User talk:Tony1/Archive 5

9.5

Wow, sorry to hear about that. Looking forward to your return after you get out from under it all. Finell (Talk) 03:40, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. It's hard—millions of dollars at stake, and much pressure from a lot of people. Tony (talk) 06:56, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

A counter-proposal

Flushed with cortisol

It may interesting to see what the other side has to say about date linking. Dabomb87 (talk) 01:28, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

I can't see how that won't end up like a dog's breakfast (the invitation to add suggestions). Tony (talk) 12:04, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

or a camel (a horse built by a committee), just like their RfC. It'll collect hundreds of kB of examples/wishlists of exceptions, just like the RfC was beginning to do before it closed. Ohconfucius (talk) 12:17, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Extra! Extra! Read all bout it!

Even Rubin and Cole say Tennis expert has lost it. Oh, I agree with your comments on his talk page about his spelling. Just as well this is a wiki, where someone else will always be there to correct those mistakes. Ohconfucius (talk) 12:24, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

• I'm now extremely concerned that he may be repressing his anger, which may lead to severe problems down the line. Ohconfucius (talk) 02:04, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

The Rambling Man

seems to have gone

Replied on Ohconfucius' talk page, the situation is quite different, I hope. Dabomb87 (talk) 21:35, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

TRM is on a long world ramble with his partner. Tony (talk) 11:40, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

...And now... Dabomb87 (talk) 03:20, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

When you have the time, this may catch your fancy. Dabomb87 (talk) 23:07, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Hypens question

I've been looking this over and I can't figure it out. Should either of the following two sentences have hanging hyphens (where the * is)? Or is there another way to do this? In the first sentence I somehow manage to put 5 adjectives together in a row.

The driving force behind this tornado outbreak was a strong* surface-based* low-pressure area stationed over the western high plains.

Low-level* and deep-layer shear values of 44 knots (51 mph; 81 km/h) and 87 knots (100 mph; 161 km/h) were present over the same areas

Thanks, WxGopher (talk) 05:28, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Gopher, both examples, as far as I can tell, are perfect! This kind of hyphen usage really makes it easy for the reader.

I can see only three adjacent adjectives: "strong", "surface-based" and "low-pressure".

Perhaps you might consider reviewing at FAC, and/or perhaps working up and nominating a few articles for promotion. Tony (talk) 07:15, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Frenzied

Sorry to bug you, Tony, especially when you're so busy IRL. I have an article, The Million Dollar Homepage listed at FAC Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/The Million Dollar Homepage. I was told that you would "rip the prose to shreds" which I am a little surprised about considering you said my prose at other articles was beautifully written (I don't see much difference in style). Anyway, I've done a few edits to address his point, so hopefully it's better. If you have five minutes (or anyone stalking the page does!) could you read over it and make any necessary adjustments. I understand how busy you are, so nothing big is expected. Hope things get better soon, regards, Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 09:05, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. That was above and beyond. All the best, Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 07:48, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Admin watch

Whatever happened to your above process? What is needed to go through it? I ask because I have growing concerns resulting from that which prompted my comment here. I can't believe that now, after everything, people are trying to say that admin and those admin like are to follow a second set of rules. I -hate- revert warring. I can't stand it when an admin would think that they have the right to get away with it. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:02, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

I'll take a look after my midnight to 2am client (seriously ... international Skyping is now a hazzard). The process of refining AdminReview and preparing for elections will be on a serious footing after the grant-application deadline 4 March.

Tony, I've been bold and set up a new sub-page in your user space here. I also moved off some of the free-form discussion of ongoing cases to that page, to keep the AdminReview Talk page free for its purpose, namely discussing AdminReview (not cases that are ongoing elsewhere in WP). As always with bold moves in another's userspace, I beg your apologies ín advance for any offense that I may have caused, and encourage you to revert my actions without comment or explanation if you so desire. Cheers! --Goodmorningworld (talk) 15:54, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

GMW, I'm sure you've done a good job. I'll look on the w/end. Thanks. In particular, I'd like to get the griping off the main talk page so we can concentrate on technical and professional issues; they are tricky enough per se. Tony (talk) 16:33, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Phagocyte

Hi Tony, I see you are at Level 10, but do you have any time to look at the Lead of this one? I am working with some high school students on Wikipedia:WikiProject AP Biology 2008, and we hope to present this one at FAC in March. Best wishes, Graham. Graham Colm ^Talk 15:00, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the speedy reply, I fully understand and will knock on your door later. Best wishes, Graham. Graham Colm ^Talk 15:07, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

WP:AN/I

Hello, Tony1. This message is being sent to inform you that there currently is a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding your edits at Gwen Gale's talk page. The discussion is about the topic WP:ANI#Disruptive editing by User:Ohconfucius and User:Tony1. Thank you. --— Dædαlus ^Contribs 23:07, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Pfffff. Enjoyed reading it; pity I got there after it was closed. Tony (talk) 12:41, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Pffff exactly! In my own cases, I always continue to comment if the mood takes me one cannot let something so stupid as a hurried archive box, by a nervous admin, impede; it's not good to let these people get away with too much, give them an centimetre and they will take a kilometre. I shan't comment on ANI or else all manner of strange and odd folk will feel entitiled to jump on the bandwagon, shouting "Giano's being rude, please Miss, Giano's being rude - block him, block him" at the top of the squeeky little voices thus losing the thread of the discussion. Thus, I thought I would pop up here and offer some moral support. It is typical of Wikipedia that you, one of the few here, capable of writing in a professional manner, should have to contend with the clamouring and time wasting antics of such people. Giano (talk) 11:02, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

PS: Tony I hope you are feeling better than yesterday :) Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:11, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Word of moral support from me too Tony. I'd say don't be discouraged, but you never struck me as the type to be pushed around. That you got called a troll on AN/I, well, that tells you how much you should value the openions being thrown at you. The gap between content and careerists editors widens a notch....pfffff; lets ignore these people, and keep on building. Ceoil (talk) 20:57, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

• Thanks for chiming in at ANI, from one of "Greg L's fanboys" ;-) Ohconfucius (talk) 02:34, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

One of Greg's many fanboys

Ah, the growing fanclub! Ohconfucius (talk) 03:27, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Another one for you Tony

See these two pages: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Wikipedius_Reparo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Histopher_Critchens

Notice anything? Check their contributions. A small amount of one-sided reverting, but Critchens removed almost all of Reparo's edits as well. Reparo offered up a pretty compelling case for an IP being responsible for wholesale vandalism, and the response from corrupt boob Connelly was to indef-block reparo and attack Critchens. And of course, along comes FisherQueen, to "seal the deal" with the ridiculous comment "You look so much like the same user that I can't justify unblocking you."

Yet another instance of abusive blocking and more abusive rubber-stamping of the blocks.

Oh, but please - keep up your naive pretense that there is even one honest admin left on Wikipedia. There aren't any. They're doing their best to come up with reasons to ban you even now on the private admin-only mailing list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Swiss Watchman (talk • contribs) 15:50, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

• Just a note that Swiss Watchman has been blocked indefinitely as a sockpuppet of WhoWatches. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 21:06, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, we couldn't actually have anyone DO anything to expose this kind of abuse. After all, you said AdminReview is supposed to be about stopping this kind of abusive behavior.

I take it back. You're not naive. You're a liar and AdminReview is just a fraud. Wikipedia just lost two more editors (who were IMPROVING the encyclopedia) to admin abuse, and you don't care. —Preceding unsigned comment added by SundialMan (talk • contribs) 19:48, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

• I have given SundialMan a warning for this personal attack and asked him not to do it again[1]. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 00:44, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Your revert

Tony, there was no reason whatsoever to do a revert of every change I made at the RfC workpage. Leaving aside the fact that your personal page is, by your own statement, "totally biased", the other edits were an honest attempt to remove some non-neutral language from both sides of the equation. There were also claims that were completely unsupported by any proof; as I stated clearly, I have no objection to including details like the "99%" if and only if someone can provide proof that it is accurate, and not just yet another opinion-as-"fact". We would never allow it to stand in an article without said proof, and we should expect no less in a guideline. --Ckatz^chat_spy 17:33, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Apology

I'm not sure what happened with the diffs, but when I was undoing your edit it didn't look like this. I've self reverted since obviously I was mistaken. —Locke Cole • t • c 16:17, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Readily accepted. We should all be a little easier on each other, if that is possible in relation to this debate. Tony (talk) 04:24, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Hurrah!

[2] Dabomb87 (talk) 02:15, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm wrecked; it will take me a week to get my life back after that. My brain is fried with twisted quantum algebra, ROF curves, medical imaging, the archaeology of low-density cities, frog parasites, etc etc etc. The disruption is all worth it, though: fabulous people to come into contact with, and humungous pots of research-enabling gold at the end for those who win a grant. Now, to clean up the living room. Tony (talk) 04:22, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I've been helping several PhD candidates edit their dissertations. If I have to read anything else about economies transitioning from socialism to capitalism, I'm going to get sick. Welcome back! --Laser brain (talk) 04:37, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I know how you feel ... not a bad field, though! Tony (talk) 04:40, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Nothing about Handel?  HWV258  04:57, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Well ... no. Music is pretty hard to get funded, although it does happen occasionally. Tony (talk) 04:58, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Cool beans !!! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:02, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

M249 SAW FAC

Hey, you opposed this article's promotion per criterion 1a. I've done a little work on it. How is it now?--Patton^t/c 17:51, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I like that pig

I'm knackered after work on Iwamiya Takeji and Ei-Q in quick succession. I got so worried about attempting to show "notability" as to exhaust my energies and certainly my desire (tightly constrained at the best of times) to write expository prose. Iwamiya is highly unfashionable and I shall be surprised if more than three people read the [non] article in the coming decade; I really wonder why I did it.

Very attractive pig you have there, Sir. I wish Giano would adopt it: his bird drives me nuts. -- Hoary (talk) 16:31, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

That bird has protected me through thick and thin. Don't knock it! Giano (talk) 12:40, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Re: coutesy notification

Thanks for the heads up, but you might want to review this. -- Kendrick7^talk 04:33, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

And you picked an especially bad diff with which to j'accuse. I attended Tom C. Clark High School in San Antonio. I have a vested interest, having lived there ~7 years, in that city's article. -- Kendrick7^talk

(1) "The injunction doesnt completely prohibit the use of scripts, however editors should not be primarily focused on delinking." Your edits show that you have in many cases recently visited an article primarily to relink chronological items. (2) Your personal interest in the year is irrelevant; it is our readers who count. Tony (talk) 06:47, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

UC Bill was considerate enough to move the content he removed from User:Ryan Postlethwaite/Date linking RfC to the talk page, and explain his edit there. You should discuss it there if you think some items should go back, rather than just adding them back. And read UC Bill's user page to get some background on his work history, if you're so interested. He's hardly an "academic" ... although I don't think he would be as insulted by that moniker as others might. :) --Sapphic (talk) 16:39, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Re: dates

Sorry about that, and thanks for the info. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs 05:18, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

A good copyeditor

I'm really sorry to bother you, but at Talk:Silver Age of Comic Books/GA2 it's been suggested we get an outside copy-editor in to look over the article. Can you suggest someone who'd run over the article? I know you have that notice at the top of the page which says you don't do it yourself, which is fair enough, but do you know someone who does? Hiding T 14:44, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I'll see if I can attract Deckiller back to WP; he might be interested in the topic. Tony (talk) 16:11, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

He says he's snowed under with work ... Tony (talk) 06:39, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Okay, no problem. Thanks for asking around. I'll try a few other leads, and if that fails I'll stick the template on it. Best, Hiding T 09:43, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Edit summaries

In my opinion, edit summaries such as "Clearly a political move; reverting. Grow up, please" and "Rv Cole's pure provocation" aren't appropriate, particularly from someone who just yesterday espoused the need for editors to build rapport with each other. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:48, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

He's right. One correction, though: yesterday I was espousing the need for admins, specifically, to build rapport. Much of their job is to manage anger and fear, because they have put themselves forward as good at doing so. Reminding me above is an ideal example of rapport-building, actually. If you want to monitor the situation and remind all parties to cool it, I'd be very pleased. Tony (talk) 03:51, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Manage Anger and Fear -- wasn't that an album by John Cale? Hey, I never put myself forward for anything; please blame Jkelly for that. But let's put aside administratude, Tony; for I'd like you to manage my fear. Specifically, my fear that I'm losing my L1 syntactic competence. If you can pick your way through the right wingnuttery elsewhere on that page and comment on a matter of disjunction here some time, I'd be grateful. -- Hoary (talk) 15:50, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Norman Birkett, 1st Baron Birkett

Thanks for your comments; I've corrected the direct problems, and gone through the article to find a few grammatical issues. Is there any chance you could trawl in a bit more detail? As mentioned if I could identify grammatical errors they wouldn't be there in the first place. Ironholds (talk) 17:31, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

DDStretch

What is there left to explain? If there were formerly any honest admins left, what further proof than DDStretch do you need that they are hounded off the project in any way possible, and far too few to be any good?

Even GMW is now agreeing with my position.

Of course, it's also an element of abusive administrators committing (amazingly poor) impersonation games that keeps your AdminReview page locked away from the contributions of new editors or anyone else that these sad jumped-up Gestapo feel like abusing. Look at it - to this day both page and talkpage are semiprotected. I can assure you that the semiprotection is NOT about "protecting" it to let you work on it or prevent "abuse", but as a dodge to keep as many people (especially the very ones who might need to come to it for help) from trying to comment.

If not for abusive admins like JzG, Spartaz, Tan, jpgordon, auburnpilot, Jayron32, Hersfold, Strangelove, and of course I should mention your resident wannabe-admin-spy Ryan4314 (I'm sure that's less than 1/4 of the names I could name but what the heck), you'd have a much more tidy conversation and my record of posts would be clear to all to see. Instead, since they can't keep a civil or sane head on their jumped-up napoleonic shoulders, you'll just have to sit back and think about what's really going on.

Don't worry, you don't have that much time left. The "Admins only" mailing lists and IRC channel are clear. One "slip" from you and there will be a "shitstorm to end all shitstorms", to quote JzG, that will end in your indefinite blocking too. That's the real reason behind this ongoing arbitration case, that's the real reason they went after Malleus (and DDStretch for unblocking him), and I fully expect that they'll find "something" on the rest of AR's contributors any day now. The message of AdminReview might have worked, so they have to kill the messengers, one at a time, and make it look like an "accident."

Before, I was watching. But much like DDStretch, I'm done now. - WW

And then they came for the Jews, but I did not speak up for I was not a Jew... —Preceding unsigned comment added by RolexWatchMan (talk • contribs) 01:52, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Almost missed this one, the Tiptoety/Daniel tag-team. Need I mention OhConfucius was on "the list" too? —Preceding unsigned comment added by RolexWatchMan (talk • contribs) 01:56, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I was almost worried until I realised that this post was from yet another of your socks, Quis. Your contributions would be welcome if you could calm down and move on from some of the anger you feel. Tony (talk) 06:24, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

FAC commentary

I responded at User talk:Ottava Rima. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:47, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Tony, I'm partially responsible for sparking this. It was intended in a way to stop some of the bitchiness on FAC, not to depreciate the acceptable level of prose. I am well aware of the progress you made here in the last three years, and would in no way want to take from that. It seems I calculated incorrectly. Thats the end of Aldi and me. Ceoil (talk) 15:57, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

We have a very deep recession in Ireland at the moment, so I'm buying cheap german goods. This pesky Kraut calculator has my heart broken ;( Ceoil (talk) 16:36, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

After a huge boom; back to normal now. I hope things are OK on that front for you personally. Tony (talk) 16:41, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, my bank manager told me it would never end. Fags are up €2 on monday and my morgage is now 150% of what I signed up to 3 years ago. Well, drat. Personally, I'm fine, accountants seem to do well in hard times. How are things in Oz? Ceoil (talk) 16:47, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I have so much work I can't cope. I'm cherishing the current low-activity period. This piffling little country—anti-intellectual, sports-crazed and complacent—is doing quite well, but will feel the pinch more sharply later this year through the collapse of its terms of trade. Tony (talk) 16:54, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I've heard that Australia will likely need a hard fall, but we'll see. Our economy has more or less collasped, to the point that we have bank runs, but its just a matter of FDI digging in and waiting out. Hopefully. Ceoil (talk) 17:11, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

It's all psychological, of course. This time, on a global scale, which has reinforced to the Chinese how world domination is just not gonna happen.

all psychological'? Yeah. We have the most irresponsible media, and they have spent the last 5 months feeding on gloom and creating a self fulfilling disaster. Not all is lost though; Tony O'Reilly (our Murdock) fell last friday. Good riddance to the prick. A climate of ethical journalism just might follow. Ceoil (talk) 18:03, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Vasil Levski FAC

Hello, the Vasil Levski article has been copyedit by a native speaker who is a teacher of English to boot. Please be so kind to review the article's prose quality again. You can find the nomination at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Vasil Levski. Thank you. Todor→Bozhinov 18:50, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Don't get me wrong

Tony, you know I have a lot of respect about you and your copyediting. However, I also feel that not as many people have as much tact as you do, let alone are able to put things into perspective as you. Don't take anything I say as personal against you. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:13, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I think he was more asking questions then putting down law. The previous stuff was the origin of it all. I don't really think he even stated his exact opinion on it. Instead, the only real oppositional statement to your position there is found in my posts which were born of my frustration with an individual's approach to the matter (and characterizations such as "ludicrous prose"). Ottava Rima (talk) 11:13, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Even when I am calm, polite, and don't actually oppose, people seem to have a problem with my responses. I've had complaints over my support by the person I was supporting. :) It happens. I just get frustrated when people wont even look at the page as a whole and try to focus on what is missing or if it is overall well. But I also try to avoid the FAC process (except helping with FAC prep for those who need help or second opinions) in general because of some of the difficulties inherent in the system. I have roughly 8 articles right now that are probably FA or very close to FA that I will never list at FAC unless someone else wants to step in and be the main motivating force. Why? Simply because of the nastiness that tends to arise. It isn't in all cases, as I have seen many FACs get through cleanly even though they had a few problems. It could just be me. :) Ottava Rima (talk) 14:06, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I have real problems personally with FAC. They are:

1. I'm not retired, in which case I'd probably give lots of time I now devote to paid professional work to FAC, since it's in me to try to improve people's prose.
2. As it is, FAC reviewing (of prose) is too much like my paid work. It's not the same, but requires me to use similar areas of my brain. This is a turn-off not because I need money (I don't—most consumption is boring), but because it's just more more more more of something that is hard work and no longer sufficiently rewarding. In the early days, at least I learnt a lot from doing the reviewing at FAC—now I don't. Thus, I've craved the ability to make an impact on WP in other ways over the past year. That underpins my shift towards style guides, and the spearheading of major reforms such as date-autoformatting, the revamping of the FLC process, and AdminReview. Watch this space for more of that, if I survive the current ArbCom hearing. I guess it's also behind my continued although slow expansion of my userspace tutorial pages. The latest, I simply must finish, which is the great bug-bear for many non-native speakers: "the"/"a".
3. In any case, there are too many nominations coming through, and always have been, for the number of skilled reviewers. This is a psychological problem for all of us, since the job is never done. Five a week, and there would be much more satisfaction in giving all nominations the attention they need, and a feeling that, together, we reviewers were able to uphold professional standards. This is hard when there are 30–50 in the cascade.

I'd much prefer a system in which nominations were bumped off at an early stage if they clearly were not ready. But I don't think this would be politically acceptable.

There is too much going on for me to keep up with any of the discussions anymore. I wanted to point out that I think Malleus changed the lead a while ago. I don't have time to check through and find out when or whatever. Also, I wanted to mention that I think that anything referring to "engage" or "engaging" is subjective. :) Ottava Rima (talk) 03:57, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Ping

So it doesn't get lost in spam: wanted to let you know that I just dropped you an email. Maralia (talk) 03:30, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Ta. Tony (talk) 07:19, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

reviewing

Thank you very much for your suggestion that I take up reviewing. I'm not yet confident of doing a good job as a main reviewer, but will certainly hover at the side and add such helpful comments as I can to articles where I may be of some use. Tim riley (talk) 20:46, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm pleased to hear this! Tony (talk) 12:14, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

A Fringe of Leaves

Hi Tony,
Much as I would like to say I am, I'm no aficionado. I'm more a fan of talking dirty and passing it off as realism. I read somewhere that Annie Proulx' two favourite writers are Faulkner and White; somehow I've ended up with two copies of The Shipping News and Accordion Crimes, which doesn't bother me at all, I'll be happy to re-read both copies at the same time. What does bother me is that I still don't have the patience to properly read Faulkner and White.
I read A Fringe of Leaves as an undergrad, and as a typical undergrad my main interests at the time were beer, gals, and Jacobean Revenge Tragedies. AFol was a set text. Picked up my copy of AFol to edit the page, and there were all my margin notes and underlinings - I had read into a world that I was probably too young to understand, but still realised was deep, rich and sublime...
Perhaps I'm even now not grown-up enough to read White %-)
--Shirt58 (talk) 11:11, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Ellen Roxburgh isn't "gal" enough for you? Enough to feed one's fantasies? White was feeling particularly good about himself and the world when he wrote Fringe (Nobel Prize 1973). It shows in his lush portrayal of the landscape as a backdrop to the binaries—woman/man, black/white, colonial/English, poor/rich, convict/free settler. Tony (talk) 12:50, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Strewth!--Shirt58 (talk) 12:09, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Your edit summary: Foucault? Now you're really exposing me as rather poorly read! Tony (talk) 15:50, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Excellence

You write the most excellent works. I've learned a lot from doing the examples! Thank you! I couldn't help but comepile it into one page. ResMar 21:38, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Re: Canadian date format

Regarding your talk msg: 1) the "sign in support of international date format for Canadian usage" is meant to be generic i.e. not specifically intended with respect to Canadian usage, though I do promote that aspect; 2) as you may know MOSNUM allows both formats for Canadian subjects, which reflects the differing formats seen in Canada (the federal government is especially diverse here, with Prime Minister's site using international format while some other federal departments may not); 4) of the two date formats, it seems more appropriate to promote the more logical and internationally widespread format although I tend to leave existing Canadian date formats alone in keeping with MOSNUM, even if other editors don't always share that approach; 3) international date format may be in the minority for Canadian articles overall, but that depends where you look e.g. most of Category:Governors General of Canada are international date formatted. Anyway, off to do other stuff ... Dl2000 (talk) 04:04, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Sucks

would have made a comment to your adminreview thing if you are still trying to do it, but it's locked and nobody can edit it. That sucks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Unicycle Repairman (talk • contribs) 03:36, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

It's not locked, but semi-protected. All you needed to do was wait a few days until you're eligible. But we do not want provocative, emotive, negative comments there. Tony (talk) 03:45, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Phagocyte

Hi Tony, a few weeks ago I asked if you had time to look at the Lead of this article. But you were very busy at the time and asked me to remind you later. My collaborators and I plan to nominate this contribution for FA in a few days and a highly polished Lead section is essential to attracting critical reviews. Best wishes, Graham. Graham Colm ^Talk 11:38, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

UC Bill

Check out the action here. 202.123.64.42 (talk) 02:51, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Would rather be informed by a registered user. Tony (talk) 08:47, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Tony, if I had to make an educated guess, I suspect Ohconfucious' 30 day cookie has expired and he made the comment while logged out. MBisanz ^talk 08:58, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, Ohconfucius informed me—he was off his normal computer facilities. I would rather he'd used the email facility. Tony (talk) 09:24, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

• I'm sorry. I did not mean to be mysterious, but I was editing temporarily frm another machine. As can be seen here, I signed the post on UC Bill's talk page. Ohconfucius (talk) 09:29, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Noel Coward

Noel Coward has been promoted to FA. Thanks for your comments. They really helped us improve it! All the best, -- Ssilvers (talk) 14:27, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Military copyeditor

Good day, do you recall the editor at FAC who you commented we should remember when a military article needs help? Because.. a military article needs help. --Laser brain (talk) 20:57, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I think it was User:Eurocopter. Dabomb87 (talk) 22:54, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Help proofreading

I read your article User:Tony1/How_to_satisfy_Criterion_1a and appreciate the work you put into that text. I am working on a list and wanted to know if you would proofread the intro text for me? If available, I would appreciate your feedback. Regardless, thank you for your help on wikipedia. kilbad (talk) 23:05, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I had a chance to edit the list today, making changes based on your feedback. I also left some comments in response to your thread. What do you think now? I am sure it still needs some work, but wanted to know if I am moving in the right direction? kilbad (talk) 18:24, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Your thoughts

Hello Tony. I'm interested in hearing your opinion with regards to when the parties should edit the poll until. There's still a bit to do, but can we try and have things ready by the end of Saturday? Then we can have a day of things being stable before the poll begins. Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 21:01, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Tony (may I call you that?), I am a person of very small brain, so can you explain to me in words of one syllabub when and where I can vote on this very vexing matter. Personally, I don't see the point of linking dates because everyone knows what happened in 1066, and if anyone cares about any other date, it be easily looked up although at my time of life one prefers not to. I mean, what is the point of all this linking who for instance gives a monkey's cuss (such a vulgar expression) that Darling Amilcare was born in the same year as the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act. In fact who gives a monkey's cuss about the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act - one of those American things I expect - vulgar race, in my experience. at my time of life one chooses not to explore dates at all, just as well I'm dead I suppose. Well, dear boy, do keep me informed. I've a feeling young Postlewaite didn't go to Eton, all this preoccupation with history and dates is very telling. I must go, daylight is breaking. Do keep me informed. Ka of Catherine de Burgh (talk) 23:54, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Dear lady, you're premature. You can safely trust Ka of Harriet Bosse to keep you up to date. Bishonen | talk 00:32, 29 March 2009 (UTC).

Hillsboro, Oregon

Hi Tony. I think we have addressed the hyphenation problems and other issues you raised during the Hillsboro, Oregon FAC. Would you mind having another look? I appreciate your continuing work to improve the encyclopedia. Finetooth (talk) 23:37, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

"No respect of rights" from the Civility talk page....

You wrote:

[...]

Indeed, this sounds prima facie like a case that needs to be aired officially. Tony (talk) 07:04, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Tony, it helps if you go review the situation a bit before throwing advice in... EU 100% is editing in a highly disruptive and abusive manner over the last few days, and just created a sockpuppet (though he hasn't used the sockpuppet abusively so far). I just had to leave him a civility / disruption warning on his talk page.

It took me 30 min of looking at his contribs, his sockpuppet, the page histories where he's been editing, and the same info on the accounts he accused of being racist stalkers, to determine what the actual problem was solidly enough to decide that a warning was appropriate. You're entitled to your opinion, but not every situation is what it seems to be on first report. If someone supports an abuser based on an inaccurate first impression it does not help resolve the situation.

Thanks. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 23:55, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

OK, I'll put another post there. Tony (talk) 02:31, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Re. A sideline issue

Hello Tony - I've had a good look at your comments and there's some really good things in them to work with. I've got a few comments and suggestions based on my personal experience with the civility policy and why it's hard to enforce, but I'll save them for tomorrow when I'm not as tired and have more time to give a more deserved response to your initial comments. Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 21:31, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

That would be welcome, Ryan. Tony (talk) 10:36, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Tchaikovsky

Did you notice he as at FAC, thought you might be interested in this one. Likely this will be benchmark for classical music articles if it passes, given the subject; so it should be just so. Ceoil (talk) 09:23, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Tchaikers was promoted ;). Good, its one of a number of strong classical articles that have been submitted recentlyl; sometimes I think this project might be worthwile afterall. I'm always hoping to get Henryk Górecki through someday, but just cant find the sources. Drat. Ceoil (talk) 18:55, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Re: Spat

It occurred on 2008–09 Australian region cyclone season (which is the basin of waters surrounding Australia), spilling over to a user talk page and to the Australian's noticeboard. It wasn't so much that MOS was unclear. It was more that every article that happened to exist within the Australian basin was changed one day, very suddenly. This aggravated a few users, as there had been no discussion at all. Discussion was needed, as many storms in the Australian basin move into the 2008–09 South Pacific cyclone season, where the main warning center uses the opposite date format. Thus, there were some articles in two basins that had differing date formats. The issue had never, and still has not been resolved. In the end, now a few protective WPTC users are avoiding a few protective Australian users over that article. It seems stupid, but I don't think the whole problem would have happened if date formatting was automatic. --♬♩ Hurricanehink (talk) 15:01, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

But under the system you've voted for at the RfC, one or the other format would have to be selected for tagging at the top as default for 99.99% of the readers (i.e., all but WPians who select a date pref.). The selection would still have to be negotiated among the editors; yet the prevention of disputes over which format to use (which I believe are very rare) is the reason you are supporting date autoformatting. Tony (talk) 15:49, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, the primary reason I'm supporting it is because I prefer reading dates in the US form, and if there's a way to let that happen, I want it. If the auto-linking dating were to happen, I'd be much more open to seeing the alternative form as the default since I would never have to see it, and I think other WP users would do the same. Call it selfish or whatever, but since I have the option of formatting, I'd like to use it. --♬♩ Hurricanehink (talk) 16:06, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

We never voted to delink all the dates. One day someone said it was now part of the MOS and changed a bunch of articles. One consequence is this really odd date format that can't be customized to one's browser. Potapych (talk) 16:38, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Re: Sorry to hear of your loss

Thanks Tony. My older cousin was always sort of my own personal Ace Rimmer, off saving the world while I did nothing for it. As it turns out, he contracted Typhoid fever while attempting to rescue a band of dislocated Australian marsupials from a Florida barn of all things. Crazy thing. Anyway, I'm about to retire from the project on this whole Pokemon >>> History score, but I wish you good luck in your endeavors. -- Kendrick7^talk 03:22, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

RFC on date-autoformatting and the linking of date fragments

These issues have been the subject of an ongoing ArbCom hearing, and a further RFC (after those held in November at MOSNUM) is under way to settle important details.

Which ever way you feel, it’s important that the current RFC capture full community opinion. You may wish to participate. It’s here. Tony (talk) 11:08, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Talkback re. intersection

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

 Chzz  ►  20:20, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikidrama by Locke or what?

• Have you seen Locke’s recent edits (1 and 2) where he blanked his user and talk pages? I wonder if that signals that he…

A) is making a fresh start. Or…

B) Is standing on the side of the Wikipedia bridge, waiting for others to shout “Don’t do it!” in a wikidrama move. Or,

C) Something else (like make people openly wonder and he later explains it meant nothing). Or,

D) Is truly committing Wikipedia user-account hari kari.

I note from his recent contributions history, that he didn’t ask an admin to clear his user page history (a common move when quitting Wikipedia), nor had he tendered any posts explaining this unusual behavior. Sorta wondering. My personal preference is that he is A) making a fresh start. But my hunch is that it most likely either B or C. Greg L (talk) 03:06, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

• I wouldn't read anything into it. I bet he's having a laugh at us right now for even talking about those actions. My guess is therefore 'C'. Ohconfucius (talk) 03:36, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The Special Barnstar
		To thank you for sticking with the date-linking issue and for your Herculean efforts to resolve it. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 03:37, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

• Wow, a 'barnie' from SlimVirgin. Congratulations. Now I'm really envious ;-) Ohconfucius (talk) 07:15, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, it's not every day you get one of those! I think all on the team might take heart that their efforts are appreciated. Tony (talk) 07:45, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Very important straw poll: Removing admin rights

Users may be interested in voicing their opinion here, irrespective of what that opinion is. Thanks to User:Ohconfucius for alerting me to its existence. Tony (talk) 13:55, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Murray Chotiner

Mattisse went through the article, then I followed up to smooth out the rough edges. I think it is much clearer than it was. When you get a chance, and if you have time, I'd be grateful if you'd take a second look. Thank you for your time; I know you are busy.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:53, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Plagiarism Dispatch

Tony, are you interested in looking at Wikipedia:FCDW/Plagiarism? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:55, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

It's ready for another pass now; Tony, whenever I've added you to the byline in the past, you remove yourself ... I'd like to put your name on this one if that's OK? It's going to be an important Dispatch, hopefully widely read, and having significant editor names in the byline will add to the gravitas. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:13, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

GUI

Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-01-03/News and notes. The facelift story. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 16:23, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

dashes

Could you take a look at User_talk:Juliancolton#En_dashes_in_compound_adjectives? I'm unsure about whether an en dash should be used in this case. Thanks, –Juliancolton | ^Talk 16:59, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Done. Good example of how a multi-hyphen-monster can be reversed. Another example: "a 12-kilometre-long freeway" --> "a freeway 12 kilometres long" ... or worse,

Redundancy

Your work on Redundancy sure looks like a well-done, wonderful gift to the Wikipedian community. Are you going to put that into WP-space? Greg L (talk) 23:33, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks indeed, Greg. Now I've had time to conduct the first major renovation of that thing. User:Gary King's creation of an "Editing exercise" template is helping to fix a whole bunch of problems. Readers who have pointed out on the talk page above have, in most cases, shown me that a few of the exercises needed to be dumped. I've added a few new ones. I hope the tutorial pages attract new editors to WP, as well as providing a resource for existing editors. Tony (talk) 10:17, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Musical notation

Is the musical notation in the second paragraph at Papa_Don't_Preach#Composition correct (MOS-wise)? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:56, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Poorly formatted, and the commentary makes no sense at all. I've made comments there. Tony (talk) 10:17, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Everybody's Talkin'

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

More from me. :) And on a funny aside, I was all huffy to find that this redirect in my subject header did not point to Harry Nilsson's song. So I looked to see just who had committed this gross miscarriage of justice.... I wonder if there's a template I should give me? Or maybe I should just suggest to me that a disambiguation header would be appropriate? (Or I could just add "Everybody's Talkin'" to that great list of "Articles We Need" in my head.) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:55, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

AdminReview

Hey Tony. I just committed the cardinal sin of editing another users userspace—namely yours. :) My edit is just a humble proposal, feel free to revert and or modify as you see fit. Cheers! henrik•talk 20:16, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

I think the overall idea is a good one - admins should and must be held accountable for their actions. Poor administrative behavior has driven away a lot of good users, which isn't acceptable. I personally would like to see a future of higher professionalism where admins as a collective were more calm and handling of problematic cases was more dispassionate. Ideally all administrative actions should be explained when questioned, and there should always be a clear route of appeal.

As for the tight word limits: I don't know - I suspect it'll need to be tried in practice and perhaps modified as the time goes. Designing a perfect process isn't easy.

And yes, it became a bit long: I'd be happy to for the lead to be trimmed. I'm a bit busy today and tomorrow, but unless anyone has beaten me to it I'll give it a whirl on Thursday. henrik•talk 19:46, 6 April 2009 (UTC) 

A new protocol for admins' handling of incivility: "WAS"

There are almost no guidelines for how admins should handle cases of incivility, in particular, how their potential roles as mediators and enforcers through blocking should be brought to bear on difficult situations. We lose a significant number of talented editors because of the blocking phenomenon, and we all know there is a phenomenon of repeat incivility and blocking. I firmly believe that blocking for incivility is usually counterproductive. Here's why:

1. Incivility almost always arises because one or more editors are angry.
2. Anger, like fear, has an unfortunate tendency to spiral (unlike positive emotions). This is particularly the case for experienced editors, who weigh what they will see as their hard work and commitment to WP heavily in terms of self-justification.
3. There is ample evidence that blocking does not reduce levels of anger in the blocked editor; it is more likely to fuel repeat offending and repeat blocking, adding to admins' workload. It seems to be an ineffective way of dealing with the anger in the first place. The common notion that we give blocked editors a degree of latitude in "letting off steam" on their own talk page is another sign of this causality. I don't think blocking generally works to protect the project (a policy requirement) or as a tool for behavioural improvement or mediation (a common-sense and highly desirable role for admins).
4. There is usually no apology by the blocked editor to the target of their rude or abusive behaviour; thus, the bad feelings remain on an article talk page or wherever else the incident has occurred.

For this reason, I believe admins should be explicitly encouraged—as a matter of standard (not mandatory) practice—to follow a simple protocol: Warned, Apologise, Strike (WAS, if you like). If the breach is serious enough, and provided the editor has not previously demonstrated non-cooperation, the warning should contain:

• a warning that they are in breach of the civility policy;
• a strong suggestion that they apologise to the target of their anger, probably both at the talk page of the article concerned and the talk page of the targeted editor; and
• a strong suggestion that they strike their offending comment.

This might be backed up by a statement that a failure to do so may result in a block (with or without a timeframe: "within X hours").

Of course, the abusive anon/vandal deserves the prompt block, and admins' time is limited. But it is self-evident that in other cases, requiring such a withdrawal and an apology stands a much better chance of restoring calm to a venue, and minimising the risk of a cycle of repeated incivility and blocking. A WAS protocol would save a lot of angst in the community about blocking. It would be good for relationships between editors, and between non-admins and admins. It would be likely to be therapeutic; people usually feel better about themselves and their colleagues after an apology (even one that comes at the strong suggestion of someone else). Rude and abusive editors who do not apologise are probably worth blocking for longer than one might otherwise do, and a note in their block-log would send a clear message to both them and subsequent admins who find themselves having to deal with their behaviour.

I believe WAS should be written into both WP:ADMIN and WP:BLOCKING to encourage a change in the culture of dealing with incivility, from the relatively easy "block first" that we too often see in situations involving experienced editors, to a role that requires admins to exercise a slightly more mediating role, educating editors about the right thing to do when they have overstepped the limits, and more effectively calming editor anger. I don't claim that this would always work, but I do believe it would be much more effective in achieving the policy aims in a significant proportion of cases.

I am interested in the opinions of both non-admins and admins on this. Tony (talk) 04:03, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

• I wholly agree that there may be too much knee-jerk blocking for incivility. I have quite often found that a dispute spirals because the parties lack external input to resolve a deadlock; or if such input exists, one or other fails to listen to that input because it is not from someone not considered 'sufficiently neutral' by one side or another. Of course an apology is the best way of smoothing the waters in the longer term, but a forced apology is often disgruntled and remains couched in resentment. While it's possible that one side is wholly intransigent, quite often it involves something the "other side" has done too. Admins should therefore work on mediating skills, in bringing neutrality and objectivity to the dispute. They should attempt to target the root cause of the dispute rather than seeking a simplistic apology. Of course, it will take time and patience to wade through the history of the dispute. It could be further complicated because of a historical grievance, but there is almost always a more immediate trigger at the dispute concerned. Once the root cause is addressed, I believe the apology will be more forthcoming and natural. Ohconfucius (talk) 04:23, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
  • The strong suggestion that the incivility be retracted (struck through) and and apology made are the right messages to send. What is initially a strongly worded option can, in retrospect, appear the obvious thing to do by someone who has been offensive; most people feel better a while after making an apology. The avoidance of blocking except as a last resort, I believe, has therapeutic value. Tony (talk) 04:33, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
• In my opinion the biggest offenders on incivility on en.wiki are admins and there's no way that any admin is going to do anything but fiercely stand up for the rights of a fellow admin to be incivil. In fact, on AN/I, I assume if there is a gross incivility and a posse standing up for the editor who is being offensive that it's an admin doing the offending and a group of admins + non-admin friends of the offender gathered around to get in free shots against the victim. It will simply be one more way that administrators don't and won't lead by example while giving administrators an additional weapon to interfere with lowly editors acting as bad as the example that is set for them.
• Admins should set the example first. And I don't see that coming. --KP Botany (talk) 06:28, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Botany, this is a little off-topic; see AdminReview and the straw poll concerning desysopping. Someone has to draw the boundaries of civility, and best admins to do this. The proposal here concerns how they do this. Tony (talk) 08:14, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
    • I disagree with the underlying assumption of this suggestion, that admins can best draw boundaries of civility when admins as a group are clueless and could not recognize incivility if trout-slapped with it, and the place to discuss the basic assumptions of a proposal is where the suggestion is made. However, I am not an admin and was expecting a complete dismissal of any contribution I attempted to make to the discussion. --KP Botany (talk) 22:26, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
      • I don't think anyone's disagreeing with you about the current state of affairs, certainly I'm not anyway, but this a proposal for a better future, not a rehashing of the egregious part. --Malleus Fatuorum 22:54, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
        • I don't suggest rehashing the egregious part. However, proposals made to remedy that problem which do not thoroughly acknowledge the issue are doomed to failure.
        • Incivility is best handled with boundless civility. As soon as you increase the number of reasons, means, and weapons of incivility in the hands of the most egregiously incivil on en.wiki you've made the problem worse, not better. More warnings? Will there be a hostile template designed just to do this? How about, instead of admins giving a warning, someone uber polite give an example of how better to act, make it personal to the offending editor, and don't call it a warning? How about it not coming from an admin or not being the domain of admins? How about it not coming with a threat that unless a forced apology is dealt out, the user will be blocked? How about wondering and asking why the person felt such a need to be incivil? How about anything besides creating more incivility? This proposal is not just uncivil, it's downright hostile. Warnings? Forced apologies? Threats veiled as suggestions? To deal with incivility? Really? --KP Botany (talk) 23:03, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
          • So far as I'm concerned, you're preaching to the converted. Administrators frequently behave in ways that would get regular editors blocked, and that's what's got to stop. But this thread is about guidelines for the future, not dwelling on the past. As it happens I don't agree with the proposal as it stands, but it is at least a move in the right direction. --Malleus Fatuorum 23:30, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
• Tony, thank you for taking the time to think about this matter. It is a difficult one; and something I've had to consider on a number of occasions. This is a medium in which it is far too easy for editors to become confrontational, forgetting their normal selves and flipping. In the past when I've seen this behaviour in someone who is known to me, I have tried to engage them. Either I am particularly bad at it, or the incivil behaviour is an engrained pattern and difficult to shift. The main point of the incivility code is to set clearly defined boundaries beyond which such behaviour is unacceptable. There are a lot of editors who seem to perform a kind of 'sub-incivility dance' - perhaps to flip the editor they're in confrontation with. This seems to be the kind of behaviour that inspires 'sub-optimal' performance from admins - we're only human and subject to the same limitations of the media for communication. This is why there is an attempt to involve uninvolved admins to try to resolve a dispute; or (if necessary) slap heads. The intention of 'admining' should always be to de-escalate these disputes and quickly restore order to the project. Ultimately, I don't think admins are in a therapeutic relationship with editors (or indeed each other); that's an individual - and off-wiki responsibility. As to KP Botany's point, I am happy to receive feedback, or to be told when I'm acting in an arbitrary and high handed manner; I will even hand you the ceremonial trout for the slapping. Kbthompson (talk) 09:03, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

• It is an intriguing idea Tony, but how would WAS handle degrees of incivility? For instance, would it be appropriate to use WAS as a response to [3] when the person has been blocked multiple times in the past and sanctioned by arbcom of incivility? Would asking someone to apologize for very minor incivility (I've noticed many American misinterpret British comments as incivility) just continue the pattern of the dispute by asking the parties to keep talking at each other? Also, where have people been "blocking first" for incivility, we have {{Uw-npa1}}, {{Uw-npa2}}, {{Uw-npa3}}, {{Uw-npa4}} for a reason, and excepting extreme incivility (blanking an article to a profanity) I would expect administrators to at least warn once, if not two or three times before blocking an established editor. MBisanz ^talk 20:23, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

FAC for Design 1047

Hi Tony! Thank you for your comments on the FAC for Design 1047 battlecruiser. They were much appreciated! I asked Maralia (talk · contribs) to go through it, and she has now done so (I asked EyeSerene (talk · contribs) as well, he might go through it later); would you be able to check back in? Thanks, —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 23:46, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Obesity#Body fat percentage

Tony, I don't want to walk into a MOS minefield with the math editors, but why does the math HTML have that horrid font ? I don't know where to check on this because it's HTML code, not a template. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:53, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I KNOW. Before even looking at it. It's vomitus. WHO ever thought of having it dispaly that way. We must do something about it. Where to lobby, though? Tony (talk) 16:01, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

I dunno ... it's not a template, it's HTML, so I don't know where to start. Perhaps I could ask Dr pda ? It's awful. (Didn't know you were still on.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:02, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Ah, now I've just looked. It's not that monstrous formatting I've seen in many equations on WP. That's OK there, isn't it, at least on my Safari browser. Tony (talk) 16:15, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Knowing how math MOS discussions go, not sure I want to wade in, but I think the font is wishy-washy and hard to read (could be my eyes :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:18, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Tony, here is the complete answer from Dr pda: User talk:Dr pda#Math HTML SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:57, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Understanding consensus

As you may remember I've been on the "other side" in several date autoformatting discussions. Nonetheless I have considerable respect for the enormous effort you have put into advocating delinking of dates. I truly feel that -- even though you are wrong in this particular instance -- it is the efforts of persistent and well-intentioned people just like you that will eventually make Wikipedia what we all want it to be. In particular I appreciate the effort you made to establish a reasoned consensus on this issue by diligently addressing the concerns raised by other editors. So you probably know quite a bit about what consensus means for the Wikipedia community, and I'm quite curious how you perceive the discussion at Wikipedia:Date formatting and linking poll/Autoformatting responses. In your view does that discussion reflect a community that has achieved a consensus on this topic? (sdsds - talk) 00:15, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

1. No consensus is required for the status quo (deprecation) to remain. There is almost no support for the hopeless 2003 blue-rinse system, even among those who "support" the general concept of DA. The job of auditing and removing the square brackets that litter our dates and have concealed inconsistencies and coding errors needs to resume.
2. Consensus would certainly be necessary to launch a new scheme for messing around with the plain, fixed-text dates that are now commonplace, and universal at FAC and FLC, (the professional end of WP). The prospects of gaining consensus appear to be slim, and the uncovering of the thorny technical issues involved hasn't even started.
3. There was no consensus in the first place for date autoformatting.
4. 50% more editors have opposed than supported, despite the fuss made of this new "linkless" scheme of adding cumbersome templates all over the place. This is a comfortable majority, faced with clearly set out background, for and against statements. This shows that the community has gone further than wanting the sea of blue deprecated—247 have said "No" to the general concept of autoformatting, compared with 167 who have supported it (as of today). This is consistent with the results of previous RFCs on DA. We now have a bank of evidence in not just one, but four RFCs.

Given the level of opposition, the prospect of gaining consensus for the proposed Son of Autoformatting is remote, even if it ever were to be proved able to cope with date ranges and the redundancy problems (and slashes, and the rest). Tony (talk) 16:35, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Reminder: RFC on date-autoformatting and the linking of date fragments

These issues have been the subject of an ongoing ArbCom hearing, and a further RFC (after those held in November at MOSNUM) is under way to settle important details.

Which ever way you feel, it’s important that the current RFC capture full community opinion. You may wish to participate. It’s here. Tony (talk) 16:18, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Brion's comments on Bugzilla

Just FYI, Brion was referring to Werdna's patch, not UC Bill's. --Sapphic (talk) 23:36, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks!

		The Copyright Cleanup Barnstar
		Thank you for copyediting the plagiarism dispatch - it reads much more smoothly now. Moreover, your excellent questions helped clarify some vague spots. Your help is greatly appreciated. Awadewit (talk) 00:07, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Re: Featured List contributions

Hey there. Thanks for the kind words (it means a lot. :D). I absolutely hate, or extremely dislike, date linking, so hopefully this will mean the end of it. By the way, thanks for (I believe) spearheading this whole date delinking campaign. I'm sure Wikipedia will be a better place as a result of it. ;) Corn.u.co.pia • Disc.us.sion 00:30, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

I kinda put that off because I don't totally understand what autoformatting signifies, but it seems to create more problems than it does solve from what I understand; I opposed. Also, do we have a general consensus as to what date format we use in prose and refs? I know in prose we use MDY, but ref parameters are all over the place, and I find myself mixing MDY and YMD, even within the same ref. Any ideas? Corn.u.co.pia • Disc.us.sion 07:41, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Reflists should be the same within themselves: this usually means choosing the one citation template (or none at all, just manual, would be my preference, since it's simpler and retains editorial control); the main text needs to be consistent within itself. I think the reflists will eventually be modified to enable better choice, and thus consistency with the main text. Tony (talk) 08:52, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Okay, cool... Hopefully eventually is sooner rather than later though. :) Corn.u.co.pia • Disc.us.sion 09:06, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Date formatting and linking poll

What you described in this post is off-wiki canvassing. I doubt I'll manage to get hold of the email before the poll finishes, so I'm unwilling to block you (had I managed to get my hands on the email, this would most certainly have been a block notification). As with Lightmouse, you're no longer welcome to participate in the poll, talk page or main poll page. I view what's been going on here as extremely serious and the results have potentially been disrupted enough by the participation from you two. Sorry Tony, you've crossed the line here and it's unfortunate it's had to come to this. Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 17:46, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

I have already explained I believe these are false assumptions. I won't participate on the poll pages, but since the poll results are germane to the temporary injunction, and the temporary injunction is bound up with the ArbCom case in which—against my wishes—I am a party, I presume that I am free to express my views elsewhere on the injunction and the case. Otherwise, I think I'd have to be excluded from the ArbCom case: people can hardly be parties but not allowed to speak on their behalf.

The other issue is that if I am attacked on the poll page or my views misrepresented, I now have no right of defence. Are you going to deal with that if it arises? Tony (talk) 05:13, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Important template

Tony, regarding your note, there is no need to pull up the welcome mat. You two were arguing over a live template that goes on key pages; the action was prudent. --Ckatz^chat_spy 05:47, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

You are breaching the conflict of interest rules for admin action. I have pointed this out before, and you totally ignored it. This time, I must point out that where there is any doubt about your involvement, you must get another admin to do it. Please undo the action on the MoS template, which clearly favours someone who has a history of conflict with me and most other regulars at MoS. You are in a highly adversarial position with me elsewhere, and involved up to your ears. Tony (talk) 05:49, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Tony, the last time you appeared on my talk page to make unwarranted claims about admin issues, you had to retract your statement when you realized that you were wrong. As for this (unjustified) accusation, well, PMAnderson doesn't agree with the old version either, so I hardly think it constitutes "favouritism". You'd also be hard-pressed to rationalize "involvement" given that I've never edited, debated, or discussed the template... all I've done is restore the version that existed before the two of you started editing today. --Ckatz^chat_spy 06:02, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

It is still a breach of admin policy for you to be involved in reverting the version that pertained before Anderson starting whittling away at it. I see that you've discarded the copy-editing I did below, too. Why? Put it back, please, or you are wasting my time as well as demonstrating your willing to weigh in, falsely accuse, and act flagrantly against the interests of someone you are elsewhere in an adversarial position. It is blatant. Why is it a permanent locking of this page, as well? Why are other people now forbidden to edit it as well? Your actions are way over the top. I am likely to post a complaint at MoS talk and elsewhere. People need to watch out for your aggressive actions there, and you need to distance yourself from being seen actively to assist Anderson against others. I note also that Anderson called me a "liar" in his last edit summary, and that you think that is quite ok. You appear to be acting in a one-sided fashion. Tony (talk) 06:12, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Tony, get a grip. The page is at the version that existed before either of you started changing it. There is no "conflict of interest", no "assisting Anderson" or any such nonsense. (How, exactly, I've assisted" PMAnderson is unclear, given that his changes were removed as well.) In addition, I posted exactly the same note to both your page and to PMAnderson's, at the same time. There were no threats, no taking of sides, no "punishments" - just a statement and a warning. PMAnderson posted a note explaining that he had started a discussion on the talk page, while you have instead posted several notes making false accusations. If you wish to ask for an outside opinion, be my guest - but I won't be bullied by your threats. --Ckatz^chat_spy 06:25, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

ArbCom policy wording

Thanks for the note on my talk page - I have been away for a few days, and will take a couple of days reading through all that has been said in my absence before responding in substance, but I'm glad that there has been some sensible debate there, and am hopeful that the process will be productive, best wishes, DuncanHill (talk) 18:49, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

English grammar

As a frequent (>20 edits) contributor, would you like to weigh in at Talk:English_grammar#Suggest_splitting? Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:44, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

ArbCom's temporary injunction against unlinking still in force

All editors—please take care to unlink chronological items on an occasional basis only, whether one, two or three components (1980, January 3, or November 5, 1999). The temporary injunction has not yet been lifted. Please see Lightmouse: proposed solution and the talk page of the recent poll for discussions. Tony (talk) 08:12, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Copy-editing FA candidates & date format

Hi Tony! Thanks for the contact. I'd be delighted to c-e FA candidates, just point me at 'em (I guess there's a list somewhere but I'm not well versed in the bureaucratic/admin functions - I've only just managed my first speedy deletion!). As for date formatting, I threw in my 2 cents (twice, I recall, so call it 4 cents) and left it at that, hoping that I may have provoked a bit of thoughtful discussion among others and that my one vote might make a difference. I've not been back to the debate since, so it'll take me a while to catch up. As for the blank user-page: I have no particular areas of expertise or interest to talk about; you could try spotting patterns in the subjects I edit, but bear in mind I invariably come to subjects via the "Random article" function and research ones that interest me to bolster the refs or just c-e and revert vandalism in ignorance of the subject. I have sufficient aptitude in half a dozen European languages to be able to review some non-specialist source material and review refs, but it's not a defining feature of what I do for wiki. I've always felt that who I am is less important that what I do, and what I do is all there in the contribs, so why waste time entertaining vanities on the user page? All the best and Happy Easter -- Timberframe (talk) 19:34, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Timber, a copy-editor we could call on at FAC is indeed valuable: there is such demand that I'd ration any call that would be made on you! I'm always on the look-out for more c-es. Your blank user-page: it's just that it comes out red everywhere you sign (that is how I noticed you), which is why I thought you might consider turning the link blue by writing just one sentence or so on the user page (perhaps something practical—your facility in several languages, or even your interest in them if you want to underplay?). I want to know: do you edit on the French WP? I'm most interested in it as a comparator with the Eng.WP. Tony (talk) 04:59, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

In a way the redlink says everything I want to say about myself, without putting the reader to the trouble of following a bluelink to an uninformative page. In this age of celebrity and self-promotion I consider just getting on with the task in relative obscurity to be a virtue. I only edit on en.wiki but use the French, German, Italian, Czech, Russian and Ukrainian wikis (and to a much lesser extent Dutch, Spanish, Romanian and most Slavic languages) to cross ref and find relevant sources. I wouldn't claim to be up to translating whole articles unaided from any language except French, but would certainly be able to compare en.wiki with fr.wiki. I'd rather do specific jobs that were felt by someone else to be useful than wander at random making improvements (and wondering why 2/3 of en.wiki comprises stubs on French, American and Polish communes with no claim to notability) as I go, so feel free to throw tasks at me. Best regards -- Timberframe (talk) 10:28, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Timber, I'm emailing you about the Fr. wp. Tony (talk) 15:04, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Bad fall

Apologies if I'm slow to deal with inquiries. I've had a really bad fall on rocks at the beach and sprained both ankles badly and twisted my left knee. No one stopped to help, despite my obvious distress—that's urban society. I can hardly walk, and it's difficult to concentrate. User:Noetica put me onto RICE_(medicine), which is very helpful. Tony (talk) 08:34, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

• Now, that is a really good excuse to put your feet up! ;-) The dog will go mad with cabin fever for a couple of days, but get rested, and get well soon. Ohconfucius (talk) 08:41, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Sorry to hear that - take things easy and get well soon, DuncanHill (talk) 08:42, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

MBisanz ^talk has given you balloons! Balloons are meant to uplift the morale of people with an illness, and has hopefully made your day a little better. Spread good health by giving someone else who is a bit ill a balloon.

Spread the good health by adding {{subst:Balloons}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

Ouch! I hope that you rest well and mend quickly. --Vassyana (talk) 08:43, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:11, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Hey, you're lucky no one stomped on you as you were crawling home :D Get well soon.--Goodmorningworld (talk) 21:12, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Sorry to hear this. I hope you recover soon. Dabomb87 (talk) 22:27, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Get well soon! — Deckiller 19:29, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

• Seconded. Personal well-being comes first. - Mailer Diablo 22:19, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
• I'm sorry to hear this bad news Tony; my love and best wishes to you mate. Graham. Graham Colm ^Talk 22:31, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Geeze, Tony, there are easier ways to take a wiki-break, and significantly less painful ones. Take care of yourself. --KP Botany (talk) 09:41, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks to all who have sent their get-well notes: it's really kind of you and made me feel better. I'm hobbling around, and the swelling is down, so life is gradually returning to normal. Lucky the next high-activity period hasn't started yet. Tony (talk) 15:09, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Quark

Hello Tony,
In the December of last year, you stated you thought this article needed tighter prose and a fresh copyedit. Improvements in the way of referencing and comprehensiveness have been made, but I'm still unsure about tightness of prose. If you had the time for a cursory inspection, it'd be very much appreciated. If not, that's fine too. Best, —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 02:46, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I see that you had a fall and are not up to it. I'm sorry to see that you're unwell. It also appears that you don't normally review articles outside of FAC. Don't worry about it then. I hope you return to good health soon. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 03:06, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your kind thoughts, Anon. Diss. I'll try to take a quick look. Tony (talk) 15:09, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Is there a technical term

Sometimes you see in an article when a longer term is abbreviated with an acronym for ease of reference later in the text. For example:

• Acne vulgaris (AV) is a disease. AV is very common in teenagers.

Is there a technical term for this (i.e. the creation of a temporary acronym for later use)? Does wikipedia have any guidelines concerning this? ---kilbad (talk) 00:30, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi Kilbad. There is no technical term, AFAIK, for the initial spelling out and abbreviation, and the subsequent use of the abbreviation alone. The practice is outlined in the Manual of Style here. Tony (talk) 06:24, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply! ---kilbad (talk) 00:10, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Date formatting and linking poll

Hello Tony. Hope you're recovering well from your fall - I know how much damage you can do with those kind of things. Just a quick note to say feel free to weigh in on the poll page. I think enough time has passed now from the canvassing issues and the poll has well ended. Please try to keep it cool though. Regards, Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 17:20, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

• Congratulations Tony. For helping to keep the team all coordinated and ride herd on frayed tempers, you too deserve the same accolade I left here on Lightmouse’s talk page, whom Ryan also invited back. Greg L (talk) 23:29, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Reforming the ArbCom hearings process

All editors: your views are welcome at the talk page of the draft of the new policy for ArbCom.

The summary of recommendations is copied below:

1. The filing template to include the requirement for a filer to state their preferred scope.
2. ArbCom's acceptance of a case to include:
   • (a) a brief statement of the scope, including, if appropriate, temporal and article limitations;
   • (b) a deadline for submissions to the Evidence page—probably two weeks; and
   • (c) the naming of an arbitrator to preside over the case (mainly to liaise with the Clerk where necessary).
3. The number of words and diffs allowed to each party on the Evidence page to be reduced from 1000 words and 100 diffs down to 500 words (in display mode) including diffs, and enforced by the Clerk, with limits exceeded only by acceptance of an open application to the Clerk.
4. No third-party input to be allowed on the Evidence page, except by acceptance of an open application to the Clerk.
5. The Workshop page to be binned.

Tony (talk) 13:12, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Happy Tony1's Day!

Tony1 has been identified as an Awesome Wikipedian, and therefore, I've officially declared today as Tony1's day! For being our supreme master of prose, enjoy being the Star of the day, Tony1! Cheers, bibliomaniac15 03:49, 23 April 2009 (UTC) If you'd like to show off your awesomeness, you can use this userbox.

Wikipedia:Plagiarism

A request for comment has opened about promoting the proposal to guideline. As an author of the Signpost article cited in the discussion, you may wish to comment. Wikipedia_talk:Plagiarism#RfC Durova^Charge! 18:52, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Recall elections

Thinking about your post here at WT:ArbComittee/Draft policy, and how dysfunctional certain things are: Why can’t we just conduct a popular revolt and conduct an RfC on whether the community would like to see a mechanism introduced on Wikipedia by which there could be “recall elections” (no admins allowed to vote) for administrators? I’ve seen before that some admin, in opposition to this notion, wrote about how that would subject them to retribution by editors who got reverted for writing JASON IS A FAG!! I’m sure a process can be found to avoid that sort of thing.

As it currently is, administrators are like U.S. federal judges: lifetime appointments. I don’t think that works at all. Perhaps instead of “recall elections,” administrators ought to come up for periodic “re-election.” Whatever it is, the current “grievance” process is worthless. It is simple: administrators are leaders. A fundamental, inviolate principle of a self-governing system like Wikipedia is that leaders should govern with the consent of the governed. Any system that effectively makes a leadership position a lifetime appointment undermines this principle. Greg L (talk) 04:51, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

P.S. You and I both know at least a couple of admins who don’t have the judgement my son did at 14 years of age (and, more than that, are all-around dicks). It doesn’t matter that they were involved admins in the the “delinking thing” and had their wings clipped; I find it wholly unacceptable that there isn’t an expedient, fuss-free system to strip them of their admin-hood. For God’s sake, every admin is a volunteer inhabiting a weird digital universe; it’s not like there is life & liberty at stake here. There should be a simple process to give poor admins the boot. It should be clear that their admin-hood is a privilege and a responsibility—not an entitlement that can be abused and rules of conduct flouted because they are above it all. Greg L (talk) 05:02, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Greg, I agree with the general thrust of your message. However, in view of ArbCom's current program to revamp its own policy, I believe that contributing to the outcome there is the first priority. The admin problem is surely the very next priority, but is more complicated and needs time and consultation before putting a package to the community for its views. Tony (talk) 08:24, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

FLC Dispatch

Tony, I'm sorry to trouble you about another Dispatch, but Wikipedia:FCDW/FLCChanges is potentially on for this Sunday, and really needs a reworking. If you have time to have a glance, you'll see that it starts on a rather negative tone; the tone from the top needs to be recast. Would you have time to work on that before Sunday? Best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:10, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Tony, this Dispatch still isn't ready and no one else has looked at it; if I put it off until next week, would you be able to massage the flow, organization and prose so it doesn't start out so negative? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:32, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Re: Impending RFC

I don't see any particular problem with the schedule in and of itself. Looking at your proposed RFC, however, I think you're focusing too much on the specifics of the wording, rather than the substance. Given that the policy text will likely undergo significant revision before it's finally adopted, I think it's premature to hold a poll centered on where and how certain clauses need to be inserted; it would be much more useful, in my opinion, to simply poll on the substance of the proposals, and leave the specifics of the wording and placement until later.

(It's worth noting, incidentally, that a number of your proposals are already on the list to be included in one form or another when we release the next draft.) Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 15:02, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

• "a number of your proposals are already on the list to be included in one form or another when we release the next draft" Glad to hear that. I hope the clauses Tony suggests are included in a 'strong' form, and don't get diluted. They are a bare minimum, IMHO. Ohconfucius (talk) 15:18, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Framing the text as an example of possible wording should be sufficient. The scenario I'd like to avoid is one where we wind up with a patchwork of text, parts of which can't easily be revised because they've already undergone "community approval" via the RFC; so long as the text coming out of the RFC isn't presumed to be set in stone, I have no problems with it.

The last item in the list of objections should presumably read "should not be covered in the policy"? (Although I think we may have come up with a decent approach for working around that question.)

As far as subpages go, it's quite possible to place the RFC on a subpage (e.g. Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Draft policy/Tony RFC or something of the sort). Given that the RFC isn't very long, and we aren't expecting a lot of lengthy "outside views", I'm not sure that you even need a separate subpage; perhaps it would be sufficient to run the RFC directly on Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Draft policy? Moving things to subpages tends to reduce the number of people that will bother to look at them, in my experience, and I'd like to get as much input on these points as possible. Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 15:26, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

At this point, I'd suggest that you go ahead with the RFC as you've put it together. That certain changes were going to be included in the next draft regardless isn't a reason to not go ahead and get community input on them now; and some early community feedback may help the next draft better reflect the direction in which we eventually want to take this.

I can comment informally on my intentions for some of the changes; but, unfortunately, I can't give you anything resembling an official list until the next draft has actually been finished and discussed—at which point it'll be the middle of May. Personally speaking:

1. Likely to be added.
2. Likely to be added.
3. This is being trialled on the Ryulong case, so I expect that we won't really commit to anything until we see the results there. It may also be better placed in a procedure rather than the core policy.
4. Not sure about this one yet, but it would be a minor procedural change so long as exemption applications can be approved with reasonable ease.
5. Not sure about this one yet, but it would be a minor procedural change so long as exemption applications can be approved with reasonable ease.
6. Already being done in practice; I would lean towards having this in a published procedure rather than the core policy document, however.

Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 06:12, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

FLC

Thank you for the recent comments at WT:FLC and reviews at the current nominations. We've just lost another dedicated reviewer for a few months, and we're already drastically low. If you have the time, we'd certainly appreciate another set of eyes for a while. Cf. User talk:Scorpion0422#RE:FLC Best, Matthewedwards :  Chat  07:46, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

"You guys"

Not sure how broadly you were casting your net with that reference. It was not my intent to dilute or dismantle MOS guidelines by suggesting that we employ language typically used in internet standards. Do you believe there is no utility for clear definitions of "May" versus "Must" statements as I described in my post? I think there is widespread agreement that MOS guidelines have Must type statements, otherwise there wouldn't be a mechanism for quality control. -J JMesserly (talk) 04:37, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Oh? I was not aware there was any common understanding on what these terms mean. People cast them about rather loosely, and this has no place in a process if what we are doing is rulemaking. Because that is what this is, so let's get professional about it. If a rule is being made, it should be explicit what it's scope is. This is the reason these terms are explicitly defined in each internet RFC- because the meaning subtly shifts from RFC to RFC. Have these ever been explicitly defined in any MOS document? If they aren't how does anyone know what is being agreed to? How can an administrator sorting out an ANI dispute know whether a"should" statement in some MOS guideline is equivalent to "Must", or whether it means that a contributor "really ought to do something if it isn't too inconvenient"? -J JMesserly (talk) 05:28, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Your point is a good one. In addition, I can see that it is already difficult enough to gain consensus on needed guidance without the impediment of formal language. Besides such pragmatic considerations, the theory may be anachronistic. That is, it's hard to believe that the failure of the first commandment was due to imprecise language. Some say that it is behavior (golden rule stuff) not the guidance (style rule stuff) that requires greater attention. If that is so, then we need more level heads like yours, and though I know you have been at this for many years, I hope you don't burn out on it. It is a very worthy, and to my mind a historic endeavor. It is very very odd that wikipedia works at all. -J JMesserly (talk) 17:05, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

List of number-one albums of 2008 (Japan)

I've responded to your concerns you left on Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of number-one albums of 2008 (Japan)/archive1. 月 (Moon)と暁 (Sunrise) 12:17, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

User:Tim Vickers does it again!

Doctors and WP. Tony (talk) 17:38, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Proposed ArbCom decision

• Like I once wrote in an e-mail to someone about this:

Proposed: Mom and apple pie are good.

For:

Against:

Proposed: Wikipedia is for the benefit of mankind.

For:

Against:

Proposed: People should be nice to each other and not smell like Frenchmen’s arm pits.

For:

Against:

Proposed: Why can’t we all just get along???

For:

Against:

Proposed: Developers’ work product never stinks and we should respect and kiss the very ground they walk on.

For:

Against

Proposed: Some of the parties to this dispute have been very very naughty.

For:

Against:

(*yawn*)  So shoot me; it’s how some of that proposed wording strikes me… Greg L (talk) 00:23, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Ping pong

Responded to you at Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of New York Mets seasons/archive1. While I'm here, when was the "comparative quantities" part put into MOSNUM, and what purpose does it serve? All it does for me is add confusion to what should be a simple rule (spell out one to nine only). Giants2008 (17-14) 00:31, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree entirely: to me, "five cats and 32 dogs" is just dandy. That advice has been in MOSNUM since pussy was a kitten. Just as well it's cast in watery terms, with the fingerprints of Anderson's recent tampering; it's one of the few I don't mind.

Serena Williams

{spam warning!} Hello. As a significant contributor to this article during its recent drive towards WP:FAC, I'm just posting a quick reminder to say, firstly, great work and, secondly, please continue with the great work. We're pretty close to a nomination and further help, particularly with citations on playing style, may just help clinch it. All the best. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:17, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your support in my efforts to reform the policy on weights and measures.

It's really hard to convince some people that a mere suggestion that British articles be SI first for the sake of consistency is not a radical idea. Thanks for your support. Michael Glass (talk) 12:16, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Fountain of Time/archive2

Since you participated in the discussion at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Fountain of Time/archive1, you might want to comment at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Fountain of Time/archive2.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 16:58, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

En dash?

I am going to be creating a couple article stubs with names like "Alkali induced contact dermatitis," and my question is this... should it be "Alkali induced" or "Alkali-induced"? ---kilbad (talk) 13:29, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Kilbad. Thx for your interest. Definitely the latter, with hyphen. You may be interested in these show-and-tell exercises, based on MoS. Cheers Tony (talk) 13:37, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. I will use the hyphen, and look over those exercises. Follow-up question, even if the article uses the hyphen, do you also like to have a redirect from a non-hyphenated title? ---kilbad (talk) 13:45, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

My pleasure, Kilbad. Yes, the redirect would be a very good idea. Same for article titles that need an en dash: the hyphenated version might also be usefully redirected. Tony (talk) 13:57, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

What is the real Wikipedia policy?

If there is a difference in policy between MOS and MOSNUM, which of these policies take precedent? Sometimes there are significant differences. Michael Glass (talk) 22:54, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Neither, unfortunately, since more than one attempt to determine that MoS main takes precendence has failed. Some attempt might be made to have them consistent, I suppose. Tony (talk) 13:38, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

OK. I have tried that and succeeded with the advice on using BC/AD vs BCE/CE. See [4] and the advice in [5] but not with the advice on units of measurement. Compare [6] with [7]. What was wildly controversial on one page was accepted without a murmur on the other. Michael Glass (talk) 22:03, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Due to --> Because of

Why in the past week have I seen two instances of anon IPs or redlinked users copy editing articles to correct the use of "due to"? I had no idea it was so egregiously misapplied throughout English. --Moni3 (talk) 23:13, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Followed up on Moni's page. Moni is asking me? I'm flattered. Tony (talk) 16:12, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Re: the/a

Fair enough, removed; thanks for letting me know. Good luck with writing that essay. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 16:07, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Year ranges

Since you have given thought to the issue of date ranges in the past, this may be of interest to you ... [8].--Ethelh (talk) 21:05, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Done. Tony (talk) 04:03, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Just as well

Good. Your efforts at improving Wikipédia, l'encyclopédie libre were messing up my links here at en.Wikipedia. I can now have a current link (rather than a historical perma-link) to fr.Wikipedia:Albert Einstein (translated). As you know, I’ve been linking to that article as a paradigm example of what not to do. I now use that link in both Wikipedia:Why dates should not be linked and at Sewer cover in front of Greg L’s house. The first paragraph of that Einstein article is worse than any paragraph in my ‘Sewer cover’ essay. I think it is important for other editors to be able to see what happened to that article. It makes the point very well and is instructive for us. Greg L (talk) 00:08, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Greg, thanks. Bear in mind, you can link back to the version I fixed up as well, before they destroyed it. Show people the difference. They are really primitive. Tony (talk) 02:21, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

France is a former world power whose economic and political influence are in terminal decline. It has a bureaucratic monolith of a state which pervades and domineers, and its socialist model probably closer to communism than any other political system I know; Its model of law, where all is forbidden unless expressly allowed, is diametrically opposite to the Anglo-Saxon way. Therefore, it is quite natural that they feel severely under threat culturally and economically. One manifestation of this is the string of language and cultural centres which France has set up around the world to promote their identity is totally unmatched by other nation. Mix all that together with the lack of checks and balances to admins' power on fr.wp, and we have a closed system of unbridled xenophobia. Ohconfucius (talk) 04:05, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

The plain fact is that it's possible to expose French hypocrisy and poor standards without resorting to stereotypes. Compare my rather mild de-bluing (in which I didn't even remove redundant links to France's neighbouring countries) with what they've reinstated in the Einstein article. No regular at the article said a thing about it—one suspects they were pleased. Now it's back to speckledy hard-to-read. Pretty crap, isn't it, but the link-nuts appear to have a stranglehold there, and definitely don't like alternative viewpoints to gain sway. It's a lesson for the Eng.WP, which has improved so much over the past few years through pressure to adopt a more measured, careful approach to linking. The French are light-years behind and look unlikely to change. I care only for their readers. Tony (talk) 04:25, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Excuse me. I don't speak English very well, so I'll do that in French.

Tu es très négatif sur le fonctionnement de fr.wikipédia. C'est ton avis que je respecte. Cependant je me permets de clarifier quelques points. Tu es venu et tu as voulu imposer ta vision des choses en faisant ses modifications par un script. Wikipédia (en, fr, de ...) est un projet collaboratif. Ainsi de nombreuses personnes contribuent sur les articles que tu modifies. Ainsi pour de telles modifications massives, il est nécessaire de discuter avant. Tu as parlé de débat, très bien, mais alors pourquoi ne pas en avoir lançé un plutôt que de faire ces modifications sans consensus. Ton avis, ton expérience, sont riches mais il faut les faire partager plutôt que de les imposer par la force. De la sorte tu t'es mis à dos des contributeurs qui, probablement, partagent ton avis sur la pertinence de ces liens.De part ta façon de faire ce débat n'a pas eu lieu. C'est dommage.

Ensuite autre chose. Au sujet de ça. Pourquoi parler de xenophobie ? Je trouve cela un peut fort. Ludo29 (talk) 08:56, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Translation by Tony1: You are very negative about how the French WP works, although I respect your opinion. However, let me clarify a few points. You came and wanted to impose your vision of things by using an editing script. Wikipedia (English, French, German, etc.) is a collaborative project; thus, many people contribute to the articles you edited. It is necessary to discuss such massive changes beforehand. It is all very well that you talked of debate, but why did you not launch such a debate first, rather than making those changes without consensus. While you believe you are an experienced WPian, we must still share rather than impose our experience by force. In this way you have put back the case of our contributors who may share your opinion on the lack of relevance of the links [you removed]. It's a pity how you have conducted this debate.

And something else—concerning your post here: Why talk of xenophobia? I find that a little harsh. Ludo29

Bonjour, je m'adresse simplement au points concernant les enlevements des liens/modeles des dates comme suivant :

Il est très regrettable ce qui s'est passé. Certes, nous sommes débarqués sur le projet francophone avec un script avec l'intention de l'exploiter éventuellement sur un grand nombre d'articles, tout en respectant le consensus. Nos essaies étaient progressifs, et il n'y avait pas d'échelle – peut-être une vingtaine d'articles au total. Ils étaient pour montrer la différence en termes qualitatifs pour le lecteur, pour déclencher une discussion éventuelle. C'est un travail fastidieux de défaire (probablement une centaine) de liens des dates et des mots souvent très « banales » au sein d'un article de 50kB. Puisque nous avions déjà un script, de le modifier légèrement pour agir sur les mots français paraissait logique.

Non, contrairement a ce qui tu dit, il n'a pas jamais été dans la pratique WP de demander à chaque fois avant de faire. Sinon, personne fait rien. Si nous étions vraiment sérieux de défaire des liens en grand nombre, l'effet aurait été bcp plus radical, je te rassure. Déjà, la réaction que nos petites actions avait provoquée chez vous étaient bien au delà de nos attentes. Oui, nous étions avertis sur nos PdD respectives, mais la simple courtoisie de nous notifier de la discussion en cours sur votre fr:WP:BA nous a pas été accordée. J'ai tombe un peu au hasard sur cette page, et la discussion que j'y ai du trouver sentait de la terreur blanche malgré la discussion qui s'etait déroulé sur la PdD de Tony.

C'est pas nous qui a utilisé la force. Les sysops s'étaient mis derrière leur armements de blocage, et ont lancé un attaque « nucléaire ». Une armée nous attendait pour réagir sur la moindre faute; Tony était interdit de retirer des messages offensifs laissés sur sa PdD, et qq'1 a supprimé un message je laissé pour un tiers. Je sentais qu'il n'y avait plus aucune volonté de discuter a ce moment. Je remarque que pendant tout ce temps depuis les avertissements, notre script n'était pas active. C'est par rapport à cette hostilité et hypocrisie que nous réagissons. Nous voudrions bien continuer la discussion, mais j'ai du mal à voir comment, puisque votre projet (en tout cas, ceux qui détiennent le pouvoir) a l'air paralysé par le conservatisme, et nous a declaree des personae non grata chez vous. C'est un état d'affaires très lamentable, et un vrai dommage pour le lecteur francophone. Ohconfucius (talk) 10:08, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Translation: Hello, I'll just restrict my comments to the points concerning the removal of date- links/templates as follows:

It is all very unfortunate what happened. Of course, we went to the French project with a script intending to work on a potentially large number of items while respecting the consensus. Our tests were progressive and there was no scale - maybe twenty items in total. They were to show the difference in qualitative terms for the reader, to trigger a discussion of the interested. It is a tedious job to undo (probably about a hundred) links to dates and often very "mundane words" in an article of 50kB. Since we already had a script, it made sense to modify it slightly so that it would work on French words.

No, unlike what you said, there has never been the practice in WP to ask every time before doing something. Otherwise, nothing would ever get done. If we had really been serious in de-linking articles in large numbers at that point, I assure you the effect would be much more radical. Already, the response that our small actions had caused over there [at fr.wp] were well beyond our expectations. Yes, we were warned about our respective talk pages, but nobody had the courtesy of notifying us of the ongoing discussion on your Administrators' Noticeboard. I actually came across the discussion by accident, to find the smell of white terror despite the discussion which was ongoing on Tony's talk page.

It's not us who used force. The sysops, hiding behind their weapons (blocks), launched a "nuclear offensive" on us. An army was waiting for us, to react to the slightest fault, Tony was not allowed even to remove offensive messages left on his talk page while someone deleted a message I had left for a third party. I felt that there was no willingness to discuss at that time. I would point out that during all this time since the warnings, our script was not active. Tony and my comments were in relation to this hostility and hypocrisy. We would indeed like to continue the discussion, but I find it hard to see how, since your project [fr.wp] (in any case, those in power) seems to be paralysed by conservatism, and has declared us personae non grata . It is a very lamentable state of affairs, and a real shame for the French readership. Ohconfucius (talk) 02:28, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Vous allez là bas pour imposer votre méthode (peu importe laquelle - ça pourrait être n'importe quoi, même quelque chose que je serais d'accord avec) et quand ça n'a pas bien marché vous prétendez que c'était due à la xénopobie des utilisateurs fr et pire encore que Tony1 pense que ces gens là sont toujours en cave? C'est vraiment dommage. Ca me rend pas du tout fièr de mon appartenance à en Wiki. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 14:12, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Translation by Tony1: You go there to impose your approach (no matter which approach – it could have been anything, even something I'd agree with) and when it doesn’t work, you claim it was due to xenopobic French users; and worse still, does Tony1 think [French wikipedians] are still in the caves? It's a real shame, and makes me not at all proud of my membership of Wiki. - FayssalF

You must be joking FayssalF. You and your fellow arbitrators have allowed the pathetic mess called the Date Delinking Arbitration in, instead of dismissing it with prejudice as prima facie unfounded. Then you consistently encouraged the plaintiffs and undercut the defendants at every turn. Pleas from more than a dozen uninvolved editors to end this farce went unheeded, while blocks were handed out liberally against the defendants and hardly at all against the plaintiffs, again unjustly and unfairly. The handling of the arbitration has resembled nothing so much as a group of small children climbing into adult clothes and playing judiciary. Is it any wonder then that Tony1, Ohconfucius and Lightmouse went off the En-Wiki Plantation for a short spell to let off steam? So their excursion to French Wiki wasn't an example of textbook consensus building. Big Effin' Deal. If it had been me as one of the defendants, on the receiving side of months-long abuse sanctioned by the powers that be, I would have been turned into an axe murderer. --Goodmorningworld (talk) 15:18, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Actually, GMW, it wasn't "to let off steam" – it was an inevitable move to raise the cancer of overlinking as a serious issue on other WPs. The English WP has made great strides over the past three years, and is now the most advanced (AFAIK) in terms of smart linking; the end of the hopeless blue-wash DA system was just a more recent and dramatic part of that long-term movement to use wikilinking intelligently. Unfortunately, overlinking is still rife on other WPs—some more than others, and they also vary WRT whether they have any rules to control the sea of blue. The French have no rules at all on the matter, except (someone told me) one that says items shouldn't be repeat-linked in an article (you see common words like "tourism" linked four or five times in a country article, so it's very odd).

The situation varies from article to article in the German WP, although I haven't checked out their rules yet. On the surprisingly large Swedish WP, many articles are woefully overlinked (although not as badly as in the French WP). Sv.WP has its own advice on wikilinking, but again, most practice does not reflect this. Here's a translation of most of the lead section of that page, which shows an insight into the issue that was expressed on the English WP only recently (my italics):

Besides articles, Wikipedia consists of a wealth of internal links between those articles. The links connect related articles, thereby making the information in them more accessible. It is not always easy to determine whether to wikilink or not, but generally it is appropriate to link restrictively to articles that do not have a lot to do with the original article. The principle is that each linked word interrupts the reading; this interruption should only be incurred if it is balanced by the usefulness of the link. One link too few is preferable to one too many, especially in the case of dates and years. A rule of thumb is the question: "If I was reading this article, would I find the information to which the link leads helpful or not?"

The overuse of wikilinking is an issue for all WPs, not just the English one. That is why the three of us went into the worst case, the French, to do preliminary work on the matter—to examine overlinking, to see whether the script could be made to work, and to start discussions. Tony (talk) 17:52, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Re: Protection

{{talkback|Icestorm815}}

Actually, I only set edit protection for one week. The move protection was put in place by Ryan Postlethwaite and that is indefinite. Icestorm815 • Talk 17:54, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks; since the disruptive tagging a day ago and the fact that people are collaborating on the talk page, it's fine. But I'm confused about "move protection" and "set edit protection" as different concepts and durations. Tony (talk) 04:02, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Moves are not considered "edits" per se. Dabomb87 (talk) 01:27, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

The two used to be intertwined; page and move protection had to be set to the same level, but we can now adjust them individually. This give the flexibility to lock high-profile pages that rarely if ever need to be renamed, while still allowing editing of those same pages. (Believe it or not, there are people who get their kicks from moving pages to obscene titles...) --Ckatz^chat_spy 02:54, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

"there are people who get their kicks from moving pages to obscene titles...". Indeed, there are. I only learned recently that page-move vandals are blocked indefinitely as a matter of course. Ohconfucius (talk) 03:20, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Anyone we know?  HWV258  05:46, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Grawp (talk · contribs) Dabomb87 (talk) 00:37, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

International survey of overlinking

I didn’t read it for detail, but I skimmed it. More to my point: I have an eye for page layout (‘look & feel’) and am really impressed. It’s too bad that page will be behind-the-scenes stuff in your user-space or WP-space rather than in articlespace. Greg L (talk) 16:15, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Greg! You're very kind to say that. The hard bit will be getting the method right, and judging how much we can expect from our international volunteers. We need to start closer to home and see how it works, first. Tony (talk) 17:16, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

John Vandenberg has also raised the possibility of a "meta" location to "spread the word". I need to get my head around meta. Tony (talk) 16:00, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Tony, I think the general idea is that if you have a project that transcends a particular wiki, you can put it in a common location that would serve multiple wikis like http://meta.wikimedia.org/. I signed up on the temp page; you owe me an FAC review now. --Laser brain (talk) 22:48, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Tony1, see meta:Category:Wikipedia philosophy and meta:Category:User associations for some similar concepts and projects. The tension between different philosophies of linking seams to fit in there. Participants in this survey would probably be keen to form an "Association against the sea of blue links" or "Association against overlinking" or some such thing.  :-)

Let me know if you would like a meta admin to import it to meta for you. It would probably be tossed into your meta userspace while you develop the idea.

John Vandenberg ^(chat) 04:19, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

• Thanks for the advice, John. How about "Association for smart linking"? Ohconfucius (talk) 04:29, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

  Best to avoid embedding notions of good/bad (smart/dumb) into the name. You think it is smart linking, but it should be the argument which convinces people rather than the name.

  How does "Association for conservative linking" strike you ? John Vandenberg ^(chat) 07:08, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

WP beats the hoax

Well done indeed to the admins who caught the fake quotation added to the article on French composer Maurice Jarre hours after his death March 28. It appears that en.WP is stalked by lazy journalists who will lift anything from the Internet without checking. See The San Fransisco Chronicle, and The Guardian. Tony (talk) 06:55, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Having read Flat Earth News by Nick Davies, this story doesn't surprise me. At least The Guardian was honest and open about the reasons behind the mistake. The problem is deeper than just journalists being "lazy" and a certain Australian isn't helping matters. Fascinating book, BTW. Colin°^Talk 14:53, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Ah, I heard a review of that book on the radio ?last year. Sounds good indeed. Murdoch is now a US citizen, so we no longer have to burden ourselves with the association! Tony (talk) 14:59, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

request your advice on possible plagiarism issue

Hello Tony - For reference, I ask you to see the Wikipedia page for "The Ramones" (or simply "Ramones"). Another user suggested a new page listing their concert dates and locations. I have such a list, but it was previously published in a book. User DocKino suggested that such a list would likely be considered a "reproduction of a non-creative lists of basic facts", and should be OK, but also suggested I contact you for a more informed opinion. Your advice would be appreciated, as I have not edited on Wikipedia very much. Thank you. Elsquared (talk) 22:10, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Hi. Tony asked for my opinion. I spend quite a lot of time on Wikipedia working with intellectual property rights.

If the list is basic fact, then reproducing information from it should be no problem. I agree with DocKino. If it were offering a selection of some dates & locations, then it might be a problem. If the list is not all inclusive, it could still be usable if the selection criteria is obvious and factual (such as "Venues holding more than 200 people"). If, say, it were listing "the best concerts", it would be a copyright violation to reproduce it, since that would represent a creatively selected subset of a larger group.

One caution: copyright doesn't just protect text, but creative presentation of text, which includes which details an author decides to incorporate for presentation. If the list is complex, with multiple points of information offered for each concert, proceed with caution, considering whether the details presented are obvious: in other words, if anybody making that list would have thought to include the very same ones. You'd probably be okay with points like attendance numbers, other acts performing and whether or not the concert was released on record, say, because these are obvious details. But if the list includes more esoteric information or opinion like, say, "# of arrests", "% of Danish attendees" or "Best song of the night", you should exclude those elements from your version.

All that is to avoid copyright infringement. To avoid plagiarism, credit your source. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 11:49, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

MRG, thanks heaps for this. I'm posting a link at the FLC talk page; the distinction between "creatively" selected lists and "obvious and factual" selection criteria is important. And it's worth reinforcing the distinction you make between copyright infringement and plagiarism. Tony (talk) 14:39, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Administrator review

You might be interested in taking a look at this page, Tony. It's currently advertised on WP:AN, in case you want to comment on it in relation to your page here. Bishonen | talk 10:18, 17 May 2009 (UTC).

It may be helpful to a few newbie admins, but entirely misses the larger point. Tony (talk) 04:02, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Screen Producers Association of Australia‎

Hi Tony. I recalled that you're a supporter of Australian Broadcasting Corporation. I just declined the speedy on this organization that supports producers of their programs, but had to stubbify it because of copyvio. There's ample evidence of notability here, if you want to take a whack at it. - Dank (push to talk) 03:51, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Hi Dan; it's distantly related to the ABC, which is a branch of government, although fiercely independent. I've raised this matter at the Wikiproject Australia. Tony (talk) 07:49, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks much. - Dank (push to talk) 13:13, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Alert: "What's wrong with MOS"

I have some bad news: the possible demise of WP:MOS. You can find out more at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#What's wrong with MOS (permanent link). This reminds me of Talk:Lists of environmental topics#New criteria for the lists of environmental topics and Talk:Lists of environmental topics#Reply to above section. -- Wavelength (talk) 19:05, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I plan to

I plan to come back if/when it ever gets resolved. RainbowOfLight ^Talk 05:33, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

• Re your latest message on the proposed decision, I'm glad you are still able to function in rational mode. I flipped into cynical mode several weeks ago and I find it hard switching out of. Here's hoping that Arbs aren't worried about losing face if they back-track a bit on their punishments. Ohconfucius (talk) 15:07, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Quark

Hello Tony,

About a month ago, you said you might be able to have a look at this article. Did you ever get the chance for a cursory examination of the prose? Best, —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 14:45, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Language used in category names

I am currently categorizing all the dermatology-related conditions. Within that categorization, there is currently the following structure for infection-related conditions:

Infectious skin conditions

Bacterial skin conditions (i.e. caused by bacteria)

Mycobacterial skin conditions (i.e. caused by mycobacteria, a specific type of bacteria)

Mycotic skin conditions (i.e. caused by fungi and yeast)

Parasitic infestations, stings, and bites of the skin

Viral skin conditions (i.e. caused by viruses)

However, many of the conditions put in these categories affect not only the skin, but also the mucous membranes (i.e. inside your mouth, nose, etc.). Therefore, I want to rename the above to something like:

Infection-related cutaneous conditions

Bacteria-related cutaneous conditions

Mycobacteria-related cutaneous conditions

Mycoses-related cutaneous conditions

Parasitic infestations, stings, and bites of the skin

Virus-related cutaneous conditions

With that being said, I know you are not a dermatologist, but I wanted to get your thoughts about those proposed category names, particularly with regard to the use of "blank-related," and the use of "cutaneous" (in order to encompass the involvement of the skin and mucous membranes). Thanks again for your help. ---kilbad (talk) 00:32, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

I was going to suggest that "cutaneous" is an unfortunate dive into the technical until you pointed out that it embraces the mucosal as well. I guess the categories are then correct at the expense of a changing a simple, widely understood term into a technical one. If using "cutaneous", X-related is better than "Bacterial cutaneous conditions". Can you put redirects to the newly named category from the current titles, and even from terms that have only the "mucous" terminology (unsure)? Can you write an explanation of the category as embracing both types at the top of each cat.? See if anyone objects when you raise this proposal. It's a trade-off for technical precision. Tony (talk) 03:40, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

First, if I pursue a rename, I will (1) definitely place a lot of redirects in place, from new and existing category names, and (2) include nice full category introductions regarding the scope/contents of each, written in language geared towards the general reader. With that being said, before I propose a CfD, with regard to the blank-related terminology, I want it to be consistent across the category names, and am uncertain if I have made all the blank's appropriately singular or pleural. The terms virus and infection are singular, while the terms bacteria, mycobacteria, and mycoses are pleural. Any thoughts? Thanks again for your help. I just want to pay attention to the details. ---kilbad (talk) 22:59, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

My instinct is to make them all singular, but again, with redirects from the plural forms. Tony (talk) 03:58, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

So something like this (with redirects, of course):

Infection-related cutaneous conditions

Bacterium-related cutaneous conditions

Mycobacterium-related cutaneous conditions

Mycosis-related cutaneous conditions

Parasitic infestations, stings, and bites of the skin

Virus-related cutaneous conditions

Also, before I proposed this recategorization, I wanted to see how people felt about the word "cutaneous;" therefore, posted a single CfD, to which people seem to be responding positively to. See Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2009_May_21#Category:Chronic_blistering_skin_conditions. What do you think? Thanks again for your guidance! ---kilbad (talk) 16:52, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

I posted a CfD concerning the categories we discussed here. See Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 May 24. Thanks again, and I promise to stop pestering you! ---kilbad (talk) 02:31, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

The maid of Orleons

Hi.

I came across this semi-protected edit request, and wasn't sure about it - thought I'd ask an expert.

Please take a look at the request in Talk:Joan_of_Arc#Edward_Lucie-Smith, and see if you think it's OK. Or just do it, if you like. Cheers,  Chzz  ►  06:17, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Not what I mean

That's not exactly what I meant (although I don't disagree), but I'll see if I can clarify what I did.

stylistic matters outside MOS's ambit are much less likely to be the subject of reversion True; that's part of the case for restricting the ambit. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:31, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

I misunderstood; I believe it is a case for restricting the ambit of the so-called remedies, but not of MoS itself in principle. That depends, of course, on the individual guideline. Tony (talk) 09:42, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

The motherhood principles are what will last; the nearest Wikipedia comes to precedent. The remedies matter to the dozen of us; but they are what will matter to everybody else. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:56, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Restating principles and policies again and again is actually weak, don't you think? Or even ludicrous? No, I don't think so; these are the premises or axioms on which the rest of the decision is built. It may be an American thing, we being more used to judicial review based on a consensus document; but I doubt even that. More to the point, this line will go nowhere; you raised it repeatedly at the workshop, and the only sympathy for it was Ohconfucius' self-defeating mockery of the whole proceeding. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:25, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

They restate those principles in every case. Nothing to worry about. --Apoc2400 (talk) 19:38, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Note

I wanted to inform you that I mention you in a blog entry. :) Ottava Rima (talk) 17:50, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

GRB FAC

Hey mate. You left some comments at the FAC for Gamma-ray burst. Daniel Perley has responded to some of your issues. I have done my best to copyedit the entire article. Would you mind having another look? --Cryptic C62 · Talk 14:34, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

A friendly note

I just wanted to say that I hope you are knitting well and feeling better since your fall. Hopefully, you don't still feel one hundred years old! :) Be well. --Vassyana (talk) 12:49, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Another date delinking RFC?

Hey Tony. How about a new RFC, this time present a clear proposal including a well-specific bot task to remove autoformatting dates. Then let the community comment on the proposal. The bot would leave links such as [[1234 in sports|1234]] alone for now. I think the community would be happy to make a clear decision. Also, it would be hard for anyone to claim there is no consensus for automatic delinking if the proposal specifically favors a delink bot. Preferable the RfC should open while everyone is still allowed to participate. --Apoc2400 (talk) 15:03, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Many many people would like this to happen, and if explained properly, I think it would gain significant support. It was, indeed, about to happen after that last RFC—Ryan Postlethwaite, the Clerk for the ArbCom case, had already asked Lightmouse about the technicalities of preparing his bot to run in a highly constrained way through the several hundred thousand articles at issue. Suddenly, it was all halted. It's very strange. I am pleased that there are people who are willing to carry this forward, and I wish you success. I think it is best that new people such as yourself take the lead, rather than those who have prepared the previous RFCs on DA and date fragments. Tony (talk) 09:29, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

I also endorse this idea, and think that we should have completely uninvolved editors help set this one up. Dabomb87 (talk) 13:28, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

and bon courage, as the French would say. Ohconfucius (talk) 14:10, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments. I will get back soon with more specifics. --Apoc2400 (talk) 19:39, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

I have put a draft proposal at Wikipedia:Full-date unlinking bot. You are free to comment. It's still just a draft though, so don't support or oppose yet. --Apoc2400 (talk) 22:36, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

This is most interesting. I support this, obviously, but do not want to play a prominent role in pushing for it. It's time for other editors who want to see a sane approach to this issue to take the lead. Many people do want wikis to mature in this way; you only have to look at the French WP (and most others) to see what a mess they've made of wikilinking, just scattergunning all over the place. Wikilinking, like writing, requires just a little thought and discrimination. Tony (talk) 04:15, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

More successful argumentation

As someone whose patience has been tested by many difficult discussions, you can probably benefit by studying these 15 pages. All of us can improve in our thinking and communication skills, therefore we can all benefit by from frequent references (with links) to specific principles relevant to specific points of disagreement.

• List of cognitive biases
• List of common misconceptions
• List of fallacies
• List of memory biases
• List of misquotations
• List of paradoxes
• List of topics related to public relations and propaganda
• Market manipulation
• Media manipulation
• Misuse of statistics
• Optical illusion
• Predictably Irrational (book)
• Stock manipulation
• Straight and Crooked Thinking (book)
• The Book of General Ignorance (book)

In the case of the book Straight and Crooked Thinking, I highly recommend that you visit the web page version of 15 October 2007 archived at http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.246.dk/38tricks.html while you can, and that you download the web page to your computer and preserve a copy (or several copies) on paper. It would be even better if you could obtain a copy of the book itself.

In these matters, one does well to remember to have (despite the difficulties) an outlook of truth versus falsehood and of logic versus illogic, rather than an outlook of editors competing against each other. One assumes good faith, one tries to work with another editor (or with other editors) and with truth and logic, and one hopes that everyone is open-minded. If someone resists truth and logic to the point of self-embarrassment, can that be the fault of someone with only good intentions? (Every editor has a head and a heart.) You can lead a horse to water, but you can not make it drink. You can lead a person to truth and logic, but you can not make that person think a certain way. -- Wavelength (talk) 19:33, 26 May 2009 (UTC) .......... [I corrected my message. -- Wavelength (talk) 01:12, 30 May 2009 (UTC)]

Thanks, Wavelength. Interesting. I had a look at the 15 October one. Tony (talk) 04:15, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Re: DA

Hi, you asked for the Bugzilla thing to be fixed. What is known as "Son of Autoformatting", a patch whipped up by the developer Werdna, was unveiled only two days before the launching of Ryan Postlethwaite's RFC on support/oppose the concept of DA. Even though this patch seems to produce autoformatted dates without the blue or the linking, in idealised circumstances, it would need to be developed further to deal with date ranges, a major issue (January 3–9, 1970), etc. There are other issues too, like requiring editors, including newbies, to insert a cumbersome template around every date in edit mode. We wonder why there is a problem in the first place. That is what the debate has been about. (About 60/40 against, even with the non-blue version paraded, BTW.)

{{#date:1900/1/1}} is hardly cumbersome. And obviously people would have the option of not inserting it, in which case exactly the same thing would happen as now, i.e. nothing. We already seem to expect people to type things like {{birth date and age|1900|1|1}} in infoboxes, this would make it easier if anything. Date ranges can always be done later, linking dates has no support for that so there's no reason to insist on it working immediately.

It's true that if the non-linking version had been developed three years ago when the ?4582 bug was filed, the community would probably never moved to the realisation that any kind of DA templating is a solution to a non-problem. SoA is certainly better than the old blue-wash version that had no consensus in the first place when introduced to a relatively innocent community.

I guess I wonder whether you see a problem in the order of month and day in dates, when all English-speakers are exposed to both forms (Americans outside the military less so, I guess). Tony (talk) 10:23, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

I see a problem with every date template in every infobox specifying month-first or day-first, as is currently the case, and then for some reason insisting that one or other is chosen based on the country of origin of whatever the subject is. This is not information that should be hard-coded into articles, there is already a date formatting preferences option and dates should use it. Gurch (talk) 02:13, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

It is a problem, but the horse comes before the car, not vice-versa. I think it needs to be fixed so that more than the 0.00001%.of readers who log in and preference their formats see within-article consistency in this respect. Templates in which the editor chooses d or m to go first are around. I'm sure some are in use in infoboxes—if not, it's citation templates. Why can't this be inserted into all of the infobox templates? Apparently, it's a very simple tweak. Tony (talk) 13:16, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Because it's a horrible idea to hard-code whether the day or month goes first every time a date is specified. Date preferences work just the same for non-logged-in users, just that they are stuck with a default preference that cannot be changed. At least all dates would be presented in the same form to them, unlike now. Gurch (talk) 00:14, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

I responded on Gurch's page. Tony (talk) 03:45, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

No I don't mean that at all. In your date preferences you have options like "16:12, January 15, 2001", "16:12, 15 January 2001", "16:12, 2001 January 15" and "2001-01-15T16:12:34". If you pick one of them all linked dates appear to you in the same format. Users that are not logged in don't get to choose which format dates appear in, but there is no reason at all they can't all be shown the same, default option (probably the first in the list, as that's what americans seem to use most). Putting month first or day first or whatever in templates defeats this completely, because then your date formatting preferences are completely ignored. Of course it's not the only way to get the whole text consistent. The way to get the whole text consistent is let people enter dates in whatever format they like and let the date autoformatting make them consistent. That's the whole point of it. Gurch (talk) 05:42, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

"If you pick one of them all linked dates appear to you in the same format". But of course that's where your problems start. The community has decided that not all dates in an article are worth linking, and therefore it is easy to get a mixture of date formats on a page. As has been discussed many times in the date-debate, (with the current system) if you want consistency, then either you link all dates, or you link none. Interestingly enough, you get a perfectly workable solution if you link none!  HWV258  05:57, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

No, because if you link none, people start putting these silly month-first/day-first parameters in infobox templates. What exactly is wrong with autoformatting non-linked dates? Gurch (talk) 06:26, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand what you mean by "silly month-first/day-first parameters". Could you please provide an example? Thanks.  HWV258  09:01, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Template:Birth date and age, which takes a date and a "mf" or a "df" parameter and outputs accordingly. So half the time it's guaranteed not to be in the reader's desired format. Rather than simply taking a date and outputting it, and letting user preferences handle how it is actually displayed. Gurch (talk) 09:46, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

I think {{Template:Birth_date_and_age}} is a technological "solution" looking for a problem. I don't understand why "because if you link none, people start putting these silly month-first/day-first parameters in infobox templates". Perhaps you could take some time to see the worth of not using syntax to format dates in any way. I promise you that once you start down the formatting path, you're in for a world of pain (pain that no one has managed to yet solve—despite years of trying).  HWV258  10:03, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

So you agree with me, then, that we should scrap the extra parameters in those templates and just write out the dates? Gurch (talk) 10:30, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

No, I think we should scrap those templates (as well as the square-bracket syntax in terms of linking and formatting dates—and so does the majority of the editing community).  HWV258  22:35, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

• Gurch, were you present for the loooong dates debate? This has all been covered umpteen times. I'd have thought the month-first/day-first parameters in infobox templates were ideal. What is "silly" about them? One could equally say that the square-bracket syntax around the discredited and largely discarded DA system were "silly", or the cumbersome template that has been suggested for all occurrences of dates in the main text. They still don't fix the problem that non-logged-in readers see the raw format (often inconsistent, of course). There are well-established guidelines for which format is to be used with which article (MOSNUM). Concerning your idea of rendering all dates in US format, I think there would be a palace revolution. Should all spelling be rendered as US spelling? Tony (talk) 06:44, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

I said rendering all dates in US format for non-logged-in users (as opposed to rendering them in all different formats at the moment). Obviously anyone logged in with their own date preferences would see them formatted according to those preferences. As opposed to having those preferences completely ignored in favour of whatever someone decided to hard code into the template, as is now the case. Gurch (talk) 06:52, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

So 99.999% of readers would see just US date formats? I think people would object. This option, and indeed more recently the opposite, that international dates should be some kind of default, has been raised and dumped at MOSNUM. I can only convey what others tend to think of this idea. Like the basically binary spelling options in English, date formats have become accepted on the basis of within-article consistency and a set of rules similar to those from spelling, taking into consideration the relationship to an anglophone country and otherwise the choice of the first author. Most WPians see no reason to treat dates any differently, with all the fuss and syntax involved. Because infobox, like citation, formats contain dates, they need to give editors the ability to force them to one or the other variety so they are consistent with those rules and the choices already made in the main text of the article. This seems simple to me, but perhaps I'm missing something. Tony (talk) 09:02, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

How is only seeing US date formats any worse than seeing an arbitrary date format based on the preferences of the article's author? At least then if they don't like it, they can create an account and set their date preferences accordingly. Spelling isn't really a valid comparison here because there is no resonable way to auto-format documents in different English variants, as can be done with dates. Gurch (talk) 09:45, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

I knew there was a misunderstanding around somewhere. It isn't "an arbitrary date format based on the preferences of the article's author". The "hard-coded" date format is based on the subject matter of the article. So, for example, an article on England would have dates entered in the d-m-y format, whereas an article from the US would have dates entered in the m-d-y format. That's an algorithm that works—based on common sense. No technology, and no host of problems that technology introduces (e.g. date ranges, ISO, AD/BC, etc.).  HWV258  09:53, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Articles that aren't concerned with a particular place, which is most of them, have whichever format their author felt like using. Unless there's some secret algorithm that decides which country abstract concepts come from. And why, exactly, should I be reading about one part of the world and have one date format and suddenly encounter another date format when I'm reading about another part of the world? I know of no other website or publication that thinks that's a good idea. Gurch (talk) 10:28, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

"I know of no other website or publication that thinks that's a good idea."—WP is unique, and we should rejoice in its ability to forge protocols that suit that uniqueness. No other site has managed to bring together the diverse range of English-speakers to create a cohesive product, especially with such openness. You've got to make a compromise at one level: it's a practicial inevitability, and always was. Either you force everyone to read US or international dates or, like the binary spelling issue, you go for within-article consistency. To address your other issue: a surprisingly large proportion of articles is related to an ancestral English-speaking country. Have a flick through the top 1000 visited WP articles. [Side note: OMG, Sarah Palin is No 7, in May 09? WTF?] Tony (talk) 10:58, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

"Articles that aren't concerned with a particular place, which is most of them"—I don't think so. I just clicked on 50 random articles and got the following results: North-American-based article—32%; country-based (but not North American)—54%; not country-based—14%. By that test, 86% of articles can be linked to a country's date format. I'm comfortable with a default of US date format for the other 14%. Problem solved—and no technology needed.  HWV258  22:48, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

• (1) without anglophone country associations, the date format of an article stays as it was first: that has been and remains the MOSNUM rule. (2) HWV, you do mean anglophone country, don't you? It was settled some time ago that just because Greece uses international dates, a US author who starts a Greece-related article with mdy dates should not have her dates converted to international down the track. (3) Gurth: We could equally say that international rather than mdy format should be the default for, say, the article on Sun or Moon or Polar bear. Tony (talk) 04:36, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

(With +) noun + -ing

Dear Tony1, could you please direct me to a source that gives this rule? I have never heard of it and cannot find a source that discusses it. Thanks. Ricardiana (talk) 01:58, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

I would love to have a reliable source for this too. I've been telling people left and right to re-cast sentences that use "with plus -ing", and I often suggest alternatives. When challenged, I would like to be able to cite something authoritative beyond Wikipedia. I've been looking at manuals of style and poking around on the Internet, but so far I've haven't found a discussion of "with plus -ing" or "noun plus -ing" except the one you've written. Finetooth (talk) 19:13, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

I asked Tony about that a while back; see his (reply). See also his comment at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/2008 Humanitarian Bowl. Dabomb87 (talk) 12:36, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Dabomb87. I'm glad to see that others have been discussing this and looking for support. I will continue to flag these constructions when I see them and to suggest alternatives. If I can find something in a grammar book that addresses "with plus -ing" directly, I will post a further note. Finetooth (talk) 17:28, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, thank you Dabomb. Finetooth, the thing is, when I first got my knickers in a twist about this, I scoured the Internet to no avail. I think it's a little blank spot in the language, a bit of technical fuzz that people are increasingly prone to misusing. I noticed an occurrence in Jane Austen's Emma, although it was inoffensive (I'm sounding pompous now). Perhaps that proves the point: I may have been unwise in proposing that people never use noun + -ing (as grammarian and lexicographer Gary Symes does): it has the potential to be OK (Austen) on one end of the spectrum through uncomfortable to obviously wrong, and to downright gawky ("The government doing that would be foolhardy just before an election", I saw in The Sydney Morning Herald). It depends on the wording. What I do say, and the point of my show-and-tell exercises on this issue, is that people should stop and think before using it. It can almost always be replaced by a neater, more comfortable grammar. I've responded to Ricardiana's and Finetooth's concerns by toning down the introductory claims in the exercises. And of course, I think it's bad that the issue appears to be acknowledged nowhere on the Internet or in hard copy; if someone knows otherwise, please let me know. Tony (talk) 18:03, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Tony1. Your approach seems reasonable and your exercises helpful. I'm especially likely to pounce on "with plus -ing", which I see as a kind of syntactic dust mouse. Finetooth (talk) 19:26, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

I've been spreading this nugget around like a cancer wherever I go. It's transcended Wikipedia and grown in popularity here in the Southwest US. For the record, I consider Tony an authoritative grammarian and normally refer to a nebulous "Australian expert" when questioned. We are a community of discourse (as large and varied as any you'll find) and, in the postmodern tradition, do we not get to decide who our authorities are? --Laser brain (talk) 19:33, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Laser brain: I disown it—all football and beer, complacency and anti-intellectualism. I have always been an outsider and always will be, despite my birthplace and my residence here for more than half a century. Tony (talk) 05:01, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I have always called these "fused participles". I hear them in spoken English (in the UK) everyday, but they are, most often, confusing and ugly in prose. Very occasionally it's best to leave them alone, especially if the writer's meaning is clear. But I don't like them, and the solution—as Tony has clearly shown—is rarely difficult to find. Graham. Graham Colm ^Talk 20:49, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

I sometimes let the noun + -ings go by, but never when "with" is used as a connector. Dabomb87 (talk) 21:14, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

The most recent edition of the Chicago Manual Style discusses this construction briefly and condemns it, with, however, no substantive explanation. ~ Thank you, Tony, for your response and the changes you made to the advanced editing exercises page. Ricardiana (talk) 05:23, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

The grammatical core is noun plus -ing; using "with" as a connector is just a common magnet for this construction. The fact is, you can use the "with" connector and avoid "noun + -ing" after it: in the next example, the square bracketed ['s] makes the second clause correct, but the "with" connector is still trashy:

"The police officer flagged them down, with the car['s] lurching all over the road".

Why is "with" trashy? Because it's a lazy throw-in connector that fails to clarify the nature of the connection between first and second clauses. Here, it's not additive ("and the car was lurching ..."), nor contrastive ("although the car was lurching ..."), but causal ("because the car was lurching all over the road"). So, replacing the vague connector "with" to clarify that causality is essential for clarity and ease of reading. Yes, in this example, the reader can piece together that the relationship is causal, but it's slightly more work; in many cases, it's harder, and in some cases, impossible, to determine the writer's intention in this respect. Thus, there are two grammatical issues here, often associated. Tony (talk) 04:56, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I've long wondered about this, so I found that explanation quite insightful. I'm glad I decided to click on this page. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 05:06, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I think that this "trashy" example is not necessarily characteristic of all instances of "with + -ing." It's sometimes used as a type of appositive, for example, in which case the relationship is perfectly clear. A different argument against the usage can be found here, although I'm not wholly convinced by it. Basically, I'm not convinced that all instances must be rephrased, partly because in some instances the causal relationship is clear and no words would necessarily be saved by a change, partly because I'm no fan of traditional grammar, and partly because I'm suspicious of arguments that rely primarily on put-downs and prescriptions whose justification is an afterthought. Calling a usage "trashy" or, in the Chicago Manual's words, "slovenly", is all well and good, but it is all too reminiscent, to my mind, of the countless "arguments" against gender-neutral language that often boil down to "it just doesn't sound good / right" and "it's just not right." With all due respect to all on this talk page, I'm still seeing a lot of that type of thinking here - I don't like it, it doesn't sound right, it can be re-phrased, yes Jane Austen uses it but I don't like it, we don't need no authorities, we can make up our own rules a la Mr Wilson, etc. ~ Essentially, I like the changes you made to the editing exercises because they move in the direction of acknowledging that this construction is more diverse than it seems. Ricardiana (talk) 05:23, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I caught this on the jungle drums. I think there's little chance of formulating a clear rule here, because that's the nature of English - there's no Academie Anglaise and I think any attempt to create one would be laughed out of existence. I'm not keen on the examples quoted in the pages referred to here. I'd omit aesthetic objections, as the language is constantly changing and varies a little around the world (sub-continental Indian English is a conspicuous example) and such objections may be taken as condescending. If I saw "with ..ing" in an article I was reviewing, I could get rid of it by pointing out that it's ambiguous, as Ricardiana did above for "The police officer flagged them down, with the car['s] lurching all over the road". I think it would be useful for Tony to comment on the issue in the "How to pass ..." guide, but as an exercise in clarification. --Philcha (talk) 07:18, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Philcha, the "flagging the car down" was my example. Ricardiana, are you able to give us one or two examples where a "with" connector can't be replaced with a neater grammar? Your example at the PR review of "... argues that history and myth are closely aligned, with history being in some ways another form of myth" reinforces that this is a bad construction. Just because a reputable publisher (Yale U.P.) put it out doesn't mean it's good, or even correct: let's start by removing "being", solving the more obvious awkwardness, and while we're at it, let's make it logical in terms of categories: "... argues that history and myth are closely aligned, with history being in some ways another form of myth". Now two things are fixed, the "with" connector might stand without odour (I don't mind it, and few would, I think). But if we want to polish, why not make the relationship between the clauses explicit? Correct me if I'm wrong in thinking that this an additive connection, not causal or contrastive:

"... argues that history and myth are closely aligned, and that history itself is in some ways a form of myth"

To take another example from that recent discussion, "They owned [six] dogs, with four dogs being old." I put the "six" in to make it more likely. Why not "They owned six dogs, four of them old." There's almost always a way to improve on this construction.

Ricardiana, may I quote you? "Well, I've found something! It goes against me, sort of. My new Chicago Manual of Style calls the construction "slovenly". Ouch! That's not, however, the same as ungrammatical, and they give no explanation for why they dislike it, except that it's "slovenly". -Their example, too, is rather wordy; getting rid of wordiness is always good, and their example (it's upstairs, but I'm feeling lazy, but it's something like "They all went to the beach with me being left to wash the dishes") can certainly be shortened by re-casting." Again, as you sensed, it could be "They all went to the beach leaving me to wash the dishes", with an optional comma after "beach". CMOS might have provided the easy solution to this, hey? More importantly, I want to cite this. You must have gone upstairs to consult it for the page number—is the example exactly the wording you've given? Can you provide the publication year and place, please? I want to cite it in the exercise section. FINALLY, there's a reference to what we knew logically and instinctively. BTW, it's hard to see why CMOS would label it "slovenly" if they thought it was good grammar; and it's notable that they felt moved to mention it. They're fence-sitting because no one there with muscle has thought it through. Perhaps they should come to WP for that. Tony (talk) 08:01, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for the misattribution.

Re "Perhaps they should come to WP for that," is that a good sign? --Philcha (talk) 08:54, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I think so. We have disadvantages, but our advantage is openness and up-to-dateness. Hard-copy style guides have a lot of baggage and tend to be inherently conservative. Tony (talk) 11:41, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I would not recommend that Chicago adopts anything from WP:MOS. IMO one of WP:MOS's failings is that it apes hard-copy style guides. --12:09, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

But but but but ... There are many many hard-copy style guides. At the very least, WP's MoS has had to pick and choose the most suitable bits of each where they make sense for our circumstances. That has often involved disregarding most guidelines from most hard-copy style guides. Isn't it a little harsh to call that apeing? Tony (talk) 12:57, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

• WP:DASH - introduced w/o consensus (see the histories of the guideline & its Talk page); recently occupied over 50% of WT:MOS, most comments & contributors opposed to WP:DASH.
• Disregard of Web readability guidelines that have advocated bullet lists, short sentences, paras and sections since 1997.

Will that do for a start? --Philcha (talk) 17:00, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

OK, well, first of all, as you requested, here is the bit from the Chicago Manual, the new 15th edition, page 193 (I believe I gave this information on the peer review page also, by the way):

"With" used loosely as a conjunction. The word with is sometimes used as a quasi-conjunction meaning and. This construction is slovenly because the with-clause appears to be tacked on as an afterthought. For example, the sentence everyone else grabbed the easy jobs with me being left to scrub the oven could be revised as since everyone else grabbed the easy jobs, I had to scrub the oven. Or it could be split into two sentences joined by a semi-colon: Everyone else grabbed the easy jobs; I had to scrub the oven. Instead of with, find the connecting word, phrase, or punctuation that best shows the relationship between the final thought and the first, and then recast the sentence. (section 5.190)

Now that you have that, here are my responses to your other points. Ricardiana (talk) 16:47, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

1. First, I disagree that a phrase or sentence must be unrevisable in order to be good. I know you said "replaced by neater grammar", but that begs the question (in the technical sense, not the sloppy Law and Order sense) of which grammar is neater. Ricardiana (talk) 16:47, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

1. I am glad that someone has finally started to examine a real sentence from a real book - everyone so far seems to agree that the construction can be ugly, so it has not been helpful to see a parade of made-up straw man examples that are in fact ugly. As to this real example - you find it also ugly. I don't. This is an aesthetic difference, I guess, of which more below. Yes, it can be re-phrased. So can anything. Perhaps the second construction is better - in the absence of a grammatical justification (and by that I mean a source and some technical terms), it's a matter of opinion. Ricardiana (talk) 16:47, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

1. You asked for an example of an instance of this construction that I think couldn't be rephrased with neater grammar. I refuse the challenge on those terms, because, as I've said, anything can be rephrased and the discussion of what constitutes neater grammar is so far being conducted largely on aesthetic terms. The main non-aesthetic criterion that's so far been given is "logic". Here is a sentence that I think is fine. The "logical" relationship in the sentence I am about to give is perfectly clear, and I might add that this type of construction is quite common in scientific texts:

• "All we are assuming about the Wiener- Kuratowski implementation is that "x = (y, z)" is stratified with 'x' being given a type index two greater than the index assigned to 'y' and 'z.'" Set theory with a universal set: exploring an untyped universe, Oxford University Press, 1995, p. 75. Ricardiana (talk) 16:47, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

1. I don't think it's fair to find Chicago's mention of the construction to be significant and then to dismiss Yale UP; that strikes me as cherry-picking our authorities. ~ Incidentally, I gave other examples on the peer review page, and there are extra examples from uni. presses in my sandbox; it's hardly just Yale. Oxford seems to be most fond of the construction. ~ The fact that Chicago is fence-sitting is, of course, an indication that they feel it's poor grammar, and a giveaway that they have no idea why this is so. Apparently, no one else does either, but this seems to affect confidence but little. That in turn is a dead give-away that the objection is primarily an aesthetic one. Such aesthetic objections, I find, are most common in those who tend primarily to read books written in the 20th or 21st centuries. I know that I have seen this construction in Victorian novels, although I can't find an example at the moment; you have conceded that Jane Austen uses it; Hans, below, cites Lewis Carroll. My aesthetic sense tells me that this construction can be fine and grates on people's ears because it is old-fashioned, pure and simple, not because it is wrong. I am flatly not bothered by many of the examples that bother others. To argue that a bad "odour" makes a construction one to be avoided is to prioritize one aesthetic sense over another. Why is that? What makes one aesthetic sense better than another? Ricardiana (talk) 16:47, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
2. My answer: aesthetic sense shouldn't be the criterion here, as the repeated talk of odours and trashiness and slovenliness indicates that it is. I just want to reiterate: this discussion is filled with daintiness. Everyone seems to "mind" things or graciously not "mind" them. This is a dangerous way to go about making grammatical decisions, as the history of grammar shows. The word "firefighter" sounded "wrong" to people when it was put forward as a non-sexist alternative to "fireman". So it sounded wrong - too bad. Now it sounds fine. The "it sounds wrong" argument needs to stop because it's not an inherently good criterion. Ricardiana (talk) 16:47, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
3. So, what would be good criteria? Isn't Chicago's condemnation enough? No, because they are fence-sitting; they have no grammatical justification; and they do not acknowledge the diversity of the construction. Further, their condemnation strikes me as similar in kind to prohibitions against starting a sentence with "and" or "but". Some "rules" are simply conveniences for teachers who must suffer through papers that vary, often, from poorly written to dreadfully written. I teach at a university, and have also tutored there, and I see all the time sentences beginning with "and" or "but" that are just awful and should have been mercilessly aborted. And yet, grammatically, beginning a sentence with one of those words can be fine; teaching students how to discern when it's fine and when it's not, especially when they receive little to no grammatical instruction in college and have often received little to none prior to college, is ... difficult. And so many teachers prefer to just prohibit certain words, because it's easier than knowing and teaching the difference. That is what Chicago has done; they teach ... in their measly paragraph ... avoidance, based on the really poor examples, without acknowledging that such constructions are not always so poorly done (I'd love to see the Jane Austen sentence, for example) and without bothering to explain, or even knowing, the difference. Ricardiana (talk) 16:47, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
4. Hans Adler has already pointed out how these constructions (I think we should use a plural to indicate the diversity here) can be grammatically justified. Here's more. I'm not going to give all the publication details because I found all these through Google Books; anybody can find the information and I'm getting tired of typing. Later I may come back and add the quotations, but for now I'll just list references regarding only the use of the possessive before a gerund. Since I'm not typing up the quotations, I'll just sum up here that the argument, grammatically speaking, is what type of word can precede a gerund. Must it be a possessive? Can it be a genitive? Can it be in the objective case? Etc. This is where the debate lies.

• The entry on "Genitive before a gerund" in The Columbia Guide to Standard American English by Kenneth G. Wilson, p. 210, says that the construction of g before g used to be taught as a matter-of-course (as correct) and has now fallen into obscurity. (This explains why it "sounds wrong.")
• William Safire in The right word in the right place at the right time beginning on p. 1 cites a dispute over the issue of possessive before gerund in the 1920s between W. H. Fowler and Otto Jesperson. Fowler was against it, Jesperson was for it. Safire ... unsurprisingly ... is against it. Antonin Scalia (!) ... yes, it's in the chapter ... is for it, on occasion.
• Words to the Wise by Michael Sheehan, p. 102, says that the question of what can precede a gerund turns on what you want to emphasise in a given sentence (this was Scalia's argument, actually) and that authorities are divided pretty much 50-50 on the question.
• Note 6 on p. 228 of Nineteenth-century English by Merja Kytö, Mats Rydén, Erik Smitterberg says that these gerundial constructions were first condemned by the Fowler brothers. The chapter to which this is a footnote investigates the occurrence of the construction in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries; it appears to have been used little, if at all, in the 18th century, and to have been very commonly used in the 19th and the beginning of the 20th, before Fowler & Fowler decided against it, after which usage is still frequent, but less so than in the 19th c. The chapter argues also for the inherent grammaticality of these constructions.
• There is a discussion of the issue beginning on p. 48 of TALKS ON WRITING ENGLISH SECOND SERIES (1901). The author argues again that the choice of word prior to the gerund should be based on what word you want to emphasize.

There's more, but that's enough for now. Ricardiana (talk) 16:47, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

One more: there is an extended discussion of the issue here in the American Heritage® Book of English Usage. A sample (because I can cut and paste): "gerund and possessives (fused participle). Some people insist that when a gerund is preceded by a noun or pronoun, the noun or pronoun must be in the possessive case. Accordingly, it is correct to say I can understand his wanting to go, but incorrect to say I can understand him wanting to go. But the construction without the possessive, sometimes called the fused participle, has been used by respected writers for 300 years and is perfectly idiomatic." Ricardiana (talk) 16:57, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Tony, I think you might be interested in the entry for "possessive with gerund" in MWDEU. It quotes the following examples from an 1867 letter by Lewis Carroll: "in hopes of his being able to join me" and "the music prevented any of it being heard". I think that's basically what this section is about – otherwise sorry for the intrusion. They give a history of the dispute whether such constructions are admissible at all, and if they are admissible, whether the possessive is allowed or perhaps even required. It starts: "From the middle of the 18th century to the present time [...] grammarians and other commentators have been baffled by the construction. They cannot parse it, they cannot explain it, they cannot decide whether the possessive is correct or not. The earliest commentators, Harris and Lowth 1763, were distinctly hostile to the possessive case." They conclude: "Both forms have been used by standard authors. Both forms have been called incorrect, but neither is." --Hans Adler (talk) 13:36, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

PS: I agree about the trashiness of the with constructions, but somehow I find it hard to believe you about these examples:

1. The police officer flagged them down, with the car lurching all over the road.
2. The police officer flagged them down, with the car's lurching all over the road.

For me 1 is grammatical although a bit trashy as you say (and for me as a non-native speaker the ambiguity was actually a problem, because I had to look up lurch). But I consider 2 to be ungrammatical. (Actually, replacing "with" by "what with", making the sentences sound like from a witness report in a detective story, both become equally acceptable to me.) I can explain some relevant factors, but not with a with example:

1. The police officer watched the car lurching all over the road.
2. The police officer watched the car's lurching all over the road.
3. The police officer watched it lurching all over the road.
4. The police officer watched its lurching all over the road.

Here 3 and 4 are clearly both grammatical. 3 is slightly better than 4, probably because "the police officer watched it" is already a complete sentence that comes very close to the meaning of the full sentence. 1 is as good as 3, but 2 is ungrammatical in my idiolect. (MWDEU lists several opinions, which it summarises thus: "It is clear, however, that the possessive case does not predominate with nouns to the extent it does with personal pronouns.")

Hans: you, the participants above, and others—particularly User:Hoary and User:Noetica—have forced me to partially re-think this issue. Just why I should be feeling my way through it is testament to the fact that it's a major part of the grammar that has not properly been mapped; in fact, a far more common issue than the once treated in the section below. Ricardiana's ref. to CMOS is the first I've heard of it in the literature. (Please, what is MWDEU?) Neither Hoary nor Noetica could provide a confident, definitive answer; they just sensed that I was been too black-and-white about it.

So it's clear to me now that there's a continuum in the use of noun + -ing, and that if handled very carefully, it can be OK. No. 3 is a good example of this, as was Hoary's similar example (err ... something like "See the bird flying away?"). However, I must say I can't go along with your hypothesis that "3 is slightly better than 4, probably because "the police officer watched it" is already a complete sentence that comes very close to the meaning of the full sentence".

We just need to work out the "rules" or "patterns" where it's OK and where it becomes less satisfactory, so writers have a few guidelines by which to judge whether to go ahead and use it, or whether to avoid it. Perhaps one is that where adding the possessive 's is ungainly ("car" is an inanimate object, and "the car's lurching" is pretty bad, let's face it), noun + -ing might work better. There may be positives and negatives to weigh up. Tony (talk) 15:30, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Quick response - the MWDEU is here. More in a second as I grab my Chicago. Ricardiana (talk) 15:36, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm learning from this debate another way to improve my reviewing technique. In cases not covered by the Manual of Style, it may be best to avoid labels like "ungrammatical" and to simply suggest one or more alternatives followed by a question mark. In my experience, the technique of suggesting an alternative avoids confrontation and often leads to a better sentence, which might or might not be the one I have suggested. Finetooth (talk) 19:08, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I like that approach. Good thinking! Ricardiana (talk) 19:21, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks

		The Barnstar of Diligence
		I could identify at least a half-dozen barnstars appropriate for recognizing your hard work here. I settled on Diligence because I believe it to be one of your defining characteristics as a Wikipedia editor. I thank you for your efforts to reform various parts of Wikipedia (want to stop retroactively decommissioning FAs for lacking inline citations next?). You're a gentleman and a scholar. Laser brain (talk) 22:32, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Please look before you leap

Tony, if only to reduce the friction between us, please review situations fully before assuming the worst. I'm losing track of how many times you have posted damning comments about me only to find that those comments are completely incorrect when compared to the actual facts. Look, I don't care if you want to follow up on any concerns raised about me - that is certainly your right, and to be honest I'm always open to a fair examination of my record. (As I've repeatedly stated in my time here, I stand behind all of my edits, and I'll take responsibility for those actions.) If you find a genuine mistake that I have made, then by all means bring it to my attention and I'll address it. I'd prefer it if you tell me first, as I'm more than open to working with you (or anyone, for that matter) to either rectify a genuine error, or to allay their concerns. However, when you leap in and post erroneous assertions in a very public manner, without fully reviewing the incident (as you've actually admitted at AN/I), you end up weakening your own position. That doesn't help either of us. --Ckatz^chat_spy 17:44, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Ckatz (Charles?), I've toned down your title, and I did look before I leapt. Were my comments "damning"? I thought they were a model of politeness, actually, and even hedged by saying "I may be wrong". I was critical of the user on three potential counts. You may be upset, but I was certainly not damning, was I? Please give me that much.

After a few metres of text have been written at ANI on it, and you still hadn't addressed the issue (no one has), is there a protocol (stated or implied) that I should talk-page or email you first? You know that I think a lot of your writing skills and strategic talent: I've said so. And I'm not necessarily against you here—not at all—but why don't you defend yourself, on the only topic that matters? I have to go to bed soon. I look forward to hearing from you (calmer); I certainly would like to collaborate with you, if there's ever a topic or project. I'm open to your suggestions. Tony (talk) 18:35, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you very much for the thoughtful and complete comments you've left on my talk page. You have provided excellent food for thought and I quite appreciate it. --Vassyana (talk) 01:51, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

MoS and bot runs

Hi. I've just noticed that bots such as LivingBot are making style changes to articles, based (or not based) on the MoS. in view of your longstanding interest in/knowledge of the MoS, I wonder if you'd like to have a look here. Best. --Kleinzach 00:37, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Done. Tony (talk) 13:12, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

I've opened an RfC on the matter, to which you are welcome to contribute. I found the explicit advocacy of the bot's edits in the MoS by the way, it's at WP:LAYOUT (more detail on the RfC). Cheers, - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 14:43, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. It's not a big deal for me, but I will look in within a few days to weigh up people's opinions and the MOS link you kindly provided above. Tony (talk) 16:14, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

I've never heard of an Rfc on a user page. Seems irregular to me. I wonder if there any precedent for this? It seems this discussion is being repeatedly moved. --Kleinzach 02:52, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/LivingBot 11. The bot was approved on 29 May. It seems that no-one involved in the various ongoing discussions started by Jarry1250 was told about the BRFA underway at the same time. --Kleinzach 01:49, 5 June 2009 (UTC) P.S. I've written to the 'authorizer' Quadell here. --Kleinzach 02:33, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Em dash vs colon

I asked another editor for feedback regarding the list of skin-related conditions, and he ended up changing all the em dashes to colons when introducing a list of items. After you introduced me to em dashes for list openings, I tend to prefer them over the colon. Would you recommending changing the colons back to em dashes? ---kilbad (talk) 01:54, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm almost certain (spaced) eN dashes are preferred. Top-right and bottom-left keys on a full Windows keyboard; opt-hyphen on a Mac.

• - hyphen
• – en dash
• — em dash Tony (talk) 02:54, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Ah, I see what you mean now: mid-sentence, not the left-hand opening of bullet-type lists. Please see my note on that talk page. Tony (talk) 03:01, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

A grammatical mystery

Dear colleagues, although this is not directly connected with a recommendation in MoS, I wonder whether anyone can point to a source that discusses a grammatical phenomenon that appears to be utterly unacknowledged in the major style guides and grammatical authorities. Understanding the phenomenon—why it works—may assist our editors when they use (or don't use) the construction at issue. I've raised the issue on an international linguistics mailing list, but I'm unsure that the professionals have yet provided a convincing answer.

The issue concerns the ability in English to remove "the" from nominal groups (nouns, put simply), when two or more occur in a clause (typically "A and B", but also "from A to B"). The removal of "the" in these instances is not possible if only one noun is expressed.

• "We travelled over hill and dale to get there" (but not "We travelled over hill to get there").
• "In that situation, driver and passenger are equally liable" (rather than "the driver and the passenger").
• "She would start by placing bucket and shovel to one side".
• "It involves an algorithm to prune each node top-down from root to leaves" (rather than "from the root to the leaves").

Both singular and plural are possible ("leaves"), and the removal of "a" is possible in the singular. The odd thing is that such exclusion (is it ellipsis?) can appear to be elegant in a duple construction (and I guess a triple or more) while being plain wrong in a single noun. If you know how to explain this phenomenon, I'd be most grateful to hear. Perhaps on my talk page if more than a short reply? Tony (talk) 17:08, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Opening discussion transferred from MoS talk

Have you tried this one? Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:28, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

If you can make neither a head nor a tail of this phenomenon, I recommend reading all Language Log articles until you find a discussion of the subject. If after a year or so you find they haven't discussed it at all, it will still have been worth it. I just made a little search for it myself, but couldn't find anything relevant. My best guess is that it is somehow connected with word flow and the influence of old forms of English that have survived in some idioms. --Hans Adler (talk) 21:24, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Ho ho! Bookmarked. Thanks, Adler. Darkfrog24 (talk) 00:09, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I think Hans is partly right. It's certainly related to fossilized phrases, and there could also be a prosodic factor involved. Those matters aside, I'd say it's another manifestation of the fact that coordination is a rum affair. Consider case, where there's usually little choice available. As English morphology is so impoverished I'm going to have to use a pronoun rather than bucket or shovel; but consider the following:

1. I went there.
2. Me went there.
3. I and Joe went there.
4. Joe and I went there.
5. Me and Joe went there.
6. Joe and me went there.

In my idiolect, #1 is fine, #2 is unthinkable (if not a joke), #3 sounds unidiomatic (perhaps it's unconscious modesty but anyway I'd place myself second), #4 is fine, #5 and #6 are informal and idiomatic. Note the difference between (a) #2 and (b) #5 and #6, and how radical this difference really is. (I'd be interested to know if it's paralleled in German.) ¶ I don't have time to explore this further. Tony, I know that you are repelled by formal ("Chomskyan" etc) approaches of grammar, but I'd google-scholar "coordination" and "determiner" or "case" and look at some attempts at formal accounts of this. Before these get into such matters as EPP and projections of DP, they're likely to survey the evidence. -- Hoary (talk) 01:59, 2 June 2009 (UTC) .... PS More useful search terms for you are the technical terms anarthrous and WTF coordination. -- Hoary (talk) 02:23, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I think it makes more sense to look for a parallel in French, because that's where "me" comes from (I believe; I hope I will be corrected by an expert if wrong).

1. J'y allais.
2. Moi y allais.
3. Je et Jean y allaient.
4. Jean et je y allaient.
5. Moi et Jean y allaient.
6. Jean et moi y allaient.

The issues are very similar. 1 is normal, 2 is wrong (and is replaced by "Moi, j'y allais" when the pronoun is to be stressed). I believe 3 and 4 are both ungrammatical, but I would like to hear what an expert has to say about this. 5 and 6 are fine. I guess that this simple system strongly influenced English grammar, and that prescriptivists who legislated against this use of moi/me made things more complicated. --Hans Adler (talk) 07:55, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

In my "idiolect" (college and university English), Nos. 2, 5, and 6 are equally unacceptable English; they are not "idiomatic" English; they are "colloquial" or "slang" English spoken (usually not written) by English speakers who are not familiar with the "rules" of English Grammar. Nos. 5 and 6 are no more acceptable than No. 2. All three examples use the incorrect objective case of the pronoun for the person (me) instead of the correct subjective case of the pronoun (I). The same usage of cases would occur in many other languages too (e.g., Slavic and Germanic languages requiring agreements of cases with other syntactical elements); subjects of sentences require subjective cases of pronouns; objects (predicates) in sentences require objective cases of pronouns. Those are rules of grammar. Just because some people speak a certain way does not make it correct to write that way, unless one is using dialogue illustrating dialects in drama, fiction, poetry, or other forms of "creative writing". In a discursive essay written in "formal English" (such as an "article" being submitted to an encyclopedia--e.g., Wikipedia's situation--or other online and print publications deemed worthy of citing--in Wikipedia or elsewhere as a "reliable source"), items no. 2, 5, and 6 are not acceptable writing. --NYScholar (talk) 07:14, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Item no. 3 is not acceptable usage either (in written English). While one might hear or overhear someone using these constructions somewhere, none of them is correct English usage; none of them is acceptable formal English (which Wikipedia's MOS states is the kind of English to use for its encyclopedia articles; contractions (subject-verb) and the first name of subjects of personal biographies tend to be ruled out of Wikipedia as well, due to their "informality" of style. Some colloquialisms may be accepted by editors, but what is "colloquial" is not necessarily also "common" or "correct" or "general usage" in "formal" English writing (currently-correct grammar, spelling, mechanics, and so on). To learn what is "currently-correct grammar" etc., especially when in doubt, one does not consult Wikipedia (or its talk pages); one consults peer-reviewed (not peer edited) third-party published style guides written by acknowledged experts in their fields. --NYScholar (talk) 07:33, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

[Word order--Syntactical order of words within a sentence or construction--also may be correct idiomatic usage or incorrect non-idiomatic usage; the examples 5 and 6, like 3, are not currently-correct idiomatic English word order (not common usage in formal written English). --NYScholar (talk) 09:40, 2 June 2009 (UTC)]

To find answers to questions such as the one posed at the beginning of this section, one really needs to consult histories of the development of the English language, which are written by specialists in that field, who study changes in general usage of English (what is considered correct "idiomatic" English) over time, as the language evolves; linguistic--specifically, morphological--evolution of the English language is just one of these fields of study. There are disciplinary overlaps of these various fields within "the history of the English language" with linguistics, stylistics, grammar, spelling, and other mechanics (e.g, punctuation). Dictionaries (books giving definitions and examples of the historical usage of words) are useful (like the Oxford English Dictionary) for charting evolutionary changes in usage of (mostly) British English; related dictionaries and other textbooks exist for American English linguistic usage/evolution, with several specialist dictionaries of slang, popular culture, etc. The experts in these related fields are the authors (and editors/compilers) of those books (whose content is sometimes uploaded to online sites, but whose publication details first appear in the printed versions). This is a huge area involving interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary fields and experts trained in those various disciplines. --NYScholar (talk) 07:46, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

¶ In most of the instances, there's some level of abstraction or generalisation, sometimes converting into an adverbial or noun phrase, as in "He's been at this job, man and boy, for 53 years now." or "It's time to dig out the corruption from our government, root and branch." (A famous radical document from the English Civil War is in fact called "The Root and Branch Petition".) Neither definite (the) nor indefinite (a/an) articles really convey the idiomatic sense, and in fact would spoil it. I presume that Hans Adler was being at least partly jocular in writing "make neither a head nor a tail", which is definitely not idiomatic in either Britain or the U.S., since the only familiar forms are:

• [I can make] "neither head nor tail"
• [I can make] "neither heads nor tails"
• [I can't make] "[either] head or tail"; or
• [I can't make] "[either] heads or tails".

§ You should also remember that English is unusual among Indo-European languages in having long since removed gender from most common nouns, and also from the definite and indefinite article ("Le Roi et la Reine" in French, but "the King and [the] Queen" in English, incidentally avoiding the awkward inclusion in Spanish of the feminine within the masculine in such phrases as "los Reyes Católicos" meaning "el Rey Fernando II de Aragón y la Reina Isabella I de Castilla". Cf. "the jester sang for the king and queen, in a coat he borrowed from James Dean..." in "American Pie".) This allows some subtlety in deciding whether to telescope the first article to modify the second and subsequent nouns in a conjoined list, as in "a horse and cart" (implying a pair) vs "a horse and a cart" (obtained separately), or "the president and vice-president" (quoted together) vs "the president and the vice-president" (quoted separately), or "the husband and wife" (couple) vs "the husband and the wife" (as individuals) or "The City and County of San Francisco" (a unified government) vs "The City and the State of New York" (two different governments). This is also true of more abstract nouns. Marcel Ophuls' documentary Le Chagrin et la Pitié (separate articles required in French, especially with different genders) is released in English as The Sorrow and the Pity, but an adored relative can be called either "the light and joy of his life" or "the light and the joy of her existence".

§ There are also a class of instances (and I'm just using my memory, not [as perhaps I should] a manual of style or usage) where nouns can be used without articles. This tends to vary over time and country. For example, at least in their own countries where no ambiguity is likely, "Parliament" and "Congress" are usually written without articles, although articles are used when adjectives distinguish "the Australian Parliament", "the Scottish Parliament" or "the Mexican Congress" from those of other countries. In Britain, but not the U.S., articles are often dropped from "Conference" and "Convocation" (and sometimes "Council") where the specific body is clear. Below Congress in the U.S., however, articles are almost always used, largely because there are usually more than one with the same name, thus "the Senate", "the Legislature", "the General Assembly", "the Convention", "the Council". Apart from the well-known case of inherently-abstract general ideals ("Truth, Justice and the American Way", which also vary in the way they're used when standing alone: "he stands for truth" or "he searches for the truth", but never "he wants the justice" or "he followed American Way"), some concrete nouns can stand in for more general ideas, but (and here we come back finally and without resolution to the original conundrum) usually only within pairs and triplets. To construct an artificial, old-fashioned and stylistically-horrible example, "We worked and fought together, father and son, night and day, heart and soul, with might and main, with mind, body and spirit, not for fame, not for glory, not for money, but for King and Country, for freedom and democracy, for hearth and home, for wife and family, for kith and kin, for town and countryside, for [the] rich and [the] poor, for Protestant, Catholic and Jew alike." —— Shakescene (talk) 06:51, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Shakescene: (a) At least one other Germanic language—gendered, of course—has this phenomenon: German ("über Stock und Stein" is just one example I've been given by an anglophone linguist who works in German, who says the phenomenon is not uncommon in German). I don't think it's to do with the absence of gender in English. However, you make a valuable side-point about the subtle coupled/non-coupled meanings in the use of "the" + ellipted "the" versus "the" + "the". (b) "The Root and Branch Petition"—"root" and "branch" are adjectives qualifying "petition"; I should have emphasised that the phenomenon in question involves the coupling of two nouns, as in my last example above ("from root to leaves"). In any case, there's a "the", which kind of spoils the example (?).

Hoary: I don't really understand the relevance of your six examples, but thanks for the key search words. (PS I believe No. 5 is unthinkable too; No. 6 likely just to bring out the snob in me.)

Darkfrog: The Bartleby site: I like some of it; I dislike some of it as misleading (often through the provision of too little information on an issue). I can't find mention of this pheonemon on that list—nor even of "the" in general. Non-native speakers have a particular need for this area of the grammar to be explained clearly.

Bartleby.com is merely an internet site that draws its online information from print-published sources listed in its 3rd column menu; the dictionary that it uses for definitions of English words, for example, is listed as The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language ([9]), whose editors/compilers/contributors are listed in the print publication's apparatus; the same would be the case for all the other print-published sources from which the online site Bartleby.com draws for its online content. Such internet sites are simply convenient quick reference sites which direct their readers to their print-based publications for more detailed information. Such internet sites are not substitutes for the full reference sources from which they glean material; print publications are sometimes between editions, however, and not yet updated quickly enough; sometimes online versions are updated more frequently than their print-based sources. (One needs to take a look at the "about" pages of such sites for more information about how they are constructed from the print-based publications. Amazon.com is tied into Bartleby.com as a sponsor. The copyrights for the content are actually the sources used with licenses that may be identified in the copyright information pages of such sites. --NYScholar (talk) 08:08, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Note that the copyright information is given at the EL listed above, and an Amazon.com ad on the site goes to the 4th ed. of The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, which was published way back in 2000; the information, therefore, is over 9 years old, and may not be current usage for certain words or constructions that have changed since prior to 2000 (books may take 1 to 2 years to get into print, depending on the specific publishing situation). So, what may seem "current usage" in Bartleby.com may no longer be current usage. --NYScholar (talk) 08:16, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Hans: Thanks for the Language Log tip; I'll see if I can post the query there if we cannot work it out here.

My new hunches (but only hunches):

1. Does it have to do with a sense of the habitual, the repeated? I mean, is this an important (perhaps not essential) contextual requirement—that we travelled over multiple hills and dales to get there; that in a situation that arises as a matter of course on the roads, "driver and passenger are equally liable"; that every time she performed a certain gardening task, "she would start by placing bucket and shovel to one side"; and that the algorithm for pruning from root to leaves is applied iteratively.
2. Is the whole thing an ellipsis of "both", which can stand in for "the" or "a"? That is: "She would start by placing [both] the bucket and the spade to one side."? This might have evolved through the acknowledgement—whether conscious or unconscious—that specifying two nouns is an expression of "both". In this respect, Shakescene's observations about the ellipsis of "the" from the second noun may be relevant.

The plot thickens. Tony (talk) 06:23, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Please see the one internal link to a source listed in Heads or tails, which (too often typically for Wikipedia) is an article missing references and citations: Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. [Also a published source of the content uploaded to Bartleby.com: [10] (not only 1898 but also later, 2000, ed.?]; it was revised as recently as 2006, according to the information about the print publication (Amazon.com). See list of "usage" and "reference" sources via Bartleby.com menu: [11] & [12]. (Brewer's has its own source description page there too. The ISBN nos. and full publication info. are accessible via the Amazon.com cross-links at Bartleby.com.) (cont.)

There is so much undocumented speculation going on in this section too; there are reliable published sources that one can consult to answer such questions. Even some Wikipedia articles provide sources for preliminary and further research ("Further reading" in WP:MOS, e.g., is a beginning). (cont.)

Much of what is being discussed in this talk page seems to be "original research" instead of research based on published sources (see WP:NOR). Why is there so much undocumented speculation in this talk page about WP:MOS when people could be consulting non-Wikipedia published sources to answer such questions? --NYScholar (talk) 08:25, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

How is the discussion taking place in this section related to the purpose of this talk page? ("This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Manual of Style page.") (updated) --NYScholar (talk) 08:48, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Location: For that very reason, I invited people to respond on my talk page (see my first entry). I don't mind either way. (cont.)

WP:NOR—in this case, there appear to be no published sources (how does Brewer's dictionary of phrase and fable help?). This is a problem for the language as a whole—not to mention for our editors, who are writing high-profile public text in English. Not all of the grammar is mapped, and there are surprising gaps. Should we sit around waiting for groups of fusty gentlemen drinking cups of tea behind closed doors at the major hard copy style guides to identify these aspects of the grammar so that we can help our editors to write well and with insight into the mechanics of the language? Tony (talk) 08:53, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

See the 17th ed., which is linked in the webpage about it: [13]; the content at Bartleby.com is 18th-early 19th-century usage; the book has been updated many times in subsequent editions; Bartleby's content is copyrighted on its site as "2000"; but see the actual published book's publication information for more information. Wikipedia editors are not experts of the same authority as these kinds of published sources. Even the article [about Heads or tails [mostly taken from] this book (as stated above) is not documented in Wikipedia. [corrected in brackets. (ed.) --NYScholar (talk) 09:27, 2 June 2009 (UTC)] [Editors need to take more time in editing Wikipedia articles and documenting their comments in talk pages] to provide reliable sources that are verifiable by Wikipedia readers; less on speculations by its editors, who are "guessing" about why constructions may be the way they are. That is not the purview of WP:MOS. I don't think that the discussions of various editors about why a certain English construction may be the way it is in current English idiomatic usage is going to help other editors know whether or not it is a correct current idiomatic usage. One just needs to have an authoritative third-party published source stating what is correct common usage in formal English discursive prose (encyclopedia prose). --NYScholar (talk) 08:59, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

If that were true, MoS would require citations to be peppered throughout. There are none, with good reason: WP's needs are unique, and thus it needs a unique set of style guides (online, wiki, pan-English, etc). While external "authorities" (who are often expressing subjective angles) do play a role in debate here, they are not regarded as prescriptive influences on MoS. If only CMOS took its own advice ... Tony (talk) 09:07, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

[I was referring to the lack of sources in the article Heads or Tails in Wikipedia. The only publication cited is Brewer's. --NYScholar (talk) 09:23, 2 June 2009 (UTC)]

WP:V is Wikipedia's policy for material added to articles. Discussions making arguments about matters relating to Wikipedia's Manual of style (WP:MOS) in this talk page, where people state what they "think" is is "correct" and/or "incorrect" usage need to provide similarly verifiable sources to be convincing to other Wikipedia editors and readers: following the same core policies. I am more convinced by experts who publish in their fields in third-party peer-reviewed publications than I am by Wikipedia's peer editors (whose expertise I have no knowledge of). As a reader and editor of Wikipedia articles, I am aware of WP:LOP. Speculation is not an intended feature of editorial discussions in Wikipedia; it is not encouraged by its core policies. It may be fun (and, as suggested) be more suitable to user talk pages (if suitable there), but it is not really productive here (on this talk page), in my view. So I would suggest that others re-read your initial comment and see where you welcomed longer comments not directly relating to the WP:MOS on your own talk page. That's a useful place to go. --NYScholar (talk) 09:15, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I have several comments:

• So far this has been one of the few discussions on this talk page where nobody felt the urge to kill their opponent because they dared to say something that was so outrageously wrong. Within reason (and I think we haven't crossed that boundary yet) that's a good thing even if the discussion is slightly off-topic.
• The "no original research" rule is for what we put into article space. It's perfectly fine if a policy or guideline page contains original research; otherwise WP:EW or indeed WP:NOR could never have been written. It's also perfectly fine when editors engage in original research on an article talk page when discussing how to use their editorial discretion. If someone made an interesting claim in 1998 (e.g. "within the next 2 years the Eiffel Tower will collapse under the weight of visitors"), and oddly nobody has mentioned it since then, original research ("a Google search brings up no such disaster") may settle the question whether it was true or not. Editors may then decide (and if the claim is of borderline noteworthiness I expect them to do that) to mention the claim if they know it to be true, and omit it if they know it to be false. WP:NOR only says that they may not say it's true or it's false based on original research.
• Of course we are all just speculating. But this speculation might help us to find a reliable source that discusses the problem.
• I have no problem with continuing on Tony's talk page, either. --Hans Adler (talk) 10:01, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

For other sources, as directed via WP:MOS#Further reading, see Dictionaries#Major English dictionaries, among which one will find already listed … [sources already drawn from online in] Bartleby.com, [including] Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. I'll be away after this, so I'm just listing these internal links; there are others accessible via the "Further reading" list for answering questions about specific "stylistic" matters of interest to editors of Wikipedia not covered in detail in the MOS. If people who are attempting to edit Wikipedia are not native speakers and writers of English, then there are specific [reliable third-party published] guides addressed to such readers, with specific information about using English as a foreign language. [For sources, see TEFL and TESL, or Google them; unfortunately some of these Wikipedia articles are also missing proper source citations.] If one is a native speaker and writer of English, one should already have received education in grammar or elementary school and in high school (not in college, unless remedial courses) in basic rules of English grammar, spelling, other mechanics, and idiomatic usage of English for formal writing (as in an encyclopedia). When in doubt about using a particular construction (unsure of its correctness), the WP:MOS would recommend choosing a different way of expressing the same point (not using a cliché or colloquialism, and thus avoiding construction common mainly or only in some particular national variety of English, for example). Formal discursive writing of the kind recommended in the WP:MOS does not depend on the usage of clichés or colloquialisms. --NYScholar (talk) 09:58, 2 June 2009 (UTC) [corr. in brackets. --NYScholar (talk) 10:16, 2 June 2009 (UTC)]

Comments, Syst. Funct. Ling. list, 30–31 May (I'm not a member, but had my query posted by the facilitor.)

I've detechnicalised a few terms. Tony (talk) 11:39, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Repondent 1: This is a fascinating question, and one that I would relate to underlying generic meaning, although ellipsis also seems to be at play. More context might help. I would suggest that "We traveled over hill and dale" is functionally different from the statement "We traveled over the hill and the dale" insofar as it seems to encode the plural generic category without having to use the plural form. Compare "We traveled over hills" or "We traveled over hills and dales" (the first of which is common, and the second of which sounds a bit stilted in my idiom). The elegance might be in the simplicity of using a complex [noun] for an inferred plurality, and thus precluding [the"] unless necessarily wanting specific reference. Also interesting is that it seems to me a single use of the definite article would be possible: "In that situation, the driver and passenger are equally liable." In this case, the second article is indeed ellipted, which may lend credence to the interpretation that when there is no deictic, it is ellipted, depending on whether context demands a specific or generic reference, perhaps.

Respondent 2: The nouns here are coordinated so that, although individual nouns are singular common count nouns and so individually would require determiners of some sort, the resulting construction is indefinite plural—hence the agreement pattern (plural), but also, the absence of "the". Notice that the inclusion of either definite or indefinite articles significantly changes the meaning in each case. So, "we travelled over hill and dale" means we travelled over some unspecified set of hills and dales; whereas "we travelled over the/a hill and dale" refers either to a known (def, previously mentioned) hill and dale or at least some specific individual hill and dale (indefinite, not previously

mentioned but discoursally available for further identification).

I am following the suggestion to continue WT:MOS#A grammatical mystery here. I can confirm that this phenomenon is common in German. Off the top of my head: in Bausch und Bogen verdammen (to damn lock, stock and barrell), Kopf und Kragen riskieren (lit. to risk neck and collar), von Kopf bis Fuß (lit. from head to foot), Haus und Hof verlieren (to lose house and home), mit Kind und Kegel (with kith and kin), mit Sack und Pack (with bag and baggage). These expressions are fossilised; you would only replace one of the nouns or swap them for comical effect. I have a strong feeling that these expressions are very old, and this seems to be corroborated by the alliterations and the fact that some of the constituents make no sense at all to most speakers who use the expressions (Bogen=bow, but Bausch? Kind=child, but Kegel=bastard has only survived in a few dialects). In some cases there are also fossilised variants that do have articles, such as vom (= von dem) Scheitel bis zur (= zu der) Sohle (lit. from the parting [of the hair] to the sole). This example feels like it's only a few hundred years old, from a time when the other pattern would not have been productive any more.

Here is my current guess, mixing testable predictions and untestable speculations:

• the pattern is an old Germanic one and should have been present already in Old English
• it has always been correlated with elevated/poetic speech
• its original use is to express a totality by giving two representative examples; to mark that they are thought of as a unit, the second article is omitted; since in OE the two nouns typically didn't have the same genus, the first article had to be omitted as well
• we typically don't use any articles if:
  • it is a fossilised idiom
  • we don't really care about the two specific nouns since they are just examples; we would not normally replace one of them to be more precise ("over mountain and dale", "over hill and river");
• we use an article, or two, or possessive pronouns, as appropriate, if:
  • we made up the expression on our own
  • the nouns actually stand for themselves ("let's not forget all the mountains and rivers that we would have to cross").

--Hans Adler (talk) 11:04, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Hans, this is helpful, although may not be the whole story. I need to absorb what you say. Tony (talk) 11:11, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Above: In my "idiolect" (college and university English), Nos. 2, 5, and 6 are equally unacceptable English; they are not "idiomatic" English; they are "colloquial" or "slang" English spoken (usually not written) by English speakers who are not familiar with the "rules" of English Grammar.

1. "College and university English" is not an idiolect.
2. No lect is slang, although some lects may have more slang than others.
3. Colloquial English is idiomatic English. (If it were not idiomatic, it would not be colloquial.)
4. Native speakers of English have complete familiarity with the rules of English grammar, although they may indeed be unfamiliar with the rules repeated by incurious prescriptive grammarians of English.

As any fule kno. Or at least anyone who has read intelligent descriptive (let alone theoretical) works about language reflecting trends since Jespersen or thereabouts.

Really, there is an awful lot of twaddle written above. (In addition to a lot of good or at least intriguingly chew-over-able stuff by Hans and Tony.) It reminds me of why I prefer not to hang around in the vicinity of MoS talk pages. -- Hoary (talk) 15:53, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I think the twaddle Hoary refers to lies under a click of the mouse, above. Hoary, I love your first three points; I do not agree with your fourth point. Tony (talk) 16:03, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I also think the fourth point is a bit problematic. And I read my "idiolect" (college and university English) as short for my "idiolect" (which was formed mostly by college and university English). --Hans Adler (talk) 16:12, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

What, me worry? is now arguably a fossilized expression, thanks to Mad (the magazine). But the seemingly (if not actually) infinite number of combinations that can be created with the same syntax (e.g. What, him get through the day without a G&T?) are not fossilized expressions. I submit that a native speaker of anything like standard Aus, Brit, or US English would know the rule by which the pronoun after What is accusative -- without of course being able to express this as a rule. And this is of course not the kind of English that is taught at school or by parents. However, I would not be surprised if some of the (L1 English) ninnies of the kind overrepresented among those talk pages have been so impressed by worthless books on "style" as to insist that *What, she do the work on time is "correct" English. Jim Quinn's American Tongue and Cheek is just one accessible, intelligent book among several that address this stupidity (I believe that David Crystal has also written one); it should be better known. Yet those talk pages may provide a socially useful function by providing a place for "authoritarian personalities" to primp, preen, and get their jollies. -- Hoary (talk) 23:49, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

The end of my nose is ever so slightly turning upwards to reveal a flare of nostrils: the closest I ever came to Mad magazine as a 60s child was akin to the way people stand around a car accident gawking.<grin> I think your example is less likely to have arisen through a simple pattern of "What + accusative" than through one or both of these routes:

1. "What? Me? Worry?", in which the accusative "me" as a stand-alone is probably an antecedent (no proof of this, though). We have lots of signs that this might be the case; even Shakespeare, somewhere, I think—"It is me", not "It is I". (Halliday says to try "It am I" to see how ridiculous the contention is that the nominative must be used, part of the Latin truncheon English Grammar Schools hit the Germanic language with.)
2. "What, me worrying [about X]? Here, the dreaded accusative noun + -ing" rears its head in one of its gawkier guises.

PS I've yet to address Ricardiana's entry above. Tony (talk) 05:08, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

• This shoe, with the hole in it, is my mother, and this my father; a vengeance on't! there 'tis: now, sit, this staff is my sister, for, look you, she is as white as a lily and as small as a wand: this hat is Nan, our maid: I am the dog: no, the dog is himself, and I am the dog--Oh! the dog is me, and I am myself; ay, so, so. -- Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona
• All debts are cleared between you and I -- Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice
• So far had this innocent girl gone in jesting between her and I, and in talking that she would let him lie with her if he would but be kinder to me, that at last she let him lie with her in earnest; and so empty was I now of all principle, that I encouraged the doing it almost before my face. -- Defoe, Roxana
• [...] Mrs. Norris called out, "Stay, stay, Fanny! what are you about? where are you going? don't be in such a hurry. Depend upon it, it is not you who are wanted; depend upon it, it is me" [...] -- Austen, Mansfield Park

-- Hoary (talk) 11:17, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

"between you and I", "between her and I"—ignorant. Yes, 40 years ago, there I sat in Latin classes while the sun shone outside, being drilled to say "The verb to be takes the same case after it as before." Pffff. Tony (talk) 11:37, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

If Shakespeare and Defoe's writing manifested ignorance, then ignorance seems to served them rather well. Come come, Tony, you're a linguist; at least consider a dispassionate analysis. Huddleston and Pullum's CGEL can't do more than do the quickest of surveys of case in coordinative constructions (pp 462-63) but they do manage it without knee-jerkery. Incredibly, this investigation (PDF) is a mere honors thesis; its (presumably young) author puts us to shame. -- Hoary (talk) 11:57, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing this interesting link. --Hans Adler (talk) 13:27, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Re: US 41

I've given the article a copy edit. Please advise at Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/U.S._Route_41_in_Michigan/archive2 if there is anything left to do concerning your review of the article. Imzadi1979 (talk) 05:28, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the reviews. Imzadi1979 (talk) 17:24, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Question on your FAC comment

Tony, I am not sure what you mean by this statement "WP's job is not to repeat the iron-fisted control over ideology of whichever regime is in power in the Vatican in what needs to be a scupulously NPOV account." I am not sure what you want to see in the article to address this statement. The Church teaching on the Commandments is almost entirely unchanged throughout its history, it is not the result of different "regimes" but a continuous "regime". Minor historical events pertaining to each commandment are included within each commandment section, for example the section on birth control states that it predates Christianity and has been continuously condemned throughout history by all Christian denominations until the Church of England OK'd it in 1930s. That section also includes mention of criticism of the Church's ban on condoms especially in countries where AIDS is a problem. I added a sentence to the lead that is referenced to the BBC and states the number of practicing Catholics is unknown. I hope this addresses your concern. If not, can you please be more specific? Thanks, NancyHeise ^talk 02:08, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Tony, on second thought, I think you may have missed all of the areas where we have included criticisms. Please see my list I made for you on the FAC page. I was helped to satisfy NPOV by my non-Catholic fellow Wikipedia editors and reviewers Richard and Brianbolton. Karanacs also chipped in there for a while. If you can think of any criticisms we have omitted, please let us know because to our knowledge, we addressed all of them. NancyHeise ^talk 02:47, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

OK, I'll return within a few days. Tony (talk) 07:47, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Albert Bridge FAC

Replied to you on the FAC. Regarding getting a copyeditor, I'm trying to avoid it where possible; this is #6 in a series of 20 on Thames bridges, and I've deliberately started with the fairly uncomplicated ones. I suspect I'm going to need to call in as many favors as possible when it comes to cleaning up London Bridge and Tower Bridge – the former has to cover 2,000 years of history without veering too far off-topic, and the latter will unavoidably need lengthy diversions into hydraulic engineering, comparisons of Norman and Gothic Revival architecture, and a brief history of shipping design. With those two in mind, I'm intentionally not pestering Malleus and co as regards these shorter ones.

I'm aware that a lot of this one is awkwardly worded, but in many parts I can't see an obvious way round it. Because Ordish–Lefeuvre Principle is something that no reader could reasonably be expected to know, a lot of dry technical material has to be written out in far more detail than the rest of the series; as I said to Ottava, "brilliant refreshing prose" and "flat wrought iron bars attached at one end to the bridge deck and linked at the other end to octagonal support columns by wire ropes composed of 1,000 ¹⁄₁₀-inch diameter wires" are incompatiable. – iridescent 17:50, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

ArbCom, WP and the media

• The NY Times on the Scientology case It seems like a reasonable outcome for the time being.
• The NY Times on "anyone can edit" My view is that four days should be seven or 14 WRT semi-protection. And most admins are in their 20s? I suspected so.
• The NY Times On the Essjay fraud scandal At some stage, we'll need to insist on real, verifiable identities for admins and others with oversight roles. Mark my words.
• Colbert satirises ArbCom on US TV I believe some arbs are chuffed with the publicity; however, it makes us all look like fools. Real names please, not silly ones, if you're going to represent WP in the limelight. Tony (talk) 04:09, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Re "anyone can edit", did you mean this NY Times article? --Philcha (talk) 08:15, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

• Now amended. Ohconfucius (talk) 08:52, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

You might like to add The Independent on "accuracy vs anyone can edit". --Philcha (talk) 09:54, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Interesting and funny. At the opening, it shows the typical threat represented by WP and the Internet generally to the professional of journalism. Tony (talk) 10:23, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Academic excellence

Ling Nut (permanent link here) has made these comments.

I would say that writing and research are hard work. I would love to say that writing and research are hard work. Unfortunately, I strongly suspect that my idea of "hard work" is vastly different from many other editors' idea of what those words mean. The fundamental problem with Wikipedia – and it is a problem that our reliance on policies, guidelines and consensus only exacerbates – is that far too few Wikipedians understand the hard work involved in writing and researching well.

There is some relevant information in the article "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" and the book Dumbest Generation.
In a global society which is collectively declining intellectually, physically, morally, and socially, and in which people often overestimate achievements of academic excellence, altruistic excellence, artistic excellence, and athletic excellence in themselves and in others, there is a challenge to find the gentle but effective means to bring people to an adequate awareness of the shocking realities.
-- Wavelength (talk) 19:44, 8 June 2009 (UTC) -- [I revised my message. -- Wavelength (talk) 20:42, 8 June 2009 (UTC)]