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December 2019

Please comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)

Done

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (technical). Legobot (talk) 04:25, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Precious anniversary

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:46, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers/Redirect autopatrol

Done

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers/Redirect autopatrol. Legobot (talk) 04:26, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Epstein didn't kill himself

Done

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Epstein didn't kill himself. Legobot (talk) 04:25, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Exemplification of your humourous EFF essay

@SMcCandlish:,

Hope you're doing well. Well, this ANI discussion exemplifies why sometimes it's best when you're the subject of an ANI discussion to just ignore it. It's probably a good thing I was absent from Wikipedia for a few days as I might've been tempted to get involved (to a potential detriment). I'm sure you've probably had an editor take you to ANI before, so I guess I can say I'm no longer a WikiVirgin (if that shortcut wikilink doesn't exist, it might be a useful, humourous Wikipedia essay on ANI). ;-)

Interestingly, this was despite my previously trying to use ANI as a de-escalation medium Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1022#Seeking de-escalation over at User talk:Dennis Bratland#Kinda bitey reply at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Erica C. Barnett, which Britishfinance closed as consensually de-escalated. I realized then, thanks to Rhododendrites, that ANI is not normally known as the medium for de-escalation; indeed it's the opposite.

It seems Wikipedia has a lot of incivility...I wonder if we could establish consensus to make mandatory dispute resolution prior to taking another editor to ANI? It seems like a reasonable solution.

Cheers,
--Doug Mehus T·C 15:22, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

ANI is a WP:DRAMA factory. ANI is part of WP:DR. The lower sorts of DR, like WP:3O and WP:DRN are themselves voluntary (and often not applicable – they won't take "cases" than involve things like disruption of internal material, e.g. squabbles over guideline wording). So, ANI already is the first stage of mandatory DR. Which may account for its high drama level. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 10:49, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

PS: WP:WikiVirgin would indeed be a funny essay, but since the metaphoric referent involves sex and females, you'd almost certainly get castigated for writing it under that title. Learn from the User:SMcCandlish/It MfD drama, repeated attempts to MfD WP:DIVA (presently WP:HIGHMAINT though even that title and the longer version WP:Don't be high-maintenance have been accused of sexism), and the ongoing brouhaha about ships and she (at WT:MOS), and so on. A spectral WP:BATTLEGROUND can arise from the fog in an instant, like a portal to a hellish otherworld, despite one's best intentions. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 11:28, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Did you know

Done

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Did you know. Legobot (talk) 04:29, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Template talk:Infobox person

Done

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Template talk:Infobox person. Legobot (talk) 04:28, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

Done

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. Legobot (talk) 04:25, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Off-Broadway

Hey there! I see the discussion has been closed and page moved for off-off-Broadway. Does not the same logic apply to Off-Broadway? Cheers, GentlemanGhost (séance) 14:01, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

@GentlemanGhost: Yes, it does. I'd already made that change, a week ago, but someone reverted it. Then I did that RM, so I think I'll go re-instate that change. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 08:38, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Ah, I should have dug into the edit history. Thanks for following through! GentlemanGhost (séance) 08:52, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

@GentlemanGhost: Well, I would almost bet money I'll get knee-jerk reverted again. If that happens, I'll RfC this at WT:MOSCAPS. I'm really getting tired of the "capitalize every term related to theatre, acting, dance, and other arts" WP:SSF nonsense, and it's getting increasingly wearying dealing with it on an article-by-article basis. This is just another sliver of MOS:ACTCAPS. We extended it to explicitly cover non-trademarked games, sports, and dance terms about a year ago, and probably need to mention acting/theatre more specifically (though it already includes "method acting" at MOS:DOCTCAPS, for related reasons). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 09:29, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, that could easily happen. Experienced editors should be aware of the MOS, but some notions may be hard to dispel. In the case of off-Broadway, The New York Times MOS (and probably the AP Style Guide) may make some editors more familiar and comfortable with the capitalized variation but the bottom line is that the only MOS which applies here is our own. Even though it personally feels odd to me, in the same way that a British spelling of a word does, I see the value in consensus and applying MOSCAPS consistently, so others should be able to as well. --GentlemanGhost (séance) 10:11, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

The main thing is to not apply an unnecessary stylization (including capitals). The entire problem with the "we should write about theatre the way theatre-centric writers do, and write about birds the way ornithologists do" is every specialization wants to over-capitalize various things within their little fiefdom, and the end result would be nearly everything capitalized on every topic. E.g., the theatre/acting/film/TV people would capitalize every occurrence of "off-Broadway" and "method acting" and "director of photography" and yadda yadda yadda at every occurrence in every article, and the bird people would capitalize every common name of every bird species (and – as we know from direct experience – then go around doing this to every common name of every species of everything), and the skateboarders will capitalize the names of every skating trick, and the dance people will capitalize the names of every dance, style, and step, and there'll just be no end to it. There already is no end to it, just a suppression of it via MOS:CAPS, a sea wall over which the waves frequently crest. It goes way beyond capitals, though, and includes things like mimicry of odd stylization in trademarks (backwards letters, etc.), unnecessary punctuation (like the comma in "Sammy Davis, Jr.", preferred by Americans over the age of about 50), dropping of punctuation (e.g. "St Peter Ave" when every British style guide says it should be "St Peter Ave." – British English only drops the dots from contraction abbreviations that begin and end with the same letters as the whole word, as in St and Dr for Saint and Doctor; the "just drop them all" nonsense is sloppy journalistic writing used by some newspapers desperately trying to save column space, which people them imitate, not knowing any better), and unit symbols and abbreviations (things like "2 foot six" and "2'6''" are ingrained in some styles). And on and on. It simply is not physically possible for editors to all get their personally preferred way on every style matter, because they're going to conflict in many ways and it would just lead to constant editwarring over style trivia. That's how MoS came about in the first place, so stop that constant disruption. That and the problem of letting every specialist camp write in a specialist way leads to material that looks to the average reader like it was written by the barely literate, and even when it doesn't, it results in impenetrable writing that only specialists in a particular field can understand - and even then only if the topic in question is "claimed" by just one camp of specialists imposing one weird set of styles. If you get a topic like "fauna of Madagascar", you end up with ornithologists and primatologists and ecologists and ethologists and etc., etc., all trying to do conflicting things. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 22:28, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

Disregard

– No need; this is already a WP:SNOWBALL.

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. Legobot (talk) 04:30, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Partial blocks

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Partial blocks. Legobot (talk) 04:27, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

It’s that time of year!

Christmas tree worm, (Spirobranchus gigantic) ^{^Atsme _Talk 📧 18:17, 13 December 2019 (UTC)}
	Time To Spread A Little Happy Holiday Cheer!!
	I decorated a special kind of Christmas tree in the spirit of the season. What's especially nice about this digitized version: it doesn't need water won't catch fire *and batteries aren't required.
	Have a very Merry Christmas - Happy Hanukkah‼️ and a prosperous New Year!! 🍸🎁 🎉

Cheers

Damon Runyon's short story "Dancing Dan's Christmas" is a fun read if you have the time. Right from the start it extols the virtues of the hot Tom and Jerry

This hot Tom and Jerry is an old-time drink that is once used by one and all in this country to celebrate Christmas with, and in fact it is once so popular that many people think Christmas is invented only to furnish an excuse for hot Tom and Jerry, although of course this is by no means true.

No matter what concoction is your favorite to imbibe during this festive season I would like to toast you with it and to thank you for all your work here at the 'pedia this past year. Best wishes for your 2020 as well SMcC. MarnetteD|Talk 02:00, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Thank you ...

... for improving article quality in December! There's a peer review open for Clara Schumann and a FAC for Jauchzet, frohlocket!, DYK? We miss Brian who would have helped. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:01, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!

A very happy Christmas and New Year to you!
May 2020 bring you joy, happiness – and no trolls, vandals or visits from Krampus! All the best Gavin / SchroCat (talk) 07:49, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Season's greetings

SubGenius leaders cast J. R. "Bob" Dobbs as a "World Avatar".

Hello SMcCandlish: Enjoy the holiday season, and thanks for your work to maintain, improve and expand Wikipedia. Cheers, North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 15:42, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

New Page Review newsletter December 2019

Reviewer of the Year

This year's Reviewer of the Year is Rosguill. Having gotten the reviewer PERM in August 2018, they have been a regular reviewer of articles and redirects, been an active participant in the NPP community, and has been the driving force for the emerging NPP Source Guide that will help reviewers better evaluate sourcing and notability in many countries for which it has historically been difficult.

Special commendation again goes to Onel5969 who ends the year as one of our most prolific reviewers for the second consecutive year. Thanks also to Boleyn and JTtheOG who have been in the top 5 for the last two years as well.

Several newer editors have done a lot of work with CAPTAIN MEDUSA and DannyS712 (who has also written bots which have patrolled thousands of redirects) being new reviewers since this time last year.

Thanks to them and to everyone reading this who has participated in New Page Patrol this year.

Top 10 Reviewers over the last 365 days
Rank	Username	Num reviews	Log
1	Rosguill (talk)	47,395	Patrol Page Curation
2	Onel5969 (talk)	41,883	Patrol Page Curation
3	JTtheOG (talk)	11,493	Patrol Page Curation
4	Arthistorian1977 (talk)	5,562	Patrol Page Curation
5	DannyS712 (talk)	4,866	Patrol Page Curation
6	CAPTAIN MEDUSA (talk)	3,995	Patrol Page Curation
7	DragonflySixtyseven (talk)	3,812	Patrol Page Curation
8	Boleyn (talk)	3,655	Patrol Page Curation
9	Ymblanter (talk)	3,553	Patrol Page Curation
10	Cwmhiraeth (talk)	3,522	Patrol Page Curation

(The top 100 reviewers of the year can be found here)

Redirect autopatrol

A recent Request for Comment on creating a new redirect autopatrol pseduo-permission was closed early. New Page Reviewers are now able to nominate editors who have an established track record creating uncontroversial redirects. At the individual discretion of any administrator or after 24 hours and a consensus of at least 3 New Page Reviewers an editor may be added to a list of users whose redirects will be patrolled automatically by DannyS712 bot III.

Source Guide Discussion

Set to launch early in the new year is our first New Page Patrol Source Guide discussion. These discussions are designed to solicit input on sources in places and topic areas that might otherwise be harder for reviewers to evaluate. The hope is that this will allow us to improve the accuracy of our patrols for articles using these sources (and/or give us places to perform a WP:BEFORE prior to nominating for deletion). Please watch the New Page Patrol talk page for more information.

This month's refresher course

While New Page Reviewers are an experienced set of editors, we all benefit from an occasional review. This month consider refreshing yourself on Wikipedia:Notability (geographic features). Also consider how we can take the time for quality in this area. For instance, sources to verify human settlements, which are presumed notable, can often be found in seconds. This lets us avoid the (ugly) 'Needs more refs' tag.

Delivered by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) at 16:11, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Io Saturnalia!

		Io, Saturnalia!
		Wishing you and yours a Happy Holiday Season, from the horse and bishop person. May the year ahead be productive and distraction-free. Ealdgyth - Talk 16:37, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Merry Merry!

Merry Christmas and a Prosperous 2020!

Hello SMcCandlish, may you be surrounded by peace, success and happiness on this seasonal occasion. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Sending you heartfelt and warm greetings for Christmas and New Year 2020.
Happy editing,
★Trekker (talk) 13:50, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Spread the love by adding {{subst:Seasonal Greetings}} to other user talk pages.

Happy Holidays

Thank you for continuing to make Wikipedia the greatest project in the world. I hope you have an excellent holiday season. Lightburst (talk) 21:39, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

Happy holidays!

Hi SMac! All the warmest wishes for this seasonal occasion, whichever you celebrate - or don't, while I swelter at 27℃ (80.6℉), and peace and prosperity for 2020, hoping that you'll join me for a cool beer in Bangkok in August when it will be even hotter!
Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:04, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Happy Holidays

Hello SMcCandlish: Enjoy the holiday season, and thanks for your work to maintain, improve and expand Wikipedia. Cheers, DBig Xrayᗙ Happy Holidays! 17:59, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Spread the WikiLove; use {{subst:Season's Greetings1}} to send this message

Speedy deletion nomination of Category:Cue sports external link templates

Disregard

– No such deletion nomination by the time I got to it.

A tag has been placed on Category:Cue sports external link templates requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the category has been empty for seven days or more and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. UnitedStatesian (talk) 03:29, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

UnitedStatesian, I see no such CFD-speedy, listing, nor a speedy tag on the category. I do see that at least one template has been added back into the category since I last looked at it. I'm not sure we need a category for what now many only be two templates (there used to be more), but it's also an internal-purposes category, not reader-facing, and it's of use at the wikiproject level, so I would oppose deleting it. The maintenance is helps likely exceeds the maintenance it requires. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 21:10, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: the tag was removed once the category was populated. Best, UnitedStatesian (talk) 21:45, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, this one is on me. I populated the cat as it became empty after the deletion of the cuetracker links. I added the two external links templates we had. I always prefer templates over regular links, as they can have metadata and such added. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 21:50, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

@Lee Vilenski: Yeah, someone or other a few years ago was on the warpath against single-source citation templates and got a lot of them deleted (mainly just because TfD isn't well-watched and not always well-reasoned). This "campaign" has stopped, and various cue sports templates might be worth re-creating (in substantially better form than originally) so that the citations we keep making to the same sources over and over again are more consistent and easier to make. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 21:53, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

I think at the very least, an external link template to the snooker.org entry for tournaments would be beneficial. I might spend some time in the new year on this.Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 21:59, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

In case you weren't aware

Resolved

Your name was recently invoked on ANI, with the implication that you were promoting the fringe content that (from where I'm reading your comments, anyway) you had actually been arguing against. According to the above comment (in which you weren't pinged) you had become "not too sure" about your original support for version C over versions A and B, but I'm really not seeing that.

In case you actually interpreted my reply as "bludgeoning" you, I should apologize. I meant merely to clarify why I was asking your opinion on later developments in the RFC.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 06:40, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

@Hijiri88: I don't agree with either of those interpretations by Francis Schonken, and said so at the ANI thread. I don't think your case for blocking the other editor is good, though a T-ban might actually be appropriate. I do think your decision to back away is wise, though. When one gets too worked up about a topic here, it can make one seem like the real problem, as I've had to learn the hard way myself. :-) 21:03, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

So, what happened to that break? :-/ — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 17:27, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

RfC notice (low priority)

Based on your participation in an earlier discussion, you are invited to comment at WNGH-TV#RfC about TV and radio station style variances. Thanks. – Reidgreg (talk) 19:11, 27 December 2019 (UTC)