User talk:White whirlwind/Archive 4

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Oracle bone entry

White whirlwind: I cited a monograph title and dictionary entry, and wrote a footnote on common typographical practice. How do these constitute primary sources or quote unquote original research in any way? Please don't be such a dismissive p***k.

@Alsosaid1987: I didn't think you were new to Wikipedia, but some of your behavior suggests that you are, so I will proceed on that assumption. There are a few things you need to understand in order to contribute on Wikipedia. I'll list the pertinent ones here:

1. Whenever you make a post on a talk page, you must sign your post by typing four tildes after you finish. This is a basic and mandatory practice described at WP:SIGNHERE.
2. Name-calling is not tolerated on Wikipedia. The opening sentence at WP:CIVIL reads: "Civility is part of Wikipedia's code of conduct and one of its five pillars."
3. The instructions at Wikipedia:Original research are often overlooked by editors. I recommend that you—and all of us editors, really—read through them carefully to make sure you understand them properly. Here's a simplified example of the issue you had at oracle bone script: you write a statement to the effect of "buci is synonymous with jiaguwen and has been for a long time", and your citation for that assertion is just a sentence saying "this is true because it was used as such by XYZ in his book ABC published in 1920". This is an example of original research where the book ABC is used as a primary source. What you ought to do is find a verifiable and reputable reliable source that itself says "buci has been an equivalent term since the early 20th century. One example of this is the book ABC by XYZ..." That would be a good sourcing from a secondary source, which is our gold standard on Wikipedia (see WP:PSTS).

Hopefully this clears things up for you.  White Whirlwind  咨  01:51, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Because of people like you, I don't tend to edit articles relating to China. However, when I saw a glaring error this morning, I had to correct it. Then you promptly, without checking the merits of my edit, reverted them, and that just p***'d me the f*** off. I love Wikipedia as a resource and I volunteer my time to improve it, but frankly, I have better things to do than deal with p***ks like you. And fyi, the 现代汉语词典 records modern Chinese usage, so I don't know what the F*** you are talking about.

Alsosaid1987 (talk) 02:06, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Also, if you knew any thing about 20th century Chinese history, Wang Guowei is one of the founding researchers of oracle bone script and an important political figure, so that just shows what you know. Btw, this is not even my field of research... Alsosaid1987 (talk) 02:09, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

The monograph I cited is not just any monograph, but a seminal one, in which Wang establishes the Shang dynasty king list, so I would say that his usage of the term buci is quite authoritative. And besides, you yourself say that jiaguwen was a borrowing, so what was it called before the 1930s? Alsosaid1987 (talk) 02:14, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Anyway, I'll leave it at that. I have to return to my day job. Sorry about the lack of civility, but you either have a superficial knowledge of a subject you're ostensibly the expert on or deliberately applying red tape to well-substantiated facts in order to frustrate another Wikipedian, neither of which puts you in a particularly good light either. 亦鸣

You need to indent your responses in order to form a coherent record of dialog. I am sorry to say that if you are unwilling to be civil and to actually understand what Kanguole and I have written about WP:OR, you will find very little success here on Wikipedia and on China-related articles.  White Whirlwind  咨  16:00, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Wiccan rede

Hi could you help me trabslate the Wiccan rede article into Chinese? I would really appreciate it. so far we have this: 翻譯: 您應該相信威卡的教規﹐用誠實和真誠的愛來信 但凡事都得饒處且饒人﹐你附出多少便應得多少 由北開始畫三個圓的圈﹐把所有妖魔鬼怪全除去 如果你想咒語變成現實﹐用順序或特殊音節念出 以柔制剛切勿意氣用事﹐靜心聆聽切勿大發謀論 美麗的月亮漸漸地變圓﹐大家開開心心跳舞歌唱 每逢新月之夜都是初一﹐大家歡歡氣氣一同慶祝 每逢月圓之夜都是十五﹐大家誠心誠意來許個願 每當北風呼呼地吹來時﹐門窗要鎖好帆布要落下 每逢南風呼呼地吹來時﹐心愛的人熱情地親親你 每當西風呼呼地吹來時﹐靈魂們趁機會起來活動 每逢東風呼呼地吹來時﹐豐富的大餐迎接新開始 九種不同的樹木放入鼎﹐猛猛地燃燒慢慢地燃燒 接骨樹是代表神聖女神﹐如燒接骨樹會被追咒的 當節日輪盤開始轉動時﹐沃爾帕吉斯夜燒篝火炬 當節日輪盤轉到冬至時﹐燃點起火炬迎潘皇再生 照顧好大自然花草樹木﹐神聖女神送幸福給人們 石頭水中拋前程就可知﹐用漣漪多少遠近看前程 如果要實現願望或理想﹐絕不可貪心或不責手段 不應該浪費寶貴的時間﹐結識一些不成實的朋友 見面和離別也同樣快樂﹐面頰紅紅的心情要愉快 記緊因果關係輪回三次﹐三次幸運或是三次災難 如不幸遇到災難降臨時﹐把藍色的星星戴在頭上 人人都要做到坦誠相見﹐除非他人全心欺編真成 威卡的教規八字真言是﹐「為所欲為傷人不為」 翻譯 更重要的是巫师或巫师的13个目标 认识你自己 了解我们的艺术 学习和成长 用智慧应用知识 达到平衡 保持你的话顺序 保持你的想法 庆祝生活 调整到地球的周期 保持身体健康 锻炼你的身体 沉思 尊重女神和上帝 is it translated right?108.75.79.57 (talk) 14:58, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, I only do Chinese into English.  White Whirlwind  咨  18:40, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

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Fake news

Good to see you have been making headway with some well deserved improvements.[1] You may find that an editor who comments on another thus[2] as at 12:27, 15 November 2017, and thus[3] 22:51, 17 December 2017 (UTC), has a peculiar tendency to fake news. Would you agree that "stare decisis" should have an in line link? Qexigator (talk) 08:15, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

@Qexigator: yes, there has been a good bit of incivility over there judging from my quick peruse of the talk page, but we must always do our best to never become uncivil ourselves. Regarding your question, let's keep the discussion confined to that article's talk page rather than here.  White Whirlwind  咨  10:36, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Common law

Your assertion that two sentences are "redundant" is incorrect. An overlap of two words doth not redundancy make! I gave a full explanation in response to your long discussion on the Common Law Talk page.

When there's a clear explanation, exactly where one would expect it to be on the Talk page, it's wiki etiquette to read that note, and explain your view, before reverting.

DCLawwyer (talk) 00:17, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

@DCLawwyer: Thanks for your message. I have been an active editor on Wikipedia for nearly a decade now, and am quite familiar with all major policies and etiquettes. I see from your contributions that you are fairly new here. Let me share a few thoughts.

I read your sentiments in your edit summary (in which you called reverting "juvenile"), and I encourage you to remember a key tenet here on WP: Assume Good Faith. Try not to take it personally when an edit gets reverted – though I freely admit this can be difficult. In any case, reverting is a perfectly acceptable practice on Wikipedia, and has been since its infancy – see WP:REVERT (a how-to guide) and WP:3RR (part of a formal policy page detailing the "edit warring" phenomenon, which usually is juvenile).

Another note I like to share with newer members: it's fairly common for editors to join Wikipedia with an axe to grind, thinking that some area or topic near and dear to their is poorly-treated or overlooked and that they are riding in to the rescue. I myself was one of these, and there's nothing inherently wrong with this. My only warning is to be aware that there are likely to be preexisting editors who have done some work and that it is almost always better to work with them rather than against them. There are some very knowledgeable and intelligent people here. If I could do it over again, I'd be a bit gentler in my early editing.

Now, regarding your comment: the redundancy was not based on the presence of the SD phrase in both sentences. It's based in the fact that the two sentences could easily and should be condensed to a single sentence that simply states what SD is and how it "lies at the heart" of common law systems. We should continue any further discussions over on that article's talk page. Thanks  White Whirlwind  咨  07:19, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

@White whirlwind: –

Thanks for engaging.

I appreciate your point. I’m a common law lawyer—my whole career hangs on being deeply respectful of history. A bit of investigation will show that what I’ve done in November 2017 is to restore a status quo ante (June 2016) that reflects a decade of “preexisting editors who have done some work.” My edits undo a number of extraordinarily misinformed edits by Qexigator. Qexigator’s edits are the prototypical “axe to grind” (for one example, repeatedly editing a dictionary definition he disagrees with—see the Talk page where I link several instances of the same edit, and several of his statements that he does disagree with Black's dictionary) and thinks he’s “riding in to the rescue” (Qexigator explained several of his edits because the article had been stable for years or "goes back a long way"). Then compare my November 2017 version to May or June 2016, before Qexigator began his first edits. And then look at the end result of Qexigator’s three bursts of edits against that same status quo ante. The facts will show which of DCLawwyer or Qexigator subscribes to your point and respect for consensus and status quo ante. I hope you will remind Qexigator of the importance of working with the consensus instead of against it! I also hope you;ll do more than a surface "peruse" before forming an opinion.

If you have further discussions with Qexigator, you'll find him somewhat factually challenged. For example, the article had an inline link for "stare decisis" until Qexigator removed it in late November. You'll find its impossible to get him to engage in a direct conversation such as we're having here -- I had to ask him one question seven times before he answered it (Coolceaser also commented on his "evasion.")

Enough for the past, let’s come to the present. The two sentences we’re discussing have both been in the article since at least December 23, 2007 (they may go back farther, I just picked ten years as a convenient reference point). You asked the question, I answered it on the Talk page [4]—the two sentences are very different. One discusses the underlying mechanism (the how), one discusses the why. It’s over a decade of consensus. White_whirlwind, are you working with that consensus or “riding to the rescue?” Are you reading and thinking carefully before disturbing a long-established consensus?

That same explanation was on the Talk page before you acted, in a response to your comments, the single place I’d most expect you to see it and read it. In my world, if party A’s opening brief makes an erroneous statement, party B’s opposition brief gives a principled explanation for A’s error, and then A’s reply brief doesn’t explain any disagreement with B but just blusters on in the error, judges pretty quickly lose the presumption of good faith for party A. Is it different here?

If your sentence is true, that “the two sentences could easily and should [your emphasis] be condensed to a single sentence” then why did you do something different? That contradiction between your words and actions seems odd to me.

On the Talk page, I explained that I thought most of the work you had done to coalesce redundancies was pretty good. I noted this sentence as the single exception. If you have a principled basis to disagree, I’m eager to see that explanation, and a combined sentence that preserves the consensus status quo ante and explains both the “how” and the “why.”

Finally, I self-corrected -- I didn't mean to “call reverting ‘juvenile.’” I self-corrected to call unexplained reverting juvenile. The WP guidelines you point to have the same admonition. I see an explanatory note from me on the Talk page, but not from you. Could you explain?

DCLawwyer (talk) 16:35, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

@DCLawwyer: Regarding the edit you reverted, you asked: "If your sentence is true, that 'the two sentences could easily and should [your emphasis] be condensed to a single sentence' then why did you do something different?" To answer: I believe that is precisely what I did. Look at the diff in question. I undid your previous edit, and condensed the two into one sentence: "If a similar dispute has been resolved in the past, the court is usually bound to follow the reasoning used in the prior decision – a core common law principle known as stare decisis. I explained in my edit summary: "it's redundant with the earlier sentence, just add a clause like this if you're that concerned about it" (emphasis added). This is sometimes colloquially called a "partial revert" here on WP.

Regarding your second question about the change itself, it was very much not an instance of "riding to the rescue", though that was a good question of you to ask. It was the attempting beginning of the BRD cycle. Let's discuss that over on the article's talk page itself.  White Whirlwind  咨  02:52, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

Not responding to the precise question is not helpful in moving the ball. You're still avoiding the point -- how stare decisis works is an entirely different thing than why. "Why" is not redundant with the name, nor is it redundant with "how." The "why" phrases, "similar facts yield similar results" and "consistent principled rules," are absent from your edit, and from your answer here. Usually when someone doesn't answer a question on the second go-round, it's because he/she has no answer. DCLawwyer (talk) 19:35, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

@DCLawwyer: I didn't realize the how/why was the point you wanted to emphasize. This is an obvious point, and explaining it in the common law article, at least in its lead, is unnecessarily pedantic. Let's take this over to the CL talk page and I'll respond further when I have more time.

I also meant to answer your earlier question of "In my world, if party A’s opening brief makes an erroneous statement, party B’s opposition brief gives a principled explanation for A’s error, and then A’s reply brief doesn’t explain any disagreement with B but just blusters on in the error, judges pretty quickly lose the presumption of good faith for party A. Is it different here?" This is an interesting question. The answer: yes, it is very different here. Our editing on WP bears little to no resemblance to the world of litigation and its practices. Comparisons to how a judge treats a lawyer and his or her opposing counsel, comparisons to misconceptions that legal clients enter lawyers' office with, and other such comparisons and analogies are of little to no relevance here. WP is an endeavor in building an encyclopedia. There is a well-known policy page called WP:What Wikipedia is not that details misconceptions about its nature, though none of them directly address your litigation analogy. WP is not designed to teach readers any subject matter, and it's not an adversarial "battleground" system with a judge refereeing (the battleground section is more about faction-warring, to be fair). The best analogy is probably something like groups of students working together on parts of a very large encyclopedia projects that has no deadlines and in a class with no real professor or lecturer overseeing everything, though even that isn't perfect.  White Whirlwind  咨  20:30, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

@White whirlwind: Oh my gosh.

Your sentence "comparisons to misconceptions that legal clients enter lawyers' office with, and other such comparisons and analogies are of little to no relevance here" -- you're going to have to provide some support for that. Lots and lots of clients that are frustrated with the "how" and don't understand the "why" seems like a darn good proxy for the "reader" that we're after. You're going to have to provide some basis to believe that the relationship between "how" and "why" is obvious (I'm asking "obvious" in the sense of "before it's stated" -- I agree it's obvious in hindsight after it's stated, but that's not the mental state of a lay reader reading this for the first time). You remarkably expanded the discussion of "why" for the rule against perpetuities -- the "why" is just as necessary and nonobvious here.

"Groups of students working together" -- redefining the audience as only those that already have good understanding -- with respect to choosing what to explain and what to leave latent -- that seems an unhelpful framework to me.

The analogy to briefs was not about "adversarial," it was about careful reading of discussions on the Talk page, about the importance of reading carefully enough to respond directly, and how a failure to read carefully affects the presumption of good faith. Like helpful students do in a study group -- you've probably been in a group with one joker who's there to talk, and doesn't listen -- typically you disinvite this person, true? Changing the point is not helpful.

The conversation started in the Talk page, but you didn't read that (at least not carefully) either.

DCLawwyer (talk) 13:09, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

@DCLawwyer: apparently neither of us is able to comprehend and respond to the other's points, and you seem to be struggling to keep your cool (judging from the opening interjection), so let's end this conversation here and continue over at the CL talk page. I'm a bit busy now but will respond in the next week or two. Hope you had a nice Christmas.  White Whirlwind  咨  21:22, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

Han dynasty spoken article

Heh! I just listened to your spoken iteration of the Han dynasty article, which I brought to FA status. Nicely done! --Pericles of Athens^Talk 18:18, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

@PericlesofAthens: thanks very much for the kind words. It was the first one I've ever done (maybe the only one, now that I think about it) and I'm sure there are plenty of spots where I could've done better. I hope it's helpful to readers who are nonplussed or intimidated by pinyin (there are a lot of them). I no longer have my nice microphone, so I can't do any more at the moment, although I would like to in the future. Thanks so much for your work on the article.  White Whirlwind  咨  18:28, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Intellectual Property

Hi White Whirlwind - have amended the citation in the OECD BEPS report to show that on page 9 they state the $100-200bn figure. thanks Britishfinance (talk) 07:43, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

@Britishfinance: looks good. I think it works better in its current location.  White Whirlwind  咨  01:41, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Okay, thanks Britishfinance (talk) 00:42, 18 May 2018 (UTC) Britishfinance (talk) 00:42, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

@Britishfinance: I recommend re-visiting the section you added. I've never heard of base erosion in the context of intellectual property (prior to reading your material). I don't see a very strong justification for the notability of BEPS on the intellectual property article. Your main source for the existence and importance of any relationship between the two (the first sentence of the section) is the website of a Dutch university student society. That is pretty weak sourcing. I don't see anything about BEPS in the major IP reliable sources. I don't have time to look into this in detail at present, but if I were you I would go over the material and delete anything that I couldn't get good sourcing for.  White Whirlwind  咨  04:57, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

@White whirlwind: I will do this. IP is the main driver of BEPS and the OECD Project is around tightening IP rules (both in location, valuation, and conversion into GAAP intangible assets). Unfortunately, OECD has failed to convince U.S (and much of the EU) that its rules will work and hence the new U.S. tax codes targeting IP BEPS schemes (the GILTI tax and BEAT tax). Let me add references from stronger sources (Economist, Law Professors, IP Journals etc.) which should help. thanks Britishfinance (talk) 08:11, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

@White whirlwind:. I have also added an older but excellent report from the ZEW (European centre for economic research) that went through the IP based BEPS schemes in 2013 in detail and is still a very good read (it is harder to get accountancy firm reports on the structures as they make them, and some of the anti-tax avoidance institutions are not always credible sources). hope this helps. Britishfinance (talk) 12:10, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

Talk:Napue v. Illinois/GA1

Hi White whirlwind – thank you for your GA review at Talk:Napue v. Illinois/GA1! I very much appreciate your time reviewing this, and I know you've spent a lot of time looking at this. I'm writing to ask you to reconsider your immediate fail of the nomination.

I'm most frustrated by your immediate fail of the nomination. Under the criteria, articles that aren't quickfails are generally put on hold before failing – the criteria state that For most full reviews, the nominator is given a chance to address any issues raised by the reviewer before the article is failed. Even if you don't agree with my opinions below, I hope you'll un-fail and reopen the nomination in accordance with the criteria and quickfail criteria.

Thank you for pointing out the page mismatch on the first citation; I've fixed it. I've also removed the assertion that the case is a landmark Supreme Court case.

I'm puzzled by your notability concerns. Do you really think that Napue v. Illinois is not notable? It's a case that established an entire class of constitutional claims – searching for "Napue violation" still comes up with many recent cases using the term. There's no applicable SNG, so the GNG most applies. To clarify, you believe that there is substantial doubt that Napue has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, and/or that WP:NOT precludes an article on Napue? I vigorously disagree and would suggest that you submit the article to AfD if you continue to believe there are any notability concerns whatsoever.

As to whether the "subsequent developments" section is long enough, I believe it is. I suggest reading WP:GANOT for views on what the "Broad in its coverage" GA criterion entails. There have been much shorter GAs than this article (this, for example), several-fold. I certainly believe that the article "addresses" all main aspects, and I figured that duplicating information on Brady was a bad use of resources (and a potential CFORK), so I made a hatnote to it. Is that problematic in your view?

I'm a little confused by your labeling the "Supreme Court" section heading name as misleading. The "Supreme Court" heading wording is one of two section heading wordings recommended by the relevant WikiProject; see WP:SCOTUS/SG.

All in all, I'm simply confused about how the things you point out actually prevent the article from reaching GA quality. Other than the minor errors you note for verifiability that I have corrected, and the image criterion you note, the sole issue seems to be with criterion 3. The issues you mention in criterion 3 don't seem to prevent the article from "address[ing] the main aspects of the topic" as the GA criteria require. I understand your preference for a more-improved article, and I am certainly glad you pointed out areas that expansions could benefit. However, failing the review without a quick-fail rationale seems to detract from the goal of improving the article. I would greatly appreciate if you could reopen the review and address the points I've made above. Best, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 01:26, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

@L235: thanks for your thoughtful reply. You are correct to point out that I was too hasty with the quickfail, and I am happy to re-open the assessment. However, as I'll explain below, I'm not sure that it would be a good idea for me to re-open my assessment, for I cannot in good conscience pass the article without major improvements. It might be better to re-nominate the article and/or find another editor to re-assess it.

In my judgment, the article is a long way from GA quality. For an article on a case that ostensibly created an entire subclass of violations, it beggars all reason and belief to assert that a 113-word section is sufficiently "broad in its coverage". It boggles the mind to imagine that an article on a notable SCOTUS case can be considered "good" when it has a grand total of 16 footnotes, a full 25% of which are from the opinion itself – an article of such notability should be swimming in references to major reliable sources in the literature. As a general rule I try to avoid informal essays like WP:GAN, but I've looked at it, and I cannot fathom how its interpretation of "addressing" is consistent with either the letter or the spirit of the GA criteria. If that essay's content has any credence, then the guidance at WP:Content assessment—which describes GAs: "Useful to nearly all readers, with no obvious problems; approaching (but not equalling) the quality of a professional encyclopedia."— is a bad joke. The fact that an editor passed Illinois v. McArthur is, to me, dumbfounding.

Speaking of WikiProject SCOTUS, allow me to simply say that if their "style guide" is indicative of the Project's state in general, there is much cause for concern. Compared to other WikiProjects, it seems to me to say far too little about what truly matters—those few instances in which specification or deviations from the general MoS are required—and says things incorrectly when it does matter. Until I had one made, they didn't even have one of NKohli's CT bot Popular Pages lists to help editors focus on the Project's articles that are most important to the readership at large.

It is entirely possible that I am a stuck-up crank with excessively high standards. If that's truly the case, it's probably better for me to cease reviewing GA nominations entirely. I hope you understand my frame of mind better now, and why I said that I cannot pass the article in good conscience. I do not mean this to be a criticism of you, L235, in any personal way, and I thank you for remaining civil and measured while expressing your frustrations.  White Whirlwind  咨  02:22, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

Records of the Grand Historian

The quote you gave me doesn't say that we can't give the meaning of the title both in the text and in the infobox. And I don't understand why you insist on enforcing a policy that you admit you don't agree with. Why is it so important to you? Eric Kvaalen (talk) 18:34, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

@Eric Kvaalen: Surely you understand how Wikipedia works: you've had an account for 13 years. The core of Wikipedia's methodology is WP:CONSENSUS. What you've described has been discussed several times at WP:WikiProject China and a consensus of editors made a determination. We should not contravene that consensus, and "in most cases, an editor who knows a proposed change will modify a matter resolved by past discussion should propose that change by discussion." We are always able to suggest re-opening the discussion to see if the consensus might have changed. This isn't complicated, and shouldn't be new to you.  White Whirlwind  咨  00:58, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

But why do you go around enforcing rules you don't even agree with? If your country's government made a law with which you didn't agree, would you spend time and effort tryin' to catch people who break it? Eric Kvaalen (talk) 16:50, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

@Eric Kvaalen: I might, especially if it was substantial, as this is. In the words of the inimitable Chief Justice Marshall: "The government of the United States has been emphatically termed a government of laws, and not of men." Leads are very visible, and it's good to be uniform. Instead of spending time making funny analogies, why not go to the MOS:ZH talk page and re-open the discussion there? I'd happily re-share my views.  White Whirlwind  咨  07:55, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

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Please use the edit summary to explain your reasoning for the edit, or a summary of what the edit changes. You can give yourself a reminder to add an edit summary by setting Preferences → Editing → Prompt me when entering a blank edit summary. Thanks! --Ronz (talk) 05:43, 17 December 2018 (UTC) Also

@Ronz: I omit my edit summaries fairly regularly, as I think they can be a waste of time sometimes, but you're right that they can be helpful. They've never been required, as far as I know, and I doubt I'll use them in every edit, but it's certainly good to try.  White Whirlwind  咨  05:53, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining. It caused problems in this case, so I wanted to be sure you knew that they are strongly recommended. In situations where discretionary sanctions apply, it will draw attention to your edits if you don't use them. When there's no edit summary and content has been removed, you should expect a revert because of unexplained blanking. --Ronz (talk) 06:00, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

@Ronz: wait, Christensen isn't covered by any sanctions, is he? Also, I must object to the term "blanking" here, since I don't think I actually removed much information, I mostly just moved it into a more natural setting. Any content I deleted was either redundant or not notable, in my judgment. I'll re-do it all sometime soon in a more piecewise fashion, since that's what you prefer.  White Whirlwind  咨  07:51, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

BLPs are covered by sanctions: WP:NEWBLPBAN.

Without edit summaries, other editors only see that 1,256 characters were removed without comment.

Piecewise would be great. Thank you. --Ronz (talk) 16:24, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

@Ronz: I see. Somehow I wasn't aware of the sanctions for BLP's: I thought it was just a general "strictness" thing for libel avoidance. Thanks for informing me.  White Whirlwind  咨  18:33, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

You're correct. The sanctions are just an extension of the strictness of BLP. --Ronz (talk) 20:05, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Mentioned

Hello White whirlwind. Your name was mentioned at WP:ANI#Personal attacks by User:BostonBowTie. It seems to be talking about a discussion that happened at Talk:Common law#Misconceptions. Thanks, EdJohnston (talk) 14:29, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

@EdJohnston: Thanks for the heads up. I'd have gladly participated, but I'm traveling for the holidays and haven't had time for substantial engagement.  White Whirlwind  咨  20:05, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

Wong Kim Ark article

Hi. I have a couple of questions for you regarding your recent edits to United States v. Wong Kim Ark — involving the names of Wong Kim Ark and his parents. Please understand, I am not criticizing or challenging your edits; I am merely asking for more information about them.

• You added the written Chinese forms of Wong's parents' names. Where did you find this information? Can you cite a published source? When I originally included their names in the article, I was unable to find anything other than the English transcriptions of their names given in the US legal paperwork surrounding Wong's case. I think it's great to have the parents' proper written names in the article, but I'm concerned that if we can't point to a source, some nit-picking stickler for the sourcing rules may challenge this information and insist on removing it.

• You changed the transcription of Wong's name in Taishanese — specifically, you used a different method for marking the tones. I don't speak Taishanese (or any other Chinese language/dialect), and all I can say is that the tone marking scheme you used is not the same as what is described in the "Tones" section of the Wikipedia article on Taishanese. Can you cite a source for your tone marking scheme? If not, it might be better to go back to the tone contour scheme which was originally used in this article (and which is documented in the article on Taishanese). I imagine we might also want to add a source for the Taishanese pronunciation of the name if one (preferably in English) can be found; at the moment, I honestly can't recall where I originally found this.

• You added the Mandarin pronunciation of Wong Kim Ark's name. My comment regarding this is a bit different from the above thoughts about sourcing; in this case, I'm wondering if there is really a valid reason to include the Mandarin pronunciation here, given that (as far as I'm aware) neither Wong Kim Ark nor his associates ever used anything other than the Taishanese pronunciation. Is this additional information appropriate because it's reasonable to assume that Wong knew Mandarin (the official spoken language of Qing-dynasty China) and would therefore have recognized / accepted the Mandarin pronunciation as a valid form of his name? If not, I'm a bit uncomfortable with including it in the article — sort of like how we generally don't include the "original" or "old country" pronunciations or written form of an American name when the person in question was born and grew up in the USA and is not known to have ever used a non-Anglicized name.

Again, I am not challenging your work or proposing to undo it at this point; I am only hoping you might be able to explain it further and perhaps supply additional sources to back it up. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 04:01, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

@Richwales: Always happy to answer good concerns. I'm traveling for the holidays and won't have time for big edits, but I'll get back to you in the next week or two.  White Whirlwind  咨  20:07, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

Hi. Gentle reminder. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 21:43, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

@Richwales: Hi Rich, sorry, I forgot all about this. Thanks for the reminder. Let me reply to your questions one-by-one.

1.) This article on Sohu, entitled "黄金德案夯实美国'出生公民权'" ("Wong Kim Ark [Huang Jinde] Entrenches America's 'Birthright Citizenship'"), refers to his parents by those characters. You're right that there's a real dearth of their uses in other sources except as transliterations. You be the judge of the reliability of that, I'll accept whatever you choose.

2.) There is no official transliteration scheme for Taishanese, nor has there ever been one, to my knowledge. In fact, I'm not sure that a coherent Taishanese romanization scheme has ever existed. Most Chinese transliteration schemes were originally developed in the 18th and 19th centuries by Christian missionaries in order to translate the Bible and other religious materials for uneducated peasants, then later supplanted by academic ones if there was enough scholarly interest in the language/dialect to warrant it – in the case of Taishanese, there was not. The current scheme on the Taishanese article has no authoritative value of any sort, and at best might only be considered some kind of "precedent". I take a dim view of the use of tone contours and Chao numbers here on Wikipedia for non-linguistics articles, because in the literature they are quite specialized and are not often used outside of linguistic scholarship. My personal opinion is that you're better off with ad hoc diacritics. Make of that whatever you will.

3.) The inclusion of the Mandarin pronunciation as an "extra" or "parenthetical" bit of information for terms (and especially names) from other varieties of Chinese is a very standard practice in the literature. The reasons for this are rather involved and complex, but suffice it to say they involve things such as the overarching dominance of Mandarin and its status as a lingua franca, as well as some of the inherent transcription problems I mentioned in (2) above. This should be the least of your worries.  White Whirlwind  咨  22:28, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

The Great Wall of China: Documentary

TV Movie 2007, Discovery Channel, National Geographic. The protagonist is Qi Jiguang, an historical character. Geng Zhou, one of his soldiers, and Chang Ang, the Mongol military leader, are historical or fictional? If you don't know very well this documentary, you can see the full video (Part 1, Part 2). Their names can also be changed with other historical characters related with Qi Jiguang. Here Geng Zhou is renamed Zhou Li. Geng Zhou was probably a fictional character, but in this documentary he is the second main protagonist after Qi Jiguang, then he could have an own page. You could also create the page about that documentary Behind the Great Wall. Please, can you help me, because I'm too busy? Thank you very much. --80.181.64.26 08:20, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Not interested.  White Whirlwind  咨  18:44, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

RE Brown v Board of Education

Two things: you've now made the page inconsistent. When I changed the location of the quotation marks, at least the page was consistent, now they occur sometimes according to this "logical" version and sometimes not (and I'm not referring to cases in which the punctuation was part of the sentence being quoted). Second, it's too bad WP is not consistent with standard American usage, at least in an article whose topic is squarely within American interests. Yet another thing to love about WP. Chafe66 (talk) 00:55, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

@Chafe66: The first can easily be fixed by any editor, including you or me. The second is your personal opinion and you're of course entitled to it.  White Whirlwind  咨  01:44, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

My point is that it was at least consistent, and not only that, consistent with preferred American English style, and now it is not consistent. Regarding editing, it seems that you only had interest in undoing my edits, not fixing the article in general, which is inconsistent with your stated concern that the article adhere to official WP standards. (I.e., if you were concerned enough to undo my edits because you worried about adhering to official WP standards, why were you not equally concerned w/the rest of the article?) Chafe66 (talk) 04:22, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

@Chafe66: Of course I had an interest in undoing your edits – they were wrong, and contravened the MoS policy for quotations. We'll work on the consistency in the future. No need to get salty.  White Whirlwind  咨  04:54, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

not a "salty" thing anywhere in what I said. My point is that you were only interested in _some_ things you believe aren't adhering to the policy, not all things, which is just weird to me. Also, you are incorrect in your assertion that the edits were wrong; they simply weren't in accord with your quoted policy, which is itself not consistent with accepted American English punctuation. Chafe66 (talk) 05:39, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

Translation requests for two zh wikipedia pages

Hi @White whirlwind:, I found two interesting pages on Chinese Wikipedia that are worthy of translation into English.

• 1
• 2

That being said, I heard that translating and copy-editing a whole content together is exhaustive so I don't mind if it takes months or even years. Have a nice day nonetheless. 137.74.150.79 (talk) 07:18, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

The first one looks interesting, and is something I had never heard of before. However, I no longer do much translation work here on Wikipedia, as my interests have shifted somewhat, and also because I think in the long run it ends up being more effective to work from high-quality English-language reliable sources rather than translate from the ZH Wiki.  White Whirlwind  咨  22:02, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

Nevermind as I had posted it on WikiProject China/Translation public board. Have a wonderful day!137.74.150.79 (talk) 13:43, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Russell M. Nelson

Thanks for the clarification on the additional citations template I used; I was trying to avoid it appearing like an article hat vs a section hat, hence my placement, but I understand your explanation on why it shouldn't go there. But, I do think the intro needs further citation. While I understand the desire to balance the number of citations with the generalized nature of an intro, there are a few specific references in the intro that, while referenced later in the article (as you pointed out), are of sufficient claim as to warrant their own citations (imo), especially since it is the first mention that readers will encounter. However, I didn't want to impact the potential flow of the intro without getting a consensus on the matter. Do you have any advice on proceeding? Trumblej1986 (talk) 10:18, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

@Trumblej1986: There's some debate over whether inline citations are needed in leads, since they mostly just repeat or summarize information in the body, and the statements should already be cited there. See MOS:LEADCITE. I personally think they aren't needed, but reasonable editors may disagree.  White Whirlwind  咨  00:02, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

I would (respectfully) disagree with your view, but I do see the argument for both ways. Largely, since my background is science, I'm more used to, and comfortable with, citing a source the first time it's mentioned, regardless of where it appears. My primary concern is that there are citations already in the introduction, but they don't cover all facts given, which is a bit discombobulating (to me). I appreciate your feedback, and I'll temper my future efforts with all this in mind. And I won't request further citations in the lead of this article without consensus. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Trumblej1986 (talk • contribs) 00:10, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

Legalism (Chinese philosophy) - another pair of eyes?

After digging around to try to figure out what was up with Legalism (Chinese philosophy), which I hadn't bothered to look into thoroughly until now, I noticed you raised concerns about the article way back in 2015 in the context of an attempt to move the article to something like "Chinese Realpolitik". There seems to be a sort of quasi-ownership that has been exerted over the article over the last few years that's more or less been allowed to stand due to lack of interest from other knowledgeable people, so I just wanted to poke you to see if you might be willing to help identify the problems with the article in its current state. Based on what I've found so far the article probably needs more people looking over it and the sources it cites to help identify OR. —Nizolan ^{(talk · c.)} 19:28, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

@Nizolan: Yes, I remember that business. There was one particular editor who was monopolizing the article, and I remember him saying he has some personal issues/conditions (autism, if I remember correctly) that can make working with him difficult. I remember walls of text that tended to go off into unnecessary detail and/or become incoherent. I do less Chinese stuff and more legal stuff these days here on WP, but I'd of course be glad to help out as long as I can be a supporter and not the leader.  White Whirlwind  咨  21:58, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

I already started an initial list of concerns at Talk:Legalism (Chinese philosophy) so I think any "leadership" has probably been shouldered by me at this point, lol. So far I've just been trying to untangle the mess further—I found they redirected political thought in ancient China to legalism (Chinese philosophy) back in 2016 and reverted subsequent attempts to restore it. While checking the info they give on their user page I also discovered that they've apparently been translating the Rites of Zhou despite "not knowing Chinese" (!) —Nizolan ^{(talk · c.)} 16:37, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

@Nizolan: Oh boy. You've got your work cut out for you, but I think you're on the right track. I got rid of my 1 TB Chinese library, but I'll help with whatever sources and input I can. Your list looks to be headed in the right direction. Here's what I would do: come up with a "proper" scope for the article, then cut mercilessly to achieve that, then tinker with whatever's left to make sure it's taken from solid sources in the field. You're doing the Lord's work.  White Whirlwind  咨  19:57, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Translation help for 龍眼之本鬼病者?

I found you from the list of translators, so I hope you can help me. I am working on Draft:Longan witches broom-associated virus and I have used google translate to get me most of the way, but it seems that the Chinese terms for the disease do not use the word 'witch'. The term I found is 龍眼之本鬼病者 Google lends me to believe that this term refer to ghosts and not witches, which seems plausible given the idiom 'witches broom' doesn't necessarily mean anything in China. I am hoping you can provide a good literal translation, and hopefully I can use it as a DYK hook for Halloween or something. Let me know if I'm close or not. Thanks! --Nessie (talk) 03:17, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

@NessieVL: Hi, I unfortunately know very little about botany or horticulture, but I did some brief searching and I believe that ben3 gui3 bing4 here is simply an older term for witches' broom.  White Whirlwind  咨  03:40, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

So it should be 龍眼之本鬼病 instead of 龍眼之本鬼病者? Does it actually invoke the broom of a witch, or does it use a different idiom? And if that's the older term, what's the newer one? --Nessie (talk) 03:50, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

@NessieVL: Omit the zhe 者 at the end, it's a grammatical word. I wouldn't use the older term, it looks like it's rarely used anymore. A guǐ bìng 鬼病 "ghost sickness" is an old word for an intractable disease, while běn 本 is a root. Don't translate it literally, that would probably constitute original research. The modern term for witch's broom appears to be cóngzhī bìng 丛枝病, meaning "thicket of branches disease".  White Whirlwind  咨  04:28, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

References

Sources

Hello. I would like to ask what the source for this edit ([5]) is. Wikipedia is about sources. Geographyinitiative (talk) 05:56, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

I have started a discussion on the talk page of that page. Geographyinitiative (talk) 05:59, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

We're not having this discussion all over again. We list both character variants as a matter of course here on Wikipedia and will continue to do so unless a broad consensus forms against doing so. I know that at least one administrator (User:Acroterion) has warned you very recently how close you are getting to a topic ban in this area.

If, for whatever reason, you find it hard to accept the binding nature of results of consensus-oriented discussions and other social convention-type rules, Wikipedia might not be a good outlet for your energies.  White Whirlwind  咨  06:07, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

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Marbury v. Madison

As you have probably noticed by the time you read this, I reverted your Wikilink removals at Marbury v. Madison. I personally think that linking publisher names is helpful, and I don't see how it improves the article to remove them. As I said in my edit summary, I would like a third opinion on that question. I realize I'm a newcomer to that article and you are not; I assure you I have no intent to be disruptive. —BarrelProof (talk) 00:05, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

@BarrelProof: My revert wasn't concerned with whether or not you think the links are helpful, as I mentioned in my edit summary, and I had no questions about the good faith nature of your changes. The problem is that we had a widespread, longstanding, and well-established practice to not link publishers in reference sections. It's not written in the MOS, but take a look at WP:Featured Articles. How many FAs can you find where the publishers are linked? I'm going to revert your changes again, because changing a widely established Wikipedia-wide practice should only be done after good discussion and broad consensus.  White Whirlwind  咨  18:03, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

I looked at four FAs chosen somewhat at random to fit my mood: Waveguide filter, Grand Coulee Dam, Jack Parsons (rocket engineer), and Apollo 11. (Sorry for the technology bias in that choice – I realize that's not ideal, but these are what caught my eye.) In those I counted about 30 Wikilinked |publisher= parameters out of about 180 total. (If you try to verify that count, please check for the versions before any of my own recent edits.) In some cases I think the lack of a Wikilink may be because the same article would have many identical Wikilinks, since there is some difference of opinion about whether citations should repeat Wikilinks or not. I also think people sometimes omit Wikilinks out of simple laziness or lack of familiarity. I notice that the instructions at Template:Cite web say "may be wikilinked if relevant" for the |publisher= parameter, which is the same as what it says for the |work= parameter, and it also includes an example that has a Wikilink. I agree with you that it appears to be more common not to Wikilink publisher names, but it is something that does occur with some substantial frequency in FAs. I continue to think it is a desirable practice that is helpful to readers, the same as for |work= parameters and author names when relevant. —BarrelProof (talk) 20:16, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

@BarrelProof: Those are certainly exceptions, but as you noted yourself, just those four is probably not a very representative sample size. In any case, this a pretty longstanding practice on Wikipedia that is fairly widespread. If you disagree that strongly with it, you could probably start a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style.  White Whirlwind  咨  05:40, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Edit-warring on Richard Epstein

Your recent editing history shows that you are currently engaged in an edit war; that means that you are repeatedly changing content back to how you think it should be, when you have seen that other editors disagree. To resolve the content dispute, please do not revert or change the edits of others when you are reverted. Instead of reverting, please use the talk page to work toward making a version that represents consensus among editors. The best practice at this stage is to discuss, not edit-war. See the bold, revert, discuss cycle for how this is done. If discussions reach an impasse, you can then post a request for help at a relevant noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases, you may wish to request temporary page protection.

Being involved in an edit war can result in you being blocked from editing—especially if you violate the three-revert rule, which states that an editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period. Undoing another editor's work—whether in whole or in part, whether involving the same or different material each time—counts as a revert. Also keep in mind that while violating the three-revert rule often leads to a block, you can still be blocked for edit warring—even if you don't violate the three-revert rule—should your behavior indicate that you intend to continue reverting repeatedly.. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 17:23, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

No good deed goes unpunished.  White Whirlwind  咨  06:37, 5 April 2020 (UTC)