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March 2024

Feedback request: Resisting AI

Hi, done some work on the page, added more reviews, noted your kind edits, would you please give a second look. I sincerely think this work is noticeable and feed into a very present discussion on AI; the book is very opinionated, and perhaps this is the reason why its Wikipedia page reads as opinionated, though I did my best to maintain a neutral point of view. Thanks Andrea Saltelli Saltean (talk) 17:33, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

@Saltean: I worked it over a bit more, and removed most of the cleanup tags, since the tone has vastly improved. But nothing's going to resolve the notability issue when most of the sourcing is interviews and non-notable websites written by random schmoes, and what's not is mostly rote reviews that don't indicate the work has lasting significance. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 19:37, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

MOS:Bio query - naming UK High Court judges in ancillary articles

Hey,

Does WP:MOSBIO have any guidance on how we name UK High Court justices in articles outside of their respective biographies? I'm currently working on rescuing a draft where it's necessary to make reference to a High Court ruling and the judge who issued it. The sources about the ruling itself all describe the judge as Mr Justice <name>. I can't quite tell if this is something that's covered by MOS:JOBTITLE or an odd application of MOS:CREDENTIAL, or if there's some other more specific guidance elsewhere. Have you any inklings on this? Sideswipe9th (talk) 20:03, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

@Sideswipe9th: That would be a CREDENTIAL matter + MOS:HONORIFICS and MOS:MR. WP doesn't use Mr[.], Mrs[.], Ms[.], Mx[.] (or foreign equivalents like French M./Mssr., Mme., Mlle.) in any manner like this^[*] (some newspapers do it, including various British ones as well as The New York Times, as an old-fashioned-ism). "Justice Gwynneth Knowles" or whatever would be appropriate, when it's necessary to indicate that they're a justice, but after that's established, just "Knowles" would usually work. (That said, all or almost all of these persons are Sir/Dame also, and whether use that in any particular construction is often subject to some debate. It doesn't seem conventional to write "Mrs. Justice Dame Gynneth Knowles" for whatever reason, and "Dame"/"Sir" is only ever used when first name is present, so not "Dame Knowles"). US and other figures are treated the same way with regard to the judidical titles, e.g. "Chief Justice John Roberts", thereafter just "Roberts".
[^* The exception is of course when "Mr." or whatever isn't being used in its normal way and is forming part of a proper name, like the bands Mr. Bungle and Mr. Mister, or the song title "Mrs. Robinson". But the speaker of the US House of Representatives is "job-titled" here as Speaker Mike Johnson not Mr. Speaker Mike Johnson, though the latter is the conventionalized way for him to be addressed by other legislators when in session.]

I think what's happening here is also that people confuse forms of address used when writing to people or introducing them at a function, with how to write about them in the third person. Thus you can sometimes run into things like "the Rt Hon. Alex Crabapple" in running text, despite HONORIFICS saying not to do that. Should just be fixed when encountered without making a big deal out of it, unless someone's going around doing this all over the place, then they need to be pointed at the guideline and asked to stop.

There's a closely related problem in which some editors from WP:PEERAGE and WP:ROYALTY have gone around in a WP:FAITACCOMPLI manner, misusing (over numerous objections) the |name= parameter of {{infobox officeholder}} or {{infobox person}} to hold an honorific form of address that is neither the name nor how the person would normally be written about in third person, but how they would be addressed in a letter or when introduced at a speaking engagement. See, e.g., Gwynneth Knowles, Margaret Thatcher, David Cameron, etc. This is confusing to readers and editors alike, and not even really encyclopedic information, since virtually zero of our readers need to write a letter to David Cameron, and even if they did, WP is not advice on the etiquette of how to best do that (though the form of direct address arguably might be coverable somewhere in the article on the general sort of title). The only way to resolve that mess is probably going to be with a VPPOL-level RfC. I don't relish it, because it's going to be yet another instance of topical specialists in conflict with general MoS rules, and that almost always leads to heat and drama. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 21:02, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

"Justice Gwynneth Knowles" or whatever would be appropriate, when it's necessary to indicate that they're a justice, but after that's established, just "Knowles" would usually work. Awesome, I'll make that change in a moment.

It might be helpful if some direct guidance on this could be added somewhere in the MOS? It's not clear from the plain reading of CREDENTIAL or HONORIFICS how to handle this specific type of name (UK High Court justices) in practice. Quite a lot of them tend to be allowed to use The Honourable or The Right Honourable honorifics, and while those are generally excluded outside of their own biographies it's unclear how that also interacts with the Justice title. Sideswipe9th (talk) 21:13, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

In theory MoS could be clearer on this, though it may take a little research. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 05:51, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Feedback request: Religion and philosophy request for comment

Done

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Feedback request: Wikipedia technical issues and templates request for comment

Disregard

– Only relevant to iPhone users; I'm an Android beast.

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Books & Bytes – Issue 61

The Wikipedia Library: Books & Bytes
Issue 61, January – February 2024

Bristol University Press and British Online Archives now available
1Lib1Ref results

Read the full newsletter

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Nomination for deletion of Template:Lang-ang/doc

Done

Template:Lang-ang/doc has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. Gonnym (talk) 08:42, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Reminder

Per this AE report you are formally reminded to remain civil in MOS discussions, that you remain under sanction, and that civility applies everywhere on Wikipedia. I expect that if you end up at AE again the result will be significantly more severe. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 23:45, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

@ScottishFinnishRadish: Noted, but please beware of presumtion of guilt, which your notice is heavily laced with. Anyone may "end up at" AE, AN[I], or any other noticeboard, with various accusations made against them which may not be true.

In particular, in this case I demonstrated that while I had displayed some civility issues, many of the accusations were false, especially with regard to "assuming bad faith", which I provably did not do, and which is what my sanction actually pertains to, not incivililty. "Assuming bad faith" and "incivility" are not in any way synonymous. I would expect that an AE admin would understand all of this deeply and clearly. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 01:55, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

@ScottishFinnishRadish: I find it rather concerning, in a WP:ADMINACCT way, that after you posted above what amounts to an unreasonable threat to use administrative powers in response to me ever simply being accused of something again, after I successfully defended myself against false accusations of the same sort already, that you have produced no response of any kind to the concerns I've raised about that. I've let this lie for 7 months and that is more than long enough for you to address them. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 12:55, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

I assessed the consensus of uninvolved administrators at AE, and informed you of the result. That you disagree with the result isn't unexpected, but it is what it is. As far as admincond goes, I didn't see anything requiring a response. You asked no questions, and said how you thought you comported yourself in the AE report. My close was based on the consensus of uninvolved administrators, which was clear after reading the discussion. I'd be OK closing this with a reminder about that restriction... I think that serves as well as anything... Concur... Adding a sentence to the "reminder" that civility applies everywhere on Wikipedia should be enough there... That seems fair to me. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 13:24, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

@ScottishFinnishRadish: You did that but also included what is very difficult to not interpret as a block/ban threat simply for being accused again, simply for reappearing on the AE radar, ever, regardless of the evidence: I expect that if you end up at AE again the result will be significantly more severe. You also improperly commingled two entirely severable matters ("reminders about that restriction" and "'reminder' that civility applies everywhere") in a grossly misleading way that implies they are identical or one a subset of the other: leading with civility, tying that in the same sentence to my restriction (which is AGF not CIVIL), then reinforcing this policy- and sactions-incorrect admixture with another semantic tie of the latter back to civility, doubling down on the error.

Let's rewrite your message with substitute terms and you should see why it's problematic and to what extent: "You are formally reminded to not litter in the park, that you remain on probation [for tax evasion], and that not littering applies everywhere within the city limits. I expect that if you end up at court again the result will be significantly more severe." — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 16:48, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

I had assumed that explicitly linking to the sanction would adequately communicate the sanctions I was referring to. The last part, noting that if you ended up at AE again (for a related issue, which I suppose I could have explicitly said) that I expected you'd see a more severe result was based on my reading of the discussion and the good faith that was extended in accepting that you had forgotten about the existing sanctions. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 17:11, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

I understand that (and why) you thought what you wrote was "good enough" or "clear enough" or however you might like to phrase that. But that's not actually responsive in any way to my points about why it was malformed and alarming to the point of being inappropriate (for multiple reasons). If you're going to continue just dodging this, then don't bother; I've made the point and you can actually respond to it or not, but it doesn't magically go away. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 02:54, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Feedback request: Religion and philosophy request for comment

Disregard

– No such RfC by the time I got there, and I see a lot of noise at that and related pages generated by anonymous proselytizers who probably get reverted a lot.

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March thanks

Thank you for improving article quality in March! - I uploaded Madeira vacation pics (from back home, at least the first day) and remember Aribert Reimann. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:57, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

JOBTITLES

Just so I don't get it wrong...I'm fixin' to move Probationary Firefighter to lower case. How does your reading of JOBTITLES incline you? Primergrey (talk) 00:49, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Definitely lower-case, since it's a generic job-title. The third bullet over there suggests capitalizing a unique role/office/whatever title as the subject itself of its own article (and, one supposes, in sentences in the same vein, e.g. "the office of Minister of Silly Walks was created in 1970"), and even this is iffy, because it's at least conceptually contradictory with everything else in the section. But it doesn't mean to do this with generic job titles like "chief operating officer" or "professor" or "animal control officer". — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 04:12, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Help needed for page Roman Science: Origins, Development, and Influence to the Later Middle Ages.

Done

Apologies for intruding - I stupidly created this page with a dot in the title, and do not know how to remove it. Roman Science: Origins, Development, and Influence to the Later Middle Ages. Can you help? Thanks. Andrea Saltelli Saltean (talk) 11:28, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

@Saltean: Fixed that for you. You should have been able to use the "Move" function to do this, as I did. Where it is and what it's called will vary depending on which skin you are using and which gadgets or other scripts you have installed (for me, it is in the top menu, as Page > Move, but I'm not sure that's the default appearance, and in some situations it might be just in the main menu and not under a "Page" submenu, and in some it might be named something like "Move page" or "Rename"). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 12:00, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, also for your extensive work on the page. Andrea Saltelli Saltean (talk) 16:21, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

You're welcome. I do so much grammar, citation formatting, and other minor-cleanup fixing that I have a lot of it on "auto-pilot", pretty much. Various scripts I've installed (and in some cases written) tend to help with it. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 16:17, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Possible farewell

Hello SMcCandlish. I am about to start an arbitration request. I don't have high expectations and I am even thinking I may get an indefinite block as boomerang, but it is something I have to address. I hope I don't get blocked and I may not get an indefinite but just in case I wanted to highlight my appreciation for the time you have taken in responding to my queries in a detailed and quality manner. Sincerely, Thinker78 (talk) 05:19, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

@Thinker78: Commented over there. I doubt ArbCom will act on this (and not in a boomerang manner; they'll just conclude there's not enough of a case there). I don't think you should have been blocked over any of this, much less for a week, or had unblock requests rejected, or had talk-page access revoked – it was all an unnecessary overreaction and dog-pile on top of that overreaction, and has an entirely punitive feel to it, since it was not actually preventing any harm to the project. But ... I think your taking a "butt-hurt" venty stance on the matter didn't help. I don't mean that as a strong criticism; it's a reactive approach I've taken too many times myself, so I just know from experience that it tends not to end well! I've also appreciated your activity around here, despite us having conflicts on some style matters and such. Every long-term editor is an asset to the 'Pedia and its audience, and I hope this flare-up of WP:DRAMA doesn't discourage you from continuing. Sometimes it is good to take a break after such things, though. Either entirely, or just mostly. I've done both many times, and am in the middle of one of the latter for the most part, after a recent pillorying at AE. Finding other stuff to keep me busy, including a lot of reading, and baby steps towards learning another language, via Duolingo and some other materials. I've barely been checking in here, for a few weeks now, and it's been a nice change of pace. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 16:15, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Well, I see that ANI did act (with a community ban), but not on that request so much as all the followup after it. I guess you get a break mandatorily now. I would think that after 6 mo. or so, an appeal would be successful if you do it right. There's no question that you're generally a productive editor; something just snapped recently, and needs repairing. :-) — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 00:05, 6 April 2024 (UTC)