Welcome to my talk page!

I like to keep things compact, and don't have any great ideas for my user page yet, so my signature directs here.
I was a long-time reader and lurker (since 2003). I appreciate the Five pillars and the idea of open knowledge, and want to give something back; this is why I began editing in 2021. I'd like to receive your feedback on anything I've done. Expect a reply! :)
By the way:
  • I prefer to keep discussions unfragmented. If you start a new talk topic here, I will respond on this same page, as an effort to keep the entire conversation in one place. By the same token, if I leave a comment on your talk page, please respond to it there, using the ping template like this: {{ping|Alalch E.}}. If you want to initiate a conversation with me anywhere else, simply ping me there—no need to notify me here.
  • If a discussion here is about a specific article, I may move the discussion to that article's talk page. Were one to disagree I would tell them to treat it as my removing comments on my talk page and my quoting them on the target page. The Moved discussion to/from templates are useful here.

"Sangerpedia" listed at Redirects for discussion

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  The redirect Sangerpedia has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Anyone, including you, is welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 May 31 § Sangerpedia until a consensus is reached. (Notification being sent to all who participated in the DRV.) Cheers, Daniel (talk) 21:01, 31 May 2024 (UTC)Reply

Colourblocks

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Are you sure this was meant to be accepted? I think this should have been declined, as almost all sources are primary. Regards 48JCL 23:10, 29 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

Hi, I think that this article should exist and that the content speaks for itself, as it is sufficiently compliant with the core content policies, despite the sourcing not being of the type which we prefer. If you think it shouldn't exist, and think that a consensus to delete it could form (an earlier version of it was deleted once), you may want to nominate it for deletion. Regards —Alalch E. 10:54, 30 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

Please try again

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I reverted your revert on Samuel Alito, not to edit war, but you also reverted the addition of citations added to quotations that were uncited in several places as well as the addition of citation requests and notation of a failed verification. Surely you can fix the content of a single section without reverting every subsequent edit! Please target you change better without side effect. I don't intend to edit war over it. Skyerise (talk) 11:24, 5 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

Yes, you are right, and essentially I apologize for not doing it the most correct way which is making sure all of the intermediate edits are kept while restoring the major thing from a past revision, but I can do it on the go and am doing it right now in real time. I have some technical challenges currently which is the cause for the suboptimal technique, so apologies for that. —Alalch E. 11:26, 5 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

Down-ball

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There is no Down-ball page nor Down-ball (draft) currently and I'm trying to refrain from rebutting new voices arguments. I'm appreciative that you've added your voice and voted and so perhaps we can discuss Down-ball here sometime. Rockycape (talk) 21:57, 7 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

Hi, nice to hear from you. Basically, down-ball is just an alternative spelling of downball, a game which comes in various forms, which game was an informal game until 2020, [when] the first officially recognised Downball organisation, Downball Australia, was created (from downball), as any informal and not strictly-regulated thing, and you are interested in one of those ostensible forms which you believe bears the name of "down-ball". But it also bears the name of "downball". Just as any form of downball can be spelled as "down-ball". There are various forms of downball, a game whose name can be spelled as "downball" or "down-ball"; it also appears to have various other names, which in various ways relate to particular varieties of the game. —Alalch E. 22:01, 7 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Yes agreed that down-ball is an alternative spelling of downball. The rationale for doing this is to aid understanding and remove confusion while still being true to the historical naming of a thing. There are many ways that wikipedia pages handle this including:
01. a single wikipedia page - that describes variations of the same thing
02. a page for each unique thing - if they share the same name this can be handled by:
(a) altering the name slightly by adding punctuation e.g. down-ball
(b) altering the page name by adding brackets and additional description e.g. downball (game played on squares court) AND downball (game played against downball wall)
(c) disambiguation page - pointing to down-ball and downball
(d) adding additional description at the beginning of the name. e.g. Canadian football AND American football
Because the evidence shows that these two things are distinct from each other I prefer to to handle the problem via 02. but am open to suggestions. Rockycape (talk) 00:04, 8 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for that lucid breakdown. I'll try to properly reply tomorrow when I'm more rested. Regards. —Alalch E. 00:19, 8 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
ok, no worries. I propose to continue the discussion by compartmentalising various parts as replies. Rockycape (talk) 00:34, 8 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Downball (game played against downball wall) is different in rules and play in that once the player hits the ball it must bounce once before next bouncing of the wall. It is a foul if the ball hits the wall on the full. Compared to other similar games played against a wall - there does not seem to be another game where this is a fundamental rule of the game. For all other similar games played against a wall the rule is that the ball once hit must strike the wall on the full.
The downward push of the ball so that it bounces before hitting the ball is where the "down" part of the name comes from.
For players of Downball (game played against downball wall) - the bounce after being hit causes a unique flight of the ball which is a curve up and back off the wall. The bounce then wall deflection after being hit changes the game markedly as compared to games where the ball hits the wall on the full:
(a) there is more time to get in position and take a shot
(b) much larger groups of players are very workable
I would contend that players enjoy playing this unique game because of it's unique characteristics. Rockycape (talk) 03:58, 8 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
@shirt58 - you mentioned in passing you've played downball before. I don't know whether you played downball (game played on squares court) OR downball (game played against downball wall) Can I invite you to join this conversation perhaps? Rockycape (talk) 04:16, 8 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Here's what I think about those options:
  1. That's the default option, and is suggested by the guideline WP:PAGEDECIDE: a notable topic can be covered better as part of a larger article, where there can be more complete context that would be lost on a separate page ... several related topics, each of them similarly notable, can be collected into a single page, where the relationships between them can be better appreciated than if they were each a separate page ... (See also the introduction to WP:N: [A presumption of notability] is not a guarantee that a topic will necessarily be handled as a separate, stand-alone page.)
  2. Given that PAGEDECIDE probably applies, we'd need a reason to cover the version you're talking about separately. If we imagine that reason to exist (some of those are described at WP:WHENSPLIT, which can also be used as a guide to figure out how to organize content across multiple articles in advance), and preconditions for a separate article to be met (the topic is notable), we could be ending up with two articles:
     • a more general article and its WP:SPINOUT
     • no general-specific relationship as both would equally cover only their respective variant, or, indeed a distinct game, if the differences are such that we can't even say that we're discussing variants, despite the name of both things being the same; this is suggested by WP:SAMENAME.
    Your naming and disambiguation options:
    1. Not acceptable. Articles must be easy to find, must figure as good responses to a reader's query, and must harmoniously coexist. Slight alterations produce ambiguity, and are not one of the WP:TITLEDAB options; a reader who wants to find out what downball is and types 'downball' or 'down-ball' into search will be led to a separate article about one or the other thing, which will give them only a part of the information relevant to their search, and if they are told that there's another downball article, they might think that the articles are in conflict as both could be perceived to be about same thing under the same name (the hyphen is non-essential) but describe the thing in different terms, possibly leading the reader to believe that one article is right and the other one wrong; alternatively, the reader could erroneously conclude that the hypen is essential, and that the name of the variant covered in "Down-ball" is always spelled 'down-ball', and that whenever 'down-ball' is discussed, that's always that thing and not the other one, which would be misleading.
    2. Yes, that's valid, and is called parenthetical disambiguation (WP:NC()). One of the variants or the game understood as comprising all of its variants could be the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC and the title of the article covering it would then not need to be disambiguated. So it's possible that, given that we are discussing two articles, they could be named "X (A)" and "X (B)", but they could also be named "X" (no disambiguator) and "X (B)"; it depends on whether there is or is not a primary topic.
    3. For our purposes here, a disambiguation page would be needed if there is no WP:PRIMARYTOPIC and in the former example we have "X (A)" and "X (B)", meaning that there is no article under the title "X" (the disambiguation page would occupy "X"). It's also possible to have an "X (disambiguation)" page, but that doesn't seem relevant here (could be, however; something to keep thinking about).
    4. That is WP:NATURAL disambiguation—also valid and actually preferable to parenthetical disambiguation, but the names must not be invented; they must still meet the naming WP:CRITERIA. Let's hypothesize that there's a wall-based variant of downball and that its convenient to call it "wall downball" (I don't really think it's a good idea, this is just a thought experiment): If reliable sources discussing a "wall downball", using this exact term, do not actually exist (at least several of them), we could never use this term, as that would not be natural disambiguation. It would be "unnatural disambiguation" i.e. constructed, invented, disambiguation, and that's forbidden.
Alalch E. 13:46, 8 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Shirt58: Hi, Rockycape tried to ping you above. —Alalch E. 13:48, 8 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Hi Alalch E., thank you for your considered and comprehensive reply. I will hit the hay for now and be back tomorrow. (Thanks also for fixing my attempted ping) Rockycape (talk) 14:13, 8 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Hi Alalch E, I’m confident that finding new sources and references will support the creation of a separate page. I also believe that having separate pages will enhance understanding for both topics.
For naming, I prefer the parenthetical disambiguation approach, like "Downball (game bouncing ball at wall)."
As for renaming the current downball page, it can either stay as it is or be changed to "Downball (game played on squares court)." I don't have a strong preference either way. Thank you for your considered and comprehensive assistance, regards,
Rockycape (talk) 04:00, 9 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
You're welcome, glad to help. Regards—Alalch E. 10:29, 9 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

Further Reading - Primary sources

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Hi Alalch E, in the history section I am wanting to include folklore about the 80s. Following is a link to the archive of the information which would be a quote from the primary source. https://web.archive.org/web/20171009223334/http://squarefour.org/node/755#:~:text=Back%20in%20the%2080,the%20entirety%2C%20remaining%20undefeated

"Back in the 80's, when the great popular game was the wall game, we, in Melbourne, established the Victorian Downball-Veeball Association, and ran formal State titles every year and some local titles during the year."

Folklore about the 80s includes brief details about proponents of Downball (wall and ball game) organising competition events in Melbourne including a yearly final event.

Is is ok to use a primary source for the history section? I'm seeking your input/advice about potentially using this primary source in any capacity on wikipedia please?

Thanks, Rockycape (Happy to move this discussion to the draft if you like too.)


Rockycape (talk) 22:56, 10 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

As simply a primary source, had the statements been of unobjectionable provenance, maybe something could be done with it, but apart from being a primary source, it is a self-published source, that is, a post on what is really an internet forum, and as such it is not an acceptable source under Wikipedia policy. —Alalch E. 23:03, 10 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Yes ok - I guess that this is part of the responsibility that comes with the ability to edit anything on wikipedia. And it demonstrates how wikipedia and other encyclopaedia are different.
At this stage I've added Further Reading - Primary Sources section but won't utilise it as I don't want to rock the wikipedia boat.
. . . "unobjectionable provenance" - I like that turn of phrase. I've never heard that before and had to look up its meaning. Thanks for your help. Rockycape (talk) 00:04, 11 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
I note that Further Reading - Primary Sources section is allowed here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomis#Further_reading
Perhaps this is a fair balance as the article has good references/sources AND has the primary sources listed for those who want to did deeper? Also the article appears to adhere to wikipedia rules.Rockycape (talk) 00:21, 12 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

A barnstar for you!

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  The Original Barnstar
For your work on 2024 shooting at a Donald Trump rally, fixing sources, rearranging sections, and generally being a stand-up editor. Thank you! Catalyzzt (talk) 04:23, 14 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Thank you! —Alalch E. 04:24, 14 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

What is trivial or incidental coverage of a subject by secondary sources on wikipedia?

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Hi Alalch E. , what is trivial or incidental coverage of a subject by secondary sources on wikipedia? I am finding new references and want to pass the threshold in regards to notability for the wikipedia page. I was going to have a conversation with AI and thought better of it.

Thanks, Rockycape (talk) 23:59, 15 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

Helianthus devernii

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Thanks for your work on Helianthus devernii and for getting it to DYK. —  AjaxSmack  05:41, 18 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

Thanks, I'm happy about that article's progress. It's a nice topic. —Alalch E. 11:03, 18 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

New pages patrol September 2024 Backlog drive

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New pages patrol | September 2024 Backlog Drive
 
  • On 1 September 2024, a one-month backlog drive for new pages patrol will begin.
  • Barnstars will be awarded based on the number of articles and redirects patrolled.
  • Barnstars will also be granted for re-reviewing articles previously reviewed by other patrollers during the drive.
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:09, 26 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

Your new article

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You recently created a new article (Bob Kindred). Maybe it could be renamed to Robert Bob Kindred? Just because the last two words of his name aren't the best title. Or Robert Hamilton Bob Kindred, though that could be too long. Loymdayddaud (talk) 10:52, 29 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

Hello. It should be Bob Kindred per WP:NICKNAME, because he was predominanly called Bob, not Robert. (Bob is derived from Robert) —Alalch E. 11:14, 29 August 2024 (UTC)Reply
Ah, okay. Loymdayddaud (talk) 12:26, 29 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for your work in Draft:Karin van der Laag‎

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The creating editor is in need of some sensitive help in order to understand Wikipedia. Perhaps you will be the person to help them. The topic may be proven to be notable, which will be a useful thing. 🇺🇦 FiddleTimtrent FaddleTalk to me 🇺🇦 16:32, 2 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

Thanks, I share your sentiment of being sensitive to autobiographers who are new to editing and hope for a resolution based on understanding. It seems like it will be hard to demonstrate notability, however. —Alalch E. 16:56, 2 September 2024 (UTC)Reply