User:Andrewa/silly ideas

See also User:Andrewa/andrewpedia

The wit and wisdom

People who live in gun cotton houses shouldn't throw hand grenades.

Less silly ideas

Primary topic not

Diacritics

We should use diacritics in articles but not in their titles.

User:Andrewa/Optional diacritics and User talk:Andrewa/Optional diacritics
An example of proper use of a non-English accent

Capitalisation

We should use capitals far more than we do. Brown Snake means Pseudonaja textilis (pseudonaja is a pistache meaning "phony snake"... I have them at my place and they're real enough for me) or may mean dugite in the West... anyway, it's not just any snake that happens to be brown, nor is it necessarily brown... brownies on the NSW coast turn quite black in spring but they're still Brown Snakes (and muchly to be avoided).

See User:Andrewa/A proposal regarding capital letters in article titles (and its talk page of course) for more on this.

And more recently, User:Andrewa/Prescriptive linguistics think tank.

Personal attacks

All personal attacks should be discouraged, by appropriate measures: The mild ones gently; The vicious ones firmly.

At the moment personal attacks need to be quite vicious and uncivil before action is taken. That's a shame for many reasons. One is, wp:NPA isn't just about civility. Civility is as many have pointed out very much in the eye of the beholder. NPA is a lot easier to interpret, and seems to have been quite deliberately written that way. Nor is wp:5P4 just about civility. The more useful bit of it is NPA, for just those reasons.

So NPA is actually policy already. We just need to follow it. Not necessarily enforce. That shouldn't be necessary. Particularly not for sysops!

The most concerning comment yet on this is this one, which describes NPA as aspirational in both the text and the edit summary. That seems to mean optional, and I guess that could be taken to be an interpretation of wp:5P5 but isn't a valid one IMO.

See User:Andrewa/The senility of Wikipedia and User:Andrewa/A personal plea for more on this, and User:Andrewa/Rules, rules, rules for a possible solution.

Reliability

George Hickey

George Hickey was a Secret Service agent riding in the follow-up car when JFK was assassinated, and it is alleged in Mortal Error and JFK: The Smoking Gun that he fired the shot that struck Kennedy in the head.

We have no article on Hickey, but the date of his death has from time to time been mentioned in the article on Mortal Error as either 2005 or 2011, with sources given for each.

The interesting thing is that up until 2013, all sources gave the date as 2011. But in 2013, the article was updated (vandalised?) and the date changed (corrected?) to 2005, with no source given at the time supporting this date. [1] The IP responsible for the edit has no other contributions, and the reference was left as this web page which has subsequently been taken offline but is archived here. All archived versions of it give the date as 2011, and the fact that the IP did not change that reference makes a strong case for vandalism. It's not proof; As they have no other contributions they may simply have been a newcomer who did not know to change the source to one that supported their date.

Subsequently, several newspapers have reported the date as 2005, but no source has yet been found that gives the date as 2005 and was published before that date was published (apparently by a vandal, and at least without any supporting source) in Wikipedia.

There are several obituaries on the web for persons named George Hickey, but none can be clearly identified as the Secret Service agent. One does give a date of death of 2005, which may be the source of the confusion, but that may be a different George Hickey. Again, as the IP who provided this date cited no source, we may never know. Or it may even be rather sinister. For many reasons, there are people determined to discredit the theory on Hickey, and perhaps this is part of that. But this is not about whether or not the theory of Mortal Error is true or false. It's simply about one particular fact, the date of death of a real person mentioned in that book.

It seems to me that we have no reason to doubt the 2011 date. It was properly sourced. However sources subsequent to 2013 that say 2005 are all suspect unless they themselves give a source traceable to before 2013, and none do.

On the evidence, it's a cut-and-dried case of circular reporting. And Wikipedia policy does not deal with this situation. There is no guideline at wp:circular reporting, it was a redlink but is now a redirect to Wikipedia:List of citogenesis incidents, to which this should perhaps be added.

If the rocket's gonna crash

See User:Andrewa/if the rocket's gonna crash.

Disambiguating organisation names

It's not uncommon for an organisation such as a company to be reorganised in such a way that there are two (or more) valid claimants to one article title, one current and one historic. National guitars is a case in point. (And less commonly but not uncommon a sporting organisation, such as this one.)

Where this happens the default should be to disambiguate the title and have separate articles for the various organisations (if notable of course).

A BCA may be appropriate on occasions, or there may be a primary topic, but the onus of proof should be on those who claim this. If in doubt, split and disambiguate.

Interleaving etc

See User:Andrewa/Interleaving etc.

Hit and run tags

I have frequently removed citation needed tags which satisfy the following criteria:

No mention of adding the tag on the article talk page
The tag is more than a year old
The reference is there and is perfectly valid

and I know that sounds incredible but here is the latest.

I admit I haven't checked what the article said when that particular tag was added. I will.

It seems to me that anybody who adds such tags without bothering to justify them on the talk page is probably not here for the right reasons anyway. A bot to block them seems over-reaction. But one that simply notified them that they forgot to provide a talk page heads-up seems a good idea.

Primary topic

User:Andrewa/Primary Topic RfC which obsoleted Let us abolish the whole concept of primary topic, with several intermeediate versions.

Gentle editor

Maybe if we invite volunteers to commit unilaterally to wp:NPA it might revive it? Worth a go... User:Andrewa/gentle editor

Roman or catholic

User:Andrewa/Roman or catholic

New article incubator

User:Andrewa/New article incubator

More to follow...

...in good time.

And some content POVs

Actually, these are all supported by sources and/or logic. But I guess everyone thinks that of their hobbyhorses!

Six star ranks

Six star rank and highest military ranks are problematic. They're not just US-centric, they are US-military-hobbyist-centric. And this is the result. At least it's better than the deletion in August 2008... or is it? Maybe better to have nothing than the POV we currently have, and have had off and on since the re-creation in December 2008. Mind you the previous editions had a high content of misinformation too.

Most (not all) of these hobbyists accept that for example field marshal (Australia) is a five-star rank, along with many other ranks in countries other than the USA. And that George Washington's rank, whatever that may be, is a genuine rank and superior to all others in the US military.

But try to suggest that other countries might have a rank superior to five star, and just watch the back-peddling!

These ranks, they say, are ceremonial. Many high ranks are just that, in that they're not held by serving officers, they carry a uniform but no place in the chain of command and no pay (so perhaps honorary would be a better term)... although in some countries, most notably North Korea, the distinction is doubtful. But:
- The 1940 promotion of Goering from the five-star rank of Generalfeldmarschall seems as clear a case of creation of a six-star rank for a serving officer as anyone could want.
- The five-star rank article lists several ranks that have only ever been held in an honorary capacity, and are unlikely to be approved for active use. Surely we should be consistent in our coverage, and similarly list honorary ranks (most of which do carry a style and a uniform) in our article on six-star ranks?
These ranks, they say, don't have six stars in their insignia. True. And neither do many, perhaps even most, of the insignia of five-star ranks have five stars. Again, see field marshal (Australia). And many other examples. The mind boggles at the ignorance demonstrated by this particular argument.
It has been my ... impression / belief / understanding / whatever that six-star rank is a US thing; that no other country has used or considered using the ... concept / idea / term / whatever. [2] This isn't anywhere near as bad as the insignia argument but it's the same general (couldn't resist that) flavour. Other countries do use the concept / idea / term / of five-star rank, but so what if they didn't? That article is about the topic, and rightly includes the corresponding ranks whether or not the country calls them that (or similarly, whether or not the insignia has five stars). And so should the article on six-star ranks. The terms are US inventions, yes, but the articles should include ranks of other countries, if such ranks exist and are described by the term. And these ranks do exist, in both cases. Not many, and fewer in the case of six then five, not surprisingly. See Category:Five-star officers and its subcategories etc..

The current article on five-star ranks describes ceremonial appointments as honorary, which is probably a better term (see above). Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh for example is no longer a serving naval officer, and has never served as Admiral of the Fleet any more than he has as Field marshal or Marshal of the Royal Air Force, two other honorary ranks he now holds.

But our five-star article even lists ranks that have only ever been held in an honorary capacity, alongside those held by serving officers. Many examples, but Admiral of the fleet (Australia) and Marshal of the Royal Australian Air Force will do for a start.

So why doesn't the six-star rank get similar treatment? Mainly, it seems, because Douglas MacArthur's promotion to six stars didn't come through. And if we can't have a six-star officer, then nobody can!