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Talk archives for User:SMcCandlish (current talk page)
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Contents 1 April 2007 1.1 Hi! 1.2 3-cushion coming out of the closet 1.3 Jessica Steen article 1.4 Inkscape template 1.5 You have discovered something 1.6 A cup of tea 1.7 3RR cavassing? 1.7.1 AAJ and such 1.8 Snooker rest 1.9 An invitation 1.10 Jeff Defender sock case 1.11 Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Jeff Defender -- an invitation 1.12 Please don't move my vote again... 1.13 ATT post 1.14 Jeff Defender sock puppetry --- checkuser 1.15 Arch Stanton 1.16 Something you may be interested in 1.16.1 RfA complicatedness 1.17 Vandalism 1.18 Thank you 1.19 Holy... 1.20 About control 1.21 Thank You 1.22 WPILT logo 1.23 ATT 1.24 Re:RMB 1.25 Wikipedia:WikiProject New Mexico 1.26 User categories 1.27 Wikipedians_who_support_F.C._Copenhagen 1.28 Good work! 1.29 Commons:Category:Albinism 1.30 Category:Time and date maintenance templates 1.31 Alex Higgins 1.32 Matrona 1.33 List of World Eight-ball Champions 1.34 Stub templates 1.35 WPBA NC event 1.36 Template abuse 1.37 Re: Snooker 1.38 Stub 1.39 Great idea 1.40 Anthony Hamilton (snooker player) 1.41 Jeff Defender 1.42 Steve Davis/Jimmy White 1.43 Stub tags spacing 1.44 Cuegloss "process" 1.45 Re: Huh? 1.46 Double-spacing 1.47 Snooker World Championship 2007 1.48 Your edits to Trevor Ringland 1.49 Your edit to the NFC criteria 1.50 Liam Neeson article 1.51 Wikipedia:Fromowner 1.52 Wikipedia:WikiProject Linkification 1.53 User categories 1.54 Working Group - Trying to start a discussion

April 2007

Hi!

Thanks for these new userboxes I found! However, calling yourself a native American English man and using French spacing is sickening. Sickening! ~ UBeR 21:48, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by French spacing; if you mean double-spacing after sentence-ending punctuation, I was actually taught to do that in American school, and the practice is recommended by many American style guides and such. Opposition to it seems to have arisen only in the last generation or so. I find the matter rather silly, since it is clearly an aid to readabilty.  :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 21:50, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

French spacing :-) ~ UBeR 22:49, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Ambig. term. I definitely don't engage in 'placing a single space before a question or exclamation mark'. Ick! — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 23:11, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh my! British American punctuation too?! Now I've really begun to run for for the hills. ~ UBeR 03:40, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Only when I'm lazy. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 07:20, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

3-cushion coming out of the closet

On May 6, 2007 ESPN will for the first time broadcast professional 3-cushion. It may also be the first time 3-cushion has ever been broadcast in the US. Migel Torres (a professional in Queens New York) told me this earlier today (in his best approximation of English), and also told me that he has been giving lessons to Mike Massey. I'm not sure what is being broadcast, but I know that Semih Sayginer will be playing. As you probably know, he performs the most spectacular artistic billiards exhibitions. Watched him year after year at Carom Cafe (Sang Lee's room [well actually Michael Kang's to be technical; Sang lee owned about a 16th but that's a long story]), and it is something to be seen. Since Mike Massey is getting lessons, I wouldn't be surprised if it's not 3-cushion per se, but Semih doing artistic shots, with Mike Massey tagging along as the face far more people know. Anyway, mark down the date. Semih's a bit of an asshole in person (he does great caricatures and makes fun of Blomdahl by imitating him right to his face) but he's incredible to watch. His stroke is really not of this planet.--Fuhghettaboutit 03:27, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Glad I still have VCR. I'll tape that. Thanks for the heads-up! — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 07:23, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Jessica Steen article

Hey there. I noticed you recently made some edits to this article. I wanted to point out that rather than creating a trivia section, it would have been preferable if you had incorporated any notable information into the body of the article (and deleted the rest). The guideline, Wikipedia:Avoid trivia sections in articles, explains why and how this should be done. Unfortunately, I do not have time to do it myself right now, but if you are interested in the article, perhaps you would like to take a crack at it. Thanks, and happy editing!--Vbd (talk) 10:41, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm well aware of WP:TRIV. While that article still has a Trivia section, I think trivia should be in it until someone thinks of a better way than putting trivial facts into their own pseudo-paragraphs consisting of a single pseudo-sentence. I am not interested in the article and don't know enough about Steen, I feel, to determine what in that section is notable (not to mention not a copy-paste copyvio from IMDb...), otherwise I might well have eliminated the Trivia section by merge & refactor myself. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 20:46, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for responding. I meant no offense, so I hope you didn't take any. Much of the trivia section appears to be truly trivial. I've added a {{toomuchtrivia}} tag; maybe someone who is truly interested in this bio will edit it appropriately.--Vbd (talk) 21:27, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

No offense taken! I was just trying to make it clear that "if you are interested in the article" didn't apply to me.  :-) The {{toomuchtrivia}} tag sounds like a good plan. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 21:33, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Inkscape template

Here's the answer you requested at Template talk:Created with Inkscape: Inkscape is free/open-source software. Templates such as this one point users and editors to free software they can use to create free works. Rl 15:15, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

It's still spammy. W* is not Sourceforge. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 08:55, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm, torn on this one. It's just about the only decent SVG editor out there, and having more people know about it would be a boon for commons. <scratches head> Are we only allowed to mention software hosted by the wikimedia foundation, or is all software we use to maintain the site ok? --Kim Bruning 10:49, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

You have discovered something

Bravo! Good insight! Brilliant! How about if we propose to everyone that the "Neutral" section should appear first for 24 hours to see what effect that has on the distribution of votes. Surely, who could object to the order being Neutral, Support, Oppose for 24 hours. We could propose that the switch occur at the beginning of the measurement period in the table. What do you think? --Rednblu 08:15, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I'd be OK with it, but the neutral votes don't mean much for gauging consensus (the comments in them will mean a lot when it comes to figuring out what to do afterward.) I think it's the +/- order that is skewing the poll. When it was small, it started out pretty much 50/50, but is slowly shifting toward +, for no other discernable reason. The arguments haven't changed at all. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 08:18, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes. We have only begun to discover what it is that could be discovered here. Let us think of voter-friendly designs. At the top of the StrawPoll page there should be three links that would to the appropriate subsection (Neutral, Support, Oppose) which would open in edit mode, and, as instructed, the voter could enter the vote at the top of that edit section. That would make it voter-friendly. What do you think? I mean someone has to really demonstrate intelligence to find the place to vote Oppose as it is now. --Rednblu 08:30, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Nah, everyone on WP for more than a few days understands bottom-posting. I find it really annoying when I encounter the few remaining XfD and other adminny process pages that actually want top posting. I don't know what they are thinking. If I could reboot WP from scratch, top posting would be the norm, because it is far more useful and intuitive, but I seriously doubt that anyone can change the years-worth of bottom-posting that is ingrained into WP. And everyone knows how to use the edit buttons. I'm talking about something more substantive, the bias in the survey, not ease of adding to the survey (in a bias-led fashion, no less). — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 08:43, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Great ideas! I'm glad I checked in just as you were having your brilliant insight. See you later. --Rednblu 08:46, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Okey-dokey. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 08:54, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Because it's hard to understand in what order things were said. Why is top posting a bad idea?

Latin script has been written from top-left to bottom right for over two millenia. Define "intuitive". ;-)

--Kim Bruning 10:53, 3 April 2007 (UTC) vi versus emacs, anti-aliased vs aliased, white background vs black background, top vs bottom posting, it's the holy wars! ;-)

I think top-posting is vastly preferable, at the new topic level, but that for some reason unbeknownst to me, WP largely settled on bottom posting long before I arrived. I suspect it is the influence of threaded newsreaders and later webboards, which present each thread with the first post at the top by default instead of the newest; which makes some sense. But Wiki for some reason went too far with this, and wants everything bottom posted (except at a few hold-out process pages). My User:SMcCandlish page has a mini-essay about this topic, under the notability one. I may have muddled something above to sound anti-top-posting in general; it's more that I've just given up here. WP is so "everything must be bottom posted" that I get used to it here, and find the handful of top-posting pages to be jarring. My real feel is that top-posting is good (except inside threads). Like at WP polls, I would rather see the new comments in each section (if there are sections) at the top of the pile. All of the human-hours wasted scrolling around trying to find that thread posted 20 minutes ago, now with 7 more following it, somewhere near the bottom of this section of the page, but it's hard to tell where... if spent on actually writing an encyclopedia... Wow, WP would be so much better! — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 11:08, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

PS: I think my "Nah, everyone..." paragraph above will seem a little less self-contradictory now. By intuitive, I meant just what you did by "two millennia". But note that even in books and stuff we start (i.e. new topic) at the top left, and work down, which is why I think new replies in extant threads should be bottom posted in that thread while new threads should be top-posted, because they're new/news. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 11:11, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

A cup of tea

I don't think that would be a bad idea for anyone involved in that debate, really. And yes, the number of people that support something is certainly a factor in determining consensus, but a "Support, why not?" or "Oppose, this is dumb" tends to get a lot less weight than a well-written, coherent rationale. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 11:58, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Thanks for writing back so quick. :-) Sadly, no real tea for me; have to take the trash out before the trucks come around for it. (IRL, I mean). — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 12:03, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

3RR cavassing?

Hi there! I notice that you made statements like "I'm not willing to violate WP:3RR over this, so additional eyes on the matter would be helpful". This sounds like you're asking for other people to help "your" side of a revert war, which is not a proper way to resolve anything. Please don't do that again, and instead discuss a more productive approach on the relevant talk page. >Radiant< 15:42, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

This has already been aired on said talk page. I think the intent has been misunderstood. I'm saying I won't revert-war over it, but I'm asking just three other editors whom I know have aired similar misgivings to watch the situation and get involved in the debate if they think the issues I'm raising are valid. What's wrong with that? I'm not hiding anything at all. Why can ATT proponents plan and coordinate (off-wiki, where they can't be seen), but those with concerns about it can't, even publicly? Is it just because I mentioned the word "revert"? — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 15:59, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Of course I'm looking if you answer me. And of course you can discuss or organize all you like. But the phrasing "I don't want to break 3RR so please help" sounds quite a lot like asking other people to help your reverting so that your side "wins" while none of the involved break the 3RR individually. Aka gaming the system. Now I'm not saying that was your intent here but it sure is what it sounds like. >Radiant< 16:09, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I know what he's talking about; a handful of editors, strongly pro-ATT, are automatic reverters. But in this case I would expect the reversal, which I am probably too late to affect, will be reverted out of sheer Queegishness; independent of its merits, it wasn't invented by the small group of editors who pat each other on the back, so it must be nonsense. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:32, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Good idea in principle. I'm not planning to do even 1R of a revert war over this and I might not even comment on the poll talk page. I note that certain poll guidelines weren't followed, e.g. putting "Yes (pro-merge)" etc. rather than plain "Yes" as a section title so people could follow it on their talk page, or avoiding specific start and end dates. I'm not sure whether all the poll wording discussion and prepolling was archived properly. Nevertheless, the proper time and place to bring up the issue of the order of questions is at the poll guideline page (I'm thinking of redirecting WP:Poll to WP:Straw polls; currently it redirects to RfC I think). Or before the poll was started. Yes, I know, the wording hadn't been finalized, but there were many versions of the wording proposed and in many cases some sort of do-you-support-ATT was first. Was this issue of changing the order of the questions raised before the poll was started? There was about a week for discussion of poll wording; it could have been raised anytime in there. I think it's a good idea and I may get involved in support (for future polls) at the poll guidelines page. Jimbo wanted hundreds of responses and is getting them. Anyway, the original policies have a strong advantage of inertia: if there's no consensus, the policies don't change. Putting "yes" to a new proposal first can be seen as somewhat balancing that. With respect and as an independent thinker (and person who is trying to get back to actually spending time writing the encyclopedia, besides doing RL occasionally :-) --Coppertwig 22:33, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Correction: on second thought, the "in broad suppport" section etc. does follow the section-heading guidelines re following on watchlists (I meant watchlists and edit summaries, not talk pages). It was some of the earlier proposed wordings that didn't. --Coppertwig 22:47, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Radiant, I agree it can look that way; it was a poor choice of wording. Seraphimblade said the same thing basically. Wasn't the intent, as I think my actions demonstrate (I did one revert, with a very descriptive edit summary justifying it, then took it to talk when it was re-reverted.) — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 23:00, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

AAJ and such

Those are rather old threads and I'm not one to bear a grudge. I don't really see a reason to dig them up again. >Radiant< 08:15, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Okeydokey. Just making sure they don't get archived before their time. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 04:03, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Snooker rest

Hi there. I have to say that "the rest is the rest!" There are only two variations on it: the extended rest and the one with three indentations for placing the cue, but I have *never heard the rest called the "cross rest". So in that respect the article is wrong and, IMHO, "cross rest" is overkill. But you do great work with that page and others, and I'm not going to change it but think you should. What about "a standard rest"? bigpad 09:12, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure where you are playing, but there are at least 4 rests (not counting American-style rakes). See Rest in the Glossary. The disambiguation and specificity are needed to avoid reader confusion. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 09:20, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

PS: As my edit summary suggested, just invert the order of the {{Cuegloss}} links in the caption, so it reads something like "rest (cross type)" or "rest (cross variety)". I'll just go do that.

PPS: Sorry if that sounded brusque; I was multitasking a bit too much, I think. I un-brusque it: I'm sure you are right that experienced players probably say things like "gimme the rest" and it is understood that they mean the cross; if they wanted the spider or the swan/goose-neck (or the controversial hook for that matter) they would have been more specific. I approach all of this stuff from a usability angle though - will the average reader understand this? Probably no, so we be a little more specific/educational for them, even if some of the prose might be a little tedious to a snooker maven (who is probably here to work on the article, not learn anything from it anyway, right?)  :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 00:37, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

You are right to say that there is a wide range of accessories now available. In the cotext of the recent overhaul of the article, to cut down on its size and make it more readable and less involved,

I was thinking that the "average" person reading the article would not need to know anything more than the player pictured was using "a rest". Anything more than this I think is unnecessary. And "the rest" is always understood as what you call the "cross rest". If a player wants something else, he will ask specifically for it. And I'd say that the varieties of spiders in use are not rests: they are spiders. Keep up the good work bigpad 15:18, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

I think I can buy most of that. If you want to revert the caption expansion, go ahead, though please leave the cuegloss link to Rest. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 23:59, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

An invitation

You're invited to criticise me. —KNcyu38 (talk • contribs) 10:05, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I haven't interacted with you enough to have anything to criticize. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 10:25, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Jeff Defender sock case

Due to your concerns raised on a RFA, I filed Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Jeff Defender, please add evidence if you can. Thanks! Wooyi^{Talk, Editor review} 00:28, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Argh... I wasn't really ready to proceed just yet. Well, since it has started, I'll do what I can, but I was still investigating... — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 00:37, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for starting it too early, but I will investigate and do my best as well. Thank you! Wooyi^{Talk, Editor review} 00:38, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for the evidences. Now the case I'm pretty sure they are sockpuppets and I hope the reviewers think so as well. Wooyi^{Talk, Editor review} 01:23, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Yep, and no worries on just going for it; on second thought it probably is important to address this right now, when they are causing RfA trouble again, rather than wait any longer! — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 01:30, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Nice work unearthing this, Stanton. A Train^talk 12:50, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. What scares me though is that all of those "users" combined don't equate to nearly enough activity for a user that knows as much as this person does about the finers points of WP policy and how to game them. This means that the real puppeteer has yet to be outed. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 20:35, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

In the words of the immortal Jay-Z: "Ya boy is back." A Train^talk 23:18, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Probably a different one - the tone isn't right. I think that one may just be a genuine noob, or someone else's puppet. The candidate though premature seems quite earnest, and I can't find any evidence of Natl1 being a jackass, so I doubt it's his/her puppet. The ones I'm after have pretty clear goals (pushing COI articles and minority POVs in other articles, making trouble for those who oppose them, and trying to influence blocking and banning policy to make it easier to be disruptive.) — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 00:32, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't know what to say, I can credit you with opening the discussion but an not sure if you're trying to stop me from editing or from voting. At least the webmaster said not to post about it so now I fear anyone who reposts will point to me. Have some admin look as both deleted revisions. Jeff Defender 03:31, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

I've already suggested that admin examination will be necessary in the SSP. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 03:37, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

I am sorry if I was so extreme about blocking. Its a matter of jumping to conclusions vs. taking things on a case by case basis. See Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Betacommand. As for your RFA, you can always try again. Jeff Defender 01:06, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

This isn't about whether you have extreme opinions about blocking, it's about suspect behavior patterns that point to sockpuppettry. You can be as wikianarchist as you like - this isn't about your opinions. That you and Honda Pilot a.k.a. Uninsured Driver showed up out of no where but already knowing all about Wikipedia policies, guidelines and essays (yet have track records of disruption), and continue to show up out of no where to do little other than attack people in RfA and make noise at WP:AN in favor of vandal leniency, and somehow always seem to come to each other's defense just when it is needed, is very, very suspicious. PS: This also isn't about my RfA, either. I could actually kind of care less, as I focus on article writing and cleanup, not admin-ish things like vandal hunting. Someone else nominated me. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ

Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Jeff Defender -- an invitation

I am really impressed by your detective skills.

At WikiProject Spam, we don't so much deal with petty one-off spam but rather complex, multi-article, sometimes involving as many as 50 different domains subtly spammed one link at a time over many months using lots of socks or IPs. Our work involves a lot of stuff like what you did on this sockpuppet case as well as off-wikipedia searching of related domains, comments made in linkspamming forums, etc.

You're probably busy with other priorities on Wikipedia for now, but when you have the time, I encourage you to check out the talk page (where all the real work occurs). In particular, take a look at the work of Hu12 and Requestion -- probably the two best at the sleuthing part.

Again, nice work on the sockpuppet case! --A. B. ^(talk) 12:44, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Interested. I'm not sure how much time I'd devote to it, all things considered, but there're definitely some "career spammers" on here. Even just on the billiards/pool articles I have to fend off the same spammerators under different usernames every few months. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 12:51, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Please don't move my vote again...

I put it under support for a reason. Read the hidden comment. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 00:52, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

WP:POINT. Why confuse the vote on purpose? — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 00:59, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

I try not to make WP:POINTs, but I freely admit to it here. He is a great user, RfA is largely broken, and my comment was meant to be a reflection of that. For any confusion, I genuinely apologize, and, in retrospect, I probably shouldn't have bugged you about moving the vote. You were only doing the logical thing. Sorry. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 12:29, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure we'll both live.  :-) I added a note below it that should prevent others from moving it again. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 22:47, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

ATT post

Regarding your recent post at ATT, you might find this recent afd debate interesting. Thanks again for the nomination:-)--Fuhghettaboutit 02:20, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Made note of this at WT:ATT. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 04:17, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Jeff Defender sock puppetry --- checkuser

I've went through the case and felt a checkuser is definitely needed, I've just filed it on Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Jeff Defender. Hopefully that will give the conclusion. Cheers! Wooyi^{Talk, Editor review} 04:22, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Arch Stanton

Hi there! No, Stanton is not a typical Norwegian name - and not my real name I must admit. I've taken the name from the best movie ever: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. It is the name on the grave next to the unknown grave where the treasure is buried, remember??

"Stone village" would translate to something like "Steinby" in Norwegian. Cheers, and happy editing! ArchStanton 17:21, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Ah! I haven't seen that movie since I was about 11, so I didn't remember! — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 23:53, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Something you may be interested in

Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Fuhghettaboutit Thanks. Xiner (talk) 01:59, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Just replace "Please allow me to serve as an additional nominator" with your paragraph(s) and remember to sign it. Xiner (talk) 02:19, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Um, sorry if I wasn't clear. Just go to the nomination page and replace the sentence after "Co-nomination:" with your paragraph(s). There's NO other procedure. Xiner (talk) 02:35, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, any questions? Xiner (talk) 02:46, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Oops, enjoy your dinner. Sorry! Xiner (talk) 02:47, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Hey! There's no rush. The nomination instructions provide:

"Finally, once the nomination has been accepted and the questions answered, the nominee should transclude it on the RfA page when they are ready for the RfA to begin. Alternatively, the candidate may ask the nominator to do so."

When you are ready, tell me and then we'll go live (I see no reason why it couldn't wait until tomorrow evening if that's better; it's late).--Fuhghettaboutit 02:47, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

It's not late for many people. The only reason I can think of is that some of the newer ones there will probably have been removed by then, thus freeing up people's attention. I still think you should go live now, though. Xiner (talk) 02:53, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

NB: I think the answers were well-crafted anyway. Any input I'd get in would just be twiddles, and a third party has already voted, so even if it's not listed, it's already been found. :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 02:55, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

I am ready to go live, just didn't want you to be rushed, but you posted lickety-split. Stanton, are you ready? By the way, if I haven't already made this clear, to the both of you: much appreciated.--Fuhghettaboutit 03:00, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Sho' thang. Let's do it. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 03:07, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Okay gonna go figure it out--probably just placing the name of the nom in template form into rfa page.--Fuhghettaboutit 03:10, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

RfA complicatedness

I don't know. A few things (lowercase names, mathbot, edit stats) already tripped me up. So no thank you. =P Xiner (talk) 02:57, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

I fixed a wrong username in the stats, but that's all that looked "off" to me.— SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 03:05, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I moved your comment back where it was. That's another pitfall of RfA's. You could of course add an exasperating note in your vote. Xiner (talk) 03:02, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Heh. No worries. I just thought it might look funky if the co-nom's vote came later. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 03:05, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism

i admit i have done sily vandalism on wikipedia, and i am sorry. But i have also made over 100 constructive edits on ip addressess and on the account user:cherhillsnow. I promise i will never vandalise wikipedia again and i will only make legit edits. [The previous unsigned message was posted by 86.129.220.77 (talk · contribs), 17:53, 9 April 2007 (UTC)]

Thank you; that would be a very good re-start as a Wikipedian. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 22:13, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, please dont contact BT. I am all good now. Cherhillsnow 13:55, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you

I know we haven't always seen eye to eye in the past, but I'm indebted to you for your help in my RfA in tracking down the Honda Pilot/Jeff Defender sockpuppets. Honda Pilot was obviously suspicious, but as an RfA candidate, I was powerless to make any accusations lest I be accused of harassing the opposers. Despite your personal reservations about me, you stepped forward to expose them and compiled an extremely detailed WP:SSP report. If you ever need help, don't hesitate to drop me a line. —dgies^t_c 20:09, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

		The Defender of the Wiki Barnstar
		Awarded to SMcCandlish for sleuthing out sockpuppets being used to subvert RfA. —dgiestc 20:05, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you right back!  :-) PS: Any criticism in your RfA is intended only and absolutely constructively. I'm sure you'll make a fine admin around here. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 20:58, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Holy...

Sorry, I just undeleted the rollback of my unintential protection of your userpage;-) Seriously, now that I have these buttons, I'm scared to get my cursor to close to the top o' me screen. Baby steps shall be my mantra for a little while. Well I said it before, but, thanks for the nom, the support, creating {{rp}}, inveighing with me against mean bot tagging, creating needed images, the arcane book comparisons, being a billiards fan...--Fuhghettaboutit 02:59, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

That's half of what I'm here for. >;-) G'luck with the Tools o' Doom. I'm sure they'll be familiar in no time. I was lucky for a while - someone made a great script that simulated a number of admin tools (including rollback), by excuting multiple manual actions in series w/o human interaction, as if they were one thing. Got used to it pretty quick. Then it went away. I guess it was perhaps too close a simulation... Couldn't do anything truly admin, like delete or protect pages, but it could nuke vandal edits, and even leave them vandal warnings, in about two clicks (one for the former alone). <sigh> I miss that. Rollback, rollback... Even simulated the good-faith rollback option. As for {{rp}} I'm surprised it didn't get attacked by some citation purism nazi (Godwin's law, dammit) eh... obsessive; looks like we may get to keep it. Sandbaggers suuuck. I was out at the Dragon Horn (my league team's host bar) for pool - just re-watched The Color of Money, so I was very in that mood. Beat this pretty good shot 5x in a row. Realized by game 7 he was totally sandbagging on me. Must be attempting to butter me up for money games next week or something. D'oh. I guess I should be proud I sussed him out, but I was feeling pretty good about the winning streak. Anyway congrats on your "everyone supports, except 4 irrational cranks" winning streak. >;-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 08:02, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

About control

I would like to say a few things about people trying to "control the debate". I know there are a few bossy editors here, but please hear me out, because I was also there, together with PMAnderson, I spent a few hours designing a poll with him that I think at least deserved more attention. It received 4 positive votes and nobody was vehemently objecting to it, had people had more patience it could have lead to some better solutions, so I'm also not all that pleased about the consensus process, but I don't see why you are opposed to this group now. Why don't you think WAS4.250 would be neutral, he voted first support, and then listening to what opposition people were saying suggested a compromise based on transclusion. I think that's a bad idea, but I like his willingness to listen. Also, I have seen him here, arguing against SlimVirgin with not exactly the kindest of words, finally Crum gave a third opinion, but as you can see WAS and SV were quite opposed to each other, but that WAS can argue strongly why still remain rational and civil I think makes him very useful on this committee, don't you think? --Merzul 23:33, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not opposed to the group. I'm opposed to any more shenanigans by SlimVirgin, Jossi and Jayjg in manipulating the perception and direction of the process away from balance. I don't buy the bit about WAS. He was a supporter. Like all supporters, and hopefully any opposers who wish to be part of the new process, he will be seeking compromise, so saying that he's moved form support to neutral because he proposed a compromise means that everyone nominated has to be classified as neutral. The classifications were drawn from the poll, not from present willingness to seek consensus. PS: Bossiness doesn't particularly bother me; I just ignore it. Some of these folks are going way beyond bossy. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:42, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

But the position WAS is taking is very much a compromise that no true ATT supporter should hold. Many people who proposed ATT are very much opposed to having V and NOR remaining, I'm myself not sure what would be the best solution, but WAS's position is for example heavily disputed by Marskell, who abhors any speech of keeping all 4 policies, and transclusion I think is just as bad. I see his position as a terrible compromise that undermines much of the merge's intention, ok, that was overstating it a bit, but it is not really a support for the merge. --Merzul 00:02, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Eh. I don't think anyone can rationally hold an extremist non-compromise position in the debate at all any longer, on either side. The entire thing is so farcical, I'm just backing away warily and going back to writing an encyclopedia. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:06, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

No, but one idea would be a better formulated ATT that would replace V and NOR. For example, giving more prominence to synthesis and stressing the need that attribution is verifiable, perhaps removing the sentence "not whether it is true", etc, BUT keeping it one single policy. Anyway, thanks for listening, and have fun with the real work :) --Merzul 01:19, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Sure, I'm not saying it won't work itself out; I have absolute faith that it will. What concerns me is the "triumvirate" trying so hard to steer it in one particular direction. It's not entirely about how many documents there will be in the end. I'm sure you see this. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:25, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank You

Thank you for the barnstar, very much appreciated :) - Nick C 12:16, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

See good work, throw star. Is Ninja way. <nod> — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 12:22, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

WPILT logo

Hello Stanton McCandlish. I've replaced WPILT logo.png in {{WPILT banner}} with inline text styled by inline styles. Do you have any objection to this, or to deleting the now-unused image? —{admin} Pathoschild 14:27:00, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

No problem, other than it is also used in {{User WPILT}}. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:05, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

ATT

You might want to reconsider Mikkalai's project, outlined here. As far as I can see, it doesn't have to be a competing committee (at least for a long time), just a few people trying to work for real consensus on what the existing policy pages say, and whether they can usefully adopt ATT's language. As for the bullies: if you want to write up an RfC, I will endorse it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:55, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Re: M's thing, I'll look into it in more detail, but I'm getting weary of policy debates at this point. Re and RfC, see last sentence. :-) If things continue to worsen, I'd consider it, though. I was already approached once by someone wanting to file an RfC on SlimVirgin, but I really didn't come here to fight. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:28, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

If you don't want to file an RfC, so much the better. I may not find the incentive to do so myself; my offer stands, however. I will let you know if a project gets underway. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:42, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Re:RMB

Thanks! I haven't actually been running much with snooker articles for the past few weeks, partly due to holidays and time away from WP. What time I have had I have been investing it in modelling a 3D snooker table, (unfinished WIP render), partly for my own enjoyment, but I am also sure some renders of it can be put to good use in wikipedia articles at pertinent places! SFC9394 17:55, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

That's pretty cool! Could indeed come in handy for illustrating glossary terms and stuff, if the balls can be moved around and the scene re-rendered easily. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:25, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Just about finished. Yeah the balls can all be moved about, and render times are only a couple of minutes for 800x600. I kind of had inspiration for it when I saw Image:Chinese snooker.svg - thinking that it would be useful to create versions in 3D for various setups/situations to help explain things better. SFC9394 11:29, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject New Mexico

I have just been bold and kicked the tires on this thing, let's see if she rolls. And god you made me hungry for posole dammit. Not going to drive down there today in the snow. Chris 18:03, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

As you may have noticed I stepped up and got active with it. PS: If you can find it (some groceries in the SW carry it, dried in clear plastic bags with paper tops, like the Mexican spices and stuff), look for blue corn posole. It is smaller and more al dente than the regular kind, and must be cooked longer, but the results are stellar, and it can be successfully frozen if you make a big batch (the regular white-hominy kind turns into goop if you freeze and thaw it). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:14, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

User categories

I agree 100% that all user categories should be renamed to actually be of encyclopedic use (i.e. change all "who likes", "who listens to", "who supports", etc.) in the long run, but I think it should be done in group noms. Nominating a single category like Category:Wikipedians who use Google is very likely to fail, but making a group nom called something like "Category:Wikipedians by website and all subcategories" has a decent chance of succeeding. Most people at UCFD, including myself, value consistency among user category names even if we disagree with the currently established naming convention, and are not likely to support renames of individual categories if the rename goes against the current (even if unofficial) naming conventions. I highly recommend going with group nominations, or I doubt you will get anything accomplished. VegaDark 09:05, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Just trying to get the ball rolling. I'm effectively managing 2.5 (as it were) active WikiProjects and I don't have all that much time for XfD championing. I totally agree with you that massive multi-noms are needed, I just don't think I'm in a position to do them myself. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:10, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Hey again. Just thought you might want to read (and perhaps comment) on this. VegaDark 10:34, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedians_who_support_F.C._Copenhagen

Thanks for your contribution at Wikipedia:User_categories_for_discussion#Category:Wikipedians_who_support_F.C._Copenhagen. I've responded to your suggestion there. --Dweller 12:16, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

I'll go take a look. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 14:48, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Good work!

		The E=mc² Barnstar
		Awarded for your tireless work on articles relating to the field of pigmentation. Rockpocket 09:23, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Why, thank you! Is this in reference to the Category:Pigment disorders stuff, or the work on Albinism and related articles? — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:27, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I've followed your significant contributions to the albinism article for a long while and, on investigation yesterday, noticed your excellent work on related articles. So a bit of both, I guess. Rockpocket 19:06, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Commons:Category:Albinism

"Siamfarbenes means: color looks like that of a Siamese (cat). The mutation is incomplete dominant de:Marderkaninchen have one Copy of the gene and the de:Siamesenkaninchen has two copys. Kersti Nebelsiek 12:13, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Updated the English version. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 12:38, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Category:Time and date maintenance templates

Hi SMcCandlish,

I see a category Category:Temporal templates. Do you think Category:Time and date maintenance templates should be moved into it?

P.S. It looks like both you and I are categorizing templates this evening. If you want me to stop until you are finished, please let me know. Thank you.

--Kevinkor2 04:56, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

That sounds good, though I guess both should be examined to make sure their purposes aren't subtly different; I remain skeptical that they would be, and a CFD seems like a good idea. They do serve different purposes! The former is a cat. for future and specific-year type templates (in general); the latter is for time-related maint. templates.

PS: Nah, I don't see that we're overlapping any other than on one template (see CFD under speedy; moving to rename Cat:To do templates to Cat:To do list templates which is what the cat is really for. The others can all go in cleanup/dispute/etc.) Also created a new Cat:Request templates for the items cleanup/disputes that are for talk pages instead of article pages, just to keep them separate (needs infobox, needs photo, etc. Anyway, I think I'm done for the night other than "processing" the last two newly-found inliners.

— SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:04, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Alex Higgins

Stanton,

I can't get a reference in the above article to work. It's the one that relates to the amount of money Higgins is supposed to have squandered. Can you see what the error is and fix it, or let me know and I'll do it?

Sorry for my lack of expertise but, for the life of me, I cannot see what I'm doing wrong. Thanks, bigpad 07:53, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Just needed <references /> in the ==References== section. :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 15:12, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Great! Sometimes a guardian angel isn't a bad idea after all. bigpad 18:32, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

BTW, that website where you can't get the real URL to the page: Please tell me the name of the site and if you can find the page again, copy-paste some signficant and likely unique text from the page, so that I can use Google's site search to find the page. I can probably figure out how to get a real, direct URL out of that; I'm pretty good with such geekery. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:04, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

I've located it ok now Stanton and page updated accordingly. That site uses frames, which I haven#t seen for some times. bigpad 22:56, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi Bigpad and SMcCandlish,

Here is a trick I picked up with Internet Explorer to get the URL of a frame:

1. Right-click on an empty space in the pane.
   • A popup menu appears.
2. Choose "Properties" from the popup menu.
   • A properties dialog box appears.
   • The properties dialog box will have a field called "Address" which contains a URL.
   • The URL will start with "http".
3. Right-click on "http". Choose "Select all" from the popup menu.
   • The entire URL will be highlighted.
4. Right-click again on "http". Choose "Copy" from the popup menu.
   • The entire URL will be copied to the clipboard.

Enjoy! --Kevinkor2 06:47, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Matrona

My comment would have been more transparent if edit summaries supported italics: "Matrona doesn't derive from Matrona, it is Matrona". A bit of context: For many Celtic religion articles, a user had added 'etymology' sections with absurdly contorted language (along with over-linking, original research, and red-herring external links). As a result, many of these articles were dominated by long sections that actually said very little – or, in this case, alleged that a name was derived from itself (à la I'm My Own Grandpa). Cheers, Q·L·1968 ☿ 08:10, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I get you. And agree that there is some pretty strange junk in some of these articles. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 15:13, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

List of World Eight-ball Champions

Hi, would you be able to do that split you talked about? I am unsure how to, or what you mean by, a disambiguation page for this article. Normally these pages are used for duplications? And like you said, eight-ball and blackball are considerably different? Sandman30s 14:12, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

I'll add it to WP:CUETODO. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 15:15, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Added. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:03, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Stub templates

Should all stub templtes incorporate a break as illustrated in Skippy (1931 film)? Rich Farmbrough, 20:51 21 April 2007 (GMT).

That one was weird. Someone had put a forced line-break at the top of the stub template itself; I've fixed that and fixed the article to be consistent with usage in most other cases. There are now two blank lines (in the article, not the stub tag; this spacing need is documented at WP:STUB, or was last time I looked), between the stub tag and everything that precedes it. There are probably a few other stub tags with hardcoded <br />'s in them that need to have this removed. Someday when WP:WSS gets around to it, we can use a bot to fix the spacing problem in the templates themselves and use another bot to remove the double-spacing in the articles, so the more consistently they are presently and henceforth used the better, since any exceptions will need to be dealt with manually. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 21:09, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh, "Mr. Clever" was you! No offense intended. Anyway, I have cleaned up every article used by that stub for spacing issues (there were a lot more of them than just with regard to that stub tag actually; someone working on those article has no idea that putting 5 blank lines in wiki text actually has a spacing effect in the article! D'oh.) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:26, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

PS: Actually, the spacing is no longer mentioned at WP:STUB; not sure why, since the issue has certainly not been fixed in the stub template code. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)›

PPS: Restored that to WP:STUB. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 21:39, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Hey Stanton! I'm not sure where this discussion started so I'm having trouble following it, but since I created {{Joseph L. Mankiewicz Films}} (the template you had to move the spacing of), and will likely create many more such templates, can you explain what I should keep in mind when placing them in articles in close proximity to stub tags?--Fuhghettaboutit 21:43, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

It was the stub tag itself. Stubs templates all (when using standard stub tag code) have a spacing problem in that they need to have 2 blank lines in the article between the stub tag and whatever preceded it. In the case of Template:1930s-comedy-film-stubs someone thought they'd be "clever" and put a hardcoded linebreak at the top of it, which I removed, so I'm not going though all articles in that stubcat and fixing the spacing. Had nothing to do with your film nav template at all. From what I can tell, nav templates (if using standardized code) should all have a blank line before them (unless preceded by another nav tag) and one after (i.e. before categories) unless followed by another nav tag. I.e., you didn't break anything. :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:01, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Great. Thanks for the explanation. Just wanted to make sure. You're my "go to guy" for template issues.--Fuhghettaboutit 23:36, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

No worries. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:27, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

IIRC AWB used to put two blank lines before the first stub. However my point above (in my usual (overly) shorthand) was that it wold be better to change the (c.3,552) stub templates than the hiundred thousand plus articles which use them, and we could then remove one instruction the general editors workload (negative instruction creep!). Rich Farmbrough, 06:58 22 April 2007 (GMT).

WPBA NC event

Fuhghettaboutit, did you catch the 3 hours of WPBA action on ESPN-2 today? Schweet. And it's actually from this year. I couldn't believe it. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:27, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

You're talking about the Xiao-Ting Pan, Ga-Young Kim match and the semifinals? I have "billiards" on my DVR queue. Watched that one last week.:-) I was in Master billiards in Queens about two years ago and in walked Ga Young Kim. No one knew who she was and she played a very good player, Tommy Walters, and beat him for the cash. We all thought Jeeze, we'll be seeing her soon, and sure enough.... It's such a shame the men can't get it together. Don't get me wrong, I like watching the women, but (and I'm not being sexist, just stating a fact that has been flogged to death in Billiard magazines as to why) the men are so much better overall. I'm pretty sick of seeing three or four women, three balls better than any of their nearest competition, always in the finals. By the way, I just noticed your uncyclopedia edit. HA!.--Fuhghettaboutit 01:33, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, the Pan/Kim match. Didn't realized it was on last week or would've watched it then. As for the men, yeah, it'd be really awesome to have good coverage of the WPA Men's World Nine-ball Championship. Uncyc: Yeah, I just thought it would be funny to mix in pool stuff in the swimming pool place, since "by right" the unarticle there should surely be about the game. Heh. The Wanderone quote is for real, too. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 02:43, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Template abuse

Could you explain to me how this works, what effect would a abuse warning on the template have, and how would one go about asking for one.--padraig3uk 21:14, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Just something like {{Warning}} at the top of the template page documentation. It wouldn't affect the template at all, but would be prominent to anyone looking at the template. It would not stop all abuse, since people use these templates without reading up on them of course, but if it specified that the template should not be used to represent NIR outside of specific contexts, it gives good ammunition to prevent editwarring to restore abuse of the template when it is removed from inappropriate articles (i.e. use an edit summary like "Rm. 1953-1972 NI govt. flag, per flag template's documentation." I think this should be proposed just below the previous discussion, since Template talk:Country data Northern Ireland isn't going to be watchlisted by many editors, even from the Flag Template project. You could also just be bold and go do it (if you understand how noinclude/includeonly work); I'm skeptical that anyone could have a legitimate disagreement with such a warning. But a short discussion about what it should say is probably a Good Thing, so I'd go the talk page proposal route at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Flag Template. The warning should also go in the dox for any deprecated or stand-alone alias templates, like {{NIR}}. Hope that helps. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 21:29, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, that gives me a better understanding of the process. I would rather discuss the issue on the wording rather then going the be bold route, as I don't want to risk messing up the template, nor am I sure which template actually contains the icon, as many templates seem to link to others.--padraig3uk 21:41, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

The "master" template for the NIR flag, regardless which of the flag icon (country name, country abbreviation, flag only, etc.) is called, is documentation, but as noted there are some lingering stand-alone templates of this sort such as Template:NIR. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 21:43, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

I will have ago in my sandbox at making a {{Warning}} using the abc points from the other discussion, and will post you a link when I have done so, to see what you think before I post it into the Template:Country data Northern Ireland talk page for discussion on the wording, thanks again for your help.--padraig3uk 21:57, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Cool, though again: I think this should be proposed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Flag Template just below the previous discussion, since Template talk:Country data Northern Ireland isn't going to be watchlisted by many editors, even from the Flag Template project. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 22:09, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

This is a rough idea User:Padraig3uk/Sandbox what do you think.--padraig3uk 22:18, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Do I have to vote seperately in that or is the fact I proposed it taken as a vote.--padraig3uk 23:49, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Nah, being the proponent means you support it. :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:54, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Can you see now why I wanted to do this, some of them are just determined to push their own POV on this matter.--padraig3uk 21:57, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Certainly. What I find most disturbing is that the parties in question are so mired in this debate (perhaps it is one of their favorite fighting-about topics) that they cannot recognize that we are not pushing the other side of the debate at all, simply noting that the debate exists and that WP has to deal with it by preventing partisan use of the flag. <sigh>. Ultimately I chalk that up to my own inability to get the point across better, I guess. At any rate, I think the proposal at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Flag Template is doomed, but that Wikipedia:Don't overuse flags will eventually sort it out. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 22:04, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

The problem as I see it is that a small number of editors have in the past been able to dominate NI issues on WP and this has allowed the widespread use of the flag to happen, now that the issue is being challenged they are getting defensive of their position, and refuse to accept logic, it took six months to get the flag removed from the Northern Ireland Infobox, and into the main article, yet they are still arguing for it to be put back.--padraig3uk 22:13, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

If it gets any worse, it may need to be taken to WP:RFC as a first stage dispute resolution (some day it could end up at WP:ARBCOM but I would avoid that at nearly-all costs if possible.) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 22:16, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

One of the editors did WP:RFC on the Northern Ireland page over the infobox to try and stop us removing the flag, they were told that if there was no offical flag then none should be used.--padraig3uk 23:27, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm in the midst of a necessarily fast-moving dispute resolution over at Talk:World Snooker Championship 2007#Dispute. Could you take the time to dig up that specific RFC page? I believe it would come in very, very handy. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:43, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I will try and find it, the request was placed here Talk:Northern_Ireland#Request_for_Comment:Infobox to which it recieved a number of replies, I will try and dig out the RFC page for it.--padraig3uk 23:55, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I found it here Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Politics dated 4th April 2007, about halfway downthe list.--padraig3uk 00:06, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Thx. I've added a comment to it, since the RFC remains open. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:17, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Re: Snooker

I changed it so that the word image and the size did not need to be entered into the article. Most infoboxs are done like this. Buc 17:49, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

The size isn't mandatory. The way this one is being done is a step forward, and needs to be taken further, so that the "|caption=" line can go away as well. [[Image]] already handles these parameters for us, and everyone knows how to use them already; infoboxes should not be reinventing the wheel on a level like that. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 17:52, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Stub

Er... would you please calm down? I said "wtf" in a light-hearted manner. Meaning: "Wtf? Why is this here twice? Editors who didn't notice eachother, maybe?", I didn't mean it as an offense. Do you actually mean that information should be mentioned twice in the same paragraph? Because that wouldn't make a lot of sense, would you agree? --Sn0wflake 02:14, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

D'oh! I totally didn't even notice that it was in there twice. The edits by someone else, I think Grutness, after your concisifying of the sentence moved it, and it looked like it'd been deleted when I skimmed the changes too fast, so I "restored" it. Gaaahhh... Sorry I bit your ankle here. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 02:52, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Happens to us all every once in a while. ;) Hope to see ya around the project's page. Regards, --Sn0wflake 03:11, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Great idea

It's as useful as the WikiThanks flower, but I can use it for things that aren't directly related to me (whereas I use the flower for things I've benefited from). I've already given one within an hour of seeing it mentioned on your user page. Λυδαcιτγ 02:59, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Heh. Thanks! I guess I should add it to the barnstars list in the "personal awards" section. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 03:02, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Anthony Hamilton (snooker player)

When I first started watching snooker on the BBC back in the mid 1990's Hamilton was frequently referred to as 'the machine' by the MC and by the commentators. As far as I can see in the article none of the nicknames have been attributed to a reliable source and I for one have not heard all of them mentioned on the BBC snooker coverage. I feel 'the machine' is as valid as any of the other names used, maybe if someone involved in writing the article knows Anthony this could be confirmed, along with the other nicknames. Also i did not intentionally change my IP address, I am on a wired network with multiple computers which i am informed is what causes it to change.

The Article on Anthony is merely a stub and I was seeking to expand it, if only a little. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 212.139.20.252 (talk) 16:25, 24 April 2007 (UTC).

The fact that there are unsourced details in an article is no reason to add more of them (it's the "if O.J. can get away with murder why can't I" theme. :-) Even a year ago WP was sloppy about sourcing, but the strong trend today is to resist the addition of more unsourced material, and focus on sourcing the existing material, or the encyclopedia will never be reliable. The old idea of just "throw it now, source it later" is simply unworkable.

The problem in Hamilton's case, to get back on point, is that of all of the tens of millions of web pages and PDF files in the world that Google can find, not one of them uses this nickname for him. Even a credible website like WorldSnooker would be fine as a source, but there's just no source. Try Googling for:

"Anthony Hamilton" "the Machine" snooker -Wikipedia -Rage

(the -Rage is to get rid of false positives that refer to the band Rage Againt the Machine; and -Wikipedia because WP can't source itself.) There's just nothing relevant at all. I'll add the alleged nickname to the talk page, and note that it needs sourcing, and maybe someone with some older snooker magazines or something can do so. Sounds like a good compromise. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 17:01, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, sounds a good compromise I agree to it since you have been very reasonable. But isnt that possibly open to abuse if someone simply stated they had such a magazine and used it to source something incorrect? I realise its unlikely here but maybe with the more famous players or especially in more popular sports. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 212.139.20.252 (talk) 17:16, 24 April 2007 (UTC).

Paper sources are generally not problematic because they can usually be verified at libraries if all else fails. WP:RS offers some guidance. Just because it's on dead trees doesn't automatically make it a good source - my (hypothetical) self-published book Hilter Had Two Brains for example, wouldn't be a reliable source for anything but me being nutty. But newspapers and magazines with significant distributions aren't generally problematic. And yes, PoV-pushing kooks do sometimes blatantly lie about what a source says or even make up a source that doesn't exist. These are usually found out pretty quickly at least in articles with any significant editorship. Overall we assume good faith here; 99.99% of the time source citations are for real (though maybe only 95% of the time sufficiently accurate; people do check sources to make sure that WP article facts being attributed to that source are actually what the source said). Editors who are acting disruptively are rarely able to hide this fact for long, and if someone is consistently a problem editor in one place, it tends to call into question all of their contributions for an extra level of scrutiny. I often check users' contribution histories for additional problems to fix if I see them making bad edits (especially over the repeated objections and warnings of others), and plenty of other editors do this as well.

PS: You should sign your posts on talk pages with four tildes at the end (~~~~) or you'll keep having "The preceding unsigned comment was added by..." stuff appended to your posts by the signature bot (this is not a good thing; it marks an editor as a newbie or careless. :-)

— SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 17:36, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Jeff Defender

Thank you for the notice. Although the uninsured driver thing was inconclusive, at least we proved something. Anyways, as long as the Jeff Defender and his socks stay inactive in RFA, things will be fine. Wooyi^{Talk, Editor review} 19:34, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, my concern is that the real person behind this probably has 20 sock puppets used for various forms of PoV pushing, disruption, RfA screwing-around, bad faith nominations and arguments in XfD, and attempts to influence blocking & username policy, among other things. There's interesting but highly inconclusive evidence that is it old Willy On Wheels. I also have a personal interest in seeing justice done in this case; not my primary motivation, but it is enough of one that I'm not simply going to forget about it. I recognize this user's patterns pretty well and will be watching RfAs and such for new socks. And thanks for the smile!  :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 19:39, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Steve Davis/Jimmy White

Stanton, you have an "attribution needed" notice against the first para. of the White article, re his being 'considered' one of the most popular players ever" yet the Davis article has nothing against the claim that he is 'considered' one of the most successful players ever. Do you see any problems with this?

If we were to add that, from the crowds that attend White's matches and exhibitions, he is widely 'considered' .... or that, based on his world title and other championship wins, Davis is widely considered......, how would that fit in with Wiki policy? bigpad 08:26, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Davis needs one too. Such terminology is called "weasel words"; assertions of the form "widely considered", "many say", "a small but vocal minority", "critics have insisted" etc., that do not specify who they are talking about appear to the incautious reader to be meaningful, but really aren't since they generally can't be verified. In other cases it constitutes "peacock terms": assertion of greatness rather than demonstration of it by citing facts that illustrate greatness.

Two common solutions for this problem are: Directly quote an external and plausibly reliable source, such as a snooker magazine, saying that the player is "widely considered" thus-and-such, or quote its reader poll results stating that player-and-so is in fact the most popular. It's hard to challenge that. Or replace it with something more verifiable and meaningful, such as "was inducted into the British Sports Hall of Fame in (year), and a month later was named Player of the Year by Magazine Name". Thirdly and even more along that more subtle line, cite verifiable sources as to event turnout or other factors that indicate that a player is popular, or cite sports statistics ("seven-time World Champion, with a record 56 ranking tournament wins") that demonstrate that the player is at the top of the field, but never actually state it. Our readers are pretty smart and can take a hint. It's very tempting to have article label the most popular, best, and legendary players "a crowd favorite", "one of the world's finest", and "a living legend", but this is magazine language, not encyclopedia language. The problem is especially common in sports and rock music articles.

Two good examples (last I looked at them) of encyclopedic language would be Irving Crane and Walter Lindrum. In the non-snooker cue sports article, these are probably our best Featured Article candidates so far (in snooker, I'm suspecting Steve Davis will eventually get there after more "magazine" cleanup, and if someone really starts digging for additional life-story facts, Joe Davis would be get there too. Paul Hunter has potential as well, since sports heroes who die young get written about a lot (i.e. there's a wealth of citable source material). And of course Stephen Hendry has a perpetual top ranker is probably worth focusing on and raising to Good Article status as soon as possible.

— SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 15:35, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Stub tags spacing

This has nothing to do with my personal AWB scripts - it's a built-in feature of AWB. If you're unhappy about it, plesse raise on the AWB discussion page. Colonies Chris 07:59, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Argh. Will do, and sorry for the false alarm. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 08:00, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Cuegloss "process"

I've been trying to instill some procedure into Glossary of cue sports terms. We're kind of getting to the point where this article needs to be sourced to hell-and-back or it'll become an AfD target, and we're also getting to the point where more than just two editors are interested in it. I'd like to suggest that henceforth new additions (and deletions, and major entry re-writes) be proposed in the relevant "proposals" talk sections. I'm committing to using them myself. While I think for the short term it's going to be three to five editors paying any attention at all, it's still a good start toward establishing some form of process to avoid later accusations along the lines of WP:OWN, a concern I've had for some time now (based on some really nasty AfD action I've observed starting around last Nov.) Disclaimer: I also have some nitpicks about your latest round of additions, and would rather have talked them out, and would rather now talk them out, than go in and do a bossy revert, which even a month ago I probably would have. >;-) The point being, I think the profile has very recently become high enough with that article that some slower consensus-seeking vs. faster WP:BOLD wikihaviour is probably called for now. Thoughts? — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:57, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

PS: A radically different way of putting this is also that about once every couple of months we get a noob come in and add/change/delete stuff like mad, and I think part of this is because there's little evidence of any process on the talk page, and a big pile of "do what thou willt" evidence to the contrary. That needs to change or things are going get really messy-like next time this happens. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 10:02, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

If you want to talk about the recent additions, fire away. I don't delve into reference books for the terms I suggest I'm afraid, they're usually just things I've picked up from extensive playing experience and from TV commentary I hear, and find it's usually difficult to reference them. I appreciate the sentiments re: proposing them first on the talk page though, and will try to remember that. I'm really nothing more than casually interested in Wikipedia, as you may be able to tell from my user page, I'm just someone who plays pool in his spare time and looks at dead deep-sea animals buried in rocks the rest of the time, someone who looks at them so hard that people are going to call me a doctor because of it. An abstract existence. So I've never taken it upon myself to get bogged down with all the procedures, programming sides of it, etc. I'll certainly do my best to make it easier for you avid "Wikipedians" though, and appreciate your letting me know when I could've done so. Kris 11:10, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

PS: The World Snooker Championships are on at the moment, extensively covered by the BBC in the UK, which may cause an influx of more noobs. Just a warning. Kris 11:11, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

On a related note. I am still committed to sourcing each and every entry. I've just been lazy recently and doing admin tasks and learning admin tasks so my focus has been a bit different as a noob all over again. You realize, btw, that this glossary, if ultimately sourced with inline citations from stem to stern, will I think be the only one of its kind on Wikipedia?--Fuhghettaboutit 11:30, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Re: Huh?

Just you know, the username Klp88 was blocked indefinitely due to the reasons stated in WP:RFCN. Spellcast 12:18, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Double-spacing

Nope, and has me a bit puzzled too. I'm provisionally chalking it up to me doing too sleepy to notice that AWB was doing that, and more to the point, wasn't even doing any stub-retagging (d'oh). Alai 18:48, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

The Mysterious Case of the Haunted AutoWikiBrowser. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 18:51, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Snooker World Championship 2007

You did a good job last night. 88.104.4.186 18:55, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. :-) Are you User:88.104.21.47 from last night? — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 19:37, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, and no doubt with a different IP address again. 88.104.86.114 00:44, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Your edits to Trevor Ringland

Please do not ignore http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ireland_national_rugby_union_team#Flags_and_shamrocks when making edits to Irish rugby player articles. ThanksWeejack48 22:38, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't "ignoring" anything; I've never even seen that thread, and given that it is very short and represents few opinions, I don't see that it's indicative of any sort of a consensus. But I don't care what flag is used for such articles, really. I'm not pushing a POV, just doing formatting. Shamrock it is then. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 02:46, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Your edit to the NFC criteria

Rather than tweaking the existing wording, please have a look at the draft new wording, and comment if you wish. See talk page. Tony 00:03, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

What's NFC again? I looked at WP:NFC, but I've never edited that. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 02:45, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Liam Neeson article

I think that image you removed from the Liam Neeson article was suppose to be there. Wikipedia:Fromowner documentation states that that image "should be placed on articles about people that have no current free image". So you probably shouldn't have removed it, since it is suppose to be there. 70.17.153.232 04:49, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

This "Fromowner" stuff is a two-author random idea from last month, that has no consensus whatsoever, has not been through the formal Proposal process, is so disused it doesn't even have a talk page, and is in direct contravention of WP:SELF, a very long-standing Wikipedia Guideline. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:24, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

It seems that the "Fromowner" stuff is pretty wide spread. also take a look at Wikipedia talk:Fromowner. Also, take a look at the list of articles that use that use that image: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Image:Replace_this_image1.svg&redirect=no. That image is used on hundreds of articles, including many major articles and seems pretty widly used.70.17.153.232 05:39, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

I have. Wikipedia:Fromowner is not a guideline either, and has never been Proposed; it's simply random "my personal idea" nonsense that belongs in Userspace until such time as it has been proposed, debated, fixed, and then maybe becomes and actual guideline. The fact that its proponents have spammed it's bogus image to several hundred articles (which is nothing; there are over 1.5 million articles in the English Wikipedia alone) does not affect anything about this issue. And read the talk page yourself, please. You will note that it has been objected to by others. I'm not sure why you personally feel so invested in this, but I can virtually guarantee you that both of those related page will show up at WP:MFD pretty soon and will not survive. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:47, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't feel personally invested in it. I saw what appeared to be a policy that says the image is suppose to be there, and a list of hundreds of articles that use it (including some pretty major articles) and assumed it to be an official policy, and therefore attempted to follow it by placing the image back. If it's not an actual policy, then alright, I'll remember that. 70.17.153.232 06:04, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Where have you seen anyone say this is a policy or guideline? They should not be saying that. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 06:08, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, Wikipedia policies usually have the "Wikipedia:" thing in the namespace, so since this "fromowner" thing is at Wikipedia:Fromowner documentation, with "Wikipedia:" in the namespace, and it seems to describe itself as a policy, so the natural conlusion would be that it is official, that and the fact that it is being used on hundreds of articles makes it seem like a ligitimate policy. However, obviously I was mistaken, and know better now. 70.17.153.232 06:16, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

That's definitely an unsafe assumption. Unless it has a policy header at the top of it (as at WP:NPA) or a guideline one (as at WP:N), it's simply a WP:ESSAY It should have an essay tag on it already, but anyway if you see a Wikipedia:-namespace page that doesn't specifically say it is a policy or guideline, then it isn't one. Hope that helps. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 06:21, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

I guess you're right. I'll keep an eye out for the policy header thing in the future. 70.17.153.232 06:35, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Fromowner

Surely we're all allowed to change our mind and think again. Geni's protect reason is giving me second thought. Where exactly is this template used- I've never seen it... WjBscribe 06:19, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Wasn't saying you can't, was just asking why. Anyway, there's zero evidence to date that there is any "new upload system" that this is part of. It's being used to put WP:SELF-transgressing upload exhortations and instructions into the infobox "|image=" lines of hundreds of bio articles, with Image:Replace this image1.svg. And Geni is not in a position to protect his own little one-person project. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 06:24, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I'm starting to see now- Image:Replace this image1.svg is being added to articles and it redirects to Wikipedia:Fromowner. Might it be better if I just tagged it for MfD and then you can write the nomination? WjBscribe 06:27, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Works for me. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 06:28, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Excellent, done... WjBscribe 06:30, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Does this mean you're a co-nominator, or are you just effectively fulfilling an informal editprotected on my part? — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 06:35, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

I see it more as fulfilling an editprotected request. But I'm likely to support your nomination... WjBscribe 07:09, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Noted. Should be up in about 2 minutes. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 07:20, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Done. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 20:18, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Linkification

Please note that the above project page is currently being proposed for deletion. The discussion is taking place at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Linkification, if you would wish to take part in the discussion. Thank you. John Carter 01:04, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Done. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 20:18, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

User categories

Hey - In regards to our previous discussion on group noms to change naming conventions, I thought you might be interested in this UCFD i started. VegaDark 03:45, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Done. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 20:18, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Working Group - Trying to start a discussion

I've suggested getting the Working Group together at Wikipedia_talk:Attribution/Working_Group to start talking about any potential compromise on the attribution policy issue. Perahaps you can add the page to your watchlist. I have also mentioned this page in the community discussion, so there is public awareness of this discussion. Hopefully you will be willing to participate. Thanks. zadignose 19:00, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Done. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 20:18, 30 April 2007 (UTC)