User talk:Tony1

This editor is not an administrator and does not wish to be one.

Real-life workload: 3

• 1 = no work pressure
• 5 = middling
• > 5 = please don't expect much
• 10 = frenzied

Please note that I don't normally (1) copy-edit articles, or (2) review articles that are not candidates for promotion to featured status.

Bling bling

		The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
		For fixing the MoS faults on what seems like every article on my watchlist. Good job. — Realist2 14:13, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Realist, you are most welcome! Tony (talk) 14:17, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I was going to thank you too, but I saw the barnstar and I just want to say that it is well deserved. Everyday your name pops up on my watchlist, and it is good to see the removal of unnecessary links. While I'm here, could you maybe use the script to update: Veronica Mars? Corn.u.co.pia / Disc.us.sion 04:38, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I've started a list here where editors can request semi-automatic removal of date autoformatting. Tony (talk) 05:04, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Discrepencies with list guidelines

Hi, Tony. I've begun a thread at WP:FLC#completely contradicting guidelines for lists. Let's begin with the Lead section regarding all the inconsistencies the style guidelines have wrt lists. I know it's a big ask, and this of course is all dependent on how interested people are in changing it, but I was hoping that if real life isn't too stressful at the moment, you might be willing to help address some of the problems, as you did earlier in the year with the overhauling of the FLC criteria? Regards, Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 07:26, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Looks fixed for the moment. Tony (talk) 15:02, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Hopefully! I'd still like to see if we can get all the list related page in sync with each other on everything else though Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 06:40, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Extreme points of India FL

Hi Tony, Extreme points of India has made the FL cut. How do you want to proceed for Australia? Do you want to use the same format? =Nichalp «Talk»= 13:24, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Nick, that sounds excellent! Tony (talk) 15:03, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Sure, I'll work on it next week. =Nichalp «Talk»= 05:22, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I think the WikiProject Australia people would be interested to see it take shape, so when you're doing it, I'll post a note there. Tony (talk) 09:45, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

New service

I've started a list here where editors can request semi-automatic removal of date autoformatting for an article or set of articles. Tony (talk) 05:05, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

List guidelines

Re [1]:

• Please try to spell my name correctly, second time I'm asking (compare Wikipedia talk:Lists#avoiding the verbatim repetition of list titles in the opening sentence).
• "I'll need back-up there, please" sounds like forum shopping to me.
• "And guess who's lurking there to revert it (10 days ago)—our old friend of progress, Francis S[c]honken. [...] Francis S[c]honken has serious ownership issues with several style and policy pages, and has a long track-record of reverting any change for the better." is incivil at best, but closer to a personal attack by the looks of it: either way I'm asking you to remove such inflammatory language, that lacks any serious ground. --Francis Schonken (talk) 18:57, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

If it wasn't true, I'd remove it. You need to take a hard look at your behaviour. Tony (talk) 01:32, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Louvre at FAC in May

Hi Tony, in May you opposed the FAC nomination of the Louvre (although you did note in the edit summary it "could be saved"). I've updated the article and gone through your exercises (although I will never be a great copy editor, those helped me). I've consulted other editors and have put the article up for another peer review. I am approaching you because of your oppose, and to see if you feel that the article is on the right track. Lazulilasher (talk) 21:20, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi. Not sure if Tony would agree, but I think the article still needs work. Here's what I would do to the opening paragraph:

The Louvre Museum (French: Musée du Louvre) is located in Paris, France and is the world's most visited art museum. It is a historic monument, a national museum of France, and a central landmark—located on the Right Bank of the Seine river in the neighbourhood of the 1st arrondissement. Nearly 35,000 works, spanning from the 6th century BCE to the 19th century CE, are exhibited over an area of 6,000 hectares (15,000 acres).

You will also need more references (especially for claims such as "the world's most visited art museum"). I'm happy to help where I can—it should be a FA.  HWV 258  04:12, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I certainly don't agree with the overlinking. Tony (talk) 04:19, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

There are a lot of links, but it is the sort of article that attracts links (addressing so many people, places, genres, etc). Saying that, many links could disappear (e.g. why are "Paris", "Right Bank", and "1st arrondissement" linked in the first paragraph as well as the last; and linking "world war" everywhere?).  HWV 258  04:31, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

For heaven's sake, selective linking is increasingly the way to go, now that wikis are maturing. Otherwise, you dilute the high-value links. Templates in running prose are usually more trouble than they're worth, and disgusting when they force bright-blue splotches needlessly. You don't need the first "France", since "French" is already there, and so is "France" a sentence later. "Neighbourhood", again, is repetitive and needs to be framed as parenthetical. Hard-spaces shouldn't be used to connect normal numbers and things. Would sq km (and mi) be easier to visualise than ha (acres)?

The Louvre Museum (French: Musée du Louvre) is located in Paris and is the world's most visited art museum. It is a historic monument, a national museum of France, and a central landmark—located on the Right Bank of the Seine river in the 1st arrondissement (neighbourhood). Nearly 35,000 works from the 6th century BCE to the 19th century CE are exhibited over an area of 6,000 hectares (15,000 acres).

Tony (talk) 04:43, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Not sure about the "heaven's" or the "sake", but with the rest, I agree.  HWV 258  04:55, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Wow, thanks for taking a look guys. I'm not too current on where the wikilinking trend is, but I do agree that less linking is more pleasing aesthetically. I was worried about having redundant citations in the lead, hence the lack of inline references there. The claims are sourced in the body, though I do see your point as "most visited" is rather bold. Square kilometres may be easier to visualise, I'm not quite sure why I chose hectares. Thank you for looking, and any more advice is welcome. Lazulilasher (talk) 05:21, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I have no issue with a citation-free lead, except where you're hitting the readers with highly unusual or contentious statements, and as long as the claim is referenced further down. Remember the big picture of what the lead is supposed to do. For heaven's sake—yes, I agree that was on the edge! Tony (talk) 09:42, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I prefer the uncited lead, unless the statements are unusual, because the citations have an effect on readability. In this case I am unsure, but I do not feel that Louvre=most visited is unreasonable. If one were to ask someone what the world's most visited museum was, I would wager that most would guess the Louvre, the British Museum, or the Metropolitan. Also, the removal of extra wiki-links has the advantage of lowering the total file size (an issue with this article). Lazulilasher (talk) 17:57, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Question re refs

Hi :) I am looking to build National Party of Western Australia towards FA, and am a bit confused by a seemingly silent point on WP:REF. After some consideration this morning I decided to abstract the main book and journal article references to a list, but keep the one-off references in the "notes" section. Is this mixing of styles correct practice from an FAC point of view or do I need to figure out a different way of doing it? (I figured asking the question now while there's only a dozen of them is probably better than waiting till I have over 100. :)) Orderinchaos 00:23, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

OiC, I'm no expert on refs. Have you read this interesting section at MOS talk? User:Ealdgyth may be a good person to ask. Tony (talk) 01:48, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Nominators should not support their own nominations: Proposal

Please see Wikipedia_talk:Featured_sound_candidates#Nominators_should_not_support_their_own_nominations:_Proposal. Thanks. --Kleinzach 02:56, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm trying to restart this process again, see Wikipedia_talk:Featured_sound_candidates#Nomination_procedure:_Proposal. Best. --Kleinzach 01:33, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

A note

Redacted. Unnecessary. I was upset. Sorry. Ottava Rima (talk) 13:30, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Who, what, where, when? Clearly, I've upset you, but nothing in your post directs me to where. I place considerable value on your inputs, so whatever I've said must have accidentally offended you. Link? Tony (talk) 14:46, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I sent you an email. Ottava Rima (talk) 14:55, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

And I responded to Ottava that I have no idea why he's upset at my reminding Raul that there's a six-week-old FAC nomination waiting for his attention. Tony (talk) 15:00, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Joel Selwood

Hi there,

I noticed you made a minor edit to the Joel Selwood article. Given your exposure to a range of FA's, would you mind performing a quick peer review? The previous one undertaken for this article recommended getting the prose slightly tweaked to get it to FA standard before I apply for its FA status. Cheers Boomtish (talk) 13:37, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Overlinking

Although I agree that there are many superfluous links that can be removed from articles, I think the last part of this edit looks slightly strange. Why link some countries but not others? Just curious. Thanks. --Jameboy (talk) 18:44, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, this does look inconsistent in one way, but is bound to occur normally where some items in a list have already been linked on their first occurrence above in the text. No reader of the English WP should need to consult an article on an anglophone country, in all but the rarest of circumstances. Personally, I'd not link any country names but those of the most obscure places. But if you wish, I'll go back and re-link them all. I'm going to ask that the script be changed so that there are two levels of "delink common terms"; that might minimise this problem. Thanks for your comments. Tony (talk) 08:27, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Not necessary to re-link them - I'll leave it as is for now. When I eventually get around to pushing the article towards FA, I'll bring it up in the peer review and hopefully get a consensus on what level of linking is sensible. Thanks for the explanation though. Cheers. --Jameboy (talk) 22:32, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Tafl Games - Overlinking

G'day Tony. good to see someone else from Sydney universities here. :)

I think you might have gone a tiny bit overboard on removing the overlinking from the Tafl games page. I've put back the links for Ireland in the 1st paragraph and German language in the 2nd. Otherwise I think it's OK? --Danjel (talk) 06:49, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

And a grammarian too! --Danjel (talk) 06:49, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

I'd take out all of the language links (why on earth is the German-language article worth diverting to? It's far too general to provide the required significant increase in the reader's understanding of the topic at hand. I know there's an issue where the script removes just some of the country names in a list. It's something we haven't resolved yet. I don't mind your decision to retain "Ireland". Tony (talk) 08:16, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

I think it contributes to the article. Tafl is, after all, a Germanic word and the history of German as a language is good to have alongside it.

In any case, there are a lot of people out there that don't have a lot of understanding of there being any other language other than English out there. Try telling people that you speak Tagalog, for example (I don't, but still :).--Danjel (talk) 14:21, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

English is a Germanic language too. Does that mean we should link less familiar words to the article on the German language, since the history of both languages is entangled? The clincher is, why would it be an advantage to encourage a reader to interrupt their reading of the article visit such a huge, broadly framed article? Can you think of a section there that could be linked more specifically? Tony (talk) 14:49, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Date audit, script-assisted; see mosnum | Delink common terms. See: wp:overlink

Unfortunatly some of these are deliberate such as links in Info boxes and image captions, so I and other users will now have to replace these which may in some cases be impractical without undoing all you edits. Please don't remove these if using the script in future --Nate1481 09:54, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Please provide examples of such "deliberate" links. I don't understand why being in an infobox makes any difference. Tony (talk) 10:46, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

FLC request

Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of Brazilian states by Human Development Index. Felipe C.S ^{( talk )} 16:21, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

I've switched to "Strong oppose". Tony (talk) 02:29, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Aaron Eckhart

Hey Tony, listen, I received suggestions by User:Anne Teedham and she has given a better re-write to the lead. I was wondering if its well, like you stated in the FAC, about having another user editing the article. I am not sure if she will help me out with the prose, but, do you recommend anyone who can scrutinize the rest of Eckhart's article? --  ThinkBlue  (Hit BLUE) 22:42, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Melbourne Airport FAC

Hi Tony. YellowMonkey has done what I think is a brilliant job copyediting Melbourne Airport. What are your thoughts on the article now? Mvjs (talk) 05:50, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Vithoba

Thanks for your support and comments. Have addressed your concerns. Please strike out comments that you feel are addressed satisfactorily. --Redtigerxyz (talk) 07:58, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Sure, but unnecessary—I supported, and would rather spend the time revisiting one where I've opposed. Tony (talk) 14:53, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

"Official site" quiz question

Hi Tony, first off, big ups for your work here. I'll stop there to avoid gushing. I have a personal dislike for hidden weblinks within infoboxes. That is, when you look at the page it says "Official site" or similar but to find out what the website listed in the infobox you have to click on it or otherwise take steps to access the information. Many people and groups have more than one official site further compounding the issue. Since the infobox is part of the lede is this spelled out that we're suppose to be masking the actual official websites of the person/group?

My hope is that a group, for instance "XYZ" could have their website "XYZ.com" simply displayed as such in their infobox. Likewise Janey Person's website "JaneyPerson.com" would simply read as such. The number of article subjects with official websites is only growing; surely we don't want them all to simply read "official website" which only confirms that such exists? With the exception of uber-lengthy websites wouldn't this make sense? Thoughts? Suggestions? -- Banjeboi 13:29, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your kind words, Benji. I'm not the best person to ask, so I'll get a few others to comment. Is an infobox really part of the lead? Can you provide a link to an example? Tony (talk) 13:33, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I think Infoboxes are a part of the lede when used to ... lead the article. They are presented side-by-side with the most important overview of content. For an example of the "Official Website" in action Chi Chi LaRue is one example. Compare to how a company, Titan Media appears. -- Banjeboi 00:58, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

You're right, and supported by Wikipedia:LEAD#Content_of_the_lead. Tony (talk) 02:32, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

To clarify on the Chi Chi LaRue example I've done a workaround which looks horrible but is better that a tease link that simply says "Official Website". -- Banjeboi 03:19, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Well yes, it looks messy now. I don't quite understand what was wrong with it ?five edits ago, when both were neat blue. The square brackets don't look good at all. Tony (talk) 03:22, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Instead of saying their website is ChiChi.com (or whatever it is) the infobox coding has been corrupted to force "Official Website" overriding what the actual website is - I don't think we should tease readers. With the rare exception of web addresses that are too long there is no reason to do this. Which is more helpful;

Official Website

En.Wikipedia.org

There really are few reasons to force "Official Website" as such and I see no reason to do this on biographies or any other infoboxes in any categories. -- Banjeboi18:12, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Flocke

Hi, Tony, thanks for your comments at Flocke's FAC. I made some additional changes to the prose, making sure to pick out any redundancies and/or unnecessary wordiness. I would appreciate it if you revisited the article and the FAC with any further suggestions/comments regarding the prose. Specific examples would help greatly, or simply let me know if I should contact someone for a full copy-edit. I hope it won't come to that, though. :) Thanks again! María (habla conmigo) 14:13, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Farthest South

Mind revisiting Brianboulton's FAC, where you had raised some prose concerns? I have since copyedited the article. Maralia (talk) 15:35, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikilinking dates in citation templates

It should not be too hard to go through the templates at WP:CIT and remove the auto-wikilinking of dates when the date is inputted in the 2008-10-02 format. Is there consensus for this type of step, has it been discussed somewhere/brought up before? Cirt (talk) 22:38, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm sure people would welcome it. Please go ahead. Tony (talk) 01:26, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Hrm okay, I'll have to see about figuring out how to do the de-linking in those templates myself or if I will need help of have someone else do it. Cirt (talk) 02:27, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I meant the WP:CIT templates, not infobox templates. Like for example {{cite news}}. Cirt (talk) 02:44, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I know. My comment was by analogy. Tony (talk) 02:56, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Removing autolinking of ISO dates in citation templates will make it harder to spot date format inconsistencies within references (it's awfully common to see dmy/mdy publication dates, but accessdates in ISO). It's a nitpicky thing, and absolutely not a reason to hold back, but...it's late, and I'm grouchy. Grumble. Maralia (talk) 03:06, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Dates and Indonesia articles...

Hi Tony

I saw your edits to the Suharto article. Would you be kind enough to contribute to a discussion I’ve opened at the Indonesia Project page? Here. I’d like to establish a convention for dates, and I suggest international style (ie, “3 October 2008”). Cheers --Merbabu (talk) 03:50, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Old discussion (links in quotes)

I added something to an old discussion. See here. Notifying you as you were the last person to comment there. Carcharoth (talk) 07:02, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Steve Dahl

In your recent changes, why did you un-link English (as the type of teacher his wife was) but leave drama linked in the same sentence? --DAW0001 (talk) 12:25, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Merge proposal

Please see WT:Only_make_links_that_are_relevant_to_the_context#Break 1 for the current discussion. I'm letting everyone know who has a comment on the relevant talk pages. Obviously, we're not going to push anything through without a full discussion of every issue, including whether to merge at all. My sense is that there's wide agreement on all the big points, but the devil is in the details. [Just letting you know what I'm posting on talk pages, Tony; I want to make sure people who have recently fought for some point or another at WT:CONTEXT don't suddenly tune in one day to a deleted page and feel left out.] P.S. not watchlisting; don't wanna break my computer. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 18:59, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

The delinking you just did at Robot was great, btw. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 03:30, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Why thank you, Dan. Yeah, it's easier to read now, and those good links are more obvious. Pleased to be of service. Tony (talk) 03:35, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

readiness for FAC

I'm about to nominate antbird as a Featured Article, but I was wondering if you could quickly check it to make sure the prose is reasonable enough to get through. A number of editors have pored over the article making and suggesting prose changes and clarity issues, so I think it is there, but my forte is content so I'd appreciate a quick opinion. Ta! Sabine's Sunbird talk 21:44, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

date/overlink

How do you do these 2 things in the same edit? Cirt (talk) 03:35, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks much for the explanation, I shall try that sometime. Cirt (talk) 03:52, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

opinion on quark

Hi Tony. I'd last to ask you for an opinion on the prose of quark, at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Quark. The problem is one of fundamental philosophy, rather than specific errors—I'm quite sure the prose in the current version would be OK for a textbook, but not so sure if it's OK for an encyclopedia article. I believe it's condensed to the point of opacity, rendering it inaccessible to the general audience. I wrote a second version (link on the FAC page). I am not saying mine is perfect; it is only intended to give a sense of the direction that I am suggesting the article should go. i actually want to Opose, but since the problem is one of philosophy, I am uncertain. If you have time, would you please comment on the FAC page? Ling.Nut ^{(talk—WP:3IAR)} 03:54, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for taking a look. Ling.Nut ^{(talk—WP:3IAR)} 13:33, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

When should dates be wikilinked?

If the answer is never, shouldn't the delinking be done by a bot? Plasticup ^T/C 04:26, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Do you mean "as opposed to a (human-supervised) script? If so, the problem is that removing DA really requires decisions a bot con't make; the main ones are whether the format was correctly chosen (i.e., international for NASA—clearly not). Inconsistencies within an article are a major problem, and a bot can't fix these—it just removes square brackets and leaves the raw format there. This is why DA removal by script is really a wider audit of what our readers have been seeing. Tony (talk) 04:30, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

But those seem like two separate functions. One is removing the autoformatting, and one is putting day/month into the correct arrangement. Surely the former can be completed by a bot without harming the article, as most readers have been seeing the dates in this arrangement anyway. The arrangement (International/American/etc) could still be carried out separately. Plasticup ^T/C 04:58, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

That is true. My sense of thoroughness has pointed me towards doing both at once. If the purpose is to more quickly rid us of the cancer of DA itself, yep, bots are the way to go, and you might add your voice at Lightmouse's "wishlist" page. Your thoughts at whatever is the latest location of attacks on his good work (ANI, bot application? He knows better than I do) would be most appreciated. In fact, LM and I talked about the issue of what bots can and can't do only yesterday at the wishlist. Tony (talk) 05:07, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

I could certainly get my bot to crudely hack through the most common auto-formatted dates, but there is something to be said for the thoroughness of your approach. Obviously no bot can evaluate the process in the way that you can, but perhaps a cruder approach could be used on the monstrous number of low-quality articles. Would that be something you approved of? Plasticup ^T/C 05:21, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

I guess so. The advantage is that when stripped of concealment, editors will be more likely to come along and fix inconsistent formats (although I suspect not globally wrong choices, such as I see quite often). You might consider passing this proposal by two of our smartest boys on this matter: User:Lightmouse and User:Colonies Chris for their opinion (perhaps linking to this section as an opener)? It's certainly another strategy that may work well in combination with mine, which is to target FAs, GAs and the thousand most visited, to promulgate the relevant section in MOSNUM (and for commone terms, CONTEXT and MOSLINK) via links in the edit summaries. It is succeeding in changing people's behaviour. But it leaves the millions of other articles untouched, of course. Tony (talk) 05:51, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Far out

G'day. I see you have been visiting some of my favourite isolated rocks. I'd be happy to pitch in with this task but I am loathe to just copy script.js into my monobook and hope for the best. I imagine its simple enuf, but are there any instructions anywhere? Yrs, in a howling westerly Ben MacDui 09:01, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

By all means, Ben: transclusion is best; then updates and improvements that Lightmouse make are automatically carried across to you. Here, in this cap, are the instructions. Lightmouse runs a "wishlist" page for comments and queries. Tony (talk) 09:43, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Installation and usage of date-autoformatting removal script

Instructions for installation

• EITHER: If you have a monobook already, go to it, click "edit this page", and paste in this string underneath your existing script:

importScript('User:Lightmouse/monobook.js/script.js');

• OR: If you don't have a monobook.js page, create one using this title:

[[User:[your username]/monobook.js]]

Then click on "edit this page" and paste in at the top the "importScript" string you see three lines above here.

• Hit "Save page".
• Refresh your cache (instructions at top of monobook).
• Go to your user preferences and select "no preferences" for dates, which will display the raw date formats that our readers see.
• Carefully check MOSNUM's guidance on which date formats are used where. Generally:
  • US-related articles use US formatting, except that some military articles use international;
  • Canada-related articles may use either, but almost all use US;
  • UK-, Australia-, NZ-, Ireland- and South-African-related articles must use international.
  • articles without clear links to an anglophone country may use either—generally stay with the prevailing usage in the article. Note that India-related articles use either.
• You're ready to start.

Applying the script—it's very simple

• Go to an article and determine whether US or international format is used (or should be used).
• Click on "edit this page". You'll see the list of script commands under "what links here" in the left margin. Click on either "Delink all dates to dmy" (international format) or "Delink all dates to mdy" (US format). If you wish, click on "Delink common terms" as well.
• The diff will automatically appear. Check through the changes you're making before saving them.
• Click on "Save page": it's done.

Afterwards

• Respond politely and promptly to any critical comments on your talk page. If someone wants to resist or revert, it's better to back down and move on to improve other articles where WPians appreciate your efforts. NEVER edit-war over date autoformatting; raise the issue at WT:MOSNUM.

Thanks - up and running. Ben MacDui 10:54, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/No Way Out (2004)

Hey Tony, thanks for adding comments to No Way Out (2004)'s FAC page, I really appreciate it and I've learned from the issues you pointed out. I have addressed those comments and replied to some of your comments at the FAC page, it would be grateful if you could return to give it another look, thank you.--S_RX 14:08, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Tropical Storm Hanna (2002)

Hi Tony. I got a copyeditor to work on Tropical Storm Hanna (2002) to improve the overall prose, so if you get a chance, could you take another look at the FAC? Cheers, –Juliancolton ^{Tropical Cyclone} 01:35, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

As of

Tony, I sent an FA nominator to WP:MOSDATE#Precise language about an imprecise section heading ("Recent events"), and instead, he added "as of year" links. I thought we were done linking years? Why is MOSDATE still recommending that "as of" statements link to the year article ? I was surprised to see it still there, since we haven't used them since before dates went delinkey. (See as of) is still in there. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:47, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Making sure that articles are written in precise language with regards to historical and current dates is something I've always kept an eye out for, so forgive me for jumping in here (as an aside, Wikipedia:Updating information is shorter, but also has some relevant links). As far as I can tell, the MOS doesn't say to link to years. It is referring people to Wikipedia:As of, which says to not use "as of XXX" links (eg. [[As of 1990]]), and even lists deprecated links that are (slowly) being cleaned up: see Wikipedia:As of#Deprecated "as of" pages. What people are meant to do is use Template:As of, which as far as I can tell, doesn't link to dates. I wasn't sure exactly what Sandy was talking about, so I went and tracked down the edit I think prompted this: I think it was this (which is indeed deprecated per Wikipedia:As of), and was then changed with this edit, when in fact I think the correct edit would have been to add the template (which was created in February 2008 - there was an earlier version in 2006, which I presume had much less features). I think there has been a misunderstanding here, so I am going to pop over to the FAC and point this out. Questions about Template:As of should be left at the talk page, where it looks like User:Ikara will be happy to explain things or change things as needed. I will also leave a note at the template talk page. Incidentally, if you look on the talk page, there is a method of enabling editors to detect plaintext output from templates. See Template talk:As of#How to detect this template in an article?. This was one of the objections to people using date-markup that outputted plaintext (that editors would not see if there was a problem until they hit edit), but the method described there would probably overcome that objection. Carcharoth (talk) 08:53, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

The "as of year" links are deprecated per WP:As of and the discussion regarding it that took place at the Village Pump. However, they should not be outright removed as they still serve a functional purpose. Instead they should be converted to the {{As of}} template as appropriate. Links of the form [[As of Year]] should be formatted as {{As of|Year}}, and links of the form [[As of Month Year]] should be formatted as {{As of|Year|Month}}. This will output the plain text "As of [Month] Year" and categorise the article appropriately, but not create a wikilink in the article. See the template documentation for more options and information – Ikara ^talk → 16:36, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Does that template turn them into virtual links, i.e., bright blue, etc? If so, it should be binned. Tony (talk) 00:07, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

You would bin the template rather than (if it had been linking dates, which it hadn't) delink the dates inside it? Sigh. I did say above: "which as far as I can tell, doesn't link to dates", and I said elsewhere that it doesn't link to dates (ie. it outputs plain text), and I tried to explain that even though it outputs plain text it is not "invisible" in the sense that it flags itself up in various ways to (logged-in) editors but not to readers (to be honest, I'm not 100% sure myself how it actually does that). But instead of noting that, you jump to the wrong conclusion? Whatever. It does add a "category link" at the bottom of the article, but this is a Wikipedia:Hidden category (this was a recent - last few months, well, February actually - change that I hope is mentioned somewhere in the MoS - it is important that MoS regulars are kept abreast of technical developements that might enable old issues to be revisited). The categories this template adds articles to might not be that useful if they get fully populated, but the aim to keep track of articles that need updating is a noble one, and fully in accord with keeping our articles accurate and up-to-date - i.e. as important, if not more so, than pushing back against (date) overlinking and the dilution of useful links. Useful links are only useful if the article is up-to-date, though using "as of" language is a step in the right direction (I shudder when I see people saying "recently" and stuff like that, and I still get annoyed that people don't keep Hurricane Katrina up-to-date even though loads has been written about it outside of Wikipedia since it passed FAC). Carcharoth (talk) 05:55, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Replacing 'As of xxxx' with a template is easy. The only question is whether it is the right thing to do. Lightmouse (talk) 00:13, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Test: As of 2008, As of July 2008. No, it doesn't make blue links. Apparently it just adds the page to a category. But the wording at MOSDATE leads someone who doesn't take the time to delve into that other page to think that have to add as of 2008. Of course, another curiosity is how this element came to be with no discussion at MoS. I love it when MoS makes a fool of me at FAC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:39, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Quite... I remember a discussion about the abolition of the "as of" system closing with "no consensus" a few months ago; this recent change has passed undetected. And it's a pity, because I should have supported it had I known about it. I do not care for such lack of effort when transparency is concerned; someone could have taken a few minutes to notify through one of the proper communication channels. Waltham, The Duke of 04:22, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I've tried to tell you all we need a MoS noticeboard; who listens to me, anyway. Some folks were off in their little corner of Wiki, doing their thing, never told anyone at MoS, it doesn't surface until I ask for a change on an article at FAC, and the issue surfaces. I get kinda tired of the buck stopping with me, when I make an idiot of myself :-) We need a centralized MoS discussion board. Or we're going to always be chasing our tails. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:35, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

It might be an idea if people kept a closer eye on the Village Pumps (WP:VP). They are meant to be used to notify people of discussions, but you would be surprised how often (as in this case) the discussions take place there, and not elsewhere. I think Waltham is referring to Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:As of (April 2008), which was followed by the July 2008 discussion. And it might be surprising to MoS regulars, but some people think of MoS as "Some folks [being] off in their little corner of Wiki, doing their thing". :-) If anyone takes offence at that, please don't (ultimately, if communication lines are not kept open, we are all doing our thing in a little corner somewhere). Communication works both ways, as Tony has recognised here, in his response to this. I agree that Schissel's offer there was a refreshing change in attitude, and me personally, I'd like to help out with explaining things if you (Tony) would accept that offer (I won't say I'm completely converted, but I do see that a lot of date (and other) delinking needs to happen). Carcharoth (talk) 05:55, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I should add here that I am aware of Tony's earlier efforts with the other discussions and the careful linking to a page explaining everything, and links from edit summaries, and so on. I'm not saying that there was no outreach - indeed there was rather a lot and it was done very well. But possibly, it seems, not enough or not in the right way. Wikipedia can be incredible frustrating like that. You think you've explained things to everyone, but there are always some people who pop up and say "too cryptic", "not enough disucssion", "never heard of this" and so on. That's part of why Schissel's offer to help spread the word was so, well, helpful. :-) Carcharoth (talk) 06:24, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Year in X - WP:LOW

I saw your comment about "Year in X" at User:Lightmouse's talk page. I just thought I would point out WP:LOW. Maybe that will answer some of your questions regarding the delinking of these pseudo-dates. Dismas|^(talk) 16:53, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

That is very helpful, thanks. I'm unsure that it's references to MONSUM and MOSLINK reinforce the point, though. Tony (talk) 00:08, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Is Wikipedia:LOW#Linking years consistent with the MoS? What it currently says seems to be too simple:

"Solitary years remain unlinked (preferred) and should not generally be 'piped to articles (e.g. [[1989 in music|1989]]), especially when part of a date. For more information, see Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style (links) and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)"

Of course, linking to other areas of the MoS only works when updates are rolled out throughout the whole system, otherwise inconsistencies spring up. The link to "As of" above is a prime example. The "As of" system changed, but the MoS links pointing to it were (I think) talking about the old system. Links can be dangerous sometimes! Er, maybe using "as of" links to flag up when the MoS links were made would help? That might get silly! Wikipedia users do, eventually, learn to check when a page was last edited. Carcharoth (talk) 05:59, 6 October 2008 (UTC)