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January 2020

Some advice?

Hijiri88 (talk · contribs) here. Posting this logged out for obvious reasons (but doing so "publicly" rather than by email so as to dispel any impression that there's any "funny business" going on).

Background: I came across the email address of the author of one of the sources that was being quoted out of context, for a point that was peripheral to their main argument and so apparently came from Wikipedia. I briefly considered emailing them myself to ask if they could recall where they actually got the information (since their cited source says nothing of the sort), but then decided that emailing a scholar in a field related to my own with a message asking/insinuating "did you get this from Wikipedia?" was not a good idea. I then figured maybe explicitly placing the burden of doing that on the four parties still advocating for the apparently-circular citation to be restored might be a good idea; then, right before clicking "Publish changes", I realized that that could potentially open the door to "Yeah, I emailed him and he replied -- he said he would never dream of getting information from Wikipedia, and his copy of McCullough has linguistic footnotes that do support his text", and the only ways for me to disprove such a lie would be to (a) contact Taylor myself to ask if he had written such an email, which would be borderline harassment far worse than just emailing him in the first place, or (b) |prove that no such edition of McCullough exists.

Long story short, I'm asking you for a second opinion on posting the following at the bottom of Talk:Mottainai#"Genpei Jōsuiki".

• I didn't notice until now, but Taylor's staff profile at the University of Memphis gives an email address for him. {{ping|Martinthewriter|Francis Schonken|IvoryTower123|Challenger.rebecca}} Since you are all apparently still advocating for our citation of Taylor for content that was in this Wikipedia article seven years before he wrote the "source" in question, would you like to contact him and ask him where he got the information? I've already checked his cited source, which doesn't say anything about mottainashi one way or the other, leading to the most reasonable conclusion being that, because it was a peripheral point to the one he was making in his essay, he checked Wikipedia and then located the corresponding passage in a translation of the Heike, without verifying that the Japanese text supported our assertion. ~~~~

Any advice you could offer on the matter (even unrelated to posting the above -- if you were in my shoes would you just bite the bullet and email Taylor yourself?) would be most appreciated.

Cheers, 211.135.108.100 (talk) 06:41, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

I would just write to him myself, but post something like the above explaining why I was doing so. (But I'm not an academic; I was a professional online activist for over a decade, so writing to important people with difficult questions wasn't something I shied away from. >;-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:56, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I didn't "look hard to find potential insult in every phrase" -- I looked hard at every phrase of Francis's proposed change, much of which was, yes, insulting to me (since it contained numerous grammatical errors, misreadings of sources, and outright nonsense, while he repeatedly referred to it as an "improvement" on my work), but I didn't actually mention that anywhere in my long commentary on the edit (which, as I will give you credit for not failing to notice, he admitted to not having read). I think if you change your !vote just because you want the RFC to end in "no consensus" sooner ... well, that's somewhat unsettling and bad for the project -- did you find something in all of that discussion that convinced you that either version A or version F is not inferior to version C?

Yes, I think a simple !vote count at present would probably come out to "no consensus", but a proper close would take into account the fact that several of the !votes (virtually all of the ones for version A) were clearly drive-by comments by editors acting in bad faith.

And ... well, I will seriously consider whether I intend to take your above advice. Not because I don't think it is sound on its face, but because I am really having serious doubts about whether any of this has been worth my time, and now even you are apparently saying you think the best solution would be for us to wait another month for a new RFC to be opened and then closed. I honestly don't think any good could come from that proposal, and would rather just change my !vote to version A and walk away from the article, if not the entire project, to allow me to enjoy my life again.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:49, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Union Jack's knives in the back

IMHO, Welsh, Scottish & Irish nationalism is behind a lot of the push to use Welsh/Scottish/Irish-N.Irish/English in such UK-related articles. Anyway, just mentioning it here, as one gets blasted out there for bringing up the elephant in the room. PS: Feel free to delete this post. GoodDay (talk) 16:17, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm sure that's true, but it's a common perspective and isn't "wrong". It's not any less or more righteous than a "blur away all these distinctions and let them go the way of Cornwall and the Cornish" extreme unionism. Over here in Yankeeland, we have a similar split between states'-rights advocates and fans of increased federal government authority (which also tend to align with right-wing versus left-wing politics, respectively).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:26, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Except on issues where it's the other way around. Happy New Year. Dicklyon (talk) 05:27, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Yeah. The Republicans tend to be big fans of things like the Dept. of Homeland Security, and lots of dope-smokin' liberals love the fact that California legalized pot. >;-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:57, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

Hello SMcCandlish: Thanks for all of your contributions to Wikipedia, and have a great New Year! Cheers, Clovermoss (talk) 00:41, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year snowman}} to people's talk pages with a friendly message.

A message to all and sundry

Happy Newt Year! →

Taricha torosa

I'll refrain from delivering these on a zillion talk pages. Heh.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:57, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Ha ha. I like these guys.
– North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 06:14, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Oh, yeah! I find this variant all the time. Kept a few around (fed them fruit flies) for a while. A visitor was checking out the terrarium: "Hey! This worm ... it has legs!"  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:54, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Zigbee vs ZigBee spelling

Resolved

 – Opened it as a WP:RM so it just gets decided instead of just two people having a bilateral back-'n'-forth about it. :-)

Hi, I just left a note at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:ZigBee#Capitalization:_Zigbee,_not_ZigBee about your Zigbee -> ZigBee modifications a month+ ago -- I think the changes should be the other way around. Maybe discuss this further on the Talk:ZigBee page? Vskytta (talk) 20:07, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

WP:ANI

Resolved

 – I've said all that needs to be said at that waste of time. There's clearly no consensus for sanctions in either direction, though a boomerang would've been entirely appropriate.

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The Drover's Wife (talk) 01:52, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Nine-ball History

Hi Stanton, long time! I hope you are well. I've been working my way through the nine-ball article, cutting some more of the in-depth parts, and expanding some more on the game as a whole. I'm looking to do up a history section (I know it's a 1920s America thing, but outside of that I'm lost), and expand the section on tournaments. I know you have an encylopedic knowledge of these things, so if you have any sources, or ideas where to look, I'd appreciate it. I currently have the following:

• very minor mentions of history
• The Pool Bible - just says about it's preported beginnings
• - not sure if reliable
• History.co.uk basically barely mentions it.

I know A Brief History of the Noble Game of Billiards by Shamos is a good reference, but I don't see a great deal on the origins and history of the sport (I'd assume that's why we don't already have one.)

Any ideas for this one? Thanks for your help. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 10:50, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

@Lee Vilenski:. Nine-ball originated in the US, so UK sources will likely be late and dubious (like American works on snooker). Probably the best bets are:

• Shamos, Mike (1999). The New Illustrated Encyclopedia of Billiards. New York: Lyons Press. ISBN 9781558217973 – via Internet Archive. – Inexpensive, commonly available, and a real trove.
• Stein, Victor; Rubino, Paul (2008) [1994]. The Billiard Encyclopedia (3rd ed.). New York: Balkline Press. ISBN 9780615170923. – It's possible there's a later edition, but every ed. of it is very expensive, so it's better found via inter-library loan. The work is important enough some UK libraries probably have it.
• Shamos also regularly writes/wrote a history column for one of the pool mags (I'm pretty sure it's Billiards Digest). I know he did an in-depth piece on the history and development of eight-ball, so it's probable he did one on nine-ball (and likely earlier that the eight-ball piece, given the pro pool focus of the mags). I doubt back-issues are common in the UK, and I don't know if they have a full archive of back issues online.
• One way to really dig into it is to dig up past editions of the Billiard Congress of America and earlier Billiard Association of America rulebooks. The WPA's later rules are based on those (I think they are now kept in sync). BAA probably produced the first published rule set, other than maybe in booklets produced by table manufacturers like Brunswick, Balke & Collender (they produced two early rulebooks for what became eight-ball, as "B.B.C. Co. pool", around 1912 and 1925 if I recall correctly).

I no longer have a collection of these books and magazines, after downsizing about a year ago (my back could no longer take dealing with 4,000 books and 15,000 comics and magazines, and my bank account wasn't happy about paying for space to store it all). As for BAA/BCA rulebooks, they're often available on eBay for $5–10, but most are likely also available through ILL in the US and Canada (not sure every year's edition would be, though; libraries tend to divest old editions of books that are regularly updated). That likely doesn't help you in the UK, since these books would not have made their way across the Atlantic very often. I don't know what year the nine-ball rules first appeared in BAA/BCA rulebooks, though asking someone at BCA via e-mail might work. For all I know, they might even have archival PDFs now.

 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:57, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Is that Robert Downey Jr.? No, it's Saint McCandlish chillaxin on his private jet on the way to the WPA World Nine-ball Championship!

Holy moly, 4,000 books and 15,000 comics and magazines, that's a veritable mountain. Hopefully you made some cash selling them at bookstores, even though nowadays they offer chintzy buy pricing, likely thanks in part to the internet, which has eliminated the need for books! North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 00:34, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

That, and Amazon in particular is putting local bookstores out of business.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:15, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

I've migrated my library to work, and hope that my company will take care of the 3000 volumes (many of which they paid for) after I retire, so I won't have to deal with them. Selling is hard and slow. Used booksellers that I know buy up books for about $1 at "Friends of Library" sales and such, and sell them online via abebooks.com and such (now part of Amazon, sadly). I still buy a couple of books every week via abebooks.com, because you can't argue sources without sources. Google book search is good for finding snippets, but then you need to get the book to find more. In this way the Internet has been good for used book sellers, by making their wares searchable, but instead of stores they have storage. Turnover is very low, so storage needs to be cheap. If you're in a hurry to unload, you might as well give them to the library and let someone else try to make a buck off them. Dicklyon (talk) 01:39, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I guess it's resulting in a general "consolidation" of bookstores; those that could adapt to the model of a storefront plus a whole lot of e-tailing survived, while traditional ones just running as storefronts have had a tendency to go under.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:47, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for this mate. I knew you had gotten rid of the books, but thought you'd know better than me where to start looking. Something on how/why/when the game was founded would probably be enough, as it's not fantastic just saying "around 1920, America". Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 09:15, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

It's been said it originated as a children's and a training/practice game. Oh! Another likely source is Robert Byrne's book series; Byrne's Wonderful World of Pool and Billiards, Byrne's Book of Great Pool Stories, and Byrne's New Standard Book of Pool and Billiards in particular have all kinds of info in them (the third of those is primarily instructional, but still contains a fair amount of background info; Byrne had a hard time not making what could have been dry, rote material into entertaining prose).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:57, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

conversation you may be interested in

 Done

Hi Mac, hope you are well! There's a topic at WT:SNOOKER#Power Snooker that I would appreciate your comments on. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:26, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

James500

In case youhaven't noticed, he seems to be back. Editors are of course free to come and go, but when they "leave the project" to avoid an imminent editing restriction then come back a year later, including making the kind of wikilawyerish edits that were one of the reasons they got in trouble in the first place, that's an issue. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 00:59, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

@Hijiri88: Well, the "resigned under a cloud" principle applies to adminship, not general editing. It's generally actually a good idea for "editors in trouble" to take a long wikibreak and get their heads screwed back on straight before taking up WP editing again. But if the editor in question isn't doing anything different at all, that might be an issue ready to re-arise. I suppose, if it becomes seriously problematic, take it up at ANI. Also, if the matter in question pertains to any WP:AC/DS topic, make sure they have a new {{Ds/alert}}, since they expire after a year. Then, any disruptive behavior can be taken to WP:AE, which is more expedient than ANI, though you have to present a tighter case (length limits, calm tone, an absolutely no accusations or other claims not proven by diffs, since AE is a very WP:BOOMERANG-happy venue).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:12, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

@User:Hijiri88: Your comment constitutes an unambiguous personal attack and unambiguous harassment. (I did not leave the project to avoid an imminent editing restriction, I stopped editing because the pair of you made me too ill to edit for a number of months, after the community decided not to impose a restriction. Since then I tried to avoid the project as far as possible because I was frightened that editing might involve further risk to my personal safety. It is factually inaccurate and untrue, and (because the claim is negative) a personal attack, to claim otherwise). I do not consent to either of you talking to me or about me anywhere on this website or anywhere else for any reason or under any circumstances whatsoever. (I do not fear interaction with an uninvolved competent admin acting in good faith, but the pair of you are totally unacceptable because of the way you behave, such as bludgeoning myself and others with massive walls of particularly horrible bullying; and the personal attack at the top of this thread is a perfect example of problematic behaviour). During the ANI case I was subjected to spectacularly abusive behaviour that was so bad that it made me physically ill (ie more ill than I would otherwise have been). If either of you engage in any further behaviour that poses a danger to my personal safety, I will ask for the person doing that to be immediately and permanently blocked, without further warning, per the rubric of the blocking policy. Since it is apparent that Hijiri88 is looking at my contributions, and there is therefore reason to fear that I may be in danger if I continue to edit, I am going to stop contributing to Wikipedia now, and I will not come back unless it appears there is no further danger to my personal safety. The comments in this thread have caused me enormous unwarranted emotional distress. James500 (talk) 21:21, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Just going to note that I got the ping. I read the first sentence, and it is wrong. I'm not going to read the rest. Please just go about your business and leave me alone. (I'd also suggest you leave SMcC alone; not sure if you saw this because you have this page watchlisted or because you are monitoring my contribs, but it doesn't really matter.) Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:07, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

It's a shame that WP:GOINGPOSTAL is a redlink, though I suppose WP:MASTODON is close enough in spirit. I honestly don't even remember the details of the noticeboard stuff that involved James500. I deal with so many battlegrounding and otherwise disruptive editors in so many topic areas, it's impossible to retain it all. (Nor am I inclined to go look it up; I purposely let myself forget others' past transgressions to the extent that I can.) What I wrote above was generic advice about dealing with any returning but previously problematic editor. In skimming over what James500 wrote above, I'm not sure what to make of it, other than feeling it to be a WP:DRAMA and WP:HIGHMAINT outburst, which appears specifically to be intended to re-provoke conflict while exaggeratedly masquerading as a cry against conflict. It seems not just histrionic but clearly disingenuous – a passive-aggressive display.

The really weird claim about being fearful for his personal safety is dangerously close to WP:NLT matters, and James500 would do well to review cases of previously topic-banned, interaction-banned, indefinitely blocked, and/or site-banned editors (e.g. Darkfrog24) who have also made outlandish claims of supposedly being real-world-threatened by other editors, without presenting any evidence to back up such outlandish character-assassination aspersions. If James500 simply means his mental health, blood pressure, or other health concerns cannot take any more arguing with or being criticized by other editors, then I just have to cite WP:CIR. A project like this involves a great deal of source, logic, and policy debate, plus frequent writing critique, and (depending on the editor) uncommon to frequent constructive criticism of behavior that affects smooth collaboration and content stability. James500 may simply be incompatible with this systemic operating constraint. In particular, his arm-waving about seeking a block of anyone critical of him simply because he feels bad would, if he acted upon it, probably result in a WP:BOOMERANG block/ban of himself on a CIR, WP:NOTHERE, and WP:BATTLEGROUND basis. No editor has a "right" to immunity from being challenged or criticized.

It's instructive that various editors less inclined to point fingers or to engage in argument to emotion tactics, and who steer clear of hotbeds of content disputation and viewpoint conflict (and of particular editors with whom they have interaction difficulties), seem to have remarkably drama-free "careers" on Wikipedia. But if one simply does not exhibit a temperament suited to civil discourse, that is itself a CIR problem. (Notably, an "I demand justice!" attitude is usually symptomatic of the same ill-fated editors who make bogus claims of being threatened, and this also has much to do with why they get ejected.) Cf. also WP:Wikipedia doesn't need you, WP:Wikipedia is not therapy, and related pages; WP and its editors are not obligated to satisfy anyone in particular, and everyone owns their own emotions. Most of us are usually sad to see someone depart, but less so when a signal-to-noise-ratio examination suggests that the editor in question either hasn't been productive, or (much worse) has been interfering with others' productivity, or (worse still) is intermittently returning just to re-start tired, counterproductive conflicts when the heat is off them long enough they think they can get away with it. It's not building the encyclopedia; it's thwarting construction for out-of-band reasons (which also relate to WP:NOT#FORUM and WP:NOT#SOCIAL policy). All that said, James500 would not be the first editor to feel the need for a lengthy wikibreak (I've taken several myself, aside from occasional quick visits to respond to something someone e-mailed me directly about). Perhaps James500's simply hasn't been long enough for his own peace of mind and spirit of collegiality. In closing, my talk page is not a proper venue for some kind of "James500 versus whomever" personality conflict. It can either evaporate of its own accord and everyone can go back to their usual editing routines in peace, or James500 can get on with it at ANI and attempt to prove a case that he's been wronged. I think we all know what the better option is.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:57, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

@James500: I feel some further followup is [unfortunately] warranted, since you're now canvassing for some admin or another to come and take your side, outside of normal dispute-resolution channels [1]. You really need to take a look at this concurrent ANI, which has already resulted in a discretionary boomerang block before even being formally closed. If for some reason you doubt my assessment above of what will happen at ANI if you continue making farcical claims that simply being criticized or challenged by other editors is some kind of "threat" or "attack", just so you can pursue fight-perpetuation against editors you think "wronged" you a long time ago, all you have to do is go look for yourself and see what happens when others do the same thing and have their own editing history re-examined at ANI.

Against my better judgement, I did go review the old ANI report your venting above relates to, and you are clearly in contravention of several of the remedies in it. To quote the salient parts from the very detailed close there: "James500 has acknowledged here that many of the concerns raised about his editing (in particular ... his prolixity, his tendentiousness, the dismissing of other's opinions ...) are warranted .... James500 has agreed to: • Not engage in excessive wordiness ...• Avoid using [insulting] words ... to dismiss other editors' comments. ... • Stop adopting a battleground approach and editing tendentiously. ... [T]his can be summarized as 'Keep it brief, don't badger, keep calm, don't get upset, speak moderately.' It goes without saying that should James500 fail to abide by these informal pledges then he runs the risk of exhausting the whole community's patience, and more formal restrictions may need to be imposed" [emphasis added]. Heed the proverbial writing on the wall. Especially important in this context is that Hijiri88's concerns in opening this thread, that you appear to have returned to simply re-start the same behavior that got you in trouble in the first place, is exactly what much of your last ANI examination was about (as pointed out by multiple participants in that ANI, not in my original report; this particular concern practically took that ANI over). So, it's not some unwarranted suspicion on Hijiri88's part, but observation that a long-standing pattern seems to be resuming yet again, of agreeing to desist when forced to do so, biding time for a while, then going right back to the same disruptive antics seemingly in hope that everyone will have forgotten. I pretty much did forget, but your own melodramatics have forced me to re-familiarize myself with why you were almost blocked or topic-banned last time. It's very self-defeating on your part.

PS: Please see WP:CAPITULATE (and the rest of that entire essay); your "getting me some justice" approach to such matters is doomed, because the community cares about protecting the stability and productivity of the project as a whole, not satisfying egos or smoothing ruffled feathers for individuals; the angrier you appear, the less likely other editors will care to listen.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:21, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Having read more than nine kilobytes of your comments on Bearian's talk page and here, I am just going to have to stop contributing to Wikipedia, as I absolutely cannot cope with your "chronic abrasive verbosity" (not my words).  James500 (talk) 00:10, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

There's nothing "abusive" about advising you how to keep from getting blocked and suggesting that you move on with your wiki-life instead of trying to re-start old disputes that already went poorly for you. Being precise about it on my own talk page is a damned sight less verbose for everyone than you, me, Hijiri88, or anyone else taking this back to ANI. Someone whose own ANI was in large part about pointless and off-topic verbosity used to confuse and derail policy debates has no business complaining about someone else's genuinely on-point level of detail, especially at that person's own talk page (to which you were not invited but showed up at to start drama, through edit-stalking either me, Hijiri88 or both). Now, if you want to play WP:HIGHMAINT about it and threaten to quit Wikipedia over your attempt to "climb the Reichstag dressed as Spider-Man" not going as you planned, that's on you. I wish you well in whatever you spend your free time on, and may it be more productive for you and others that what you've been doing here. If, as I actually suspect, you've just had insufficient wikibreak time to chill out and stop dwelling on getting vengeance, I wish you well in achieving some calm, and returning when you have done so. If, as I fear but hope against, you'll simply back off for a while then resume pursuit of the same re-opening of old wounds, we all know how that's going to end.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:16, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Trust me

He wasn't kidding. EEng 04:04, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

P'r'aps so, but it was an excuse to make a username joke (and "is no" ones are pretty stale at this point).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:58, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Per your reply to me at the DRV to review the AfD for List of REITs in Canada

Hi SMcCandlish,

Per your reply to me at the DRV to review the AfD for List of REITs in Canada, where you wrote, "[s]ounds like a good talk-page discussion after closure of this brouhaha (which is really about whether there was a BADNAC, not what to do with the content, if anything)," I'm wondering, since the discussion has been relisted, should we invite MrOllie and DGG in to the discussion via pings? I thought I'd approach you first before randomly pinging them.

Cheers,
--Doug Mehus T·C 22:08, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Well, I meant more the article talk page (and if a merge is what's going to be on the table, that would be the talk page of the merge target, the better article). However, that may be just premature until the renewed AfD closes (which might be for delete anyway). Regardless, I'm okay with some side-band discussion of it now, whether that be here, or on the AfD's own talk page, or whatever. If merge-and-redir is the goal, it could even be now, at the target's talk page, as an "If that isn't deleted, should we merge it to here?" thread. Despite being all Mr. Process when in a process, I'm anti-bureaucracy outside of one. :-) PS: I may be overdue for nap time, so I might not get back to this stuff until tomorrow, after I'm done with the two on-going RfAs.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:13, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

SMcCandlish, Thanks for the reply...I get the thinking behind a redirect or a merge, though I'm not sure a merge is necessary since all of the blue-linked REITs are at the target article (as far as I'm aware). A redirect is possible, but like I said at DRV, I'm just not thinking the need to preserve the attribution history here. Either editor could've very easily compiled this list of REITs from primary or otherwise non-independent secondary sources so I don't really see the need for keeping it in a refactored List of real estate companies of Canada combined list.

As for RfA, kudos to you for participating in that. I personally just avoid that as S Marshall described it best and most concisely for what it is, a ritual hazing. I'd kind of actually prefer the bureaucrats to have the powers to appoint administrators, similar to the processes for page mover, pending reviewer, etc., based on an extensive list of defined criteria. In exchange, I'd like to see the community develop a formalized process for de-sysoping (whether by consensus or by bureaucrat based on an extensive checklist as to whether the bar for de-sysoping had been met). I realize that sort of goes against our mantra of consensus-based decision-making, but from what I've observed, the bureaucrats we have, for the most part, shown themselves to be highly competent and neutral administrators of administrators. Doug Mehus T·C 23:27, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Not sure I see a reason to avoid preserving the page history, but I might not really care. I'm not a "history nut" when it comes to revisions no one's going to care about anyway. I don't disagree with your description of RfA (and I kind of comment on that a bit, in different terms, at User:SMcCandlish/RfA standards). But I figure I don't have a right to complain about any "badmins" if I did nothing to keep them out of "office". We have two long-term problematic but still standing ones whom I could have almost certainly prevented being given the mop (or in one case getting it back!) with just a few diffs, but I was on wikibreak at the time (I actually wonder if that's why they RfAed when they did). And a couple of times I've seen people who'd be good admins just barely fail to pass, due to a couple of histrionic opposes over trivial crap, where just a few more supports would have mattered. We definitely need a community desysop process, because ArbCom basically won't do it most of the time, unless the need to do so is so bad that there'd be a wikirevolt if they refused to. (Reminds me of a certain president of a certain country and the difficulty of impeaching him). Would rather see RfA seriously reformed than 'Crats turned into an admin electoral college; the risks are too high, even if the current process is so very, very shite-full. Anyway, I'm getting "grainy eyes" now and gotta hit the sack. I'm yawning like the cat in my editnotice. PS: I appreciate that our debatorizationing at DRV, though grumbly at parts, remained generally aloof and not very personalilzed. Sometimes it's hard to really hash out an issue here without someone getting butt-hurt.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:52, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

• The community elects sysops but can't impeach them, and all sysop errors no matter how egregious are automatically forgiven if the sysop retracts and apologises. It follows that the only time you can ever remove a sysop is when you can show Arbcom smoking-gun diffs and evidence that the sysop has doubled-down on their error. You usually need several examples so it's basically hopeless. Once a sysop has tenure, the will to remain a sysop, and the absolute minimum of clue, the community is permanently stuck with them.

  The best model is the one we use in the real world with police officers. The community elects commissioners; the commissioners set standards and they recruit, train, monitor and if necessary, discipline, the enforcers. Our existing body of bureaucrats consists of people who didn't volunteer for this commissioner role, and the community hasn't assessed their suitability for it, so we clearly can't ask them to do the job. We need the commissioners to be a separate, elected body that's subordinate to arbcom. But I can't build consensus for that big a change -- simply put, Wikipedia's consensus model means we can't get there from here.

  On the matter of retaining people's contributions in the history, that's a terms of use issue. We don't pay our volunteers, but we do promise to give them credit for their contributions in the article history. Therefore wherever their contributions appear in the encyclopaedia, even if it's in very highly modified form, the article history needs to reflect their work. It's literally the only incentive we offer to build Wikipedia, so I feel quite passionate about not reneging on it.—S Marshall T/C 00:09, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

  On history: Sure, but if we do not retain any of the mateiral at all, there is not need to retain history. In this case, the argument is that the target page of a potential merge-and-redirect already contains all the entries we would keep, so it may just end up being blank-and-redirect. On adminship and self-governance stuff: Interesting idea, but I don't see how to get there from here without much deeper changes to how WP works, i.e. a "revolution" of sorts, or in other terms a crash and burn followed by a restart, at least at some level. This will almost inevitably happen anyway as part of the organizational lifecycle, and an argument can be made that it is already long overdue (like a decade+), both as to some of how the community operates, and as to how the WMF as a whole is still populated by people from the commercial software world and still operating like a software and online-services company instead of like a globally important NGO with a constituency (probably the largest constituency in history – everyone – though that scope is also shared by a few world health and civil rights organizations, I suppose). Many of the things wrong with WP and with WMF more broadly are not going to change until most of the board are replaced, and WMF's goals and charter are reworked, and WMF imposes some changes on the community. I've already been through this multiple times at other major organizations like EFF, which had precisely the same problem.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:01, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

  Even in those cases where there's no strict need to retain the history, I feel that it's good practice to do more than the minimum. We're losing our volunteers, on Wikipedia, faster than we're gaining new ones and that's because we're no longer doing enough to engage with people. Needlessly obliterating their contributions is part of that.—S Marshall T/C 18:43, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

  I don't object to the history retention in such a case (and it would happen anyway with a blank-and-redirect, unless the page were deleted first), though I don't think it has any impact at all, positive or negative, on editor retention. Noobs aren't leaving over such matters, since they're not aware of them. Long-term editors are leaving for much more serious reasons like abusive admins, entrenched PoV-pushing WP:FACTIONs with their own pet admin, ArbCom flip-flopping between a "just punish everyone make the shut up and fuck off" kangaroo court and an administrators' defense association, and so on. From an org. lifecycle perspective (even aside from such problems) editorial participation decline is inevitable. Most of the work has already been done, and certainly most of the "sexy" work has. We're just polishing the chrome, neutralizing biases, and filling in obscure coverage gaps, except when a genuinely new and notable topic arises (new blockbuster, new war, whatever), which causes a spurt of activity when then fades rapidly. WP is pretty much necessarily going to run on a skeleton crew, compared to 2005, because we've already filled in the several million most obvious gaps; meta:Eventualism doesn't exist any more; this isn't a project trying to become an encyclopedia, it's already the dominant encyclopedia. The trick to replenishing the editorial pool in the future is getting people hooked on working here when they first arrive to work on some hot new band's article, or add some content about a newly notable politician, or whatever.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:54, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Hey, can you take a look at my colon?

Hi, SMC. I think you've given me formatting/markup advice before, so maybe again? RE: display of verse in articles, I'm aware that indenting with colons produces bad markup, but my sense is that if they are used within {{quote}} or simlar templates, they get transformed into harmless leading spaces, so they're OK. Or, to put it in terms that even I would understand:

:Indent with colon even once:
:The markup gods will curse your bones.

(archaic rhyme intended)...but...

{{poemquote|
My sense is that colons
:in {{quote}} are legit-y;
But maybe I'm wrong
:and they're totally shitty!}}

I haven't found precise direction on this, though, and I can't recall how I formulated these ideas. Any insight? Thanks. Phil wink (talk) 22:14, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

@Phil wink: Now that I have on my proctology exam gloves: The use of : to cause indentation in articles is a bad idea (even if it's a lost cause on talk pages); use some other method like {{blockindent}} or {{in5}}. (That's covered in MoS somewhere, maybe near the stuff on quotes, or at paragraphs, or layout, or accessibility.) Whether the <dd>...</dd> (the :) is inside a template or not is irrelevant; the templates aren't doing any kind of conversion on them. However, for this exact case, you can dispense with a lot of this, by just using <poem>, which preserves whitespace as-entered, or using {{poemquote|<poem>...</poem>}} if you need the template's additional features. (It's weird to me that the template doesn't use the <poem> markup internally.) Anyway, entering:

{{poemquote|<poem>
My sense is that colons
  in {{tnull|quote}} are legit-y;
But maybe I'm wrong
  and they're totally shitty!</poem>}}

will produce:

My sense is that colons
  in {{quote}} are legit-y;
But maybe I'm wrong
  and they're totally shitty!

But unless you're using the attribution features of the template, you can just remove the {{poemquote|...}} part and use only <poem>...</poem>. Hope that helps.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:26, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. {{poemquote}} does implement <poem>...</poem> within it, so I could have been using initial spaces all this time. The reason I preferred colons (given that I thought their markup got "cleansed" via the template) was that I found them much clearer in the wikitext: since monospaced spaces are so much fatter than display spaces, you never quite get what you thought once you hit Publish; moreover (especially for the sometimes-elaborate Jacobethan and Romantic stanzas) it's so much easier to count colons to make sure each line has been indented its own special amount. But I'll stop. In fact, I'll probably go back and start cleaning up all my junk. Sigh. Sometimes I fear Wikipedia won't get finished by the deadline! ;-) Phil wink (talk) 15:49, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Thank you ...

January

... with thanks from QAI

... for improving articles in January! Today - 20 in 2020 - is a birthday, she is pictured on the lower choir pic, enjoy listening. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:32, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

WP:DOGS

 Done

Hello SMcCandlish, I'm writing to you because yuor nmae is in the list of the "WikiProject Dogs" and you're one of the last still active. There's a discussion you might be interested in, here. I'd be glad to know your opinion about this matter, so I hope that you'll read the thread I opened. Thank you in advance if you decide to join. 151.64.171.8 (talk) 11:33, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

I have to thank you for replying in the thread. I've read your long answer, and I must tell you that the opinions you've expressed there are based on wrong suppositions. I'm not contesting your "no", but the reasoning you followed to get there. Please, read my answer where it's explained why your arguments are wrong and, after having been provided with correct information by it, reply on the base of that. Thank you for your time. 151.64.168.204 (talk) 08:24, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

I'll take a look, but remain highly skeptical, especially given the weird Italian nationalism perspective you've been injecting into that talk page in two threads in a row, with no one else buying into a word of it. Malta is not part of Italy, and is not linguistically, culturally, or otherwise Italian except at a minority level. I provided a very strong and researched case for the position I took, so you would have to do at least equal levels of fact-based research and reasoning to surmount it. I will take a look at it, but am not holding my breath.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:35, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

And I was right to be skeptical. Your WP:BATTLEGROUND behavior is likely to lead to a topic-ban or a block pretty soon. WP is not a forum for your unsourced pet hypotheses that contradict all the sourcing. There is no evidence whatsoever that Maltese dog is an Italian breed, and even closest known varieties are from Switzerland and southern France anyway.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:12, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

I wonder why replying here instead of the discussion...

1. There's nothing like nationalism in here! We could say the opposite, there's a prejudice against Italy. That pronunciation has always been in the page, nobody has ever challenged it, it was consensual, but it was removed without any discussion, which doesn't mean that to make an edit you have to discuss but that if an edit is reverted by another user you have to stop and discuss with him instead of going on with your edit, and it isn't me saying it but the consensus diagramme and the "BOLD, revert, discuss cycle". I was a victim of an older registered user o abuser his powers, and the Italian pronunciation too.
2. Malta has nothing to do with the "Maltese" dog breed, once and for all! A child might make such a connection, an adult should READ what other adults tell him! And it isn't me the adult you should read, it's an international association globally recognised like the FCI! If you'd had a look at the document I linked, you'd have read "The name Maltese does not signify that the breed originates from the island of MALTA" and "in the name Adriatic island of Méléda, the Sicilian town of Melita and also in that of the island MALTA" is found the Semitic root where also the "Maltese" name comes from...
3. Also, if you'd have read that document you won't contest the Italian belonging of the dog breed, because under the voice "PATRONAGE" it's written "Italy", while the origin, again, isn't "Malta" but generically the Central Mediterranean Sea area which includes Italy, Malta and other countries. Malta has nothing to do specifically with this dog breed, get it through your head once and for all.
4. Where on Earth would my assertion be not only "unsourced" (go and READ!!!) but even "contradicted by sources"??? I don't think you're lying knowing that you're lying, like "Magnolia677" did, you just didn't deign to read the sources before making such a statement, and it's patent you didn't because if you'd done you wouldn't have spend so many words in defense of the "Malteseness" of this dog which is all but Maltese. I apologise for being carried away earlier, but you should apologise to me for the false accusations you've written here about the sources.
5. If the English name of the breed was "Maltian" and the Italian "Maltese", I wouldn't insist in the need of its presence in the page. But since both English and Italian name are "Maltese" (while the Maltese name is another one I don't know), an indication of the Italian pronunciation of that word "IS" useful to the readers, exactly as for "pasta", because on of the most important international associations about dog breeds states that the patronage of this dog is... Italian!
6. Last but not least: take a second to read this question of mine and think in your head what could be the answer. WHY all the users who're now fighting so hard not to restore the Italian pronunciation have never tried removing in during all these years? HOW COME users from the WikiProject Dogs who've edited that page so many times and have never challenged the presence of the Italian pronunciation are now using all they have to keep it removed? What do you think could be the reason? Among these we mustn't count he who started all this, "Magnolia677", because he has nothing to do with dogs, he didn't even know that this dog existed before starting this circus, mindful that his position would keep him safe from respecting rules of Wikipedia and from any anonymous user who protests for this...

I won't force you to answer, I'm starting thinking that entering into Wikipedia community as registered users leads many good persons to the "Dark Side", I've hoped that you at least could be unbiased enough, but now I'm afraid you've chosen "your friends" in place of "truth" (i.e. an independent source linked in almost all pages about dog breeds who says exactly what I've always been saying and the opposite of what all the dog-friendly users are...). 151.64.189.26 (talk) 08:44, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

I replied here because you posted here; I also replied at the other page when you posted there. There is no "instead". To cover this briefly, and in the same order:

1. You are pushing a nationalist PoV; everything is Italy/Italian this, and Italy/Italian that. There is no "prejudice" against Italy, any more than there is against Japan or Botswana, at that page, because the subject simply has no encyclopedic to any of those countries, only to Malta (and – maybe, depending on more detailed sourcing – peripherally to Switzerland and France, though I would want to actually examine the sources in detail where they are trying to draw genetic relationships between the Maltese dogs and continental dogs from so. France and from Switzerland. Lots of breed-related sources are actually unreliable and uncritically repeat nonsense claims that breeders make up for promotional purposes).
2. "Malta has nothing to do with the "Maltese" dog breed, once and for all!" That's not what the sources are tell us. The end. Neither I nor anyone else here is going to entertain any further WP:FRINGE assertions from you, devoid of evidence. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and you not only haven't provided any, you haven't provided enough to surmount all the other sourcing that ties the breed (naturally) to Malta. You actually are onto something, though (seemingly without realizing it), and there are hints of it in the article already, and I raised it in more detail on the talk page: it's neither clear that all references in ancient sources to dogs in/from Malta (even when we're sure they really do mean Malta) have anything to do with this modern breed and its foundation stock, nor that all historical references even into the Early Modern period which have been interpreted as referring Malta actually do so; some seen to refer to other places with similar names in one language or another. If you would stop ranting at people and start researching these specific matters, you would probably both have a more enjoyable time here and actually help improve the article. However, if your current nonsense continues any further, I will definitely seek you being topic-banned from the subject, because your behavior to date has been nothing but disruptive.
3. "Patronage" is weird FCI jargon for "some later breed development done outside the area of origin using dogs from the area of origin as the foundation stock". It's not dispositive of much of anything (there's dispute at Template talk:Infobox dog breed on whether to even retain a parameter for this), no other organization makes use of such terminology (in dog breeding or any other kind of breeding), and in any cases where such concerns really did make a difference, it is not an infobox matter but something to cover in detail in the article's main text, with reliable secondary sources (FCI is a primary source). A good example would be Persian cat, Angora cat, Turkish van, and Van cat, where various confused and sometimes even deliberately confusing breeders have either been imprecise about what cats from where were used as breeding stock, or even blatantly lied about it, resulting in a lot of contradiction in the sources, over more than a century, about all four of these varieties. It's a mess (in the real world of cat writing and cat pedigrees and cat breed standardization, not just in encyclopedia writing) that is only going to be cleared up by patient and calm research, not by ranty fighting on talk pages. The last time sometime tried to engage in ranty fighting on those talk pages, he also got topic-banned, actually. Same thing happened twice last year at some dog-breed articles, too. We do not have the time or patience for angry, venting bullshit. You're just going to have to learn and accept this, or the system is going to eject you. Period.
4. I can't even make sense of that one. Look, it's simple: We have an article, and it cites sources. You have an opinion, mostly without sources, and unsupported by the few sources you do have (you are leaping to conclusions that the sources themselves to not reach – WP:OR), none of which are sufficient to surmount the sources already present in the article. That's it. There is no more to it. No one is "lying" to you. There is no conspiracy. You're just not actually competent to do encyclopedia work because you do not understand how reliable sourcing works, you are extremely uncollaborative, you are here to push a viewpoint, and your English-language skills are too sketchy to produce quality material here anyway (I would say you should focus on it.wikipedia.org, but you won't do well there, either, because of the other problems. I would not be surprised at all if you've already been banned or long-term blocked over there, which might explain your sudden appearance here trying, poorly, to lecture others on policy, and generally making a nuisance of yourself, along lines addressed by WP:NOT#FORUM policy.)
5. You're still just not getting it. The Italian pronunciation isn't relevant because it is not an Italian breed and Malta is not an Italian territory, and Italian isn't an official or unofficial-but-majority language there. There's just no connection between Italian language and culture, on the one hand, and the Maltese dog breed, on the other.
6. "What do you think could be the reason?" That's really, really obvious: It's trivia no one noticed until you start making a hell of a lot of noise about it, which has attracted lots of attention to it and to your unreasonable behavior and pro-Italy nationalistic viewpoint-pushing. While most editors would not have cared before, you've forced them to care, and to notice that you're using this Italian pronunciation stuff as a wedge to drive a pro-Italy viewpoint about the breed which does not agree with the reliable sourcing.

"I won't force you to answer." Well, yeah. Last I looked there is no means for you to do so. I've sat on this for some time, reviewed it all again, and decided one last time to try to talk some wiki-sense into you. When you say things like 'I'm starting thinking that entering into Wikipedia community as registered users leads many good persons to the "Dark Side"', you're pretty much begging to get indefinitely blocked on WP:NOTHERE grounds, as someone whose purpose in being here is simply starting shit and accusing everyone who doesn't agree with you of being in a conspiracy. Same goes if you keep asserting your viewpoint is "truth" (see WP:TRUTH and WP:GREATWRONGS and WP:BATTLEGROUND). If you keep up this behavior, I bet real money you'll be blocked within a week or less (probably dependent on how quickly I or someone else bothers taking the case to WP:ANI). I'm disinclined to get involved in WP:DRAMA, but at this point I'm not sure there's any option but asking ANI to at least topic-ban you. I invite you to prove me wrong by sticking to reliable sources and avoiding any more accusatory outbursts against other editors. Address the content not the contributors.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:34, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

MOS:COLON entry

Hi SMcCandlish, I didn't see any pushback to your suggestion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#MOS:COLON entry. What is the standard for determining consensus in a project page? Does silence imply consensus here? I'm certainly comfortable with your suggestion, and feel that you should be the one to implement it, if consensus has been achieved. Cheers, HopsonRoad (talk) 15:52, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

@HopsonRoad: I would think lack of objection is sufficient in this case, since what's proposed isn't a substantive rule change, but simply a clarification of the wording and a merger of colon material into a single place (from MOS:TITLES to MOS:COLON), as well as trimming of semi-colon "rule mongering" at MOS:TITLES that's not encyclopedically pertinent. It would be rare for someone to insist on retaining obvious WP:Instruction creep in a guideline or desiring the material to be scattered instead of consolidated and simply cross-referenced. That said, the last time I did major revise-and-merge at MoS, even after considerably more discussion some people belatedly tried to object (not on the merits but on an iffy "you didn't ask enough first" basis) just because not every relevant talk page had been notified. I think the most useful approach would be notifying WT:MOSTITLES of the discussion, then at the discussion saying something like the above (i.e. "should we proceed, or are there any objections?" and let it sit for a week. There's no hurry, after all, and I'd rather avoid WP:DRAMA if possible. It's probably better if I don't personally do this all this, since I didn't open the thread, and some MoS-skeptics tend to complain that my personal input into its text/processes is more frequent than they'd like. Just more silly drama (the WP:Fallacy of the revelation of policy), but it's heartburn I don't need.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:27, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Your input is requested

 Done

 – Sorta.

at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/Community view before Friday.

Only 100 or so words. It should be fun and serious at the same time.

All the best,

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 00:24, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm actually skeptical this is a good idea, as explained at Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom#Deadline +1 day, 6,000,000 likely already written [now archived here].  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:16, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Project M (video game)#Requested move 23 January 2020

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Project M (video game)#Requested move 23 January 2020. SMcC, I am neutrally notifying you to the above discussion as it is more suited to your area of interest and/or expertise. I will reserve sharing any personal thoughts on the matter until you either (a) participate or (b) decline to participate, in which case you and I can have a discussion on your talkpage. Doug Mehus T·C 01:07, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

email

Just wondering if you had any thoughts on the recent email I sent you. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 23:49, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Not seen it yet. Will go look-see.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:39, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

gmail Cinderella157 (talk) 03:53, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

@Cinderella157: On JOBTITLES?  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:04, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes Cinderella157 (talk) 04:16, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Hopefully I addressed it all (I tried to keep is brief for once!). If not, lemme know. I'm about due for naptime, though.  :-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:21, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Flyer22 Reborn and WanderingWanda

You speak wisdom. I have lost good friends because they have hitched their wagons to the TERF wars. This is a uniquely divisive issue. Guy (help!) 00:12, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

@JzG: I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, so it's all around me. Can be painful to see/hear. This and various other instances of the left tearing itself apart, and in parts tearing itself farther off from the center, are much of why I quit Facebook, Twitter, and other general social media. I was in danger of losing dozens of friends over numerous doctrinal/factional disputes (and would have lost some no matter which position I took on any of them), so it was better to just abandon the whole affair. Happily, it also netted me a lot more free time!  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:38, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

You've got mail!

Hello, SMcCandlish. Please check your email; you've got mail!
Message added 03:15, 29 January 2020 (UTC). It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

Doug Mehus T·C 03:15, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

A cookie for you!

SMcCandlish, thank you for this edit and edit summary where you note that <center></center> hasn't existed since the 1990s. I guess I'm still using outdated tags. lmao :P Doug Mehus T·C 01:12, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Thankee. WP:LINT, WP:HTML5, and WP:CHECKWIKI may be of interest. If you'd like to help with cleanup, see Wikipedia:Linter#User CSS tool: lint.css for a handy utility to install in a few seconds.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:44, 29 January 2020 (UTC)