User talk:Skookum1/Archive 23
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Re: this
Sorry dude, but you are dead in the wrong here. Arthur simply corrected your error by adding a colon to the front of your category example. That's it. The "Is there a point?" question which you have attributed to Arthur was actually part of Kwamikagami's post below - and which you have now broken up. Your entire rant in this case was predicated on your own assumption of bad faith, and that is a large part of why you are currently on the ANI treadmill. If you want to get off of it, you need to moderate your tone when interacting with others. Resolute 17:00, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
- As you can see, I struck out my comments and apologized to Arthur, I definitely had mistaken Kwami's snide one-paragraph/sentence retort for being part of Arthur's edit; I did not see the colon (old, bad eyes) and didn't understand the "escape category" comment. I should have recognized the snidery as I'd seen the post before, but it was late and I'd been slogging through article-creation all day (see my usercontributions). I'm also irritated, too often, by people invoking guidelines that don't say what they person quoting them claims/thinks they say, e.g. here and here and in various of the RM/CfD closures by BHG and DLE, and also in "votes" on those discussions.
- There's a huge list of such misquotes/misclaims and I see more and more instruction creep being interpolated into guidelines, and the insistence that they are unbreakable rules, which is not the case at all; also with guidelines being claimed to be policy (WP:NCL) and seeing obstructionism and circular arguments and non sequiturs being used to claim that there is no consensus, when other than the few dissidents who want their preferences to override policy (TITLE), there definitely is. I won't bother with a list of diffs to demonstrate that but here are a few from the usual suspect, who seems immune from any disciplining from ANI: [1], [2], "idiotic" here, and something like 30 times copy-pasted across various RMs something to the effect of "no one would accuse you of being rational". Can't find the exact phrase just now, but it's typical of the overt NPAs/AGFs made against me, while me simply criticizing somebody's actions of interpretations policy - or responding to such rank NPAs - gets dumped on as ANI-worthy NPA.
- There's tons of this, I don't want to go on about it but am starting to compile a list of such disturbances and insults; I should also draw your attention this this very bizarre equivocation about MOS:IDENTITY, which corresponds to Self-identification passages in TITLE and also in WP:NCET, and about the very illogical and defensive responses/evasions by Maunus and BHG there. Floydian is right; we are seeing a lot of illogical behaviour and extrapolative "interpretations" of guidelines far beyond their spirit or intent; BHG's own stalking of me I'll leave aside for now, but her AGF/NPA commentaries on RM and CfD closures are a matter of record, which I'm also documenting, not that anyone will listen to me, or do anything about such bad closures and false invocations of guidelines that do not, in fact, say what is being claimed (e.g. claiming that SOURCES orders that only googlesearches from GoogleBooks and GoogleScholar are admissible, and that they must be formatted a certain way).
Arthur continued the CfD discussion on the BC Rivers subcats, even though the closer of that (who was also NPA and AGF) said there should be a month hiatus, making the same kind of claims as to what guidelines say when they don't as BHG has so often done. I tire of this; as you know I know the material in the region in question, and am tired of giving geography lessons that go unlistened to by people who want to only talk about wiki guidelines and who have no time or interest in learning about the subject matter before shooting their mouths off .... or closing RMs and CfDs on topics they are not qualified to even blink about (e.g. "Squamish" re PRIMARYTOPIC as the town) and who express their own impatience at "having" to read things they don't understand nor want to (nobody forces anyone to close or read an RM or CfD).
Other than the aforementioned, I tired of heretofore-unheard-of people stalking me only to criticize and dogpile the hatred, such as here on CANTALK, where such commentary is very out of place and against wikiquette and also AGF. The NPA comments and bad faith attitudes and statements on various RM/CfD closures and "other discussions" are all, to me, very hypocritical and "ironic", if that's the term. I'm not burning out on writing for Wikipedia, but I am getting burned out at the negativity tossed at me by people who themselves have been AGF/NPA towards me, and/or who do not validly give the context of the frustrations that have led to the comments that I get dragged into NPA for; or for those who come out of the woodwork claiming to speak for "the community" and indicating in their comments that discussions have been going on about me without me being notified. Where? In MRC? Email? Whatever; the peremptory and judgmental behaviour I'm seeing, and the to-me-very-strange notion that more-than-four-sentences is a "wall of text" or "too long to read" leaves me to be very sad about the current state of literacy in both education and in Wikipedia; I come from an older time, before "computerese" and the modern-format education/examination-by-point-form.
- That I am being whipped by people over this, by people who apparently also consider both the articles they are kibbitzing over TITLE for as TLDR, and also guidelines which they clearly haven't read or understood the completeness of, has had my suggestion that they take t heir problem to remedial reading sessions has also been conflated into NPA. I tire of this insecurity and the hysterics around it and find at all very unseemly and childish and an endorsement of semi-literacy and shallow thinking and something very much like cult-behaviour, including the practices of shunning and banning to silence dissent. Oh, anything I say here can and will be held against me, of course, huh? So peopel are free to criticize me, but I cannot safely speak my own mind in return. Wiki-cops, thought police, whatever.....Wikipedia is indeed not a democracy; and while it itself may be censored, some Wikipedians have to self-censor themselves while others seem free to make any ol' AGF or NPA they feel like.
Whatever; my "tone" is a response to increasing frustration with obstructionist games, whether word-games or guideline-tossing or whatever else; all this RM stuff began last year when I set out to keep from having to see obsolete and no longer in use names come up on Canadian history and ethno articles, and re their interactions with Canadian town-titles. I have prepared, though not yet posted, a draft of the "old" consensus (actually the same as what RMs have been reestablishing, much to Kwami's chagrin and persistent denials, often made in insulting terms, and not just to me), and also a critique of the poorly-closed town and native-endonym RMs, those few that did not get closed correctly as by Cuchullain, Xoloz, BDD and certain others, who were not targeting discussions launched by me as "certain others" were.
Didn't mean to on this long, my main response is that as per the sections on CANTALK and WPBC there is a need for Canadian input on Canadian-topic RMs...I know there are only so many of us, and am pained to see so many British Columbian Wikipedians, some of whom I know on the side now, demur from dealing with Wikipedia again because of the tiresome and useless games with titles and categories and more perpetrated by (mostly) non-Canadians who don't know, nor want to learn, about the subject matter they are "fiddling with".
- You may not be aware of the number of times that disputes as to the validity of CANSTYLE and ENGVAR have cropped up lately, it's also a case where policy and consensus-based guidelines are being claimed to be invalid vs personal preferences or "global usage" as determined by UK and English usages/perceptions (which are not in fact borne out by viewstats or googles or incoming links...); the discussion at {{Canadian English}} I haven't been back to lately because of all the fracas, but that template needs some strengthening and more specifics such that we DON'T see someone try to impose archaic terms into Canadian topics again as happened with last year's RMs, or at least have a wording that's not so open to violation/misinterpretation as if only spelling and punctuation where all that Canadian English is about; Americans and Brits may still use Kwakiutl for Kwakwaka'wakw; it doesn't mean Canadian articles should.Skookum1 (talk) 08:49, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
- Ok... I would like to start out by noting that, despite some of our previous run-ins, I'm not trying to pile-on or bait you into anything. I mean this simply as advice and critique. I do think your post here represents a good example of why people are getting frustrated on all sides. I can only really describe this as being a 1300 word diatribe, nearly the whole of which is irrelevant to the reason I posted here. It makes it very difficult to hold a discussion because I can either focus on one aspect and ignore the rest, or fracture the discussion into numerous tangents. This, I think, is a lot of why people become frustrated with your long answers. Likewise, while you are obviously feeling like you are under attack from other editors, consider how many times in this post you have aimed the same at others? I won't lie to you Skookum, I don't think you handle being challenged well at all. It just feels like you get your haunches up any time someone disagrees with you, and end up in one of these feedback loops where both sides grow increasingly frustrated. I commented as much in one of the ANIs when I said you are a great editor when left alone to edit. So in that respect, I do think some "self-censorship" would help, but only in terms of tone, not message. And if others fail to reciprocate, any issues with NPA/ABF of their own become that much more obvious.
- As far as some of the naming convention arguments goes, I can certainly sympathize with your view of the Talk:Chipewyan people move request (as the example I will focus on). I don't necessarily agree with BHG's close - but nor can I argue that her close was not made in good faith. She is absolutely correct in determining that common usage still favours Chipewyan over Denesuliné. It takes time in a lot of cases, but common usage does get there eventually (i.e., the Tsuu T'ina are never called the "Sarcee" anymore). Where I disagree - and where policy/guidelines may or may not adequately cover - is the question of when and where proper name trumps common name. This is not a new conflict on Wikipedia, and I see it most often with respect to the use of diacritics and whether "English" uses them or not. And as a veteran of those arguments, I can tell you there is no obvious consensus.
- What you can do is perhaps launch an WP:RFC at WT:Article titles asking whether the self-identified proper name of a people should trump common usage. I would, however, suggest that you wait a month or two before embarking on such a path. Partly to allow all sides to cool down a bit, and partly because there are already a couple of potentially contentious discussions ongoing at that talk page. If/when you decide to go down this route, I would keep the question focused - i.e.: use the Chipewyan people question as your central example, but note that there are others this would affect, and keep the opening comment succinct. Focus only on the core argument, and avoid wandering to other, related aspects. The Bradley/Chelsea Manning dispute could be handled as a relevant example, though it is also a bit of a grenade given how emotional that debate was. (And I would note that while Wikipedia eventually got it right, it was not without a lot of argument and even an Arbcom case, iirc, so what you are experiencing now is hardly uncommon with these debates.) But most importantly Skookum, if you go down this route, I can't stress enough how damaging to one's cause replying to every opposing comment with increasing vigour is. People are going to oppose. Probably quite a few. Don't argue against how wrong they are, but make targeted and concise comments on how right you are. Anyway, just some thoughts. Resolute 14:40, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
- Skookum, to add to this, I am also sympathetic with your arguments around the preferences of peoples to be titled in the way they choose. However, the Cote d'Ivoire move request back in the day soured me, and attempts I previously made to allow subject preference into WP:AT policy also failed. I note that there is an attempt now to do this, but only for individual biographies. If we are going that way, I think it should be expanded, to countries and ethnic groups as well, when such a preference has been clearly stated. However, on a personal note, I have in several cases disengaged from discussions, even in places where I agreed with you on principle, because of the fashion in which you talk. Discussions simply become unreadable. You are a valued contributor, but multiple people have told you the same thing and at some point it would be great if there was a willingness to say "Ok, maybe I can make an improvement". I'd be happy to help in any way that might be useful.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 15:31, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
- What you can do is perhaps launch an WP:RFC at WT:Article titles asking whether the self-identified proper name of a people should trump common usage. I would, however, suggest that you wait a month or two before embarking on such a path. Partly to allow all sides to cool down a bit, and partly because there are already a couple of potentially contentious discussions ongoing at that talk page. If/when you decide to go down this route, I would keep the question focused - i.e.: use the Chipewyan people question as your central example, but note that there are others this would affect, and keep the opening comment succinct. Focus only on the core argument, and avoid wandering to other, related aspects. The Bradley/Chelsea Manning dispute could be handled as a relevant example, though it is also a bit of a grenade given how emotional that debate was. (And I would note that while Wikipedia eventually got it right, it was not without a lot of argument and even an Arbcom case, iirc, so what you are experiencing now is hardly uncommon with these debates.) But most importantly Skookum, if you go down this route, I can't stress enough how damaging to one's cause replying to every opposing comment with increasing vigour is. People are going to oppose. Probably quite a few. Don't argue against how wrong they are, but make targeted and concise comments on how right you are. Anyway, just some thoughts. Resolute 14:40, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
There's much to answer here, it's bedtime for me, but it's important that it be understoood that it's not just the name peoples preferred to be called by, it's also whether or not that term is seen as derogatory or not and/or whether its etymology is derisive in nature; which is the case with Chipewyan, Slavey, and Sarcee just like it is with Eskimo (in Canada at least). This was raised in that RM by more than one person, and the equivocations may have equally voted in favour of keeping things like they are, but that did not address guidelines; and in a post in the Squamish RM which Bushranger pronounced a BLUDGEON I cited passages from TITLE which said that most common sources do not necessarily apply, especially when in cases there is a problem with the title that is more common; I'll repost those in the morning. The other point about Chipewyan/Denesuline is that it is being taken out of context re all the other identical RMs which were not closed by BHG, where AT and more was heard out; all of them were moved at the same time, whether to archaic and/or derogatory RMs, at the same time as adding "people" (see the stonewalling going on at WP:NCL where the person who did all those moves without discussion continues to....say all the same over again....); those included St'at'imc/Lillooet, Nlaka'pamux/Thompson, and about seven others; including moving Tsuu Tina language to Sarcee language, nb Reso re that name; they were all long-standing titles and 'indigenously sensitive', something that others have ranted against as RIGHTGREATWRONGS etc. as if this werent' current reality.
There are issues with all her RM closures where not only were policies ignored, but the guidelines she invoked didn't even say the thing that she claimed they ordered. This is the gist of my complaint above, about the Boundary Ranges subcat, which Arthur jumped in on the same terms, demanding that something be provided which the WP:CAT guideline, which somebody finally cited as what they mean, doesn't even say anything about what is being demanded....demanded or ELSE. This kind of confabulation of guidelines into hard and fast rules that don't actually exist and aren't actually even in the guidelines is going on way too much. The other RM closures I've been meaning to critique one-by-one, point-by-point alleged, as they are the odd men out in a sea of RMs that did correctly resolve the matters at hand, and did follow policy; Atlin, British Columbia/Atlin, Haida people/Haida, Bella Coola, Bella Bella, Comox, Nisqually people/Nisqually, Modoc people/Modoc, Nez Perce people/Nez Perce....a few others. The Bella Coola, Bella Bella, Comox - and Saanich - items all were for PRIMARYTOPIC towns per CANSTYLE; what I saw in those closures was not just NPAs and AGF towards myself, but also a complete lack of even addressing the stats/googles that had ben provided, and in Comox's case completely ignored the wishes of all participants that the Town of Comox is the PRIMARYTOPIC....and don't get me started about how "Squamish" was imposed the way it was, and then misused; that like Lillooet and Sechelt and others of the very same kind should be for the town/district, not for the disambiguated-because-the-endonym-got-ditched-title.
What happened there was brutal in terms of its abusiveness towards me, which got piled on, and then when I tried to point out the mistakes in the call, I was rudely and abruptly deleted and told to f-off and go away (if in not so many words) and then to have the same person block me, without consensus to do so, then barge into the remaining RMs and close them 'against the wind' while making AGf/NPA editorializations and mis-citing guidelines and blatantly IGNORING policy.......aaaaaarrgh then to have that same person, once my block was over (the next one...) pounced on a new category by invoking a demand that something be provided that no guideline anywhere says, then saying all evidence and citations provided in response, when she had provided nothing, not even the guideline she invoked.........do you not see the madness here? Do you not see where I'm coming from about what is wrong? And don't tell me me explaining all this is a "diatribe", it's an accounting of what happened and what the issues at hand are; too many people are throwing around rules that aren't rules, invoking guidelines that don't say what is claimed, ignoring policy and making the proponent the issue rather than the TOPIC and it's hurting content and titles.
I have to go to bed, I"m tired of being treated as if I were the problem when it's a huge problem that was made by someone acting recklessly across hundreds maybe thousands of titles that is where all this started, and there's still damage left that hasn't been fixed; Chipewyan is one, Lillooet language, Thompson language, Sarcee language and others; and now we also have Canadian primarytopic towns being pronounced not so, by people who don't even know where the places are, or what they are, who claim other topics as potential primarytopics that aren't, and who do this same old shibboleth about conflating misquotations of guidelines into RULES and using them as sledgehammers, then getting antsy about NPA for being told they're wrong, and start hurling NPAs and AGFs and "get rid of the bum" invective themselves.....
Then to be told that all BC region names are OR, when they're common names and the basis of all official-regionalization names (in all their multilayered and overlapping complexity), is just asinine, when coming from the same people who don't even read or understand the guidelines they're using with an iron first, and have no patience to read responses, or to investigate the subject and topic are before shooting their mouths off and demanding deletion and/or expulsion..... and Canadian English and CANSTYLE are regularly under attack as invalid, and that "global usage" should prevail....claiming that even when most citations ARE Canadian, that all those should be tossed out and American and UK usages imposed (as was done with Category:Power stations in Canada.
I'm going to bed; tomorrow I'm continuing filling in all the redlinks on the BC rivers and BC Coast pages and more....including the Boundary RAnges and those other regions/ranges in BC where categorization is being trumped up as yet another issue to treat Skookum1 with rank AGF over, while pretending innocence. I've been around too long to not see it for what it is; interference, harassment, and narrow-mindedness wrapped up invocations of guidelines that don't even say what is being claimed....if people would learn about things before pontificating on guidelines Wikipedia would be a lot better off; those same people who spend 90% of their time at RM and CfD don't do anything at all in the topic areas they're rendering their impassive from-on-high decisions on....and seem very, very hostile and/or insecure about someone who has the cites, goes and gets the view stats and googles to show them wrong, and claim NPA when somebody tells them they're wrong (which they are). All this is reminding me too much of why I left academia......I count myself in the wiki-idealist camp, still trying to stick with it and expand content and fix real problems, not made-up ones, vs the wiki-bureaucracy about who I will say little, less this wind up on ANI, so I can have another witch trial held in my honour where people come out of the woodwork saying "the community has been discussing you"...from people I've never heard of before, never seen on articles or talkpages I've worked on, or as with CT on CANTALK, showing up only to say 'burn him, burn him, boot the bum out'. Even "protecting the encyclopedia" as if someone who generates and has generated massive amounts of good content is someone that Wikipedia needs protecting from.....whatever, it's time for bed.
The diatribes are what is being made against ME, what else sums up the rants and invectives denouncing me in the ANIs, or the BLUDGEONING of me personally in CfD/RM discussions and closures? If explaining policy and pointing to examples and providing citations are "diatribes", that's a thesauric invocation of that term; originally it mean "extended discourse"......and if you want to see a display of useless and disruptive obstruction, go drop by NCL....Ill nbe posting a full listing of ethno titles and what's happend to them, and also a summary of the original-now-reborn consensus, within a day or two; the Bella Coola thing got me going, we now have someone with roots there, and I'm populating the area's peaks, rivers, IRs and more.......apparently that's the kidnb of thing that Wikipedia should be "protected from" by booting me out.....yeah whatever.Skookum1 (talk) 17:20, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
- The Washington Redskins are still the Redskins despite the name being derogatory. When the real world isn't ready to move forward, we at Wikipedia are often locked into the same mode because we are not meant to lead change, merely reflect it. Two years ago, Chief Wahoo was the primary logo of the Cleveland Indians. This year, he's been relegated to secondary position as the cap logo. He's on his way to retirement, but the world of baseball hasn't gotten there yet, so neither has our article. Wikipedia, ultimately, does not exist to right great wrongs. However, in my suggested RFC, noting if the subject people consider the current title derogatory is fair game as part of the central argument. Resolute 22:41, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
- All that is stated straight-out in MOS:IDENTITY and the self-identification passages of TITLE and NCET; point is it was raised in that RM repeatedly, but was ignored or equivocated by OTHERSTUFFEXISTS (which is what you are doing) and the closer ignored all that, as she ignored or equivocated a lot else. And it was you who observed that we don't use Sarcee anymore vs. Tsuu Tina; that was indeed how those articles were.....until Kwami came along and turned the clock back forty years unilaterally, along with all the rest I mentioned (oh, including Heiltsuk-Bella Bella and Nuxalk-Bella Coola, too... and says he would have liked to move Kwakwaka'wakw to Kwakiutl and Nuu-chah-nulth to Nootka....).....and it's a totally different thing re the Washington Redskins...that's not an article about a people with a self-identification who are living people (really collective BLP applies, imo), it's a brand name with a mass audience. BIG difference. I'm not talking about "righting great wrongs", I'm talking about (as were the "old consensus" wikipedians) respecting living people - and, as it happens, official terminology (they are sovereign governments, no less, but it's not just their governments who use the "new" names, it's the fed/prov/muni etc and the media....but not academics, it seems, or at least not those in foreign lands who are a little more backwards about all this and need to catch up with their subjects, so to speak). The effrontery for potential indigenous contributors, or a couple I could name who have left Wikipedia, of having people from far away decide what they will be called does not sit well with them, needless to say. Especially as with Sarcee, Slavey and Chipewyan - and Dogrib (now back at Tlicho) - when it's rude terms for them coined by their enemies....Skookum1 (talk) 00:45, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
Suggesting that I should show BHG good faith when she has showed me none at all, whether to do with the facts of the Squamish matter, or the presentations of citations and policy in the RMs, or in the launch of the Boundary Ranges subcat CfD which was entirely in bad faith and challenging my credibility as an experienced geographer in Wikipedia altogether, even saying that citations and examples supporting t hat category were "irrelevant" moments after I posted them i.e. not reading them at all......no, that's asking me to swallow obvious stalking as if it were innocent; rather than malice, as I believe the closures of the RMs and the launching of the CfD to have been. Granting good faith to those who treat you with none is a sucker's game, and tolerating ignorance that arrives in the backdoor with magisterial demands and condemnations with acceptance as if "good faith" is only encouraging more. When such people toss around guidelines which it is clear they have no more taken the time to read than anything else that's "TLDR" and taking the high ground their ignorance does not warrant, and have the power to arbitrarily block someone purely on personal dislike, then there's something seriously wrong with what is going on in Wikipedia.
What this means is that important Canadian RMs/CfDs have been fiddled with by people who don't know the material, who don't know Canada, who don't care about citations or consistency or precedents, and just want to cherrypick in the course of extended vendettas.....and are ready to blacklist and block people who do not submit to their flaunting of ignorance by official means.
As for giving the Washington Redskins and Bradley/Chelsea Manning as comparisons to the Chipewyan/Denesuline case, and other than noting that American standards of what is acceptable and what is not area clearly different than in Canada (cf. Edmonton Eskimos of course), that's not comparing apples and oranges; it's comparing apples and turnips.Skookum1 (talk) 06:26, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
- Arthur's continuation of that non sequitur and without-basis-in-guidelines-or-policy OR challenge-cum-"discussion" was only more of the same, and contrary to the closer's comments (who should have addressed the "behaviour problem" of t he person who launched the CfD, not the person who it was launched to attack/harass with irrelevance and fabricated guideline-demands). Others have seen fit to support my work, who also don't take me to task for "diatribes" but know I provide lots of information and cites and know my shit and are more patient than those who are, it seems, burning out by too much time mega-processings RMs and CfDs without having the patience or the knowledge to deal with them adequately and who displya more concern with wikiquette, as they perceive it, than with content or the integrity and validity of titles their decisions affect/derail. Atlin, Bella Bella, Bella Coola, Comox, Squamisn and the rest will have to be resolved and informed discussion is needed, not more b.s. oppose votes positing non-possibilities as DABs or "quoting" guidelines out of context; and should be closed by people who do not "set their expertise by the door" when they enter to do the close (which BHG stated when bragging about why she didn't need to know the subject matter or the context or....anything).Skookum1 (talk) 06:37, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
And see here in reply to votes/comments by CambridgeBayWeather on the Comox people RM about how if we don't speak up for CANSTYLE and CANENGL, we might as well not have them at all. I collapsed them to avoid yet another invocation of "walls of text" and TLDR; the latter is not supposed to be used on discussion pages at all and its use, as it says clearly, is seen as unCIVIL...but was the pretext for ignoring all the very valid arguments on the Squamish CfD, and part of that close. "She" has since found an actual "behavioural guideline" to use instead in such instances; it's one of the many reasons the Squamish CFD close was bunk and illegal; but as I've found out by looking around, places like Move Review and Dispute Resolution and RfC are not about lookign at issues and guidelines, but only about wikiquette and "conduct".. Not about content, in other words, but about editors. How far as "wiki" come to mean something very different than "quick, fast, easy".....Skookum1 (talk) 07:52, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
- I didn't say you need to show BHG some good faith (though I would encourage that). I said that her close in that specific RM was made in good faith. Bear in mind that acting and good faith is not necessarily a synonym for being right. I tend to side with you, but that instant request didn't pass due to a conflict of opinions on where precedence lies between common name and proper name in cases like this. That is why I suggested an RFC. (Incidentally, WP:RFC is about content and policies. WP:RFCU is about user conduct.) CANSTYLE is a guideline, not policy, and there is nothing anywhere in Wikipedia that says Americans or other foreigners should not be allowed to comment on Canadian topics.
- As far as apples and turnips goes, I think you should pay much greater attention to the nature of the Bradley Manning dispute on Wikipedia. That entire battle centred around the question of what common sources said ("Bradley") and what the subject wanted ("Chelsea"). Seems like a good parallel to the Chipewyan/Denesuliné naming question to me. One big difference though: The Manning naming dispute had huge volumes of passionate support on both sides, enough that when some editors were blocked, those that supported their side still drove the debate forward. But in this case, if you walk into another block - and the next one will undoubtedly be for a longer term - then this debate will halt. I can only ask you to consider that your current mode of turning any opposition into a battle is not working. It isn't helping you, and it isn't moving your cause forward. I understand that you are frustrated, but the path you are on is self-defeating. Resolute 23:53, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
In both cases, Chipewyan/Denesuline and Boundary Ranges, the battle came looking for me; C/D had enough support votes and stats to pass it properly as was done in umpteen parallel case, and I'm not the only one who thinks that close was a bad call; see the section below the RM launched by Floydian, and read through the support comments in the RM itself (and the support comments in the BR RM also). THEN compare to the Lillooet (town), Shishalh and last year's St'at'imc closes; and scads of others (and see my new section on Talk:Haida people = which is one of the only remaining Kwami-built "FOO people" titles on unique people names left, since all the correct RM closures went down).
As for the CANENGL thing, while some of that does have to do with policy i.e. self-identification, which is in TITLE, when you have someone opining that Bella Bella and Bella Coola Atlin can't be primary topics because they only have a few hundred people, and saying that what Canadians think is a PRIMARYTOPIC doesn't matter shit if people in the UK and US think those are people-names or language-names, and that Canadian sources showing that's 1000:1 not the case should be set aside as parochial (because 98% of googles out there are Canadian-origin therefore....invalid??), then you have severe logical fallacies/inadequacies being put forward; Each of those towns is the only thing of any size for miles, and the DAB candidates that were suggested weren't even viable candidates (Atlin Lake is not a PT competitor for Atlin for the same reason that Sioux Falls is not for Sioux, or Vancouver Airport for Vancouver, for that matter) same with those who on remove-comma-province RMs have said that they think that's wrong on 108 Mile Ranch (see here) because the comma-province would help "readers" understand that that's a community (WTF?). That the interlopers in a few of those cases (eg. Bella Bella/Coola with Dicklyon were also people who bogged down RMs with nitpickery Talk:Poland-Lithuania, which was an offshoot of Talk:Alberni-Clayoquot Regional District#Requested move) and "silly walks" is not just more frustration, but needless disruption, as in those cases, as will happen with the OR challenge to BC region-names that BHG and Arthur no doubt will resume, without ever learning about BC or those regions, by going to the main sources to prove the obvious; at how much wasted time, and in response to bad faith from people who, I'm sorry, are not displaying good faith, nor an open mind, nor have any interest in the topic, but rather in persecuting/harassing a certain editor. "Keeping an eye on" is a euphemism for "let me see if I can trip him up on something". The sound of axes grinding is all over discussion-space and official forums; the use of personal hostility/condemnation to forge RM closures without proper reference to policy and citations/sources is one of the system's biggest flaws; and as a result there's a lot of stupid decisions going down, and AGF/NPA being made in such closes by people who haven't even read the guidelines that they're citing in making the call.Skookum1 (talk) 00:57, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
prime example of unpunished AGF/NPA attack (against me, not mine)
Well, I think he's an admin; whatever, I've pointed this out before, and not a single one of those who whipped and put the torch to me in the ANIs or ranted and scolded me here on my own talkpage have said/done anything about it. See here. there are dozens of examples of this kind of thing, only one other very pointed one by him......so don't lecture me about having to "play nice" when other people aren't even talking softly and ranting/AGF'ing on me like that. he should have his adminship stripped and blocked for a month; that's far worse than anything I've said by way of criticizing actions and motives, which were all valid and born out by evidence, direct, circumstantial or otherwise. I'm working on finishing that big list of ethnonym titles that I've mentioned, but have to do a "border run" tomorrow so it won't be posted for a couple of days unless I get it done tonight....it's very revealing about the "+ people" issue as fomented by the architect of NCL whose opposition to wide consensus continues to stonewall changes to that guideline to take out the passage which damaged hundreds of titles without any real discussion. And for which I've taken heat, and rank, vulgar accusations like that one from Maunus above, and been brought before the Inquisition, for trying to correct; and for standing up to the gang-opposition against the RMs needed to do that. The taint of hypocrisy and partisanship and schoolmarm-ish behavioural discipline in place of actually addressing policy/guidelines and sources and citations as should be the case that has happened to me will always hang over my feelings about this place, and maybe about its futility. My real-world friends ask me why I would spend so much time, and take so much *shit*, for something that doesn't even pay me money, and it's a good question; I lost my income last year because of Kwami's harassment and delaying/degrading tactics in the St'at'imc and related RMs, and as some here know had something t hat seemed to be a stroke as a result ...... and for which I've been mocked and had ANI comments about being off medication or needing medical care.....insults galore, and yet I'm the one who's being hunted, vilified, and my attempts to organize articles into categories on proper grounds being challenged by somebody just because it's me. I'm very disappionted that more Canadians didn't take part in Canadian RMs and CfDs that were railroaded by furriners (and a certain Albertan) and where we've had PRIMARYTOPIC on town names and proper modern endonyms for native peoples overridden by people who've never been to BC, don't give a f**k about proper Canadian usages (and say so, though without that expletive), and who engage in personality attacks in order to win RMs.......then accuse the victim of doing what they did to him.....gaaaaaagh. I'm going to the beach.Skookum1 (talk) 07:16, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
Illegitimi non carborundum
Don’t let admins wouldn’t know British Columbia from British Petroleum grind you down. From Victoria to Potlatch Peak, an entire province is counting on you to turn the redlinks blue. If a first nation wants a numeral its name, are we going to let a bunch of pommies tell them “no”? Remember, we all stand on guard for you. It tastes bad (talk) 12:50, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
- [post-edit conflict] :The way COMMONNAME and USEENGLISH have been abused to override core principles and TITLE I'm way too familiar with; yet there are passages in them both which account for SELFIDENTIFICATION and also CONSISTENCY; but which are regularly ignored. That WP:IPNA has on a welcome template for indigenous editors (of who I am not one, granted) saying if they find any instances of WP:Systemic bias to let the project know; yet colonialist names are rigorously re-asserted, by dint of SOURCES that include citations of the systemic bias; corporate government, the church etc. The historical record is soaked in that bias; and not just about native peoples, as we have seen with the (to us) bizarre bias about international perceptions of Bella Coola and Bella Bella not being about those well-known places (to us), but names for the peoples once called that which are no longer relevant in modern Canada, and more than a bit embarrassing to see foisted upon Wikipedia by those who neither care nor are prepared to learn about the current cultural and political realities in Canada; more recent cites, and official name changes, are never given the weight deserved, with one or two rare exceptions....and invective about RIGHTGREATWRONGS and other invocations of Wikipedia's non-involvement in justifying not using the new names, and accepting names which are alien in other forms of English. That Canadian English itself is under fire in many cases, with "global usage" some kind of homogenist mantra, is counter to the diversity that Wikipedia should be about. The use of personality attack/condemnation to avoid discussing issues and actual guidelines (not misrepresentations of them, as is too often the case) is the tool of propagandists; and unwitting collaborators. That other titles with numerals in them exist is dismissed as OTHERSTUFFEXISTS; the subtext of chauvinism and colonialist parochialism not just to native but to "the colonials" is rank, but so drenched in that mindset they cannot see it, and take offence at having it pointed out......likewise trying to impose standardized guidelines for countries not as mountainous or empty on Canadian categories; or imposing British usages such as power stations instead of generating stations.....it's multi-issue, that systemic bias, and never easy to sum up at once. And when I do, I'm condemned for "walls of text"......in my time, people were able to read and think in more than eight sentences at a time. All I can do is keep on, like you say, keep on filling in the redlinks and expanding and integrating long-needed content and regional coverage/detail; lord knows all the people kibbitzing and arguing irrelevancies of title and orthographic conservatism aren't doing anything of the kind; while wanting to control how they are organized, how they can be spelled, what sources are valid etc, while openly dismissing local input and knowledge as 'original research', as if their own weren't. Exclusionism is very much alive in Wikipedia.
Thanks for your support; the issues you bring up with your comment are relevant to anyone aware of our colonial past and continuing colonized present, whether by the US or Britain; the mouse may sleep next to the elephant, and they may not like the squeaking, but the mouse is fighting for survival in a world that wants to wipe away distinctiveness, and tout up numbers instead of meanings.... dismissing Atlin or Bella Bella or Bella Coola as PRIMARYTOPICS because they have tiny populations is only one example of quantitative condemnation vs. qualitative information; that they are the only towns of their sizes for a couple of hundred miles, or in Atlin's case, within BC anyway, several hundred miles of forbidding wilderness, is completely lost on those who live with hedgerows and subdivisions....it'd be nice to think the whole province really was counting on me; it's good to know that at least a few are. Straight-talking is unwelcome to those from those other places; in BC historically as now it's expected and necessary to put the truth to various lies and misperceptions...unless you're a politician or a p.r. consultant or bureaucrat, that is. Anyways, thanks, it ain't over 'til the fat lady sings, and I ain't fat, and I ain't no lady either.Skookum1 (talk) 14:00, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
- That's as funny as a joke you told earlier. There's not a single admin on this project (including those of us who have lived in BC) who doesn't want Skookum to continue his work on articles. What the community has clearly stated is that the battleground behaviour, incivility and personal attacks - as well as the seemingly automatic assumption that anyone who disagrees or tries to help is an "enemy" - will not be tolerated as those edits progress. It's not rocket science the panda ₯’ 13:08, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
- And here, @Dangerous Panda:, have Talk:Chaouacha have a read as to the kind of thing that gets thrown at me for something as simple as moving a disambiguated title to an undisambiguated redirect. And if I'm not mistaken ,that's from an admin. So get real about me not having "enemies"....I'm no fool, but I'm sure as hell being treated as if I was one, also somebody's in particular. Oh, is that a personal attack? Apparently defending yourself against insults and invective is a "personal attack". I'm from a place where pussyfooting and mumbledy pegs is frowned upon in polite company....Skookum1 (talk) 14:14, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
- Gee, you stalking my page too, Panda....how nice. The "battleground behaviour" is blamed on me, but the oppositionism in RMs and CfDs that is consistently both wrong and degrading in content and tone and as others are well awarely, rightly gets my back up about having to prove the obvious to people who have slogged in with ignorance and guidelines they invoke without fully having read, and making personal jabs throughout. The one-sidedness of the situation was rank, as many of my supporters commented one way or another. That you are stalking my page to check in on me suggests that I am, if not with actual enemies, with those who are looking to find fault, or offer patronizing judgments such as you have just done.
- My WORK includes being able to use correct titles and dabs, and that means taking on RMs and CfDs to correct bad ideas foisted upon people who cite one guideline without any context or as if it were the only one; and who use behavioral essays (TLDR =unCIVIL) as a close justification (the Squamish CfD and others, where TLDR should not even be invoked, certainly not in a close) and who pollute discussions with personal attacks about my writing style and alleged personality issues (also in the Squamish CfD) while calling any criticism of someone's misuse of guidelines or history of undiscussed controversial moves as "personal attacks"..... it's all very tiresome and gets in the way of the constructive work that I have been trying to get done in spite of all the harassment and what is coming off as only more stalking of my thoughts and activities. I'm the one being treated as the enemy, even have had my sanity impugned; the supporter above raises a reality about authenticity for coverage of BC, and the need to stand fast against unwonted and hypocritical and often completely unjustified personal criticism in place of actually listening to what is being said. Or, as too often it turns out, people slamming down readings of guidelines which actually don't apply and where exceptions and conditional situations are all laid out. Instead of trying to concentrate on cites and guidelines, instead I am vilified for being thorough....and not able to boil it down to pat sentences and oversimplifications like the stuff that gets thrown in my way. User:it tastes bad you mock for voicing a Canadian in-BC sentiment; only more systemic bias and a demand that the world conform to Wikipedia's "rules". Funny thing is "there are no rules"........but there sure is a lot of b.s.Skookum1 (talk) 14:00, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
User:it tastes bad is, if you're not aware, Panda, referring to both Sta7mes and the Skwxwu7mesh/Squamish debacle; where in both cases people ignorant of and /or even hostile to native names and apparently peoples and who show no regard at all for Self-identification/MOSIDENTITY weighed in about places they don't even know what they are or where they are; neither of those issues will go away, and ultimately will have to be addressed; the Skwxwu7mesh are now one of the only BC native groups whose name in Wikipedia is now disambiguated and not in native form; Squamish in Canadian English and in BC English especially is primarily used for the town (ok, well, district municipality); that these were stonewalled and refuted by people either oblivious to those realities or who just don't care and feel that "they" ("Wikipedia") have a right to tell those people what they will be called is noxious in the context of Canadian standards of diversity and cultural respect; it's also against Wikipedia policy, but just try telling that to someone who really hasn't read all of same....Skookum1 (talk) 14:11, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
And gee, if that sockpuppet allegation is true, it's you who CfDSd-by-bot the Skwxwu7mesh cat and template in the wake of the RM that you also were against the with-numeral titles....how ironic. Perhaps strange; I'm going to save this conversation outside of Wikpedia however, as some earnest admin may decide to delete any exchange with you......it's really too bad as the author of those changes you can't go back and fix the problem; which lay behind all those RMs I filed in recent months......and the various CfDs and associated official criticism/harassment I have received since.Skookum1 (talk) 14:20, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
Accidental reverting of other material at WP:CFDS
Skookum1, please reinstate what you deleted accidentally here, and re-delete what you incorrectly reinstated. – Fayenatic London 14:03, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
- I've reinserted your question, and expanded my reply a bit; I don't recall deleting anything, I'd created whitespace beneath BR's post......something like an edit conflict that diddn't show up as one. Because Haida Gwaii is an archipelago, we normally speak of things being "on" it, as we do with Vancouver Island; there's also technical issues re "of" as though the islands are not yet a full sovereign country (unless you're talking to a Haida), that preposition implies ownership, which they do not have (of the airports anyway, though a sovereign Haida Gwaii may indeed acquire them). As per my comment, the claim made in another CfD that Haida Gwaii as a region of BC is original research is a bit of a sore point and yes, given who it was that did that nomination, I reacted unfavourably when I saw a template I associate with deletion....Skookum1 (talk) 14:12, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
- Skookum, you would do well to spend longer reading rather than writing. It would have saved you from making that embarrassing oppose. Please look again at the diff that I provided above, and use your Page Down key. You deleted my reply to BDD about an unrelated category. You also reinstated four African-American Civil Rights categories that I had removed for processing. Please revert these. – Fayenatic London 14:16, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
- Well, given that other people don't even read guidelines and won't read citations they ask for........I don't know how I deleted any of the things you mentioned; I saw on the diff you gave only my accidental deletion of your post; which again, I don't recall seeing and did not select/delete anything.....coudl there be something wrong with the edit conflict function? I only inserted my now-struck-out-comment, I didn't do anything else anywhere else on the page, and nothing was selected/deleted by me in the course of doing so; that it shows that way isn't a reflection of what I actually did. I found the entry, created a space, put in my comment/oppose, and that's all.Skookum1 (talk) 14:21, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
- You must have gone into the page history, and edited an old version of the page. Now, are you going to re-do my comment to BDD which you deleted, and remove the processed African-American ones, or leave it for me? I could do them again but do not want to cause an edit conflict. – Fayenatic London 14:34, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
- I just tried, but looks like you already did it, what I was about to re-add was already there...but that that got deleted from the Opposed Nominations section and I know I had opened only the Current Nominations section means that I, personally, could not have done it. There's a ghost in the machine, IMO.Skookum1 (talk) 14:50, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
- You must have gone into the page history, and edited an old version of the page. Now, are you going to re-do my comment to BDD which you deleted, and remove the processed African-American ones, or leave it for me? I could do them again but do not want to cause an edit conflict. – Fayenatic London 14:34, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
- Well, given that other people don't even read guidelines and won't read citations they ask for........I don't know how I deleted any of the things you mentioned; I saw on the diff you gave only my accidental deletion of your post; which again, I don't recall seeing and did not select/delete anything.....coudl there be something wrong with the edit conflict function? I only inserted my now-struck-out-comment, I didn't do anything else anywhere else on the page, and nothing was selected/deleted by me in the course of doing so; that it shows that way isn't a reflection of what I actually did. I found the entry, created a space, put in my comment/oppose, and that's all.Skookum1 (talk) 14:21, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
- Skookum, you would do well to spend longer reading rather than writing. It would have saved you from making that embarrassing oppose. Please look again at the diff that I provided above, and use your Page Down key. You deleted my reply to BDD about an unrelated category. You also reinstated four African-American Civil Rights categories that I had removed for processing. Please revert these. – Fayenatic London 14:16, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
- (with revision by me after ec) From a Talk-page stalker: Sorry for adding to confusion. It was I who just restored Fayenatic's comment to BDD that had been deleted somehow accidentally. And i further also re-deleted the 4 items that had been restored somehow accidentally. However the changes were included in what shows as Skookum1's edit, whether it was a software glitch or otherwise accidentally, i don't understand, either. I just logged onto Wikipedia and noticed this, thought this was an hour or two old, not an immediately current conversation. Hope that my butting in didn't hurt, hope this is settled now. Over and out. --doncram 14:55, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
K, thanks Don; here's my post-edit conflict further comment/reply to FE: The weird part of that re-instating those civil rights categories is that they were nowhere near where I inserted my comment; something's up, and it ain't me. I noticed this on various talkpages too, where it seems like someone is replying to someone, but there's no previous edit from whomever......some glitch; I'm not a coder, I wouldn't know where to start as to why; but I would have had to copy-paste those other posts, I was not in an older version of the page etc....Skookum1 (talk) 14:58, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
- Thanks very much, doncram and Skookum1. Skookum1, let's see if we can pin this bug down. When at 13:55 you put in the <s> and </s> tags around your own comment, were you responding to my 13:28 paragraph that started "***{{ping|Skookum1}} The convention is" ? and if so, did you intend to delete it? (no problem if you did intend that one; it's the unrelated ones that I was bothered about) – Fayenatic London 15:51, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
- Hm, I never put in a nowiki......just the /s/ tags and my repost, that's all. I may come across those other cases where there seem to be missing edits, saw one this last week, will see if I can recall it. I remember other "accidental deletions" like this on some discussions too....... ones I hadn't done the way they showed....Skookum1 (talk) 15:58, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
- The nowiki was just part of my comment here so that the /s/ tags would show as text rather than work as tags... So you never even saw my 13:28 comment about "in" rather than "of", but figured it out for yourself? – Fayenatic London 16:07, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
- Ya, and made a few more airports-by-region cats/lists in the meantime....they're often sorted by regional district, which isn't quite right because they're federally-licensed and the RDs have nothing to do with them, unless they own them as they do in some cases.Skookum1 (talk) 16:30, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
- OK, so somehow at 13:55 you made an edit to the version before 13:28, and the system let you save it. Are you sure there was no edit conflict warning despite my three intervening edits on the page? And the next question will be, can you remember any other edits where this happened? – Fayenatic London 18:00, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
- I"ll see if I can remember where I noticed the recent ones, there've been others over the years....the only edit conflict I saw was when I tried to update as you had asked and ran into Doncram's edit....nothing until that point.Skookum1 (talk) 05:57, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
- I've now reported this at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Edit_conflicts_not_reported, along with another one that happened to me the day after yours. – Fayenatic London 20:07, 4 May 2014 (UTC)
- I"ll see if I can remember where I noticed the recent ones, there've been others over the years....the only edit conflict I saw was when I tried to update as you had asked and ran into Doncram's edit....nothing until that point.Skookum1 (talk) 05:57, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
- OK, so somehow at 13:55 you made an edit to the version before 13:28, and the system let you save it. Are you sure there was no edit conflict warning despite my three intervening edits on the page? And the next question will be, can you remember any other edits where this happened? – Fayenatic London 18:00, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
- Hm, I never put in a nowiki......just the /s/ tags and my repost, that's all. I may come across those other cases where there seem to be missing edits, saw one this last week, will see if I can recall it. I remember other "accidental deletions" like this on some discussions too....... ones I hadn't done the way they showed....Skookum1 (talk) 15:58, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
Hi, can you refine the coordinates. It currently points to forest. Is it the one to the southwest or north?♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:56, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
- I replied on Talk:Gwayasdums.Skookum1 (talk) 12:58, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
A barnstar for you!
The Tireless Contributor Barnstar | |
An impressive number of decent new geo stubs coming in from you of late! Keep it up! ♦ Dr. Blofeld 21:36, 7 May 2014 (UTC) |
Port Harvey
Hi Skookum1, Apologies for not being clearer. I have no reason to doubt that you have the correct Captain Harvey. The problem is, the Wikilink was the wrong attribution. It linked to a disambig page on which the only Royal Navy captain named Thomas Harvey died in 1741, and so was the wrong Thomas Harvey. Regards, Acad Ronin (talk) 03:03, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
- Ah, OK, it seems we need another Thomas Harvey title, Thomas Harvey (Royal Navy officer) being taken, what else could be used? By rank?Skookum1 (talk) 03:22, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
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Stop spamming my comments or I will report you to ANI for trolling. Don't sign my comments as if they were yours, and separate your comments so that readers can see that I'm not you. — kwami (talk) 03:09, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
- Add my sig then, and "spamming" means advertising.Skookum1 (talk) 03:22, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
- And as for readers mistaking me for you, given our different styles that's just not realistic; I make sense, you call anything that makes sense "nonsense", and it's been you that has been edit warring on the NCL guideline itself.Skookum1 (talk) 09:14, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
The Beaver
Hi Skookum1, I used to use the definite article before ships' names too, until an editor pointed out that to do so was in violation of some Wikipedia style rule. (I fully endorse not using it before HMS, and almost always using before SS.) The issue is do we say that "the Beaver sailed", or "Beaver" sailed? Like you, I was somewhat annoyed at being enjoined to change what I thought was a perfectly acceptable practice. On reflection though, I went with the style rule, on two grounds. The first, simply, is that Wikipedia should follow consistent parctices. (And I didn't want to get into pissing contests that would distract me from editing and that I would lose anyway.) More substantively, I decided that the rule "Omit needless words" (see Strunk & White), was a pretty good one. So, now I omit the definite article unless there really is a strong reason to use it. Your mileage may differ and I have no desire to get into a fight with you over this; I generally leave rule enforcement to others. Best, Acad Ronin (talk) 22:38, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
- Well, this is another one of those areas where I think Wikipedia's mounting instruction creep is out of line; I went through this with the imposition of endashes to replace hyphens in regional district titles in BC, which took an exhaustive RM to fix and involved me having to "prove the obvious" and go to the Big Horse and get the legislation that created them and its regulations from the Office of the Counsel-General of BC's style guide (that's the lawyer for the government, not the Attorney General's Office) and that resolved it, though the closer opined that he still didn't like it (so what??). In this case "The first, simply, is that Wikipedia should follow consistent practices" should be corollarized with "as used in the real world" and "in the variety of English called for in the article in question". It looks odd, sounds odd, and isn't right. Oh, but it's Wikipedia.....Wikipedia is not supposed to change English, I've heard that time and again in the course of people resisting uses of terms common in Canada, but not elsewhere (long story).
- So which part of which guideline exactly says this? Somewhere in MOS? Somewhere in UE? Point is, if it's not normal use in England (where I gather you are), and it's not normal use in the United States, nor in Canada, nor in Australia nor India etc.....then why does "Wikipedia" feel it has the right to impose it (meaning those editors who crafted this so-called "rule", in a place where there are supposed to BE no rules; Fifth Pillar and all that)? Setting new standards for English usage is not Wikipedia's job; I'm all too familiar with the attitude of those in the MOS pits that indeed it is, and who use weird rationalizations to justify those positions. Weird rationalizations for stupid ideas in Wikipedia are nothing new of course....
- Am I in the mood to go to war over it; no, not right now. Point is, if you don't agree with it, then don't impose it. And repeat after me "there are no rules".
- They're NOT "needless words", they're called for by normal English usage conventions. Oddly, I see "the" added before things like inlet and bay names and even mountains......unneeded and not-normal usages. Ships are different, same as rivers (which I also see a lot of removed "the"'s on).....Wilde said "consistency is the refuge of the unimaginative" but here it's something more than that; it's a false consistency concocted within Wikipedia with no relation to the real world beyond it.Skookum1 (talk) 01:12, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
- (talk page stalker)Actually, methinks "instruction creep" is being far too kind. "Kafka couldn't have dreamed this up in a million years" would be a more apt, albeit more wordy, description of the way things are headed. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 01:24, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
- Kafka's The Trial and The Castle come to mind constantly when working on Wikipedia, or being subjected to its.......drama boards. The Building of the City I think is the title of one of the shorter parables; it's online somewhere....and yes "instruction creep" is too kind a word, but we're not allowed to use others. Suffice to say that it works well as a plural (that's not aimed at you, Acad Ronin).Skookum1 (talk) 01:33, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
- I didn't realise that it was in the MOS. The one place that I keep wanting to add it, is before Yukon but most times that should not be done. Still looks odd. I've also seen things like "George Harrison was a member of Beatles" even though the correct name of the band is The Beatles. CBWeather, Talk, Seal meat for supper? 02:56, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
- Yukon without "the" is the official style, but COMMONUSE, including by Yukoners, is "the Yukon". Kind of a dicey one to resolve; certainly quotes from sources using it with the "the" should not be changed. As for ships, I looked up WP:NCS and tried to find the origin of the passage in question; an earlier version I just chose at random said ""The" is not needed before the name of a ship (but neither is it wrong):" When this was changed, and by where in the discussion page and why and by whom, I have yet to figure out. To me, the current version is not acceptable nor is it correct, nor part of normal English usage, historically or currently.Skookum1 (talk) 05:45, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
- "Instruction creep" as a term seems pretty apropos to me too, though creep seems a little mild. I will adopt a "live and let live" approach to the definite article in other peoples' articles, and go with what sounds right in my own. Regards, Acad Ronin (talk) 14:08, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
- That guideline seems to override WP:ENGVAR, of which {{Canadian English}} is only a part. I'm in no mood for a debate there, but discretion should be used in the application of such things as rules. There are no rules. And normal English conventions, in whatever type or species of English, should be respected and not dictated, nor homogenized as has happened in some cases. Was going to ping you, there are some officer names and such on Drury Inlet, a new article I just made, another in the series charting the maze of islands and inlets on the BC Coast that are Admiralty-related, which came up as having to be dabbed redlinks (in this case crew of the HMS Pandora).Skookum1 (talk) 14:20, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
- My area of specialization is realy RN in the Revolutonary and Napoleonic Wars, and I have no resources, other than Google, for earlier or later periods. That said, I will help on occasion if I can. Regards, Acad Ronin (talk) 02:52, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
- I'll keep you in mind for any earlier placenames, then, as many were conferred by Capt Vancouver et al; many of those vessels were in the Napoleonic Wars after being in the Pacific Northwest (see List of historical ships in British Columbia, which hasn't been much updated lately, also List of Royal Navy ships in the Pacific Northwest).Skookum1 (talk) 03:12, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
- I didn't realise that it was in the MOS. The one place that I keep wanting to add it, is before Yukon but most times that should not be done. Still looks odd. I've also seen things like "George Harrison was a member of Beatles" even though the correct name of the band is The Beatles. CBWeather, Talk, Seal meat for supper? 02:56, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
- Kafka's The Trial and The Castle come to mind constantly when working on Wikipedia, or being subjected to its.......drama boards. The Building of the City I think is the title of one of the shorter parables; it's online somewhere....and yes "instruction creep" is too kind a word, but we're not allowed to use others. Suffice to say that it works well as a plural (that's not aimed at you, Acad Ronin).Skookum1 (talk) 01:33, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
- (talk page stalker)Actually, methinks "instruction creep" is being far too kind. "Kafka couldn't have dreamed this up in a million years" would be a more apt, albeit more wordy, description of the way things are headed. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 01:24, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
ANI
I've mentioned you and KWamis move wars at ANI.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 22:34, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
Re: the Monterey police chief paragraph. What mass for two lovers? Who, where, when? Who cares what the police chief was doing in Siberia, or, for that matter, what his name was. Ditto for the red rose. This paragraph simply injects material about extraneous people, thereby detracting from the subject of the article, Nikolai Rezanov. Best regards, Lahaun (talk) 15:28, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
Transformer (spirit-being) and disambig
Just so you know, "belief system" is wording that I got directly from the linked article and there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with that language. I also don't really have a problem with "tradition", but if you want to dispute the accuracy of "belief system" then you should probably open a discussion on the linked article. -- Fyrael (talk) 17:14, 19 May 2014 (UTC)