User talk:Ohconfucius/archive14

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Ray Nagin

I stumbled upon Ray Nagin the other day and noticed something wonderful: It's been cleaned up! And then when I went into its history, I notice that it was none other than yourself who accomplished this task. Great work! I was going to do it myself but put it off because of other, more pressing tasks... plus it was nice to have a laugh or two reading the article and seeing how a BLP can be so bad (with headings like "Garbage controversy"). Anyway, just wanted to leave a note of thanks. Colipon+(Talk) 14:00, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

• I don't recall the circumstances why I attacked the page. Maybe I read somewhere - possibly from you - it was a mess. You saw what I had done - at least it's not a blatant attack page any more, but there are probably still some violations of WP:NPOV. I put it now on my watchlist, just to make sure no-one would restore all that junk, but no-one has seen fit to, yet. When I feel motivated enough, I may go and make a better job of it. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:35, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image (File:河蟹戴表.jpg)

⚠

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Talkback

Hello, Ohconfucius. You have new messages at Tcncv's talk page.
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Note to self: date uniformisation

Database dump performed by Tom: Total 52,000+ articles with a mixture of dmy and mdy dates. List of files is at All articles containing a mix of "day month" and "month day" date forms‎. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 12:08, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Date formatting

Thanks for the fixes, but you goofed the dates here :) Venezuela uses international date style, as does the article, so ref formatting should be day month year, not month day, year. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:15, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

• noted. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 15:20, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
  • Thank you !! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:26, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

More date formatting

In addition to SandyGeorgia's note above, you also changed the correct international formatted dates on the Ákos Takács article to reflect the US format in error, citing MOSNUM. Dates outside of the US use the day month year format (for the most part) and should generally not be changed. The relevant section in MOSNUM states " Articles on topics with strong ties to a particular English-speaking country should generally use the more common date format for that nation. For the U.S. this is month before day; for most others it is day before month. Articles related to Canada may use either format consistently." Cheers, --Jezebel'sPonyo^shhh 17:07, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

• It was a bit of a dilemma, seeing that the 'native' Hungarian date format seems to be yyyy mmm dd, and that the article was predominantly in mdy format - please note the first date in the lead, and a number of other dates in the version before my edit are in mdy format. Thank you for the courtesy of pointing out to me the proper date format which I will apply in future. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:29, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

No worries, I just try to make sure that I use the proper date formatting when adding references to articles, so I was worried that I had applied the wrong format. No harm done, and at least now the article has been checked over a couple times! Cheers, --Jezebel'sPonyo^shhh 01:56, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I have serious doubts regarding this source

Hello, could you please point me on your source on this? I looked for the content and for the title but no real source came up. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 21:39, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Hi, my mistake, see here. Best Regards, --HappyInGeneral (talk) 09:40, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

It was a fair challenge. Thanks for your note. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 09:47, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome! --HappyInGeneral (talk) 14:07, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Month names and weekdays

Already doing it. Let me know if you need help with date-delinking bot. Rich Farmbrough, 14:07, 7 November 2009 (UTC).

• Great, thanks! And while you're here, Could I ask you about javascript...

  I have a few lines of code in my monobook (from a script by Lightmouse) which I use to automatically insert an edit summary: 'function edit_summary()' or somesuch. To save me typing {{use dmy dates}} or {{use mdy dates}} each time, and so as not to annoy people by having the template at the top, I would like to build that into the relevant function to write it as the very last line of the file because it's usually part of the same edit. Could you suggest the code needed, please? Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 14:18, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

  Those templates are going to be moved by AWB to before the DEFAULTSORT. Rich Farmbrough, 03:40, 8 November 2009 (UTC).

• Also, I have this on my 'to do' list. Perhaps I could interest you in this task of making the dates uniform and WP:MOSNUM compliant, which needs quite a lot of mechanised work. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 15:10, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

  I started fixing these and got the usual ANI etc... Rich Farmbrough, 03:40, 8 November 2009 (UTC).

  Beecasue some minor US sportsman with no US categories was uniformed the "wrong way". Incidentally most of the royalty articles are now uniform, I noticed you had wroked on soem of them. Those with template {{Infobox royalty}} are all DMY except Hirohito and some of the Romanovs. Rich Farmbrough, 03:44, 8 November 2009 (UTC).

  You mean someone complained that you flipped one from dmy? I thought it was clear as day that all articles on US subjects dates go mdy... The majority of Japanese articles I've come across are mdy formatted, or just plain ISO. I don't usually change those. If you're working from this list, please don't forget to cross them off! ;-) Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:50, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

  Oh I was working from something like category:British people recursively, intersecting it with my list of mixed dmy/mdy, and skipping all that mentioned US USA or American.... So I simply brought it down on the "wrong" side of the fence. Of course all this talk of the "US" style is divisive hogwash, it is the majority style in the US, the military uses dmy and the general use of dmy is growing - there are (or certainly have been) US articles created in dmy and UK ones in mdy, by natives. Similarly I suspect most "dmy countries" are becoming more tolerant of mdy. Rich Farmbrough, 13:17, 10 November 2009 (UTC).

I agree

I agree about the decimal place being trivial in someone's weight, and also about using up-to-date info. The point is that 150 is not 130. I rounded 68.5kg to 150lbs and tried to make the change but it was kicked out for lack of a reference. Common sense is a reference, isn't it? Venus Williams, similar body type but one inch shorter, weighs 160. Anybody can see that the 130 figure is rediculous. Should a rediculous factoid stand? I don't think so. It seems to me that, proceedurally speaking, the lack of a formal reference should not prevent the correction of a glaring error. Victoroyer (talk) 03:05, 10 November 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Victoroyer (talk • contribs) 02:45, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

• Indeed, common sense is a guide, but only a guide. This data is a very commonly manipulated by kids, who may get a few giggles by putting Venus Williams to an anorexic 58kg, or Sharapova to a bloated 75kg. Some of these figures are not that easy to substantiate for the reasons I evoked on the article page, and that's certainly where common sense can step in and tell you that the data may be incorrect. However, common sense is not a reference, and if such data cannot be cited to a reference, it should be removed. Fortunately, Sharapova lists her weight in her official website, so the problem doesn't arise. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:08, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Nidal Malik Hasan

If (more like when) you are reverted, would you consider looking into 3RR violations by the offending individual? Grsz¹¹ 03:38, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Sly & the Family Stone

Would you please do a spot check on the dates in this article? Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Many otters • One bat • One hammer)} 21:39, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

• The dates in both the body and ref section appear to be consistent. The refs section uses exclusively ISO format dates, which also conforms to WP:MOSNUM. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:30, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

• • Sorry about the edit conflict the other day! My changes were trivial and easily restored, so no problem; yours were more important. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:16, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
    • No worries. I nearly fainted when I saw your 4 or 5 edits, but when I studied the diff, I realised that most of the changes were to the lead and the final sections, which I hadn't touched. It was easy to fix those. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 15:50, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Sumate

Someone else delinked dates there, but Venezuela uses dmy, not mdy.[1] Would you be able to repair that throughout? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:16, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

• Looks like Rich sorted out your problem for you. There were a few ISO dates left over in the refs section mixed with the dmy which I flipped to dmy, per WP:MOSNUM. I'll systematically work through the date formats in the Venezuela articles over the next few days. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 15:52, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
  • Thanks so much ! I created and worked on a lot of Venezuelan articles when I was a new editor, and their citation formatting is all over the map :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:09, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Hong Kong

This user helped promote Hong Kong to good article status.

Well done. SilkTork *^YES! 14:46, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

BNP QT

Could you please clarify on the article talk page what's confusing about the Daily Mail crib notes bit. I removed the tag you placed because you used a full size one, and by the time I find the proper inline version we could probably have sorted the issue anyway. MickMacNee (talk) 22:48, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

File copyright problem with File:C-y kwan.jpg

Thank you for uploading File:C-y kwan.jpg. However, it currently is missing information on its copyright status. Wikipedia takes copyright very seriously. It may be deleted soon, unless we can determine the license and the source of the file. If you know this information, then you can add a copyright tag to the image description page.

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If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them at the media copyright questions page. Thanks again for your cooperation. Skier Dude (talk) 04:15, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

ISO dates

One problem was the Template:Cite/doc insisted on YYYY-MM-DD - what Sladen didn;t realise was that Template:Cite has been gone for nearly a year and the docs were meaningless. Rich Farmbrough, 17:22, 17 November 2009 (UTC).

• Yes, he probably doesn't realise this. The exchange I've been having with Eubulides seems to indicate that possibility. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:52, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Dilip rajeev

Hi, I noticed you left me a message a few months ago, and nothing seems to have come of your action as Dilip has not responded to your accusation - more likely, different accounts were set up instead of having to suffer the ignominy of an indefinite ban (basically exploiting one of Wiki's weaknesses). As you know, I have already stayed away from Wiki's FLG pages for ages and have no real intention of returning to editing it. However, you can have my tacit support regarding any accusation of pro-FLG bias by this account (Dilip rajeev), and the fact that all the anti-FLG users have been banned indefinitely from Wikipedia which suggests bias by the arbitrators (which is why I left in the first place, as a non-confidence vote against the arbitrators at the time - note I was only protesting against a permanent ban as it discouraged proper debate), only and I wish you luck regarding this. Jsw663 (talk) 09:58, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

PS On your other comments about Bush/Hu etc. on my talk page, I don't pine for a return to British colonialism for Hong Kong as it most definitely won't be in the interest of welfare of the average HK person. Since I am neither liberal nor conservative but centrist (that's largely why I oppose FLG - anything promoting extremism or mindless worshipping of any one person or theory is bad), obviously my stance will be different from yours, as well as Bush's (too neocon), Obama's (too human rights obsessed) and Hu's (too conservative).

Thanks for your support. Basically, there has been a minor revolution at the FLG family of articles since Olaf Stephanos was topic-banned for 6 months - first is that Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident was made a WP:FA not long ago; Dilip rajeev has all but disappeared (touch wood), as has Asdfg12345; but there's little a gnat with an impregnated swastika which flies around from time to time which I occasionally find distracting. Other than that, if you ever feel inclined to pop in for a visit, you will find much of the bias has now been neutralised, although the articles still need a lot of work.

Actually, it seems our political positions are not too different. If I read your accusation of Hu Jintao correctly, we're probably on the same page. The PRC has still many of the problems of a nasty dictatorship, although there seems to be a genuine collective leadership which may mitigate this. My main gripe about the PRC is that it doesn't have a track record I feel I can trust, and that trust is pretty important if you're living on its doorstep. The way the Chinese/Hong Kong government are dragging their heels over universal suffrage for the territory gives me no confidence in its sincerity as far as that is concerned. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 10:19, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Elephant in the room

You may have an opinion about the image and caption added to this article? --Tenmei (talk) 16:30, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

• :-) Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:03, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

File:Demerara rebellion of 1823 map.svg

(uploaded to commons)

That's all the information I could get out of it. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 06:07, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

• It's brilliant. ¡Muchas gracias! Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 06:12, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

• • Aoo' < "yepp" Navajo is still spoken in AZ ;) Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 06:34, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

DYK hook

By the way, saw your DYK-hook for that article. I know slaves were not considered human, but
"slaves which rebelled"
sounds kinda weird... no? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 06:42, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

• thanks. I'll fix it. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 08:23, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

I commented on your DYK nomination over there. Personally, I would prefer the 2nd hook you gave as it's more interesting, but there are a couple of minor issues with that hook. See my comment at T:TDYK for more details. MuZemike 01:40, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Never mind about the above. I'm going to use this hook as it more matches what is in the article:

• ... that the slaves who rebelled against their masters in Demerara in 1823 promised not to use violence?

How does that sound? MuZemike 02:29, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

• Good! Thanks, I was just about to post something similar. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:38, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

+ "Georgetown & "Success"

"Success" is mentioned in your article as well. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 03:53, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

• Thanks, you're a star! Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:57, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

DYK for Demerara rebellion of 1823

On November 25, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Demerara rebellion of 1823, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits your article got while on the front page (here's how) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Materialscientist (talk) 13:42, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

So soon, huh? The map might've appeared black for four minutes between 14:38 and 14:42 UTC... trouble uploading. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 14:49, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

sweet picture

of an elephant giving birth --//Cokemonkey11 (talk) 06:00, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll tell the artist. ;-) Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 07:14, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

DYK for Quamina

On November 30, 2009, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Quamina, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits your article got while on the front page (here's how) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Materialscientist (talk) 09:00, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

International Space Station

		The Citation Barnstar
		For reformatting the massive number of citation dates on International Space Station to the correct format, a job everyone was dreading and putting off... :-) Many, many thanks! Colds7ream (talk) 16:36, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, there were rather a lot of them there dates. I've never come accross an article with quite so many. The barnstar is much appreciated. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 16:40, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

K2 date formatting changes

Hi. I'm curious as to why you chose to change all the date formats from MMM DD to DD MMM? According to what I understand from the MOSNUM guidelines on date formatting, the dominant form in usage in the article should be preserved unless there is a strong national tie to the topic. The formatting chosen by the first major contributor should be preserved. What was your reasoning for switching the format? RedWolf (talk) 08:37, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

• Apolologies. I must have been sleepwalking ;-) - I was mechanically working through the previous article aligning to dmy, and I just carried on, having noticed a few dates which were dmy. I've reverted the edit. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 08:54, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
• Not just that, I noticed Pakistan in the lead. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 09:00, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Please leave date autoformatting alone

Hi. I support your efforts to de-link dates that have no significance in articles, but I request that you cease your removal of the autoformatting {{date}} tag, as you did in stevia and other articles. I have reverted some of these.

Please note also that your edit summaries are misleading, justifying these changes as "per WP:MOSNUM" -- although WP:MOSNUM contains no recommendation against autoformatted dates, only against dates linked for the purpose of autoformatting. In fact, autoformatting is implied as desirable in WP:MOSNUM. Thanks. ~Amatulić (talk) 05:27, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

• I apologise for the "misleading" edit summaries, but there isn't really any more apt description which could be added concisely. I guess I could have written 'formatting'. There is no consensus for your reverts - Autoformatting has been deprecated, and these date autoformatting templates have lost their raison d'etre. What is more, I've noticed quite a few of the templates left date formates inappropriate to the articles' appartenance (in terms of dmy or mdy), and their removal was merely part of that cleanup effort. Thanks for your comprehension. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 07:12, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
  • I understand and support the clean-up you're doing to de-link dates. However, I challenge your claim that the {{date}} tag is deprecated. If there's an official Wikipedia position about deprecating that template, it would be noted on the template page. The Template:Date page says nothing about deprecation, and the discussion on the talk page doesn't suggest anything about deprecation either. ~Amatulić (talk) 18:40, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
• From the MOSNUM: "Dates should not be linked purely for the purpose of autoformatting (even though in the past this was considered desirable)" (please see the Notes section at the end of the page for the explanation). This clearly indicates that autoformatting is no longer desirable. Have a read through this page as many of the points apply equally to the {{date}} tag.  HWV258  07:50, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
  • No. It says that linking for the purpose of autoformatting was once considered desirable, but linking no longer is desirable. The implication is that autoformatting is desirable. ~Amatulić (talk) 18:29, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
    • It's a pity you haven't had time to catch up with recent events before weighing-in here. Please understand that (after a long and all-encompassing debate including multiple RfCs) the community has overwhelmingly rejected the concept of date autoformatting.  HWV258  20:42, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
• Yes MOSNUM is a little unclear. Lets be clear: Auto formatting is bad. Regardless, in Stevia the template does nothing (but impose clutter and (admittedly trivial) overhead). Rich Farmbrough, 15:50, 2 December 2009 (UTC).
  • Thank you for your opinion. Let's be clear: There is no consensus. On my "to do" list for stevia was to autoformat all the dates. The article has international scope, and the dates displayed should be shown according to user preferences. Therefore, I was distressed to see Ohconfucius come along and delete the autoformatting. ~Amatulić (talk) 18:29, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
    • You have me very worried now. I checked the {{date}} template and there is no mention of "user" or "preferences". Are you now saying that the {{date}} template does interrogate user-preferences? If you are, then things are worse than I thought, and something will urgently have to be done about the template. If you are genuinely interested as to why, then I'm sure we are all happy to discuss it with you in the correct forum.  HWV258  20:48, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
      • The references within Stevia were all in a consistent format, and perfectly compliant with WP:MOSNUM if not for the botched "autoformatting" (sic). There is no good reason for changing the dates from ISO 8601 formats by using the {{date}} template. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 09:06, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
    • I have just had it confirmed that the {{date}} template does not use the preferences of the logged-in user. In that light, could you please explain the second point you raised above ("dates displayed should be shown according to user preferences")? Thanks.  HWV258  22:31, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
      • You are correct; evidently I misunderstood the function of the {{date}} tag. ~Amatulić (talk) 22:04, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

• Amatulić, you’ve arrived late to the discussion. The community has been through (in great abundance) the subject of autoformating—as distinct from “date linking”—before and won’t be opening the subject yet again because you like it to be so.

  Please see Autoformatting for I.P. users, which explains why the Wikipedian community rejects autoformatting. In a nutshell: because we don’t want markup that benefits only A) registered editors, who B) have bothered to set their user preferences. Why is this the case? Because readers who meet the A and B criteria are truly miniscule compared to the huge numbers of regular I.P. readers who visit Wikipedia. Remember, we are working on Wikipedia for our readership, not for “us” (registered Wikipedians who obsess about date formats and set their users’ preference). Note that the default format seen by I.P. readers is often inappropriate for the article content. Moreover, too many editors aren’t sufficiently proficient on Wiki markup to be expected to horse around with a tool that was intended to benefit only a vanishingly small portion of our readership (readers like you and me).

  The fundamental principle that arose out of the date-formating discussion is that all readers will see identical content and that it is especially important that our registered editors always see precisely what our I.P. readership sees. Just turn off your user’s preferences setting on dates and join in on the MOSNUM discussion as to what guidelines should be tweaked governing the best date format to use for various subject matter.

  By the way, you might wonder why we don’t make a tool that allows all readers to have a user preference for dates. It’s been discussed and rejected; it just ain’t gonna happen. Greg L (talk) 21:39, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

• • Greg L, that non-authoritative essay you point out fails to make a case against autoformatting, using the excuse that an appropriate tag isn't available.

• • OhConfucius: I note that you reverted my edit to stevia where ArbCom has prohibited you from doing so. However, I won't revert back now that I understand the issue more fully. ~Amatulić (talk) 22:04, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
    • Wrong. Ohconfucius' is "prohibited from reverting the linking or unlinking of dates"; that is not the same as removing autoformatting templates from dates. Dabomb87 (talk) 01:40, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

• I'll agree that the consensus against autoformatting is not as clear-cut as that against date linking, but to say that there is no consensus is stretching it, and to say that MOSNUM actually encourages it is wrong altogether. The MOS does not say anything about autoformatting. The only guidance on autoformatting comes from the Wikipedia:Date formatting and linking poll. Out of more than 500 participants (consider that few RfAs receive more than 200 !votes, and even in the 2008 ArbCom elections most candidates did not receive more than 400 total votes), only 40% supported the general idea of autoformatting. Maybe there's not an overwhelming consensus against it, but there most definitely is not any consensus for it. Dabomb87 (talk) 01:40, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Of course; and those 60% are mainly the "gut-feel" votes (i.e. the ones who quite correctly think: why would you bother). In reality, the more you dig into date-autoformatting, the more you realise how unworkable and unnecessary it is. Nothing but technology for the sake of technology.  HWV258  01:53, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

• Well, Amatulić, you declare my essay to be “non-authoritative.” Shall I consider your opinion on this matter to be “exceedingly authoritative” then?

  To spare you further grief, I seriously suggest that you actually read the above-mentioned link that Dabomb87 provided (Wikipedia:Date formatting and linking poll#Poll). That community-wide RfC had been overseen by an administrator to ensure it was conducted fairly. The scope of this RfC addressed both linking and the autoformatting of dates and settled the issue for the rest of us (perhaps not you though). The clear consensus was to embrace the “Fundamental principle that there should not be two classes of users”; that the Wikipedia community has no stomach for horsing around with wikimarkup intended to benefit only a vanishingly small percentage of our readership (only registered editors who set their date preferences). The community woke up to the realization that “it isn’t all about us.” We can’t, as editors, fix a hodgepodge of date formats in articles if we are insulated from seeing what the vast majority of our readership (regular I.P. readers) see.

  I can’t control what the heck you do with your edits because you seem intent on doing whatever you please. Knock yourself out. But don’t complain when other editors properly delete your troublesome markup; they are perfectly within their right to do so and their efforts to do so are to make Wikipedia a better product for our regular I.P. readership. Again, it’s about them, not us. Greg L (talk) 22:20, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Following the arguments in this thread: is there any reason to keep the template {{Date}}, except for its widespread use? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:26, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

• It seems to have a number of functions, such as to automatically generate today's date. Where the functionailties are autoformatting - and I suspect the majority belong in this category - I see no reason why {{date}} should be used any more. It is used perhaps in three thousand articles in total, and only a small fraction relate to auto-date generation. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 13:46, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
• Agreed that {{date}} should not be used for the purposes of autoformatting. I'd be interested to see some "valid" examples of its use.  HWV258  20:51, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Signature

Hey, your signature is really cool! I hope you don't mind if I copy the shadow effect for my own. (But if you do just say and I'll remove it.) Reywas92^Talk 03:35, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

• I immediately liked the shadow effect when I saw it; of course you're welcome to use it. One thing you should be aware of is that the shadow effect doesn't seem to render properly on the Mac. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:39, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

… or using Internet Explorer. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 07:46, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

The effect works really well in Firefox, but also renders in Chrome. HWV258  HWV258  09:01, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Unreferenced BLP bot

Hey there

I wanted your input on a bot that you requested (and i scripted) see the discussion here Tim1357 (talk) 18:05, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

He volvido

Just a quick note. Sorry for the long absence--I don't know whether you missed me. Anyway, looking forward to maintaining harmony and upholding the stability of Wikipedia together in the fruitful months to come.--Asdfg12345 01:28, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

• I have been wondering... Where u bin, if it's not prying? Anyway, Happy has been holding fort while you've been gone - no disrespect to him, but he's a lightweight compared to you. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:09, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

I had a job working 12+ hour days. I'm baffled by what I'm seeing on these pages. Take it as a credit to you that I'm genuinely surprised by it, with the surprise continuing as I click "history" and see who's behind it. Amazing. Anyway, there's no dearth of sources on this out there, and wikipedia content policies provide a fairly robust framework for making it all hang together. As long as people follow them.--Asdfg12345 23:14, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

• I found Googlebooks, and the rest is history. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:42, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure how to reconcile your remarks about wanting to make neutral pages with the one-sided anti-Falun Gong propaganda on the History page now. There's nothing at all on the de-centralised nature of Falun Gong, and nothing at all of the group-just-wants-to-be-free-to-believe narrative. It's fine having both, but you picked the worst side to smother the other. I find it bizarre. Some candid thoughts for you to chew on.--Asdfg12345 00:09, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

• I try not to let Falun Gong matters give me sleepless nights - that's reserved for RL matters. ;-) Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:28, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

This is real, dude. I'm typing this right now with my real fingers!--Asdfg12345 08:27, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Dates

I have a wikiproject somewhere... I meant to mention it to you.

There are a bundle of things that need to be done

1. Delinking (and linking?)
2. Easter-eggs
3. Fixing invalid dates
4. Removing invalid date formats
5. Expanding abbreviations
6. Consistency within articles, by associated place, US military
7. Article labelling?
8. Protocol for hiding access dates
9. Mechanism for checking dates are in the appropriate calender
10. Anti-vandal measures (as per Chemobot)

These are just what is on my mind at the moment.

Rich Farmbrough, 03:08, 16 December 2009 (UTC).

Ah here we are. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Date_formattings. Maybe that should be subsumed into a dates project. Rich Farmbrough, 03:10, 16 December 2009 (UTC).

• Wikinews Importer Bot keeps undoing my date-delinking. :-( Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:25, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

The Great Wikipedia Dramaout

Hi! As you have expressed an interest in the initial The Great Wikipedia Dramaout, you're being notified because we are currently planning another one in January! We hope to have an even greater level of participation this time around, and we need your help. If you're still interested please sign up now at Wikipedia:The Great Wikipedia Dramaout/2nd. Thanks, and Happy Holidays! JCbot (talk) 04:40, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Braun

Tx for your clean-up on the Braun dates. I should note though that at times it results in curious entries, as in ""Brewers call up third baseman Ryan Braun," USA Today, May 24/7, accessed July August 7".--Epeefleche (talk) 08:51, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

• Something went wrong with the search/replace function. I saw there were a few, and I went back to fix those. Evidently I missed some. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 08:56, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Falun Gong "alert"

I'm just notifying everyone involved in the Falun Gong articles lately, regardless of stance or opinion. We have a new SPA RoyalRook with absolutely no clue about no interest in NPOV who inserted phrases like "Huge BS" and "Can you say crazy cult for 100?" into the main article. I reverted. You're welcome. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 16:51, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Date formatting

Hi Confucious, would you mind not changing the date formatting in articles wholesale from month-day to day-month? When you did it here, for example, you changed the file names of two images, which meant they stopped displaying, and also meant they showed up as orphaned. Because they're fair use, that triggers the deletion process. The first I noticed it was when someone alerted me on my talk page that the images were about to be deleted. Cheers, SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 18:07, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

• Thanks for the message. In my eagerness for articles' date formats to be consistent, I sometimes mechanically change the date without realising. I will try to be more vigilant. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 00:04, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, and no worries. It's an easy mistake to make. SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 00:42, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Could you please explain...

In this edit you changed the representation of a lot of dates. Many of them were changes from yyyy-mm-dd format to dd Month, yyyy I could understand making this change in the text portion of the article, but it was my impression that yyyy-mm-dd was the preferred format within {{cite}} templates. Many of your changes were within {{cite}} templates.

Cheers! Geo Swan (talk) 15:04, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

• Hi! Actually, there is no "preferred format" for dates within citation templates – the large numbers of ISO 8601 dates embedded within the template group throughout wikipedia are relics of the linking and autoformatting function which was part of the date rendering mechanism, which has been disabled since consensus determined that date-autoformatting was no longer desirable. The important detail about date formats is Wikipedia:MOSNUM#Format_consistency, which states that date formats ought to be consistent within the body text; they should also be consistent within the article reference section. If all the dates were in yyyy-mm-dd, I would not have changed these. But because there were a number of departures, all date formats for the whole article were aligned. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:19, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
  • I tend to agree with Oh's analysis and approach.--Epeefleche (talk) 05:48, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm late, I'm late....

Hey, I noticed this which introduced an error I fixed here. --John (talk) 22:03, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Incidentally, how do you do the ISO conversions? --John (talk) 03:20, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

• I'm sure there's a better way, but I extract them using an Excel function. I've seen at least one other person do it, and I've been meaning to ask how... Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:28, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Correo

Te digo, tienes correo electrónico. --JN466 04:51, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

• muchas gracias. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 04:57, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

4/3 Infantry Battalion

Hi. :) That article is in sore need of a scouring, but the sources it copies are public domain by age and/or federal government origin. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:37, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

• Oops, caught out again by PD sources! Thanks for reverting. Is it safe to assume source army.gov is public domain, then? Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 13:42, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

• No problem. :) Most of them are, yes. If they are not public domain, it usually says so. Once in a while I have seen stuff on US .gov websites that I think is probably copyrighted that does not include such indication, but this is rare. There's a little bit of specific guidance on the issue at Wikipedia:PD#U.S. government works. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:50, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. My guard usually goes up when I see material is identical to an external site, so now I know there's an obvious exception. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 13:53, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

My guard goes up when I see that, too. :D I appreciate you keeping an eye out for it! --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 13:55, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Notification: Proposed 'Motion to Close' at Wikipedia:Community de-adminship/Draft RfC

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Community de-adminship/Draft RfC re: a 'Motion to close', which would dissolve Cda as a proposal. The motion includes an !vote. You have previously commented at Wikipedia:WikiProject Administrator/Admin Recall. Best Wishes for the Holidays, Jusdafax 07:15, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Talk:July 2009 Ürümqi riots‎

Mind taking a short break from Falun Gong and give your input over there? Somebody's once again trying to "prove" an agenda, it seems Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 06:26, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Dates

When delinking dates, as you did here, please mind WP:ENGVAR and do not arbitrarily switch from one clearly established format to another. Thank you.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:59, December 28, 2009 (UTC)

• Er, WP:ENGVAR does not appear to have anything to do with my edit. And if you are referring to the dmy date format, it is the native format for Russia and all Slavonic countries. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:36, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
  • ENGVAR refers to the variety of English used in any given article, which includes the date preferences. Which format is native in Russia is really of no importance, because this is the English Wikipedia and not Russian (in the latter, using anything but dmy would indeed be weird). By your logic we should be writing the names of the months in Cyrillic, because that's "native to Russia".
  • If you still find this argument unconvincing, I additionally refer you to WP:DATE#Full date formatting, particularly its "Retaining the existing format" subsection (which is written in the same spirit as ENGVAR). Thanks.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:29, December 29, 2009 (UTC)
    • I would suggest that you studied WP:ENGVAR again closely - As I said, it has bog-all to do with date formats. The policy itself sends you back to WP:MOSNUM. What you are citing is the 'first major contributor' rule, which by no means trumps the preferred date format in each country. It only applies when there is no preferred date format, or where that preferred format does not conform to one of the two whose use is acceptable in WP. Finally, you may be relieved to know that, provided the date formats in the article are unlinked and are in a consistent format throughout the article, it is extremely unlikely that I will ever edit that article again. Thank you for your interest in the matter. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:40, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
      • I, in turn, would suggest you choose the links you cite more closely :) This one has nothing whatsoever to do with the date formats used in Wikipedia articles; it's an encyclopedic bit which does not affect our practices in any way, shape, or form. What does affect our practices is ENGVAR (the "first contributor" part of which, as you correctly assumed, I was referring to), as well as this section of WP:DATE, which limits the choice of "preferred date formats" to English-speaking countries (which Russia, of course, is not). The "Retaining the existing format" subsection of the same section of WP:DATE further explains the practice, echoing the ENGVAR's "first contributor" sentiment.
      • Finally, while the article you edited is, of course, a minor issue that I am more than happy to attribute to a sincere misinterpretation of the guidelines on your part, I am a bit concerned by the fact that in your comment above you are not recognizing what the guideline actually says. If I may suggest, please re-read WP:DATE carefully, keep it in mind when editing, and I promise you'll never hear from me again, at least on this point :) Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:54, December 30, 2009 (UTC)

See also

• West Indian cricket team in England in 1988, a tour often referred to as the Summer of the four captains —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.67.74.89 (talk) 11:44, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Happy WikiBirthday (a day late)!

I saw from here that it's been four years since you joined the project. Happy WikiBirthday! Keep up the good work, rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 17:26, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

• Thank you kindly. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 17:29, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Date template

I substed a bunch of these, but ..... Oh well, there's a million other things that need doing. Rich Farmbrough, 17:30, 31 December 2009 (UTC).

• I noticed that SmackBot tried to remove the template around the date such as here:{{date|4 July 1776|dmy}} on several occasions, but got bogged down. I think it would be much better if this job is combined with another job, such as aligning dates to a single format. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 17:37, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

"Hózhǫ́ǫgo Nińdoohah!"
(~ may the next winter arrive for you while beauty prevails)
...Hoozdoh Hahoodzodę́ę́ʼ
Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 1 Yas Niłtʼees 2010

• Er, I presume that was a new year greeting, and thank you for it. May contentment and good health continue to bless you this year. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:07, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Curiosity

Hi! Just out of curiosity why do you like to make "The Epoch Times" italic? See here. Thanks. --HappyInGeneral (talk) 13:33, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

• There is a convention that periodicals' titles are written in italics. See Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(text_formatting)#Italic_face Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 13:38, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

• Thank you! Good to know! --HappyInGeneral (talk) 13:53, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Ohconfucius, can you please stop assuming bad faith, and stop reverting my changes without engaging in discussion? You need to engage in a debate about the material. While you ignore the issues I raise on the talk page, you accuse me of problematic editing. The pages need to make sense, and I'm trying to engage in a dialogue where we can work out how to make that work, but you're ignoring me and undoing the changes. --Asdfg12345 08:18, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Urumqi riots -- gender of arrestees

Good catch here. I looked around and it turns out sources 70-1 (in the "After 5 July" section) are the ones that mention gender. They don't explicitly say that most of the people arrested were men, they just say something along the lines of "Uyghur women were protesting because their husbands/etc. had been arrested"... but that does at least imply that most of the arrests were of men, as does the fact that most of the people actually sentenced later were men. I'll have to look around and see if I can find any sources that say this more explicitly. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 02:30, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Silliwili awards

Congratulations on your wins! Tony (talk) 10:47, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry

Sorry about that. It wasn't meant as a personal attack. I was attacking a viewpoint but it was badly worded and inappropriate for the talk page. --William S. Saturn (talk) 04:26, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

• I thank you for your gracious apology. I have left further comments on the article talk page. Cheers. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 04:31, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

MfD nomination of Wikipedia:SILIWILI

Wikipedia:SILIWILI, a page you substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:SILIWILI and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of Wikipedia:SILIWILI during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. Damiens.rf 16:16, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

GA nomination of Question Time British National Party controversy

Hi, just to let you know, I've reviewed Question Time British National Party controversy for you. I've raised a few minor issues that should be easily taken care of which can be found at Talk:Question Time British National Party controversy/GA1. I have to say, I was impressed with the quality of the writing and the neutrality. If you need anything more from me, I'd appreciate a {{talkback}} on my talk page, if not, I've got the review page watchlisted so I'll drop in if you post anything there. All the best, HJMitchell You rang? 06:03, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

• Thanks. I will deal with the points you raised as soon as I can. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 06:29, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Propriety

I never got around to asking: what were you doing poking around the article on Orgasm, hmmmmm? Tony (talk) 08:00, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

• I have no recollection at all. However, if you feel inclined to look at my contributions just before that edit, you might get a clue as to what led me there. ;-) Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 08:20, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

You have been mentioned on an arbitration enforcement discussion.

Please refer here. [2]

Hi. I know you're done with the pages again for now, but at least I need to pull you up for sidestepping the issue that a large amount of information was deleted from the encyclopedia. So there's two pages. But most of the info on the persecution page was not moved to the history page. Most of it no longer exists on wiki mainspace. It's hidden in the page history. The part about the media, campaign, torture, psychiatric abuses, etc. etc., the vast majority of it drawn from reliable sources--all gone. Yes, it's hard to stay on top of everything. I'm not blaming you personally. But that level of (seemingly, attempted, apparent) information control, on such a serious topic, is what people should be up in alms about. Something went wrong there, right?--Asdfg12345 11:03, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

• Thanks for your note. I'll look at the articles with it in mind when I feel like coming back. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 13:47, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Don't mean to give you a hard time. We'll meet again under more amiable circumstances.--Asdfg12345 14:18, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

• Sure, take it easy yourself! Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 14:45, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Unreferenced BLPs

Hello Ohconfucius! Thank you for your contributions. I am a bot alerting you that 4 of the articles that you created are tagged as Unreferenced Biographies of Living Persons. The biographies of living persons policy requires that all personal or potentially controversial information be sourced. In addition, to ensure verifiability, all biographies should be based on reliable sources. If you were to bring these articles up to standards, it would greatly help us with the current 524 article backlog. Once the articles are adequately referenced, please remove the {{unreferencedBLP}} tag. Here is the list:

1. Ivor Tiefenbrun - Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
2. Gad Ben-Meir - Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
3. Dave (singer) - Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
4. Gilles Bensimon - Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Thanks!--DASHBot (talk) 06:24, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

AKB48 member pages

Hi. I noticed that you deleted the vast majority of articles about AKB48 members and I was kind of bothered by this at first, but after actually looking at the quality of the articles in question, I can see that they needed some serious improvement. While I still disagree with your decision to delete them as non-notable, considering how they are the the most popular and biggest-selling female group in Japan right now, I suppose I do owe you thanks for drawing my attention to the matter. I'm not exactly a major contributor here on Wikipedia, but I do plan to seriously improve the quality of AKB48-related articles over the next few months. I've completely rewritten the article for Yuki Kashiwagi and while I realise that it's still far from perfect, I believe it is at least more suitable than what was there before. Any comments would be welcome. Davedim (talk) 17:56, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

• My only fear when tackling large groupings in this way is to get people upset, and I genuinely appreciate your feedback. It's a group with rather curious organisation structure, and the concept of 'research student' is never clearly elaborated in the main article. I was tempted to delete many of them as the content in existing versions were mostly fancruft, as you seem to recognise. Many of the girls don't even have articles in jp.wp, so I had little hesitation in redirecting them for now, pending attention from editors like your goodself, when they can be reinstated into article space. I bid you god spede in your efforts there. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 04:10, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

WP:NODRAMA/2

Just a quick reminder that the Second Great Wikipedia Dramaout has begun. Please log any work you do at Wikipedia:The Great Wikipedia Dramaout/2nd/Log. Good luck! --Jayron32 01:40, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Community de-Adminship - finalization poll for the CDA proposal

After tolling up the votes in the revision proposals, it emerged that 5.4 had the most support, but elements of that support remained unclear, and various comments throughout the polls needed consideration.

A finalisation poll (intended, if possible, to be one last poll before finalising the CDA proposal) has been run to;

• gather opinion on the 'consensus margin' (what percentages, if any, have the most support) and

• ascertain whether there is support for a 'two-phase' poll at the eventual RfC (not far off now), where CDA will finally be put to the community. Matt Lewis (talk) 01:03, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Yellowface & Racebending

Yellowface and Racebending

Hello, Ohconfucius. You have new messages at Nemogbr's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

?? Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 06:46, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Hi:

Just wanted to see if you could check out the overhauled Yellowface article. Perhaps you could give some pointers.

Nemogbr (talk) 10:26, 19 January 2010 (UTC) --Nemogbr (talk) 10:26, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Sure, I'll go and have a look tomorrow. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 10:56, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Like a virgin

You are doing the same thing again and again by removing italicization. Can you please leave teh references and carry on with the prose. Let me sort it out myself since you donot seem to get it. --Legolas ^(talk2me) 06:29, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

• I tried to avoid repeating the same error as before, and ask you to please take a closer look. I removed a whole bunch of overlinked words or terms, and corrected some bizarre formatting, for example, where text within '|work=' had further redundant italicisation. It is without question that 'MTV', 'Reuters' do not belong italicised. I do note, however, that I omitted to remove/change the parameters for 'Allmusic', which also does not belong italicised. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 06:43, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

God! Lemme explain this the final time. Those italicizations were done so that they appear straight in the actual reference. Please leave them as it is. And MTV Networks and MTV are different entities. You cannot just come and remove every possible parameters under teh pretext of WP:OVERLINK. If you donot understand I request you to stop! --Legolas ^(talk2me) 06:52, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

I see now that we were talking cross-purposes - you about the '|work=' parameter, and I about the linking. With the extra pair of italicisation marks, you are forcing the parameter to display in non-italics. It seems a load of effort to go to... Knock yourself out, I won't revert. I'm more concerned about the linking.

I know MTV Networks and MTV are not the same entities. It's no great loss that MTVN doesn't appear in the cite - it's not as if it's a small magazine or TV station which few know about. Most people wanting to know who's behind MTV will go to that article. Linking to MTV once in the article is sufficient, linking to MTV Networks is really diluting the high value links. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 07:17, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Redirect

You should redirect your new and unfamiliar template to the familiar {{Overlinked}}, and not the other way around. Debresser (talk) 17:52, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

• Sorry, no offense was meant. I only redirected it after roaming around trying to categorise mine. Feel free to swap the redirects around if you like. Actually, I'm indifferent, although I thought the extra /doc was worth having. I would observe that {{Overlinked}} isn't at all well advertised - I wouldn't have created mine if I had known yours existed; I posted {{linkaudit}} to WP:TC. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 18:01, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

No offense taken. :) And {{Overlinked}} isn't my template. :) But it seems more reasonable to redirect a new template to an old one. And it is being used, just not that extensively. Which I would say is basically because there aren't that many overlinked articles. Debresser (talk) 16:58, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Ohconfucius. You have new messages at Rjanag's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Thanks

Thanks for doing this, hopefully it will quell some of that editor's concerns. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 16:44, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

In this edit you took out some of the lede, saying "verbatim from source". Could you let me know which source this was verbatim from? I think removing this much background info from the lede may make it harder for the readers to get a good summary. Granted, pretty much all the same information is still there in your edit (it still presents both the viewpoints), but without some transition/introduction like "the specific cause of the riots remains unclear", I fear a reader won't pick up on the importance of these two little sentences. For us, having been dealing with these same issues for months, it's easy to assume these issues are obvious and to skim over them at lightning speed, but I'm wondering if a reader with no background might need their hand held a bit more. Anyway, if you let me know which source the language was copied from, I can have a look and see what I can do to reword it. (I remember that I wasn't even really looking at the sources as I wrote that lede, so any overlap in languages must have been by coincidence.) rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 04:22, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

• According to the NYT article: "The clashes on Sunday began when the police confronted a protest march held by Uighurs to demand a full government investigation of a brawl between Uighur and Han workers that erupted in Guangdong Province overnight on June 25 and June 26. The brawl took place in a toy factory and left 2 Uighurs dead and 118 people injured." - this comes down decisively on the side of provocation by the police. Based on what typically happens in violent demonstrations, this view is consistent, therefore I simplified the text in light of that. Maybe I've jumped the gun, but the cause of the demonstration seems to be clear, as is the eruption of violence. Maybe the reference got displaced, but I couldn't find reference to the Uyghur claim in the source (per the text I removed) - but I don't think it's necessary any more, so I just went and replaced it with the corresponding direct assertion in the NYT. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 04:31, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

FWIW, personally I think we should hold off on adding the stuff about the Australian film festival, Kadeer's visa, etc., until YellowMonkey comments again. Personally I don't think it's necessary and doesn't add much to the article, and I wouldn't add it unless there is a strong demand, backed up by consensus, to do so.
Although, if we must include it, I suppose mention of the hacking stuff could go under the Internet Response section (with some introductory phrase like "netizens were still expressing their anger over the riots as late as September, when...."), and it could use refs like these (stolen from the Kadeer article): <ref>{{cite news | last=Child | first=Ben | date=22 September 2009 | url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/sep/22/chinese-protesters-hack-website | title=Chinese hackers strike again in protest over Uighur activist film | work=The Guardian | accessdate=29 January 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite news | author=Cui Jia | date=22 September 2009 | url=http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-09/22/content_8719448.htm | title=Hacker attacks website over Kadeer film |work=China Daily | accessdate=29 January 2010}}</ref> rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 02:11, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, I can see why some people may feel that it's relevant, and that it warrants inclusion. I planned to keep it brief, and not expand it into a section. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:13, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Mark Clifford bio

Thanks for your note. I hope it's appropriate to write this note here. I appreciate that you restored the edit. But it seems that Justin Mitchell's original article does not have proper sourcing: Justin wrote: "Clifford, who had called the Fraser page ‘’something you would not want to show your mother,’’ was also reportedly asked about a previous farewell page that also contained off-color jokes which Clifford had personally presented to an exiting employee at a farewell ceremony.

“He simply said that he had paid ‘more attention’ to Niall’s page,’’ said a source who did not want to be identified. “He called Niall’s page ‘obscene’ and said it was intolerable and inappropriate to produce it on SCMP equipment.’’

There is no elaboration and no detail. We have a "reportedly" and an unnamed source.I don't believe that this adheres to Wikipedia's standards.

By the way I believe it is Justin Mitchell (not Michell) Regards, Mark Clifford MarkCliff (talk) 04:52, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

• Thanks Mark, will investigate. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 05:04, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Hi

Please have a look and add content:War of Internet Addiction

Arilang ^talk 05:38, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

• The article lacks sources, and I believe does not have a sufficiently strong assertion to notability to avoid deletion. It relies on fringe sources, such as blogs, which do not satisfy WP:RS. In addition, the article's external links are mainly on the subject of internet addiction, and some local governments' attempts to use electric shocks, while there is not a strong enough link between the article's subject (the video itself) and internet addiction. I have not been able to find decent sources to back up the article. I will need time to read up on the topic, and try and find some Chinese sources to fill the gap. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 06:17, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your most valuable comment. Another comment: After watching the video a few times, my conclusion is that the video does not talk about Internet Addiction at all. I think the producer had given it a wrong name. The video is more to do with WOW player's sorrow and frustrations, and the final fight against Yang Yongsing.

More links:

• zh:网瘾战争/temp

• 凤凰卫视：《网瘾战争》说出了玩家的心声
• 南方都市报报道《网瘾战争》 采访作者玉米

• 2009国服总结视频：看你妹第三部之《网瘾战争》
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Arilang ^talk 06:25, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Year Linking for Oldest Persons?

I would suggest a day period of "cooling off" on this topic. The traditional way that Wikipedians tend to operate as some CABAL often leads to edits that are counterproductive to Wikipedia. It's sort of human nature to want to "fight" but shouldn't attempts be made to reach consensus?Ryoung122 13:50, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

• Well fuck me! How many times do 'Germany' and 'United States' need to be linked] in an article of 1,470 bytes? Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 14:29, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
• BTW, I'm not dismissing your complaint out of hand, but I've been doing formatting work on articles throughout WP for months, and you're the only one who has complained. And oh, I think you must have had your fingers crossed behind your back when you used the 'C-word' Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 14:32, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree that REDUNDANT links should be removed, just don't "throw the baby out with the bathwater."Ryoung122 14:39, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Corruption in the PRC

Hello, I did a bunch of work on the article of that title. I would appreciate your thoughts on what you think it would take to get it to GA.--Asdfg12345 15:16, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Barry Horne

Hi Ohconfucious, this is a small point, but regarding this edit that changed the date format in Barry Horne, the format I had in the article—January 30, 2010—is used in the UK. It used to be more common than the other way round, though is now in the minority, but only just. The Times, for example, uses month day year. [3] The problem with making these changes is that I'm the person who edits that article the most, and I always write month day year (instinctively), so changing it means I have to stop and think every time I write a date in it now. As I said, it's not a major issue, but it's slightly annoying given that both date formats are acceptable. SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 01:12, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

• Articles for British subjects, per the 'close national ties' rule. I am a little surprised that another UK editor has not changed it. Please don't start arguing that that rule should not apply to British article here - such discussion does not belong here on my talk page, but at WT:MOSNUM - I know you initiated a discussion about that there a while ago, and your arguments were not accepted. Don't start changing the rule in article space. Feel free to continue to use whatever format you please when you edit Barry Horne. It's on my watchlist, and I don't mind revisiting the article from time to time to correct the date formats. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 06:14, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Also, I just noticed that the MoS says, "If an article has been stable in a given style, it should not be converted without a style-independent reason." I hope you'll bear this in mind for the future, because it does make things difficult for the editors who are writing the article—especially if they don't realize the change has been made, because then the article becomes inconsistent. SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 01:17, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

• Articles for British subjects, SA, Aus & NZ etc are subject to the close national tie rule, which is dmy; as far as I know, the 'stability' and 'first major contributor' rule apply to those articles which have no close national ties in order to avoid arbitrary switching. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 06:14, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

• No, it says of all articles that, if stable, they shouldn't be changed. And anyway, as I said, British use includes month, day, year. Some of the oldest institutions use that format. It's the upstarts who write day, month, year. :) SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 09:01, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

• I regret to say that you are incorrect. "Articles on topics with strong ties to a particular English-speaking country should generally use the more common date format for that nation. For the U.S. this is month before day; for most others it is day before month" per WP:MOSDATE. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 09:36, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

If you are starting an article, yes. But if an article is stable on a particular format, or any other style, you should not change it, as the MoS makes clear. All it does is lead to problems (like this one) and inconsistency. SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 10:53, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

• I think you must be humouring me. You tried this exact line of argument back in 20 April 2009 apparently because of your personal preference for mdy dates, which you are trying to impose on everyone. I have already stated my position that I prefer a single unified format throughout WP (whether it be dmy or mdy is secondary), so I have no problem in principle. Unfortunately, vast majority of editors of UK/IRL/OZ/NZ/SA editors prefer to keep their dmy dates just like the majority of US/Canada editors, like you, prefer mdy. So, please take your complaint back to WP:MOSNUM, and I wish you the best of luck! Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 11:18, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

• But I am not a Canadian or American editor. I am British, and I was always taught month day year when writing out the month (January as opposed to 01). This is why it is so farcical to claim that day month year is British, because either style is fine in the UK. I'd have no objection if Wikipedia adopted a certain format across the project. What I find intensely annoying is to be told, "You can't do that, because this is a British article, and Brits do don't that," when I know that they do do it. It's the silliness I object to, more than the format. Also, I don't think it's courteous to arrive at an article other people have written to impose a certain format on them, no matter whether the subject is British or Timbuktuian. If you'd spent weeks or months researching and writing an article, and I turned up to impose my preferred style on it, you'd be pissed off, believe me. SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 11:31, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

• I was taught that way too, but none of that matters. I didn't invent the dmy for British articles rule - these were as agreed upon by consensus, the rationales for that rule are quite irrelevant also. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 12:31, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

• It does matter, though. Is there really a consensus for day month year? I was around when that kind of thing got introduced back in 2004/2005, and it was just a tiny number of diehards. The thing is that everyone else gets fed up and wanders off, so the small number who want it are left to decide. The overwhelming majority on WP, of whatever nationality, write January 31, 2010. SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 12:58, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

• Well, you have your opinion, and then there's what actually happens on the ground. I don't actually care so long as all dates are consistent within an article. There are in excess of 50,000 articles with a mixture of dmy and mdy dates, thus too much work to be done to argue whether or not I was right to convert 'your' article to a format that you dislike. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 13:21, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

There's also no reason at all to do it here. SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 01:26, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

• I believe that all the articles I worked on yesterday had a mixture of dmy and mdy dates - the Palestine article was a case in point, thus there is every reason to align them. Thank you for your attention. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 06:14, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't think the Lydda one did have an inconsistency. It looks as though you changed them all. [4] SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 09:01, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

• Have another closer look. You may be surprised to learn are WRONG! If anything, I believe 45 were in dmy (including the ranges "21–22 and 24–25 May, and on 30 May" counted as one instance), and I changed 56 instances of mdy to align the dates in accordance to WP:MOSNUM. Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 09:36, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

You are right. Some inconsistencies were introduced by someone else who decided to arrive and change the date format, but of course didn't do it properly. [5] This is a good illustration of why arriving only to change style is not a good idea, because if the primary editors don't notice it, the article is left in a mess. SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 10:50, 31 January 2010 (UTC)