User talk:DocWatson42/Archive 1

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Again, welcome! - UtherSRG 22:42, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Stoats (and other weasels)

Hi DocWatson42: nice additions to the Stoat page. There is a lot more work that needs doing on Mustelidae if you are expert on that group.

A gentle nudge on a couple of format/Wikipedia convention matters:

• Scientific names at genus/species/subspecies level should be italicised, by putting them in two single quotes, wherever they occur, i.e. including in text;
• To avoid people getting into reversion battles, Wiki's convention is that spelling (i) follows US conventions (e.g. "color") for preponderantly US topics, (ii) international conventions (e.g. "colour") for topics preponderantly concerned with other English-speaking countries, and (iii) whichever was used by the editor who started the page on matters that span both. On grounds of (iii) (and possibly given the Stoat's distribution, (ii)), Stoat should stay with its current international spelling.

However these matters are MUCH less important than adding nice content to the pages - thanks again! seglea 20:02, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

---

Two tips:

1. It's "External links". Headers should only capitalize the first word and any proper nouns.
2. The space after the header is not necessary.

You might want to look at Wikipedia:Manual of Style and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (headings).

Thanks, and keep contributing :) Dysprosia 05:36, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

---

Dashes

Hi, Doc. Oh, boy. I've just been chasing your dashes from one side of the 'pedia to the other. Couple of comments:

It's considered bad form to arbitrarily change the style of dash already in use in an article. Kind of like making unwarranted changes from US to UK spelling (or vice versa). We accept, on an equal basis, spaced emdashes, joined-up emdashes, spaced endashes, or even the horrid " -- " and " - " — the idea there is one day, the wikisoftware will automatically convert those into the correct dash.

Second comment: if you are going to use emdashes and endashes, it's much better for you to use the (albeit rather ugly) HTML entities &mdash and &ndash (followed by semicolons) rather than typing in the dash character directly, because a lot of browsers, when they go into edit mode, won't recognise those characters and will break them, turning them into question marks. Same thing happens with "curly quotation marks".

Any questions, rants, etc., my talk page is always open. You could also take a look at the "Dashes" section on Wikipedia:Manual of Style. Best, –Hajor 04:49, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Hi. Exactly the same point about changing en-dashes to em-dashes, from your edit at Glossary of nautical terms. Was there a reason why you felt you should not follow Hajor's advice? Richard New Forest (talk) 09:04, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Given the inconsistent mess that that article's punctuation was, I felt I was justified in cleaning up all of it, including the dashes.—DocWatson42 (talk) 09:18, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

No, I don't think so – that argument works no better than saying you could change the dialect whenever an article has an overhaul. If the article is inconsistent, then by all means change the dashes consistently to one or the other, as indeed we would do with language. Otherwise you should certainly leave them in the style you found them – as discussed above, the different styles have equal weight, so there is no "cleaning" about it.

In fact that article was not consistent: it had predominantly space-endash-space, but in a few places (and, strangely, for the whole of the letter C) it had space-emdash-space. The proper thing to do would have been to correct those to space-endash-space to match the others. We all have to accept that WP can be written in language and style which we ourselves would not necessarily use – I have to leave em-dashes as I find them, as you have to leave en-dashes. Richard New Forest (talk) 13:06, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

To me that makes it a mixed "dialect" article, and subject to editor's choice when correcting it—see my argument at WP:MOSDASH below.—DocWatson42 (talk) 20:13, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Dashes 2

Hello, there. Thanks for the reply. Let's try and take it part by part (and let's see if I can get the interstitial quoting style to work).

It's considered bad form to arbitrarily change the style of dash already in use

<frown> I've read the Wikipedia:Manual of Style and the Dash (punctuation) articles, and this point is not mentioned at all in either of them.

You're aboslutely right that it's not mentioned. A grave oversight on the community's part, and probably something for which I owe you an apology. However, while the above diktat doesn't appear as such, I think it can stand as a piece of conventional wisdom that can be inferred from the comments about changing US/UK spelling in the style manual, and from the lengthy discussions about dashes that appear to crop up every couple of months (some of which you will have seen on the style manual's talk page). But yes, my apologies, and I'll take my case over there and try and get it included in the manual.

We accept, on an equal basis, spaced emdashes, joined-up emdashes, spaced endashes, or even the horrid " -- " and " - "

I note that those last two in your list are not being rendered in the manner in which you original typed them Darned updates...)

What, the space-hyphen-space and the space-hyphen-hyphen-space? What are you seeing instead (I'm not using the new Monobook skin; it's too small and fiddly for my screen and eyes).

spaced hyphens are not (currently) among the accepted em dash substitutes. Quote:

Correct, per the style manual they're not. But there are a lot of the out there, tolerated on a de facto basis as the easy way of doing it, or with a view to the promised future automatic conversion function. With respect to space-hyphen-hyphen-space being deprecated ("this is almost never the case in ASCII do not use this"), occasional attempts to eliminate them have been met by resistance from those who believe Wiki editing should be as simple and transparent as possible, without "counterintuitive" html entities to scare off potential editors (you'll see proponents of that on the talk page). Plus, at least one of our programmers has encouraged us to use them with a view to the future automatic conversion.

Lastly, what about articles with multiple, mixed styles of em dashes?

Tiptoe away quietly?

In sum -- yes, what we've got is a right mess and no real policy. Which was part of the reason I jumped at you for (in good faith, I quite understand) trying to impose a little order on the chaos. Please, meet me later on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dashes, where I'll be trying to drum up consensus for a paragraph to include in the Manual. Regards, –Hajor 20:19, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Comiket

Sorry about the premature delete of Comiket - it's just pages with just external links aren't really desirable. But you added content, so that's good :) Dysprosia 08:13, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I didn't notice—I was busy making the Comic Market page, and adding the redirect to Comiket. ^_^ DocWatson42 08:17, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Polish contribution to World War II

Thanks for cleaning up the article, you did a great job! Halibutt 16:04, Jul 7, 2004 (UTC)

Yup, Operation Tempest needs attention and polishing as well. The problm is that it's been 10 years since I were in an English speaking country for the last time and wikipedia is currently one of the very few chances to practisize English for me. And I see my English-speaking capabilities deteriorate quickly. I know it, but there's very little I can do about it... That's where most of my mistakes come from. Halibutt 22:59, Jul 7, 2004 (UTC)

Continuation War

I am glad to see you've done some heavy work with the newest additions. My opinion is official[1]. You may want to see Talk:Continuation_War#Events_of_1940 too. /Tuomas 19:30, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Dashes 3

In electronic amplifier you made some dash changes. It looked wrong so I looked up the rules. For a closed range, an en dash should be used, not an em dash. 1945–1967, for instance. However with numbers that might be misconstrued as subtraction, it is recommended by SI to just use the word "to". Also you separated some definition lists with em dashes. This is incorrect, and colons should be used to separate lists of words from definitions. Wikipedia has its own syntax for this anyway, which is usually prettier:

word 1

definition of word 1

word 2

definition of word 2

word 3

definition of word 3

- Omegatron

Wikifying

Hello, I noticed that you wikified the Singing Revolution. Just wanted to let you know that plain English words like "living" and "length" do not need to be wikified. See Wikipedia:Make only links relevant to the context. Andris 10:33, Aug 20, 2004 (UTC)

Aozora Bunko

I'm sorry for late reply. While I want to thank you for your contributions to Aozora Bunko lists, personally I want to get rid of them. I admit that it was mistake to have created those lists. I don't think they belong to an encyclopedia like Wikipedia. Please let me know what we should do to them or anyone who has idea. -- Taku 07:05, Aug 28, 2004 (UTC)

Hi, I nuked the typo redirect for you. Noel 09:24, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Ah—thank you. DocWatson42 10:07, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Article Licensing

Hi, I've started a drive to get users to multi-license all of their contributions that they've made to either (1) all U.S. state, county, and city articles or (2) all articles, using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-by-sa) v1.0 and v2.0 Licenses or into the public domain if they prefer. The CC-by-sa license is a true free documentation license that is similar to Wikipedia's license, the GFDL, but it allows other projects, such as WikiTravel, to use our articles. Since you are among the top 1000 Wikipedians by edits, I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all of your contributions or at minimum those on the geographic articles. Over 90% of people asked have agreed. For More Information:

• Multi-Licensing FAQ - Lots of questions answered
• Multi-Licensing Guide
• Free the Rambot Articles Project

To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" template into their user page, but there are other options at Template messages/User namespace. The following examples could also copied and pasted into your user page:

Option 1

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}

OR

Option 2

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions to any [[U.S. state]], county, or city article as described below:

{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" with "{{MultiLicensePD}}". If you only prefer using the GFDL, I would like to know that too. Please let me know what you think at my talk page. It's important to know either way so no one keeps asking. -- Ram-Man (comment| talk)

Millau Viaduct

Why did you change m3 to m3? AFAIK, m3 is the SI Unit. --Tagishsimon (talk)

Did I? That certainly was not one of my intended edits—please change it back.DocWatson42 05:54, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Bizarre. You did it again! [1] Assuming it's not a wind-up, it might be a bug? --Tagishsimon (talk)

It's apparently a bug in my browser (Macintosh MSIE 5.0)—it doesn't seem to like the superscripting.  :-/ DocWatson42 06:01, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

lots of edits, not an admin

Hi - I made a list of users who've been around long enough to have made lots of edits but aren't admins. If you're at all interested in becoming an admin, can you please add an '*' immediately before your name in this list? I've suggested folks nominating someone might want to puruse this list. Thanks. -- Rick Block (talk) 22:45, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)

Dashes and degrees

Hi DocWatson - I don't know if you've noticed, it is no longer necessary to type out the HTML entities (&deg ; &ndash ; etc) for these, since the big wiki upgrade a couple of months ago - if you scroll down below the edit box, you'll see a long row of assorted accented characters, symbols, dashes, etc, which you can just click on, to insert the desired item. Hajor's point from a year ago ("Dashes", above) no longer applies since the wiki upgrade, the direct character is now preferred (it makes editing for future editors a lot easier) - MPF 21:22, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

Newspaper companies

I noticed that you italicized "Asahi Shimbun" in the Koshien article. Personally I think the italics look better so I don't want to change it, but is it common to italicize the name of the publisher when it is the same as the name of the publication? I could see italicizing something like "The New York Times did an article on fungus." but Asahi Shimbun publishes books and other things besides the newspaper. Just curious. Ken6en 06:17, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

I had not thought about it. I was merely thinking of the newspaper's title, not the publisher's name, and I italicized it with that view. To answer your question, no, the publisher's name is (I believe) treated separately from their publication(s)—e.g., "The New York Times Company", not "The New York Times Company". In this particular case it would depend upon whether it was the publisher or only the newspaper that sponsors the tournament—something I do not know either way. ^_^; DocWatson42 09:04, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Japanese mythology

Heya, noticed you did some editing on Tomoe Gozen. Just thought I'd let you know there's now a WikiProject for Japanese folklore and mythology, if you're interested in joining.--み使い Mitsukai 04:46, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the invitation, but I don't time. ^_^; DocWatson42 05:47, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Mai, the Psychic Girl

Hey, are you sure Mai wasn't the first manga to be translated to English? If so, what was the first and where was it published? Thanks. Elvrum 18:59, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

• It was a version of Barefoot Gen by EduComics, in hardback, in the 1970s. I have a letter from the publisher, Leonard Rifas, to that effect, but I have no idea where it is in the mess that is my storage space. Oh, wait—see here; original PDF. Here is the cover of volume 2. Mai was the first to be regularly published in comic book form, and constitues the beginning of the modern American manga industry. DocWatson42 19:33, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Anglicanism and the Anglican Communion

Hello! I noticed that you have been a contributor to articles on Anglicanism and the Anglican Communion. You may be interested in checking out a new WikiProject - WikiProject Anglicanism. Please consider signing up and participating in this collaborative effort to improve and expand Anglican-related articles! Cheers! Fishhead64 23:28, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the invitation ^_^ , but I'm mostly just an itinerant copy editor, who goes where his interest takes him. DocWatson42 03:11, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

LC

Beautiful work on the Light Cruiser article! --Therealhazel

Thanks, but I only corrected two denotations of tonnage. ^_^; Compare here. DocWatson42 08:25, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Rashidi

After your edits of this article it looks as if all amirs were the first... , not quite what you wanted, I assume? Regards, Huldra 17:20, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

<sigh> Nope. I inserted carriage returns to make editing easier (i.e., I double spaced the paragraphs), but apparently the software can't handle it. I've now fixed it. DocWatson42 09:03, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup on F8F-2

I note that you moved a comma outside the parens:

• Yale's "Flying Professor," to
• Yale's "Flying Professor",

My understanding of normal contemporary typographic usage is that the former style is still usually preferred. Although the latter style is in fact more logical, and for programmers it is more natural, I believe that the majority of current typographic/editorial conventions still require us to put the comma inside the quotes, regardless of semantics. I also realize that there is debate about this, and that it varies from region to region; and therefore I wouldn't correct somebody who had chosen the other convention in an article. But since you have made this change, can you cite a basis for it? If so, should this be applied rigorously in other articles? I am not picking nits here; this is an issue that has vexed me for thirty years. I didn't think it was resolved yet, but perhaps I missed the memo. :) Trevor Hanson 08:31, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

It may still be debated outside of the English-language Wikipedia, but it is in accordance with the Manual of Style#Quotation marks. I also happen to prefer that style. ^_^ DocWatson42 09:26, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, that sounds definitive; don't know how I had missed it. I had been taking my cues from Quotation mark, which says inter alia: "In American English, commas and periods (full stops) always go inside the quotation marks, single or double" and I had thought WikiPedia style remained agnostic on the topic. Apparently that was wrong. I will change my usage; I also have long preferred the "logical" style intellectually, but felt bound by U.S. conventions. Much obliged.

You're welcome! DocWatson42 06:13, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Mori Ogai

Can you check your recent edits to Mori Ogai? Some of the hyphen replacements seem odd (especially, inside the link to Russo-Japanese War and as part of a hyphenated word like self-destruction). Thanks. Neier 07:12, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

<sigh> That's what I get for using a global find-replace. I fixed them. DocWatson42 07:17, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! I hesitated to fix it myself, because it could have been a script/AWB program run amuck, and those things are better-off fixed at the source. Glad to hear it was something more benign. Neier 07:43, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Poll options on Fred Dibnah's birthplace

I've started a poll on Talk:Fred Dibnah with four options for his birthplace area. As you've edited the main Fred Dibnah article, I'm letting you know about this Poll and the chance to vote one of the options. Cwb61 (talk) 00:05, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Cleanup

On this: I happen to think that, in contexts where the meaning will be clear, "US" is an improvement on "U.S." (less pointless clutter) and often on "United States" too. Well, that's a matter of opinion. However, "lect" is deliberate, not just a fancy synonym for "dialect". "Dialect" is often, though not always, taken to mean a variety of a language that's geographically determined; according to this, AAVE isn't a dialect -- and of course something like "ethnolect and/or sociolect" is unwieldy.

You've made some good changes, though. And it's refreshing to see people working on that article who aren't truculent know-nothings, or worse. Please do keep it on your watchlist.

(No need to reply; but if you care to reply, please do so here.) -- Hoary 11:39, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

First, I have to admit that I am not a linguist, only a (semi-pro) copyeditor, who wanders through and corrects what attracts my interest at the moment. (So I don't intend to watch Ebonics.) Thanks for the compliment, though. ^_^

As for "US" versus "U.S." and "United States": I follow an extension of Manual of Style's rule for contractions. I use "United States" first (for example; spelling it out), since it is the formal rendering, and then "U.S." (see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (abbreviations) and (especially) Wikipedia:Naming conventions (abbreviations)). And, well, the second article supports my sense of formality. ^_^;

Regarding "lect", a link or note might be in order. I changed it out ignorance, and explaining the term will prevent this in the future. Oh!—this applies (despite the links on my page, I tend not to consult the Manual of Style articles very frequently). As does this. DocWatson42 12:30, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Werewolf fiction

Hello Doc Watson. I have restored your edits on the Werewolf fiction page. These were deleted by an editor called 'Dreamguy' who has been pursuing a crazy edit war on the page for the past few weeks. He is constantly reverting to an edit which he made about two weeks ago, which he seems to regard as sacrosanct, and has abrogated all editorial alterations made to the page since then. Colin4C 09:15, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Okay—thanks! (I would not have noticed... ^_^; ) DocWatson42 19:40, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

21st-century

I noticed that at Clawhammer you changed "21st century" to "twenty-first century", but provided no justification. The only justification I can think of is not wanting to start a sentence with a number, but I don't think such a thing is a problem, so I changed it back. Might there be another reason? - furrykef (Talk at me) 17:48, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

A minor update: I did finally find the part of the MoS that discusses this sort of thing, and it does say that sentences should not start with numerals, but I think writing it out as "twenty-first century" looks worse. Perhaps the sentence should be reworded. - furrykef (Talk at me) 17:55, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Your rewording looks good. ^_^ DocWatson42 03:29, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Dashes, punctuation and other sundry topics

I have noted that you continually make changes in date conventions introducing em dashes, please consult style guides before proceeding and then there is the U.S. Navy thing, modern protocol has long since established USA, USAF and US Navy. It's just tiresome to continually revert your "edits" and the earlier editor that indicated your misuse of quotation marks is correct. FWIW Bzuk 14:17, 1 July 2007 (UTC).

Begging your pardon, but would you mind clarifying your meaning(s)? Your phrasing leaves me confused. Specifically: what does "continually make changes in date conventions introducing em dashes" mean? I don't use em dashes in dates—I wikify dates. Also, "the earlier editor that indicated your missuse of quotation marks is correct"? If my so-called "missuse" (sic) of quotation marks is correct, what is the problem ^_^ (after all, I am following the Manual of Style regarding quotation marks in converting single quotation marks to double)? Lastly, for "U.S. (Navy)" versus "US (Navy)" see User_talk:DocWatson42#Cleanup above. DocWatson42 14:37, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Also, as further reference in favor of "U.S. Navy", see here. Every mention I see (with the exception of the page title) is "U.S. Navy". <EG> DocWatson42 14:49, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Doc, please excuse my ranting, I think I got up on the wrong side of the world today. I had jumped to the conclusion that you were another of the nitpickers out there. First of all, I did a quick check of your submissions to find, lo-and-behold, that you have made a great number of stylistic editing changes that were not primarily concerned with punctuation. However, these are the minor points that I should have stated more succinctly: *dates are separated in the following manner, 1937-1938 not "1937–1938" (latest Chicago Style guide and MLA guide); *the military designations chosen by historians and researchers has now evolved to "Meteor F 8" wherein the earlier "Meteor F. Mk.8" had been accepted as a standard*; Merely through popular convention by US editors, a "cradling" of commas, periods and other forms of punctuation has now predominated across the worldwide publishing world with the Harvard comma being the sole exception, e.g. "the die was cast," and "she was eminently qualified."; *In much the same vein, names have now taken on acronym acceptance, e.g. FBI, CIA, NY Times, etc.

Pardon me for responding so late, but which editions in particular of The Chicago Manual of Style and the MLA guide, and where in them may I find those citations? DocWatson42

Again, accept my apologies for being "sharp" with you. I appreciate your efforts to make the Wiki world more accessible to readers. One proviso is that there are still no hard and fast rules regarding styles, merely guidelines, some of which are contradictory, including the Quotation/comma issue and especially, in citations, notes and references where the "templates" were established early on with the APA? style guide as a model. FWIW Bzuk 15:13, 1 July 2007 (UTC).

what is "Construction Indoctrination " means?

I am a middle school student in China. Yesterday ,I read the German battleship Tirpitzand do not understand the means of "Construction Indoctination",Would u mind to explain to me as particular? Thanks!!^^-Prinz.W

I honestly do not know—despite my editing of the article, the Kriegsmarine is not something about which I know very much (I used Google, and all of the references to "construction indoctrination"/"construction-indoctrination" were related to Kriegsmarine ships and boats). You might try contacting the owner of german-navy.de, who would likely know more than I. (My guess is that it means something like the English language phrase "working up" in reference to ships—to test, train, and prepare a new ship and its crew for the ship's eventual full scale use.) DocWatson42 03:08, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Album article punctuation

Regarding changes like this, please note that track listings and personnel sections should be delimited by spaced en dashes, not colons. See WP:ALBUM#Track listing and WP:ALBUM#Personnel. Have a nice day. --PEJL 07:57, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank-you!

DocWatson42,
Thank-you so much for your beautiful clean-up on John Ringo's page. It really helped it to pop a lot more.
Lady Gothiq —Preceding unsigned comment added by LadyGothiq (talk • contribs) 10:25, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

You're welcome, but my changes were relatively small. ^_^; However, go take a look at it now—I just finished an extensive wikification, plus some minor clean up, of which I am much more proud. (If you can confirm the numbering/order of The Council Wars series, please add it—I haven't read all of it, and do not feel qualified to do the numbering.) DocWatson42 07:10, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Cultivars

Hi DocWatson - please note that cultivars correctly take single quote marks (e.g. Acer palmatum 'Bloodgood'), NOT double quotes, as you recently edited at e.g. Acer palmatum - thanks, MPF 00:52, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh, foo. Only at, actually, not "e.g." (at least recently). (Darn specific cases...you may want to see if you can get this included in the Manual of Style.) DocWatson42 03:00, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Featured article review

F-4 Phantom II has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. Snowman (talk) 11:22, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Converting HTML-named characters

Hi DocWatson42.

I see that you changed all of the — and × characters in the article Color Graphics Adapter. HTML-named characters are more "web safe" than typing a character directly, and will be compatible across the largest number of browsers and character sets. Help:Special_characters#Editing suggests:

Use an HTML named character entity reference like à. This is unambiguous even when the server does not announce the use of any special character set, and even when the character does not display properly on some browsers.

If you check the code of the article itself, you'll see that all of the special characters were created with HTML-names, including —. Since Wikipedia's own help pages use —, this appears to be the preferred method for encoding that character on Wikipedia. DOSGuy (talk) 09:30, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Oh, foo. See User talk:DocWatson42#Dashes and degrees above. DocWatson42 (talk) 09:48, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I saw that. MPF is correct that it's no longer necessary in order to generate the character, but he appears to be incorrect that it's the preferred method. If it's the preferred method, why are Wikipedia staff writing Help pages with HTML-named characters instead of direct characters? DOSGuy (talk) 12:39, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Do You Like Horny Bunnies? 2

A proposed deletion template has been added to the article Do You Like Horny Bunnies? 2, suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but this article may not satisfy Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and the deletion notice should explain why (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and Wikipedia's deletion policy). You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{dated prod}} notice, but please explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion in your edit summary or on its talk page. Also, please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Even though removing the deletion notice will prevent deletion through the proposed deletion process, the article may still be deleted if it matches any of the speedy deletion criteria or it can be sent to Articles for Deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. If you agree with the deletion of the article, and you are the only person who has made substantial edits to the page, please add {{db-author}} to the top of Do You Like Horny Bunnies? 2. Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 10:06, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Okusama wa Mahou Shoujo

Thank you so much for your help editing the article. As I was putting everything together I had trouble trying to make the --s into real dashes. Could you tell me how you did it; I'd like to know for future reference. Thanks again!--Fuen Fuboo (talk) 20:04, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

(Wow—a compliment. I actually did something right, and am not in trouble. ^_^ ) You're welcome! What I do may not work for you, as I use a Macintosh, which only requires Option-Shift-hyphen to create em dashes. See Dash#Rendering_dashes_on_computers for instructions, though en and em dashes are also available below the lower left of the editing window ("Insert: – — … ° ≈ ≠ ≤ ≥ ± − × ÷ ← → · §"). DocWatson42 (talk) 04:57, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Wow, that's really handy! Thanks so much for letting me know. Have a great weekend!--Fuen Fuboo (talk) 16:29, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

You're welcome, and to you also! ^_^ DocWatson42 (talk) 19:30, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Commonest

I noticed that you changed "commonest" to "most common" in Layout. I'm not going to change it back, but you should check a dictionary for this kind of thing. "commonest" is correct. Wahrmund (talk) 18:33, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I made the change because to me "commonest" just seemed wrong, but seems that it is in the dictionary to which I have immediate access—The American Heritage Dictionary, Second Edition, p. 298 (ISBN 0395329442). On the other hand, Google gives about for 1,600,000 hits for commonest versus about 64,600,000 hits for "most common". "Commonest" in the sense of "greatest in number" (as opposed to an antonym for "noblest") still makes me wince and cringe. DocWatson42 (talk) 20:12, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

MP5 hyphen vs. colon?

Hi, I noticed your recent edit. Is this a Wikipedia standard? If so, can you point it out? The entire firearms WP has been using hyphens in the Users field. Thanks. Koalorka (talk) 15:14, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

See User_talk:DocWatson42#Dashes_3 above, as well as Hyphen, Colon (punctuation)—this use is, I believe, an example of the syntactical-descriptive—and Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Hyphens and the subsequent sub-sections. The use of the space-hyphen-space is a substitute for the em dash, but since that character is available (directly via the keyboard, or by using the Insert section below the edit box) there is no reason to use them, and they are implicitly discouraged by the Manual of Style (under "Other dashes"). Colons are more appropriate in this case, anyway. DocWatson42 (talk) 15:57, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Well then, I have some work! Koalorka (talk) 15:58, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Good luck ^_^ If someone gives you trouble, cite them 6.63–6.69 ("chapter.section"; pages 256–7) of The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition—the latest—which pretty much mirrors Wikipedia's usage. I can also dig out the most recent MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers if need be. DocWatson42 (talk) 16:06, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Small edit

Hey, you made a small edit on Frederick III, German Emperor and I was wondering what the reason for it was. You linked a date and changed the format of it slightly. I changed it back because the date was already linked to earlier in the introduction, and I find it usually useless and out of context to link dates. I just wanted to let you know and also ask if you have a better reason for your change, and I can consider it. Thanks for your time --Banime (talk) 13:22, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I did so because it used to be the standard to autoformat dates so that they will display accord to users' preferences, but apparently this is now deprecated, something of which I have just become aware. DocWatson42 (talk) 04:50, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

No problem, I'll keep it how it is then, and please let me know if you think a change is in order. Thanks for your concern and help. --Banime (talk) 12:11, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Black Talon

Hello, would you review, and if necessary, clean-up the formatting and/or layout of the Black Talon entry to account for the newly-uploaded photos? Thanks.Azx2 (talk) 14:39, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

It looks fine to me (I'm viewing it in 1600×1200)—did you have anything specific in mind? DocWatson42 (talk) 13:14, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Aldabra giant Tortoise

Hey Doc, I recently took a picture of an Aldabra_Giant_Tortoise ad added the image to the article. The tortoise in the article's initial image File:Tortoise.aldabra.750pix.jpg differs from my image File:Aldabra Giant Tortoise Geochelone gigantea.jpg. Can you please explain why this is so? Thanks --Muhammad(talk) 17:54, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I have no clue. That article was one I wandered through while cleaning up Seychelles, rather than because I'm a biologist ^_^; (I just cleaned up the appendices). DocWatson42 (talk) 00:28, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Buffalo Saga question

Hi Doc. Thanks for helping me with my new page on The Buffalo Saga. It is my first actual real new article I've ever started, and I'm a little nervous and uncertain about it, even though I've done a bit of major reworking and editing in Wikipedia before. At any rate, I was wondering why you removed the link the "See Also" section to the Wiki article on the 92nd Infantry Division? I was pretty certain that this was justifiable to have a link to that other page, since the subject of the book (Daugherty) served for two years in the 92nd, and recounts many first-hand experiences of their Italian Campaign in his book. But perhaps I don't know something about how Wikipedia works, so if there is something I'm not understanding, please let me know, because I really am confused why this link would be removed. The only thing I can guess is that, because I referenced the 92nd in the main body of the text with a hyperlink, that it was redundant to again list it in the "See Also" section. Is this correct? Thanks for replying, you can just reply here if you wish... Also, any advice or help you can lend will be appreciated - including "reviewing" my new article so it's no longer considered "unreviewed" (if you would care to). Thanks again! Saukkomies 16:07, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

You hit the reason on the head—I considered the link to be redundant (see Wikipedia:Layout#Standard appendices and footers). As for reviewing the article, give me a day or two.—DocWatson42 (talk) 16:48, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Beauty! Hey, I had a couple of question about wiki-fication... I noticed on some of the other pages about Buffalo Soldiers that there's a box at the bottom of the page called Template:Buffalo Soldiers. Here are a couple of examples: Buffalo Soldier and 92nd Infantry Division. First question is: should I include this template at the bottom of my article on The Buffalo Saga? And the second question is: I notice that the template does not include military action from World War II - which I believe is an oversight on whoever designed the template, so do you think it would be okay if I changed the template somehow to show World War II events? And if so, how does one go about editing a template? Thanks for your help. Saukkomies 16:57, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks so much for helping me with the Buffalo Saga article! I think it now looks like a grand little page, and I'm quite proud of it - being that it's my first real page I ever started in Wikipedia (other than my own User page, of course). It was a very satisfying experience, and some of that is a result of your help. --Saukkomies ^talk 18:11, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

<blush> You're welcome. As for your previous questions, I'm sorry that I am so tardy in my reply, but I was just about to answer them (really!).

First, the Buffalo Soldiers navigational template looks like this in wiki code: {{Buffalo Soldiers}}. Somewhat coincidentally, I was also revising that before your first message to me (the previous version). I added it to your article, but now I'm rethinking that—according to what I've read on Wikipedia and this Web page, technically the Buffalo Soldiers consisted of the 9th and 10th Cavalry Regiments, and the 24th and 25th Infantry Regiments, plus the World War II-era 27th and 28th Cavalry Regiments. While those units did participate in WWII, none of them had a distinguished battle record, mostly because they were kept away from the fighting.

The World War I and World War II segregated units (see below) which took their nickname from those regiments have separate lineages, and probably should have their own template (and have the Buffalo Soldiers navbox template and category removed). I found:

• 365th Infantry Regiment
• 366th Infantry Regiment
• 367th Infantry Regiment
• 369th Infantry Regiment (AKA the "Harlem Hellfighters")
• 370th Infantry Regiment
• 371st Infantry Regiment
• 372nd Infantry Regiment
• 805th Pioneer Infantry Regiment
• 333rd Artillery Battalion
• 551st Parachute Infantry Battalion
• 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion
• 758th Tank Battalion
• 761st Tank Battalion
• 784th Tank Battalion
• 2nd Cavalry Division
• 92nd Division
• 93rd Division
• Tuskegee Airmen (see also Template:Tuskegee Airmen)

(See also the Military history of African Americans article.) Alternately, the Buffalo Soldiers navbox template could be made part of a larger "African American units of the U.S. military" template.

Third, see Wikipedia:Navigation templates—I am not very familiar with the coding—I basically steal code from other templates, such as this one.

Lastly, I agree with you about your article—it's well done. ^_^ However, I'm uncertain about its notability, though I won't be requesting its deletion. ^_-

Very good idea about the Buffalo Soldiers template change. I, too, think it would be bteter to have two separate templates - one for the actual Buffalo Soldier units, and the other for African American segregaged units.

As far as the notability issue regarding the Buffalo Saga, I do understand what you're saying about it. Normally I would not have thought the memoirs of a soldier would warrant the creation of a separate Wikipedia article. However, in the case of Daugherty's book, I believe that there are several factors weighing in favor of having a separate Wiki article for his book: 1) the fact that he was in the only all-Black infantry division that saw action in WWII, 2)that he was able to write this book with a very sharp, keen intelligence, and relates his experiences in combat and the military with an incredible amount of deeper understanding and insight than is normally seen in your "typical" soldier's memoirs, thus elevating this book above the rest of the genre, 3) the issues that he brings up in the book that specifically address the paradox that the African American soldiers faced regarding fighting for the freedom for other people abroad, while they themselves had their freedom curtailed at home - this is the major theme of his book, and 4) that he was able to overcome many obstacles in his life after returning home to live a very successful life, even though it could easily have gone the other way if he'd succumbed to his anger and resentment of being in the situation he found himself. Taken together, I believe that this is an important book - not only because it provides deep insight into the day-to-day life of a soldier in the 92nd Infantry in Italy (which is something that many people have an interest in), but also because it provides an example of someone who overcame great challenges, which is another reason this book is so important.

At any rate, it's a moot point, since you noted you wouldn't challenge it, but I just wanted to get all this down while I was thinking about it in case at some point it becomes necessary to bring this up in the future if someone does challenge its notability. I actually am quite familiar with dealing with issues of historical notability. I've tutored college students in English composition, specifically in regards to writing theses and essays on historical subjects. One of the things I do is to help these students understand whether a subject they've chosen to write about is notable enough. There have been quite a number of times I've had to tell someone that, although they have what they think is a great idea for a paper, that it just is not that notable, and that they must chose another subject. The criteria for notability, though, is very "soft" at times, and so sometimes this is a matter of interpretation and controversy.

So yeah, I know what you mean, but I still would defend including this article in Wikipedia. And I'm still grateful for your help in it. --Saukkomies ^talk 22:44, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Again, you're welcome.—DocWatson42 (talk) 05:27, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

HTML entities

Please do not systematically replace HTML entities such as &ndash; with the equivalent Unicode character, because it is difficult to tell in the edit mode whether something that looks like a hyphen is actually an n-dash or a minus sign. Leaving it as an HTML entity allows an editor to be certain of what he or she is looking at. --Jc3s5h (talk) 21:28, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

I see that a proposal regarding this is being discussed, but I don't see that a consensus has been reached or that this is included in the Manual of Style. Personally, I don't see why you feel it is so difficult to distinguish the two—when I have a question as to which type of a dash a character is, I just enter a known example into my browser's find box and check: is this an em dash? No; is it an en dash then? Yes.—DocWatson42 (talk) 09:52, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

It is a real pain to enter M dash or N dash into my browser's find box, not to mention the pain of using the find box at all. I think it is inappropriate to use a bot to make controversial changes. If I see the bot doing this again I will seek to have the bot's approval revoked. --Jc3s5h (talk) 16:49, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

There is no bot—just manual ole me, the live person.—DocWatson42 (talk) 21:11, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Take a look at my user pages—does it look as if I have the wiki sophistication to create a bot?—DocWatson42 (talk) 21:14, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Impressed!

I love this:[2]. It puts me to shame, too, because I feel I should have done that, but just didn't. Not making sure all the is are crossed and ts dotted is a kind of abnegation of civic responsibility. Thank you for showing me the right way. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 13:40, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

You're welcome—it's what I do. Though out of habit, I used (more or less) Turabian for the references I corrected—changing all of them to the Wiki cite news/Template:Cite web templates might be in order. Also, a citation for "nantaimori" would probably be a good thing.—DocWatson42 (talk) 16:58, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Those pages are on my reading/inspection list. The Sound and the Fury (talk) 03:45, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Magnetar Capital

thanks for working on that! Decora (talk) 03:06, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

You're welcome. ^_^ —DocWatson42 (talk) 07:46, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Hadaka apron

The article Hadaka apron has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Non-notable concept, dictionary definition only, unreferenced for over 3 years

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{dated prod}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{dated prod}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. The speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Kenilworth Terrace (talk) 19:48, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Language order

Hi! I saw you changed the language order on this page. It seems that you prefer the alphabetical order based on two letter code to the order based on local name of language. I understand the two letter code order is acceptable. But the main page and almost all ja related articles use the local name order. So I support the local name order. m:Interwiki sorting order says en WP use the local language order too. Would you please tell me why you prefer the two letter code order? Thank you. Oda Mari (talk) 15:03, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Nomination of Vanilla Series for deletion

The article Vanilla Series is being discussed concerning whether it is suitable for inclusion as an article according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Vanilla Series until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on good quality evidence, and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. —Farix (t | c) 00:56, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Inappropriate canvassing for deletion discussion for Vanilla Series

DocWatson42,

I think that your post on the Mania.com forums about the Vanilla Series article being nominated for deletion is inappropriate based on Wikipedia's guidelines on canvassing. While notifying users who are knowledgable on a subject in a neutral way is considered appropriate, notifying users in a way that tries to get them to support your opinion in the discussion is generally frowned upon. In addition, notifying only users who you think might vote the same way as you is considered inappropriate. Making such notifications outside of Wikipedia is considered even more inappropriate. Calathan (talk) 23:52, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Oops—sorry. ^_^; I am mostly a copy editor, and am not well versed in the more intricate parts of Wikipedia rules and policy.—DocWatson42 (talk) 08:42, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Merry, merry

Bzuk (talk) 22:51, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

WP:MOSDASH

Hi. Please do not change spaced ndashes to mdashes. The MOS permits either, and many editors prefer the former. Thanks, and happy holidays! -- Ssilvers (talk) 17:50, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

If the article has both, and/or the deprecated hyphens and/or the deprecated spaced em dashes, I figure it is editor's choice as to em dashes or spaced en dashes when converting the article to all of one type. (The exception being where one is specified over the other, as in Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums#Track listing.) If spaced en dashes are all that an article has, then I leave them alone.

“ Spaced en dashes – such as here – can replace unspaced em dashes in all of the ways discussed above. Several major publishers use spaced en dashes to the complete exclusion of em dashes. Use one style consistently throughout an article. ” — Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Em dashes

Emphasis added.—DocWatson42 (talk) 03:14, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Happy 10th

File:Verre de whisky.jpg

Happy 10th anniversary of Wikipedia!

HeyBzuk (contribs) has bought you a whisky! Sharing a whisky is a great way to bond with other editors after a day of hard work. Spread the WikiLove by buying someone else a whisky, whether it be someone with whom you have collaborated or had disagreements. Enjoy!

What goes around, comes around. Spread the good cheer and camaraderie by adding {{subst:User:HJ Mitchell/WikiScotch}} to their talk page with a friendly message. Bzuk (talk) 15:40, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Replacing hyphens with en and em dashes

This should not happen in all cases, especially not with number ranges and compound words. A space with the width of a hyphen is the only correct length for those instances. For abrupt changes or definitions, a spaced en dash may be acceptable. An em dash should generally be avoided in HTML, as browsers do not currently use any hyphenation methods. Therefore a spaced en dash will allow the two entities to be broken up, while the unspaced em dash will keep the two entities together, which may lead to very ugly results in layout. Tengu800 (talk) 23:48, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Pardon me, but your directions are contrary to what is specified and allowed by the Dashes section of the Manual of Style, so I do not see the wisdom in following them.—DocWatson42 (talk) 00:26, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

coord

Please do not relocate this template after navigation templates and surrounding it with blank lines. Doing that affects the article display adding unnecessary extra white space. It should immediately follow the last displayable text before the navigation templates or, if it is set to only display in the title, as the first line in an article. Vegaswikian (talk) 17:30, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Roger that. ^_^ —DocWatson42 (talk) 04:22, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Formatting

Hi .. in trying to clean up Star of David, I notice you did things like move images to locations that did not directly relate to them -- as in the photo of the athlete. Can you please revert that? Thanks. (you can reply here, if at all).--Epeefleche (talk) 05:35, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

I can and will if you insist, but on my monitor (1600 pixels horizontal resolution) the images were pushed all the way into the References section, making an unsightly layout—that's why I moved them. Even at roughly 1024 pixels the "Béla Guttmann, footballer for Hakoah Vienna" image was pushing into the former "Notes" section—see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (layout)#Images for guidance. If you have another solution, I'd like to hear it. ^_^ —DocWatson42 (talk) 05:48, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Hmm -- I don't quite know how to address that. Perhaps with a clear tag? On my monitor, the changes pushed the Guttmann image -- which had been adjacent to his entry -- away from his mention. (the opposite problem).--Epeefleche (talk) 06:30, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

A clear tag would do it, though for displays like mine it would also leave a large white space (sometimes this is unavoidable) between the body of the article and the appendices. Also, I moved the Guttmann image from the specific subsection to the top of the section (under the level 2 heading), because after I had moved the other images it was still protruding into the appendices.—DocWatson42 (talk) 12:10, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Request for help

DocWatson42, I apologize for being intrusive, however I had no other way to be able to contact an administrator of some kind. I am interested in a certain page, BASIS Tucson, and BASIS Oro Valley. The pages have been vandalized and deleted by wikipedia users. THe user " Cirt " is responsible for repeatedly doing harm to these pages. I am requesting that the pages be restored, disciplinary action be taken, and some how, prevent this from happening again. Again, I'm someone interested in the pages (who has made an account so that something could be done) and would like others who are also interested to be able to find the information on Wikipedia. Jacobparks (talk) 00:23, 9 August 2011 (UTC) JacobParks

And you're asking me?! I'm certainly not an admin. <snort><chuckle> Okay, by digging around the Help pages and making some guesses, I found the Wikipedia:Abuse response article, which seems to be what you want—though Cirt appears to be a very active and and involved editor, so you should probably discuss your problems with him/her first. If that is not for what you are looking, check the "Noticeboards and related pages (Dashboard)" navbox below. Good luck!—DocWatson42 (talk) 14:14, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Recent edits

I recently noticed that you added a cleanup tag to the CIA article. Is there any rationale to your actions? Monterey Bay (talk) 00:15, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

When I did so there were six bare (and two nearly-bare) URLs being used as references, the former of which have since been cleaned up. I just completed a clean up of the nearly-bare URLs, along with other references and other matters. As a result, the cleanup tag was no longer applicable, so I have deleted it.—DocWatson42 (talk) 06:01, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Anno Domini

This edit removed several <carriage return> characters in Anno Domini. Besides making it harder for editors to find ref ends, it also combined 2 paragraphs that should not have been combined (after a list preceded by *). I have restored the <CR>s and your dash fixes. Perhaps it would be best to let the editors of articles decide how to use <CR>s as long as there are not 3 in a row.--JimWae (talk) 19:37, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry about combining the paragraphs. ^_^; As an editor of articles myself (after all, we're discussing it here on Wikipedia, aren't we?), I generally prefer to have ref tags inline with the text, but I will respect your preference with the Anno Domini article. I did, however, just go back and delete the triple carriage return which you restored (after "There were confused summations of emperors' regnal years").—DocWatson42 (talk) 20:15, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

There are some articles where the refs are so long and there are so many of them, that the code for the paragraph is pages and pages long. Then, even if only a comma is added, the entire paragraph is red on the edit diff and it is impossible to find (without detailed extensive analysis or tools) what little change has been made - or even to tell that it was a slight change. In other cases, it can take minutes and several corrections of edits to determine where the refs end and the text begins - or to tell one ref from the next immediate one. --JimWae (talk) 20:20, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Template:Numbered jō and WP:INTDABLINK

Hi there. On Wikipedia, when linking a disambiguation page, you are supposed to create a link pointing to an article title that ends with " (disambiguation)" per policy at WP:INTDABLINK. You should read up on it, because the editors before and after your edit linked to the policy page in their edit comments. --Bxj (talk) 11:50, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

It never occurred to me that making a link direct was a bad idea—"random" redirects struck me as inelegant (and still do, though I've now read WP:INTDABLINK and WP:NOTBROKEN). The section following WP:NOTBROKEN, "Template redirects", makes it clear that while I was generally correct, in this instance I stumbled (up)on a special case, which I will keep in mind in the future. (It also never occurred to me to read the edit comments for what I thought was a simple set of corrections.)—DocWatson42 (talk) 23:46, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Template:Science fiction

Thanks for the formatting. I had wanted to do something like that on a template, but i dont know how yet, and was not ready to teach myself. Maybe ill learn now.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 05:49, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

You're welcome. ^_^ I just copied, adapted, and pasted from Wikipedia:Navigation templates (shortcut: Help:Navbox).—DocWatson42 (talk) 13:54, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

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If any live person is reading this, yes, I really did mean to make that hatnote disambiguation link to Redwater, as the then-existing hatnote link was unhelpful. (And I think this bot is a bit too undiscriminating—it should be able to detect that I used a disambiguation template in the correct place in the article, rather than entering a comment on my talk page unnecessarily.)—DocWatson42 (talk) 00:13, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Em dashes

In Zephyranthes, you made some useful improvements to the formatting. However, you changed all the occurrences of spaced en dashes to unspaced em dashes. As you will know, judging from the comments above, either are allowed so long as the article is consistent. As far as I can tell all the dashes were originally spaced en dashes (if there were any unspaced em dashes they were a tiny minority). Spaced en dashes were clearly the intention of most of the editors to this article. It was wrong therefore to change all of them to unspaced em dashes. Peter coxhead (talk) 23:36, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Actually, while there were no em dashes, there were both en dashes and spaced single hyphens (the latter of which are forbidden), so I followed editor's choice and converted all of them to em dashes, so as to be consistent.—DocWatson42 (talk) 04:34, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

To make them consistent within the article we all agree is the right thing to do. What I don't agree is that it's right to take an article with lots of spaced en dashes and no em dashes and change them all to em dashes as part of rightly correcting a few hyphen errors. If you look at lists of species in plant articles, you will see that the consistent style where there is a Latin name followed by other information is spaced en dashes. It's clear, as I said above, that the editors intended spaced en dashes, and that any hyphens used in this way were errors for spaced en dashes. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:03, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Season's tidings!

FWiW Bzuk (talk) 13:56, 25 December 2011 (UTC).

Merge discussion for Balconette bra

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