User talk:Tony1/Archive 2

Script unlinking dates

Tony, this edit has now broken the sorting for the dates in the second table. Can you adjust your script so that whenever it encounters {{dts}} it inserts |link=off into the template so the dates still sort correctly but the dates aren't linked? I asked Gary King to modify the template for just this event. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:54, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

There are two things that I don't understand.

• That edit merely removed square brackets from dates, it did not amend a template.
• That article does not contain 'dts'.

Can you clarify what you mean? Lightmouse (talk) 15:13, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Ah, perhaps that list didn't sort properly to start with... In which case no worries... The Rambling Man (talk) 15:25, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Is there a way you could adjust the script to deal with templates? Up until recently, the {{dts}} template (designed for sorting dates chronologically in case anyone was wondering) automatically wikilinked the dates. I had a quick word with User:Gary King about it and he adjusted it so that you could add a |link=off in the template so the wikilinking was turned off. This was in anticipation of Tony rolling out more delinking of low-value wikilinked dates. The majority of recently promoted lists with dates in use this template but the linked version. I wonder if the script can be adjusted to modify those {{dts}} templates? The Rambling Man (talk) 15:29, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

If you give me example pages using the template in the two modes, I can take a look. Lightmouse (talk) 17:24, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Surely. The link Gary gave me was Template:Dts/examples where it's explained. All the best. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:27, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

OK. I think I can do it. I looked at List of Norwegian monarchs. It appears to work for 'dts' but not for 'dts2'. Why is that? Lightmouse (talk) 17:35, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Cool, and I think {{dts2}} has been deprecated and {{dts}} should be used in preference. Another little task for the script perhaps? The Rambling Man (talk) 17:37, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Changing 'dts2' to 'dts' is best done by bot in one sweep. My bot (Lightbot) can be coded to replace all instances of {{dts2}} with {{dts}} simply by deleting the '2'. I assume that no other change is required. You will need to get stakeholder consensus. Once you have consent for that task, I will seek permission to run the bot. I can then change the script to add 'link=off'. I notice that the script is not in your monobook. If you want it, all you have to do is add the same line as Tony has (and then clear your cache). Lightmouse (talk) 17:49, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Rambling Man says dts2 has been deprecated but Gary King still seems to be using it. As I said in my previous comment, I would be happy to make a change from one to the other. This would allow the script to work in articles that use the template. But I can't do it unless I can point to documented consensus as to which template is deprecated. Can anyone take this issue up with the stakeholders? Lightmouse (talk) 12:41, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

LM, I'll post at FLC talk now, asking for feedback/decision. Tony (talk) 13:12, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that. We are almost there. Please read my note at Wikipedia_talk:Featured_list_candidates#dts_and_dts2:_request_for_consensus. Lightmouse (talk) 11:47, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Date linking

Hi Tony1 - I noticed your "open letter" to WP:SHIPS and wondered if, when you have time, you might like to visit us at WP:AIR, since there's been some discussion of the topic on this project as well. Cheers --Rlandmann (talk) 00:33, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Standard template

Please don't change the format of dates. Most British people and many people internationally write dates in day-month-year order, e.g., 12 December 1904. Most Americans use month-day-year order, e.g., December 12, 1904. If the article is about an American topic, use month-day-year. If it is a British or European topic, use day-month-year. If neither, leave it as originally written. Many Americans or British people take offence if an article about their country, written in their local version of English, is changed around to a version they don't use. So please do not do that.

Dates are usually enclosed in two square brackets, as in [[12 December]] or [[December 12]]. This means that you can set your preferences (if you look around your screen you'll see the word preferences; click on it and follow the instructions) to ensure that you see all dates in the format you want, whether date-month-year, month-date-year or yyyy-mm-dd. The general rules on how Wikipedia articles are written can be seen in the Wikipedia:Manual of Style. Rules specific to dates and numbers can be seen in the Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers).

If you have any questions about this, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Enjoy your time on the web's fastest growing encyclopædia (or encyclopedia, if you write it that way!). Thank you. JRawle (Talk) 09:21, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Further observations

I have checked WP:MOSNUM, and I can't find anything that says dates should no longer be linked. Also, in general, the rule is not to change date formats just for the sake of it. They should only be changed to make an article self-consistent. Please stop going through articles and unlinking dates. It is unnecessary. JRawle (Talk) 09:21, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Are you for real JRawle, or is this just one of the projects in your "How to be a complete dickhead" exam? --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 09:27, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:MOSNUM#Date autoformatting. Please also point me in the direction of a new policy that says dates should not be linked, and that it's now OK to edit an article specifically for the reason of changing date formatting. Please also apologise for use of uncivil language or else I'm going to report you. JRawle (Talk) 09:39, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that the Idiots guide to date autoformatting has been written yet, although you've quite clearly demonstrated a need for it. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 09:45, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Response to JRawle

←OMG, calm down please, JRawle; we're adults, and sticks and stones don't hurt us, remember? Malleus is clearly as perplexed as I am at what appears to be an outburst. Malleus, JRawle is clearly upset, so please don't pour fuel on the situation.

I've removed the "information" sign, by the way, as being spammish and a little presumuptuous. The "Warning" title deserves to be taken down, but I'll leave it there for the moment. Please assume good faith, which your title doesn't.

My responses to the post are:

• There's no need to explain all of those basics. I know quite a lot about date formats, as you might imagine.
• It's inappropriate to direct me to a general help/information service. Is this some pro-forma message you've pasted in? Please don't.
• The last sentence in your post is quite out of keeping with the rest; is it in the vein of "Have a nice day" at the check-out counter? Sorry to be snippy, but it all seems odd to me.
• "I have checked WP:MOSNUM, and I can't find anything that says dates should no longer be linked." Yep, you're right; it's optional. MOSLINK and CONTEXT support this too. But please note this warning in MOSNUM: "Careful consideration of the advantages and disadvantages of the autoformatting mechanism should be made before applying it: the mechanism does not work for the vast majority of readers, such as unregistered users and registered users who have not made a setting, and can affect readability and appearance if there are already numerous high-value links in the text."
• "in general, the rule is not to change date formats just for the sake of it. They should only be changed to make an article self-consistent. Please stop going through articles and unlinking dates. It is unnecessary." I haven't changed any date formats (from international to US and vice-verse); that is why I don't understand your need to explain that UK-related articles should use international date formatting. I have removed the autoformatting on a few articles in that general area (history, I think it was?). My practice is to self-revert if anyone has an issue with it, in the tradition of being bold. There's no harm done, and I'm glad to be having this discussion. Removing date-autoformatting does uncover inconsistencies and, occasionally, the wrong formatting throughout an article. That is what our readers see, whether the dates are autoformatted or plain black. The concealing from us of the raw formatting our IP readers see is just one reason autoformatting is undesirable in the view of many people.

Now, I'd be pleased to discuss the issue with you further, since I want to get a good grasp of your take on it. I see that you've taken Malleus to Wikiquette, which is a pity. I think it's an overreaction. Tony (talk) 10:13, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm not about to pour fuel on any fire, Wikiquette nonsense or no. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 10:20, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Tony, in terms of the syntax of the message, see {{Uw-date}}. It is a generic warning. Don't template the regulars comes to mind. Woody (talk) 10:22, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

The whole first section is actually a standard template, Template:uw-date. I'm sorry if it seemed a little insulting, as of course you already know where to find info on date formats. I was looking for the most relevant template, but in hindsight, I should just have made my own observations.

The policy says dates may be linked. I would have thought a similar principle would apply to this as to the formats themselves: I don't see a need to go through entire articles and replace them, as seemed to be the case with a couple on my watch list. Of course, when writing a new article, don't link them if you think that's better!

As for it uncovering inconsistencies, surely viewing the wiki code for the page does that too? I often fix inconsistent dates in articles while making other edits.

I prefer linked dates because I don't particularly like the American way of formatting dates. However, I've often thought it'd be better if the software provided a way to autoformat dates without them being linked, as so many links can be excessive.

Thanks for taking time to reply and state your case. I never see a need to be rude to other users, even if they misunderstand something or make mistakes. Wikiquette is no more an overreaction than Malleus Fatuorum's original rudeness. JRawle (Talk) 10:33, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I have no problem with your reaction, actually. Although Malleus has been very supportive of me on several issues, I have to say that I can't return the favour on this occasion. I'm sorry that this occurred on my page, and I think I'd like to archive it soon to get the bad karma out of the way.

All that was necessary in the first place was a note here advising me that you'd reverted those two articles and didn't agree with the removal of date autoformatting (DA) from them. That's always fine with me; few people object to the reduction of blue in their article texts, since it's cleaner and easier to read, and allows their high-value links to stand out more, but being able to discuss the matter with people such as you is, perversely, one reason I'm doing it at this stage. It looks as though you don't need much persuading, though.

Your dislike of US formatting (also used in some UK publications, I think—particularly newspapers?) is on the extreme side of WPians' reactions; most folk don't seem to care much about the order of month and day. The US military uses international format, so it's not entirely a transatlantic thing; my own daily newspaper in Sydney uses the so-called US formatting—few readers, I suspect, even notice it consciously. I certainly prefer the international format per se (logical step-ups, no comma), just as I prefer "colour" and "travelling", but one thing I love about WP is its ability to manage the varieties of English (and of date formats, where auto is not used). ENGVAR, in particular, works superbly well, and reinforces how trivial the differences really are. I do believe that the community has got to the stage where the slim advantages of DA (for registered, preferenced and logged-in WPs only) are strongly outweighed by its disadvantages.

Let's talk more if you wish. Tony (talk) 10:53, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

You're quite right. Even the esteemed Daily Telegraph writes dates as August 19, 2008! As all dates on Wikipedia should be written with the month in full, it isn't really an issue for me. What I don't like is numerical dates in American format, e.g. 8/19/08, which I find very confusing (and illogical), but they shouldn't be used on here anyway. Your example of "on 24 June and 25 June" is a good illustration of why autoformats are often a bad idea - I'm not sure I'd ever have linked that anyway!

So I don't really need any more convincing about dates not being linked. What I am uneasy with is going through and systematically removing the links from existing articles. I feel a better solution would be a change in the MOS to strongly discourage linking, and a gradual removal as articles are edited or created.

Thanks anyway for the kind comment on my talk page. I regret jumping in with that template so quickly and causing trouble. Good luck with convincing more people that linked dates are bad! JRawle (Talk) 11:14, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Good morning, world. Tony, I've edited {{uw-date}}; pls review. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:08, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

1964 Gabon coup d'etat

Hi Tony. We obviouslty disagree on date autoformatting, but could you please provide more examples of bad prose to strengthen your opposition at this FAC? I'm not much of a content reviewer, more of a content adder. --I'm an Editorofthewiki^{[citation needed]} 14:28, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Your opinion on a copy issue at an FAC

Hi, hope you're well.

I'd appreciate your expert opinion on a specific issue at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/India House.

I could be being unnecessarily pernickety in my old age, but I think the Background section of the article (India House#Background) is overlong and too detailed, trying to explain Indian Nationalism, rather than India House.

I had a stab at reducing the copy at User:Dweller/India House. I'm no expert on the subject, but the nominator thinks I've lost too much essential nuance.

I'd really appreciate your opinion, even/especially if you disagree with me. --Dweller (talk) 14:59, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

You are invited to join our discussion

Hello there, Tony1! Awadewit and I are coordinating a podcast conversation about writing and editing Wikipedia articles. Since we know you to be a conscientious and thoughtful editor, we'd like you to be part of the discussion. (It will take place via Skype – all you need is a headset and the free software.) If you're interested, please visit the scheduling page and indicate your preference. Cheers! Scartol • Tok 13:04, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry; I forgot you're in Australia (Sydney, right?). Would Sunday 24 August at 9am your time (7pm on Saturday US EST, 0:00 UTC) work better? Scartol • Tok 13:51, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I'll make a note that 9am works better for you. It's just audio – we'll have enough trouble getting that to work, without trying to make you all look at my ugly face, too! =) Scartol • Tok 13:57, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I look like a hideous reptile on Skype vid, even if I tweak the lighting. Tony (talk) 14:13, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Hideous reptiles unite! =) We've got a finalized date and time for the podcast chat, so visit the page and sign up to confirm! Scartol • Tok 21:07, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

MOSNUM & Date Unlinking

Your quest to unlink dates has finally taken you into articles on my watchlist. I have no real desire to entire this debate. But it would be nice if your edit summary could be more descriptive. Is there perhaps a subpage of the Talk:MOSNUM or your own Talk page that could be set up to explain the change(s) you are making? That would save many of us from having to wade through the many pages of discussion in MOSNUM's Talk page to figure out exactly what you're doing and why. This is particularly important as this is a change from standard practice so many editors will be wondering why you're making the change and if such a change is supported by rule or consensus.

Another thought: Has discussion of this change included discussion of FA guidelines and expectations? Seems a pretty big thing to think about given that you are changing FAs, too. --ElKevbo (talk) 15:19, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your concern, ElKevbo. FA guidelines deal only with additional requirements, beyond the policies and guidelines that apply to all WP articles. They do not deal with date autoformatting.

In a character-limited edit summary it's hard to do more than point to a page. DA is optional at the moment, although there are moves to deprecate it, which I think would improve the project. You can find much discourse at MOSNUM talk.

This is the standard message to inform users:

Dear fellow contributors

MOSNUM no longer encourages date-autoformatting, having evolved over the past year or so from the mandatory to the optional, after much discussion there and elsewhere of the disadvantages of the system. MOSLINK and CONTEXT are consistent with this.

There are at least six disadvantages of using date-autoformatting, which I've capped here:

Disadvantages of date-autoformatting

• (1) In-house only

• (a) It works only for registered (Wikipedian) users who have set their date preferences and are logged in.
• (b) To our readers out there, it displays all-too-common inconsistencies in raw formatting in bright-blue underlined text, yet conceals them from WPians who are logged in and have chosen preferences.

• (2) Avoids what are merely trivial differences

• (a) It is trivial whether the order is day–month or month–day. It is more trivial than color/colour and realise/realize, yet our consistency-within-article policy on spelling (WP:ENGVAR) has worked very well. English-speakers readily recognise both date formats; all dates after our signatures are international, and no one objects.

• (3) Colour-clutter: the bright-blue underlining of all dates

• (a) It dilutes the impact of high-value links.
• (b) It makes the text slightly harder to read.
• (c) It doesn't improve the appearance of the page.

• (4) Typos and misunderstood coding

• (a) There's a disappointing error-rate in keying in the auto-function; not bracketing the year, and enclosing the whole date in one set of brackets, are examples.
• (b) Once autoformatting is removed, mixtures of US and international formats are revealed in display mode, where they are much easier for WPians to pick up than in edit mode; so is the use of the wrong format in country-related articles.
• (c) Many WPians don't understand date-autoformatting—in particular, how if differs from ordinary linking; often it's applied simply because it's part of the furniture.

• (5) Edit-mode clutter

• (a) It's more work to enter an autoformatted date, and it doesn't make the edit-mode text any easier to read for subsequent editors.

• (6) Limited application

• (a) It's incompatible with date ranges ("January 3–9, 1998", or "3–9 January 1998", and "February–April 2006") and slashed dates ("the night of May 21/22", or "... 21/22 May").
• (b) By policy, we avoid date autoformatting in such places as quotations; the removal of autoformatting avoids this inconsistency.

Removal has generally been met with positive responses by editors, and the consensus against the use of date-autoformatting is overwhelming. I seek in-principle consensus here for the removal of date autoformatting from the main text of articles related to this WikiProject, using a script; such a move would also be sensitive to local objections on any article talk page. The original input formatting would be seen by all WPians, not just the huge number of visitors; it would be plain, unobtrusive text, which would give greater prominence to the high-value links.

You may wish to peruse the following capped text to compare two examples, with and without date autoformatting. The DA is set at international style—the one pertaining in this particular article—to show all WPians how the blue dates are displayed to visitors. MOSNUM prescribes rules for the raw formatting, irrespective of whether or not dates are autoformatted, analogous to our highly successful guidelines for the use of varieties of English. The choice of style is audited during the running of the script to ensure that it is appropriate to the article (i.e., consistent, and country-related where appropriate).

Two examples for comparison

EXAMPLE 1 Original

Marshal Suchet had received orders from Napoleon to commence operations on 14 June; and by rapid marches to secure the mountain passes in the Valais and in Savoy (then part of the Kingdom of Sardinia), and close them against the Austrians. On 15 June, his troops advanced at all points for the purpose of gaining the frontier from Montmeilian, as far as Geneva; which he invested. Thence he purposed to obtain possession of the important passes of Meillerie and St. Maurice; and in this way to check the advance of the Austrian columns from the Valais. At Meillerie the French were met and driven back by the advanced guard of the Austrian right column, on 21 June. By means of forced marches the whole of this column, which Baron Frimont himself accompanied, reached the Arve on 27 June. The left column, under Count Bubna, crossed Mount Cenis on 24 June and 25 June. On 28 June, the column was sharply opposed by the French at Conflans; of which place, however, the Austrians succeeded in gaining possession.

To secure the passage of the river Arve the advanced guard of the right column detached, on 27 June, to Bonneville, on its left; but the French, who had already fortified this place, maintained a stout resistance. In the mean time, however, the Austrians gained possession of the passage at Carrouge; by which means the French were placed under the necessity of evacuating Bonneville, and abandoning the valley of the Arve. The Austrian column now passed Geneva, and drove the French from the heights of Grand Saconex and from St. Genix. On 29 June, this part of the Austrian army moved towards the Jura; and, on 21 July, it ...

DA-free

Marshal Suchet had received orders from Napoleon to commence operations on 14 June; and by rapid marches to secure the mountain passes in the Valais and in Savoy (then part of the Kingdom of Sardinia), and close them against the Austrians. On 15 June, his troops advanced at all points for the purpose of gaining the frontier from Montmeilian, as far as Geneva; which he invested. Thence he purposed to obtain possession of the important passes of Meillerie and St. Maurice; and in this way to check the advance of the Austrian columns from the Valais. At Meillerie the French were met and driven back by the advanced guard of the Austrian right column, on 21 June. By means of forced marches the whole of this column, which Baron Frimont himself accompanied, reached the Arve on 27 June. The left column, under Count Bubna, crossed Mount Cenis on 24 and 25 June. On 28 June, the column was sharply opposed by the French at Conflans; of which place, however, the Austrians succeeded in gaining possession.

To secure the passage of the river Arve the advanced guard of the right column detached, on 27 June, to Bonneville, on its left; but the French, who had already fortified this place, maintained a stout resistance. In the mean time, however, the Austrians gained possession of the passage at Carrouge; by which means the French were placed under the necessity of evacuating Bonneville, and abandoning the valley of the Arve. The Austrian column now passed Geneva, and drove the French from the heights of Grand Saconex and from St. Genix. On 29 June, this part of the Austrian army moved towards the Jura; and, on 21 July, it ...

EXAMPLE 2 Original

On 5 July the main body of the Bavarian Army reached Chalons; in the vicinity of which it remained during 6 June. On this day, its advanced posts communicated, by Epernay, with the Prussian Army. On 7 July Prince Wrede received intelligence of the Convention of Paris, and at the same time, directions to move towards the Loire. On 8 July Lieutenant General Czernitscheff fell in with the French between St. Prix and Montmirail; and drove him across the Morin, towards the Seine. Previously to the arrival of the IV (Bavarian) Corps at Château-Thierry; the French garrison had abandoned the place, leaving behind it several pieces of cannon, with ammunition. On 10 July, the Bavarian Army took up a position between the Seine and the Marne; and Prince Wrede's Headquarters were at La Ferté-sous-Jouarre.

DA-free

On 5 July the main body of the Bavarian Army reached Chalons; in the vicinity of which it remained during 6 June. On this day, its advanced posts communicated, by Epernay, with the Prussian Army. On 7 July Prince Wrede received intelligence of the Convention of Paris, and at the same time, directions to move towards the Loire. On 8 July Lieutenant General Czernitscheff fell in with the French between St. Prix and Montmirail; and drove him across the Morin, towards the Seine. Previously to the arrival of the IV (Bavarian) Corps at Château-Thierry; the French garrison had abandoned the place, leaving behind it several pieces of cannon, with ammunition. On 10 July, the Bavarian Army took up a position between the Seine and the Marne; and Prince Wrede's Headquarters were at La Ferté-sous-Jouarre.

Tony (talk) 00:47, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick reply, Tony. I've left a couple of replies on my own Talk page. --ElKevbo (talk) 03:19, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Tony, I have to say that "the consensus against the use of date-autoformatting is overwhelming" is at best misleading. You have compiled a one-sided POV list then point to it as evidence of overwhelming concensus. Please reconsider your wording.LeadSongDog (talk) 13:51, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

LSD, have you seen my recent edit at the bottom, summarising possible reasons for opposition? How do you propose that I address this issue further? Tony (talk) 14:01, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I see that for those who follow the link and read all the way down to the end of the page that you have a buried POV disclaimer. I'd suggest that if you wish to call it concensus, you point to the concensus, not to your own POV list. If you wish to point to the list, I'd suggest a somewhat different characterization, perhaps "many editors, such as those collected at (link) disagree with date autoformatting as it has been implemented."LeadSongDog (talk) 15:32, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

RE: request for input: eye-related article titles

There's a dispute brought on by changes in titles, already done or planned, by a user who I suspect does not have a close command of the language. Most urgently, I wonder whether you agree with the change from "Eye movement" to "Eye movement (sensory)"?

Talk:Eye_movement_(sensory)#Third_opinion Tony (talk) 02:40, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi Tony, I did read the article. The talk page is however, full of accusations and counter accusations, which does not make for a good reading. I would like to reseve my comments on the nuances of the language and what each author would like to convey in the title. Wiki authors, writing and editing the articles, have actually done a pretty neat job, illustrating many aspects of Eye movements and their relation with neuro-anatomy and elucidated the finer aspects. I congratulate all of them. EyeMD ^T|C 18:12, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments, EyeMD. I think it's long since settled down. Tony (talk) 04:10, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/SummerSlam (2003)

I responded to your comments. Thank You.--S_RX 03:29, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

questions

I'm still a little unsure about these hyphens. According to what I read, it looks like these may need one, but to me it looks awkward so I'm not sure.

• severe weather event
• Skywarn weather spotter network
• Day 1 moderate risk of severe weather
• moderate risk area
• French Second Empire school building

Thanks - WxGopher (talk) 04:28, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I can see only one instance where most folk would agree that a hyphen is good: "weather-spotter" network. "Moderate-risk area" is possible, but it depends on the context. North American writers (hyphenate to disambiguate) are less likely to use a hyphen in the grey area than other anglophones (hyphenate where it makes reading easier). Often the larger context enables you to decide. The context of the third example is unlear: is it a section title? Some of these compound items may be better unravelled, so that the hyphen question becomes irrelevant ("school building from the French Second Empire"; "area of moderate risk"). You may be interested in trying these exercises. Let me know what you think. Tony (talk) 04:36, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I did look and those and they helped. I think my question with these, is it possible for a word like weather spotter to be viewed as a noun, or is spotter the noun, and weather the adjective? Most of my problem is that I can't distinguish what is viewed one entity, vs. if it should be split. Like with moderate risk area, you could call area the noun, and moderate and risk two separate adjectives. But in the context of severe weather, "moderate risk" is always going to go together, so in that sense I would always view this as one, so I'd think that a hyphen wouldn't be necessary. I'd view weather spotter the same way, but as you pointed out not everyone else would. I did have a couple people look at this, but they're both from North America. Is there somewhere else here where I can recruit more international help? WxGopher (talk) 04:51, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

WP's MoS on hyphens and dashes is, IMO, the best in the world. Hyphenation and the conjoining of words ("e-mail" --> "email") is an unstable area of English, even within each of the varieties. Some American writers use lots of hyphens (my personal preference, and see Scientific American for what I thnk are excellent editorial values); some British/Australian writers use fewer. Sometimes it's hard to provide a definitive answer, especially without knowing the larger context. Ask yourself whether it's potentially ambiguous or harder to read without the hyphen, when it's in the grey area.

What I can do is to point you to nominal group, which is the modern concept of the noun as not just a single word (although sometimes it is), but as a compound item comprising a number of words. Some of the words within a nominal group are "downranked". So, this:

She said "hello" to the red-nosed clown in the white baggy pants.

could just as well have been this:

She said "hello" to the man.

"The red-nosed clown in the white baggy pants" is itself just a big noun, a thing, with "clown" as the Head (the core bit that's typically qualified before and after). Downranked within this nominal group (noun group) are all the other words: "red-nosed" and "white" and "baggy" are adjectives, but here they're not on the uppermost rank of the sentence. The first four words in the sentence, however, are on the top rank.

Given this, your query about whether "weather" is part of the noun or an adjective doesn't matter much, and depends on context and serendipity: the question becomes whether "weather" is downranked as an adjective within the nominal group "weather spotter", or whether it's an adjective on the top rank in the sentence, qualifying the single-word noun "spotter". Could be either, and it's inconsequential.

Hyphenation does interact with this process, but don't ask me to think of just how right now!

I hope this helps. Tony (talk) 05:40, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Date unlinking script problem

Tony, I am glad you took on such a Herculean task. In Plug-in hybrid, please search for the string "2008-6-16. Retrieved on 2008-6-17" in the references and observe some residual redlinks. I would clean them but I would think you would want to see in case they can help you fix your script. I wonder if 2008-1-2 is January 2 or February 1, so I'm not even sure I could help if I wanted to :D 64.9.237.184 (talk) 08:09, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you indeed for pointing this out. In fact, it was remiss of me not to post a note on the article talk page a while ago pointing out that everyone should get together and decide which format they want: half is international and half is US, as well as the wrongly syntaxed ISO date. Needs an audit, which I'll see to.

Just as well the removal of date autoformatting uncovered this mess: our readers have been viewing it for some time. Tony (talk) 09:18, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I am very pleased that all these weird and wonderful date format problems are being identified by removing square brackets. I think you are doing the right thing in this instance. The delinking script looks for ISO-compliant text and removes square brackets. It does nothing if a sequence of digits and hyphens is not ISO-compliant. I would worry about false positives if it did. If the issue is widespread, we can think about involving other strategic problem solvers. Lightmouse (talk) 11:43, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

If you have the time to take a look

When To Kill a Mockingbird was on the main page, an editor called into question a portion of the lead that he felt was not properly cited. I disagreed, he feels it was not resolved, and we seem to be at an impasse. If you have a moment to get involved, please allow me to link to today's discussion, and the discussion on July 11. I would appreciate your comments in the matter. --Moni3 (talk) 20:25, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

hyphens and dashes

Before I do the move, I want to check with you... United States-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement should be at United States – Peru Trade Promotion Agreement, right? --Elliskev 21:15, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I decided to play cowboy and do it without waiting for a response. I'm pretty sure I did the right thing. --Elliskev 21:19, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely correct! Tony (talk) 00:14, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! --Elliskev 00:27, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Pat Nixon

Hi Tony, just so you are aware: I have responded to your comments at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Pat Nixon. Best as always, Happyme22 (talk) 21:36, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Patrick White date brackets

As part of this funny project I have in my head about Australian literature I was working my way though a list of authors checking to see that they had birthdate entries when I came to White with no date links, the first out of about 20 that I had found. So naturally I added them in. Hardly thought about it. But thanks for the note on the discussion. I'll keep an eye on it. --Perry Middlemiss (talk) 06:45, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Here just to dash off a question…

A quick question for you who are so wise in the ways of the dash. If one is writing a date range, like 8–12 August, should one use a spaced or unspaced en-dash? Unspaced looks more natural. However, since the second element, "12 August" in my example, has a space should it be spaced? — Bellhalla (talk) 13:47, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Since it's short for "8 August – 12 August", there are now two units: "8–12" and "August". There are no internal spaces in either item ("8" or "12"), so an unspaced en dash is correct. Tony (talk) 15:05, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Lightbot

Thanks, Tony. The issue I had with User:Lightbot wasn't how useful the modification was, but whether or not it was documented and authorized. I'm satisfied in this instance that it's authorized, but the documentation (as of yesterday) is very poor. --Danorton (talk) 12:49, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

No, I think the documentation needs considerable improvement. See my comment at User talk:Lightmouse that I posted within the last hour. I like the bot, but I'm concerned that it will cause too much trouble without considerably better documentation. --Danorton (talk) 14:07, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Aug 18 Dispatch

Tony, do you have time to glance at Wikipedia:FCDW/August 18, 2008? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:47, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

• WP:FCDW/August 25, 2008, interview with Mav, could be patterned after Rick Block intro
• Wikipedia:FCDW/TempFT‎ (Featured topics, Tentatively Sept 1)
• WP:FCDW/September 8, 2008 Tentatively for monthly style guide update; weigh in at WT:FCDW if you want it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:20, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Your script

Well, now that the changes have gone through, could you run your friendly neighborhood bot script over William de St-Calais and then I'll fix anything to International standards? I'll get the rest of the bishops by hand as I work on them, but William's at FAC and I just can't find the time to fix him that fast by hand. Thanks! Ealdgyth - Talk 02:20, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

thanks tony! Any chance I could get an install of that for myself at some point? I've got a LOT of bishops to clean up... Ealdgyth - Talk 02:34, 23 August 2008 (UTC) NB, I hope you don't mind my changing "bot" to "script": it's a critical difference, since scripts involve human oversight.

Yes indeed. Here are the instructions for installation and usage. The aim is to make WP better for our readers without upsetting anyone; please remember that many WPians don't understand autoformatting and the complex issues surrounding it, and that some people may at first resent the removal of their hard work in square-bracketing all of the dates in their article. Be measured, be sensitive, be polite, and where people query, engage with them on the reasons, and/or refer them to MOSNUM.

Installation and usage of date-autoformatting removal script

Instructions for installation

• EITHER: If you have a monobook already, go to it, click "edit this page", and paste in this string underneath your existing script:

importScript('User:Lightmouse/monobook.js/script.js');

• OR: If you don't have a monobook.js page, create one using this title:

[[User:[your username]/monobook.js]]

Then click on "edit this page" and paste in at the top the "importScript" string you see three lines above here.

• Hit "Save page".
• Refresh your cache (instructions at top of monobook).
• You're ready to start.

Applying the script—it's very simple

• Click on "edit this page". You'll see a tab called "all dates" at top-right. Click on it; this will immediately remove the date autoformatting in the edit-window.
• The diff will automatically appear under the edit-window. Check through the changes you're making before saving them. See Note 1 below
• Until the edit summary is reworked, consider copy-pasting in this one: [[User:Lightmouse/monobook.js/script.js|Script]]-assisted dates; see [[WP:MOSNUM#Date autoformatting|MOSNUM]]
• Click on "Save page": it's done.

Afterwards

• Respond politely and promptly to any critical comments on your talk page. If someone wants to fight it, it's better to back down and move on to improve other articles where WPians appreciate your efforts. Do not EVER edit-war over date autoformatting; raise the issue at WT:MOSNUM.

Notes

• [1] Treats only square-bracketed dates. The script removes square brackets only, which mostly involves the main text and footnotes; it's acceptable for citation-generated dates to be of a different format. Occasionally the removal of DA will reveal inconsistencies in formatting of what were square-bracketed dates, and with the reference section where citation generated dates are often used. These should be corrected manually before saving the actions of the script; alternatively, post a note on the talk page asking editors to audit the date formats, and draw their attention to the well-established "three simple guidelines" for the use of either international or US format, and the guideline on within-article consistency, which state that:

• Dates in article body text should all have the same format.
• Dates in article references should all have the same format.

• [2] Date-sorting templates in tables. As of August 23, a minor tweak must be made to the script (which will update automatically), to deal with the column-sorting template in tables. Please be aware of this in relation to Featured Lists and the like (i.e., hold off there until it's fixed). The "dts" and "dts2" templates are at issue. Should be fixed soon.
• [3] Antiquity-related articles. Articles on topics such as ancient Rome should be treated with caution, since the script removes year-links as well, and some editors may argue that there's a case for retaining the simple year and century links from ancient times (e.g., 212). It's better to ask first in these cases. In any case, such articles contain few if any full dates.
• [4] WikEd. For those of you who've installed WikEd, it must be disabled to run the script.

endash script - removes endash and substitutes with another symbol

There is an editor with a script that replaces all endashes with another type of dashe that looks like a hyphen to the naked eye. Do you think this is O.K. When I am working on an article, then this script is run on the article, I cannot tell if a "-" is an endashe or one that the script put in. I makes continuing fixing endashes difficult if not impossible. I am told that it is a matter of personal preference, but so far, when I am working on an article and revert the script, I get reverted back. What is the solution to this? (I notice he has run the script on several FAs.) —Mattisse (Talk) 11:05, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

OMG, can you provide links to examples? Tony (talk) 11:50, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Diff. It was User:T-rex, and actually, he isn't doing anything. He is replacing the raw HTML code: – with the actual character: –. They display the same for me, and should for you. (–/–). The problem comes when editing the wikitext: the character is indistinguishable from a hyphen, and as such is a great annoyance. Woody (talk) 12:10, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for that, Woody—it's a relief. Yes, the original developers of html have a lot to answer for; why is the em dash distinguishable in the edit box, but not the en dash? Stupid. In any case, I hate those gobbledygook codes, so the symbol is probably an improvement despite the need to check in display mode. Tony (talk) 12:13, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

But how can an editor tell the difference in the edit mode? Won't ndashes look like hyphens? For example, in copy editing a FAC? —Mattisse (Talk) 14:16, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

True: you just have to refer to the display page when you're in edit mode. Best to survey and pick them up before entering edit mode; alternatively, type en dahses over them anyway in edit mode, no matter what they are (I do this is just one or two and I'm unsure what they are). Tony (talk) 01:32, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

skype

Tony, we're live on skype. My username is eric.piotrowski, so just send me a message when you're on. Scartol • Tok 23:01, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

An idea

How would you feel about creating a series similar to Know your Manual of Style for overlinking? You could illustrate scenarios such as trivial linked words, multiple links to the same subject in close proximity, and unnecessary date and year linking. This is one of your pet issues, and I believe that this could educate many editors. Do you have any thoughts on this? Giants2008 (17-14) 00:46, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your suggestion, Giants. It's entirely possible, and would need to involve links that are on the boundary of "whether to" or "whether not to", as well as the absurdities. It's not my first priority (the use of ellipsis in quoting is), but I'll keep it in mind. Tony (talk) 01:30, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Tony, do you know of a script that deals with overlinking? (words, as opposed to dates) Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 04:43, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Matthew, I'd love to have one, and it's quite possible for someone who can write scripts to do so. The alternative is to use AWB, but I can't because I'm a Mac user, and frustratingly AWB is grounded in Windows alone, hmmmph. Lightmouse might be interested, but not at the moment, because he's fully engaged in his rather good management (I think) of his date-fragment and units bot. I guess I could learn how to write scripts ... blue-splotch "English (language)", "UK", "US", "Australia", and lots others—they irritate the s... out of me. Have we solved the dts/dts2 issue yet? Tony (talk) 05:00, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I think that's a question best directed towards Gary, I haven't been watching the progress of it due to my lack of programming knowledge. I have AWB installed but I've never been able to fathom it. <shrugs> Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 05:51, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

On mature reflection ...

On mature reflection you were almost certainly correct, and I did overact to the question you were asked about date autoformatting a couple of days ago. I thought at the time I was being clever and humorous, but I accept that I was being unhelpful to the greater vision of cleaning up wikipedia's articles. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 00:12, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your note, Malleus; I know exactly what overreacting is, since I've done it so many times myself. Tony (talk) 11:37, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Date unlinking in WP:VG

Tony - I see the script is sweeping through the articles removing date formatting. A debate was started regarding changing the dates like this in WP:VG but I'm not sure it's reached its conclusion yet though. --Oscarthecat (talk) 11:30, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your message, Oscar; yes, the change has been implemented after consensus at MOSNUM talk. Please see my note at WP:VG. Tony (talk) 11:36, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

The decision on this Wikipedia-wide issue rests with mosnum. As I understand it, local projects have an interest and Tony was correct to raise it with video games so that they can contribute to the mosnum debate. But it would be difficult for projects to demand autoformatting while mosnum deprecates it because of the fuzzy and overlapping boundaries between projects. Lightmouse (talk) 11:45, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough, I'll go see if the WP:VG guidelines need revising to reflect this. --Oscarthecat (talk) 14:37, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Date format

While I have absolutely no dispute with removing wikilinking using scripts, I am concerned with your scripts changing dates from international format to American format automatically. As you can see here, both forms are acceptable, and in an ideal world shouldn't be changed without discussion in the same way one doesn't change an article from English English to American English without discussion. Would it be possible to modify your script so that wikilinking brackets are still removed, but otherwise the format of the date is left alone and does not have any commas added when they are not present? -- Sabre (talk) 15:31, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Where where where? The script can't change the format from US to int. and vice versa. I wish it could, since some articles are revealed to have the wrong format according to MOSNUM's guidelines; but it can't. Please link me to the article at issue. Tony (talk) 15:38, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Sabre, we are both interested in what you say. Perhaps you have your date preferences switched to international and many good editors are now turning preferences off because it conceals date formatting errors. Can you provide examples please and we will take a look? Lightmouse (talk) 15:43, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

The one I noticed it on was here, where commas have been added making it consistent with US style (February 14, 1990) as opposed to international style (February 14 1990). Maybe I'm worrying about nothing (it is after all merely a single comma), but I just thought I'd mention it. I've got my date preferences set to international style, so I still see it in international format on the main version, but the changes are visible in the article's code. -- Sabre (talk) 16:18, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Sabre, no problem there: international format has no comma; the script has successfully removed DA. WPians with US date pref did see it with a comma and inverted day and month, but now everyone will see the international. Our readers out there saw the correct international the whole time. I'm glad to have been able to clear this up; thank you for raising the matter. Tony (talk) 16:41, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

An excellent example. That article contains a mix of US and international formats. Autoformatting conceals that error, that is why people are recommending that you turn preferences off if you want to identify and correct such errors. The addition of the comma ('February 14, 1990') is correct. You say 'February 14 1990' is international style but I am confused as to why you say that. International style is usually considered to be '14 February 1990'. Did you really mean that? Lightmouse (talk) 16:46, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Oops, yes, I was too tired to notice that. Sabre, the US formatted dates in that article should all be manually changed to international, with date first, then month, then year (no commas). Tony (talk) 16:57, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Incidentally, Gimmetrow has a script that will change them all to international. Lightmouse (talk) 17:05, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of Seattle Mariners Opening Day starting pitchers

I have responded to your comments on this FLC. Thank you --Admrb♉ltz (t • c • log) 19:41, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Survey request

Hi, Tony1 I need your help. I am working on a research project at Boston College, studying creation of medical information on Wikipedia. You are being contacted because you have been identified as an important contributor to one or more articles.

Would you will be willing to answer a few questions about your experience? We've done considerable background research, but we would also like to gather the insight of the actual editors. Details about the project can be found at the user page of the project leader, geraldckane. Survey questions can be found at geraldckane/medsurvey. Your privacy and confidentiality will be strictly protected!

The questions should only take a few minutes. I hope you will be willing to complete the survey, as we do value your insight. Please do not hesitate to contact me or Professor Kane if you have any questions. Thank You, BCproject (talk) 23:44, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Your recent edit summaries

The wikilinks in your recent edit summaries aren't working – they're missing a [ at the beginning. Gary King (talk) 04:37, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

New feature: 'delink to dmy' and 'delink to mdy'

Gimmetrow has been very helpful. The script that you are using now has a new feature. When you are in edit mode, look down the left in the 'toolbox' below 'What links here'. You will see six new items. The ones you are interested in are 'remove date links(mdy)' and 'remove date links(dmy)'. These will delink to US format and international format. There are some oddities and I am going to tinker with it more but try them out and let me know what you think. Lightmouse (talk) 22:05, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I see no change at all down the left under "what links here". Tony (talk) 04:26, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Me neither, even after a hard refresh. Gary King (talk) 04:38, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

I presume that you are saying 'Special pages' is the last one at the bottom *when in edit mode*. Oh dear. I will have to ask Gimmetrow if he has any ideas. Lightmouse (talk) 10:11, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Lack of date autoformatting consensus

Resolved

 – I've done my best. Good luck with it! (sdsds - talk) 04:17, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, Sd; however, in the spirit of collaboration and consensus, I'm still keen to know whether you feel differently after a few months or so. Do keep in touch. Tony (talk) 04:41, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Please do not assert there is "overwhelming" consensus on this topic, when in fact there is no consensus whatsoever. Your attempt to implement this policy change without proper discussion is, albeit well-intentioned, causing un-needed disturbance to our project. (sdsds - talk) 10:09, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

FYI: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#WP:MOSNUM. (sdsds - talk) 10:39, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Tony, I used the term "hijack" in describing your actions with some trepidation. Please be assured I do not feel your intentions are malicious! I truly do assume good faith on your part. I also believe you have over-stepped the bounds of what one editor should attempt in changing Wikipedia guidelines. Can you please stop your efforts and wait to see how other editors assess the situation? (sdsds - talk) 11:22, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

You make it seem like a one-person campaign. Yet the most substantial changes came today and were not my doing. Aren't you flogging a dead horse? The consensus was overwhelming and you don't agree with it, that's all. It's not as though people didn't engage with your point of view; look at my effort on your talk page. And please do not post negative comments—any comments—within someone else's post, as you've done at GA talk. I've relocated it to where it belongs chronologically, with a note in square brackets. Tony (talk) 11:27, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Please see: WP:MOSNUM claims of "hijacking"

A small group of experienced editors are effectively hijacking WP:MOSNUM, claiming their point of view reflects consensus when in fact it does not. They are using their modifications to MOSNUM to justify many edits elsewhere, which are not in compliance with the consensus view of "date autoformatting." These editors are well-intentioned, but over-hasty in claiming consensus. (sdsds - talk) 10:34, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Crikey! Can you be more specific, give diffs and explain what you are asking admin intervention for? --Pete (talk) 11:03, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

OK, I understand reading all of Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers) can be a bit daunting! This edit shows the debate was closed as "resolved" when in fact it was not. Moreover, it is inconsistent with Wikipedia's best practices for an editor who was active in a debate to close it. If there was consensus, a non-involved editor should have "made the call." (sdsds - talk) 11:16, 25 August 2008 (UTC) FWiW Bzuk (talk) 12:28, 25 August 2008 (UTC).

Wikimania video: external review of the quality of WP articles

See this video of a Wikimania address by researcher Dr Bill Wedemeyer, Faculty of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Michigan State University, who conducted an extensive study of the quality of (mainly) scientific articles on WP.

Research conclusions

• At its best, Wikipedia is excellent, but most of the product needs significant improvement.
• The internal ranking system works, but roughly.
• Science topics are covered better than non-science topics.
• There is a subset of reliably helpful science articles for outreach, teacher training, and general science education.
• WP is best used in combination with other resources.
• The writing, even in FAs and GAs, is not good enough.
• Insecurity by the readership over reliability needs to be addressed; evaluations of some articles by independent assessors would be wise.
• Explore links with research funding bodies, using the pressure for taxpayer-funded research findings to be communicated to the community at large.

Specifically, ways in which the writing could be improved:

• Inadequate lead sections. In many cases, there's a lack of flow and intelligibility. Mimic the lead-section style of Encyclopedia Britannica.
• Fuzzy boundaries between References, Notes, See also, Bibliography, Further reading, and External links; some of them seem to be interchangeable. This is confusing for readers.
• Manual of Style should be automated in relation to FAC [Tony1: unclear what this means].

Other observations

• Praise for citations in FAs.
• Developed articles are very current, in marked contrast with those of Encyclopedia Britannica; ironically, some WP articles on well-established science topics are not as current.
• Singled out Tim Vickers's contributions for praise, but used some of his articles to exemplify his suspicion that limits on article size make some topics difficult to cover well.
• Recoiled at prose and MoS-based critiques of FACs. [See Tony1's comment below.]

Tony (talk) 03:25, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

By "automation of MoS", I thought he meant that should happen outside of FAC, automatically, as if we had a paid staff or committed corp of volunteers who would auomatically do that work. We don't. I thought his criticism of MoS issues at FAC was uninformed and contradictory; if we aspire to professional quality featured articles, and if that work is not accomplished at FAC, where else is it going to get done? I also noted the praise for citations in FAs, that our developed articles are fairly current, and that the only restriction they noted in Tim Vickers articles is that he's constrained by length; I'll stop hating extra-long FAs. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:01, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Yep, these are worth including above, which I've done. I completely agree with you about his comments on the operation of MoS and FAC. I think what underlay his comments was the perspective of a scientific practitioner that content matters a lot more than writing style, formatting, overall cohesion. He probably saw criticisms of prose (Cr 1a) and MoS breaches (2) and recoiled at the absence or paucity of what some people call "content review". If scientists didn't think that way, and didn't write so poorly, I'd be out of a RL job.

IMO there's no hard-and-fast boundary between content and style, and it's nonsense to expect reviewers to cover both explicitly. Specialisation is what makes FAC work. In any case, reviewing prose and MoS issues often reveals content issues, where the reviewer knows something is problematic but doesn't know the answer. That's why we typically shift the solving of the "content" issue onto the nominators. Surprise surprise. I think Dr Wedemeyer might change his tune if he nominated an article, or indeed reviewed a few FACs, as an experiment. His feedback on the FAC process, indeed, would probably be more valuable after that. (I value his feedback in general, and think we should take a lot of notice of it.) Tony (talk) 04:22, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I have faith in the system! Gary King (talk) 04:47, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Dates

I am not against this but is it a requirement? Thanks. --Efe (talk) 05:20, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Generally, it is now a requirement. Could I direct you to this notice? Thanks. Tony (talk) 06:39, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. --Efe (talk) 09:13, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Help with date clean up

Hi Tony1, the Thriller (album) is at FAC . I've been asked to sort out the wiki linking on dates. Would it be possible for you to help with a script MoS clean up on that. I noticed you do it on another article I work on, cheers. Obviously your free to review my article too. Thanks. — Realist² 16:26, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Merci. — Realist² 02:43, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Is the delinking now fully accepted? I agree it was a little pointless. Any chance of a script assisted delink for Dwain Chambers too? Sillyfolkboy (talk) 10:17, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/India_House

Thanks very much. Interesting take on the length of the Background section btw.

At any rate, that's yet another one I owe you. Feel free to call on 'em when you wish. --Dweller (talk) 09:10, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/Edward VIII abdication crisis

I been through the article and I think I've addressed the points you raised, as well as a few more I found. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 13:18, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Note

I dropped a note on most of the FAC reviewer's pages before, but not yours, to update them with the fact that I trimmed (at that time) 3k worth of information and added in 9.5k worth of information that summarized the texts and/or added some responses to the text. I also added to the legacy, and added more about Johnson's relationship with Charlotte Lennox. I need to know what else needs to be added. Ottava Rima (talk) 13:22, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Date links

Tony, I know you personally hate date links. But some people do like date links, such as me. Overall it is a very minor thing, considering roughly 80% of Wikipedia articles are, well, crap. But, please tell the person(s) who wrote the majority of the article before removing the date links, as there may be a concensus to include them. We do not want to get in edit wars. --I'm an Editorofthewiki^{[citation needed]} 15:20, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Replied on his talk page. Tony (talk) 15:25, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Re:Script

No, I don't. I wouldn't have the foggiest of where to start with it, I've not used automated processes on Wikipedia before. -- Sabre (talk) 15:22, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Perennial infobox issues

Hi Tony. As you are the biggest stickler for form I know (that's a compliment), I'm here to invite you to a discussion of a proposal. If you're not to busy I'd really value your input.

The perennial infobox problem might be characterised thus:- those in favour enjoy the 'facts at a glance' reduction as well as the standardisation they provide for the reader. Boxes do work very well in some articles, particularly where conventions regarding organisation are already established - for example, scientific fields such as taxonomy, chemistry etc. Those against however, recognise the difficulty in establishing uniformity in a non-uniform world full of exceptions and contradictions, resulting in boxes that are used inappropriately, adding little to 'summarise the article' or worse, are so reductive they are positively misleading. They enjoy prominent positions nonetheless and competing claims of various wikiprojects to have their box at the top causes problems.

In part, the proposal (inspired by Citizendium) seeks to address this problem and also generate, perhaps a better way of organising articles, where the prose article proper is conceived as a sun around which supplemental satellites revolve. Statistical data, timelines, discographies, which might work awkwardly in the article proper can be given proper space and a strong link to the main article. I'm currently undecided if this means 'list of' articles should necessarily be tied in this way to prose articles. I have a number of other doubts and concerns which need some thought before seriously launcing the proposal, and I'd be very grateful for your consideration. Kind regards --Joopercoopers (talk) 19:16, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Three

That teaches me for not actually reading the article! Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 04:44, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

You mean that you agree it's unhelpful to the reader of Triangle? Tony (talk) 04:55, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

The idea of linking to three within triangle makes sense as they are highly-related. You can't have a triangle without three sides or three corners. It's just that three currently does not add anything else about triangles. Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 05:28, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

But being closely related per se doesn't qualify for linkage, especially if the linked article doesn't help the reader to improve their understanding of the topic (triangle). So do we have to link "three" in the article on "triathlon"? Tony (talk) 08:14, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Date delinking

Hi

I've noticed that you're busy delinking all the dates in creation. I wonder why this is being done. Individual years should certainly not be linked - per WP:MoSNUM - but, full dates are always linked for presentation purposes - or, has America shocked the rest of the world by reading the same dates as the rest of us. cheers Kbthompson (talk) 14:04, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

OK, so it's deprecated, we can now look forward to masses of edits changing the dates backwards and forwards, and ensuring consistency of date presentation within an article for FA purposes - oh, joy ... Kbthompson (talk) 14:07, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your note. I did find the link. Principally, I work on articles relating to London and theatre history. At the moment, we do have a continuing problem persuading people that: yes, that really is how it is spelt outside America, and now (potentially) there is a problem of presentation and input. Articles will have to be date consistent according to the country of origin. The theatre articles I work on tend to have an attraction for US editors, so now we have to agree on spelling and dates.

That all said, I do take on board that it leads to meaningless linking of dates - and that people who neither configure their browser, or their Wiki-account will continue to receive the same experience. Cheers, I will pass the good news onto wikiproject London and theatre. Kbthompson (talk) 14:20, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, it will simplify many things, but I will restrain my opinion until we see how it works out in practice. Kbthompson (talk) 14:39, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

If you need some "moral support", I'm happy to supply some - just ask. (I've never understood the value of linking every date ... ) Cheers, Pdfpdf (talk) 14:48, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

[EC] At the moment, I'm still thinking about the problems - and not the work it will save me. (it's actually become second nature to link them, so I will now have to try hard to stop myself ....). Even then, there are still a lot of editors who link the years for absolutely no apparent reason. Kbthompson (talk) 14:50, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

"[EC]" - ?

"Even then, there are still a lot of editors who link the years for absolutely no apparent reason." - Yes, lots of human behaviour is "for absolutely no apparent reason"! Ho hum ... Pdfpdf (talk) 14:56, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Pdfpdf, you're most welcome! Kb, yes, it's become something akin to a nervous twitch for many people; and it's part and parcel of a movement towards more disciplined linking, to avoid the dilution of our high-value links. I may as well paste in the capped information again here.

___________________

MOSNUM now deprecates date-autoformatting, having evolved over the past year or so from the mandatory to the optional to the current position, after much discussion there and elsewhere of the disadvantages of the system. MOSLINK and CONTEXT are consistent with this.

There are at least six disadvantages of using date-autoformatting, which I've capped here:

Disadvantages of date-autoformatting

• (1) In-house only

• (a) It works only for registered (Wikipedian) users who have set their date preferences and are logged in.
• (b) To our readers out there, it displays all-too-common inconsistencies in raw formatting in bright-blue underlined text, yet conceals them from WPians who are logged in and have chosen preferences.

• (2) Avoids what are merely trivial differences

• (a) It is trivial whether the order is day–month or month–day. It is more trivial than color/colour and realise/realize, yet our consistency-within-article policy on spelling (WP:ENGVAR) has worked very well. English-speakers readily recognise both date formats; all dates after our signatures are international, and no one objects.

• (3) Colour-clutter: the bright-blue underlining of all dates

• (a) It dilutes the impact of high-value links.
• (b) It makes the text slightly harder to read.
• (c) It doesn't improve the appearance of the page.

• (4) Typos and misunderstood coding

• (a) There's a disappointing error-rate in keying in the auto-function; not bracketing the year, and enclosing the whole date in one set of brackets, are examples.
• (b) Once autoformatting is removed, mixtures of US and international formats are revealed in display mode, where they are much easier for WPians to pick up than in edit mode; so is the use of the wrong format in country-related articles.
• (c) Many WPians don't understand date-autoformatting—in particular, how if differs from ordinary linking; often it's applied simply because it's part of the furniture.

• (5) Edit-mode clutter

• (a) It's more work to enter an autoformatted date, and it doesn't make the edit-mode text any easier to read for subsequent editors.

• (6) Limited application

• (a) It's incompatible with date ranges ("January 3–9, 1998", or "3–9 January 1998", and "February–April 2006") and slashed dates ("the night of May 21/22", or "... 21/22 May").
• (b) By policy, we avoid date autoformatting in such places as quotations; the removal of autoformatting avoids this inconsistency.

A selection of positive responses is here.

Tony (talk) 14:57, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

NY 373, NY 22, and all the NY Road FACs/FAs

Well, since this seems to be the brought up problem that now has a proposal, I wanna thank you for helping us with this, but I do have a problem. Roads like New York State Route 22, New York State Route 28, New York State Route 32, and other 100+ mile long highways should be exempt from this because your suggestion could go on and on and on for these. Is it possible we can make the exemption for those and put that on the shorter highways? I think this would be better than having to write thousands of details that make no sense.Mitch32^(UP) 13:48, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

It would be a huge task to gather info for the entire route of anything more than a shortish road, in this respect, and beyond the scope of summary style. Rather than some kind of mandatory requirement, I had in mind that you experts might keep in mind the goal of creating a general knowledge base of what's out there, which areas and routes and parts of states are likely to be worth mining for local information, economic impact, environmental impact, and where the resources are. One of the features of local histories is that they are often not widely published (for obvious reasons); this raises the possibility of quite exciting finds, from time to time, that might be relevant to road articles. I see nothing wrong with exemplifying the impact of a route on a particular community or region, if that information is available; comprehensiveness is unnecessary, I suspect. And just making readers aware of the existence of one or two locally published histories at the bottom of an article would be a real service. You might as a group feel your way around at the start. And does NPR do radio documentaries on local histories? I know that the CBC does. Just a thought. Adding this dimension could lift the status of road articles on WP to something that people out there really go for.

On a wider note, you might consider your role as flag-bearers of the whole concept of road and highway articles on WP (indeed on the Internet), setting standards for WPians in other countries to emulate. I see no such articles for Canadian roads (at least as systematic as US editors have been), nor Australian, British or Irish roads. I really think it's about time WP encouraged the formation of WikiProjects for writing about roads in these countries too; they will look to the cluster of US road WikiProjects for guidance and standards, at least initially. I wonder how one might go about encouraging this? Perhaps the idea needs to be sounded out at country WikiProjects ... what do you think? Tony (talk) 14:07, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

That seems completely fair. Sources are really hard to get ahold of depending on the road itself. For example, New York State Route 174 was a task and more. In that case it took months and months of work to get this to FA, and was the source of many debates. The other is New York State Route 32, which would have more sources because it was made up of more original turnpikes and plank roads, like NY 373, NY 174, NY 175, NY 343, and NY 28. It would be fair to not be mandatory, but to see what routes can even get to that. Also, is NY 373 up to your standards now?

Britian and Canada actually have road article projects. However, they have not been active as much. I started the Canada project and sort of regret not focusing my attention there.Mitch32^(UP) 14:14, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Could you please lookover New York Routes 373 and 22 now? We have solved the main problems with both articles.Mitch32^(UP) 18:23, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

FAC Comments

Hi Tony. Please strike the comments you left in the Texas Tech University FAC that you believe have been addressed. As you noted, the thread is getting unweildy and it'd help us to keep things moving. Thanks.--Elred (talk) 20:45, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Revisits needed at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Edward VIII abdication crisis and Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/1964 Gabon coup d'état. I see Elred left you a nice link. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:34, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Link to Texas Tech University FAC. {:o) →Wordbuilder (talk) 17:50, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Query on WP:MOSNUM

I think these new changes to WP:MOSNUM are fine, but I have a quick question - under current standards at this point, when is wikilinking these sorts of dates acceptable/encouraged? Cirt (talk) 15:53, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Not acceptable at all in the main text; i.e., no more square brackets to be added, and if you don't use the script yourself to remove them, I guess someone will get around to your articles whenever (manual removal sucks, of course). It's currently permitted to have a different format in the citation template dates, only because they're an uncoordinated, inflexible mess and haven't caught up with the change. They will no doubt follow over the next 12 months, we're hoping. If it were I, there'd be no use of citation templates, and I'd put 'em all in manually to retain control and avoid the sea of blue. But it's still fine to use them. Tony (talk) 16:01, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

NOTE TO VISITORS: I'M GOING TO BED, SO WON'T RESPOND FURTHER FOR 8 HRS OR SO! Tony (talk) 16:02, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for your comments on my list. I've adressed them all.

Once again, thank you, Jaespinoza (talk) 17:43, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

De-linking of dates

Hello, Tony. In Gilbert and Sullivan and several other articles in the G&S project, you have de-linked dates, including birthdates. Shouldn't full dates with day month and year be linked? -- Ssilvers (talk) 15:43, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Replied on his/her talk page. Tony (talk) 15:51, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Do ALL dates need to be de-linked? If not, what are the exceptions? MOSNUM is very vague, only saying that autoformatting of dates is "deprecated". -- Ssilvers (talk) 15:57, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I echo this question, below, lol. By the way I have no problem with the changes, in fact it creates less work for article-writers which is a good thing - just want to know when it is actually okay/encouraged to wikilink dates. Cirt (talk) 16:00, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I appreciate that concern. However, MOSNUM makes it quite clear that you need a consistent format in the body text (the running prose), and a consistent format in the refs (citation templates). They don't have to be the same—they usually haven't been the same for some time because of all the ISO dates that templates encourage (strictly speaking, in breach of MoS, but no one has policed it, and now we just accept it in refs).

Please note that our readers out there have been viewing the raw format you key in from the start. Only logged-in, preferenced WPians see the month and day formatted the way they've selected, which is all rather silly. No longer! Tony (talk) 16:07, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Um, but that still does not answer the initial query by myself and Ssilvers (talk · contribs) (and I have no problem with the delinking of dates) but - When is it okay to link dates? Never? In certain specific instances? Would like clarity on this. Cirt (talk) 16:13, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

If you mean month-day-year, and month-day dates, they should now not be autorformatted. The fact that the linking mechanism is the same is very confusing, of course, especially for newbies. But that doesn't change anything. Dates should be plain, black text, so that we see the format our readers out there see (but black). I can't imagine you'd want to link "July" or "July 27" (there are pages on them, and they're a soup of irrelevant fragments), and the linking of single years has generally been disparaged for some time now, both by the culture in general and explicitly at MOSLINK (Overlinking subsection, second bullet I think). But some editors maintain that historically early single year pages are useful links; I doubt this having surveyed them only last week, finding them most inadequate on several counts. I think editors of antiquity articles may have a slightly better case, since those year pages are short and at least don't drown you in pages of irrelevant info.

Is that the answer to you question? I'll respond further in eight hours' time. Ta. Tony (talk) 16:26, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, If I have you correct I think your take is that dates should never be wikilinked on this project? If so, that's fine with me, just want some clarity. Because if there are exceptions as to when it is expressly permitted or encouraged to link dates, then that should be added to WP:MOSNUM. Cirt (talk) 16:29, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Without wanting to sound dogmatic, I think that's the upshot of the word "deprecates". It wasn't my word, but I agree entirely with it! Tony (talk) 16:36, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Ah, okay, sounds good. It would be most interesting to see someone improve the actual Year/Month etc. articles to quality-status rating, but as I said earlier I have no issues with the change. Cirt (talk) 16:38, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

• Yup, a concerted attempt to get the more interesting years up to Featured List quality would be very interesting. The criteria are quite strict.Tony (talk) 16:52, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Last query for the time being - How do you get your script-assisted date-removal script to say the edit summary ...per mosnum? Do you modify the edit summary yourself every time or are you using a special feature of the script? Cirt (talk) 17:02, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

It's automatic (and links to the relevant subsection of MOSNUM); however, I often modify it manually according to the results of the date audit of each article. Tony (talk) 02:04, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Okay thank you - I have been using the script, it's quite fun actually. Cirt (talk) 02:36, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Script error?

On this edit of yours, summarized "Date audit, script-assisted; see mosnum", you changed a "December 16th, 1977" to "December 16, 1977". But this text occurred within the "title" field of a "cite web" citation; indeed, it's the title of a Federal document, and we can't change it. Your script needs to be sensitive to not changing other documents' titles like this. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:07, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Oops, sorry; I'll bring this to the attention of the script writers; thanks for bringing this to our attention (it's partly why I'm running the script at the moment—to perfect it). Tony (talk) 02:57, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

MOSNUM

You're welcome. And as you noticed, I did some more editing after your message, mostly to the new policy subpage itself. I understand your point about the strength of the statement on discouraging autolinking dates, but as most of the changes I made were just stylistic or copyediting in nature, I reverted those changes back — leaving the introductory statement as you wished. But could we move further discussion of the page's content to its talk page? Teemu Leisti (talk) 14:07, 25 August 2008 (UTC) Yes, what you've done now is fine. People won't be happy with a sudden dilution of what gained hard-won consensus—that DA should not be used unless there is good reason to do so. To substitute this with "optional" or "not encouraged" is to subvert the consensus, i.e., the justifiable expectations of those who declared. Tony (talk) 14:11, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

You wrote: "Well, when I said that, I didn't think you'd be going back on your "Support" for the consensus wording on the talk page, repeatedly. Very disappointed, and I take back my thanks, I'm afraid. Did you support it, or didn't you? Tony (talk) 15:47, 25 August 2008 (UTC)"

Yes, I did. I'm not quite sure what the problem is here. It was late when I was editing the article, so I might have missed the exact nuance of what was then the current consensus. When you reverted all my changes to the new subpage, I reverted only the copy-editing changes, and left the policy part in the state you reverted it to, then copied that part to the introduction in the main page. But if there's some text you still feel goes against whatever the consensus is, please go right ahead and change it. I've been quite busy at work the last couple of days, and don't have the time to find out what it is. If you feel I've been unhelpful or my work has been counterproductive, I apologise, though I think that emotions around this rather technical issue seem to have been aroused more than is strictly necessary. Teemu Leisti (talk) 06:18, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I will respond on the subpage's talk page. Could we please have this discussion there? Teemu Leisti (talk) 03:59, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

My response is now there. Teemu Leisti (talk) 06:48, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Script use

Hey Tony, bot policy says that "trivial" edits should not be done on their own, but only in conjunction with "non-trivial" edits. Most format and spacing edits are considered "trivial". Such trivial edits, if not controversial, get wrapped into AWB's "general fixes" and the issues get fixed as people make other AWB edit to articles. I'm not entirely sure date delinking is "trivial", but I think there's a fair chance the bot approvals group would view it so. So, could you try to run and convince others to run the script in conjunction with some other useful edit? Or try to get the regexes incorporated into AWB general fixes? Gimmetrow 19:50, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Gimmetrow, I and others use the script to conduct audits of dates in an article. This involves not only the removal of DA, but the identification of inconsistencies in format (surprisingly common), of the wrong global choice of format (not common, but I've uncovered quite a few and left notes on talk pages for others where editors need to decide), and errors in formatting (12th) and syntax ([[12 March 1990]], ''[[12 March]] 1990''). In addition, associated issues such as the use of hyphens where en dashes are required are either manually corrected or communicated to the editors. Aside from that, I have no doubt that a strong majority of WPs, judging from mostly very positive feedback, do not regard the removal of DA as trivial; nor does the incidence of DA in many articles suggest that it's a trivial task. Tony (talk) 02:02, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I know what you're doing, but sequences like [1] look odd. If you think there is strong consensus for delinking, you should get it into AWB general fixes, and within a few months most of WP text will be changed. Gimmetrow 03:56, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Mac users tend to resent facilities that are made for Windows alone. Tony (talk) 04:03, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

VPP

I generally take accusations that my posts are spin to be personal attacks and cease to assume good faith. I don't think that's inappropriate.

On a side note, I find minor errors in films and TV shows mostly amusing peeks behind the curtain rather than things to object to. For the record, I work as a quality assurance auditor. Trivial human failures are the bread and butter of my daily life: I expect them and tolerate them so long as they cause no harm. SDY (talk) 02:45, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Whereas I strive to create the optimal environment for their avoidance or correction. You're quite right, I shouldn't have used the word "spin", forgetting that it implies a certain dishonest representation. Sorry about that; however, I do still think you're misrepresenting the nuts and bolts of English prose as "trivia". This is a central misunderstanding, IMO. Tony (talk) 02:49, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with that part of WP:MOS, it's stuff like WP:FLAG and other things that are arbitrary and prescriptive because someone wanted a guideline on where to put a period in relation to a reference when both forms are used in real life and the placement does not affect the clarity of the article. SDY (talk) 03:03, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Sometimes an arbitrary decision has to be made to avoid inconsistency. Without knowing where the problem is, it's hard to comment (but flags aren't my thing). I expect that you've raised the issue there, without success. Don't give up if you think you're in the right. Tony (talk) 03:11, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I might look into it, but I admit my wikislothiness doesn't make me enthused about it. SDY (talk) 03:21, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

MOSNUM question

I don't want to start yet another thread on an already busy talk page so I hope you don't mid me asking you instead :) I am trying to get my head around the new position on not linking dates. Is the main problem that logged out users just end up seeing dates as they are written on the edit page? Could software feature fix that, for example by just choosing the American date style and displaying that? Is a bug filed?

Also, does this edit bring Channel Tunnel up to standard under the new guideline? It seems strange to have some dates linked and some not, perhaps this edit is just a misnomer. Regards, --Commander Keane (talk) 12:02, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

The answer to your first question about the 'main problem(s)' is at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/Date autoformatting. If you want to know the awful truth about bug fixes (yes, many people have asked for software fixes/updates), ask at the talk page of that article.

If you want to know why Rjwilmsi made that edit to Channel Tunnel, it would be best to ask Rjwilmsi. You are correct to say that it is strange to have some linked and some not. I have removed them, see the edit that I made. Regards Lightmouse (talk) 12:54, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Very nice

Your two longer conributions in the WP:VPP#How many editors have actually read the Manual of Style? are really tight and to-the-point. Excellent work. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 12:20, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:Featured_list_candidates#dts_and_dts2:_request_for_consensus

Hi please weigh in on the discussion. The issue is that, now that {{dts}} has the ability to show unlinked dates, we need to choose a default format for the dates to appear in, such as "January 1, 2008", "1 January 2008", etc. In most cases, dates can be typed in by hand in articles, but the {{dts}} template formats dates using code, so we need a default date format to show. I can add in an option of choose the date format by using something like {{dts|2008|1|30|link=off|format=mdy}} later, but for now, we need a default date format. Currently, all dates using {{dts}} are appearing as "January 1, 2008". Gary King (talk) 17:37, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry for taking so long; I've added format=dmy now. Please check the linked thread for more information. Gary King (talk) 17:30, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Script now working

From time to time, the script will stop working or will do bizarre things. This is because I make changes to the live version. Large corporations have development versions, test versions, beta versions, maintained versions, and latest versions. You can imagine the pros and cons of that. Sorry about that. If you check the edit history of the script you will see if I have changed it just prior to your edit. That should let you know if I am working on it or have made an untested change. Hope that helps. Keep smiling, things are going great. Gimmetrow is being a great help too. Lightmouse (talk) 13:31, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks heaps. Yes, I'm sure Gimme is helping. I do feel undermined by the comment above, but I suppose it's his/her way of saying "please check the diffs properly". Tony (talk) 13:34, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, did not intend to undermine. Removing. The regexes could exclude anything beginning with "title=" and ending with | or } to avoid changing some titles, but that's a large change. Gimmetrow 14:34, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Gimmetrow, the specific false positive was changing the title 'blah blah December 16th' to 'blah blah December 16'. I have made the code more conservative and it will only remove 'th' if the date is inside square brackets. So that specific problem is solved. Titles and quotes are the Achilles Heel of script writers. As you know, you can reduce the false positives but not eliminate the problem. I believe that the AWB script writers are also working on a partial fix. Lightmouse (talk) 18:09, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Citation templates

Have the citation templates got the point where we can delink ISO dates? Lightmouse (talk) 13:39, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

My brain turns to jelly when it comes to citation templates (never having using one). I just wish they'd never been invented. I'll keep a look-out. Tony (talk) 13:44, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

This was my prompting. Back when the cite template documentation recommended ISO for the date field, someone changed the dates in a bunch of articles. I would like an option to change things back, so

• "Google". 2008-08-28. Retrieved 2008-08-28.
• "Google". 2008-08-28. Retrieved 2008-08-28. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

becomes:

• "Google". 28 August 2008. Retrieved 2008-08-28.

The accessdate can't change, however:

• "Google". 28 August 2008. Retrieved 28 August 2008.

Is MOSNUM at that point yet? Gimmetrow 14:34, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

• It's done like this:
  • "Google". 28 August 2008. Retrieved 28 August 2008.
• SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:40, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

In practice, I tend to use

• "Google". 28 August 2008. Retrieved 2008-08-28.

in articles that have the cite templates. Gimmetrow 14:57, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

But the citation templates' usage instructions say to use ISO dates only. I think User:Gary King's the one who knows how far along this is. Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 16:00, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

{{Cite web}} currently says for the "date" field: "Full date of publication in the same format as the main text of the article." Gimmetrow 19:52, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

So it does! :P Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 21:10, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Sri Lankan Tamil people

Since you made your comments, a al ot has changed. Can you take look agains please ? Thanks Taprobanus (talk) 21:44, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Edward VIII abdication crisis

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Edward VIII abdication crisis, not sure if you've revisited. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:24, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion re: Date linking

Can you clarify WP:MOSNUM to start off with something simple like: "In 2008, Wikipedia editors agreed that dates should no longer be linked...."? This acknowledges that there has been a major change in the guidance and states it clearly. That will help old contributors like me to understand that we need to change our procedure in article writing. Then you can go into why dates don't need to be linked. It seems to me that, now, the least important part of the guideline is how the automatic date formatting works, since we're not supposed to use it any more. So it should go last. -- Ssilvers (talk) 03:20, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Good idea: I've added a footnote; is it OK? Tony (talk) 03:59, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

I tried to clarify the section further. See what you think. The problem with it is that it's not just about autoformatting: you're saying, "just don't format dates at all any more." So the issue of "autoformatting", which is an alien word to most general readers, is now a secondary issue, subsumed by the wider issue of "No linking of dates". -- Ssilvers (talk) 13:45, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

OK, waiting to see how the others react. I was at first concerned at the confusion possible between auto and linking, which are quite different functions, despite their mechanical entanglement. Perhaps we need to spell out "using square brackets" with a few examples. And perhaps we need to exempt year articles and the like, not from autoformatting but from links to other articles in the same "set". Tony (talk) 14:30, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good. I'm glad to get the ball rolling. It's a major change to wiki style, since probably most articles have one or more linked dates; so I'm sure it will take a while to get complete clarity on the issue for all users, new and old. Thanks for being open-minded about it. -- Ssilvers (talk) 14:37, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

For years, the terminology and the widespread belief has been to 'link dates'. I think Ssilvers is quite reasonable to use the same simple terminology and say 'do not link dates'. I am also watching with interest to see if that terminology is popular. Lightmouse (talk) 15:25, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Jesus College list

Hi Tony, could you revisit Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of founding Fellows, Scholars and Commissioners of Jesus College, Oxford and reply? Your comment appears to be the only thing blocking promotion, and it's not a problem raised by anyone else... Regards, Bencherlite^Talk 18:48, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Just checking

Looking at your edit here, you give an edit summary of "removing personal comments and signature". However the diff shows that you removed MoS text along with PMAnderson's personal comments and signature. I'm just checking that this was, in fact, accidental. --Pete (talk) 17:59, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I thought his comments were inappropriate too, but I figured someone else would remove them. I didn't think you'd remove the text as well! I've restored it, but because Anderson has seized on this as an excuse to have another bite of the cherry, I've also requested page protection. This is something that needs to be settled on the talk page, and it is essential that we get it right, because of the autoformatting deprecation making date formats more visible to editors. --Pete (talk) 01:35, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Page protection makes us look like a bunch of squabbling fools: I don't advise it. I'm afraid this one needs to be sorted out at talk, and the guideline left untouched until we do come to a consensus. Tony (talk) 04:16, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, I agree, but I can't help but direct some irritation at you for giving Anderson an opportunity for edit-warring while consensus discussions are ongoing. We've got a day or so to sort something out that none of the participants will feel estranged enough to revert. Or if they do, the rest of the team will gang up on them. --Pete (talk) 00:02, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia: Featured list candidates/List of celebrities at WrestleMania

I responded to your comments you left above.--S_RX 21:36, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

"Units in infoboxes may be linked and such links shouldn't be removed by bot."

Please see this addition to wp:context. Regards Lightmouse (talk) 10:12, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

I continue to be baffled as to why the script does not work for you but works for me. I have been running it over some of your recent contributions to check some of the things it does. One idea that occured to me is that you and I are almost certainly working on different servers. It is possible that mismatches between versions of the script on the servers are the cause of the problem. Changes to the script on my server will take a variable time to reach your server. There is a tab labelled 'note to users: script commands now in toolbox at bottom left beneath: what links here', I have just added another tab labelled 'q'. If you can see that 'q', you will be on the same version as me. Lightmouse (talk) 11:01, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Templates and infoboxes

There are quite a few templates and infoboxes that will need changing. Right now, I keep seeing the 'Birth date and age' template .I have been doing a few biographical articles and that seems a common template e.g. at Nick Ainger. Regards Lightmouse (talk) 14:01, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Identifying articles that have inconsistent dates

I have just discovered a way of identifying articles that have inconsistent date formats. Put the following into google:

site:en.wikipedia.org 1-april april-1 -user -talk -portal -site:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:

You can adjust the dates of course. Regards Lightmouse (talk) 15:01, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Common terms

I have added a button called common terms. This is a start of a function in response to your request at User:Lightmouse/wishlist#Common_terms. If you want to look in the code (as you know, I am always keen for you to read code), just search for 'australia'. Please test it and respond on the wishlist page. Lightmouse (talk) 17:28, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Date links (2)

So do we just remove all links to dates in articles now? --Closedmouth (talk) 15:31, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Indeed we do, so that (1) we see what our readers see (the density of errors and inconsistencies is appalling), and (2) the readability and appearance of the text is not marred by the addition of unnecessary bright-blue patches, and (3) our high-value links are not diluted by such unnecessary links.

DA was never a good idea, and apparently was introduced to "solve" a patch of edit-warring over US vs. international dates early on in the project. We've grown up now, and have guidelines for the selection of these formats. In any case, the difference between them is less than that of lexical and spelling differences across the Atlantic. Tony (talk) 02:24, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Excellent. Have you contacted the AWB devs to have this added to AWB's general fixes? Or maybe just a public optional plugin. That would help enormously. --Closedmouth (talk) 03:01, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

September 11 attacks

Hi Tony, I've noticed you going through removing the auto-formatting to some articles on my watchlist. Anyway, I wanted to get your attention on this removal of autoformatting of yours. If you notice at the top of that diff, two dates are delinked, namely September 11, and November 9, but those two links were part of the Template:Dablink at the top of the page i.e. to aid users who didn't want info on the attacks, but wanted info on either of those two dates. So those links needed to be kept (I've put those two back). Anyway, is there any way you can get your script to not remove dates in the dablink template? Deamon138 (talk) 15:58, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

The issue of avoiding templates, quotes, infoboxes, URLs etc. is something that everybody wants. As far as I know, there is no generic method to do it. The first person to find a method of doing so, will be very popular on Wikipedia. Lightmouse (talk) 16:45, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Lol, I see. So it's not possible as of now. Oh well, manual work it will be for everyone. Never mind! Deamon138 (talk) 19:16, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid so; but the number of exceptions is miniscule, and we've just happened to hit one early in the piece. It may be necessary to add to the guideline the exception of where the title of a linked article is itself a month-day or month-day-year date. Tony (talk) 03:05, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Date formatting

I noticed that a bunch of you recent edits have converted dates into American format. I.e. I see August 31, 2008 instead of 2008 August 31. Is there a reason for this change? PaleAqua (talk) 04:54, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Pale, thanks for your inquiry. "year month day" is definitely not used on WP. Please see the link to MOSNUM on the standard date formats (in my edit summary). For US-related articles, US format is required; for other anglophone-country-related articles, international format is required (Canada is either). Can you tell me which article is in question? Tony (talk) 04:59, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I had set my date format to show year month day a while back apparently and it looks like it used to be converted to that format automatically. I'm guessing based on the MOSNUM page that is no longer the case? For example Blu-ray Disc now shows stuff like "As of August 27, 2008 more than..." but if I look at http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Blu-ray_Disc&oldid=235124910 I see "As of 2008 August 27 more than..." But further down the page there are also a whole bunch of different orders. For example the references still show the dates in the correct order. I would have thought any such change would have at least similar to the WP:ENGVAR stuff for colour vs color that we see all the time. Granted the page earlier version of the page had some dates that were not formatted such as "June 2007" etc. I'm guessing it was because these dates used to not be linked, and from reading the discussions I'm guessing that's what did the formatting. PaleAqua (talk) 05:11, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Pale, that's an interesting example. Since Blu-ray Disc had no obvious connecction with a non-US anglophone country, and a clear majority of dates were formatted in US style, I made the call and converted all to US style as I delinked them. If there were local consensus, I'd easily be able to switch the format to international. MOSNUM says to go with the existing style unless there's a country-related reason to change it.

On your own prefs, may I suggest that you choose "no preference", since that will allow you to pick up inconsistencies and wrong global choices of format in article display mode. Yes, citation templates will take a while to sort out, but it does look as though ISO will be permissable there in the long term. MOSNUM permits the disparity between main text and citation-generated date formats that our readers have lived with for some time (since they don't have the autoformatting function). Tony (talk) 05:20, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Interesting

Oh look. You actually went to the MOS instead of the bizarre backdoor crusade you'd been on. Huh. Interesting how it took you over a month after users told you that you knew better.

Typical Wikipedia.. he who yells loudest wins, whether supported by common sense or not. Prince of Canada ^{t | c} 04:29, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

It was with a degree of trepidation that I audited the dates in Canada, since I knew it would bring a reaction. I didn't go to the MOS, as you put it: the issue has been bubbling along there for a long, long time. It took considerable effort in the early stages (not only on my part); however, after the tipping point was reached, this was no longer necessary.

I do wish that you would approach me without sarcasm and would assume good faith; your last comment to me, at a WikiProject, was a little hard to take. Despite this, I'm still interested to engage with you concerning your substantive objections to the move. I'm not comfortable that anyone is angry about it, and it would help if I understood why you're so angry. It's a very different reaction from the widespread popularity of the removal of DA. Tony (talk) 04:53, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Request for comment

Tony, if you have a minute or two to spare could you add a comment at User talk:Matthewedwards#FARC List of Indian districts regarding Wikipedia:Featured list removal candidates/List of districts of India, which you took part in. It's kind of convoluted, but it'll become clear if you read it. Thank you, Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 09:56, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Indenting

Thanks for your comments on MoS regarding Indenting. Just so that other editors and I are clear...are you talking about the example given (A,B,C, etc) as being confusing and/or complicated? Or, are you talking about the gradual decreasing form of indenting as being hard to follow? Thanks...--Buster7 (talk) 13:25, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I think few people will readily perceive the subtleties of indenting to that extent, and so many people indent wrongly. It may be too much to expect the pattern, logical and potentially useful as it is, to be observed widely. Tony (talk) 15:07, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Film years

Generally, should years in film be linked? Movie articles frequently link dates like this: Star Wars Episode II is a 2002 film. Is it really necessary to link 2002 to 2002 in film? Spellcast (talk) 13:16, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I think they should mostly be removed for the same reasons links to years are removed, but I've been cautious with some, like 2001 (the film, not the year :P) because of its historical significance and popularity. But I don't really know, maybe it'd be better to just say "get rid of 'em all" to allay the potential ambiguity. They're useless in the middle of prose. --Closedmouth (talk) 15:02, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm cautious about removing piped year-links, whether to film or to basketball. I grudgingly accept them, but wouldn't use them myself. If I thought editors wouldn't complain, I'd delink them. What does irritate is where lists link every single year in a column (one per row) to "year in blah". You can get to any year in blah through one link to the first year-in-blah that occurs in the lead. Tony (talk) 15:12, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Ha! I know what you mean... --Closedmouth (talk) 15:17, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I think it's usually unnecessary to link film years. For music articles, WP:MUSTARD#Internal links recommends not using those piped links. But for film articles, MOS:FILM says nothing about it. Perhaps I should bring this up on the MOS:FILM talk page. Spellcast (talk) 15:31, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Please do: I'll certainly chime in to encourage that people use such pipes more cautiously or not at all. Tony (talk) 15:39, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

WT:WikiProject Films/Style guidelines#Film years. Spellcast (talk) 16:03, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree. I think the policy at WP:MUSTARD#Internal links is worthy of the MoS for the whole of Wikipedia. Lightmouse (talk) 16:00, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

More on date formatting

Tony -- can you answer a question? You just dellinked the dates in the entry Death Note, for which many thanks. Your summary mentioned something about script-assistance. I've been working for some time on several other articles (manga and History of manga) that also contain overlinking of dates. In fact, I had a discussion with someone about this on the manga talk page. I'd like to be able to unlink the dates in those articles and reference lists, so can you explan more about how you delinked the dates? Thanks. Timothy Perper (talk) 12:26, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

By all means, Timothy. The script now allows the delinking of irritating links to the names of everyday countries and demonyms as well. It's updated (by User:Lightmouse) regularly, and since you'll trasclude, the updates occur automatically for you.

Please let me know if you have any problems in installing or using the script. Tony (talk) 12:35, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Installation and usage of date-autoformatting removal script

Instructions for installation

• EITHER: If you have a monobook already, go to it, click "edit this page", and paste in this string underneath your existing script:

importScript('User:Lightmouse/monobook.js/script.js');

• OR: If you don't have a monobook.js page, create one using this title:

[[User:[your username]/monobook.js]]

Then click on "edit this page" and paste in at the top the "importScript" string you see three lines above here.

• Hit "Save page".
• Refresh your cache (instructions at top of monobook).
• You're ready to start.

Applying the script—it's very simple

• Go to an article and determine whether US or international format is used. (For this purpose, it's best to have selected "no preferences" for dates in your user preferences, which will display the raw date formats that our readers see. Otherwise, you'll need to check in edit mode.) Occasionally, you'll see that the wrong format is used (check MOSNUM's guidance on this carefully).
• Click on "edit this page". You'll see the list of script commands under "what links here". Click on either "delink all dates to mdy" (US format) or "delink all dates to mdy" (international format).
• The diff will automatically appear. Check through the changes you're making before saving them. If there are problems, fix them manually before saving, or cancel.
• Leave a note at the article talk page if editors need to negotiate which format to use, or need to be alerted to any other date-related issues.
• Click on "Save page": it's done.

Afterwards

• Respond politely and promptly to any critical comments on your talk page. If someone wants to resist or revert, it's better to back down and move on to improve other articles where WPians appreciate your efforts. NEVER edit-war over date autoformatting; raise the issue at WT:MOSNUM.
• User:Lightmouse has a page for feedback, a wishlist, and a register for any technical issues you uncover, here.

Notes

• [1] Treats only square-bracketed dates. The script removes square brackets only, which mostly involves the main text and footnotes; it's acceptable for citation-generated dates to be of a different format, particularly ISO (which must not be used in the main text).
• [2] Piped year-links ([[1989 in baseball|1989]]). On purpose, the script will not touch these.
• [3] Date-sorting templates in tables. As of August 23, a minor tweak must be made to the script (which will update automatically), to deal with the column-sorting template in tables. Please be aware of this in relation to Featured Lists and the like (i.e., hold off there until it's fixed). The "dts" and "dts2" templates are at issue, and can be identified in display mode by a small clickable item at the top of a column. This should be fixed soon.
• [4] Antiquity-related articles. Articles on topics such as ancient Rome should be treated with caution, since the script removes year-links as well, and some editors may argue that there's a case for retaining the simple year and century links from ancient times (e.g., 212). It's better to ask first in these cases. In any case, such articles contain few if any full dates.

HI, Tony. I put some comments on Lightmouse's talk page about the glitches I encountered in unlinking dates in the manga article. In brief, the script does not delink dates when they appear in the references, although they are unlinked in the raw text. Thanks for your help, but I can't get the script to delink dates in the reference list. More details on Lightmouse's talk page.Timothy Perper (talk) 15:30, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

The problem at manga, and various other articles undergoing date delinking, is that the parameter accessdate= in the template {{cite web}} automatically links ISO dates. To achieve unlinked dates while using cite web, the solution is to break the access date out into the parameters accessyear= and either accessmonthday= or accessdaymonth= depending on the date style used. Maralia (talk) 15:51, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I had heard of this glitch from someone on the manga talk page, or at least I think that's what they were talking about. It makes for problems. I'm going to leave it alone. Timothy Perper (talk) 16:08, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

For the moment, it's perfectly acceptable to have ISO in citations and one of the two standard formats in the main text. In the medium-term, we expect that citation templates will be made more flexible. I'd never use them myself. Tony (talk) 16:34, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I dislike the citation templates quite heartily. I don't use them, but then the kobolds come around, late at night, I assume, and put them in. That means that there are many good faith editors on Wikipedia who are convinced they are doing Good Things by using the citation templates to replace more accurate citation formats with templated references. You're lucky if you've never run into them. The {{cite web}} template is particularly bad, I've given up trying to chase the kobolds away. You might want to look at my comment on User talk:Lightmouse#Dates for a longer explanation of my point. Timothy Perper (talk) 20:37, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I used to be irritated or annoyed by FA editors who insisted on sticking rigidly to the rules at the time to wikilink dates and use citation templates (even though all relevant citation parameters were already included) before they would sign off - here, for example. I always resisted these diktats, drawing attention to WP:DATE, which said "Wikipedia has articles on days of the year, years, decades, centuries and millennia. Link to one of these pages only if it is likely to deepen readers' understanding of a topic.". I also created a {{overwikification}} template to deter well-meaning editors from putting these links into articles I wanted to keep link-free. I wholeheartedly welcome the change to remove wikilinked dates. I guess I can now delete the template. Ohconfucius (talk) 02:28, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Excellent! We need to get serious about at least telling editors that they don't have to use citation templates. Perhaps a capped info package along the lines of the one I produced about the disadvantages of date autoformatting is appropriate ... but I've never used a citation template myself, so perhaps you have the knowledge and experience to produce it ...?

I wish I'd known about the template before. Yes, at the very least its wording needs to be changed. But a far better way of getting the word out is to run the script (see capped info above), which automatically provides the relevant links to MOSNUM and CONTEXT in its edit summaries. Perhaps you'd like to try it? Let me know if you do and need assistance. Tony (talk) 03:34, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

• Are you still using the script? I seem to be having some difficulty changing anything with it when I click on either delink dmy or delink mdy. I tried a number of articles (e.g. Politics of Hong Kong), and all show null changes !?!? Am I doing something wrong? Ohconfucius (talk) 05:04, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I looked at the Politics of Hong Kong page and noticed the same problem I described above, in this thread, for the manga article. The dates in the references are still linked. If you look earlier in this thread to a comment by Maralia, that user explains that the problem arises from the {{cite web}} template. The only solution Maralia describes in to delink manually, which of course defeats the purpose of having a script. In my experience, this is only one of a number of serious problems with the citation templates. Take a look at the manga article and see if it's the same problem you're having. Timothy Perper (talk) 05:55, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Curiously, Tony managed to run the scrip correctly over this article, which has extensive {{cite web}} templates. The problem with the script may still be related to it, or maybe he did some of the stuff manually. I failed to get it to run properly on this text, which has no citation templates. I know nothing about scripts, but am prepared to learn. Ohconfucius (talk) 08:21, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I suspect that the script was undergoing changes at the time you tried to use it. From time to time, the script will not work, or will behave strangely. If you can't understand the outcome of a script edit then I recommend that you look at the edit history of the script or my contributions. You will then know if the script has recently changed. I hope that helps. Lightmouse (talk) 09:19, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, but there was only one change today, so it doesn't seem to explain the problems I faced. Ohconfucius (talk) 09:35, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Did you clear your cache? The method is explained at User:Ohconfucius/monobook.js. Regards Lightmouse (talk) 09:48, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I've just done the HK article; no problem. Tony (talk)

I did clear the cache, quit FF, then I click on edit, delink to dmy. However, the changes screen still show no difference. What else can be the matter? Ohconfucius (talk) 02:13, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

India

Hello once more, and this is another question about the removal of autoformatting of dates you are doing. In this diff, while you removed the autoformatting, you removed the link to India in the lead. How come? Deamon138 (talk) 01:29, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Please see CONTEXT. Thanks for your enquiry. Tony (talk) 01:36, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Aha, thanks for the link. But in this particular example, I disagree. It says, "The names of well known geographical locations unlikely to be confused with other locations, where the link would not help readers' understanding". I think on an article about Gandhi, a link to India may help the readers' understanding. Deamon138 (talk) 01:45, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree, and have reinstated the first link to "India". If the link in the same sentence to "indian independence movement" had contained a link to "India" at its opening, it might have been a better "track" for the reader to go to "India" through it; but it doesn't. Tony (talk) 03:08, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay thanks. :) Deamon138 (talk) 01:56, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

more info on European art music of the 18th, 19th centuries

For some odd reason (you must know how it goes) I ended up on your userpage and noticed your comments about the previous career. It sounds fascinating to me. I cannot stop being astounded with the work of Bach, I have been listening to him almost exclusively for a while now, so I'm interested in what you say on your user page. I also appreciate Gregorian chant, Hungarian folk music, and other Baroque era things very much. For what you refer to, is this information on wikipedia or other websites? Basically I have to be able to access it from the internet if I'm to find out more. If you have links/bibliographic material (not to books, but to journals for example) which talk about this topic for beginners, I would love to see them. If you don't, it's fine, one day I'll probably come across such things again. Good wishes.--Asdfg12345 15:45, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I can tell you, when I see something like that I am simply overwhelmed with the mystery and magic. It's hard to explain, and seeing it visually like that is just stunning. Thanks for that link. I'll become a regular visitor to that guy's website. I have not actually done serious research into this kind of music, and I even lack basic understanding of music theory. I have often wondered what makes Bach's music what it is, but I think it would be difficult to get a comprehensive answer to that in a normal way. I love Bach's choral works as well, like Magnificat, the passions, the motets--I find them all sublime and astounding. And I also like Glenn Gould playing Bach (e.g.: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB76jxBq_gQ&feature=related), and I have some partitas on CD (forget which). The link to the manuscripts you told me of does not seem to work: http://athome.harvard.edu/dh/wolff.html . I'll explore the other links in due course, too. Thank you.--Asdfg12345 01:24, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

It works on my puter this morning: [2]. Tony (talk) 01:27, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I get a nasty looking "<% Set Connection = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")..." etc. type message. Just found this by the way: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAHe1i27U6c&NR=1. But I'll check that site again later to see if it works. --Asdfg12345 01:37, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Your date audit and overlink clean-up

Your recent change to the Burj Dubai article, caused an accidental change in the names of a couple of images to images that don't exist (in particular, the final two date changes inside the <gallery> tags). Please be careful to exclude the names of images, articles and other vunerable links when doing your clean up. Astronaut (talk) 16:13, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Replied apologetically on user's talk page. Tony (talk) 03:45, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Editing palette

Would you happen to know whatever happened to the editing palette which was always below the editing window? You know, the one with all the commonly used html codes and the non-ASCII characters? It seems to have disappeared one day, and I didn't see a word or warning or information about it... I'm a bit annoyed because I relied on that quite a lot - for articles on non-English subjects which use diacritics, even the Yen and Euro symbols. For sure, some of the clicks were malfunctioning, and I thought someone had only taken it down for a rewrite, but over a week has gone by, and it hasn't been restored. Where can I find out and lobby to have it put back? Ohconfucius (talk) 01:59, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

It's annoying, isn't it; and no warning or notice as to what advantage there might be. You have to change it through the adjacent tab. Let me know if you need further assistance. Tony (talk) 02:04, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. Someone must have thought it looks cleaner this way. Suppose that it reflects the ethnocentric bias here on EN.WP - it might make sense if you hardly work in other languages. ;-) Ohconfucius (talk) 02:12, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 45#New edit tools enabled for everyone. I was pretty pissed when they did this. Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 03:38, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Bach

Hi Tony, I notice you contributed a lot of edits to the Bach article. I've reworked the images as they were chopping-up the article: disrupting the section headings and reference section. Anyway, let me know what you think, kind regards Tom (talk) 17:26, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

User:Bordgious added that on Sunday, they took it a couple of weeks ago. the grubby modernity makes a change from all the portraits and statues but the picture is a bit dark. personally it's not something that bothers me that much as the main thing the article needs is the inlines but as the article gets close to GA it would be nice get a brighter picture or brighter version. i'm currently working on other bios at the mo, cheers Tom (talk) 10:48, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

A reword on a warning template may be in order

Template:Uw-date is a talk page warning template for users who mess up the date format. With linking and auto-formatting no longer required, this template may be in need of rewording. What do you think? Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 18:24, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes; and I'd like to see it shorter, too. However, it would be a good idea to wait until MOSNUM sorts out its text for the choice of formats (strong country ties and existing format sections). This should happen soon. Tony (talk) 01:22, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Podcast

Thanks heaps for recording the podcast last week on a wide range of copy editing / content issues. Awadewit dropped a note on my talk page letting me know that it was 'good to go' - and as I said at WP:AN, I feel smarter already, and I've only heard it once! It's now online at 'NotTheWikipediaWeekly', and hopefully it's only the first in a series!

Once again - thanks :-) Privatemusings (talk) 01:45, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Someone else must have done it! I was unable to participate in the hook-up. Tony (talk) 02:03, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I did notice that, but thought that your name was taken in sufficient quantity for your user details to be linked! - sorry for not noting this earlier, and just dropping the generic message off - and hopefully if you're available and interested, I'll be able to hear your thoughts at some point in the future :-) cheers, Privatemusings (talk) 03:25, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks to your both for your kind feedback. I would like to do more – and have you on board, Tony – but since school just started we'll have to wait for some of the Beginning of the Year Dust to settle a tad before we do. (And I've got an article to write!) I like the idea about getting some HS students in on a 'cast, but I'd have to check all the legal stuff first. I'll be in touch, PM. Cheers! Scartol • Tok 22:01, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Overlinking

I'm curious about your recent edit to the Playboy article. You delinked country names like Italy, Japan, and Spain but left other countries such as Poland, Norway, and Greece. I've read the third point under what should not be linked at WP:OVERLINK but I would like a bit more insight on where you draw the line between Italy and Poland or Japan and Norway. Thanks, Dismas|^(talk) 06:01, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

You're right; it's a hard distinction to make, and depends partly on the context. If I had a magic wand, I'd discourage the linking of the names of all countries but those that are likely to be little-known to English-speakers, but again, it's hard to draw a hard-and-fast boundary. The alternative might be to restrict delinking to the names of the major anglophone countries, particularly the big four: the US, the UK, Canada and Australia. They're clearly unnecessary in almost every context, given that this is the English WP. I'll take this up with the writers of the script. Thanks for your input. In terms of the article, would you like that new boundary to be applied (or country names untouched)? Tony (talk) 07:31, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I personally think that we should link them all or have none linked. Either way as long as there's consistency. You have a point in wanting links for the little known countries though. If someone had never heard of Moldova, for example, then the link would be good so they can find out where that is. Though I doubt that many people are going to be reading that article and think "Hey, I wonder what the GDP of Poland is!" and follow that link. But at the same time, I think that having just a few unlinked looks strange. Like the examples that I cited, why Italy but not Poland? So, yes, I'm rambling and my point is that I don't care either way but I do think it should be all or nothing because wherever we draw the line, it will be based on some arbitrary notion of the average intelligence and geography I.Q. of the readership. Dismas|^(talk) 08:53, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

You also might check the results of what the script changes. At Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, it broke the link to this image as it changed the date in the link.--Ibagli rnbs mbs (Talk) 07:09, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm very sorry I didn't pick that up in my oversight of the diff. I've raised this with the writer of the script. Thankfully, you fixed it soon after. Tony (talk) 07:31, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

To my mind, with something like Playboy, the United States should be linked, since Playboy is from the US. Deamon138 (talk) 01:58, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

How is the article on the US going to increase the reader's understanding of the article on Playboy? If it were an Armenian magazine, possibly a link to "Armenia" might be more defensible, but show me one English-speaker who doesn't know what the US and American culture is? Tony (talk) 03:59, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Surely with that logic, Wikipedia shouldn't have an article on the United States at all, since every English speaker knows what it is... Deamon138 (talk) 14:44, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

You are using Reductio ad absurdum to illustrate a point. I happen to be a big fan of Reductio ad absurdum but it does tend to rely on thinking about 'all or none'. I think we would all accept that 'all' is too many and 'none' is too few. Lightmouse (talk) 15:00, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Well yes "all" is too many, and I understand perfectly the purpose of WP:OVERLINK, which is to avoid articles becoming like this. However, to me, the problem with overlinking occurs when tons of normal words start being linked. But why shouldn't a proper noun, if there's an article on it, be linked? Deamon138 (talk) 03:25, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

The purpose of WP:OVERLINK is much more than the avoidance of such an extreme sea of blue. It is underpinned by the fact that every link comes at a cost to the reader: it affects readability and visual appearance, slightly; and it dilutes high-value links. That is why the question needs to be asked: how is a link to United States going to increase the reader's understanding of the topic, Playboy? Tony (talk) 04:27, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Templates and infoboxes and more

Hi, I am ready to take on another template. You mentioned {{OldStyleDate}}. I looked and it only seems to have 'What links here' for about 1000 articles. I would like to apply my effort to maximum effect so it may be better to take on something else first. Any thoughts? Lightmouse (talk) 18:26, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

While you're there, Tony, could you give some feedback on User_talk:Lightmouse#Cite_date. A fair number of iso-style dates in the date fields only came about a couple months ago. Gimmetrow 19:31, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Answered Gimme's query at LM's page. LM, on the old-style issue, I know that a solution was worked out for Samuel Johnson. It would be excellent to deal with it.

• Before: ({{OldStyleDate|September 18|1709|September 7}}
• After: see current opening in edit-mode (I can't seem to nowiki it here).Tony (talk) 07:08, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Price per sq ft conversion?

Your recent in-line comment in the Burj Dubai article suggested "Give metric equivalent in square brackets, within a quote, here and at sentence end" relating to a price per sq.ft I can see what you're getting at, but should we use AED per sq metre, US$ per 0.093 sq. metres, or something else. Any suggestions would be useful how best it should be phrased. Thanks. Astronaut (talk) 15:43, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Sure; I should have been explicit—US dollars per square metre would be good, so simply divide the dollar amount by 0.093. The first is ... $43,000 per square metre ... huh? Yes, it's correct, and will make the readers sit up and take notice! OMG. Tony (talk) 15:51, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

PS, I also suggest that each item in your timeline be like this:

• (date): Emaar constructors begin ...

You could italicise the date (bolding would be obstructive), but it's fine unmarked as now.

If you're preparing it for FAC, they'll say it's too listy too early. One way out of that is to shift the bullets down further—even to the bottom of them main text. Tony (talk) 15:55, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I'll take your timeline suggestion to the talk page, see if we can get consensus. Do you have a policy/guideline/MOS paragraph I can link to?

Once the building is complete (mid-2009?), I would like to see the article go to FAC quite quickly. We can probably re-write large parts of the article, for example: replace the timeline with few paragraphs on the history of construction, say something about the final design, and the fact and figures will be finalised and no longer subject to constant change. Astronaut (talk) 11:15, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd have thought you'd just do it rather than bother at the talk page. It would make the bullets look a lot neater in that section. Tony (talk) 11:42, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I disagree. I tried both "*(date): Emaar constructors..." and "*(date): Emaar constructors..." and didn't like the appearence of either on the preview - so I would be unwilling to change it. However, if you can point me to a policy/guideline/MOS paragraph that says what timelines should look like, I will bow to the greater wisdom of the mob consensus and will even defend a change compliant with a policy/guideline/MOS paragraph on the article's talk page. Astronaut (talk) 14:40, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Overlink scripting is dangerous

Hello! Your recent edit produced this:

In United Kingdom, Ireland,, Australia, New Zealand, India and Canada, Shrove Tuesday is known colloquially as Pancake Day or Pancake Tuesday.

Wouldn't you agree that list looks rather strange? Whatever arbitrary list of common terms you auto-delink will always be liable to produce such jarring output. Given that OVERLINK is a vague guideline, a careful human scan of the auto output will be even more important than usual here. Regards, jnestorius^(talk) 15:55, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree, and have been having second thoughts about this aspect as I've seen the results. It's only in a minority of articles treated that such an awkward list occurs as a result, and it's probably worth cancelling and rerunning only the date fixer, not the "delink common terms" where that occurs.

Such chains do already occur, however, in articles where editors do not wish to repeat-link a country name—which is quite understandable. There's no easy solution, but I have no issue with your conclusion in this case. Thanks for your feedback. Tony (talk) 16:00, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Further to this Tony, your script has delinked "United Kingdom" here on its first appearance and "France" here on its first appearance (but not "Germany" immediately preceding that). From browsing the WP:OVERLINK talk page, it is only you who who has suggested removing links to "well-known" countries. What consensus can you point to determining which countries are well-known or not, and why are you removing even first instance links? --bainer (talk) 10:48, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Response from Tony: Please see the statement in MoS (main): "Make links only where they are relevant to the context: It is not useful and can be very distracting to mark all possible words as hyperlinks. Links should add to the user's experience;...". This is apart from WP:CONTEXT. In addition, at CONTEXT talk, this very interesting comment was posted just hours ago:

I've been a professional Web master and "knowledge engineer" for large sites with millions of visitors per year. Something to factor into the mix is the very low "click through" to other articles using links. Getting 10% of viewers to "click through" is an accomplishment. (At least for technical articles. The division of Wiki subjects into many small articles, and reader disposition to browse mitigate that for Wiki. However, the basic point stands.) Increasing the number of links, perhaps counterintuitively, does not greatly add to the amount of "click through", and after a dozen or so links, tends not to add any traffic at all. This is true even where an article's author makes great effort to direct readers to a link. (E.g, with bolding, warnings, caution symbols, etc.) It's preferable to have a few links in an article to subjects that are crucial to the topic, whose importance the readers may not be likely to guess on their own. Alpha Ralpha Boulevard (talk) 02:12, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Will you please demonstrate how the linking of United Kingdom, let alone France, in an article on Parliament of Australia "significantly adds to readers' understanding of the topic" (MOSLINK), rather than being a one-click magic carpet for diversionary browsing. Here is the context:

"In the landmark case Sue v Hill the High Court of Australia ruled that the United Kingdom is a foreign power for purposes of this section despite the fact that at the time of the drafting of the Constitution all Australians were British subjects."

Please, WP is a serious attempt to provide focused high-quality information. A link to sections from that article might be more to the point, but not exactly there in that paragraph. I'm thinking of United_kingdom#Government_and_politics; but still, it's not really helpful to the overall understanding of the Australian Parliament or Constitution; further effort is required to narrow down more useful locations in WP, and they should not be diluted by generalised, scattergun linking. This is what people mean by smart linking. Tony (talk) 11:50, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Date linking

We're certainly not bound by tradition. Nor are we, however, bound by the Manual of Style, although we follow it in most cases. Historically, the date-linking has been one of our exceptions.

My issue is that if date linking is to be removed, it should be discussed with the other writers in the newsroom, and we need to all follow the new convention. The reason I've changed it the last few times you've written stories is that I don't want to introduce a style change without the agreement of the other writers, and I certainly don't want dates linked on some articles, and not linked on others -- whatever way we go, it's got to be standard. Personally, I'm positively neutral toward the idea, and I'll be happy to go along with whatever others think. My suggestion would be to keep date-linking for this week's issue, since I'm planning on publishing soon, and bring up a discussion in the newsroom, with the intent of making a decision on it by next week's issue. Ral315 (talk) 03:54, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I enjoy dealing with snarky comments, especially when they have a legitimate point of contention behind the snark :) More than anything, I just want to ensure that there isn't any strong opposition to the change, since we aren't bound by the MoS, and could conceivably stick with the current format. The last thing I want to do is introduce such a change and then have everyone argue that we should change it back, because when it comes to a weekly publication, it seems odd to

I just came up with a new idea, as well, that I think I'm going to offer as an option to the other writers: Instead of straight date-linking, which has no real benefit besides adhering to personal date preferences, what do you think about linking it to the other stories in that issue, e.g. "By Tony1, August 25, 2008"? That could be more beneficial than the current method as well. Ral315 (talk) 04:11, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

This is a "hidden pipe", and since everyone knows that it's futile to click on a date link, no one will follow it up. It's more of a problem than the "1989 in music|1989" easter-egg links that some WikiProjects have said no to, on the basis that no one but year-page enthusiasts (discretionary browsers, we call them) ever clicks on 1989; the intention is wasted. I can't imagine anyone would bother clicking on the date after the author's name. Sorry if I appeared snarky. Tony (talk) 04:29, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I meant other snarky users, not you. I'll make a note of your opinion when I bring up the issue in the newsroom; it'll be a little while before I do so, though, as I'll be focusing on getting this issue out first. Ral315 (talk) 04:41, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

date-delinking script

I am curious how you obtained the statistics you quoted on the WP:MOS talk page. Were these manually obtained, or does the script have a counter? Ohconfucius (talk) 09:54, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Manually, by registering each category with cumulative marks on a sheet of paper. The 71 in the sample started at "Jimi Hendrix", No. 395 in Henryk's list of the thousand most-visited articles on WP. A few articles in the sequence I'd have passed over because they were already delinked, or in one or two cases because there were script issues to sort out with Lightmouse. You can view the actual sequence, and check the diffs, on my contributions list, starting 2 September (are the times the same for everyone? Easy enough to locate). Tony (talk) 10:03, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

Your comments helped me concerning when to use British English and when to use American English. Thanks again and bon soir - I've got to crash. Jason3777 (talk) 10:36, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

misunderstanding...

Ahh, now I see where your question about WP:STALK came from User talk:Ral315#date linking at the top of the dispatch. Hmm, as far as the unsigned drive by comment, well, you can [[W{:AGF]] or not, but the explanation is that after reading through WP:CANVAS and as per its advice I was trying to use the Template:Please see, which signs for you. Of course I used Template:see instead which does not. My mistake, sorry for any misunderstanding.

As for the consensus at WP:MOSNUM, I'm pretty sure over time a more correct thing will happen, I mainly want to stop the mass removal of the linked dates until something better can replace it. Once you've stripped them, its much much harder to get that structured data back (as others have pointed out). I agree or am neutral on some of the other points you and others bring up, but disagree with the conclusions you draw from them, especially the increase in scope from deprecation to encouraging mass unlinking. Anyway, I am walking away from this topic for a few days, the Sturm und Drang is a bit too much, but I'm glad I could address this particular issue before doing so. I would suggest that as one of the leaders of that conversation you need to do more to encourage civility and agf, regardless of how close you think you are to your goals dm (talk) 08:09, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Replied on Dmadeo's talk page. Tony (talk) 16:01, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

No. versus #

On old query was raised at WT:MOS, I don't know how it was resolved, and I can't deal with the insane archiving system over there. Can you see my question at the very bottom of Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/2007 USC Trojans football team? Best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:36, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Copy-edit request.

I don't know how much copy-editing is needed, but would you be kind and go through USS Nevada (BB-36)? Thanks for the help... Cheers! the_ed17 14:01, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Would you both please take a look at User_talk:Lightmouse#Removal_of_auto-formatted_dates. See the user's revert of delinking at: USS Aeolus (ID-3005) Regards Lightmouse (talk) 14:08, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Alright, I've looked at your comments...here are half of the replies--the other half are in the hidden comment tags in the article.

• The original quote from Ryan is this (does this help?):

Nearby, steaming majestically with all of their battle flags flying, were the battleships: H.M.S. Nelson, Ramillies and Warspite, and U.S.S. Texas, Arkansas and the proud Nevada which the Japanese had sunk and written off at Pearl harbor.

— Cornelius Ryan, The Longest Day; June 6, 1944, 90.

• It has to be 'get underway' because that's all that she did; she didn't escape!

Thanks for doing this! the_ed17 15:31, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

What would be the proper way for dates on this article? The DANFS way, with "1 January 1900", or the U.S. normal way, with "January 1, 1900"? Thanks for the help, ^-talk- the_ed17 ^-contribs- 23:17, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/USS Nevada (BB-36)‎ for context. Regards. Woody (talk) 23:30, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Dates and names

I think the de-linking of dates is an admirable thing, as it will save an awful lot of time. Could you also think about asking users to stop colouring their names and use basic WP tildes blue, which is the simplest form? (I notice yours is now green; font color="darkgreen">Tony</font ) It would make my eyes stop going funny, and would make it easier when copying user names in dicussions. :)--andreasegde (talk) 22:05, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I give this as an example: Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Broken clamshells • Otter chirps • HELP)}

--andreasegde (talk) 22:34, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. I made mine green just so I can pick it out more easily in talk pages. Thankfully, coloured sigs don't appear in article text. I agree that some sigs are over the top, but it's hard to make rules about the limits to size and garishness. (Well, size could be subject to limits ...) Tony (talk) 05:02, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Incivility at Bach

Please maintain your assumption of good faith even during disputes, such as the one at Johann Sebastian Bach. Calling other editors "combative" and "rude" are personal attacks and a violation of civility. AzureFury (talk | contribs) 09:35, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Spare me the crap. Tony (talk) 10:51, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Date Format in Cocaine

I'm following up here instead of the Cocaine article talk page because I'm not asking for a change there, but rather for you to consider a couple of issues that I think you might have overlooked.

I don't think it was helpful to change the entire article from one format to another. Note this from WP:DATES:

"If an article has evolved using predominantly one format, the whole article should conform to it, unless there are reasons for changing it on the basis of strong national ties to the topic."

So the article should not have been changed, as there were no overriding national ties. Had there been an even mix of formats, you might have changed them to be consistent, but that doesn't seem to have been the case in this instance.

Also, it seems problematic to change the date format of a periodical reference from one that the periodical itself has chosen.

I do particularly appreciate that you've removed the excessive links. Thanks for that. --Danorton (talk) 13:49, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Dan, thanks for this. You're quite right, and I don't know how it happened. Could be that I screwed up by guessing international, the diff showed they were all US, and then I mixed up the process of cancelling and re-applying the script. I think I've become better at this. Sometimes, the best way of determining just what the existing format is is to take a guess, apply the script, and cancel if wrong. It's back to US. You might be interested in having your say at [[Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)#Call_for_comments:_two_.28now_three.29_possible_solutions|the debate as to how to get the guideline right for choosing the DF for non-anglophone-country-related articles. It's a pain. I'm certainly not in favour of matching format with whatever format is used in a particular foreign country (except for the anglophone countries). Tony (talk) 14:31, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Date formatting again

Hey. Please make sure not to correct date formatting in links, like you did here (Changing 7 July 2005 London bombings to July 7, 2005 London bombings), since you might accidentally create redlinks that way. --Conti|✉ 15:39, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Oops; replied on Conti's page. Tony (talk) 16:14, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Tony, please try again. It should be fixed now. Lightmouse (talk) 15:43, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

List of unusual deaths

Hi, I saw your edit at this article, and wanted to ask you about it. Normally I loath the use of inane linkage to dates, but maybe you can have another look at that article... the dates would point readers to pages which may give the entries more historical context. I haven't followed the changes and debate re: this policy though, so if that's not a good enough reason then that's cool. I'm just trying to figure out what the policy is so I can ask people to stick to it. Thanks, NJGW (talk) 19:04, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

This is an interesting case (whether to link years from antiquityas an exception to the general rule). A few weeks ago I'd probably not have touched it; then I did a little survey of such year-pages and was distinctly unimpressed by what I saw: threadbare, possibly arbitrary in selection (and culturally narrow), unreferenced (although linked to articles where the claims are, one hopes, referenced).

I did think twice before removing the links in that article, and decided to do so. But it's fine if you want to revert. Let's take the first "unusual death" (I do shiver at the claim to know what a tortoise thought in the year 458 BC, by the way; the modern book-reference clearly contains a further reference to an original piece of information, which we'd be happier if specified in the footnote "as cited in blah").

458 BC: Aeschylus, Greek playwright, was killed when an eagle dropped a live tortoise on him, mistaking his bald head for a stone. The tortoise survived.[1]

The test is whether the linked page provides information that significantly increases readers' understanding of the topic. Well, maaaaaybe it provides some kind of larger context to the tortoise's mistake, and further links, like:

"Pleistoanax succeeds his father Pleistarchus as king of Sparta."

But yes, there is a relevant fact about the unfortunate bald man at that short list of facts from 458 BC:

"The Athenian playwright Aeschylus completes his trilogy The Oresteia (which compriseS Agamemnon, Choephoroi (The Libation Bearers) and The Eumenides)."

(I added the "s".) Then I see that the much better link for the reader to click on in the original unusual-death entry is the one to Aeschylus himself, a long and detailed article that contains all of the contextual information a reader could ever want, and more. My point is that the year-link dilutes the high-value link to Aeschylus: it's a low-value link that unfortunately precedes the good one, and adds nothing but irrelevant information. I put it to you that it's better to funnel the reader straight to the good link. If bright-blue linking is used merely as an alternative to another form of highlighting (italics, bold), it has a distinct disadvantage. Tony (talk) 02:17, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to respond. You make good points. In this case, it's too bad the date links stink, but they do stink and thus don't add much. Has there been any consensus on whether any dates should be linked? NJGW (talk) 14:55, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Project Chanology

FYI, just a heads up, this edit changed the wikilink for the event 7 July 2005 London bombings to July 7, 2005 London bombings. No need to link to a redirect, IMO. Cirt (talk) 20:41, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks; did you see the note two above? Tony (talk) 01:50, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your note

here. Interesting link. I understand that Light is working per considerable consensus. I don't always agree with this change (Light and I have discussed this before when I didn't understand what s/he was doing some months ago), I respect there's consensus for it. I just wish there was a way for it not to clutter the watchlist, but I'll live. Have a good night TravellingCari 02:38, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Are you aware of the 'Hide bot edits' option in your watchlist? Lightmouse (talk) 11:04, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I am, but there are some that I don't want to hide as they bring up issues I can deal with -i.e. categorization. With your bot, your handling the work so it doesn't notify me of things I need to do - if that makes sense. I filter it that way temporarily when your run happens to hit articles on my watchlist but as I said to you, at times it brings to light articles that I really have no interest in watching so I thank you for that :) What I'd love is a nobots option for the watchlist i.e. "blocking" Lightbot from showing but allowing me to see changes made by other bots. I know it's a lot of work for little return so I've never pressed the issue. TravellingCari 14:57, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Dates being linked

ok so I don't get why the dates can't be linked anymore I mean we have preferences for the linked dates to either show American way or the European way. What's the point in having that when the dates can't be linked? Are you gonna make that preference for the unlinked dates as well? P.J. 14:59, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your inquiry, PJ. Dates should no longer be "linked" (i.e., autoformatted, which looks the same). Our readers never saw the preferenced autoformatting, only the blue, which has always concealed the real format underneath and hampered good date management by editors. You may consider a quick perusal of the info page on this important change in practice on WP. Please let me know if you have any further questions. Tony (talk) 15:09, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

yeah can you speak English and tell me why they are not linked, also in our preferences which I don't think you answered, we have a preference whether we use the European and American way, is that gonna be fixed as well or what, I think it should I don't like the european way. I'm an American and I prefer to have the dates the American way. P.J. 15:45, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd have answered on your talk page if your signature had allowed me to link to it, or to determine even what your user-name is; if you'd like assistance to organise your signature, I'm only too pleased to oblige.

The document I linked you to above sets out very clearly the reasons "they are not linked". The boundary between the American and European "way" is, in fact, quite blurred, since the US military uses the European way, and some non-North-Americans use the so-called US way. The differences are generally regarded as trivial, and editors' personal preferences not regarded as important in this matter. Our readers are the whole point of the project, not editors such as you and I. Our readers see the raw date formats, and the preference you've chosen as a logged-in editor is not available to them. I wonder whether you read the document I referred you to. Perhaps you could identify one of the six points in the capped info document you'd like me to enlarge upon. I'm keen to explain the issues and convince you that the recent deprecation of autoformatting is a significant step forward for WP. Tony (talk) 15:56, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Another script malfunction

Your script really has it in for me! Check out the second change in this edit, it tried to rewrite a date that was part of an Image name. Wasted Time R (talk) 15:26, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes indeed, and thanks to Wasted Time, who has prompted me to ask Lightmouse for a change in the script to overcome this issue. Tony (talk) 16:03, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Date and birth years linking

Tony, is this part of the date delinking? Could you clarify whether birth and death years for people should or shouldn't be linked. In some ways, they are relevant links, but maybe not. There was an earlier thread. See here. Carcharoth (talk) 18:38, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply Tony. One problem. You added it to the archived thread (which no-one will be reading). Would you have time to add it to the current ANI thread? The first link above, not the second link? Carcharoth (talk) 07:27, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Date Script

No problem! I can (now) use the script - after several attempts to bypass the cache properly, but it works now. I'll take it slowly for a bit, as there seems to be a lot of editors unaware of the changes (like me, until a couple of days ago - but very swiftly converted)! Keep up the work.–MDCollins (talk) 19:09, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Please leave dates alone

Please stop with your unlinking of dates. The script you are using is improperly rewriting some links, and in any event there's no consensus as to whether dates should be unlinked. Deprecation does not mean you are supposed to immediately unlink them all. There are plenty of other pages that need date format cleanup that are in plain text, not even linked. Focus your efforts on those first, since they are the most egregious problems. --Sapphic (talk) 23:07, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Pearls of wisdom? Tony (talk) 02:38, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

While I don't agree with Sapphic's tone on this issue, I do agree that your unlinking of dates isn't helping things. Please refrain from unlinking any more dates, until we have had a chance to come up with a better long-range plan. If you want to get rid of DA, then a better approach is to gain consensus for disabling that feature in the MediaWiki configuration settings first, and to then make changes to pages by unlinking dates. Doing it the other way around is not only a waste of your efforts, but it causes needless friction with other editors and is doing more harm to your cause than good. If you don't stop, I'm going to escalate this to the next level of dispute resolution, since you don't seem to want to listen to rational discussion. I'm sorry if that's how this has to go, you seem like somebody who is willing to put in real effort to improve Wikipedia (as am I, and as is Sapphic) but you really need to respect the position of other editors, even when you're convinced you're right. --UC_Bill (talk) 15:16, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

<sigh>Your tone is, in fact, much worse than that of Sapphic: it's downright threatening. You should take a look at the evidence around you, which indicates without doubt that WPians are very much in favour of the removal of DA. The comments I cited at the WikiProject Dates page earlier today are just examples. When you talk of "needless friction with other editors", you really mean "needless friction with you and Sapphic" and a few others who appear to be upset at what most people regard as an important measure to improve the project for our readers—remember them?

You've been advised by more than one person that these "stats" are highly problematic. Just what you intend to achieve with them, and why you think they should take precedence over any other strategy, is difficult to fathom. You are using stand-over tactics here to force others to obey you. I happen to disagree with your strategy.

Now, I don't respond to threatening language such as your comment here, and nor should any other self-respecting editor. You act as though you believe you own the project; you choose to disregard widespread support, in and outside MOSNUM talk; you're looking for a scapegoat. Rather than trying to intimidate me, I wonder whether you could find another outlet for whatever trauma you seem to be experiencing. Please don't take it out on people who are working for this improvement. Tony (talk) 15:40, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Century

You de-capitalised two instances of "century" in List of Eagle Scouts (Boy Scouts of America); these are at issue because:

• L. Ron Hubbard: Shaping the 21st Century with Solutions for a Better World is the title of a work
• Wood Badge in the 21st Century is the full title of an educational course

I have resolved these, but you should check how you handle this term. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 12:48, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Replied on Gadget's talk page; steps are being taken to address this issue with LM. Tony (talk) 15:41, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Links to MOSNUM

Links are probably better than transclusions; I would prefer MOS to be a summary. Keeping MOS itself short so that editors who haven't written it can find things may be the most useful thing we can do with it. (Although transclusions would avoid the problem of two texts which diverge, one editing error could produce chaos.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 13:03, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

There are some sections where they are verbally identical; even those may be (I didn't check) at different section levels. But I think this may need a wider discussion; transclusion will involve a lot of sections on small pages of their own, which will make both MOS and MOSNUM harder to edit. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 13:22, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I put up the general idea at WT:MOS; if there is a general impression that it's worth trying, let's see what happens. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 13:37, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks; I think MOSNUM people will like it, in particular. Tony (talk) 15:26, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Script malfunction

Tony, I'm not sure how rare this error is, but please check for it.LeadSongDog (talk) 15:58, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Looks like the script is not respecting article titles or image names (from a previous message). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:05, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the article fix, but of course the issue is finding all the other places the script did this.In this instance there were actually two errors. It changed a cited article title and it messed up the representation of a date range. LeadSongDog (talk) 18:57, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Try as I did, I can't see the "and' change in the diff. Can you point me to it? Tony (talk) 01:45, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Line 925, it changed the template:cite parameter from "title=28th Oil Shale Symposium October 13–17, 2008" to "title=28th Oil Shale Symposium 13 October–17, 2008". It should not have changed it, and even if it had been a legitimate target for change, "13 October-17, 2008" is an invalid date range representation.LeadSongDog (talk) 15:48, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Two errors, one place. You corrected both on that article as per my 18:57, 8 September 2008 above, but, I just don't know whether the script made/makes the same sorts of errors on other articles.LeadSongDog (talk) 16:22, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I would think that to be robust, the coding would have to catch all of the dash and hyphen representations (which see). That includes all the common ones that should not have been there in the first place, like the soft hyphen. Often a citation field is copy/pasted in from another source with different practices by an editor who doesn't know or care about such details.LeadSongDog (talk) 17:29, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

RFC

Tony, it doesn't appear that you've been notified of Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Tony1, which is not yet certified and includes bad diffs to "evidence". SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:11, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes; you'd think it wouldn't have been left to someone else to do so. Thanks, Sandy! Tony (talk) 17:02, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

The diffs he gave under evidence aren't diffs, so I can't respond to them. And there's no point in responding until/unless it's certified. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:04, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I've fixed the links to Tony1's talk page; I hadn't noticed that user talk page histories don't link directly to diffs, like article histories do, and copied the wrong URL. All of the other diff links were fine. Also, it's not certified yet so it was my understanding that it wasn't official anyway.. although I did already let Tony1 know that I was going to take this to RFC if he didn't agree to hold off with his unlinking. --UC_Bill (talk) 17:29, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway

May I ask you to cast you eyes over my responses to your comments at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway. May I also have any further specific changes that you think are crucial. Thanks. --DavidCane (talk) 17:01, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

RFC

As I just said on MOSNUM:TALK, I wasnt aware of the RFC until I saw your comment and came here to ask you about it. It's not the approach I would have suggested, though to be honest, I'm starting to sympathize with their point of view. Judging by the comments to my proposal, I'm starting to wonder if anyone really wants to work together to make something better, or just out argue each other. It's a shame really. dm (talk) 03:35, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it personalises the issue, and centralises it on me, whereas I am one of many people who have and do run the script. Tell me why you're "starting to sympathise with their POV". I thought you were antagonistic towards the deprecation of DA in the first place. Tony (talk) 04:29, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm somewhat neutral on autoformatting, though tending towards thinking that improved technology would make most of the objections go away. I really dont care about the whole national thing or gregorian/julian thing. I agree the linking to giant random pages full of links is bad as implemented. I agree that anonymous users should see a consistent date format. What I most object to is removing the existing structured data (even if its structured badly) before we have something better. The thing that bothers me most about that talk page is the tone of argument. Look at the latest thread.... dm (talk) 04:41, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

To be clear, if you changed linked dates to a template similar to dts with link=off, I think you'd get everything you want and not take anything away I care about. dm (talk)

You're a great advocator of WP:BOLD, so I commend you. It's a silly RFC if you ask me. LuciferMorgan (talk) 18:32, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm adding this here just because - I like the removal of the links. Originally, I had no problem with it. However, there is a growing dislike of "blue". I rely on dates often. I rely on refs often. In order to win over people who hate blue and not lose my precious refs, I would rather have the pointless date linking disappear. Can you go over this, this, and this and put British dating? Thanks. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:33, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Tony, I shall enlighten you. Why do the people opposed to your bot oppose your bot? Because it may interfere with their statistic bot. Ottava Rima (talk) 14:00, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

RFC

Tony, I've added an endorsement of SandyGeorgia's contribution to the RFC. A note - one of the items adduced as evidence of "failure to resolve the dispute" is The Simpsons (season 2) - but the change log shows only your changes, with no dispute there nor on the article's talk page, nor on your own talk page, so I don't see how it can be presented as evidence of any dispute, let alone failure to resolve it. Colonies Chris (talk) 09:51, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/The Great American Bash (2005)

Thank you for you're comments, I've completed your requests. iMatthew (talk) 19:14, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Monthly update, Dispatch

Tony, is User:Tony1/Monthly updates of styleguide and policy changes/August 2008 ready to go? It should publish any time now, but I'm not sure it's ready because I just removed sigs from the page. I didn't know about the italics being lost on computer games; is the Video Game Project in on that? We'll need to change all of WP:FA and WP:FFA. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:51, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Ack, just removed another piece of stray text, not sure it's ready. Also it says that "Computer games are no longer in the list of titles commonly italicized." but the MoS page still has video games italicized, so I don't know what's up there. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:54, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

The guideline on Seasons was changed from what to what? We're not given a link to figure it out. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:57, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Tony, not sure whether this Dispatch is indeed covering policy changes but, if it is, you may wish to note a (minor) change to NFCC: [3]. (This change was also made in August, remaining true to that criterion's seemingly perpetual instability). Эlcobbola _talk 03:15, 10 September 2008 (UTC) Thanks, Elcobbola, and done. Really, it's taken out, put back in, taken out, put back in, month by month. I'm dizzy. Tony (talk) 15:48, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales

User talk:Jimbo Wales#ISSUE WITH DATES on WP. Someone's complained to the big guy. You might want to drop a line there or on the talk page of the complainer. Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 14:37, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm pleased that a link to the collection of positive responses from WPians up to mid-August was included in that posting, and that Jimbo's rejoinder was "Yes, I have no opinion about this really, other than a general request that people try to relax and treat each other with kindness. That might sound useless and trite, but really, I think it's pretty important." Tony (talk) 16:07, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

I just wanted to let you know that my intention was not to throw you under the bus or to scuttle the dates issue (althugh I don't agree with it) and I didn't expect Jimmy to come back and kill the dates project your pushing but I wanted to point out the high volume of conversations and arguments pertaining to it.--Kumioko (talk) 19:23, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Decipherment of rongorongo FAC

Hi Tony,

If you're interested, I've nominated for FAC the second half of the FA rongorongo, which you had commented on during its nomination. It's at Decipherment of rongorongo. kwami (talk) 22:56, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

New patch

Tony, I believe you read the bugzilla mailing list anyway, but just in case I wanted to let you know that I've submitted another patch for this bug report that (if applied) would completely nullify the effects of date autoformatting. It removes the links (like the previous patch) and also renders the date in the same format as it appears in the raw page code. The only change it makes is to add commas where appropriate, if they're missing. I left that portion of the code in place, since it seemed like a good idea anyway. I would appreciate it if you'd either support a test of this patch on the English Wikipedia, or else suggest improvements to it, since it seems to handle automatically what you're trying to do manually. The reasons I prefer the patch are: 1) It can easily be reversed if there is an outcry to fully restore DA, and 2) It doesn't involve editing hundreds of thousands of pages. Let me know what you think. --UC_Bill (talk) 23:31, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

The advantage of editing pages with a script is that you can do a proper audit on the date-messes, not just remove the square brackets. I'm expecting that the script (or AWB) will be refined so that lots of WPians can and do use it. Does a patch have to be added by each individual user? Tony (talk) 03:56, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

(From User_talk:UC_Bill)

I commented at Bugzilla before reading your message on my talk page. So the patch, in effect, nullifies autoformatting? Can I ask, then, whether it will allow date ranges to be expressed in the preferred form (September 19–23, 2006)?

I'm a little confused as to your objectives here, having fought so vigorously against the removal of DA mark-up. Is it entirely a matter of preserving the mark-up for some future system that works better than the discredited DA system we've endured since 2003? Tony (talk) 02:31, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you're asking with regards to "preferred form" — the patch would cause the WP software to strip out the links in non-piped non-prefixed linked dates, and otherwise leave them as-is in whatever format they're already in... except for the commas (I left in the part of the code that adds in missing commas in formats that normally use them, mostly because it seemed like a good idea to have that anyway.)

As to my motives, yes part of it is to leave the link syntax in place because it's easier to parse if we want to replace the links at some point with some other kind of markup (either a template-based solution or one involving xml/html markup that can be used with javascript) and also because if it turns out that we want to keep DA (which I both suspect and hope we will, once more editors become aware of the issue) then it's easier to uninstall a patch than to re-link thousands of articles.

Lastly, I've basically been trying to call a WP:TRUCE with you and ask you to stop unlinking (and encouraging others to unlink) while we discuss this. I'm open to the possibility that I'm wrong and a majority of editors want DA turned off — but I want concrete statistics and input from a broad range of editors to answer that question, not a poll conducted by you and your friends on a page that most editors never go to. By continuing to unlink and refusing to discuss this any further, you're basically being a WP:DICK and pissing me off, while I've been putting in a good chunk of time to produce patch after patch that takes into account your concerns. Other editors have been spending days doing analysis of database dumps to gather data related to this issue.

Please just hold off for a short time, so that we can deal with this in a constructive manner. I promise you I'm not trying to "stall" your move for reform; I just have some concerns that — if they are addressed — will go a long way toward building the broader consensus you need in order to settle this matter once and for all. --UC_Bill (talk) 15:24, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

How long is "a short time"? What on earth will your stats allow to be determined? If I could know that, I might be more sympathetic. At the moment, methinks the stats involve the possibility of retaining some kind of computerised DA; or would it involve in effect a switching off of DA throughout WP, even where square brackets remain? If the latter, how are stats involved? Tony (talk) 15:31, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I've answered your question at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Dates. --UC_Bill (talk) 15:35, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links)

I am just reading the signpost about changes at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links). It sounds like between that and the dates you have had some major influence around here. I won't be fighting you about United States and Chicago links going forward.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 04:01, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm Wikied out at the moment. Spent the whole winter on dates, dates, dates. Tony (talk) 04:24, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

date type of template

Hi - I'm interesting in your comments on User:Dmadeo/DA which I've been noodling with. Take a look if you're interested, please leave brief, civil and constructive feedback if you'd like. I think it addresses all the concerns I've seen brought up, but I could use some other opinions before I point it out to a larger audience at MOSNUM Thanks dm (talk) 05:29, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback, I replied there. dm (talk) 22:23, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks again for your comments - I'm travelling so will be offline for a day or two dm (talk) 15:06, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Your questions at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject South Africa

I haven't looked at the WP:MOS discussion, but to answer your questions:

What date format is currently used in South Africa? dmy (11 October 1989), mdy (October 11 1989), or both?

dmy, effectively exclusively. That usage is mandated in written government communication (I'm trying to find a source for that), in communication on the stock exchange (ditto), used by every company I've ever come across and used throughout the educational system. Oh, and AFAIK in most if not all mainstream media.

Is usage different for native anglophones compared with others?

Nope. It's universal, having been the standard across educational systems since, well, slightly after time began.

Do WP articles with strong ties to South Africa use one or other, or either? Tony (talk) 09:53, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Just quickly looking through my watchlist:

• Crime in South Africa#Background - "...by 30 December 2006..."
• Foreign relations of South Africa#Sharpeville and the severing of British ties - "...on 31 May 1961..."
• Internal resistance to South African apartheid#ANC and the PAC - "...on 15 August 1953."
• JSE Securities Exchange#History - "...7 June 1996."
• South Africa under apartheid#Apartheid legislation - "...27 April 1950..."
• Xenophobia in South Africa#May 2008 riots - "...12 May 2008..."

Good luck finding any examples of mdy; I'd bet good money you'd struggle or have to cheat. Hope that helps. 9Nak (talk) 11:22, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Indeed it does: it means that za should be treated along with the UK, Ireland, Australia and NZ as a dmy zone for WP articles, no choice. I've already found inconsistencies in za-related articles, though the global choices appear to confirm what you say. Tony (talk) 11:25, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

WP:MSH (Again)

Tony, I have brought this up over and over and over again at MOS; I'm not wading back in there again over this, but just as I've said every time, it continues to be an issue. WP:MSH used to be a very clear guideline; now, no one even sees or finds the text that was moved out. I encounter this all the time: see Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Priory of Sion. The text needs to come back, as it used to be, but I've said that half a dozen times now. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:08, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I can't cope with the idea of a huge tranch of text repeated word-for-word towards the top of MoS. Perhaps they can be reorganised; I tried that, but someone came along and doggedly resisted, since it removed the same order in which the phenomena occur in an article. I'll have a look. Tony (talk) 23:33, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't know what else to do. It used to be there, it used to be clear, and now I routinely encounter editors who miss it. I just re-bolded it; maybe that will help. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:35, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Why the hell was it ever unbolded? When I took a look a minute ago, I though "how could anyone miss this?" Tony (talk) 23:39, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I dunno; I remember that you bolded it once, but I found it unbolded. (But even bolded, people still miss it.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:05, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Just to add - there is a problem with the section from the fact that I see WP:MSH above and it links to it, without the section actually listing it as one of the possibilities. Ottava Rima (talk) 00:17, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Can this be fixed easily? Tony (talk) 14:58, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

RE : FAC/Odexed

Hi Tony, per your objections several editors have went through the article and gave it a throughout copyedit. Kindly have a second look at the article. Thanks. - Best regards, Mailer Diablo 13:02, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

• I replied on the FAC re: your proposal to withdraw the FAC. - Mailer Diablo 16:14, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

(Continued from FAC) My generation of collaborators have unfortunately retired. Two principal Wikiprojects that is related to this FAC have stopped their collaborations due to lack of quality editors, I think we can infer from here and the demise of LOC the lack of availability in copy-editors and collobrators. I have three topics that I have paper sources to write to FA, but they are all dead in the water - given that this article is a lot more prominent that the rest of the three and barely making 1a, exacerbated by the lack of Wikiproject support, I can't imagine for the rest how are they gonna make FAC. Thanks for your comments, and I do appreciate a few recommendations of editors if you could. I really want to go back to writing, taking a break from the internal processes hoping that writing won't be just as messy. - Mailer Diablo 17:21, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Date automatting

Thank you for drawing my attention to the policy change regarding the autoformatting of dates. I've now read the Signpost article on this. However, I can't see where I reinstated the opening dates automatting for the Spice Girls article as I'm sure I've not done any recent editing on that article. I know I altered the date of birth for Britney Spears to the old style, which has since been corrected to what is meant to be used now, but I was obviously unaware of the policy change at that time. -TonyW (talk) 16:18, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Final Fantasy VII

Hi. Could you please do this to Final Fantasy VII. I want to make sure all the dates get removed, and if I do it manually, I'm afraid I'm going to miss some. Thanks. The Prince (talk) 19:34, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Album release dates in discographies

Recently you edited Paul Kelly discography (PKd) and fixed some overlinkage problems. In the process you delinked the dates of album releases. (I note you did a similar thing at Pink Floyd discography.) The PKd is currently being reviewed for FLC and one of the review comments suggested that the dates need not be linked.

In the unresolved discussion at PKd FLC comments on this point I indicated that I was following the guidelines (NOT policy) suggested by MOS:DISCOG. The reviewer has not yet responded to this comment.

I'm aware of WP:MOSNUM date section where it states "Dates are not linked unless there is a particular reason to do so." I think that the MOS:DISCOG guideline is such a particular reason. I have no problem with the other date changes you made, but the date wikilinks for album releases issue remains unresolved.

This may be a case where WP:MOSNUM over-rules MOS:DISCOG but that should be played out elsewhere I believe. In the interim, unless the reviewer insists on the album release dates not being wikilinked, I would request that those date changes be reverted but the other changes should remain.Shaidar cuebiyar (talk) 22:02, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for alerting me to the need for that proposed guideline to be updated. I've done so. Tony (talk) 03:28, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Thankyou

Thanks for the date page. Appreciate it. However, I am not sure why it is on this page, and specifically whether this is really an official policy, and what evidence there is that this has been conducted by administration. Sorry for being a drag but I am not really sure about this.--HandGrenadePins (talk) 16:06, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

My response

Hi Tony, my response to your request is on my talk page. Sorry for the delayed communication. Daytrivia (talk) 05:51, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

date template again

Im almost a the point of announcing this at MOSNUM (nice empty talk page and all), but I replied to your comments on User:Dmadeo/DA and wanted to give you the opportunity to look them over. Thanks again dm (talk) 16:27, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Lists and opening sentences

Tony, for a second time, we're getting people pointing at WP:LISTS and saying "why shouldn't I start with "This is a list of..." while the guidelines there say I should?" - I've noted that WP:SELFREF seems to discourage this kind of opening, so it appears we may have a contradiction in guidelines. What do you suggest? The Rambling Man (talk) 16:50, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Question

Are there any areas that I can help you with or temporarily handle for a few hours so that you can help Sandy processing things for FAC and the rest? I do not mean to be a puppet, or join up on any side of any discussion, but if there are any areas that need to be watched, any questions answered, or anything else that can help alleviate your burden so then you could help Sandy? Please contact me as soon as possible if there is anything I can do. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:10, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm concerned about the absence of Karanacs and Ealdgyth due to Hurricane Ike; I'm afraid it will be a long time before they return to normal. I hope I'm wrong. The Dispatches are what weigh me down the most, because it's a weekly deadline and I don't get consistent help. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:18, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Comment on dates, again

(continued from lightmouse talk page) So essentially if they don't agree with you then forget them. I have been watching the arguments for some time now and whenever someone steps forward and states that they disagree and state their concerns they are immediately pushed away as heretics. The biggest problem I am having here is that after several years and repeated attempts to get the date issue passed you finally got it approved by a narrow margin (although you toute it as a resounding victory with minimal opposition). All you did is repeatedly submit it until it got approved. That to me does not meet consensus. Just by the sheer volume of opposition and the number of conversations about this subject currently going on it should be clear that consensus was not attained because a dozen users out of millions found the page in time to vote. Additionally, you have bombarded the date issue with thousands of words and hundreds of pages to the point where knowone wants to hear about it anymore and more than likely most have lost to will to fight it anymore. As I stated before I agree that dates are overlinked on articles (as are many other things) but I think that some dates like birth and death dates should be linked. I DO NOT agree that dates should never be linked as you are pushing.--Kumioko (talk) 13:09, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Just run past me why dates of birth and death at the top of an article should be linked. Is it because the blue is pretty? Tony (talk) 13:11, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't matter because your not going to listen anyway. Just do what you want this is Tony1pedia now anyway.--Kumioko (talk) 13:17, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I like to engage with people who have qualms about it—as do many of the people who have supported the change—but you seem unwilling to reciprocate. Tony (talk) 13:21, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually I would be more than happy to talk about it, if I thought that it really mattered but no matter what anyone says you are unwilling to do anything about it, you won't even stop making edits to dates until a decision has been reached. That to me shows blatant disregard for the wishes of others to work this out.--Kumioko (talk) 13:29, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

(continued from Kumioko talk page)I have to admit that I haven't read every fact and argument thats been presented, the sheer volume would make that prohibitive and I concede that you make several valid points. What concerns me is your flagrant disregard for those that oppose you and for your ability to sidestep the rules. You submitted this proposition continuously over a period of years until eventually it got accepted. It seems as though those that don't agree are simply shut down. I also have been removing date edits to test the waters and have had most of them reverted as hamheaded and various other comments. This to me shows that the community as a whole doesn't agree with this but doesn't have the desire or time to argue it with you.--Kumioko (talk) 14:32, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

That's not accurate to claim that I submitted "this proposition" over years, either "continuously" or not continuously. Have you acquianted yourself with the Bugzilla debate? In most debates, some people will disagree with the consensus, or overwhelming majority view (if "consensus" is a moot point), but I don't see why I should have to take the rap for this. The move has wide support and has been championed by numerous editors. Please acquaint yourself with the facts, at least those that concern the hotting up of the debate from June to August. You depict this as a one-person power-trip. You don't know me well if you think I'm into personal power trips.

More importantly, you say that you've encountered a sizeable proportion of reverts. Where? I'd like to know whether this is in one particular topic (such as tennis and Victoria crosses, where one or two people who hang around are particularly sensitive), or more broadly. It's certainly not been my experience outside a few topic areas where there are naysayers (and usually they revert against the wishes of some of their fellow editors, such as occurred in both the areas I cited). Tony (talk) 14:49, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Most of the reverts were military biographies of US articles and I will have to get back with you on who the users where so you can go get em. One user was Mufka, one article was April 26 and the comment was "ham-handed attempt at enforcement of a disputed guideline". I have resumed making date changes so the complaints are bound to bubble back up. I will forward them to you so you can see that not everyone thinks this is a great idea. --Kumioko (talk) 15:00, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Kumioko, I'd avoid any article on a specifically chronological topic, although personally I think they're confusing DA with linking to other, sibling chronological articles (1998 in the article on 1997 is reasonable, and the exception probably needs to be written into MOSNUM—I've suggested this already). DA has a different function and only by unfortunate accident do the components each link to a chronological page. I'd also avoid MilHist articles and tennis, since there are a few editors (certainly not all) who are not on-board yet there. Interestingly, I have done all US and UK battleship articles through the category list; they were heaving with dates that were submerging their high-value links. I'm not aware of reversions. (US military often uses international dates, btw.) Most areas are fine with removal. Do be careful to scutinise the diffs. More than half of WP's articles have inconsistencies and glitches in some dates, which the script will iron out; but people may get upset if you wrongly change the format from US to international, or vice-versa. Occasionally, you need to change it, of course. Tony (talk) 15:54, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Should a range of hills be singular or plural

Hi, I know you don't normally review articles that are not at FAC, but your grammar knowledge and copy editing skills shine through and I wondered if you might be able to help with a specific debate on a GA nominated article? In the Blackdown Hills article they are defined as a range in the lead. A participant in the review has suggested it is wrong to consider the Blackdown Hills to be plural and argues the rest of the article should use the singular - despite Quantock Hills, Rocky Mountains, Mendip Hills, Chiltern Hills, Pennines, South Downs etc all being referred to in the plural. Any thoughts on Talk:Blackdown Hills would be appreciated.— Rod ^talk 22:27, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I am that "participant". Mea culpa. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 22:41, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) #Bots and user pages

Tony, I've been convinced and have come over to your side about date formats. Was your comment/question in "Bots and user pages" really necessary? Truthanado (talk) 23:46, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

No, you're right; and Lightmouse provided a much more appropriate answer. Tony (talk) 01:52, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Zulu War VC

Hi there Tony, thanks for the review, and the recent edits. This edit is great apart from the posthumous: it has confused it somewhat. The "officially" is entirely neccessary. The Royal Warrant was not officially amended until 1920, but in 1907, the first posthumous awards were made. In WWI over 150 posthumous awards were made even though the Warrant didn't officially mandate it: the King thought it appropriate, and that made it so. I thought the original text reflected this, but obviously not given that you didn't understand that. How do I phrase it so this comes across? Regards. Woody (talk) 11:17, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Ah, it's nice to know all of that. The fact that I knitted my eyebrows when reading it, yes, indicates that the details need to be explained. If it's too fussy to do so, please give less info, so it's not prima face illogical, and add the explanation in a footnote, or (maybe harder to achieve) in a piped section link to a specific part of a related article. I must say that such details do improve the list; don't you agree? Tony (talk) 11:21, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I prefer to explain it in the text rather than palm it out to footnotes. How does the posthumous look to you now? I am not quite sure about what you want with the widths: do you want the Regiments shrunk and the dates expanded? I have never used safari so don't know the issue... It can be easily remedied with |width="" or fixing the percentages. Regards. Woody (talk) 11:50, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

See User:Woody/Sandboxes/Victoria Cross/Recipients for some versions, any of those fix the problem? Woody (talk) 12:07, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Sibling guidelines

Tony, the contradiction also spills over to WP:EL, where a relatively undiscussed change was made on May 14, 2008. This brings at least all of the following pages into that contradiction: Wikipedia:Sister projects impacts and/or disagrees with WP:EL, WP:LAYOUT, WP:RS, WP:COI, WP:COPYRIGHT, WP:SPAM, WP:ADVERT, WP:V and WP:NPOV. See the new discussion at WP:EL, where the change snuck in last May. This push to raise the status of Sibling projects affects the integrity of our articles and elevates sibling articles, a non-reliable source, beyond all other core policies and several guidelines, allowing POV COI advert spam and inaccurate material a preferential place in our articles. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:51, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Please see my question in response to you posting to Wikipedia talk:Layout/Archives/2008#Reinstated long-standing text on Sister links --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 16:21, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

NY 28N FAC

All done with your comments good sir - I tried my hardest on your comments about expanding a little bit. However, do keep in mind that this is 50 miles of highway in the middle of nowhere.Mitch32^(UP) 20:32, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Replied on the FAC.Mitch32^(UP) 10:17, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)

To answer your question Tony, the "Change" box provides useful information to the Wiki community. Over the past several weeks, I have had several conversations with Wiki editors about dates, how they have changed, how they continue to change etc. In brief, they are confused about what is happening. Not everyone follows dates as closely as you do. Therefore, the box informs them that this date guideline (unlike many other guidelines) is not yet stable; it recently underwent a major change (wikilinked dates to plain text dates) and is still being changed (witness the number of daily edits). The box was added and reviewed/seen by many editors who found it useful to leave it there. One opinion does not consensus make. Therefore, the box has been re-added to the page. If you wish to remove it, please discuss it on the talk page and get consensus first. Thanks. Truthanado (talk) 00:05, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Tony, I despise edit wars and will not get into one. You choose to ignore the opinions of several Wikipedians and, although that is sad, I respect your right to do that. It is interesting, though, for someone who cites a need for consensus, that in all of your comments on the article's talk page, there are ten "I"s and not a single "we". Thanks. Truthanado (talk) 02:23, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

We'd need to slap that sign up on just about every important policy and style-guide page, to be consistent. Is your objective to warn unsuspecting editors that what they read might change tomorrow? If so, I think that's an exaggeration, at least to tar the whole page in that way. People won't treat the guide seriously if they think that. The instability, as usual, currently concerns only a few bits, doesn't it? Tony (talk) 10:02, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

WP:0.7

I find your comment against WP:0.7 in this diff to be highly surprising. What possible issue do you have with an effort that results in project-wide cleanup drives on our most visible and significant articles? (Asking you here to avoid hijacking the copyright discussion.) --erachima talk 09:51, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

I've tried and tried for some time to get a proper answer to my question "What is the point of putting an essentially online source onto a frozen DVD?" None has been forthcoming; perhaps you're the person who finally can tell me. If it's all about the ultra-poor in third-world countries without Internet access, I say "if they have DVD players and TV monitors", why don't they have Internet access? And if they speak English, why don't they have access to a connection at an institution? Rather than expose WP to the dangers of pretending that 30 thousand articles are worthy of snapshotting and selling, which I'm sure will damage its reputation, why not pin hopes on the extremely cheap (even human-powered) computers and connectivity that is soon to be rolled out in Africa et al.? Tony (talk) 10:08, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, I wouldn't consider myself a staunch advocate of the releases, since I only found out that 0.7 was in the works when their bot notice hit the talk page of my favorite WikiProject a couple days back. But I think I'm at least up to the task of showing you why people support them, if not convincing you to do so yourself.

First off, the international situation isn't quite so clear-cut as you make it out to be. I know personally that there are many schools in rural India which lack any form of up-to-date print reference materials and, despite possessing perfectly functional and modern computers, have at best intermittent and prohibitively slow web access. I would assume the situation is similar in other parts of the developing world where the infrastructure we're used to doesn't yet exist. For these schools, a high-quality Wikipedia dvd release could be a godsend. These charitable releases are attractive for less altruistic reasons as well: they would effectively validate the existence of the WikiMedia Foundation, and nothing says "corporate donation dollars" like being able to tout providing millions of orphans with free educational resources.

Meanwhile, on the "domestic front" as it were, 0.7 is already having a positive effect. In just the last couple days I've seen massive improvements to a number of articles, all motivated by the announcement of selected articles. A lot of those improvements were to core pages which had been long neglected in favor of more "fun" specialized topics, making the editing surge doubly effective. In addition to these short term effects, the editorial releases provide the project with a long-ranging goal, and will hopefully keep us motivated towards the difficult but much-needed improvements like the creation of stable page versions.

I won't claim it's all perfect, of course: that bot-generated "importance" selection is probably the biggest proof of Wikipedia's recentist bias that I've ever seen. But as long as we recognize and correct for that bias in the release, that's not a major issue. And, since the selection was in great part decided by our pageview counts, the bot list is still a highly effective tool to show what pages most urgently need attention. Your concern that the DVD release could backfire publicity-wise is interesting, but I would dismiss it as unlikely. With regard to the public, Wikipedia's bias towards pop cultural subjects has already been well-covered by the media, and while we've earned a lot of ribbing as a result it's certainly never hurt our pageviews. With regard to academia, they regard us as an unreliable but interesting social experiment as is, and if we get another Nature article analyzing factual errors in the 0.7 release won't the 20 experts who read the article and think "Hey, fluid mechanics is my specialty. I could help!" far outweigh the 200 who say "Hmph, I'm glad I never contributed."?

In conclusion, the goal and process of building a professionally presentable release are beneficial to us as a community, and if we ever get it done the product will be beneficial to everyone else. It may seem impractical, but if you're worried about practicality then, well... are you aware what website you're using? --erachima talk 11:20, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Best attempt yet at explaining it: well doneand thanks! I'm keen for the donations; perhaps the US foreign affairs/education agencies might even be swayed partly because of this effort (education dept provides lots to PBS for this purpose). But the perfectionist in me still doesn't like it one bit. And article improvement drives are best done through the featured-content process, I believe. Good luck, and I'm looking forward to the passing of this deadline so we can move on. Tony (talk) 12:03, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

You're welcome, I'm happy to help. Also, while Wikipedia's content recognition processes have generated many excellent articles, I'd argue that having a variety of programs to motivate editors is a good thing, as each encourages improvements in a different way. For instance, FA does a great job of motivating individuals who love writing and/or little bronze stars, and the GA process has done a fantastic job of propagating general awareness of the manual of style and encouraging people to pull articles from the "giant list of facts" stage to having cohesive writing (and improving our articles on fiction), but the very individual emphasis of these processes has made them ineffective at focusing effort. Our new recognition processes for good and featured topics are allowing us to make vital steps towards consolidating our coverage into "islands" of solid and reliable quality, and to extend the metaphor, I believe occasional version 0.* cleanup drives may be the next necessary move to drain the swamp between these topics and give Wikipedia a respectable core. Anyway, it's almost morning and I'm rambling horribly, I need to go to bed. --erachima talk 12:53, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

Hi, thanks for your reply. Although I was a bit puzzled by what you meant by "born out" in "...so your suspicion that "1 minute 23 seconds" should remain entirely in figures is born out." --Jimbo^[online] 10:47, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Born out in MOSNUM; i.e., proved/supported by. Tony (talk) 10:49, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Ah thanks. Not a term i've ever used! Cheers, --Jimbo^[online] 11:01, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

The Sword of Shannara

I replied to your comments here. Thank you for taking the time to review this article; I appreciate it very much. Cheers, ^-talk- the_ed17 ^-contribs- 15:51, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Hey, how have you escaped the frame? (looks up, puzzled) Waltham, The Duke of 23:54, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

What frame? Tony (talk) 04:05, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

The frame, the continuous line that encloses all the messages of this page and doesn't let the background colour spill out. This section is now within, but at the moment of posting, it was at the bottom of the page, without. It was a most peculiar spectacle, which I should have photographed for evidence, but have neglected to. Waltham, The Duke of 14:58, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Ah, Your Grace. So it's not to do with The Sword of Shannara, Mr Navigation? OK, I found the problem: the talk-page answer template above, which I removed. [Your Most Humble Servant.] Tony (talk) 15:00, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

That explains it. I recall its presence; most people seem reluctant to remove these templates, which makes no sense to me—once the notification is made, they are useless. Furthermore, if a new template is added, it may attract less attention due to the other one's presence, especially if in the same section. For archiving purposes, I do not remove the templates altogether, but prefer to "defuse" them in the manner of requests for edits, namely by applying {{tlx}}. Waltham, The Duke of 15:46, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

RE : FAC/Odex

Hi Tony, you have previously raised concerns in your review on the state of copyediting in the article. After another round of copyediting by other editors, I would like to now invite you to take another look and see if has addressed your concerns, so that the FAC can actually move on with your further evaluation. Additional/continued feedback on the article is also welcomed on the FAC if it can be improved further. - Best regards, Mailer Diablo 13:30, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

• Thanks Tony. I'll consider the option once other editors input their new feedback. I apologise if I seemed persistent or unreasonable. It has been a very long time since I picked up on FAC again, and hence wanted to have a better gauge and understanding of evaluation in the 1(a) requirement first-hand. BTW, do you perform evaluations on article Peer Reviews upon request? - Best regards, Mailer Diablo 15:13, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Tony1

Hey. Just to let you know, the rfc on you has been formally closed right now. You may read the conclusion at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Tony1#Conclusion. Wizardman 20:43, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

It's reopened and will stay open for the full 30 days, or until you stop delinking dates without discussion and decide to discuss better solutions. --Sapphic (talk) 01:18, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

If it makes you feel better—sure. Tony (talk) 02:23, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

William Monahan

Your script-assisted edits have messed up the William Monahan article in relation to the dates... they were kind of twerped. Could you fix it? The rest seem to be reasonable changes.Zattley (talk) 23:39, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, and thanks for letting me know. I see that Sapphic has reverted all, including the "reasonable changes". That's a pity for our readers. Tony (talk) 10:13, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Talk:Wilhelm Brasse

Thanks for your comments on the article's talk page. I replied there w/ a link to related discussion and quotation of my own final comment on the other user's talk page, also pertaining to date-linking. I leave it up to you and the other user to work on delinking as per Wikipedia:MOS#Dates. --NYScholar (talk) 00:10, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Possible improvement in date delinking?

Hi Tony, I see that Movieland has been run through the date delinking process. I very much support date delinking, but can dates written (by me, sadly without considering unregistered users) as yyyy-mm-dd, as in "On 2006-08-08, the FTC..." convert to something more beauteous than "On 2006-08-08, the FTC..."? I hand-improved the ones in Movieland. Cheers, CliffC (talk) 19:36, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Cliff, I've inserted the commas in your US formats. Looks good now. Unfortunately, the monobook script won't convert ISOs. Tony (talk) 10:06, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Featured sounds

Hi! Just a quick note. By all means hold me to high standards, as I'm supposed to be setting an example, but realise that the featured sound project is just really starting to become viable, so you may want to use slightly more positive phrasings (e.g. "Conditional support on X, Y, and Z being fixed, oppose until then") with newer people. Otherwise, I think you're an excellent asset to the project - you keep us all honest. =) Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 11:00, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

By the way, I've sent you an e-mail about the Carnival of the Animals nom. Couple things that, while not secret, probably are best not made too widely known. As I'm feeling a bit woozy, it's probably only semi-coherent. Ach, well. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 11:02, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, yes, received, and I quite understand. There's no problem in what you wrote. Tony (talk) 13:19, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/NBA All-Rookie Team

User:K. Annoyomous24/FLC resolved

Copy Edit

The ubiquitous Casliber has asked me to do a copy edit rescue of [[this former FAC article. The prose is the usual atrocious blend of passive voice, badly written textbook regurgitation, and ungainly constructions, with a few run-ons and comma splices for added piquancy. Can you take a look at my rewrite? I have only finished the first few sections, but will try to get around to the rest of it. I don't want to bother, however, if this cannot be raised to FA once the prose has been whipped into shape. Ta. Eusebeus (talk) 21:32, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Copy edit for U.S. Route 41 in Michigan

The article is my next likely FAC. I was wondering if you could help with a collaboration on copy editing the article? I'd like to whip it into shape with some general feedback on improving my writing style. Imzadi1979 (talk) 22:05, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

wp:overlink

Please do us a favor and do your date delinking separately from your de-overlinking; it makes it easier to revert in case you delink something that is, in fact, useful for the context of the article. Please make sure you're reviewing these before hitting submit. Example: It makes no sense to link Guam but not Japan on the infobox on Typhoon Tip, especially since it's an infobox. So please, yes, many of these terms are overlinked, but that doesn't mean they get universally delinked. --Golbez (talk) 05:36, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment. I can do that for typhoon-related articles, although it's a moot point: Japan is so widely known as a country that it should hardly ever be necessary to link it. There may be a visual discomfort in seeing one country-name linked and another not linked, although this is bound to occur already when a list of names appears in the body of an article in which some names would be repeat links. It's quite common practice for editors to select only those that haven't already been linked once.

On a more practical level, don't you think "Guam" is more likely to attract a link-hit when it's not diluted by a linked "Japan" in the vicinity? To me, the sole linking says something more: "Japan is well-known, but Guam is not, so you may well want to learn more by clicking this. It goes to the heart of the moves for a more selective approach to wikilinking: the less you link, the more likely readers are to follow the remaining ones, so link only the valuable ones.

An expert programmer in wiki-site commented at ?WT:CONTEXT a few weeks ago that in his experience, readers rarely click links anyway. It's not hard evidence, but does point to the need to funnel readers towards the ones we think are more important in the context. Tony (talk) 06:12, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I would think that when a reader who is familiar with editing comes across an infobox with Guam linked but Japan not, he's likely to simply go in and link Japan, seeing it as an oversight. Infoboxes are not text, and need to be treated differently. (As for in the body of text, generally that doesn't exist in a vacuum, and the reader is likely to have seen the previous link; infoboxes are not only first, but separate from the text, and thus the linking is completely different) --Golbez (talk) 06:52, 21 September 2008 (UTC)