had left on a page (here). I haven't got access to the source, but it looks to me that the text is better without the hedging language ("it has been said"), but obviously, if it was put there because that is the language used by the source it should probably stay.

I know it's a long shot, but you don't remember why you put the note do you?

Best, BNS Boynamedsue (talk) 12:39, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

@Boynamedsue: I just put the cleanup tag there because the passage contained WP:WEASEL wording, presumably because someone was aware of a source that used mullet more broadly in a Scots heraldry context. Since no such source has been provided, and we have at least one high-quality source (Fox-Davies) stating it has only the more specific meaning in that context, your removal of the hedging seems the best course. Neither of us can magically make appear an alleged source we don't have that uses the term in a more general sense. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:58, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Many thanks, that's sorted then. I suspect no such even exists, there are a lot of compulsive hedgers about... Boynamedsue (talk) 06:35, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

CITV Split

 Done

I have started a debate at Talk:CITV about whether former programming should be split into a separate article called List of programmes broadcast by CITV. Dwanyewest (talk) 14:24, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Not my usual sort of topic, but I commented over there anyway. Gist: split would be good if the content is expanded to be more infomrative, but not if just kept as a bare list of show names.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:20, 27 December 2023 (UTC)