User talk:The Duke of Waltham

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by The Duke of Waltham (talk | contribs) at 03:07, 23 September 2008 (→‎You might be interested in this thread: I'm reading the decades discussion now; I'm not sure I'll comment, but it's not without interest). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.


Greetings, dear Wikipedian. My name is Harold Cartwright, and I am the Duke of Waltham's private secretary. On behalf of the Duke, I should like to welcome you to His Grace's talk page.

Here you may leave notices, announcements, or any other messages that could interest the Duke, and you may flatter him, request his assistance or advice (if you really think he's able to do anything on his own), discuss his actions on Wikipedia, or talk about matters of mutual interest. As this is a free-speech venue, your criticism will be welcome as well. To be honest, I personally enjoy seeing negative comments about my employer, as his arrogance would become even more insufferable if left unchecked.

I probably need to clarify that, even though this page exists to accommodate all kinds of "talk", ranging from wiki-professional correspondence to light-hearted conversation, it is not meant for discussion of matters in any way private. Messages of sensitive content ought to be e-mailed to His Grace instead, so that the required level of privacy can be ensured (in relative terms; I still open those letters).

Please leave your posts at the bottom of this page and sign them with four tildes (~~~~), so that we shall know who is posting what and when. You are warned that unsigned posts do not merit a reply here and shall be summarily deleted; this is wholly within the poster's responsibility, I'm afraid.

Please note that His Grace follows a policy of keeping conversations unfragmented; in other words, an exchange that begins in one talk page should continue in that same talk page, in order to keep the discussion whole and intelligible. If a conversation has begun in a venue other than this, you need not answer here; you can rest assured that I shall notify the Duke about any new messages (through use of a designated watchlist).

You are requested not to edit anything in this page except for your own posts; any other changes shall be reverted on sight. It is also suggested that, if you must edit your posts, you should do so sparingly, as it is generally considered impolite to alter the content of posts that have already been answered to, or even read.

Old discussions are archived with extreme care, even though half of them do not deserve such treatment in the least. But who am I but an underpaid secretary, to be judging my boss's gossip. Well, for those interested, the archives are open to the public from 09:00 to 17:00, Mondays to Fridays.

Please don't leave any litter while you are here. There is a dustbin in the corner (where the old Signposts end up, and I couldn't care less about recycling).

By the way, thank you for not smoking.

Have a nice day, or something resembling it.

DYK bot

Hey, I came across Wikipedia_talk:Bots/Archive_6#DYK_Bot.3F. Whatever happened with that? Gimmetrow 09:11, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I see that you are interested in mediaeval history. Let me get my magnifying glass first; the lettering on these manuscripts is always so small... :-D
Hm. I had no idea about this. The situation is arguably rather bizarre. Not necessarily uncommon, but certainly interesting. From ten minutes' worth of digging around, I can tell that this old-generation admin (2004, imagine that), AllyUnion, has generally been editing only occasionally, and that his bots broke at least a couple of years ago due to a lack of maintenance. No wonder why nobody around here knew about the bot, or I am sure that some one would have mentioned it. Last March he received a notification for a conversation here, regarding the de-flagging of inactive bots; he maintained that he was reviewing Kurando-san—the bot once executing the DYK archiving, amongst other things—and that it would be operational again within the following two weeks. Clearly, this has not happened.
So the question remains: What now? Do we contact him for his past experience, in case it helps with building a modern bot adapted to the needs of the current DYK system? Or do we persuade him to deal with the old bot and we collaborate with him in patching it up? It's your call, I suppose; nobody forces you to write our bot. There is no rush, either; the system works fine as it is. All we are aiming for is to make it a little more reliable and to rest a few of the people working there.
PS: Why do you keep an underscore in your signature? I hate the whole lot of them, grrrr...
PPS: Might I inquire as to your gender, if I am not too indiscreet? Not knowing is a little awkward for when I want to talk about you behind your back. :-) It's one of those double-edged swords in the English language, I suppose; Greek doesn't use pronouns in sentences like "He enjoys drinking red wine". Waltham, The Duke of 01:07, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Used hooks used to be placed in a section at the bottom of Template talk:Did you know, where AllyUnion's script would find them and move them to Recent additions. Although AllyUnion still edits, the process now is slightly different. The underscore doesn't seem to matter except to some bots, and you can talk behind my back with my username. No pronoun, no need for gender.
So while I'm thinking this through, what do you think reaction would be to recreating all the achives by month, like WP:Recent additions/June 2008? Gimmetrow 03:01, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Personally, I'd love to see the archives re-organised. About other people's reaction, now... I guess it would be popular with people searching hooks by date, which is probably the usual form of searching, given that in the relevant message boxes in the articles' talk pages there is the date (but not the hook). My only concern is that of size; each month, between 90 and 120 sets of hooks are published, and each set has at least five or six hooks. Currently, the archives list 50–100 items each, which is long enough already. Perhaps weekly or ten-day archives might prove more practicable? Other than that, I cannot say much. I'll ask Mr LaPella for a second opinion; I am not that involved in the DYK process, after all... Waltham, The Duke of 05:42, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm deeply involved in proofreading DYK, but not in archiving. So I had to look at the existing process to know what Waltham was talking about. The existing archives of 50-100 items each come out every 5.2 days on the average, based on Wikipedia:Recent additions 162 (291 days ago divided by 56 archives ago). So why would we change it from 5.2 to 31? I think the bot would be just as happy making 5 day archives as 31. But loading the 80-90K files would be slower if they became 500K files. There might be an advantage to labeling archives by date instead of just a sequential number, to help find a hook from last year, but the files wouldn't have to be monthly to do that: Wikipedia:Recent additions (June 6 2008). Art LaPella (talk) 15:00, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I hadn't noticed that. Still, we are looking for opinions here; your contribution is valued, and if you know someone whose input to this discussion you think would be useful, feel free to invite them.
Monthly archives would be huge. I hadn't done the maths quite thoroughly before, but I now realise that even weekly ones would probably be rather large, especially if we start including images, which, as we all know, make downloading slower. I can therefore see a point for five-day archives, even though it looks rather random. People don't count time in five-day intervals. Daily would be nice, but it would create a mess (too many pages).
Or would it? Waltham, The Duke of 15:33, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
PS: This might be an opportunity to change the name of the archives. I like the idea behind "recent additions", but I suppose clarity has higher priority in Wikipedia than historical conservation. (sigh) Waltham
An argument against daily archives, and for longer archives in general, is to consider how they would likely be used. I have only used them once: to answer someone who claimed a hook had been done before. I looked for a similar hook in the archives. Naturally I didn't know the date, although I had some idea how long it had been since I had read something similar. So I searched every archive in the approximate date range for some keywords that were probably in the hook. That process would be made easier with longer archive files. On the other hand, does anyone else ever use the archive files in the first place? Perhaps the archives' main function is to give hook authors a misplaced feeling of satisfaction that all their work hasn't disappeared in 6 hours (the Buddhist attitude that nothing is permanent but change seems more relevant here, given how many people see the Main Page.) Art LaPella (talk) 04:23, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Nothing is permanent on Wikipedia anyway, if you consider the state of constant flux in which all articles are (at least in the ante-flagged-revisions period). It does bother me from time to time, you know; I enjoy stability more than the average person. Most people appreciate stability to an extent, as a result of natural instinct, which is why the idea of printing Wikipedia is not completely ridiculous. The Signpost ran a story several weeks ago about a German publishing house planning to produce an almanac of sorts based on Wikipedia. It could be successful; the article certainly let an amount of optimism come through despite the editors' diligent efforts to remain neutral.
But I am digressing... I agree that the searching method you employed would benefit from larger archives, but it seems more likely to me that the archives would usually be visited by people seeing the DYK notes in the talk pages of articles with the exact dates, which they could then use in their search for the exact hooks. Still, I have an idea to serve us both: what about using the system of the anniversaries? There, there is a page for every day, and there is a page for every month transcluding said day pages, and there is even a page for the entire year (which I have never really seen because I cannot download it on this slow connection); this exists for the express purpose of searching events in order to avoid bolding one article more than once. My point is that we could have our short, daily archives which people could search when knowing the date, and we could have larger archives, say weekly or biweekly, transcluding them for special searches. Four- or five-day archives, although convenient in size, are simply weird.
All this, of course, would be done automatically, so no added maintenance effort there. Now, if you find the archives less than useful, that is a different thing, but I am a person who likes archiving for the sake of having archives anyway, and I am pretty sure there are many people like me. (You see, I am very representative, due to an ego equalling the combined egos of all my subjects. :-D). Waltham, The Duke of 05:27, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I found the monthly anniversary page. I didn't find an annual anniversary page, but it doesn't matter because if it can be done monthly, it can be done annually. Yes, that system would work for my application, which I have done once, and for your application, but have you used it that way once? Have you ever looked at a talk page, seen its DYK note, and then looked it up? (Looking up a DYK you wrote yourself doesn't count, because that wouldn't be representative.) If you haven't, then we're inventing a lot of programming for an illusion. Surely you didn't mean to say that there are many people like you, your Grace, but it's the best indication we have at this time. Art LaPella (talk) 07:01, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The annual page is linked to from the instructions (Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/All). Urm, no, I have not used the archives in this way, but it was theoretically plausible. To be honest, I have no idea what people do (I was joking before). Perhaps a survey would be in order? Seriously, we need to know what the editors want so that we can respond to their needs. This insular mentality of making decisions based on limited experience and educated guesswork has caused many problems before and should definitely be avoided. Let's get organised. Waltham, The Duke of 13:00, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia talk:Did you know#Who uses the archives? and Wikipedia talk:Selected anniversaries#Annual list Art LaPella (talk) 19:28, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting, Mr LaPella. I had not considered notifying anyone about the "hidden page". I just tried a trick: entering straight the URL for editing individual sections. There is no text before the first heading; the first section shows today's anniversaries and the ToC, the next next one shows January's anniversaries, and the final one is for December (there are no subsequent sections). I wonder if the page really has a problem, or if the combined mass of data makes it impossible for most people to download it in time. I am not sure it is really so extreme, though.
The other discussion merely serves, so far, to corroborate both our points, but with a twist. If it is simply a matter of finding which articles have been honoured with DYK hooks, then we could easily keep detailed daily archives, and for each month have a list of the articles sorted chronologically and/or alphabetically (a sortable table might be used to avoid redundancy, if a bot can edit it), linking to the appropriate archives. It is my previous idea taken one step further, but it would combine maximum search-capability effectiveness and high downloading speeds with minimum repetition of information.
PS: I should prefer not to see the hooks included in the talk-page templates, but direct links to the daily archives would serve as well. Waltham, The Duke of 20:40, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
So far, Wikipedia talk:Did you know#Who uses the archives? suggests these uses:
1. To find hooks relevant to the Organized Labor portal or the Film portal. Each hook would have to be skimmed through to determine if it relates to the subject, so the length of the archive file wouldn't matter.
2. To see what the hook was after seeing a DYK notice on a talk page, as you suggested. In that case, the date on the DYK notice would give the approximate date of when the hook appeared, so it shouldn't take more than a couple minutes to find the hook using ctrl-F in daily archive files, although longer archive files would be a little easier. This use ended with the words "More importantly", suggesting this use isn't important.
3. The archive file can be located using "What links here". That would also work no matter how long the archives were.
So in each case, it doesn't matter much how long the file is. None of these tasks would benefit from a list of all articles that had DYK hooks, so I don't know why we would want that. Art LaPella (talk) 21:28, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It was just an idea... I see file length mostly as a factor affecting loading speed; pages with more data take longer to appear, and sometimes too long. There is also the matter of images to consider. Do we want images in the archives? I find that it would make them more complete and informative, and more true to the original hooks, as well as make the "pictured" tag—which remains in the archives, image or not—meaningful again. However, images delay loading significantly.
Perhaps daily archives with images and weekly archives transcluding the daily ones but without displaying images? Would that be possible? (Or, if we are to start talking about technical issues, a way to simply search the archives?)
You see that I am rather unwilling to have three-, four-, or five-day archives. They just look odd; their day number is meaningless and rather disconnected from any reasonable time-keeping unit. The only alternative I see is to use five-day time periods fixed within each month, with the last archive adjusting for February and the 31-day months. For instance, 1–5 June, 6–10 June, 11–15, 16–20, 21–25, and 26–30. I was hesitant to propose it due to the inconsistency in the last archive, but it might have its merits. Waltham, The Duke of 22:41, 8 June 2008 (UTC), updated 22:53, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know how gung-ho Gimmetrow is for programming such details, but my sense is that the main priority is to automate some kind of archiving and thanking system. Then DYK administrators will have a lot more time for discussing things like what the ideal archiving period should be. Changing 5.2 days to weekly isn't a big change, but what's important is to have it running at all. Art LaPella (talk) 04:33, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I suppose this is why we are discussing this while Gimmetrow is still developing the robot... After we reach a conclusion, I assume it will be relative easy to make an amendment even if most of the 'bot has been written. The point is to create a system which will not need confusing re-adjustments after it starts functioning...
In any case, a difference of two days is around fifty hooks, so it cannot be taken lightly, even if we do decide to go weekly. Waltham, The Duke of 10:57, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Note that Wikipedia talk:Did you know#Who uses the archives? is accumulating new ideas. Art LaPella (talk) 01:08, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Why...? Why wasn't I watching that page? (scratches head)
Ah, well, I am now. Anyway, I think we should move the discussion and start commenting there instead of here. Unless you don't want us to disturb the deliberations of the other editors just yet... Waltham, The Duke of 02:49, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

[1] There are two tasks - notices to contributors when the hooks go up, and the archiving. I wasn't too keen on the notice systems I saw discussed, so haven't done anything with that, and probably won't unless I see a clean system. Archiving looks better. The general idea is to go through T:DYK revision by revision. For each revision, get a list of the bolded words on the page. If that list has no overlap with the list from the previous version, it's an update, and all hooks from the previous version can be archived. That way the final version of a hook, including any typo fixes, gets archived. This seems to work most of the time because the format of T:DYK hasn't changed much. Since this goes by revisions, including a diff and date header would be simple. I also maintain the ArticleHistory template, and I wanted a way to link from the DYK date to an archive. If the archives were by month, it would be straightforward: an August 27, 2008 DYK would be in Archives/2008 August#August 27 (or something like that). Could do daily archiving but that seems like a lot of pages. An intermediate system could be set up with arbitrary breaks in the month, for instance day 1-15 is archive A, day 16-31 is archive B, so August 27 might be in Archives/2008 August B#August 27. Gimmetrow 06:06, 28 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

MOS is EWIL

This user thinks that WP:MoS is EWIL and should burn in hell.

I officially declare WP:MoS to be the rising incarnation of the devil. This proclamation is thereby sealed with this girlishly pink userbox, awarded to the unsuspecting children of MoS. We shall pray for your soul. Renata (talk) 19:36, 21 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How dare you, blasphemous woman, speak ill of the holy and divine pink, and associate it with false deities, and treat it in such a vulgar and insulting manner? Her Invisible Pinkness has been much disturbed by this, with great repercussions upon our world's stability and prosperity. You shall soon be punished for this, I am certain; find yourself in the abyss of the Purple Oyster of Doom, you shall, correcting dashes and commas for all eternity, in an office where the term ergonomics has never been heard. Oh, the laughs we'll all have when this happens. (evil grin) Waltham, The Duke of 20:01, 22 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think you just made my point. Correcting dashes and commas for all eternity, in an office where the term ergonomics has never been heard is actually a pretty good description for Wikipedia ;) LOL Renata (talk) 07:27, 23 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, but Wikipedia is not responsible for the ergonomics of our offices; we all work from home. So 21st century, eh? I recommend you to start saving for a good chair. Waltham, The Duke of 08:51, 23 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What chair? I edit Wikipedia in my bed... Renata (talk) 19:58, 23 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I thought I'd heard creaking... Still, it sounds cosy. Don't you have overheating problems with the laptop I assume you are using, though? These things are rather sensitive... Annoyingly so, in fact.
(I hope you don't mind my converting to a more "sustainable" indentation format) Waltham, The Duke of 20:17, 23 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There are problems with heat... It's too hot to keep on the lap (especially when it's like 30°C outside). And it's getting worse; I guess that's a symptom of old age for a laptop :) And then one day I accidentally buried the laptop under sheets as I was running widely late; when I came back the whole thing was so hot I could not touch it. Thankfully it did not catch fire... I guess I should really be migrating back to a chair... but how did we get from ewilness to (almost) burning laptops? Renata (talk) 23:05, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am sly, and it is to my interest not to discuss the Manual of Style's alleged "ewilness". :-) In any case...
I usually take my laptop to bed in winter, when not only overheating problems are less serious, but my blankets are thick enough to allow for an arrangement where I support the laptop's front on them, leaving some space below it for ventilation. Or I can bring a couple of books and create a hard surface, but that's more awkward. Waltham, The Duke of 23:37, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Alleged?! I think I made it quite official :) If a pink userbox does not make it official, I don't know what will... Anyway, I wanted to ask you, if you don't mind. Your (real) userpage says that you are Greek. How did you learn English so well? I am just asking 'cause I am green with envy... Renata (talk) 22:11, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And I am pink with pride and self-importance. ;-) Well, to be honest, the Greek educational system is pretty bad at languages, so most students are educated privately. I've had four years of education in German (after which I passed my Zertifikat Deutsch examination); I've half-forgotten the language now, as I never speak it. In addition, I barely remember anything of my three years of compulsory French education in middle school, although it has helped in some respects. With English, however, I've always had a strange comfort. It has an easier grammar (the complex grammar of most foreign languages has been my impendiment in learning them, and even Ancient Greek has this problem, although now I seem to have improved enough with systems for a new attempt to be worth it), but it could also be something else that I ignore. In any case, I started my English education in 1996, in what proved to be a very good language school. I passed my FCE and ECCE exams in 2003, and the CPE and ECPE in 2004. Bored with most things school-y, I mostly learned the language in the classroom, and through films (which are thankfully subtitled in Greece; I hate dubbing), magazines, books, and later the Internet, through forums and, most importantly, this place. I still read loads of material in English, and I sometimes note down new words I want to use.
Wow. I do like talking about myself, after all. :-D I suppose I could simply add a version of this rant to my user page, although I've been rather busy lately, and my userspace will wait some time before it sees any major edits.
PS: I only write this well; I kind of lack oral practice, although I'm working on it. (evil grin) Waltham, The Duke of 19:11, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, you just like to talk. Period. Any topic goes: yourself, MOS, or even better yet – dashes... :P As for your English I was betting you are a native. I been in the US for the last four years (tomorrow is actually my anniversary), got myself thru bachelor's, getting myself thru master's, passed both TOEFL and GMAT with flying colors, have been writing for Wikipedia for three years now – and I still make stupid errors. Articles? Prepositions? Tenses? Ackwardology?... Seriously, what's your secret? Renata (talk) 07:45, 29 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I told you it was a good language school; it helped me get a CPE with A at age fifteen—a rare feat of which I am quite proud—and the environment was very friendly. Everyone says that being in a country and speaking with people helps you develop your language skills, and indeed it does: one communicates much better this way with little study. However, not only does one have little grammatical background, but one also replicates the mistakes of the native speakers themselves. And I hear these are many; I can also testify that Greeks aren't exactly flawless when speaking and writing Greek, and this probably happens in all countries. I've told you one my secrets: I read a lot, including those old books with all the nice scholarly words only spoken by lawyers, journalists, academics, and writers nowadays. I have read most of the Sherlock Holmes stories, for example, which were written at the end of the nineteenth century. Much more interesting than many modern texts, linguistically.
And there might be something else... My being Greek gives me an advantage, considering that about 25% of the words in the English vocabulary are derived, directly or indirectly, from Greek. I keep finding connections with the most unlikely words, and it's quite exciting. On the other hand, it's not as intuitive as you might think to use words like plethora and synopsis; when speaking, the two languages are rather firmly divided in my mind. Not to mention the very different accent, which can throw even a Greek off track.
PS: Fine, another clue: I am slow with messages. I generally double-check them before posting. I can't stand this "I'm in a hurry, so I'll write a quick message which serves in the double capacity of conveying an idea and mutilating the English language" mentality. And it pains me a bit that I cannot edit these posts. :-) Copy-editing is second nature to me, and I really want to improve in it.
PPS: Happy anniversary. I'm sure Americans will be thrilled to learn that you've improved their lives for so many years. They are even preparing a surp— Ok, that was close. (starts whistling) Waltham, The Duke of 09:46, 29 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Here starts the productive part of the conversation

Hm... That's probably the reason: I don't really pay that much attention. My spelling is corrected by spellcheckers (bless Mozilla for that one!) and grammar... so far no one adopted this orphan :) I also don't read that much (thanks to a literature teacher who gave me allergy to books) and when I do it's mostly online and quite often written in "all base are belong to us" English. See, my language does not have either articles or prepositions – thus I cannot get the hang of them. I just go by "sounds about right" which, of course, usually means "ergh... wrong!"

You say copy-editing? Can I torture you with some requests? (about time to turn the conversation into something productive) Renata (talk) 11:02, 29 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What are you talking about? Aren't we producing kilobytes of data here? Aren't we creating experiences? Honestly, the way some people fail to appreciate the little moments of life... (sigh)
I am willing to forgive you for this, so you have a lot to thank me and my good mood for. Give me the links, and I'll see what I can do. Don't expect too much, but I can guarantee a certain level of compliance with MoS in general text.
Now, time to discuss my fees... Waltham, The Duke of 12:12, 29 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You won't believe me, but every time I edit non-article namespace I feel guilty of wasting Wikipedia's server bandwidth and hard-drive storage... The above is probably the worst offense I have on my wiki-sin book. Not that it was not a pleasure... :)

Agh, MOS. How about some compliance with English grammar? I would really like to get the Lithuanian Civil War (1381–1384) and Lithuanian Civil War (1389–1392) to Good Article status, but they need grammar copy-edit first. Hælp? (fees can be collected at DOL) Renata (talk) 12:35, 29 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You shouldn't worry so much about edits. Fewer edits are better because they don't clutter pages' history, and I am rather frugal myself (I'll only edit a page section-by-section if I absolutely have to, and try to get everything in fewer edits, at least on the mainspace). However, if you miss something you should go back and edit again, and if a page is large and busy you shouldn't provoke your luck by chasing edit conflicts. Furthermore, the backstage pages are necessary for the operation of Wikipedia, and a few extra edits can be useful, even if they aim at nothing but adding some fun (seemingly a waste, but actually an essential component that keeps this community together).
Actually, my presence on the mainspace has been rather reduced lately... During 2008, my mainspace edits have fallen from 61.5% to 40.4%; on one hand, I make relatively few edits to articles (even if occasionally big ones), and on the other hand you have to make many edits to participate in discussions, so the numbers are not exactly what they seem... But I digress.
I'll deal with the articles as soon as I can. I apologise for not mentioning it earlier, but I really want to make sure that they conform to the rules of proper Greek grammar; I'd hate to be the cause of the articles' failure at GAN. Waltham, The Duke of 15:00, 29 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's like telling a person with OCD not to count steps from subway to grocery store to home... :)

No rush with copy-edits. Gosh, I am tired... Renata (talk) 19:06, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You really shouldn't tell me "no rush"; my brain interprets this as "go slowly", and I mean really slowly. Truth be told, I have been editing on and off lately, partly because connection problems, which is annoying because I have to do much catching up each time I return. Still, I shouldn't leave this for so long.
In any case, I have started looking at the first of the two articles you have pointed out. I even started copy-editing, but I left it unfinished for a few hours and then the browser shut down, taking everything with it. I'll do the job properly tomorrow. It's not like there are any major errors (so far as I have seen), but improvements can certainly be made.
More tomorrow. Waltham, The Duke of 23:18, 9 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No worries. I would not have time to review anyway... :( BTW, use new Mozilla - it is pretty good at saving data when something crashes. Renata (talk) 18:28, 12 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Two thingies: 1) Shouldn't pages like Swimming at the 2008 Summer Olympics - Men's 100 metre butterfly use en-dash? (please limit your answer to yes/no/maybe/don't know :P) 2) Burning laptops can be prevented with things like this. Renata (talk) 03:51, 17 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, yes... Indeed, they should. Actually, WikiProject Olympics intend to mass-move them after the end of the Games.
I agree that the cooling stand is a good way to avoid spectacular special effects in your bedroom. A friend of mine actually has one for his problematic laptop, although it's not as cool as the one in the link (pun intended).
About your previous message... I realise that the task is not an urgent one, but I feel bad when I promise something and then fail to deliver. And I've made quite a few promises lately... (disgruntled sigh) Waltham, The Duke of 08:38, 17 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Boohoohoo... the dash should be spaced for "Iraq – United States relations"... right? Another boo... my cooler broke down after three days of service :~( Don't worry about promises. I am also guilty of those "fail to deliver" situations. Renata (talk) 20:16, 19 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

For the eyes of His Grace alone

How dare you engage in such slander, and insult me by even believing that I, a master herald, could be fooled by such feeble attempts at forgery. And even if the Cabal's seal were real, I do not recognise its authority, for it is The Conspiracy that runs everything in Wikipedia, even though it does not exist. And I am said to run The Conspiracy, though this could be merely a rumour.
Besides, Mr Cartwright knows better than to be jealous of me. I treat him badly enough, and his salary barely suffices to recompense for the abuse he receives in our professional collaboration. Your intelligence is, I fear to say, mistaken. Waltham, The Duke of 08:54, 10 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Please peruse the full and confidential clarification on The Cabal's Official Discussion Page. --222.155.218.80 (talk) 09:44, 10 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WP:POINT

WP:POINT consists of doing things which the editor does not want to have done. I believe that Wikipedia would be better off with one detailed set of advice on numbers and words; my first choice would be to have the one at MOSNUM and a summary at MOS; my second choice is to have the same language at both places - and I have done exactly this.

You have, however, reverted to the ancient situation of variant details in both places. If you explained why you think this desirable, or why you like the old wording (I have made some effort not to change the substance of the guidance, to the extent of not removing redundancy), you might either convince me, or demonstrate consensus; but you have not bothered to discuss your reversions on talk.

I should like to believe in Your Grace's good faith; but you make it very difficult. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:53, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am under the distinctly unpleasant impression that I have reacted somewhat rashly. I based my action on the edit history of the page: I reverted your replacement of the section with a summary, and you then imported the whole quite long set of guidelines from MOSNUM; the change is extensive enough to turn on red lights and appear disruptive, and the timing also made it appear as a reaction to my reversion. Tony reverted you, you reverted back, and I reverted again until this was discussed. I am more discussion- than action-oriented, see. I then saw the short section on the talk page, and started having second thoughts; after all, it is the intended purpose that the two sets should match. Still, this is hardly a viable solution, and we run the (rather permanent, actually) danger of confusing our readers with such a long and detailed set of instructions on the main Manual page. I am quite uncomfortable with the whole situation; there is an actual dilemma here.
I have concluded that the best option is to take the road of accuracy over that of brevity. For now. I have reverted myself until this is sorted out, and when it does the length of the section in question will be reduced to the one we've had so far. This had better happen very soon, because I've had enough with the disconnected changes all around the Greater Manual of Style (the whole page family). I am considering re-activating the stillborn MoS WikiProject and dedicating it to locating and resolving discrepancies. This, however, will require effort and time, and I am a little short on these two at the moment. Still, I hope to proceed in the near future.
As far as good faith is concerned, finally, you are correct. To be perfectly honest, I have in many cases found it difficult to assume good faith for your actions, a result of your history on the page. The reason is not your disagreement with the established status of the Manual, but that you sometimes utilise dubious means in the course of relevant "skirmishes". I shall attempt to work on my AGF skills, but I want to see a reduction of unilateral actions on your part as well. Everyone will win from this. Waltham, The Duke of 21:41, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I am Your Grace's humble and obedient serv't. There is a discussion on WT:MOSNUM which has resulted in a slight tweak of that version, but it's not worth reconciling for a temporary fix. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:57, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I understand what this means... I'll have to watch MOSNUM again. (sigh) Waltham, The Duke of 22:10, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Euro gold and silver commemorative coins (Austria) Can we extend?

Hi TDW,

Reading the FLC process, I think we can ask for extra time, since I do think this is almost there. Do you know how to do that?

Thanks, Miguel.mateo (talk) 14:40, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sign off

I don't use flags all the time, just rare occasions I'm trying to make a point (or a joke...) I had no idea there was a guideline v (but I guess I shouldn't be surprised). TREKphiler hit me ♠ 08:58 & 09:00, 14 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed merger

Dear Mr Secretary. Please inform His Grace of a proposed merger of projects here. I would be grateful if you could request His Grace to pass comment on the issue. Ta-ra Craigy (talk) 02:10, 16 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Fair use of commemorative coin images in list articles

Regarding the discussion here, I raised the issue here. I'm notifying all who participated in the featured list disucssion, and will note that at WT:NFC. If you comment there, please say that I told you about this. Thanks. Carcharoth (talk) 15:51, 24 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just a recommendation

Claiming that any MOS page is "just a recommendation" is disingenuous, at least until FA and GA are either separated from MOS, conducted differently, or cease to be of any value to editors. Please don't make silly arguments; we can do better. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:15, 25 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It is a guideline, and it therefore remains ignorable. FAs and GAs constitute a very small percentage of articles, and it is only in FAs that great adherence to the provisions of the Manual is required. Strictly speaking, if all subsequent FACs use unlinked dates, that will make for several hundred articles until the end of the year.
We have over 2,500,000 of them.
"Recommendation in a recommendation page" sounded too nice not to use, but it's not much different from the truth. MoS is the guide to Wikipedia's recommended writing style, and with the exception of exceptional cases (namely quality reviews, basically comprising FAC), it is a large handbook editors can live without. I do not believe it is silly to say that the Manual is not enforceable upon editors in the manner of policy; those who do enforce it in this way are attempting to unduly extend the scope of the Manual and are acting without the support of the community. These people should be checked before causing damage, but caution must be exercised because it is not always easy to tell what exactly the circumstances are. Unwarranted haste in assuming bad faith has caused many a plight in this place. Waltham, The Duke of 22:38, 25 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Love your comments

Just wanted to state a thing I have been thinking for a while:

We run into each other all over the place it seems. And you often comment on some discussion I am involved in and you formulate all pros and cons so well that I often don't have much more to say after you have written your message. So thanks, I love your messages!

--David Göthberg (talk) 00:15, 26 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I suppose we frequent some of the same areas. Thank you very much for your kind words; it's this sort of message that makes one's day—and reminds me of what an insensitive person I am because I rarely leave such messages on other editors' talk pages. :-) I don't think I've ever thanked you for the excellent work you've put into message-box standardisation and various other programming issues; the contributions toolbox, for example, is very useful and looks great (especially in combination with the matching square at the top framing the filters).
In any case, you don't have to be silent (I often find it hard not to have something to say)... You can always state your agreement! :-D Waltham, The Duke of 08:00, 27 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, it is very rare for me too to leave comments like this on peoples talk pages. I probably should do that more often too. After all, encouraging people is a good thing. And don't worry about the template work, people tell me all the time how nice they are. And just seeing that my templates now are used on about 2 million pages feels pretty darn nice! :))
The contributions footer is mostly not my doing, I just did some minor tweaks to it. (I assume you mean MediaWiki:Sp-contributions-footer.)
And good point about that I can simply state my agreement after your comments! I tend to forget that since I feel like it has all been said. But yeah, just putting in my "vote" can be important so people feel we have a consensus and can go ahead.
--David Göthberg (talk) 10:24, 27 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've only given out two (2) barnstars, on the opportunity of New Year's Day. Perhaps I should be more generous with them. After all, there's such a variety to choose from... It's almost like shopping.
As with real-world elections, participation is one of the basic problems with consensus here. The editors with the greatest vested interests state their opinions and those of more passive attitude often hesitate to, making minority views appear more popular than they really are. (I cannot exclude myself from this group; I have recently preferred not to participate in the Good Topics discussion, even though I am against such a system. But again, I wasn't that much interested about it anyway.)
So. I'll leave you deal with the complications at Template talk:Tmbox (I shouldn't dream of participating; all this is like Chinese to me). Meanwhile, I have upcoming questions for {{shortcut}}, so you'll soon find me in front of you again. :-) Waltham, The Duke of 12:26, 27 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
True that about elections. Okay, see you around. --David Göthberg (talk) 16:06, 29 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Your Grace's humble servant

He wishes His Grace a most relaxing, refreshing low-activity period. Tony (talk) 14:13, 29 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's not exactly a conscious choice; I am busy and tired. The problem is that there are so many things I want to deal with here, so I have put this up more as a justification for reacting slowly to messages rather than an indication of leaving aside my various pursuits here. That said, I appreciate your kind wishes and promise to try and calm down a bit. :-)
The funny thing is that before summer I thought I'd be more active than ever these months. Waltham, The Duke of 14:24, 29 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

sandbox

sandbox --Closedmouth (talk) 05:36, 4 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't feel anything yet. I think you have to repeat it seven times to work. Waltham, The Duke of 10:23, 4 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Remember?

Polish-Lithuanian–Teutonic War? It was moved... Renata (talk) 07:31, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And back. The good thing is that most people, unlike me (usually), only move the articles and do not adjust their content to the new status quo. This way I was spared any additional work, as the name in the lead, as well as the relevant navboxes, all pointed to the version with the hyphen.
In any case, I have added an explanation to the talk page. If you are watching the page, please say so, so that I know if I need to watch it myself. I am not at the moment, as I am trying to keep my watchlist short (i.e. below 130 pages).
Regarding your previous message (in the old thread), I intend to take the categories that haven't yet had their names fully corrected back to the renaming chambers. I'm just not sure when I'll do that. As you can see from the top of the page, I'm not in my most productive phase at the moment.
Sorry about the cooler. Waltham, The Duke of 00:36, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I am watching the page, don't worry :) Enjoy your semi-break. I know WP can be very taxing and burns you out pretty quick. As for categories, I don't really care. I just thought I should let you know in case you wanted to do something about it... I know you care about such things. Anyway, take care. Renata (talk) 01:45, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I watch too many things. In these 125 pages I watch are included the Village Pump, WT:MoS and WT:MOSNUM, Talk:Main Page and WP:ERROR, WT:FAC, User talk:SandyGeorgia, half a dozen open polls, and Hatfield House. More traffic = faster burnout.
Anyway, thanks. I suppose people won't mind if I leave them waiting a week for a reply to a non-urgent matter (actually, few matters are urgent these days). Waltham, The Duke of 02:38, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, it seems you started a move war... But I have to agree with your opponent. Why would you be watching Village Pump? Watching pages like that makes your watchlist useless. Renata (talk) 07:39, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I realise how terrible starting a war is, but focus on the bright side: I get to be in history books.
(Technically, though, it's only a war after the second reversion.)
In any case, I hate splitting threads, so I felt a relief when I saw that a thread already existed in Koavf's talk page; you certainly took action there. Your defection should be punished most severely, but I shall be lenient... You'll see light soon enough, I am sure. :-)
Admittedly, my daily watchlist is a bit long, and until a method is found to watch individual sections in long pages, it's not very useful to watch the Pump and similar pages. I mostly do it so that I remember to check on the pages themselves. I like being informed, and I often comment on discussions there, though, to be honest, the policy section is very boring. Even so, I don't believe a few of these pages render the watchlist useless; the burnout occurs from trying to keep up with the pages. (Mercifuly, WT:MoS has had little traffic lately.) Waltham, The Duke of 13:49, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dashes

No rules? "I could mention 'Ignore all rules' here, but it's irrelevant: there is no rule to ignore in this case." That's not strictly true: if there was an article on the Polish and Lithuanian union (there are several about related political entities), it would be "Polish–Lithuanian Union" or about a joint business, it would be "Polish–Lithuanian Airlines," etc. The alliance between those two includes –, so when that alliance is paired up against something else, it becomes "Polish–Lithuanian–X." As you said, there is no provision for changing this to a hyphen or another kind of dash simply because there is a third party involved. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:34, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Mercy, Justin, this is the third page we are spreading this discussion across! :-) I am copying this to your talk page, where I shall reply. Waltham, The Duke of 00:54, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
True I'm responding at my talk. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:39, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sure If it gets changed, that's probably the easiest solution. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:46, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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You are receiving this message because you have signed up for the Signpost spamlist. If you wish to stop receiving these messages, simply remove your name from the list. Ralbot (talk) 21:34, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

{{db-doc}}

While the name {{db-doc}} is indeed memorable, it bears a rather unfortunate similarity to the existing template {{db doc}}. Might not something like {{db-templatedoc}} be a better alias? —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 16:39, 13 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Priceless oops moment". I should have known it was too easy. I take your point and proceed to immediately replace "db-doc" with "db-templatedoc"—before it is used anywhere. Waltham, The Duke of 17:09, 13 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Done. I have replaced the template in the main table, as well as on Wikipedia:Template messages/Deletion#Speedy deletion. There are no links to {{db-doc}}; that is, apart from the ones here and at WT:CSD. If you would be so kind as to delete the little embarrassment...
By the way, how come you don't use {{tl}} to link to templates? It's tremendously useful. Waltham, The Duke of 17:18, 13 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Personal preference, mostly. I do have some reasons, though none are particularly compelling:
  • Not using {{tl}} saves a tiny little bit of server load.
  • {{Tl}} doesn't work in edit summaries etc. It also breaks edit summary section links if used in the section title.
  • I have a handy custom edit button that inserts the non-{{tl}} syntax automatically, so it's no harder to type.
As I said, it's mostly just a matter of taste. Anyway, {{db-doc}} is gone now. Thanks for all the help. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 01:32, 14 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And thank you for being bold; it will be months before I can do something like that to a policy. One thing, though: shouldn't we notify the community somehow, say in the Pump? Or do we just wait to see if there will be reverts? Waltham, The Duke of 10:22, 14 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"Wait and see" tends to be the usual way, particularly seeing as it didn't actually change existing policy (in the sense that someone would have to "unlearn" something) so much as write down what I'm sure people have been doing before anyway. I expect most people involved with speedy deletion will, for obvious reasons, spend time around WP:CSD anyway. That said, I don't suppose a brief note at the pump and/or on WP:AN could hurt, if someone were minded to leave one. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 05:07, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I thought I might as well: WP:VPP#New speedy deletion criterion (T4). —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 05:27, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sehr gut, sehr gut. I agree that the regulars will notice anyway; it's just that there are always those who'll jump on these little things and say there is some agenda being pushed, so we'd better be clear about changes in policy, or even policy phrasing. And, of course, there are those who aren't regulars but still should be informed.
Anyway, I'm seeing reaction on the talk page. This is still not over... Waltham, The Duke of 12:44, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dash ?

I've never understood all the fuss over hyphen, mdash, and ndash. I don't see why there's all this fuss over it. Anyway, we have a question, should it be Hanna-Barbera or Hanna–Barbera? If ndash, should the article name itself have ndash in it? Please explain. — Rlevse • Talk • 20:25, 17 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's a matter of semantics and typographical conventions. Hyphens join, en dashes divide (even if they seem to join), and em dashes clearly separate. That is easier to notice and remember by their length; the longer the dash, the greater the distance of meaning between the text on its two sides.
According to Wikipedia's style conventions, Hanna-Barbera would be a surname. Joining two surnames in the manner of the Michelson–Morley experiment (the good old example) requires an en dash. The problem here is that we are dealing with a copyrighted name, which I do not know to what extend we are allowed to change. I have no idea what we do in these cases; it is highly probable that for names of companies, films, music albums etc. we'll end up keeping the titles as they are normally used, widely known, and legally protected. I think I'll start a thread on this at the Manual of Style's talk page.
All that said, whatever name is chosen in the end, that name should be put in the article title. Unlike categories, articles work in perfect cooperation with redirects, which can lead from the ASCII titles usually typed in the search box to the ones we choose. Waltham, The Duke of 07:20, 18 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That is the best explanation I've ever seen, thanks! Based on your "hyphens join" and legal protection statements, it seems clear, to me at least, that this should be a hyphen. — Rlevse • Talk • 09:55, 18 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps. But I do intend to bring up the matter of copyrighted names anyway, just to be sure; I am only speculating here. It is reasonable that our style conventions should not change such names, but I don't know what others think about this, and we should try to minimise confusion in general.
And it's not just a matter of applying conventions or not; I imagine historical orthography can also be a problem. How old is that en dash anyway? Equal signs were often used before, and The Waldorf=Astoria Hotel, to mention an example, is the official name of this hotel even now. Waltham, The Duke of 12:37, 18 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure how old emdash and endash are. — Rlevse • Talk • 16:45, 18 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think many people around here are. My question was basically rhetorical. :-) Waltham, The Duke of 22:05, 18 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You might be interested in this thread

Wikipedia talk:Article series; promotion/demotion of a guideline involving infoboxes, which I think is one of your many talents. (P.S. I've got moratorium going on watchlisting any more user pages until Oct 20.) - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 12:44, 19 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A twofer, I noticed a pointer to Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(numbers_and_dates)#Decades on WT:MOSNUM. If I remember right, what to do about decades in infoboxes was one of the sticking points before. Possibly you're interested, possibly not. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 13:39, 19 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not really involved with infoboxes, but I am interested in navigation and style in general. Thank you for bringing these discussions to my attention.
Now, about that moratorium... Has your watchlist overgrown? I've been trying to reduce mine from 130+ to 120 pages, and it's coming up nicely. Still, I haven't set a deadline...
(Does this mean that you're not watching this page? I'll wait a few days, and then post a {{talkback}} at your page if you haven't replied.) Waltham, The Duke of 03:07, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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