User talk:AddWittyNameHere/Duxwing

Duxwing (talk · contribs)

Hello again, Duxwing. I've decided to move most of our conversation to this subpage of my talkpage, because it was starting to take up a fair bit of space there and with the examples I'm currently working on for you, it would only be taking up more space. An additional plus is that we can work on everything in peace without being distracted by other messages on my talkpage.

General conversation

Our conversation so far

I pre-emptively apologize for any formatting fiascos that my reply may cause, and I apologize for my tardy reply.

2&2a :D 3 - I need to learn how. I hope that your examples will help!

Signing - A habit from other fora

Indenting - Thanks! :)

Duxwing (talk) 02:41, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Continued From Teahouse

Thanks for replying!  :) And you were tactful, not blunt. Below are what I believe to be the principles whereby you edited:

1 Notice logical nuances, especially when representing non-neutral viewpoints. 1a When describing non-neutral viewpoints' conclusions, use "would" instead of "should" because the latter declares fact. 2 Notice set-theory naunces 2a Check sets for accidents after changing them. 3 No more "lest"

Are these correct? I ask because I intend to apply them.

-Duxwing — Preceding unsigned comment added by Duxwing (talk • contribs) 01:03, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, essentially. Some slight points:

1. Exactly. Subtle nuances, whether logical or otherwise, still can be important nuances, and while two sentences may at first glance seem to mean the same thing, there can be serious differences in meaning. Beyond non-neutral viewpoints, also keep in mind if the subject is likely controversial. The more controversial the subject, the more likely it is that those subtle nuances are extremely important to people because it took a lot of work to get to a compromise, even when it's something as small as replacing "a few" with "some". (Just about anything with nationalistic ties, culture and religion, as well as people who have or allegedly have committed crimes, can usually be assumed to be to some degree controversial).

1a. One of many such things. Better yet is to make clear according to who/what something is supposed to be the case and, unless this is a logical result of previously mentioned points (and thus unlikely to be challenged), a source to this claim.

2 & 2a. Yes and yes. Beyond accidents, also check for both the literal meaning of your change and the implied meaning. Usually, one does still match after your edit, but the other doesn't. Which is which depends per edit.

3. No more changing things to lest where unnecessary. If it is the only way to prevent a sentence from running on and on, go for it (though usually, splitting the sentence is a better idea at that point. There are only few cases where such a thing is not possible). If someone meant to use lest but typed lets, go ahead and change it. If a quote uses lest, feel free to include it. If you're writing a new section or article, feel free to keep in archaic words and phrases. If it annoys people or confuses them, it'll be changed.

However, do not go change correct words to unnecessary archaic or commonly seen as "difficult" words. (I'm of the opinion that there are no difficult words, just words with a difficult concept behind them or a difficult spelling, but that's me.) Couple of examples, not all of them from edits you made:

• "as a result" is fine. No need to replace it with "therefore", despite therefore also being perfectly fine. However, if you write a new sentence, feel free to use therefore.

• "until now" is fine. No need to replace it with "erewhile", which sadly a lot of people don't know any more. Also no need to replace it with "heretofore", for the same reason.

• "perhaps" is fine. No need to replace it with "mayhaps".

Beyond that, I would suggest that you pay a bit more attention to the word-order you use, which is non-standard and may lead to confusion for some people. Using some commas to denote clauses/phrases would help somewhat, because then at least people can more easily separate the "core" of the sentence from the various nuances. If you need some help with this, poke me and I'll write out a few examples for you and another few you could correct yourself to see if you get it, as a test, if you'd like. AddWittyNameHere (talk) 01:52, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

1 and 1a Eugh, emotional articles: they're so boring and explosive that I never edit them. 2 and 2a What is implied meaning? Is it what logically follows from a sentence and how people may react to that and the sentence? 3 I lost you: is "lest" a word best used wisely?

I will use "therefore" only where 'because' cannot be used, and I will vary my causal descriptions lest I should too frequently use the former; e.g., "He resultingly left" next "I therefore cheered".

More examples for practice? Yes, please!

Duxwing (talk) 19:16, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

1&1a - probably smart. If you know that articles like that would not work for you, best to stay away from them.

2&2a - Pretty much, yes.

• Take, for example, a sentence like "Of course the sea is pink!".
  

The literal meaning can either be "It is obvious that the sea is pink" or "The sea is indeed pink", depending on if it's a statement or a response to someone else's statement or question. However, because it is not at all obvious that the sea is pink, most people will take the implied meaning to be a sarcastic or humorous remark of some kind.

• Similarly, the context of a sentence or phrase can influence the implied or assumed meaning of a sentence without this being intended. Take, for example, "As a result of this conflict, hundreds of people died, including the famous artist John Doe. According to official documents, his death was accidental." [bolded the sentence because that's the one we'll be evaluating]
  

Literally, this combination of sentences boils down to "There was a conflict resulting in hundreds of deaths. Amongst them was John Doe, a famous artist. Official documents state John Doe's death was accidental".

However, there are various possible implied meanings of the bold sentence.

• Due to the focus on John Doe's death being accidental according to official documents, it implies to some degree that some or all of the other deaths were not accidental, and/or that John Doe is the only death mentioned as accidental in those official documents.
• Furthermore, the focus on "According to official documents" implies to some degree that one or more of the following applies:
  • Other major sources disagree that the death was accidental;
  • All other sources disagree that the death was accidental, and it's a cover-up;
  • People have implied the death was not accidental and/or there are rumours or other non-reliable sources claiming such a thing.

3 - ALL words are best used wisely, but yes. Summary of the point I made: If the wording used is correct, do not replace by other equally correct wordings without good reason to do so (such as, as you mention above, to avoid unnecessary repetition), especially not if such wordings can safely be presumed to not be understood (or only be understood with difficulty) by a sizeable portion of the readers of the English Wikipedia.

As to examples and practice for common word-order within sentences, I'm afraid I do not have the time to whip those up right now, but I'll be working on them and probably should be able to have a fair few done for you tomorrow. AddWittyNameHere (talk) 03:09, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

1&1a - Done.

2&2a - Ok. Thanks. You description of "implied meaning" is what I thought it would be. :)

3 - What about concision? I could equally correctly write "prior to" or "before," and I would write the latter because it is but one word.

-Duxwing — Preceding unsigned comment added by Duxwing (talk • contribs) 05:00, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

My response: 1&1a -
2&2a - glad to hear so. Just figured a few examples wouldn't hurt. (As you've probably noticed, I'm fond of using examples to illustrate what I mean when it comes to the use of the English language)
3 - concision... yes, being concise can be helpful, especially in longer sentences. However, by making a sentence more concise, it can be very easy to accidentally leave out important information—as you noticed—so do watch out for that. AddWittyNameHere (talk) 16:43, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Short advice

I'll put short pieces of advice not related to the other points here if I believe you would benefit from them

Signing your posts on talkpages

You regularly forget to sign your posts, or sign them with -Duxwing, (which for the purpose of wikipedia isn't a signature, because it misses certain key-aspects of a signature). Signing your posts is fairly important. Amongst other things, it gives people easy links to your userpage and talkpage, meaning they don't have to jump through hoops to get there. It also prevents confusion as to who made a specific comment. Your sign your posts by pressing ~~~~.

Indenting

You sometimes forget to indent your posts on talkpages. It's not a big deal, especially not in conversations with only two people (you and someone else), but it can sometimes lead to confusion. I'm just going to copy-and-paste the example I wrote out for someone else here: "::You're welcome. A guide-of-thumb for indenting: always use one more indent than the comment you're replying to. To give an example, say this is a conversation: Where can I find the notability guideline? - User A.

You may want to look at the WP:N - User B.

No, I think User A means the WP:GNG - User C.

Ah, of course. - User B.

Thank you, User C. That was exactly what I was looking for. - User A.

User A's last comment is a reply to user C, rather than User B's most recent reply. You can see this because of the indenting. Had User A. been replying to user B, they would have indented on more time. And indeed, the learning-curve is fairly steep, so if you come across issues, feel free to ask me. AddWittyNameHere (talk) 13:50, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Now I get it, thanks for that! It's the way emails and replies get formatted naturally but we have to cause it to happen. Now I see the logic of it, because it makes it easier to skip through threads. Thank you, and thanks for the assistance offer. CaryB42 (talk) 13:39, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm glad to have been of help. Of course, sometimes the indenting makes things difficult to read with how far the text is pressed to the side. When that is the case, you start your reply not with indenting, but with "outdenting". All you have to do for that is type {{od}} or {{outdent}}. (The nowiki-around it in the source is just to make it display the way it should, by the way). To give an example:

Example

Reply

Reply to reply

reply to reply to reply

'nother reply

and another

and yet another

outdenting.

As to the assistance offer, you're more than welcome. Wikipedia can be frustrating to learn how to handle if you have no one to answer your questions and give you some advice, and it's often the small things (like signing posts and learning how to indent/outdent) that get overlooked. (After all, far more people are likely to drop someone a line over something seriously problematic, like adding spam-links, tripping abuse filters and similar, than over something like how to handle indenting) AddWittyNameHere (talk) 14:02, 12 February 2014 (UTC))" If you have any questions, feel free to ask them. AddWittyNameHere (talk) 16:43, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Examples for illustrative purposes

Working on them.

Examples for practising

Working on them

Reversions

Reversions (new topic) - My extensive rewrites, long after I have forgotten them, sometimes are reverted because they had a few minor errors that the reverting editors only vaguely describe; e.g., “made no sense”. Knowing that copy-and-pasting my work from a diff sometimes is impossible (imposing a deadline) I have asked many of them why they reverted. Many never answered, and those who did instead of correcting a minor error reverted each rewrite; e.g., on an article about genocidal I almost broke 3RR during a dispute about whether “is” can replace “has been defined as” in “genocidal rape has been defined as” such-and-such.

Duxwing (talk) 12:31, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

It's Friday!

I am eager to resume our communication. :)

Duxwing (talk) 19:29, 21 March 2014 (UTC)