This is a Wikipediauser page. This is not an encyclopedia article or the talk page for an encyclopedia article. If you find this page on any site other than Wikipedia, you are viewing a mirror site. Be aware that the page may be outdated and that the user whom this page is about may have no personal affiliation with any site other than Wikipedia. The original page is located at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SMcCandlish.
Coincidentally, I was briefly a tech roadie for Aerosmith (Tyler's band) in 1994; they were probably the first band to do live online chat stuff with fans backstage at shows. A colleague and I were in charge of that.LOL
This user joins with Dickens, Melville, and other great writers[1] in rejecting the canard that which may not be used for restrictive relative clauses.
Áà
This user is against any and all anti-diacritic "conventions" on English Wikipedia.
its it's
It's really not that hard to use each word in its proper manner.
oneyou
This user does not use "one" in articles, any more than "you", because WP is not a guidebook.
Subj
This user prefers that the subjunctive mood be used. Were this user you, he would use it.
whom
This user insists upon using whom wherever it is called for, and fixes the errors of whomever he sees.
Thi's user know's that not every word that end's with s need's an apostrophe and will remove misused apostrophe's from Wikipedia with extreme prejudice.
if & whether
This user knows how to use "if" and "whether" correctly.
This user (hereafter "User"), and all subsidiaries, agents, et al. acting on his/her/their/its behalf, herein manifest possession of, and are henceforth estopped from disclaiming, an advanced knowledge of Legalese, or access to such knowledge as to suffice as a reasonable substitute.
According to WashPo, WMF has tapped a South African nonprofit executive and lawyer to be its new executive director. While I've been saying for a decade that WMF has to stop hiring software- and online-services-industry people to run an NGO, and hire NGO people, this one – Maryana Iskander – is rather cagey and bureaucratic, or comes off that way in the interview.
First up is a belief that the WMF Universal Code of Conduct (drafted in supposed consulation with all WMF editorial communities but largely ignoring all their feedback) is the key to diversifying Wikipedia's editorial pool. (And as always in mainstream media, "Wikipedia" means en.wiki.x.io.) The entire UCC is basically a restatement of some key WP (and Commons, and Wiktionary) policies plus some WMF "vision" hand-waving. It's questionably reasonable to expect a largely redundant document, which was created for projects that lack sufficient policy development, and which has and will continue to have little impact on en.Wikipedia, to cause a sea change in who volunteers to edit here. That takes real-world outreach on a major scale. One would think a nonprofit CEO would already get that.
Next up, Iskander makes rather unclear reference to section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. This content-liability shield has been much in the US news lately, as a target of the Republican Party in its feud with "big tech", especially social media sites deplatforming far-right writers for anti-democracy propaganda and misinformation about the public health crisis. Iskander is correct that WMF isn't in a danger position in this, but the article strongly implies that Iskander and WMF are keenly interested and involved. Even when prompted, Iskander does not meaningfully elaborate, and just offers an education-is-important dodge. So, we need more actual information on what WMF is doing with regard to efforts to revise section 230.
Moving on, Iskander says something alarming: "Wikipedia has seen a huge amount of increased traffic around covid-19, [so has] worked on a very productive partnership with the World Health Organization to provide additional credibility to that work." That's hard to distinguish from a statement that WHO has editorial plants who WP:OWN the relevant articles. But it's cause for concern whatever the truth is. WMF should not be "partnering" with any external body to influence the encyclopedia's content (especially not one that has taken as many credibility hits as the WHO).
There's something potentially interesting in here, though devils could reside in the details: "a lot of the basic access issues might technically look different [between SA and US], but how people understand what information is available to them – how they access it – those issues exist everywhere". What is this going to mean on a practical level? Is MOS:ACCESS going to be better-enforced? Is Simple English Wikipedia going to be reintegrated into the main site as alternative articles? Is the mobile version of the site going to stop dropping features? Is WP:GLAM going to turn into a bigger effort? There are a hundred ways (sensible and otherwise) this statement could be made to affect policy, funding, and the end "product" (though one suspects nothing important will change for the better unless the internal culture of WMF's organizational leadership also changes in a major way, such as by diversifying the board of directors, toward more academics and nonprofit people instead of tech-industry rich people).
In short, I have hopes that Iskander's NGO background will make for a better exec. dir. fit than that last two we've had, but right out of the gate she's saying strange, too-vague, and even troubling things. And nothing in the interview actually suggests anything like a fix for WP's editorial diversity problem, which the headline suggested was going to be the focus. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 15:48, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
"It is possible to detect eerie echoes of the confessional state of yore", and today's far left is recycling techniques from fun times like the Inquisition." I've been saying this for years, and the article is a good summary of how "left-wing" and "leftist" do not always align with "liberal". It's an observation too few mainstream writers have been willing to make, but the truth of it explains a great deal of disruptive PoV-pushing on Wikipedia. Illiberal left-wing activism is often harder to detect, and harder for the average editor to publicly resist, than far-right extremism, which we tend to recognize then delete on sight. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 18:51, 10 September 2021 (UTC)
An Information Research survey shows that people's editing motivation is often "their desire to change the views of society", and also that they view Wikipedia as a "social media site". This isn't news to us, and the material doesn't have a huge statistical sample, but I would bet real money that it will be re-confirmed by later studies. This has systemic bias, neutrality, and conflict of interest implications (also not news). What we don't really think much about it is what this means for Wikipedia long-term, as everyone with an agenda becomes more aware that they can try to sneakily leverage Wikipedia articles to boost their side of any story, especially after the Trump 2016 US presidential campaign proved that powerful results can pulled off by organized manipulation of "social media" sites (whether WP really is one or not is irrelevant if the public thinks it is). — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 23:28, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
Only the top-ten proposals will get any resources devoted to them, no matter how many there are, or how urgent or important they are.
It's a straight-vote, canvassing-allowed, no-rationale-needed, short-term "popularity contest" – normal Wikimedian consensus-building is thwarted.
This setup encourages people to vote for the 10 things they want most, then vote against every other proposal even if they agree with it. Proposals cannot build support over time.
There's no "leveling of the playing field" between categories. Important proposals of narrower interest (e.g. to admins, or to technical people) never pass, only the lowest-common-denominator ones do – and the most-canvassed ones.
Too few Wikimedians even know the survey exists or when it is open, which greatly compounds the skew caused by focused canvassing – the intentional spikes actually determine the outcome.
I am Stanton McCandlish (often referred to as just SMcC here and some have nicknamed me Mac, which I don't mind). I am a Web developer, IT consultant, nonfiction author, civil liberties activist and nonprofit executive, as well as amateur pocket billiards (pool) instructor, genealogist, former online news editor, policy analyst, archivist, independent publisher, and also an amateur artist, among other things. I have been among the most active, avid Wikipedians. I have a B.A. in anthropology and communication (a custom minor that combines linguistics and broader human communication, including journalism, PR, and media criticism). I am a US citizen, but have lived in England, Ireland, and Canada for extended periods, and learned to read and write in the UK (and I use something of a form of Mid-Atlantic English consequently). I have competence in an odd assortment of topics, like Celtic mythology, English grammar and usage, Manx cats, New Mexican culture, US law in certain fields (freedom of expression, privacy, and intellectual property), salamanders, Web standards, UI usability, albinism, pool and billiards, online media, Art Nouveau, post-punk subcultures, Mac OS X, Highland dress, and various fiction franchises (though about 95% of my reading time is non-fiction), among other subjects. Being an autodidactic polymath, my interests shift over time and are intense. Some of my latest passions are the history of tartan, interface of zoology and anthropology, especially the history and nature of domestication; and shifting patterns of English usage.
Stanton McCandlish is a freelance web developer, systems and network administrator, and online PR/communications consultant; a buyer and seller of collectibles; and a pool instructor. His specialties include advocacy, media relations, information management and architecture, usability, technology policy analysis, and technical writing. His educational background is primarily in cultural anthropology and linguistics.
He was for a while the technology VP and lead developer of a Toronto-based consulting firm. He was previously employed, and later volunteered, as the communications director for the CryptoRights Foundation. As such, he acted as the nonprofit's press and public-relations lead, publications manager, and webmaster, and also participated in mission-critical technical projects.
Stanton was among the world's first professional online activists, and came to CryptoRights after working on issue campaigns, policy, and online communications at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) during its most formative and influential era, from 1993 to 2002, where he also ran one of the most-linked-to websites on the entire Internet, and edited the organization's newsletter, EFFector, one of the largest-subscription online bulletins of the era. He has written a variety of articles and tutorials, been quoted by most major US news publications on Internet policy issues, and is co-author of the privacy and e-activism book Protecting Yourself Online: The Definitive Resource on Safety, Freedom, and Privacy in Cyberspace (with Robert B. Gelman). He also managed production of the updated online editions of Everybody's Guide to the Internet (by Adam Gaffin), including revision, management of multi-language translation, and online distribution.
After studying computer science, technical writing, and anthropology/linguistics at the College of Santa Fe, Eastern New Mexico University, and the University of New Mexico, McCandlish worked as a technical consultant at UNM, while maintaining an early independent electronic bulletin board system (BBS) and operating a small-press publishing operation in Albuquerque. Some of his current areas of (mostly off-WP) interest include electronic privacy, free expression online, preservation of fair use of intellectual property, and protection of the public's interest in the development of technical standards. McCandlish holds a BA in cultural anthropology and communication from UNM.
I devote most of my mainspace time to improving poor articles to be encyclopedic quality, rather than "polishing the chrome" on already-good articles. Both kinds of work are necessary, but I find working on Stub, Start, and C-class articles, to move them toward B, A, and Good class, is a higher priority for the project. (To date, I have little interest in Good-to-Featured improvement; that's a wiki-subculture all its own.)
Albinism and Albinism in humans – originally a single article, it was already not-bad when I got there, but I worked on the material a lot, especially sourcing the science, and defending it from frequent vandalism. Most of my work on it has been surpassed by now, but it was important back in the day (late 2000s).
Albinism in popular culture – was a narrow AfD survivor in the form of Albino bias and an AfD failure as Evil albino stereotype when I got to them; it's quite solid now, after a lot of mergin' & purgin', reliable sourcing, and frequent shepherding and cleanup.
English in New Mexico – along with several others, have been working to develop this into a proper article (it's more difficult than it sounds; most of the source material is on paper at the UNM library, or behind journal-archive paywalls). It later merged to Western American English#New Mexico – with most of the content now gone, which is disappointing. Win some, lose some.
Five-pin billiards – Article about the carom billiards game popular in Italy and parts of South America. I wrote it from scratch after someone posted a (terrible) machine-translation of the (good) Italian article; mine is now more extensive than the original Italian one, though may yet suffer from translation problems. Help wanted from someone fluent in Italian.
Folgerphone – an experimental musical instrument. Someone's disputed a major fact, on the Talk page. Help wanted from anyone who knows anything at all about Folgerphones.
Galfrid – a major disambiguation page (it existed before but had very little in it); this took a considerable amount of work, hunting down all the notable and probably-notable Galfrids (many of whom were also Geoffreys, Godfrieds, Gruffydds, Goffredos, etc., and not at titles with "Galfrid" or "Galfridus" in them), and looking into the origin of the name and its variants, and their relation to other names.
Pre-existing pages I've done a lot of work on (over time or all at once); new list started January 2018, so very incomplete:
Girls Under Glass – band article which I redid top to bottom, from a broken-English list of bullet points into a comprehensive article (with some help from the German Wikipedia page on them). This cleanup and expansion [3] (about 23K more material) saved it from WP:AFD.
Godwin's law – I informally shepherded this page for quite some time, before other editors got more involved in keeping it encyclopedic. (I have a potential conflict of interest, since I worked at the same organization as its namesake back in the 1990s.) I've more recently (2023) returned to cleaning it up, as it started to get crufty again.
Jeannette H. Lee – Korean-American businesswoman article. I originally nominated this for deletion, but after it was kept as (marginally) notable, I significantly worked up the article so it will be properly encyclopedic.
Khes – iffy article on an Indic fabric type and garment, written by a non-native English speaker, and with poor sourcing. Was already slated for AfD by someone, but I managed to massage it into passable shape (a quality edit more than a quantity one). Still had issues (as of December 2020), but I drew attention to the page at the wikiprojects and noticeboards for India- and Pakistan-related topics.
Lynette Horsburgh – British amateur cue-sports champion. Was AfDed, so I improved it (diff includes a few intervening edits by someone else), and it was kept. Not a massive overhaul, but a qualitative one.
Nithyananda – a controversial modern guru of India. For a long time, this article was veering back and forth between a WP:BLP-violating attack page and a shameless promotional advertisement by his followers (whom I attempted to dissuade from further WP policy violations, both on-wiki and by contacting his organization directly). I overhauled it repeatedly, and watchdogged it for months until sufficient attention from other neutral editors was drawn to it. (Problems still arise, but they are much more manageable now.)
Tartan – totally overhauled from top to bottom, using pretty much every available reliable source.
Wikipedia:Notability – policy – I was deeply involved in the debate over the future and form of this when it was a proposed guideline, especially from Nov. 2006 through Feb. 2007, until it stabilized (it was much more controversial back then than editors today might realize).
Wikipedia:Gaming the system#Gaslighting – guideline sub-section – I popularized the concept on WP; someone else added it to the guideline, though most of the wording is mine at this point.
Wikipedia:Manual of Style, Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers, a many other MoS pages – guidelines – Along with various other "regulars", I have spent a lot of time shepherding the MoS, and have written substantial portions of it. I often move on to other stuff, so as to not get overly focused on it, then return to it periodically, mostly to help keep it stable.
Wikipedia:Notability/Historical – archival index, providing a comprehensive overview of the history of the development of the "notability" concept on Wikipedia – creator/maintainer
User:SMcCandlish/It – a "ha ha, only serious" piece. [It proved controversial when someone mistook it for "transphobic" because it had anything at all to do with pronouns. It's actually about self-aggrandizement for commercial, religious, classist, or plain ol' egotism reasons, and why Wikipedia will not write in such a manner to please such a subject.]
User:SMcCandlish/TG-NB – a FAQ on what my actual views on TG/NB/GQ issues are, and on the history and results of the disputes about the above essay
Very incomplete; I just started this list in January 2018 and have hardly added anything to it, since it's a lot of diff-digging for little utility. This is just what I happen to run across and think "oh, yeah, I remember that".
Wikipedia:Proposed article splits – Y I created this noticeboard in July 2018, though originally as a section [10] of what is now Wikipedia:Proposed article mergers (suggesting a broader name); it ran that two-in-one way until April 2019, when it was split off into its own noticeboard by GenQuest.
A series of merge proposals from 2016–2018 to consolidate biographical advice into Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biography: Y All the consensus discussions went well, and I merged in material from MOS:LEAD, MOS:ABBREV, and MOS:CAPS in a long series of back-to-back edits [11] (June 2018).
This list is years out of date, and was primarily for my own convenience, though anyone who hates me can use it to be a pain and get themselves blocked for WP:HARASSment. Heh.
Talk:Yan Tan Tethera#Section merge from Cumbric – It is duplicative of the material at the latter and inappropriate in huge chart form in the former; all that's needed there is a general summary (March 2021).
Talk:Southwestern Brittonic languages#Requested move 13 March 2021 – Move to Southwestern Brittonic per WP:CONCISE, WP:CONSISTENT. We don't need to append "language[s]" to language article when the name isn't ambiguous with that of a culture/ethnicity. N I rescinded this since it's become clear this needs to instead be mass RM of all the articles in the category hat have this "not actually ambiguous with anything" issue, rather (per WP:CONSISTENT) just moving this one article. Leaving it in this section (despite not an accepted proposal), since I actually need to do the work of building that RM.
Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals/2020/October#Folklore stubs – Y because we don't have a stub category tree for folklore, leading to lots of uncategorized and mis-categorized stubs. "The result of the debate was create." Confer with Pegship on building this out over time: "I suggest this be set up under Culture stubs | Other culture."
Talk:Non-Sporting Group#Requested move 20 February 2018 – Y de-capitalization multi-RM, plus some further merge ideas. Most articles moved; merges need to happen. Y One article was carved out of the RM by the closer, but without any actual basis and in direct contradiction of a recent RfC on the matter. Closer has been asked to reverse that; otherwise, I will re-RM this later.
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 219#RfC: Use of Large Quotes in article space, and the Cquote template – Y I didn't open the RfC, but helped draft it (at [[Template talk:Cquote#Proposed changes re {cquote}]]) and have been "on" this issue since 2007 (I kid you not). Result: "Replace {{cquote}} with the code ... [having] the effect of converting {{cquote}} into {{quote}} in all mainspace uses, all at once. Make similar changes in {{rquote}}." Finally! This puts an end (at least in theory) to people injecting "decorative" quotations in articles that give WP:UNDUE attention to particular viewpoints.
Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not/Archive 56#Change to "Memorial" – N Quasi-proposal (not "advertised") to tweak some policy wording for clarity. The respondents mostly appeared to misinterpret it, so it self-evidently wasn't formulated well enough to be a solid proposal. The underlying issue still remains to be addressed.
Wikipedia talk:User pages/Archive 17#Minor GAMING/WIKILAWYER fix – Y Proposal to tweak some guideline wording for clarity. While my exact original edit wasn't accepted, it inspired a big round of group editing, and the section is now clearer, so mission accomplished.
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lists#Overly long list items – N We have no advice on this in ANY page, somehow. Proposal got some support, then a pile of opposes. I think this can still be worked out, but it will have to be phrased differently.
Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 152#Bot to deliver Template:Ds/alert – Y Opened because ArbCom just won't fix discretionary sanctions, left to their own devices. One of the intended effects of this (I did not actually expect the bot proposal to pass, just to spur action) did happen: the menacing {{Ds/alert}} template was totally overhauled. However, nothing about how DS operates was changed, so that will need to be reformed some other way. PS: Surprisingly, the bot proposal actually had majority support.
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 205#Proposed footnote to discourage mass changes – Y No formal close, seems not to have come to a consensus. After three mass "enforcement of MoS" disputes in one week (with two ANI cases and a Village Pump thread about it, this seemed necessary at the time. We might have to revisit this if similar issues arise again.
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography/2018 archive#MOS:POSTNOM limit proposal – Y Original numeric limit idea rejected. Some follow-on discussion about other limitations was productive but stalled at copyediting phase. Worth revisiting later, to somehow limit the number of post-nominal acronyms after a biography subject's name in the lead.
Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (people)#Conflict between WP:NCP and WP:MOS – Y proposal to fix the conflict (not an RfC, but "advertised" at relevant other talk pages); some discussion mostly about "guideline versus guideline" meta-policy, but the substantive proposal wasn't opposed, so I implemented it and it stuck; NPC has stopped conflicting with MOS:JR.
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#RfC: "Allows to" – Y Accept or advise against this construction (mostly used by non-native English speakers but increasingly common in tech writing)? Conclusion: consensus it's bad grammar, but no consensus to add a line about it to MoS (it's not a frequent enough problem, supposedly. Trust me, it will be.)
Talk:John Hornor Jacobs#Merge from The Incorruptibles – Y Merge stub (already AfDed once) on non-notable book into stub on marginally notable author, in lieu of speedy deletion for re-creation of previously deleted material (December 2020). Merge completed 3 January 2020 [12].
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jean Mill – N A case of trying to "rub off" notability from an encyclopedic topic to create a memorial bio? Wow, relisted three times (once more than policy sanctions), and went to ANI, and ran for almost a month, then very narrowly concluded to keep. I'm actually almost glad it did; the article improved a lot in the process, and is arguably encyclopedic now, though the sourcing is still weak (lack of depth or lack of independence). I would still prefer a summarization and merge to a section at Bengal cat. My main concern about it is that developers of animal breeds are very rarely notable, but most of them [living] are highly promotional, and this may open the door to a flood WP:COI / WP:SOAPBOX pseudo-articles. Just for the record, I have nothing against Mill or her Bengal breed – it's my favorite! (March 2019)
Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2018 June 30#Bplus-Class articles – Y Merged away a bogus article assessment class only used by one project, in the 2000s. Cleaning up all the pages and templates took more work than I thought. I did most of it, but a few good peeps found some spots I missed.
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Supremely Partisan and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Mother Court – N Proposals to combine some problematic articles that together might be viable (June 2018). The close of at least the second is questionable, claiming no one argued against the notablity of the book when that is clearly not true. This is a troubling result, as it suggests that an article on every nonfiction book from any major publisher can be kept as long as trivial micro-summary "reviews" appear in library trade publications. If this interpretation is allowed to stand, it will be nearly impossible to remove any article on any book that isn't fiction or self-published. Worse for the short-ish term, we are being WP:GAMED to provide author three promotional articles, one for him as a bio, plus two for his books. (June 2018) Update: The author article, James D. Zirin, was also nominated for deletion (by someone else), and also narrowly survived. As zero of the three articles has improved in the interim, I'm going to recommend they be merged.
Talk:New Zealand rabbit#Proposed merges (March 2016) Y After a bunch of venting by one of "the usual suspects" (who for some time was trying to impede almost every single thing I did at breed articles), the merges did in fact proceed exactly as I suggested and for the reasons I suggested them.
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/ComicsAlliance – Y Non-notable website (September 2012). It was re-created later, but after ComicsAlliance won a major industry award in 2015, which is enough to establish notability.
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rise Nation – Y Non-notable e-sports team. Someone else technically nominated this, but was immediately blocked as a sock. The nom was correct, though, and I supplied the detailed deletion rationale. (July 2018)
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chipo Chung – N Non-notable actor. Has had work, and some press coverage, but it isn't in-depth. This is yet another case of confusion of competence/employability with WP:Notability (a common problem in WP articles pertaining to the entertainment sector). The article was narrowly kept, and after nine+ years has not significantly improved. If anything, the person's claim to notability seems shakier now than it was then, with fewer roles of importance since the 2000s, no increase in non-trivial sourcing, and an increased focus on doing charity work, for which this person isn't notable either. (October 2011)
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Carrie Borzillo – Y Non-notable bio (May 2010). Was re-created later N, and should probably be deleted again (has no independent and secondary in-depth coverage, only state-level and industry-insider coverage and awards, so is not encyclopedically notable}}
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Incorruptibles – Y Non-notable book (April 2010). Article was rapidly re-created N in essentially the same form and without any better sourcing. I proposed it for merger into the author article, instead of speedy deletion, and Y this was done.
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Big hair – NWP:OR, non-encyclopedic, WP:DICDEF. This is a mishmash of different topics (many of which are notable), put together by an editor's subjective viewpoint that the hairstyles are "big" (March 2010). This was kept, but that was a mistake. The keep rationales basically boil down to WP:ILIKEIT / WP:IKNOWIT, and the closer ignored the actual policy-based arguments, especially WP:NOR. This should be AfDed again.
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Vanessa Lee Evigan – N Non-notable actor. The article was kept based on faulty reading of WP:ENT. Subject failed and still fails WP:GNG, and is simply competent/employable, plus related to someone notable. Over a decade later, it remains unsourced other than brief mention at unreliable website, plus subject's own primary-source material. I even correctly predicted that her non-notable musician brother would end up with an article because celeb-chasers on WP can't stand having the "set" of Evigans incomplete. There's another sibling article that also looks iffy, too. Greg Evigan is notable, but sharing genes with him and having some bit parts in TV shows does not WP:Notability make. (January 2010)
This is generally just 2017–2021, since keeping track of it proved tedious.
Something I pushed on repeatedly for over a decade, in various venues, without quite gaining enough traction: renaming all the "WikiProject Topic members" categories and pages to "WikiProject Topic participants", to help bring an end to the poisonous misconception that wikiprojects are independent and exclusive walled gardens instead of simply pages at which editors with shared interests agree to collaborate, in keeping with WP:CONLEVEL policy. Y Kudos to Sdkb for the proposal that this time finally got it done: Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2023 October 1#Category:WikiProject Foo members.
Talk:Rafeiro do Alentejo#Requested move 21 February 2020 - N Rename another Portuguese dog breed to the official FCI name for it in English, instead of the original Portuguese name. No consensus was reached on what name to use, so it remains at the status quo article title.
Talk:DMOZ#Requested move 21 February 2020 – N My argument was that it was renamed Curlie, and is not defunct, so the page needs to be move and to be updated. Other editors want to treat them as separate entities. I'm not sure there's any sourcing to back that position, but it is what it is for now.
Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2020 January 30#Category:One-shot (comics) – N Proposed to move to "Category:One-shot comics and manga" because it includes a manga subcat. and there's no need for the punctuation. I somewhat suspected the outcome might be that manga are a subset of comics, thus that title would be redundant. But I rather hoped otherwise. Treating manga as nothing but a subset both denies a major West/East cultural difference, and requires more cat. changes (to ensure that comics cats. which can apply to manga either do so directly or via a manga subcat, and to ensure that all extant manga cats. have at least one comics parent cat.) And we still don't need the parentheses.
Talk:The Hexer (TV series)#Requested move 14 January 2020 – Proposal to move TV series to The Hexer, and move the "film" (compressed series synopsis) from The Hexer to The Hexer (film), per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, or possibly even merge the "film" into the series article as a section. Y The "film" article was moved, but the The Hexer (film) was not moved, with The Hexer now becoming a two-item disambiguation page. This is a poor result per WP:TWODABS, since a reasonable PRIMARYTOPIC case can actually be made. There was only one respondent, who did not reply to rebuttal. So, this is probably best re-RMed later, with some notice at relevant wikiprojects (TV, film, video games, fantasy) to draw in sufficient editorial input to reach a real consensus.
Template talk:Humorous essay#Requested move 28 November 2019 – N Proposal to move to Template:Humor essay mostly for WP:PRECISE reasons (i.e., whether an essay is actually humorous is a matter of individual readers' subjective opinions, not authorial intent); did not succeed. Closed as not moved, yet there were only two respondents, and they both relied on the "well it can mean ..." rationale that was rejected in the Talk:Glossary of music terminology move, below. So, this should probably be re-RMed at some point on a purely WP:CONCISE and WP:CONSISTENT basis, and hopefully with enough input that it's not a WP:FALSECONSENSUS based on fallacious reasoning again.
Template talk:Main talk other#Requested move 18 November 2019 – Current name is just confusing. Y Closed as no consensus due to inability to agree on a consistent set of names for that entire template family. Closer suggests re-RMing it after a while, with a clarified proposal.
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/ICZN – Y Deleted two-item disambiguation page and redirected to the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC; both items in the DAB page really resolved to the same encyclopedic topic anyway: a nomenclature code and its publisher. (August 2018)
[A large block of them are missing; I forgot to keep track.]
Talk:Henry III of France#Why the anglicized "Henry"? – Y Huge WP:CONSISTENT mess to clean up; this is an open "what should we do?" discussion more than an RM per se, though I do make a proposal to favor Henri for French subjects and Henry for English ones. Result: No consensus reached, with regard to that article or the entire lot of them, so this will need to be revisited again later.
Talk:Water skiing – Y RM to Waterskiing to reflect more common usage. Closed as "no consensus", so will have to try it again later with more sourcing.
Talk:Ricochet (dog)#Requested move 22 February 2018 – original RM: N move to Ricochet (dog) from Surf Dog Ricochet for WP:CONSISTENT with contents of Category:Individual dogs, away from a marketing appellation used in <10% of reliable sources. Was closed as "Not moved" (i.e. no consensus) despite there being no policy- or sourced-based reason to retain the present misnomer title (bad close that just "counted votes"). Y Re-RMed later with additional rationales (see above).
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Voodoo Tiki – Y Re-userfication of an insufficiently sourced draft (previously deleted then later userfied on the condition that it not be moved out of userspace until fully sourced (February 2008). Was later re-created in mainspace in at least as a bad for as the original, so nominated for speedy deletion.
Template talk:Yesno#Support on/off and RfC below it – Y Changes to a protected template to now detect on/off (as well as its then-current yes/no, 1/0, true/false, etc.). This should not have required this RfC, per WP:Common sense and WP:WIKILAWYER, but so it goes.
Module talk:Yesno#Support on/off detection – Y Module-improvement request accepted; a follow-up to the successful proposal at the template version, since it did not carry over, somehow, to the module implementation.
I won't list all of them here, just those that "did something". Lots of noticeboard action just archive away without closure, or close as "no action at this time".
Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#WanderingWanda – Y Won't go into details here. Closed as something to be addressed by ArbCom directly, but closed with admonition [15]. That was my actual expectation of and intent for the outcome, though the suggested topic-ban would also have been appropriate.
Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive189#Darkfrog24 (January–February 2016) – Y MoS's longest-term disruptor finally topic-banned. This was, I think, the fifth such noticeboard action, the second by me; same user has since got blocked, got indeffed, had talk-page access revoked, and had multiple appeals declined.
{{rp}} (The template that kept us from doing awful things when citing the same source many times in the same article. Came to me in a flash after User:Fuhghettaboutit bemoaned how many lines were created by citing the same book for so many entries at Glossary of cue sports terms. For many years it was probably the most widely used of the "support" templates for our source citation system. Later improvements to MediaWiki's handling of the <ref> system, with the addition of the |ref= parameter, eventually made this template obsolete. (See this diff for a crash course in using |ref=.)
{{compact TOC}} as we now know it (There were many radically different templates of this sort, and I merged all of them and their features and added many new ones.)
{{fake heading}} – Built a flexible, unified template out of code originally at that page and at {{fakeheader}} and {{fake header}}, with new features added.
User:SMcCandlish/TidyRefs – Clean up inconsistent <ref ...>...</ref> formatting. All-new script (2024); has some pretty incredible regex in it, and more is forthcoming when I get back into this project.
User:SMcCandlish/TidyCitations – Clean up inconsistent {{cite ... |...}} formatting. Based on earlier scripts by Sam Sailor, Zyxw, Meteor sandwich yum, and Waldir, development of the latest of which ceased in 2018.
User:SMcCandlish/MOSNUMdates.js - Convert dates to DMY or MDY. Forked from original version by Ohconfucius (still being developed as of January 2024); mine avoids cluttering the left menu with options that are almost never needed, and enables one that is needed often enough.
meta:User:SMcCandlish/userinfo – Show some basic user info underneath usernames at the top of user and user-talk pages. Based on a script by PleaseStand, development of which ceased in 2019.
Just started tracking this in September 2017 (and then forgot until early 2020). I sometimes do non-admin closure of discussions (RfCs, RMs, etc.) and push right up to the boundary of what a non-admin can do, with that I believe are positive results.
Write short "WP:There are oracles" contraWP:There are no oracles: 1) consensus is not what is decided in RfCs and written down, it is what the community does (which we sometimes bother to write down, in part); 2) ergo, long-term, policy-experienced editors can in fact predict outcomes with a high success rate.
Bug OhConfucius again about fixing his User:Ohconfucius/script/Sources.js to stop misusing |publisher= for work titles (if it's still doing that; I've not checked in a while)
Make sure all single-source citation templates are labelled as requiring subst. Updated Category:Specific-source templates & subcats to note that they are not "unused" and should not be TfD'd. Add this tiresome proposal to WP:PERENNIAL researching...
File WP:AN to have the MOS:JR close at WP:VPPOL examined, if no one else gets around to it
Redevelop MOS:HIDDEN to include noprint/unprintworthy; moving HTML comments to talk; moving noprint/unprintworthy material to sidebars, except permissible cases; secret messages
William A. Spinks – may be ready for WP:FAC now, though do one more attempt to dig up info on his petroleum executive work, and also fix the fractional scores
I regret to inform you that the barnstar that I was going to give you for this bit of hilariousness was eaten by a bear. Happy editing! Hamtechperson 04:46, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
For general template taming goodness. Ludwigs2 03:36, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
For behaving in a genteel fashion, as if nothing were the matter, and for gallantry. --Djathinkimacowboy 03:27, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
For your recent work at WP:MOS: A model of unflagging effort, precise analysis, institutionally broad and historically deep vision, clear articulation, and civil expression under great pressure. Unforgettable. DocKino (talk) 06:14, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
For all of the thoughtful posts through the extended discussion at MOSCAPS. I've appreciated it. JHunterJ (talk) 13:52, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
This comes as a recognition of your kindness in developing the Firefox Cite4wiki add-on. It has been helpful and a great resource. I was also happy to learn you contribute to Mozilla which I do as well :) ₫ӓ₩₳Talk to Me.Email Me. 18:28, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
In recognition of your general fine work around the 'pedia, and the staunchness and standard of argumentation on style issues. And if for nothing else, I think you deserve it for this comment Ohconfucius ping / poke 02:07, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
It's a bit delayed, but for your rather accurate edit summary here. Keep up the good work on various breed articles! TKKbark ! 18:06, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
For your recent work at WP:MOS: A model of unflagging effort, precise analysis, institutionally broad and historically deep vision, clear articulation, and civil expression under great pressure. Unforgettable. DocKino (talk) 06:14, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
You've been putting up with a lot of crap from other quarters; just want to let you know that people out there do, in fact, manage to appreciate your work. illegitimi non carborundum! VanIsaacWSVexcontribs 04:55, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
I couldn't quite find a suitable barnstar for this, but I found it insightful when you brought up the issue of accessibility within TfD#Template:Tn. Maybe it was kind of a small realization you had, but on behalf of the disabled friends I have, thank you for bringing it up. A step in the right direction for making this everyone's encyclopedia. Meteor_sandwich_yum (talk) 02:58, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
Except of course that would be 30 min on the treadmill. But we can still look. Thank you for well measured comments. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:59, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
For being an enlightening Star in a farmyard Barn Gregkaye✍♪ 15:11, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
You seem to be among the vanguard in the quest to raise copy editing and style formatting to at least the level of writing barely literate articles. Primergrey (talk) 05:04, 29 March 2015 (UTC)
for disagreeing, with reason and cogent arguments backed up by both source and policy as well as logical interpretation of the position you disagree with. In essence for disputing content in a manner that builds consensus. SPACKlick (talk) 23:26, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
For extremely skilled and eloquent arguments and advice in guiding the overhaul of the very important article DomesticationWilliam Harris • talk • 07:47, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
To fortify you in your marathon task of finding an acceptable form of words to use in our MoS. I admire your patience and stamina and am thinking of proposing you as a Middle East peace envoy... BushelCandle (talk) 00:25, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
Thank you so much for stepping in on the Donald Trump sexual misconduct allegations article, specifically the talk page. You seem to be able to clearly communicate the applicability of guidelines and resolve what might otherwise become a dispute. Excellent job! CaroleHenson(talk) 19:28, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
I award you this barnstar ... because you have shown to be a person of integrity and honor. Or, more simply, a stand-up guy. Antidiskriminator (talk) 10:05, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
7&6=thirteen (☎) has given you a Dobos torte to enjoy! Seven layers of fun because you deserve it.
For going above and beyond to help with a query — Anakimitalk 20:58, 13 July 2017 (UTC)
Thanks you for the Project namespace and TL/SUPPLEMENTAL updates.....been trying to get that wording right for a long time. Would love your CE skills at WP:ESSAYPAGES guideline section and the infopage Wikipedia:Essays. ... Moxy (talk) 17:08, 6 September 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for your definitive non-admin closure of a RfC, thereby asserting a sane consensus and bringing U.S. Dollar back to congruence with reality. BirdValiant (talk) 06:34, 30 September 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for the big progress recently on sorting out fauna titles – and other titles, too. Keep it up. Dicklyon (talk) 00:13, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
Thank you for your recent edits to WP:RFAADVICE. When I wrote that page a few years ago, I never dreamed of the tens of thousands of hits it would get and become the default advice for RFA candidates. It's nice to know that someone is watching over it and making useful improvements. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:14, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
I appreciate your contributions regarding my topic ban as well as your thoughts on Arbitration Enforcement. --MONGO 13:23, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
I decided you deserved this for your very interesting and informative User Page ... Tlhslobus (talk) 14:53, 1 March 2018 (UTC)
You are a remarkable editor in many ways. You would be a good administrator in my opinion, and appear to be well qualified! You personify an administrator without tools .... --John Cline (talk) 13:29, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
For your ongoing and unending effort to tidy up the bureaucracies around the English Wikipedia. Jc86035 (talk) 05:05, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
As someone who as bumped into you in various spaces over the years with a generally positive impression resulting, I decided to take a closer look at the scope and caliber of your contributions over the last few days because it has occurred to me that your experience and facility with nuanced policy might make you a good candidate for adminship .... I suspect you would be good with the bit. Snowlet's rap 07:40, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
The Disambiguator's Barnstar is awarded to Wikipedians who are prolific disambiguators. For applying your expertise in disambiguating the James Addison Baker articles.Oldsanfelipe (talk) 19:02, 24 August 2018 (UTC)
For all your help (especially with regard to cursive) and patience. JackkBrown (talk) 15:55, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for helping fight policy creep and forks by proposing the merge of WP:SELFSOURCE and WP:BLPSELFPUB with WP:ABOUTSELF. {{u|Sdkb}}talk 06:11, 15 December 2023
For noting that unencyclopedic detail was inserted into the Brunswick Corporation and taking prompt action, exemplifying scrutiny, precision and community service! gidonb (talk) 14:39, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
I'd like to extend a cordial invitation to you to join the Fifteen Year Society, an informal group for editors who've been participating in the Wikipedia project for fifteen years or more. Best regards, Chris Troutman (talk) 14:11, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
I'd like to extend a cordial invitation to you to join the Ten Year Society, an informal group for editors who've been participating in the Wikipedia project for ten years or more. Best regards, Sarah(talk) 01:00, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
Congratulations on reaching 100000 edits. You have achieved a milestone that only 339 editors have been able to accomplish. The Wikipedia Community thanks you for your continuing efforts. Keep up the good work! Buster Seven Talk 15:06, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
This editor is entitled – for 18+ years & 150K+ edits – to display this Senior Vanguard Editor Badge, associated ribbons, and "floor plan of The Great Library of Alecyclopedias with carrying tube". This is very silly.
This user helped promote the article CornerShot to Good status (promoted 24 July 2006)
This barnstar is awarded to everyone who – whatever their opinion – contributed to the discussion about Wikipedia and SOPA. Thank you for being a part of the discussion. Presented by the Wikimedia Foundation. 20:37, 21 January 2012.
Thank you for your submission of the Instructor's Barnstar. It's now on the main barnstar list. Pinetalk 15:11, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
Thank you ... for improving article quality in January 2018! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:06, 30 January 2018 (UTC) [This one updates monthly.]
You get the Loyalty Award! Please accept this cute little kitten as token of appreciation for being loyal to values, and standing by other editors in need like me! Thank you!Huggums537 (talk) 22:26, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
Hostile
"Anti-awards" like this are a great example of what not to do on Wikipedia just because you disagree with someone:
Incidentally, the Wikipedia:Fromowner "placeholder image" junk did get deprecated by the community just as I suggested and predicted, about a year later (by which time the admin who posted the above display of incivility had quit the entire project anyway). I wasn't disruptive, just a little before my time. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:12, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
Neutralizing (sometimes subtle/crafty) PoV-pushing by tagteams of editors with a conflict of interest who try to bend Wikipedia into a promotional or advocacy outlet
More broadly, reverting and repairing vandalism and other intentionally anti-encyclopedic edits, especially those by religious or other zealots, slanderers, the foul-mouthed, and the discriminatory
Making substantial contributions to existing articles (and sometimes creating new ones) on topics I know a lot about
Shepherding the growth and health of some particular articles that need it (and, in some but not all cases, about which I care a lot)
Correcting typos, grammar errors and readability problems
Weeding out unverifiable, or incredible and unsourced, claims
Adding missing salient information
Moving articles that violate the WP article naming conventions
Correcting outright factual errors
Improving cross-references, categorization, etc.
Improving consistency of formatting
Removing redundant wikilinks
Removing pointless (Wikipedia is not a dictionary!) wikilinks – everyone already knows what "eye" and "the sun" mean, in most contexts in which they appear
Removing minor, childish quasi-vandalism (smart-aleck remarks in articles, etc.) – I like to document these in the Talk pages, since they often are actually funny
Tagging outright vandals' talk pages with countdown-to-blocking warnings
Repairing semi-vandalism edits in the form of deletions of long-standing passages without explanation, or the inexplicable addition of large chunks of questionably relevant or unsourced alleged facts, especially attacks against living article subjects, fanwanking and crackpotism.
Copyediting, encyclopedizing and formalizing any juvenile, colloquial, non-neutral or poorly thought out language in articles
Fixing miscellaneous "bad stuff" - vanity/marketing language, crystalballing, etc.
Proposing (and sometimes performing) merges of redundant articles
Adding obvious missing redirects and making sure they go to useful places
Educating misinformed arguments (per logic or Wikipedia policy) on talk pages
Trying to resolve circular disputes on talk pages
Defending articles from AfD when the reasoning for the deletion is specious, especially "NN per nom" me-tooism.
Nominating truly atrocious crap for AfD (or for SD, or just prod'ing them)
Learning a lot concerning things I didn't know about, on all sorts of topics
On the non-"political" side, I am largely an exopedianist with little interest in the socializing aspects - I get that from other aspects of my life. I'm largely a WikiGnome but shapeshift into other forms of WP:WikiFauna at will, sometimes for long stretches. I have taken part in some quite extensive policy debates, spent a lot of time on visual improvement of articles, wallowed in sourcing troublesome articles, buried my nose in copyediting, become a template master, and obsessed over the perfection of certain articles, as well as gotten into pointless arguments, while also created barnstars. I'm really just not pigeonholeable.
Critics who think I make valuable contributions but get into conflict with me frequently would probably classify me as a cross between a WikiPlatypus and a WikiPuma.
Licensing rights granted to Wikimedia Foundation
I grant non-exclusive permission for the Wikimedia Foundation Inc. to relicense my text and media contributions, including any images, audio clips, or video clips, under any copyleft license that it chooses, provided it maintains the free and open spirit of the GFDL. This permission acknowledges that future licensing needs of the Wikimedia projects may need adapting in unforeseen fashions to facilitate other uses, formats, and locations. It is given for as long as this banner remains.
Just as a matter of full disclosure, there are certain articles I should not heavily edit (i.e., other than to revert vandalism, provide sources, or otherwise adjust in an entirely neutral manner), because of unintentional potential for conflict of interest or non-neutral point of view. Other editors may wish to examine carefully any edits I ever make to any of the following topics:
Stanton McCandlish – Me; while I might conceivably pass WP:GNG and WP:BIO, I have no article, have never had one, and don't want one - that would be a bit creepy to me, and friends with articles say they just cause trouble for them (personal attacks, misinformation, etc.), and I helped one get theirs deleted to protect their privacy. McCandlish Consulting is also me (d/b/a) and also non-notable.
Wilcox–McCandlish law – something amusing that a colleague (Bryce Wilcox) and I came up with in the 1990s. Someone else created an article about it here, before I even became a WP editor; it was subsequently deleted on notability grounds, and should probably stay that way, though it might make a good WP:Essay, as it applies to talk pages here.
Things I could vaguely, conceivably have a conflict of interest on, due to past connections
Too many clients to individually list here (and some are covered by NDAs anyway); I know better than to edit articles about them.
CryptoRights Foundation (CRF) – I was their volunteer CCO/Communications Director for several years, starting 2003; it bugged me somethin' fierce that it did not have an article until recently, but it seemed grossly inappropriate to even start a "just the facts" stub on it, and someone else finally did)
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) – Held various job titles there, including Program Dir., Communications Dir., etc., and was editor of their EFFector newsletter, and the webmaster of eff.org, 1993–2002.
Blue Ribbon Online Free Speech Campaign – This was largely my brainchild, as a part of my professional life at EFF; it was an EFF project not a personal one.
University of New Mexico (UNM) - Alma mater, 1991–1993 and 2007–2010; former employer, 1992–1993.
Wikipedia:Not everything needs a navbox The content itself isn't funny, but the fact that more than 50% of the content of the page is a huge navbox is hilarious.
"WP:ANI is like a huge orgy. It's fun to watch, and sometimes it's fun to join in, but like any orgy, the larger it gets, the greater the chances are that someone will eventually try to stick a dick in your ass." — Slakr (talk), at 03:52, 19 March 2009 (UTC), User:Slakr/Admin coaching[25]
11:07, 26 March 2007 83.253.36.136 (Talk) (→Performance of FAT 32 - moved spam down) An edit summary from Wikipedia:Village pump (policy). Needless to say, the next editor's summary read "deleted spam".
A diff that must be seen to be believed Someone upset about grammar flames that were wasting people's time and being a distraction posts a distracting time-waste in the form of a longwinded and meticulously-researched grammar flame about it (plus a second shorter one!), all in support of the grammar flaming of the starter of the grammar flame; in the process, re-opening debate to yet more grammar flaming in the pointless sub-thread being complained about (dormant for over a day), and to which the poster was not even a party to begin with. I couldn't make this stuff up!
05:46, 21 February 2007 Gracenotes (Talk | contribs) (→Template:Barnstars - *stabs kittens*) An edit summary in response to "no, don't delete the barnstars!" panic replies to a TfD on a useless template simply relating to barnstars. I awarded Gracenotes a Barnstar Point for that one.
"Hotel Wikipedia" A song parody by various Wikimedians (to the tune of The Eagles' "Hotel California"). I hate filk, with a passion, yet I somehow loved this.
Hairy ball theorem Perhaps the funniest real article name on Wikipedia. (It's a real math/physics theorem, and not intrinsically funny, though a bit amusing.)
Unbelievably selective evidence Someone concerned about overlinking in articles actually used the Professional wrestling article as alleged smoking-gun "proof" of rampant overlinking across Wikpedia, requiring (naturally) much more stringent anti-linking wording in WP:LINKING. Of course that article in particular would have overlinking, along with just about every other noob error, except when periodically cleaned up by experienced, neutral editors who don't believe in fairytales. The article is clearly indicative of nothing but the nature of that topic's fanbase (and thus its most frequent editorial pool).
Very strange font activism vandalism of my sig at a talk page Did you know ... that there are not just regular vandals but ones with really, really weird agendas lurking in Wikipedia?
Just a few particularly well-thought-out bits by other editors. They aren't necessarily mindblowing or anything, just insightful and well-put.
"We must always do what is best for the readers, without exception. Per WP:IAR if a 'rule' prevents you from improving the encyclopaedia, ignore it ... and if you put your personal preferences above the readers then Wikipedia is not the project for you." — Thryduulf (talk), at 10:52, 4 June 2018 (UTC) [26] in user talk, and in that instance about deleting redirects that are actually useful to readers but which don't quite fit someone's preferred formula.
"My impression is that we shouldn't allow users going against a policy to affect how it is written. People going around changing articles against policy isn't a good reason to have that policy be rewritten" Lee Vilenski(talk • contribs) 10:40, 30 October 2023 (UTC) [27]. Slightly copyedited for clarity.
"Unless you can reliably and usefully tell editors how to identify a problematic case, it's generally not helpful to mention it in a policy. It ends up backfiring, as editors make up their own, mutually incompatible definitions and proclaim that their interpretation is the true one." WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:07, 3 December 2023 (UTC) [28]
"Tony, your writing guides were what prompted me to start getting articles up to GA back in mid-2012. I've done over 100 since (still waiting to actually get a FAC passed solo, maybe next decade) ...." — User:Ritchie333 (talk), at 21:57, 2 January 2018 (UTC) [29]. While this is well-deserved praise for the how-to essay series in support of WP:MOS by Tony1 (which starts here), this also gets at why style on Wikipedia is not trivia or trivial.
"I ... had no problem whatsoever learning wikicode when I started writing and improving encyclopedia articles in 2009. I do not want to learn new software features that are less productive and less intuitive than old software features. I welcome any upgrades that are entirely intuitive and non-disruptive to existing editors. I will oppose ill-conceived and poorly-implemented make-work projects for professional programmers. This is not an employment program for coders. It is an encyclopedia created by volunteers, who are article writers and researchers." — Cullen (talk), 18:40, 29 November 2015 (UTC), Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Breakfast#RFC - Remove Flow from WikiProject Breakfast?[30] (commenting on how testing WP:Flow, WMF's new forum software intended to replace talk pages, pretty much destroyed the wikiproject that agreed to test it.
"A small group is more likely to develop a self-reinforcing delusion that their position is reasonable, even when a large number of people outside the group are telling them otherwise." — Gigs (talk·contribs), 12 June 2013, in Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2013-06-12/Op-ed, "The tragedy of Wikipedia's commons".
"Nearly all our policies are driven by the need to prevent ... abuse of Wikipedia. Policies on biographies of living people are driven largely by those who would abuse Wikipedia for purposes of defamation. Policies on neutrality and verifiability have been largely driven by the need to address those who were here to push a political agenda or promote their fringe viewpoints. What Wikipedia is not is pretty much a chronicle of all the things that people have tried to use Wikipedia for that the community has decided are detrimental to a quality encyclopedia. ... This isn't censorship, it's curation." — Gigs (talk·contribs), 12 June 2013, in Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2013-06-12/Op-ed, "The tragedy of Wikipedia's commons".
"Any pile of bullshit decomposes naturally." — Wikipedia:Ignore all dramas (as of this version), on ignoring instead of responding to wiki-stupidity. Later versions had it as the far less pithy "Even the largest pile of bullshit will decompose on its own." The original formulation was "The most copiously deposited bullshit decomposes on its own." I reverted it to the concise version on 10 August 2011 and it seems to have stuck.
"Removed older logo. One logo is sufficient. Logos are copyrighted and Wikipedia should not serve as a gallery for logos." — Farine (talk·contribs), 05:59, 6 May 2008 (UTC) (edit summary at Data East)
"Of course, the point of style is to give coherence and consistency, deviations from which can detract from the publication's voice (in this case, an encyclopedic voice)." — Ninly (talk·contribs), 06:38, 8 May 2009 (UTC) (Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style, accessed June 2, 2009), on the real purpose and value of the Wikipedia Manual of Style.
"Show the door to trolls, vandals, and wiki-anarchists, who, if permitted, would waste your time and create a poisonous atmosphere here." — WP co-founder Larry Sanger, on Wikipedia:Etiquette
"[N]o need for bullet points – detail here is no more important than others" — SilkTork (talk·contribs), 10:19, 27 June 2011 (UTC) (edit summary at Wikipedia:Article size), on the problem that too many editors create bulletized lists from normal prose, as if Wikipedia were a giant PowerPoint presentation.
"While the title should be recognized as a reference to the article topic by someone familiar with the topic, for the uninitiated, it is the purpose of the article lead, not the article title, to identify the topic of the article." — Born2cycle (talk·contribs), 17:25, 26 January 2012 (UTC), Wikipedia talk:Article titles thread "Common names"
"The reason Wikipedia has policy pages at all is to store up assertions on which we agree, and which generally convince people when we make them in talk, so we don't have to write them out again and again. This is why policy pages aren't "enforced", but quoted; if people aren't convinced by what policy pages say, they should usually say something else. The major exception to this stability is when some small group, either in good faith or in an effort to become the Secret Masters of Wikipedia, mistakes its own opinions for What Everybody Thinks. This happens, and the clique often writes its own opinions up as policy and guideline pages." — JCScaliger (talk·contribs), sockpuppet of Pmanderson (talk·contribs), 03:57, 3 February 2012 (UTC), Wikipedia talk:Article titles thread "Request for edit, Poll". While Anderson made this point in a WP:POINTy way, sockpuppeting in a discussion he was trying to control (and arguing against me on the details of the issue) he's precisely right, and this was well articulated.
"If a high-profile [Wikipedian] poll is conducted that brings in widespread participation from editors who had previously stayed away from [the] venue, and the holdouts who had been stonewalling and preventing progress merely slouch, stuff their hands in their pockets, and walk away, then that proves that they knew full well that their arguments were not sufficiently persuasive, or didn’t have sufficient numbers, or both. ... Trying to now torpedo the current consensus by stating that certain people somehow didn’t have an opportunity to participate is nothing but sour grapes .... On Wikipedia it’s called ‘wililawyering’ which is disruptive and mustn’t be rewarded." — Greg L (talk·contribs), 00:49, 10 February 2012 (UTC) Wikipedia talk:Article titles thread "Why no action on implementing community consensus"
"Some editors seek to be totally neutral, which means they invariably catch the most flak from everyone else." — User:Collect (talk), at 11:38, 30 November 2010 (UTC) [32], as a salient point in the essay WP:Sex, religion and politics.
"[C]onsensus does exist absent an administrator to interpret it." — User:Mackensen (talk), at 04:03, 28 January 2008 (UTC) [33], commenting at a deletion review, on the fact that an XfD or other consensus process does not require formal closure if its decision is clear.
Smartest Wikipedia-relevant things I've seen from off-site
For me, pronouns are always placed within context. I am female-bodied, I am a butch lesbian, a transgender lesbian—referring to me as "she/her" is appropriate, particularly in a non-trans setting in which referring to me as "he" would appear to resolve the social contradiction between my birth sex and gender expression and render my transgender expression invisible. I like the gender neutral pronoun "ze/hir" because it makes it impossible to hold on to gender/sex/sexuality assumptions about a person you're about to meet or you've just met. And in an all trans setting, referring to me as "he/him" honors my gender expression in the same way that referring to my sister drag queens as "she/her" does.
Wikipedia policies are what are required for the project to operate at all; guidelines are what help it operate smoothly; high-acceptance essays are what help its operators not make fools of themselves; and miscellaneous essays are part of the community mindshare that helps shape all of the above over time. (At WT:Don't bludgeon the process, in a "guidelines vs. essays" thread; 23:31, 30 November 2020 (UTC) [34]. It's a nutshell version of something I've said, in various words, many times since the late 2000s.)
As of right this moment, Wikipedia (the encyclopedic content, excluding other material like talk pages) is calculable to be approximately 97.65 times the size of Encyclopædia Britannica. (The bulk of the math is from User:Tompw/bookshelf/assumptions, but at the time it only calculated how many volumes of EB would be filled by WP.)
"WP is a bad place to engage in labelling that isn't absolutely integral to international public perception of the subject." (In an essay/tutorial at WT:Categorization, 15:39, 9 June 2018 (UTC) [35]. Someone suggested[36] framing it on their wall! The idea eventually developed into the essay WP:Race and ethnicity.)
"[O]ur articles are palimpsests stirred together by a global assortment of geniuses, crackpots, and everyone in between, sometimes citing great stuff, sometimes poor stuff, and sometimes nothing". (At WT:Manual of Style, 16:49, 24 December 2017 (UTC) [37]. This was in the context of readers wanting to verify our content with claim-by-claim inline citations not "general references". Someone else nominated it as a mot juste and "a gem" [38]. It was later quoted on someone's user page [39] along with one by Stephen Fry and another by Neil Gaiman. Pretty good company; I'm honored.)
"An attempt at disambiguation that introduces another ambiguity is a failure." (I say this frequently. I'm not aware of anyone quoting me on it verbatim, but I've seen a rise in the same argument made in other words, and it is having the desired effect on article titles debates at WP:Requested moves.
"No line item in our Manual of Style is supported by 100% of editors, and no editor supports 100% of its line items. The same situation is true of all style guides and their scopes and audiences in the wider world. The purpose of a stylebook is to set some ground rules (often arbitrary) so that the ballgame of writing can continue instead of the players standing around on the field brawling about trivia." (Summary of what I've said in variant wording probably 100 times in style disputes. No one ever tries to refute it. This awareness is what keeps our MoS from being a nightmare of editwarring about specific rules, over-inclusion of rules we don't need, deletion of ones we do just because someone doesn't like them, and pretense that no rules are needed.)
"The next-to-last resort of someone who cannot muster a rational response to an opposing argument is to wave away that argument as something impossible to respond to (the last resort being ad hominem attacks)." (In particular, if you say "TL;DR" to refuse to respond to a cogent argument because it takes work to do so, you are at the wrong site – this one consists almost entirely of millions of pages of detailed and particular text, so if you can't parse a few paragraphs you are incompetent to work on this project.)
"If one grinds an axe long and hard enough, there is no axe any longer, just a useless old stick." (A quasi-Taoist response to cranky complaints that relate to incidents so long ago no one should care any more. Compressed version: "Grind axe too long: no axe.")
"Two words: teapot. ~~~~" (A response to angry accusations of wrong-doing that self-evidently apply at least equally and usually much more accurately to the ranter. More recently, I've used it as a mantra for myself, when I feel wikistressed. It eventually led to the WP:HOTHEADS essay.)
There are various other options, such as: creating links in the graph to the categories shown, or to new graphs starting at those categories; specifying output image format; outputting a text Graphviz .gv file with no node limit, for local rendering; choosing a different wiki, like French Wikipedia, or Wiktionary (example), or Commons; etc.
Editor Interaction Analyzer by Sigma, compares the edits of two to three specified editors to see which articles overlap, sorted by minimum time between edits by both users. Only works on the English Wikipedia. Speed: slow.
Intersect Contribs, compares the edits of two to eight editors at any WMF wiki to see which articles overlap. Speed: fast.
Intertwined contributions, merges the contributions of two editors at any WMF wiki into a single list. Speed: fast.
How to ping people: "The keys are: max 20 pings per edit; and do an edit to clean before before trying a new ping, so the system sees a clean diff; and of course always new four-tilde signature. Dicklyon (talk) 03:45, 15 December 2014 (UTC)"
It's possible to do some nice layouts with CSS – carefully – inside the "shell" that MediaWiki provides. Just of use on project and user pages, of course. We don't do stuff like this in articles.
Committed identity: a6d331de87bb595541d03acf814f68f05abde44b5c3c79e078a3b79ceabf093696dcb01a3570d6eceedb21c6e8c33f4d41649bf9c05864a474974fcc4eec54be is a SHA-512commitment to this user's real-life identity.
Interestingly, ArbCom members are now required (on the en.WP side, not the WMF side) to not be on either of the above bodies, as a conflict of interest (after the WP:FRAMGATE fiasco).
On the Radar: An Occasional Newsletter on Wikipedia's Challenges
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William A. Spinks – written from scratch.
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= Partly accepted, or other solution reached
= No consensus, or unclear resolution
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Wikipedia (en)
Meta-Wiki
Commons
Wiktionary
Wikibooks
Wikinews
Wikiquote
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Mediawiki
