Jump to content

User talk:Corinne/Archive 17

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Archive 10←Archive 15Archive 16Archive 17Archive 18Archive 19Archive 20

Technical mission to start off the new year

Corinne, I have a slightly broken toolbar/information-bar on each article page that I find to be very helpful. The brokenness does not cause any issues‍—‌it just means certain functionality has left the toolbar and will not be available since the toolbar's developer left the building earlier this year. For one thing it tells you who authored a page.

OK, here you go:

First copy this line of code to your clipboard:

mw.loader.load('//meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Hedonil/XTools/XTools.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript');

( the code line starts with mw. and ends with '); )

Then go to this link, and if the edit page is open paste that code on to the edit page and save it. If the edit window is not open, click on the edit link and then paste the code and save it:

m:Special:MyPage/global.js

Then go back to Wikipedia from Wikimedia and Purge your Wikipedia page and you should see the new toolbar/information-bar. Easy peezy. Don't be scared! Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 00:51, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

CheckingfaxWow! It worked! I didn't even have to purge my talk page. It was already there. Thanks. I saw, in the instructions just before I pasted that code at Wikimedia, that it said something like "be sure to categorize this". Of course, I didn't, because I didn't know what it meant. Is that all right? Corinne (talk) 01:03, 2 January 2016 (UTC) I was surprised that there were 55 page watchers of my talk page. Is there any way to "hide" that whole line so that it's visible only if I want to look at it? Corinne (talk) 01:05, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Dear Corinne. I do not know how to disable it short of commenting out the line from your global.js file ( using /* and */ ).
I do not know about the categorization suggestion. I only have one JavaScript in my global.js file. I have about 15 in my common.js file and I have a few in my common.css file so when I add a JavaScript I add a comment line right above it to remind me what the JavaScript is for. For example, in my global.js file, above the script line I offered to you, I added this comment:
/* Adds XTools gadgets to all Wikis */
XTools gadgets is the name of that particular script
/* starts a comment section and */ ends the comment section. That way the comment does not interfere with the code.
The JavaScripts I have installed help me with my Wikipedia editing productivity. They are created by other users. Here is a library of published ones. It is best to install them one by one and make sure they work and do not disable previous ones before installing more. In the library if you find one you like simply click on the link and it will jump you down the page to the install-code and to the install-link.
And again, I find it helpful to create a comment line preceding each one using the: /* comment goes here */ format. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 01:23, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
Checkingfax Thank you. Is it too late to add that "comment" describing what the code is? If not, do I have to go back and re-do what I just did? Where and how would I add the "comment"? Corinne (talk) 01:29, 2 January 2016 (UTC) Regarding "hiding" the line, can I use the same template that I used to hide my featured pictures that were promoted, at the bottom of my user page? Corinne (talk) 01:31, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
Dear Corinne. I added my comment section on a line above the line of code. It is not too late to add it; click on that link again; click on edit; put a line feed above the code line; add the comment line above the code line; save it; purge it.
If Xtools gadgets was up to speed that blue Fedora would indicated your interwiki message alerts by showing a number 0 on a grey background for no messages and then it would change to a red box with the number of pending messages. {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 01:37, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
PS: On the Xtools gadgets bar the number after a username is their total number of en Wikipedia edits. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 01:40, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
Checkingfax Well, I guess I didn't do it right because the comment doesn't show (is it supposed to?). I clicked on the link again, and clicked "Edit". Then I saw the page where I had originally pasted that code (mw, etc.), but it was on the "1." line. I didn't know how to "put a line feed above the code line". I clicked on the diamond-shaped bracket at the top left, and it changed the look of the page so that it looked more like a regular edit window. I just moved the code down one line, added the "comment" line you gave me, and saved. Then I went back to WP and purged the page (that, you had given me earlier, and I found it), but I don't see the words "Adds Xtools gadgets to all wikis". Am I supposed to see those words? If not, O.K., but then why would I add them? Where would I look to see them and get the benefit of having added them? If I did something wrong, please tell me how to undo it. Corinne (talk) 01:51, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi Corinne. You did good. Congrats on successfully installing your first custom Javascript! If you look at my common.js file on Wikipedia you can see how I keep track of my 15 installed scripts by using comment sections:

User:Checkingfax/common.js

I used to have a few more but they broke everything so I removed them and kept my working favorites.

Comment lines or comment sections do not render anyplace.

I also have some custom scripts in my common.css file that change the appearance of my WP experience, like I have one that makes all redirect links appear green to me instead of the standard blue for all live links.

Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 02:31, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Checkingfax Thanks for the congratulations. I'm glad I did it right. I looked at your list and (...sigh...) there is so much that I still have to learn. There was one, though, that interested me. It's "Puts a Highlight duplicate links link on left side of each page". Does this highlight when the same word or phrase is linked more than once in an article? I've read the MoS on links, and it says it's all right to link a term in the lead and "the first mention after the lead", which is the guideline I follow, but it would be helpful to have all of the duplicate links highlighted so I can remove some and be sure that it's the first mention in the article that's highlighted, not a later one. Is that what this does? If so, can I copy it from your page? By the way, does it matter that my user name is red at the top of the Wikimedia page? Corinne (talk) 02:41, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Your username is red because you have not yet created an optional userpage over there.

One more consensus exception to repeating links is that it is OK to repeat previous maxed out links in tables or lists. So if a page is linked in lead and body it can also be linked in any table or list, and it makes things handy.

The duplicate link finder will box links in red that are potentially overlinked. It does not make it easy to find out the first use of a link in the body.

It is not my Javascript; it came from that user library of scripts. You will want to put it in your common.js file which you can create at:
User:Corinne/common.js

PS: A line feed is created when you hit the ↵ Enter key.

PPS: The global.js file makes the change work across all wikis whereas changes to the common.js or common.css file only apply to the particular wiki they are made on. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 03:08, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Checkingfax I placed the "comment" and the code on lines 1 and 2 at the common.js file page, but before I save I wanted to ask you about something. At the top of that page it gives a warning saying something like, "the code you add here may contain malicious software that could compromise your account". I guess I can trust that this code won't compromise my account. Corinne (talk) 03:34, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
Corinne, Javascripts are powerful and a popular way on the Internet to spread nasty things. If you notice, each of the scripts I use are connected to a WP user account by a colon. I trust these not to be malicious. User Technical 13 has been banned from WP for sockpuppetry back in June. I do not know the downside of their sockpuppetry. I do know they were active and did a lot of good for the project. I use their one-click-archiver for Talk pages instead of using a fully-automated one. If you find a script on the Internet have a script guru on WP check it first. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 04:00, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Checkingfax What am I supposed to see at the left for the links highlighting? Does that work when viewing the article regularly or only in edit mode? Will I see nothing at all if there are no duplicate links? I see "Edit links" at the bottom left, below the languages, but when I click on it, I see a list of links in tiny letters, nothing red and no highlighting. Corinne (talk) 04:28, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Dear Corinne. This is a copy/paste:

There will be a link "Highlight duplicate links" in the toolbox on the left on every mainspace article. Once in Edit mode, clicking it will highlight the duplicate links in the edit preview by drawing a red border around them.

Furthermore:

User:Ucucha/duplinks.js is a script that highlights links that occur more than once in an article. Per WP:REPEATLINK, terms should generally be linked only once in an article, but there are a number of exceptions to this rule. To account for these exceptions, this script considers only links that are within paragraphs (<p>...</p> tags) and ignores any links inside an infobox or navbox. In addition, it highlights duplicate links within the lead and within the body of the article separately.

Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 06:55, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
UPDATE: Hi, Corinne. I have the link in my lefthand links section under Tools and it is called Highlight duplicate links.
I went to the George Foreman page because that was on my list of pages waiting for a Pending changes review.
I clicked on the link for Highlighting and it highlighted nothing in the lead or infobox but highlighted several links in the body of the article. Curiously one of them was Puerto Rico and I could not find a 2nd instance of it being wikilinked. It highlights dups by surrounding the link with a thin red border.
Then I tried clicking on Edit source to open the Wikipedia text editor after which I scrolled down the page and clicked on the Preview button. After that I again clicked on the Highlighting link and in the graphical Preview it highlighted all the duplicate links and I could have dropped down to the text editing window to delink them but I did not.
Then I clicked on the Edit link to switch over to the Wikipedia:VisualEditor (their WYSIWYG editor) and clicked on the Highlighting and it lit up all the duplicate links plus the Puerto Rico link which I don't think is a duplicate.
I think using VisualEditor is the way to go because you can easily see the double links, click on them, then click on the circled-red-slash to "remove styling" which performs a delinking. Have you ever used VisualEditor? It has some features that are very cool, but I do most of my editing in the Wikipedia text editor, but I enhance it by running wikEd from Gadgets in Preferences. By enabling wikEd it also gives me wikEdDiff which makes diffs easier for me to digest. wikEd has a few quirks but I have figured out workarounds so they do not annoy me. One of the quirks is a Google Chrome thing and until Google fixes the issue, wikEd will still suffer from the quirk. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 07:33, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
Thanks, Checkingfax! I just enabled Visual Editor. So do I just click on "Highlight duplicate links" when I have the edit window open? Not when I'm just looking at the article? I looked at a few long articles earlier today, clicked "Edit source" to open the edit window for the entire article, clicked "Highlight duplicate links", and scrolled down looking for anything highighted, and I didn't find one. I guess there were no duplicate links. By the way, I still don't understand how to create a diff. I mean, I can follow your instructions (way above), but you didn't answer (or I didn't see your answers to) two questions:
(a) Do I have to type all of that, or can I copy something from the URL and paste?
(b) Where do I go or look to find the diff? What's the very first step? I figure I need to look in an article's revision history, but what exactly do I select to look at a diff? I mean, do I select something in the long list of revisions, or do actually open the last edit and see that edit and the previous one, and so on, going backward? I figure a diff doesn't have to be the very last edit and the version just previous to it. Couldn't it be an edit that was made three days or two weeks earlier? When I find the edit that I want to show as a diff, do I look up at the URL and just select parts of it? I'm sorry, Checkingfax, if I've exhausted your patience. You've been very helpful. I tried to make a diff after you wrote all of your instructions, but I still couldn't find the information I needed to put into the example you gave, so I gave up. Corinne (talk) 20:45, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi, Corinne. I am on my Blackberry right now but will do my best to answer your dup finder questions now.

If you have opened a page for editing with the text-editor:

  1. Scroll down the page and press the Preview button
  2. Click the Highlight dupes link
  3. Scroll all the way up the page to the page Preview area and take note of the location of the duplicate links
  4. Scroll down the page to the text editor section and manually remove the four [[bracket]]s from each link
  5. Optional: Press Preview page again and click on the Highlight dupes link again to see if you got them all.
  6. Save your edits.

PS: If you are doing a long page all at once you may wish to set the {{in use}} to try and minimize wasting your time with edit-conflicts.

If you click on the Dup highlighter before opening an editor your highlights will vanish when you open an editor. The highlighter does not highlight anything down in the text editing area; that is why you must use the Preview page button.

To use Wikipedia:VisualEditor:

  1. Go to a page.
  2. Click on Edit at top of page.
  3. Click on Highlight dupes.
  4. Single click on duplicated link (do not highlight it with a mouse drag: just click on it and an Edit box will pop up).
  5. Click on the red-circled-X in the Edit box to "Remove styling".
  6. Move on.
  7. Click Save.
  8. Provide a summary.

I hope this helps. If you see other problems on the page just click on the problem and start typing. VE edits magically. Plus you can switch to text editing mode if you choose to.

I shall answer the diff question later and up in the other discussion area. Just remember diff is an abbr for difference, so you need two things to compare, and yes you have to pick apart small chunks of a long URL to dissect the two germane pieces. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 00:08, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Checkingfax Thanks to your kind lessons, I can now see at the top of my page that I have one fewer page watchers than I did yesterday. It's not important, but I really hope it wasn't you who decided not to watch my page anymore because I exasperated you to your limit with my questions regarding diffs. I promise I won't ask you any more about diffs. I'll figure it out. Maybe I'll still have questions about other things. Your lesson just above about finding duplicate links was very helpful. I really am sorry. I guess I just need to spend some time re-reading what you've already written. I hope you'll forgive me and continue to communicate with me. Corinne (talk) 00:20, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
Hi, Corinne. No problem trying to clear things up. If you do not understand something, keep the questions coming until it coalesces for you. My answers get kind of wordy and confusing and I am trying to learn to use an economy of words. I have been helping out in the Wikipedia:Tip of the day department the last couple of months and the sages there tell us the best tips to write are in a single sentence ... and that is very difficult to pull off. I am learning a lot about Diffs from your questions. Another thing, Diffs are hard to intrepret. In the Gadgets section of Preferences there is a Gadget called wikEdDiff that makes Diff analysis infinity easier. Cheers! PS: If you enable wikEdDiff, there is a triangle at the top of the new Diff view to collapse/uncollapse the wikEdDiff view‍—‌which combines the two column diff view into an enhanced single-column view while maintaining the double-column view below it. Try it and you will get hooked on it. {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 02:59, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
PS: Another page to help your head explode: Help:Page history Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 03:07, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 1, 2016)

King Mswati III, the monarch of Swaziland, one of the Monarchies in Africa.
Hello, Corinne.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Monarchies in Africa

Please be bold and help to improve this article!

Previous selections: Person of the Year • Hors d'oeuvre

Get involved with the TAFI project. You can: Nominate an article • Review nominations

Posted by: MusikBot talk 04:38, 4 January 2016 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • Opt-out instructions

Brizola

Dear Corinne, I loved what you did on the Trajan article. Could you please take a look on the article on Leonel Brizola (admittedly about an entirely different political animal) in which I also worked and which could benefit from your attentions?Cerme (talk) 23:07, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Cerme I apologize for the delay in responding. Thank you. I appreciate your confidence in me and your invitation to look at the Brizola article, but it would be best if you post a request for a copy-edit at Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Requests. Right now, there are not many requests there, so it shouldn't take too long for a copy-editor to accept the assignment. I'll be glad to work on it after I finish the article I'm working on now, but there are several excellent copy-editors who are active on the Requests page. If no one accepts the assignment before I get to it, I will do so. Corinne (talk) 02:10, 18 December 2015 (UTC)
Cerme I think I ought to apologize again to you. I was waiting to see whether the flurry of editing would slow down enough on the Bangladesh article for me to copy-edit, but it was decided among a group of GOCE members (and coordinators) that the article wasn't in a state to be copy-edited right now, so just today that request was declined by the GOCE (see section at bottom of this page and links, if you're interested). I guess I also took a little while to make the decision because I've been distracted by holiday things lately. So, as of today I am free to accept another copy-editing assignment, but I just noticed that Baffle gab1978 accepted it. You can rest assured, though, that your article is in good hands. I'll keep my eye out for future requests from you (and you can always drop me a note here, too). Corinne (talk) 05:15, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

Subscript text== Still need help ==

Happy Holidays, Corinne: EDITED: Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 04:38, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Checkingfax Another editor tried to explain to me how to create a "diff" that is within Wikipedia. (I know how to make the external source type of diff, by just copying the entire URL.) Based upon what I understood from the other editor's explanation, I put a kind of explanation and reminder to myself on how to do it in my list of useful things at the top right of my talk page, above, but I tried to create a diff (to use in a talk page comment) but I couldn't get it right, so I didn't save it. When I look at the revision history and see the old and new edit, I don't see two I.D. numbers at the end of the URL. Usually, there is just one I.D. number there. I don't think I'm looking in the right place. When you have time, can you tell me how to do this step-by-step? Corinne (talk) 01:21, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

The easiest way is to use the {{diff}} template. (Later you can click on the blue link to the left to read about the various uses and parameters available with the diff template.)
For example, this use: {{diff|User talk:Corinne|prev|695434370|Difference between revisions}} which only has one diff number...
will produce this link: Difference between revisions
Breaking it down from left to right using the above example:
  • diff is the name of the template
  • User talk:Corinne is the name of the page where the diff is coming from. (found in title= section of complete URL)
  • prev comes from the long URL from the oldid= section (it might also be: cur, prev, next, or id=)
  • 695434370 is the diff= value from the long URL that is unique to that edit
  • "Difference between revisions" is whatever you feel like calling the link (I made up this name); it's the link label that displays for your reader. I just used the name from the diff we're working on here. If you leave out a label the generated diff link will just have a number like [1], AFAIK.
I hope this gets you started. Ping me back with any questions. Be sure to use the curly braces when you set the diff template. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 02:23, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
Checkingfax I still need some help understanding all this. You didn't tell me where to look in order to find the diff. When I click on "Revision history", of course the last edit made on the page is on the right, and the one just previous to it is on the left. Then, when I look at the URL, it shows only "prev" and a number. That's like the example you gave me. I guess that's enough to show the present version and the one just before it. For earlier pairs of a version and the one just previous to it, do I look at Revision history, then click on one of the little gray circles to select it, then hit enter to see that diff? When I do that, and I look up at the URL, do I just copy everything that comes after "title", or select things from it to type into certain places in the template? For example, I see ampersands. Do I copy those or ignore them? Corinne (talk) 21:55, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
Hi, Corinne. From what I can tell, if you get a Notification there is only one number and then to the left of that is the word prev. The template does not require much information. What it requires is:
  1. The template curly braces and name: {{diff}}
  2. The exact page name where the diff is coming from (probably best to copy/paste this so you get all the casing and punctuation right (and no underscores)
  3. The two diff statements, which from a notification would be: prev|1234567890
A description is optional.
So, for this long URL which is from your Talk page:
https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Corinne&diff=prev&oldid=695552708
You would use: {{diff|User talk:Corinne|prev|695552708|what you want to label the link goes here}} and it would generate this:
what you want to label the link goes here
So as you can see you don't need a lot of junk from the long URL. The newest version number goes to the left side of the template and the oldest version number goes to the *right* side of the template, so if you had a diff with two numbers like the next one you would put the largest number (newer page version) to the left and the smallest number (older page version) to the right:
https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Corinne&diff=695573832&oldid=695552708
{{diff|User talk:Corinne|695573832|695552708|comparing a newer page to an older page by version numbers}} will generate this:
comparing a newer page to an older page by version numbers
Checkingfax Thank you. All of this is quite helpful. I'm beginning to understand. However, in the paragraph just above that starts, "So as you can see", in the second sentence, "The newest version number goes to the left side of the template and the oldest version number goes to the left side of the template", you've got "left" twice. Judging from the next clause, one of these, I think the "oldest version number", should read "goes to the right side of the template", right? RIGHT YOU ARE!
In that next clause, you wrote, "so if you had a diff with two numbers like the next one you would put the largest number (newer page version) to the left and the smallest number (older page version) to the right". This clause is crystal clear, and helpful, but upon looking at the numbers "6995552708" and "695573832", the largest number is not to the left. It's to the right. So that is confusing to me. I have posted another question below this, near the end of your comment. I HAVE NOW SWITCHED THEM PER YOUR CORRECT OBSERVATION
If you leave out the link label like this: {{diff|User talk:Corinne|695552708|695573832}} will generate this:
[1]
Now, to answer you questions. No you do not need any equal signs, ampersands or question marks (unless you choose to use the option listed at the end of this reply) and you cannot just copy everything from one string of text. You have to pick and sort.
I have never used the radio buttons to choose diffs (using the Compare selected revisions button). I have only used: (cur | prev) from history, etc. and I have used 'previous edit' and 'next edit' links from there.
OK, I just used the radio-buttons and here is what I got as a diff:
https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3ACorinne&type=revision&diff=695592676&oldid=695592296
So, here is the template we would build from that: {{diff|User talk:Corinne|695592676|695592296|any old link label name goes here}} would generate this:
(notice the larger number goes on the left)
any old link label name goes here
If you do not want the diff to display the rendered page below it you can add this parameter: diffonly=yes, so the template would look like this instead:
{{diff|User talk:Corinne|695592676|695592296|any old link label name goes here|diffonly=yes}} which would generate this link:
any old link label name goes here
(click on the above link to see how the page is omitted)
I'm sorry, but I don't understand this whole last part. I don't understand what is meant by, "If you do not want the diff to display the rendered page below it". I clicked on the link just above this, as you invited me to, and I saw two pages, with text, and the note that says something like "one intermediate version not shown". But there is text there, on the left and the right. Corinne (talk) 23:54, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
THAT ONE IS A LITTLE TRICKY TO UNDERSTAND. Have you ever noticed that when you look at a diff, if you scroll down below the diff you see the rendered page of the latest edits? If you use the diffonly=yes parameter you will only see the two columns of diffs and you won't see the latest page rendering.
Ping me back with any more questions. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 05:55, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Hi, Corinne. Diff, which stands for Difference can be found in many places: Contributions, User contributions, Page history, etc.

A Diff is when you are given the opportunity to compare two edits side-by-side. You can get a Diff by answering a message Notification by clicking on the Show Changes link, or you can get a Diff by clicking on the (Prev) link in Contributions, or you can get a Diff by going to Page history, or by clicking two radio buttons in those and pressing the Compare selected revisions button or by clicking the (Prev) link next to a page link.

When you click on the link labeled "Prev" you are given two consecutive page versions. One for the page link near the Diff link and then for the page version just prior to it. That will be your Diff.

Alternatively, if you do a Compare you will get page versions separated by a period of time. That will be your Diff.

Some other places to find Diffs: Recent changes; Related changes; your Watchlist; clicking on the Show changes button in the text editor.

I found two pages that might fill in some holes that I am not explaining properly:
Wikipedia:Simple diff and link guide
Help:Diff Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 05:01, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Checkingfax I'm getting to the point of tears. I read that article "Simple diff and link guide". It was clear but seemed totally different from what you have told me. I thought I followed the instructions for "harvesting a diff" and removing the https and using single brackets, and putting the word "this", but when I left a comment at Talk:Japan–Korea disputes#Comfort women just now, after I saved my comment, I clicked on the link at "this" and it led to the entire article talk page, so I knew that was wrong. Then I went to the revision history of the article, right-clicked on the button "Prev", and it led nowhere, so I right-clicked on the time stamp to the right of it, and used that url-minus-https, but when I tested it, it led to the final revision of the article, not to something that showed the difference. Since I've left this on an active talk page, now I am embarrassed. In your comment, you used a phrase that I simply do not understand: "the (Prev) link next to a page link". What is "a page link"? Where is it on the page, and what does it look like? Can you please fix the link to the second of the two edits by ST-somebody on that talk page? Corinne (talk) 14:56, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
Hi Corinne. I will fix the Diff link in a minute.
If you take a long link from a non-Diff page and put single brackets around it that would be a Permalink (Permanent Link) not a Diff. Any time you go to a regular article page and capture the page's URL that is a Permalink that will always take you back to that particular snapshot version of the page. A Permalink only has one version number in it so it is not comparing anything so it is not a Diff(erence). You have to copy the long URL from a Diff page in order to harvest a Diff from the URL.
If you are ever looking at a Diff page you can go over to the left-hand set of links and use the Permalink link to view the page as it appeared at the time of the latest edit showing in the Diff or you can copy the Permalink to share or archive it. For instance, if you have a DYK on the Main Page, you can copy the Permalink and use that to show off the Main Page later and it will show that particular day, time, and version of the Main Page.
If you go to the article's Page history and right-click on the Prev link next to the edit you're after you can copy the Prev link location to your clipboard or you can open the Prev page. The URL at the top of that Prev page will be your Diff. The Diff page will look different than a Permalink page. A Diff page will have two columns at the top, and the rendered snapshot version of the page at the bottom. The rendered page will be that of the latest page version that is showing in the right-hand column of the Diff page.
Here is the page URL you linked to from that Talk page:
https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Japan%E2%80%93Korea_disputes&oldid=697982120
Notice there is only one equals sign in it, so it is not comparing two pages. It is not a Diff page.
Each edit that is saved creates a new version number for the page that was edited. The version number for the STSC edit is
697982120.
Below is what I referred to as "the (Prev) link next to a page link":
(cur | prev) ( ) ( ) 22:27, 2 January 2016‎ STSC (talk | contribs)‎ . . (58,950 bytes) (+15)‎ . . (→‎Comfort women: ce) (undo | thank)
If you right-click and open the Prev link it will take you to the Diff page for that particular edit.
You can also right-click on Prev and copy the link location to your clipboard and then you have the Diff in your clipboard.
Checkingfax I was so happy to see your latest comment at the bottom of this page this morning and to learn you hadn't thrown up your hands and given up on me. Thank you! I was reading the Template diff (describing the diff template) page, then I saw these additional comments/explanations. Regarding the two lines just above this, when I right-click, (a) do I right-click right on the word "Prev" and (b) when I right-click on "Prev", I see a little menu that has these choices:
  • Open link in new tab
  • Open link in new window
  • Open link in incognito window
  • Save link as...
  • Copy link address
  • Inspect
Which one do I choose? Corinne (talk) 17:12, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
Clicking on Cur will take you to the Current version of the page; clicking on: 22:27, 2 January 2016 is the Permalink to the page version as it existed after the edit performed for that line item in the Page history. Ping me back with any remaining questions.
Here is the long Diff URL for that particular edit:
//wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Japan%E2%80%93Korea_disputes&diff=697982120&oldid=697972913
697982120 is the page version after the edit, and 697972913 is the page version just prior to the edit.
You can see that the URL you posted only contained the latest version and nothing to compare it to.
OK, I fixed the Diff using the {{Diff}} template:
'''{{diff|Japan–Korea disputes|697982120|697972913|this}}'''
Could have used this long link too:
[ //wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Japan%E2%80%93Korea_disputes&diff=697982120&oldid=697972913 this]
Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 02:21, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
Hi, Corinne. I just found a new template called {{Diff2}} that makes most Diffs easier to present. It only requires one page-version-number, and no page title. A link label is optional. So, for the Korea Diff you could use:
{{Diff2|697982120|this}} and it would automatically show the 697982120 page version plus the page version immediately prior to it.
The output would be this:
this
If you leave out the label, like this:
{{Diff2|697982120}}
Then it would render like this:
[2]
Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 04:57, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
Oh, that looks easier. I take it that I use the number from the diff URL that is after "diff=", not the one after "oldid", right? The one thing I still need to understand is what I asked you about above (about how to find the diff page, and I asked you one more question about that, above). Corinne (talk) 17:17, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi, Corinne. I am AFK so I cannot say off the top of my head. The number you use with Diff2 is the largest one. Go check and see which is largest and that will always be true going forward.

Diff2 does not work for generating Diff pages from page versions that are not adjacent.

Right-click right on the (Prev) link brings up that menu and if you want to copy/paste the underlying link pick Copy link location (or words to that effect) which will copy the long URL to your clipboard. Then you can paste the long URL in a Talk page reply to dissect it.

Alternatively, you can left-click right on the (Prev) link to open the Diff page, then go up to the web browser URL address bar and copy/paste the long URL from there.

You can also open in a new-tab or in a new-window by right-clicking right on the (Prev) link and selecting new-tab or new-browser.

Did I catch all your questions? Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 04:40, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Again on Hadrian: "marble with gold thread".

Dear Corinne: I checked on this awkard sentence about the temple of Zeus in Cyzicus and it comes verbatin from the Hadrian biography by Anthony Birley: "its [the temple's] marble blocks were odorned with gold thread". The "gold thread" might be (a) lines of gold paint made in order to highlight a relief (at the fronton, for instance). Lots of Rococo interiors use gold paint, and Roman art at Hadrian's time was somewhat over the top like Rococo. Or then it was (b) marble blocks with golden veins? But then I would agree that the sentence is metaphorical at best, and somewhat clumsy.Cerme (talk) 02:01, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Linda Ronstadt

Hi, Corinne. At TAFI I nominated the Linda Ronstadt article and I think you would be able to prune it down, but it has to get approved first. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 09:27, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Checkingfax Thanks for your confidence in me! Do you need my "Support" vote there, or shall I just wait? Corinne (talk) 03:17, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
Hi, Corinne. LOL. After 21 days of no replies nominations are now automatically canned by the MusikBot. Another vote is needed within that timeframe which is very soon. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 06:07, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
Checkingfax I looked for the nomination but couldn't find it. Has it already been removed from the nominations page? P.S. It's one "r" and two "n's": Corinne. Corinne (talk) 15:49, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
Hi, Corinne. Yeah must have timed out. It had three supports, but one oppose, for a net of two supports. Must have gone beyond 21 days. Oh, well, there are already 4 years worth of nominations pending in the approved bucket. You had me flummoxed with the n/r thing. Didn't see that applying to Linda Ronstadt. But then I noticed I fouled up your name. Sorry. I usually am careful to get it right. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 23:10, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi

If you want to, please review my nom for Helena Bergström at TAFI. Regards.--BabbaQ (talk) 22:05, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

I have also nominated Jonas Åkerlund today. Cheers.--BabbaQ (talk) 21:03, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Correct way to make sibilant Williams possessive

Hi, Corinne. What is the correct way to make the sibilant Williams possessive such as in this Diff: [3]?

Is is s's or s' ? Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 07:46, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Checkingfax This is often problematic. I've read these guidelines carefully several times, and there is a specific reference to the name "Williams" in the second one, but it's not a hard-and-fast rule, just a description of customary usage. It seems that, in both guidelines, the way the possessive form sounds best when pronounced is a good guideline. See MOS:POSS and Apostrophe#Possessive apostrophe, particularly these sections:
  • Basic rule (singular nouns)
  • Singular nouns ending with an "s" or "z" sound. See the second paragraph after the two bulleted items for specific discussion of the name Williams. Would you say "Williams' wife" or "Williams's wife", with the second one pronounced "Williamses wife"? I don't know which one I would say; I've never known anyone with that last name. There is a small consideration: that "Williams' wife" sounds the same as "William's wife", with the second example being a man whose first name is William, but I don't know if that's a problem, especially in an article where it is clear that it is the man's last name. With "Williams's wife", it is clear beyond a doubt that his last name is "Williams". What do you think? Corinne (talk) 16:40, 8 January 2016 (UTC)
Dear Corinne. Honestly I was thinking maybe Williamses. LOL. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 02:08, 9 January 2016 (UTC)
 • This is interesting. In school 100 years ago I learned to use simply a possessive apostrophe, but somewhere along the line I learned that the correct form (supposedly) is 's, just as with other names. Hence, the Günter Grass article (which I've had a hand in editing) uses Grass's as the possessive form. OK, Corinne, it's up to you to settle this conclusively for the entire English-speaking world. Sca (talk) 18:12, 9 January 2016 (UTC)
Sca Oh, so you noticed I didn't take a stand, above, for one or the other, and, before that, I noticed that WP didn't take a stand, either. It was the same for me: I learned that a plural noun ending in "s" or a name ending in "s" took only an apostrophe to make the possessive form, but probably the teachers didn't go into too much detail then. I think Charles Dickens might roll his eyes, though, if he heard "the Dickenses house" (the Dickens's house). First of all, is possessive really needed there? What's wrong with "the Dickens house", where the family name just modifies or characterizes the house, like "the Jefferson house" (i.e., the house in which the Thomas Jefferson family lived). The problem is that you can't do that with a wife. It's got to be possessive: "Williams' wife" or "Williams's wife"; it can't be "the Williams wife". I'm leaning toward "Williams's wife" only because it makes it clear what his last name really is: Williams, not William. What do you think? Corinne (talk) 19:49, 9 January 2016 (UTC)
I lean towards simple possessive apostrophe, FWIW. Consider All Hallows' Eve or All Saints' Church; by analogy, Venus Williams and Serena Williams's trophy room contains the Williams' trophies, not the Williamses or Williams's (in the plural); thus, Williams's if there's just one Williams, or Williams' if there are more than one. ‑ Iridescent 20:00, 9 January 2016 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Also, if the extra "s" makes the posessive noun difficult to pronounce, use a terminating apostrophe; "This is Mr. Fred Davids, and here's Mr. Davids' (not Davids's) wife"; "The buses' roofs caught fire", etc. Cheers, Baffle gab1978 (talk) 20:15, 9 January 2016 (UTC)
Well, Iridescent, that's what I learned in school (All Hallows' Eve). Regarding your Williams sisters example, I never before heard of making that distinction between, for example, one Williams and more than one Williams and using two different possessive forms like that. Interesting. (I want to be sure you're clear that I wrote "Williamses", above, only to indicate the pronunciation of "Williams's".) Thanks, Baffle gab1978, for your thoughts. Are you saying you agree with Iridescent? Sca and Rothorpe, what do you think? Corinne (talk) 20:25, 9 January 2016 (UTC)
I agree with Iridescent (very nicely put). And I'm not against 'Williamses' as a simple plural in some contexts, e.g. 'How many Williamses were there?' as opposed to the number of Williams (plural of William). Rothorpe (talk) 20:48, 9 January 2016 (UTC)
Oh, I hadn't even been thinking about the simple plural of a name ending in "s". Yes, I guess that makes sense, too. Corinne (talk) 20:56, 9 January 2016 (UTC)
 • So, what do you experts think about Günter Grass's works? To me it sounds right, whereas Günter Grass' works doesn't. (In the news biz, in days of yore, one of the most frequently cited grammatical rules was the Sounds Funny Rule.) Sca (talk) 22:18, 9 January 2016 (UTC)
Yes, pretty much, but it's complex and not clear-cut; i generally prefer a simple apostrophe but that's a personal thing; on WP I normally follow WP:MOS unless there's a good reason not to. Cheers, Baffle gab1978 (talk) 01:07, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
I agree that the word must sound like grasses, for which reason I would write Grass's, as it seems there's no agreement whether Grass' is pronounced grass or grasses (as far as I can make out from previous conversations here). Rothorpe (talk) 01:15, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
Well, that is what I was going to ask Baffle gab1978: even if you spell it "Günter Grass' works", how would you say it? Also, with regard to WP:MOS, specifically MOS:POSS, and the article Apostrophe, specifically Apostrophe#Possessive apostrophe, I didn't see a rule one way or another. I saw a description of three different styles, with an admonishment to choose one and be consistent within an article, and examples of the different styles. Where did you see a firm rule? Corinne (talk) 03:21, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Mayabazar

Mayabazar turns a FA! Thanks for your valuable contributions as a copy-editor. Pavanjandhyala (talk) 02:49, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Pavanjandhyala Congratulations! Is this your first Featured Article? Even if it's not, you deserve to feel proud of yourself and all your hard work on the article. Congratulations! Corinne (talk) 03:24, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
Yes Corinne, this is my first FA. It is also the first Telugu film related article to attain that status and that makes it more special. Pavanjandhyala (talk) 04:12, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 2, 2016)

Depictions of various deities on the entrance tower of Sri Mariamman Temple, Singapore, dedicated to the Hindu goddess of rain; Mariamman.
Hello, Corinne.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Deity

Please be bold and help to improve this article!

Previous selections: Monarchies in Africa • Person of the Year

Get involved with the TAFI project. You can: Nominate an article • Review nominations

Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:08, 11 January 2016 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • Opt-out instructions

Sleepy Hollow Country Club

Checkingfax, Rothorpe, and any tps's: I copy-edited Sleepy Hollow Country Club, and I posted questions and concerns on the article's requester's talk page, and the requester responded, and we worked out some changes. For one sentence, after coming to understand what was meant after being provided with a link to the source, I suggested a revision to a sentence. The requester, Ɱ, made a change that approaches what I had suggested [4] (see the requester's talk page if you want to see what I suggested). However, upon looking at it, I'm now wondering whether it should be "in size" instead of "of a size". Which do you prefer? Corinne (talk) 04:11, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Dear Corinne, So are we opting between:

At the north end of the house, situated farthest from the main entrance, and of a size larger than most houses, is the service wing, which contains the servant quarters.

and...

At the north end of the house, situated farthest from the main entrance, and larger in size than most houses, is the service wing, which contains the servant quarters.

The first way I understand it to mean the service wing is larger than a house.

The second way I understand it to mean the service wing is larger than it traditionally is within a house.

Hmmmm. Let me percolate on this. Maybe the sentence should start out with: The service wing is... Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 04:48, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

To me the meaning of both sentences is that the service wing is larger than a house. To get the meaning that it's larger than service wings are traditionally within a house, 'in' has to be added before 'most houses' in both examples:

At the north end of the house, situated farthest from the main entrance, and of a size larger than IN most houses, is the service wing, which contains the servant quarters.

and...

At the north end of the house, situated farthest from the main entrance, and larger in size than IN most houses, is the service wing, which contains the servant quarters.

Rothorpe (talk) 14:33, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
Thanks, both, for your replies. Before, I had it as "and larger than in most houses". Then the requester, M, pointed out to me that the source said differently, that the service wing was larger than most houses (i.e., huge), and M provided me with a link to the source, and, sure enough, M was right. That's when I changed it to "and of a size larger than most houses" because I thought it would be clearer than just "and larger than most houses". Now, I'm wondering whether "and of a size larger than most houses" should be changed to "and larger in size than most houses". Corinne (talk) 14:51, 10 January 2016 (UTC) P.S. Please see M's preference on his/her talk page. Corinne (talk) 14:59, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
I agree with you, Corinne: 'and of a size larger than most houses' is absolutely clear. Rothorpe (talk) 23:12, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
Thanks, Rothorpe. Are you saying that "and of a size larger than most houses" is better than either "and larger in size than most houses" or "and larger than most houses"? Corinne (talk) 23:19, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
I think I'd give it the prize, yes. Rothorpe (talk) 23:33, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Good. I see that the requester, M, prefers that wording also (see User talk:Ɱ#Sleepy Hollow Country Club, last comment on page), and that's the way it is now, so we'll leave it that way. Thanks again. Corinne (talk) 23:35, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Checkingfax I've just got to understand your edit summary here. It looks like you properly moved the punctuation to before the reference, but I don't see any wiki-link there. Corinne (talk) 15:13, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi, Corinne. I do not understand your question but maybe this answers it. I took this, which was incorrect:

  • ("sleepers' harbor" in Dutch[1]);

And changed it to this, which is correct:

  • ("sleepers' harbor" in Dutch);[1]

I moved the ); from the end of the reference to the beginning of the reference to be proper. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 15:29, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ a b Weinstock, Cheryl Platzman (July 18, 1999). "If You're Thinking of Living In/Sleepy Hollow, N.Y.; A Sense of the Past In a Diverse Village". The New York Times. Retrieved January 9, 2016.

Greater than signs in Pali article

Hi, Corinne. The Pali article has a couple of greater than signs in the Early western views section in this sentence:

Following this period, the language underwent a small degree of Sanskritisation (i.e., MIA bamhana > brahmana, tta > tva in some cases).

Is that by design? Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 08:28, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Checkingfax I'm pretty sure it is by design, and that it means "[the] MIA (which stands for Middle Indo-Aryan; see Classification section) word bamhana became (in the process of Sanskritisation) brahmana, and [the MIA sound combination] tta became tva in some cases. I've seen a skinny horizontal arrow used in some articles, such as Morphological derivation, and while similar to the horizontal, right-facing carat, I think they may indicate something different. If you ever have questions about language or linguistics articles, the editor User:Florian Blaschke is very helpful and could perhaps explain this better. Corinne (talk) 14:57, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
Hi, Corinne. Thanks. I used to use less than and greater than signs a lot for text emails to bracket text or to show flow like ---> or >>>> Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 15:14, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
Corinne is right – traditionally, in historical linguistics, "A > B" indicates that A has turned into B, and "B < A" indicates the opposite direction, that B originates from A. For example, "French eau < Latin aqua". Strictly speaking, this is only used correctly when the sound change is thought to be completely regular, but small deviations are usually tolerated. Sometimes even derivational steps that have obviously taken place are ignored, but that is sloppy usage. In that case, it is better to use "A → B" and "B ← A" respectively, or even better (unless the historical stage is identical, for example "Latin aquārius ← aqua") "A → B > C" (etc.), for example "Latin frāter "brother" → frātellus > Italian fratello" – it would be imprecise to claim that write "Latin frāter > Italian fratello", or "Latin sōl > French soleil". An alternative notation is "A >> B" and "B << A", though what exactly is meant by "A → B" or "A >> B" depends on the author.
This case is interesting, because Sanskritisation is not regular sound change, but instead the more or less conscious reversal of regular sound change – it's the equivalent of Latinising Italian pizza to **pīt(t)ia or similar, a word that never existed in Latin in antiquity. Personally, I would probably use "A >> B" here. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:43, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Systema Naturae

Checkingfax I was just looking at edits in articles on my watchlist, and I saw your edits to Systema Naturae. I saw they were changed and then put back by another editor. I was looking at your edit summary here. I know you were using a kind of bot or editing software, I've got to ask you why you would change "a" to "an" before "Iohannes" in a Latin sentence? (I wouldn't change "a" to "an" before "Iohannes" even if it were English.) I'm not even sure "an" is a word in Latin. Corinne (talk) 15:21, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi, Corinne. I would never do that purposefully. I am very careful to screen the suggestions of the tool (WP:AWB) but that particular edit was hidden from view and I overlooked it. The tool makes edits, then I screen them to make sure they are worth saving. This one got by me. The tool screened 10,000 articles, skipping most of them and I approved 247 pages of edits only. You may be pleased to know that the pages that you have contributed to only had about 2% requiring a fix, while other groups I have done mostly run about 5%. Most pages that need corrections only need a few corrections. I had one correction that was cemented when my finger bumped my mouse, but I quickly double checked and reverted that edit. I overruled the tool many times where it was unable to grasp the context of the situation. Question: There was one instance of an utilized and I changed it to a utilized. Are you OK with that? Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 15:43, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
Oh... Thanks for explaining. Regarding your last question, yes, of course. I would never say or write "an utilized". (I'm assuming "utilized" is used as an adjective before a noun; otherwise there would be no need for "a" or "an", but I can't think what kind of phrase that would be: "a utilized what?"; a strange combination.) I was wondering why your checks (with the bot) seemed to be looking at so many articles I've worked on, but now I realize that you covered a lot of articles with the bot, and I'm only notified of the ones that are on my watchlist. Wow, approving 247 pages of edits! You've been doing a lot of work! Corinne (talk) 18:17, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
Hi, Corrine. The AWB tool is not a bot since bots run on their own, make decisions, and save their own edits. They plow Wikipedia at a high rate of speed and don't slow down. To run a bot your proposed edits have to be spot on. The edit suggestions by AWB are not spot on, so they are subject to manual approval, one by one. AWB processes for its typo-fix routine processes about 13 pages a minute on my home Wi-Fi but on public Wi-Fi it hits closer to 50 pages per minute. This allows me to review about one or two pages per minute. It is outstanding to me that it is only finding one to three suggestions per article, and only making suggestions on about 2 to 5% of the articles it processes. It is more than a spell check‍—‌somehow it know to change lead to led, and that is not a spell check issue. Most spell checkers are flawed because they do not check for misused words, only misspelled ones. AWB is pretty cool this way. The typo fix library is open to user editing too so new scenarios can be added. I actually had AWB make a list from your user-contribution list. Your watchlist is private to you. I thought it would be more fun to process a list from somebody I have a Wikifriendship with. Even though AWB is semi-automated, a lot of it is still rote work. Some of the edits are so puny they are hard to spot like adding a comma. The most common spelling error is changing native American to Native American. The most common suggestion is to add a comma after an opening word like Furthermore. AWB does not use a regular spell check library, it uses a finder called regex (regular expressions) where it looks for patterns that spellings should follow then suggest fixes based on that pattern. By the way, for the word that started out accom, and AWB wanted to change it to accomm, I could only find Latin examples using accomm and that is why I approved that portion of the edit. Getting back to this edit: accomodatvm → accommodatvm. The 2nd spelling has endless online search pages of RSs to support it, while the 1st version only has a few references and they are all circular references to other Wikis. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 07:37, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
PS: After reverting my edit as shown above, the other editor at my request reinstated a small portion of my edits as can be seen here. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 07:44, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
Checkingfax Very interesting. Thanks for explaining all this. Of course I don't mind at all that you checked the articles I've been working on. Regarding the word "accommodatvm", I know that the Romans used V instead of U, but I didn't know there was a lower-case equivalent. I thought it was only in upper-case. So that's something new to me. Could you tell me what "AWB" stands for? Also, I wanted to talk with you about something to do with punctuation. I noticed that some editors, and I think it is primarily British English speakers, consistently add a period after an initial phrase with "in" and a year, such as:
  • In 1910,....
I don't think a comma is needed there so I routinely remove it. I think it unnecessarily slows down the flow of the sentence, native speakers would not necessarily pause after the year, and it is not needed to ensure clarity. I would put a comma there if the next phrase were a parenthetical phrase, like:
  • In 1910, after graduating from college, Tom Jones....
and I would usually put a comma if the phrase were anything longer than "in" and a year. Do you generally add a comma after "In + year"? If so, why? Corinne (talk) 15:55, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
Hi, Corinne. No I would not put a comma after a year like that. I am with you on this. As for AWB I thought I linked to it; it is the WP:AutoWikiBrowser. They should call it SAWB because it is only semi-automated. In the WP:Tip of the day department we recently used it to make some code additions to the 366 tip templates less tedious. It is still tedious, even with AWB, to verify and approve 366 tips in a row. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 17:01, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

. ...

Hafspajen That's okay. Which article is "major crap (YET)" -- The Blue Kitchen? I was wondering why I hadn't heard from you, and now I just saw your latest comment (and images) on your talk page. Is it happening again? If so, I'm so sorry. I don't know much about computers, but I've heard that Macs are less vulnerable to viruses and maybe also hacking than PCs. Have you thought about getting a Mac? Also, have you reported this to the higher-ups at WP? Corinne (talk) 18:23, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
(talk page stalker) - Hi all, just wanted to pop in and myth-bust why Macs are seen as superior in security; they have a smaller user-base. This means that there are less targets for a particular malware to "catch" and break in, making it less lucrative and less efficient than attacking the larger user-base of Windows though this is quickly reversing as more people use Macs. In terms of actual vulnerability of the raw OSs, Windows is stronger than Mac because of the years of attacks Windows has faced and had to defend against. For the best security though, go Linux. Linux has an even smaller user-base than Macs do, and it is the system both Windows and Mac are based off originally and has better security capability. Of course it helps a lot more to just be aware of where you are going (online), what you connect to (networks, etc.) and what you download (files, clickable links, webpages, pretty much anything online) as you could have a 1990's OS with no security counter-measures and still be able to avoid malware just by not clicking on or downloading malware (unknowingly of course) and not using "vulnerable" public hotspots.
However (after reading Hafspajen's talkpage) you may want to just rebuild your computer from the OS up/down, but do so while the computer is removed from any networks (WiFi/Ethernet/Dial-up/whatever else exists) so that the hacker can't actually do anything to stop you. Or buy a new computer and sell the old one (just don't mention the "unofficial user"/hacker). Cheers and hope the hacker hacks off, Doctor Crazy in Room 102 of The Mental Asylum 05:40, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Joey Dee and the Starliters

Hello, Corinne. Does the lead of this article strike you as good English? Rothorpe (talk) 18:59, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Rothorpe Grammatically, perhaps it would pass muster, but it is not worded in the most elegant way. I can think of a few ways to improve the prose. But I'm concerned about one editor who has been editing the article whose user name matches the lead figure in the group. If it is, by any chance, the same person, isn't that a case of Conflict of Interest? Checkingfax, what do you think? Corinne (talk) 22:38, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
That's what I thought at first; actually, he's their manager. It's been dealt with on the talk pages, and he hasn't reverted (see recent article history if you're interested). As for the English, yes, it could do with some sprucing, but there's one AmE thing I am still getting used to that I would automatically change if the article were about a British group. Any idea what I'm thinking of? Rothorpe (talk) 23:32, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
Well, it's probably in the second sentence, since of the two sentences, it is the most poorly written:
  • Best known for their successful million-selling recording "Peppermint Twist" (1961), the group was started by Joey Dee.
(a) "Best known for" should probably be just "Known for", unless it is clear beyond a doubt that the group was well known for many things, and this is just the highlight of them all (and I've never heard of them, but that doesn't mean anything since I don't follow popular music of any kind);
(b) "million-selling recording" is the most awful construction;
(c) "Best known for their....the group....
First referring to them in the plural, and then in the singular, but I thought British English speakers were not so bothered by that, using the plural verb with collective nouns: the group were... So, which one was it that bothered you the most? Corinne (talk) 23:44, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
That's the one: the singular/plural mix-up would not occur in BrE because, as you say, we always use the plural for this kind of thing. Just as 'the group were' sounds odd to you, so 'Starliters was' sounds odd to me. I'm a little surprised you don't like 'million-selling recording': I'm afraid that's par for the course; and as for 'best known for', I'm always changing 'better known as' to just 'known as'---this is similarly wordy, and rather presumptuous to boot. But the singular musicians was why I asked---thanks for answering! Rothorpe (talk) 02:15, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
Rothorpe So you would say, toward the end of this sentence, "the group were started by Joey Dee"? That sounds so odd to me. We would never use the plural verb with "the group". I can understand a wish to use the plural with "the Starliters" because it's a plural noun (but Americans would say "the Starliters was formed" anyway), but not with "group". I wonder when that change occurred. It's interesting because it reflects a different way of thinking about it. Corinne (talk) 02:32, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
Indeed, yes. While I agree 'the group were formed' looks absurd in isolation, after a few instances of 'the Starliters were ... they were ...', it just sounds natural. If you're a BrE speaker, that is. It's symmetrical: The group were, the Starliters was, same difference. Two Wikipedia first sentences, found without any effort: The Platters was an American vocal group, Pink Floyd were an English rock band, both equally illogical if you think about it. Rothorpe (talk) 03:42, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi, Corinne and Rothorpe. Are you folks following this discussion thread? Cheers! PS: In 9 years why does such a prominent musical group only rank two references? {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 07:28, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, thanks for the reminder. Rothorpe (talk) 13:11, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 3, 2016)

Hello, Corinne.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Chowder

Please be bold and help to improve this article!

Previous selections: Deity • Monarchies in Africa

Get involved with the TAFI project. You can: Nominate an article • Review nominations

Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:08, 18 January 2016 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • Opt-out instructions

Example quote

Checkingfax I wanted to remember the format for the quote that you put on Baffle gab1978's talk page, so I put it at the upper right of this page. Can you look at it and see if I formatted it correctly for this page? I'd rather not see the gray shading under the lines of text, if possible (same for the lines of green text above it). Also, do I need that "dummy ref"? I put the "small" template just because I didn't want the quote to take up a lot of space. Finally, could the ref style at the end of the quote vary? I think sometimes it says ref = name of ref and other times it shows something different, doesn't it? Corinne (talk) 15:04, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Corinne, we use <ref name=Reference1>Reference</ref> to define a reference so it can be used multiple times in an article to reduce the amount of space taken up. To call a reference thus defined, we use <ref name=Reference1 /> to call the reference where needed. This adds an instance to the citation in the References section; you'll see an appropriate letter(s) for subsequent uses. It's best to define the reference at its first use, but it's not necessary since it will work anywhere in the article body provided it's defined and called correctly. I hope that's useful. Cheers, Baffle gab1978 (talk) 03:11, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi, Corinne. This is a partial reply.

1- The quote used a named reference that had been previously or subsequently been used in the article. If you give a reference a name then you can repeat that named reference within the article just by adding a self-closing named reference. Normally, a reference looks like this:
<ref>http://some.random.website.name.here.com</ref> (notice the reference is complete and has an opening ref tag and a closing ref tag. The /ref is what closes the HTML tag.

OK, if we wanted to reuse that reference we would instead at some use of the reference in the page (it does not have to be the first use) give the reference a name like this:
<ref name="random website">http://some.random.website.name.here.com</ref> and then any time we want to reuse the reference within the page all we have to do is add the named reference only like this: <ref name="random website" /> (note the forward slash to "close" the tag). Some people do it like this: <ref name="random website"></ref>, but that is crufty and usually somebody edits those out.

Note: Putting the reference name in quote marks is only required if the reference name you pick has spaces in it, but it is a good habit to get in to for any named reference in case somebody else comes along, changes the name to one with spaces, and does not know the rule about adding quote marks to names with spaces.

Do an edit source on this article: Planned Parenthood 2015 undercover videos controversy and you will notice that all references are named, and then put in a List Defined References section at the bottom of the article. For some reason the primary author there used underscores instead of quote marks, but that is an aside.

2- By using a named ref in the example on Baffle gab1978's (hah, I put the genitive inside the wikilink) without including the full reference that the named ref hangs on, BG's talk page would have been put in to a special maintenance category for pages with reference errors. So, to preempt that error I added a full dummy ref but I wanted to make it obvious to you that it was a dummy ref so it did not get copied anyplace it did not belong.

3- The reference box below the example is created by the template {{reflist-talk}}. This ensures that the reference only shows up in that thread. Otherwise the reference will move down BG's Talk page as new threads are added‍—‌the example reference will show up at the bottom of the newest section.

It is good to put a reflist-talk template in any reply you make on talk pages that includes references. Otherwise your reference will just keep moving down the page and that can get tricky with long talk pages and fast moving talk pages. If you notice references out of place on a talk page you can usually do a view-source of the entire page, find the reference, and then refactor that reply by adding the template to put the reference back in the right bucket.

4- Whatever way the reference is created in the original quote, you can just leave it the same. You don't really have to touch anything in the quote you are changing. You just need to delete some code cruft outside of the references; cruft germane to the previously used quote template.

5- To get rid of the gray shading and boxes, simply remove the <code>...</code> HTML tags. Those are just used as highlights. I am going to modify the text a bit for your description and you can change it back or modify it if you do not agree or to make it more understandable, since it is a note to self.

6- You might be interested in the template: {{talkquote}} (vs. {{talk quote}} as the talkquote version puts a nice snappy vertical green line next to the quote instead of using green letters. Try it on a preview or in your sandbox sometime. Maybe I answered your questions after all. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 05:24, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Thank you, Checkingfax, for this information. I really appreciate it. I've been learning a lot. I like the look of the green text. It stands out, but in a non-distracting way. If it were easy and acceptable (for talk pages), I would use all sorts of colors for emphasis. Thank you for the changes you made to my list of useful items, above. Regarding the one about non-adjacent edits, should I add that the larger (higher) number (from the older newer version/edit) should always be placed first and the small (lower) number (from the more recent older edit) second? Will the number for the older version/edit always appear in the URL as prev&oldid=? If not, and I see two numbers in the URL, which one do I pick to represent the older version/edit? Corinne (talk) 19:52, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
Hi, Corinne. You can change text color in talk replies anytime you want to highlight a word, phrase, or paragraph. There are at least 140 named colors (where you don't have to use special hex-numbers)‍—‌such as DodgerBlue, Orange, Yellow, DeepPink, etc. Check out how I used a named color to format the goldenrod text in this reply. The template format is like this: {{color|color name|text to colorize}}.
Where you put the number in the Diff template decides whether the pages goes in the left or right column of the Diff. Do one backward and you will see that you can put an older page on the right and a newer page on the left. I mean right/left for Diff viewing, not right/left within the Diff template. The older page version will always be the lowest number. I have trouble figuring those out sometimes unless I use a calculator Read the doc page on the template and see if it tells you which one is always the oldest. I do not recall. I think it is oldid= Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 01:22, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

References

This?

File:Bonnard-the dining room in the country.jpg
The Dining Room in the Country, by Pierre Bonnard
Wave, by Maurice Denis

Hafspajen This what? Do you mean is this what I was asking about? Not exactly, but pretty close, and thank you for the images. I was referring to the quality in the two paintings – the one by Krouthén and the one by Weysenhoff – in which the color is pretty close to natural colors but slightly unreal, slightly garish, so that the image lies somewhere on the border between realistic and not realistic. I searched for an article that would describe this kind of painting.

The closest I could come was Post-Impressionism, where I found these two that have a similar quality to the other two:

File:Ludvig Karsten - The blue Kitchen - Google Art Project.jpg

But you're the art expert. Do you see what I mean? The Krouthén and Weysenhoff paintings are both fairly realistic portrayals of a scene in nature, but the colors make them modern, and I just wondered if there were a particular word to describe that combination. Corinne (talk) 23:25, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Oh, I just saw this. It's beautiful. I will nominate it. Let me first just read up on it and/or the artist a little. It's been so long since I've nominated an image that I hope I remember how to do it. Corinne (talk) 19:52, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Hafspajen I had just started to read the article about Ludvig Karsten when I came across this sentence, the last sentence in the first paragraph:

  • Karsten was known for his bohemian lifestyle and pending temper.

I don't think "pending" is the right word. This was probably translated from an article in another language. Do you think you could find the original word in the source and think of a better word? Corinne (talk) 23:19, 1 January 2016 (UTC) P.S. Oslo was established as a municipality called Christiania on 1 January 1838, 178 years ago today. Corinne (talk) 23:25, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Maybe you should ask {{U|Oceanh}} what they meant, who created the article. Hafspajen (talk) 23:44, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) O.K. Hafspajen Well, thanks for looking. Later in the article it describes his temper. I think we could say he had a "quick temper". I was just looking at Danish artist articles (I'm looking for a bright red painting to balance the blue Karsten painting for the top of my talk page), and I saw in Julius Exner that all the captions are in Danish. Corinne (talk) 23:46, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Oceanh I've been told that you created the article on Ludvig Karsten. Please see the last few exchanges just above. The last sentence of the first paragraph in the article is:

  • Karsten was known for his bohemian lifestyle and pending temper.
I don't think the word "pending" is right here. Can you check the source and figure out a better word? Perhaps "a quick temper" would work. Corinne (talk) 23:49, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

.

  • Could be this part: Karsten var beryktet for sitt temperament og sitt forhold til alkohol, og allerede 1917 ble Misse til “Skils-Misse”. Kunstnerisk ble det etter hvert også mye “dagen derpå”. It is from the Norwegian refs.

He was drinking, was temperamental and had a nervous temperament. Hafspajen (talk) 23:47, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

I left a note on Oceanh's talk page. Corinne (talk) 23:55, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi, Corinne. Confirming who launched the article: //wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Ludvig_Karsten&action=info

You can always find this information by going to a page, then clicking on the 'Page information' link in the 'Tools' link section on the lefthand margin of each article page. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 00:10, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Checkingfax Thank you! Hafspajen In the Karsten article, in the gallery, I translated a caption. It looked like "Blue stool", so I translated it "Blue stool", but the picture shows a chair. Does "stol" mean "chair"? Corinne (talk) 00:30, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, "stol" (Norwegian) mean "chair" (English) Oceanh (talk) 01:41, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
Hi. Thank you for the interest in the article about Ludvig Karsten. The statements about Karsten's temper is taken from Messel's biography of Karsten, a book which I have at my home. (I am currently on a holiday abroad, but might check the wording in that book when I return back home; if I can still find it; the article was written five years ago, and some of my books are hiding in piles of large boxes). Karsten could become violent at times; in the article I have mentioned one particular episode, a fight with Nils Collett Vogt, which resulted in reprisals from the circle of Norwegian artists residing in Paris. I agree with you that "a quick temper" is probably better than "pending temper". Also note that there is a separate article on the painting The Blue Kitchen. (I noticed that Commons now has a picture of this painting of much better quality than the one originally used in that article). Oceanh (talk) 01:36, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
Oceanh Thanks for your reply. I guess I'll go ahead and change it to "a quick temper" (if you haven't already). When you get home, and if you can find the book, if you find that it should be a different word or phrase, go ahead and change it. I saw that you had linked "The Blue Kitchen" in the caption of the article to a small article about the painting. I looked at it and wondered why the image of the painting was different. I like the one in the Karsten article better. I've just nominated this image for featured picture. Hafspajen I see Crisco 1492 added his support. Can you tell me if it is appropriate to "thank" each person who supports the nomination? Corinne (talk) 02:00, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Hafspajen What happened? The nomination wasn't approved due to not enough votes. Do you think it had anything to do with my comment that at the time I made the nomination there was only one article linked to the image? Or do you think it had to do with the image itself, or to the time of year it is now? Corinne (talk) 03:56, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Hafspajen Where are you? Are you all right? I miss seeing you around here. See Drcrazy's comment below re computers. Corinne (talk) 03:45, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Articles

Please take a look at the articles Jonas Åkerlund (politician) and Emil Källström that I have created. Any help is appreciated. Regards,--BabbaQ (talk) 21:12, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

BabbaQ I'd be happy to look at them. I'm just curious why you don't submit requests at the GOCE Requests page. I'm not working on any article just now, so if you post one of them, I'll accept the assignment right away; then later you can submit the other one. Corinne (talk) 02:58, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
BabbaQ ? Corinne (talk) 03:07, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
Checkingfax I didn't get a reply from BabbaQ, so I'm going to go ahead and read and copy-edit these two articles. I just started reading the first one, and I was puzzled by the term "Sweden Democrats". I realize it's a translation from Swedish, but it sounds odd in English. I entered the phrase in the search bar, and it led to an article Sweden Democrats. In the first line, it gives "Sweden Democrats", with "Swedish Democrats" as an alternative. Would you leave it as "Sweden Democrats" or change it to "Swedish Democrats"? Corinne (talk) 01:04, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
As an American, Swedish sounds smoother to me, don't you know, huh? (that's how my Swedish friend's dad ended every question or statement, don't you know, huh?). I did not call him my Sweden friend. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 01:12, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
BabbaQ Pinging you again. I've finished going through the Jonas article. I've left a few "clarification needed" tags with hidden notes to you. Let me know if you need help finding a word or formulating a sentence. I think I may have messed up a reference or two if you want to check that. Corinne (talk) 01:25, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
Checkingfax and BabbaQ - I just looked at the Emil Källström article and I thought, good-looking guy, then I saw that he is 66 years old. I thought, that photo must have been taken quite a while ago, and then I saw it had been taken just two years ago! I can hardly believe that is a photo of a 64-year-old man. Are you sure that's a photo of Emil Källström, and, if so, are you sure it was taken only in 2013? Corinne (talk) 01:28, 18 January 2016 (UTC) Upon looking again at the article, I see in the first line it says he was born in 1987. That makes more sense. So what's with the date of birth in the infobox? Corinne (talk) 01:30, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
Checkingfax I'm sorry -- I got "edit conflict" and wanted to get my revised sentence in before I forgot what I had written; I didn't even look at what was there. Then I saw your edit. I was about to put it back in just as you had written it when I thought of a more concise way to say it; hope you approve; if not, we can put your version back in. Corinne (talk) 01:47, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
I realized that BabbaQ must have put Jonas Akerlund's date of birth in the infobox for Kallstrom, so I fixed Kallstrom's date of birth in the infobox. Corinne (talk) 01:49, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
Checkingfax (Did you see my apology just above? Hope you're not mad at me.) In the Jonas Åkerlund article, it says at the beginning that he was a "vice party leader". I'm wondering whether it would be all right just to say he was "a party leader". (It's not saying he was "the party leader".) Later on, it explains that he was a vice party leader. Or, if not "a party leader", perhaps "a member of the party leadership"? I just think "a vice party leader" sounds odd at the very beginning of an article. Also, toward the end of the article, what do you think of changing "towards" to "toward"? Is there one that you prefer there? Rothorpe, I'd like to know what you think about that, also. Corinne (talk) 01:55, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
Isn't it just that 'toward' is American and 'towards' British? I agree about banishing the vice. Rothorpe (talk) 03:21, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
Rothorpe Oh, I didn't know that. I was wondering why I kept seeing "towards" instead of "toward". We user "towards" sometimes, but not as often as "toward". Corinne (talk) 03:43, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
Dear Corinne, @Rothorpe and BabbaQ: I apologize for the haste of my addition to the lead of Emil Källström. I was not able to proof it because I was on my way out the door, but I knew at least it needed one more comma. In retrospect, I think my edit is TMI for the lead and that it belongs in the body instead. Go for it, Corinne. Please move it down the page. As for towards, I used to spell it that way that but my spell check kept calling me out so I switched to toward when I remembered to. However, I am aghast at how many common words are not on the Firefox spellcheck database so now I cannot rely on it to coach me 100%. Other spellcheckers called me out on towards also. Now that I have read this, and since I used towards my whole life until recently, I feel vindicated to go back to using towards at my option. I pegged Emil at closer to 40. Interesting that he is only 28. Surprised too or maybe I missed it that there is not a bio page for him on the Riksdag site. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 06:22, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Orpheus

For anyone watching and interested: I was just reading the beginning of the article on Orpheus, and I got to the end of the Orpheus#Background section. The last two sentences in the fourth paragraph of that section are:

  • Orpheus had a brother named Linus, who went to Thebes and became a Theban. He is claimed by Aristophanes and Horace to have taught cannibals to subsist on fruit, and to have made lions and tigers obedient to him. Horace believed, however, that Orpheus had only introduced order and civilization to savages.

(a) I wonder whether the first sentence is misplaced. The paragraph seems to be about things Orpheus did for, or gave to, mankind, and this sentence doesn't seem to fit with the other sentences. In fact, I'm not even sure why the sentence is there at all. Would you recommend taking it out, moving it to the end of the paragraph, or moving it to another location in the article?

(b) I assume, though I'm not sure, that the initial "He" at the beginning of the next sentence refers to Orpheus, not his brother. Whether or not the sentence about Linus is removed, I think "He" ought to be changed to "Orpheus".

(c) In edit mode, one can read a quote from Strabo. In the middle of the quote there seems to be some repetition; is that the way Strabo wrote it?

(d) The last sentence of the first paragraph of the lead is:

  • As an archetype of the inspired singer, Orpheus is one of the most significant figures in the reception of classical mythology in Western culture, portrayed or alluded to in countless forms of art and popular culture including poetry, film, opera, music, and painting.

Are any of the five things listed at the end of the sentence considered "popular culture"? Corinne (talk) 00:20, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Rothorpe No one has responded; did you see this? Can you take a look at these things? Corinne (talk) 02:21, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, much film and music can be classified as popular culture... Rothorpe (talk) 03:48, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
Yes, you're right, the Linus sentence needs moving. Rothorpe (talk) 03:55, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
Yes, the bit about Strabo (footnote 19) has been translated twice. So I agree with all your points; let me know if you want me to help you work on them. Rothorpe (talk) 04:05, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
Rothorpe Thanks for your replies, and yes, thanks! Go ahead and work on these things; I'll work on something else. Corinne (talk) 15:36, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Hecuba

Checkingfax and Rothorpe I was just reading the article on Hecuba, and I came across a phrase that puzzled me. It's the phrase "fae prison" in the last item in the article before the "Notes" section. I searched for anything on "fae" on WP, got to a disambiguation page, and the only thing that seemed remotely connected was the article Fairy, but I didn't see anything about a prison. Do you think it is really supposed to say "fae person"? Or is a "fae prison" a little tiny prison for fae people, i.e., fairies? Corinne (talk) 03:27, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Follow the link to Lost Girl and you'll see it does mean fairy. Now I'll have another look at Orpheus, about which I had indeed forgotten. Rothorpe (talk) 03:40, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
Hi Corinne. This Google search (wrapped in quotes) returns many results mentioning "fae prison" in regards to Lost Girl however I do not find the phrase actually used on the Wikipedia Lost Girl article. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 23:23, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
Hi Corinne. I updated the FAE DAB page to show a couple of new definitions of FAE and constructed per MOS:DAB guidelines. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 23:41, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Richard Rohr

See WP:TAFI:NOM. Corinne (talk) 15:45, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

See "Chthonic": WP:TAFI:NOM. Corinne (talk) 02:35, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Dunning–Kruger effect

Checkingfax and Rothorpe User:Florian Blaschke told me about the article on the Dunning–Kruger effect. Have you seen that article? It's interesting. I wanted to ask you about a sentence in the section Dunning–Kruger effect#Supporting studies:

  • Daniel Ames and Lara Kammrath extended this work to sensitivity to others and subject perception of how sensitive they were.

The last part of the sentence didn't sound right. Do you think it should be "and subjects' perception of how sensitive they were"? Or maybe move subjects' to earlier in the sentence?

  • ...extended this work to subjects' sensitivity to others and their perception of how sensitive they were.

But who is "they", in "they were"?

Checkingfax, why can't I get an en-dash to appear in the line for the new subject heading? When I click on the en-dash that's below the edit window, the en-dash appears in the large editing window. Corinne (talk) 19:56, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

I've changed it for you (in the large window). I'll now have another go at getting my head around your other query. Rothorpe (talk) 02:06, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
Hi Corinne. I can look at the article later but I agree changing it up will be good. Defining 'they' is key.
The focus for that edit window character inserter always goes to the last point you edited in the article. I hate that and therefore use the {{endash}} template instead. For spaced endash I use the {{snds}} template. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 02:40, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
Checkingfax Thank you, thank you. Well, if I'm only typing a heading, the last thing I typed was the first word, such as "Dunning" in this case, so why would the en-dash end up in the large edit window? You've got me convinced to start using the templates, so I've added the two you just gave me to my list of useful things at the upper right of this page. You may have given me others, but I'm too tired to look for them. If you have a chance, can you add any others you use (for dashes) to my list? Also, both of you, Checkingfax and Rothorpe, did you see my questions at "Orpheus" a few sections up? No one has replied. Corinne (talk) 03:03, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
No idea what kind of machine you are using, but on a Mac keyboard Alt+- gives an en-dash, and Alt+Shift+- gives an em-dash. Very practical! --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:15, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
Just tried Alt+Shift+ (by mistake) on my PC using Firefox and it closed this edit window and opened a new edit window starting a new section. That could be handy for something . I tried Alt+Shift+- and got nothing. Rats.
Dear Corinne and Florian Blaschke, Annoyingly, the focus of the insertion point for the Wikiipedia character inserter stays in the last point you edited in the body of the page, even if the last place you have clicked is in the Title or Edit summary fields. Gets me every time. Now, what I do if I want something in the Title or Edit summary, is to click at the top left of the body, go back down to the inserter, click on the character, then go copy and paste it from the body to the Title or Edit summary field. My fear is to lose the character and have a stray floating around in an article in an inappropriate place; not so worried if it is a Talk page reply. The annoying part to me is these inserted characters are usually the last thing I do in an edit session, so if I lose track of the inserted character I might have to cancel my entire edit session. Ugh. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 23:13, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
Checkingfax Oh, my gosh. That is such a roundabout way of inserting a character! Can't we suggest somewhere that this be fixed? By the way, I use the "Find" function (click on three parallel horizontal lines in upper right-hand corner of window) often. It works in either regular space or in edit mode. It helps me find things and saves a lot of time looking. I think you might be able to search for an en-dash just by putting an en-dash in the "Find" search bar. I can't remember if I've tried that or not. Corinne (talk) 02:23, 20 January 2016 (UTC)
Hi Corinne. The problem is I have to be able to insert an endash or such in the find box to find the lost endash. LOL. In those cases, what I do is to put my insertion point top/left of body of page, insert the lost character, copy it, paste to find box, and then find it and delete it or move it. Aggravating, because in the case of endash articles can have a ton of them. This normally happens to me when I try to insert a '→' with the character inserter into the Edit summary field, but the → disappears in to the ether of the article body, and I cannot always recall the last point of the article that I edited. Also the → looks really puny in the edit mode (but gets larger in the Preview mode) and is nearly imperceptible on a quick eyeball scan of the edit window. Yes, the coders would help us if they could make the inserter focus point be the last place we clicked our mouse pointer. As an aside, to reach search, I use Ctrl+f, a habit I got into from the DOS days. I use Ctrl f, c, v, z, and x mostly. Very quick. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 02:45, 20 January 2016 (UTC)
Oh... Thanks. Corinne (talk) 03:10, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

William Grant Still

Crisco 1492 I was just reading the discussion at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/William Grant Still, and since I don't know enough about photography, I was unable to form an opinion. However, I was wondering if you could explain a few things to me so that I will understand this and future discussions better. (I'll refrain from offering an opinion about photos unless I feel I can say something worthwhile.)

1) What does it mean to restore an image? I thought "restore" meant to put something back as close as possible to the condition in which it once was. In this case, how can Adam Cuerden put this image back to the way it once was? Is he just going by what Carl Van Vechten's other photos look like generally, with the slightly yellow tint, or is there more to it than that?

2) Is the yellow tint of Van Vechten's other photos a result of the way the photos were developed or a result of "yellowing with age"? If it is the result of the way the photos were developed, was it a conscious choice on Van Vechten's part or was it due to the materials used at the time? Corinne (talk) 00:29, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

  • "Restore" in this case is to use digital means (such as Photoshop or GIMP) to remove damage to a digitized photograph and bring it as close to the original as possible. The question of yellowing is not in and of itself one of restoration, but an attempt to address issues with the LOC scan. Certain scanners automatically adjust white balances and contrast levels upon scanning. Mine does that, so I've had to turn off that function to ensure greater fidelity; some places don't. I'm not saying for sure the LOC has this issue, but there have been (mostly minor) issues with color fidelity in the past. Adam is well versed in photography from this period, and I would assume that he relied on this experience when adjusting the warmth of the scan. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 00:54, 16 January 2016 (UTC)
Thank you, Chris. Can you tell me what "LOC" stands for? I didn't see it on the disambiguation page for LOC. Corinne (talk) 01:06, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Highlighting text in colors

Hi Corinne. You mentioned the ability to use colors with text. Here is one way using the <mark> tag:
<mark>Highlight some text</mark> will render like this: Highlight some text
Using this tag: <mark style="background:lightgreen">Highlight some text</mark> will render like this:
Highlight some text

You can use that color chart of 500 named colors to change the colors or you can use hex numbers to specify colors. Without the style attribute it will always highlight in yellow only. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 20:35, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Today's featured article - February 2016

Dank I finished February 10, 2016. I got it down to 1159 characters. After I finished, I purged the summary, but when I looked at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/February 2016, it didn't reflect the changes I had made. Why is that? Corinne (talk) 17:27, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure. - Dank (push to talk) 18:11, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
Thanks. I thought about moving "have been developed" to earlier in the sentence but I thought maybe I shouldn't since it separates the clause ("that...") from its subject ("cultivars"), but I guess it sounds all right. Corinne (talk) 18:38, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Dank I finished February 12, 2016. It's at 1156 characters. Corinne (talk) 18:35, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Dank All your edits are good ones (of course). I'm wondering about something, though, with regard to this re-wording. (Please don't be upset with me; I'm happy to be persuaded I'm wrong.)
Your new sentence is undoubtedly more concise. I'm just wondering whether the phrase "subject to predation and parasites" may be a circumstance that has always been true for the Alpine chough. It's not clear whether it is a cause of the recent decline in local populations. The new wording suggests that it is; I don't know if it makes a difference or not. I also saw at least one more reason for the decline in local populations in the first sentence of the last paragraph in Alpine chough#Status:
  • Choughs can be locally threatened by the accumulation of pesticides and heavy metals in the mountain soils, heavy rain, shooting and other human disturbances...
particularly contamination of the environment with pesticides and heavy metals, i.e., pollution. If that pollution is only a result of changes in agricultural practices, then it's covered already in the summary. If not, and the pollution comes partly from, say, industry, then perhaps it could be added as another factor. Corinne (talk) 20:21, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
The edit you're linking has to do with "readability", that is, the question of how much information readers will have to hold on to and juggle around before they understand the meaning of the sentence. I took advantage of the fact that, since some isolated populations are suffering from predation and disease, and since all birds suffer from those things to some extent, the reader will be able to figure out that the non-isolated populations suffer from those things too ... I don't have to spell that out in a separate clause. I want to keep the reader focused on the main point of the sentence, which is the potential threat to some populations. I think you're right about the pesticides; they're covered by agricultural practices. - Dank (push to talk) 21:46, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
P.S. Why don't either of the two summaries, February 10 and February 12, appear at WP:TFAA in the versions we've shortened and revised? Corinne (talk) 20:25, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
I don't know. - Dank (push to talk) 21:46, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Using WP

Checkingfax I don't know if you've been following what's been going on with this user: User:Γνῶθι σεαυτόν, but if you haven't, I thought you might be interested in the latest comments. See User talk:Γνῶθι σεαυτόν. The first section is just the latest in a long series of edits and blocks; the editor keeps blanking his/her talk page, but it's all there in the revision history. This block pretty much seems to be the end of it, though. After you read that section, then look at the next section, "Conclusion". It turns out that the editor was purposely doing all that as part of a (very) non-scientific "experiment" (you'll see s/he even admits two glaring flaws), while claiming to be a professor of mathematics. Some editors flatly don't believe any of it. In the process, over the past few weeks, s/he has irritated quite a few editors and taken up a lot of people's time. It's really rather outrageous, I think. Corinne (talk) 20:45, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Dear Corinne. Wow! 8 sockpuppets and 1 puppetmaster! Nutter alert! Thank you for that. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 03:38, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Your copy edit on Hadrian and Turbo.

Dear Corinne: this concerning your (and another editor's) recent copy edit on the Hadrian article. The most pressing issue, for me, concerns the paragraph on Hadrian & Turbo.Follows a partial copy of your talkpage:

" In the third paragraph in Hadrian#Purpose, the second sentence did not make sense. I made an intelligent guess and re-worded it to "Hadrian made recourse to...Turbo" (i.e., turned to Turbo for his help, used Turbo to accomplish something). If this is not correct, please let me know and the sentence can be changed. However, if I worded the sentence correctly, there is a bit of a problem with the cohesion of the rest of the paragraph. The subsequent sentences tell who Turbo was. Then we read that Turbo was "not competent to keep check on the Senate" (I think it should be "keep a check on the Senate", i.e., keep tabs on the Senate, keep the senators in line, but I'm going to ask someone about this. Rothorpe should it be "keep check on the Senate" or "keep a check on the Senate"?), then you explain why, and then you mention the secret police. Besides the fact that you made no connection between the statements about the secret police and what precedes it, you don't say anything about why Hadrian "made recourse to...Turbo" or whether Turbo succeeded in accomplishing anything, so the reader may wonder why you mentioned him".

Well, what I meant was the following: actually, during his travels, Hadrian had need of someone to keep the Senate _in_ check (i.e., to keep it under control), as any senator could at any time arrange to have himself hailed as emperor. But then , without the possibility of a formal trial if and when necessary, it was impossible to keep the Senate in check. Problem is that Turbo, as Pretorian Prefect and an equestrian (in this case, a clerk, a bureaucrat and not a magistrate, a politician) had no formal authority to start a formal proceeding against a senator. Of course, as always during the Roman Empire, Hadrian could deal with a pressing issue informally - i.e., order an execution after a "secret" trial - but that would be seem as disrespectful- and that was the reason why Hadrian's dealings with the Senate were so bad, because of the killing of four former consuls at the beginning of the reign. What the sources imply is that Hadrian left Turbo to administer Rome during his absence - mostly routine, as well as keeping general law and order - and at the same time employed the secret police to snoop on the Senate in order to react personally in case of need - i.e. to hasten towards Rome and deal with the matter on the spot. That's it.Cerme (talk) 13:40, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Cerme Thank you for the explanations. I just re-read that section, and I guess it's clear enough. I wonder if you think, in this sentence, "Nonetheless, he was not competent to keep the Senate in check, as Hadrian forbade equestrians to try cases against senators", that the word "qualified" would be better than "competent": "he was not qualified to keep the Senate in check". "Not competent" sounds like he was inept. "Not qualified" goes with "as Hadrian forbade equestrians to try cases..." Also, regarding the last sentence of the paragraph, I guess "people of high social standing" is close enough to "senators" that it connects the use of the secret police to the ideas that precede this sentence in the paragraph. Corinne (talk) 03:15, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
Cerme About three weeks ago I left a question on Hertz1888's talk page. I have still not received a response, so I'm going to copy it here. Perhaps you or someone else can answer my question.
Copied from Hertz1888's talk page:
In the second paragraph in the section Hadrian#In Rabbinic literature is the following sentence:
  • When queried by his soldiers as to why he did this, Hadrian responded with a dual verse from the book of Isaiah in praise of the nation of Israel: "So says God the redeemer of Israel to the downtrodden soul to the (made) repulsive nation, kings will view and stand."
I wondered what "a dual verse" meant. In what sense is it dual? Does it mean two adjacent verses, or is it dual in the sense that it conveys two meanings? Do you think the phrase "a dual verse" is clear enough for the average WP reader? Also, do you think the quote is the best possible translation, with those two phrases beginning "to" in succession? Corinne (talk) 02:54, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
Do you think these are questions whose answers are obvious and thus not worth replying to? Corinne (talk) 18:13, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
I believe that in "dual verse", what is meant is a couplet. In the quote from Isaiah, that would be something like "So says God the redeemer [...]to the downtrodden soul:/To the repulsive nation, kings will[....] . In the context given, it's of course an irony- and a very cruel one to boot. The episode is almost certainly mythology, as it's highly improbable that a staunch Hellenist like Hadrian would even knew Hebrew Scripture, but what matters is that we have a set of two verses expressing a complete thought Cerme (talk) 15:59, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Great Bow Bridge

Thanks for your copy editing on Bristol. I happened to look at your userpage and noticed the the image of Great Bow Bridge over the Parrett, as it is fairly local to me. The caption says it is in Langford but it is in Langport.— Rod talk 15:51, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Rod Oh, thank you. I'll correct that. I got the image from the River Parrett article when I copy-edited it quite a while ago. I don't know if you've noticed the discussion in a section above this about the Bristol article. Last night, after I put the "GOCE in use" template at the top of the article, I had trouble making an edit. I've since left comments in two places (you'll see where). I've started editing the article now (I keep getting distracted by reading linked articles and other comments). Corinne (talk) 16:05, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Cetacea

Checkingfax I was just looking at the article on Cetacea, and I saw the tags at the top of the article. The article appears to be pretty substantial, but I can't really judge if the the tags are justified or not, If they are, do you think this article is worth being nominated at WP:TAFI? If you do think so, what can I say other than mention the tags? Corinne (talk) 17:20, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi Corinne. If you embellish the language of the first banner tag you will have most of your TAFI hook. That banner mentions references and copy editing. Then there are the other section tags calling out the lack of references in a few sections. Plus, there are misplaced images that cause text to be between a corridor of images. And, a broken reference, some dead links, plus the article is only in 3 categories which seems weak for such a long article. Some of the TAFI participants are shooting down any long articles or anything rated C or above, so that rules out a lot of articles. They want stub or start class only. If we get one down vote then it takes two up votes to overcome it. I say go for it. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 18:46, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
Hi. I almost forgot: There is also at least one deprecated shaded pull quote box that can be converted to plain blockquote style using your favorite method. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 20:44, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Murder of Teresa De Simone

Checkingfax In response to a request at Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Requests, I am copy-editing Murder of Teresa De Simone for BabbaQ. I have completed about two-thirds of the article and am taking a break from it until tomorrow. However, I wanted to ask you about two things:

1) I noticed that the twenty-four hour clock, or military time, is used. Since it makes no sense to most American readers, I decided to put regular time, with "a.m." and "p.m." (can't remember if the periods are all right) after them, in parentheses. In some cases, just to make it clear, I added just "a.m." after a morning time. However, I'm thinking that maybe the addition of the a.m./p.m. times in parentheses looks a little cluttered, and I wonder whether it would be all right to change the military time to regular time (with the a.m./p.m., or am/pm).

2) I changed the old "blockquote" template to the quote template once, and a pull quote to a regular quote once. At the end of the quote in the section Murder of Teresa De Simone#Arrest of Sean Hodgson I notice that there is a long dash before "Appeal 10". I don't know how to get rid of that, and I'm not sure I got the reference (attribution) right. Can you check this for me? Thank you! Corinne (talk) 00:28, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi, Corinne. I shall answer #2 now and then go off and study #1. I have added some whitespace to the two quotes to section them out for easier editing in the text window. The reader will not see the whitespace.
A reference is not the attribution. An attribution is who said the quote‍—‌who the quote is attributed to, its source, or both.
Many quotes lack a reference. If a reference is needed, just pile it on to the end of the quote with no space or pipe between the quote and the associated reference.
Same for an attribution: No reference is usually required, but if one is just pile it on to the end of the attribution with no space or pipe between the end of the attribution and the reference.
In the problem quote, you put a pipe after the quote, but before the reference. This chunks up the quote and adds an attribution section, with the only thing being attributed being the reference. Since the reference is super-scripted to the dash it looks exceptionally odd. That is an em dash or quote dash before the reference. Just remove that unneeded pipe and the reference will jump up and hang on the quote. Do not put a space between the terminal punctuation mark of the quote and reference. Everything will then be hunky dory.
Right now the quote basically looks like this (edited for brevity):
{{quote|...he was a "compulsive liar".|<ref group=Appeal name=para12>Paragraph 12</ref>}}
See the extra pipe after liar".
Edit it out; save your edit; poof.
If the quote had an attribution it would be be in text, not wrapped in a ref tag. The attribution, like the quote itself, may or may not have a reference or two hanging on it.
Adding that 2nd pipe creates a line break, an extra indent beyond the indent of the blockquote, inserts an em dash (or quote dash), and then hangs the attribution on a hair space after the em dash (or quote dash). So when you added that 2nd unneeded pipe it invoked that part of the template coding. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 04:05, 23 January 2016 (UTC)
Hi Corinne. I think it would be cleaner to convert all instances of 24 h to 12 h time. Be sure to put a.m. for anything less than 12:00 and p.m. for anything above 12:00. Midnight is 0:00. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 05:16, 23 January 2016 (UTC)
PS: This might interest you, but it is a bit of a long read to find a nugget of wisdom: Talk:12-hour clock. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 05:49, 23 January 2016 (UTC)
Hi Corinne. Doubling back on this one. You just need to remove the 2nd pipe in that quote to make the quote render properly. Right now the 2nd pipe makes the quote template think you want the reference to be an attribution section in the quote. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 19:25, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
Checkingfax Thank you for reminding me about this. I had forgotten all about it. I got distracted by editing Bristol, and reading all sorts of linked articles along the way. Now I've got to go back to this article and fix the time. I removed the pipe. Why do many of the superscript references say "Appeal 10", "Appeal 11", etc.? What's wrong with just a number? Corinne (talk) 19:48, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
Hi Corinne. They are using a technique called ref group where you clump refs into groups and then you can even name them within the groups (like the one following): <ref group=Appeal name=para14/></nowiki>. Appeal is the group name, and para14 is the ref name within that ref group. Then when the Appeal group is used it starts that ref with the name Appeal then appends a number to in it in the order it is used, just like regular references do, and then it gives a tool tip to the reference too. I have never had a use for it yet. Instead of calling the group Appeal they could have called the group a or A and then the references would be shorter. I found Appeal to be rather top heavy, especially when it is also appended with the actual reference number that corresponds to the references' order of use. Clear as mud? Check this out: {{ref group}} for a programmers doc on what it is supposed to do. You can edit the doc to make it more user friendly. Just be sure you edit the doc and not the template. The doc edit link is further down the page and clearly labeled. Be sure you don't edit the "sandbox" version of the doc, or you're just wasting your time. LOL. The template itself may be totally locked to editing, but the docs never are. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 20:35, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
Oopsie, here is the 411 on group refs: Help:Footnotes#Footnotes: groups
Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 20:41, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
Checkingfax Thank you. I don't think I'll ever be adding refs to articles, but it's good to know some things. Regarding ref groups, I don't know if you have ever looked at Phineas Gage. EEng used an interesting ref system. There were long discussions, starting with about Archive 6 or 7 (if not before), as to whether it was not too complicated. I participated briefly until I realized the editor was not being persuaded to change the ref system and it was getting too much over my head. Corinne (talk) 21:15, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
Thank you guys for helping with the c/e on this article. Cheers.BabbaQ (talk) 23:42, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 4, 2016)

Hello, Corinne.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Izakaya

Please be bold and help to improve this article!

Previous selections: Chowder • Deity

Get involved with the TAFI project. You can: Nominate an article • Review nominations

Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:07, 25 January 2016 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • Opt-out instructions

Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Les Grandes Baigneuses (Renoir)
Your Featured picture candidate has been promoted
Your nomination for featured picture status, File:Pierre-Auguste Renoir, French - The Large Bathers - Google Art Project.jpg, gained a consensus of support, and has been promoted. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates. Armbrust The Homunculus 23:38, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Persoonia terminalis

Hi Corinne. I thought you might have fun giving Persoonia terminalis a quick once over. It is in F.A. review now. It was the five-millionth article on the English Wikipedia. It went live as a very small Stub at midnight on November 1, posted by Casliber in Australia. I happened to be up when it went live so I jumped in with some edits as did some others. By day seven we got it up to G.A. status, and on December 16 it went DYK in the primo spot (with an image). So, it's been a fun ride. Casliber is a DYK, G.A., F.A. beast. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 16:11, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Checkingfax I hope I will be able to save this edit. Since yesterday I haven't been able to save a single edit. When I click on "Edit source", at first the edit window looks normal, but very quickly it turns into a narrow band that stretches from the far left of my screen to the far right, and the menu at the left and the Wiki-markup at the bottom appear through, or under, the edit window. I can type, but when I go to save I get the box that says "Do you want to leave/stay on this page?" So I can't even leave a message at Village Pump technical to ask for help. I've asked two editors via e-mail for help, and have gotten several suggestions, which I've tried. Nothing worked. So I just downloaded Firefox and logged on from Firefox. (I was using Chrome.) So, let's see if I can save this message. Thanks for letting me kow about Persoonia terminalis. I almost e-mailed you to ask for help. Corinne (talk) 22:54, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
Yay! It worked! I can edit again. So what happened? It happened right after my edits to my talk page where I added the "Done" template in the "Bristol" section and then I highlighted two comments I had just made for Rod. When I saw that you had already worked on that sentence in the Arts section, I highlighted my two comments, clicked on the "S" for strikethrough, and saved. That's when it happened. I undid that edit to see if it would solve the problem, but it didn't. So this seems to be something connected to Chrome. Corinne (talk) 22:57, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
Browsers can be funny things with idiosyncracies on different computers. On two of mine, firefox is fast and chrome slow, but on my main one the reverse is true.....but on that computer chrome crashes with one particular wiki page only. Weird....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:53, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
Cas Liber Thank you for your comment. I have noticed that when I click "Save" after I've made an edit, Firefox is slightly slower than Chrome was. There is one thing I like about Firefox, though, and that is that there are more options with smaller intervals for choosing the percentage to increase the screen resolution. I've had two problems with Chrome just in the last two days. See Wikipedia:Village Pump (technical)#Having trouble making edits. See Checkingfax's comment in particular. Corinne (talk) 01:05, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Levallois technique

Checkingfax I got to this article from a link in the Bristol article. As usual, I made a few copy-edits as I read it. I have a question for you:

The last sentence in the Africa section is:

  • Both examples feature large flakes, approximately 10–20 cm in diameter, and have been dated between 284 and 509 thousand years ago.

I wondered whether "284 and 509 thousand" is the correct way to express a number. (You'll see that I changed a hyphen or en-dash that was between 284 and 509 to the word "and", but I don't recall seeing large numbers expressed like that on WP.

I think the moving graphic image is quite interesting. I'm wondering if it would be clearer if a sentence were added to the caption saying which part became the actual cutting or scraping tool. Corinne (talk) 16:32, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Checkingfax Don't know if you saw this. I've pinged or mentioned you in several sections here. Corinne (talk) 17:31, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi Corinne. I left my faster computer over the hill yesterday and am on a dog slow computer. Paint dries faster than web pages reload on this 'ol thang. I would be more comfortable with 284-thousand to 509-thousand years ago, or 284,000 to 509,000 years ago. I am not a date ndasher either. I shall look at the graphic in a minute. Maybe don't need the hyphens; don't know. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 19:14, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
Hi Corinne. I agree adding a sentence explaining that the lithic flakes are the part of the image that become the cutting and scraping tools would be helpful for clarity.
I made some edits to the lead.
Also, I am wondering about a part of this sentence:

The 15- and 10-foot terraces again were classified first as Egyptian Mousterian, but later as developed Lavalloisean.

Is the hyphen supposed to hang freely on the 15- like that? What does that sentence mean? Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 05:05, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
Checkingfax Sorry I didn't get to replying to your question unti now. (I couldn't edit yesterday.) Yes, that is correct, for the first of two (or more) adjectives (or numbers used as adjectives) (that is, adjectives that would normally be hyphenated) modifying one noun. I'm wondering, though, why 15 is given before 10. Corinne (talk) 23:27, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
Hi Corinne. Good question about 15- before 10-. Change it at your discretion. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 23:44, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Steep Holm

Checkingfax I've just been reading the article on Steep Holm. In the section Steep Holm#World wars is the following sentence:

  • The armament included Mark VII 6 breech-loading guns taken from World War I naval vessels which had been scrapped, and Lewis guns against air attack.

I could see in edit mode that something was wrong with the text formatting. I think there are some italics that don't really need to be there. I figured maybe it should be 6" not 6' ', but I wasn't sure. Can you take a look at it? Corinne (talk) 20:30, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi Corinne. Yes, the 6 had unbalanced italic wiki markup which is not a good thing, especially when it was supposed to be a double quote mark (to denote inches), but for MoS and for harmony I eventually bootstrapped my way to making it 6-inch. My bootstrapping edit attempts start here. Good catch on the unbalanced italic wiki markup.
Somehow the bullet point sentence above still bothers me as it implies (even with my edit) that maybe the Lewis guns were from the scrapped vessels too? Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 07:12, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
Checkingfax Thanks! I saw what you did, and I realize you were making it consistent with what was right before it, but I noticed that in the section Steep Holm#World wars, in the middle of the first paragraph, is the following sentence:
  • The armament included Mark VII 6 breech-loading guns taken from World War I naval vessels which had been scrapped, and also included Lewis automatic machine guns against air attack.
You can see that "inch" is not even there. When I clicked on the link, I saw that it leads to an article that has "inch" in it, but it is not hyphenated. I don't know if there is a convention for describing these guns that doesn't include the hyphen or perhaps doesn't even require "inch". Maybe we should ask a military history expert. Corinne (talk) 16:46, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
Hi Corinne. Before I started meddling with it, here is what it looked like: :::

In the 1860s the island was fortified with ten [[RML 7 inch gun|7-inch rifled muzzle loaders]] as one of the Palmerston Forts for the coastal defence of the Bristol Channel until it was abandoned in 1898. The infrastructure was reused in World War I and II when [[BL 6 inch gun Mk II – VI|Mark VII 6'' breech-loading guns]] and search lights were installed. To enable the movement of materials, soldiers from the Indian Army Service Corps initially used mules and then installed a cable-operated winched switchback railway.

See, both had inch on the business side of the pipe in the wikilink. I replaced the 6'' with 6-inch. After Mark VII 6 that is two apostrophes, not one double quote mark, and that was flat out of place as you caught it. Now I think it should be: six-inch and seven-inch per MoS. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 18:29, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
(talk page stalker) The island's notable for retaining all the Armstrong guns (an attempt was made to cut them up, abandoned after one cut was made). I think one that was thought to be missing was uncovered about ten years ago. Xanthomelanoussprog (talk) 18:45, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
Thank you, Xanthomelanoussprog. Checkingfax Thank you, but I wasn't referring to the sentences you worked on in the lead, which I think was great. I referring to another sentence in the Steep Holm#World wars section. Corinne (talk) 19:20, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
Checkingfax Where are you? Corinne (talk) 01:08, 26 January 2016 (UTC) What do I do with the sentence in the "World wars" section? Corinne (talk) 01:09, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
Hi Corinne. All fixed now: 6 → 6-inch. PS: I did not realize coastguard was a noun. Always thought it was Coast Guard. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 21:38, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
Checkingfax Thanks for getting to that. I didn't know "coastguard" was a word, either. Why do you think it is? Corinne (talk) 23:24, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi Corinne. I looked up coastguard by using Google: define:coastguard and it said: noun: coast guard, noun: coastguard. Also, online I saw: U.S. Coast Guard. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 23:31, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Checkingfax (hope the ping works) I don't know if I would trust Google for spelling. It would probably include anything people have typed in articles, etc. I looked it up on Merriam-Webster online, and it gives it as two words, although it does mention "coastguardsman" and says it's chiefly British. I know about the Coast Guard. I'm focused on "coast guard" vs. "coastguard". I had never seen the two words put together like that. Toward the bottom of the Merriam-Webster entry is a link to Encyclopedia Britannica, and that entry has it has two words. Rothorpe had you ever seen "coast guard" written as one word? I wonder what the OED has. Corinne (talk) 00:01, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
Hi Corinne. Here is where I found coastguard. I was going to change it to coast guard, but I shall leave it to you. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 00:09, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
Indeed, coastguard is one word to me. Rothorpe (talk) 00:21, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
Checkingfax Oh. Hmm. That looks like a reliable dictionary entry. Rothorpe Hmm. That's interesting. I wonder if that's a BrEng/AmEng spelling difference, or perhaps it doesn't matter and either way is fine. Corinne (talk) 00:24, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Hermes

Checkingfax I often see pending changes review edits to Hermes. Now there is one removing the second "l" in "travelling" or "traveller", thus changing it from British English spelling to American English spelling. Before rejecting the edit, I was trying to figure out which style was used in the article. I found "favored" in the section Hermes#Hellenistic Greek sources, but that's all I could find. I didn't look at dates. Can you figure out which style is used and whether the edit should be accepted or rejected? Corinne (talk) 00:44, 26 January 2016 (UTC) Corinne (talk) 00:45, 26 January 2016 (UTC) I looked at the revision history and see that there has been some back-and-forth editing on this recently. If the article really is in British English, then "favored" needs to be changed to "favoured", right? Corinne (talk) 00:52, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi Corinne. I miss half your pings for some reason. Feel free to nag me on them. The original author of the Hermes article back in 2002 used American English. See this. That sets the precedent. Currently the Hermes article has traveler spelled as traveller as well. I am going to change them all to American spelling, cite the original author's intent, and post a tag at the top of the article indicating the use of American English in the article. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 21:52, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
Checkingfax Thanks! That article has really been seeing a lot of editing in the last few months. Corinne (talk) 22:50, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
Checkingfax Thanks for your edits to the article. I was just looking through the revision history and saw this group of edits. I looked at each one and decided that I don't agree with any of them. There's nothing wrong with a phrase following a comma, and I don't particularly care for an emdash in a lead. I prefer the colon to the semi-colon and I prefer the wording of the phrase the way it was. What do you and Rothorpe think? If you agree it should go back to the way it was, how would we undo these edits without undoing later edits such as yours? Corinne (talk) 23:23, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
Hi Corinne (and Rothorpe). I see problems with 99.9% of the changes you linked to above. Some look like maybe ESL comes in to play. I do not know of a way to undo an edit in articles that have been subsequently edited. If all the edits are in a row, and are by one author, and they are the most recent, you can roll them all back with Twinkle or with Rollback rights. Do you have Twinkle? Rollback won't apply in this case since I've done several edits after the one you want to undo, but Twinkle might come in handy for the future where you need to rollback more than one edit in a row. Oddly, some editors have been able able to undu edit{s} that I made that had subsequent edits by others. They must have a special Script that I do no know about (yet). Whenever I try to undo an old edit I get stopped. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 23:54, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
Well, they could be undone manually. Rothorpe, do you care to take that on (if you agree, that is)? Corinne (talk) 00:03, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
Checkingfax I forgot to answer your question about Twinkle. I had it, and a few times used the Rollback feature, but since I re-set my Preferences that to the default setting, I guess I need to go back and enable Twinkle again. I forgot to look to see if that was changed or not. Corinne (talk) 00:05, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
Hi Corinne. You may need to re-enable wikEd too, unless you have wikEd enabled from a Script. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 00:12, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
Checkingfax I had already re-enabled WikEd when I started editing with Firefox. Did you see the comment I posted above regarding "coast guard" vs. "coastguard"? If the ping is not working, I'll just notify you with the square brackets, but that would be another problem for WP Village Pump (technical). Regarding the problem I posted at Phabricator re Chrome, thank you for explaining how to take a screenshot. I think I can find the key on my keyboard, and I can save it to Paint, but I don't know how to upload anything to Commons. Corinne (talk) 00:19, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
They should never have been accepted by the pending changes reviewer. How annoying. Well, I'll put it on my watchlist and have a look through. No hard labour for me though... Rothorpe (talk) 00:28, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
Rothorpe Well, it's just three edits all made at one time, but I agree with you that the edits should not have been accepted. Checkingfax Is there any way you can find out who approved them? Corinne (talk) 00:31, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi Corinne. The editor's edits were auto-accepted because that editor is auto-confirmed (has X-edits, and Y-days seniority).

To upload to the Commons I have a goofy way: Click on the globe at the top left of any Wikipedia page; scroll to bottom of page and click on the link/image for the Commons; click on the blue UPLOAD button at the top of the page. (or on the upload-file link on the left-hand side of the page.); follow the yellow brick road; when it asks about licensing say it is your own work: that's what all the other screenshotters do; take note of the full URL after uploading and post that to your Phab ticket as a REPLY: Go to the requester's post and then click on REPLY; paste the full URL into your reply post. The WMF posts all their screenshots to the Commons and all the official Wikikpedia pages and Help pages use the Commons for screenshots so do not be put off by the wizard chiding you about screenshots. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 00:50, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

"Automatically accepted", yes, silly me. Anyway, I've changed some of them. Rothorpe (talk) 02:34, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
What's that PDF file doing in the Etymology section? "Archived in the Wayback Machine"? What is that? Corinne (talk) 03:18, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
WP:Wayback machine (help page) and Wayback Machine - see these. Cheers, Doctor Crazy in Room 102 of The Mental Asylum 04:01, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
Hi Corinne. I like to find dead links using WP:Checklinks then use the embedded Wayback Machine (A.K.A. Internet Archive) to find an archived version of the dead page. Then Checklinks hangs the archive link near the dead link. But alas, I failed to merge that PDF archive link in the most discrete manner. Archiving dead links is tedious but Checklinks streamlines the process. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 23:48, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
Checkingfax, I wouldn't have known if your merge was discreet or not. I just point out things that look odd and let others fix them. But thanks for telling me. By the way, I learned something from your comment just now. I thought you had made an error in spelling with "discrete", so I checked it on Wiktionary: discrete. I was astonished to learn that the word was spelled "discreet" when it means one thing and "discrete" when it means another. I had never realized there were two spellings. I'll let you read the two definitions and decide whether you used the right spelling or not. Here's the other one: discreet, but there's a link to it at the definition for "discrete". So thank you! I learned something new. Corinne (talk) 00:00, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
Hi Corinne. Looks like I used it wrong. One time I passed out lecture notes with the word roll when I should have used role. Somebody made a comment about dinner rolls and I did not catch on but much later when I did catch on it was embarrassing. Spelling is interesting too, like Sergeant and Marriage. Never understood the reasoning behind the "correct" spelling. I wish Firefox checked for grammar, not only for spelling. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 00:24, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Something's missing

Checkingfax There are two things that I used to see that I don't see anymore:

1) In the Twinkle drop-down menu, I used to see an option to welcome a new editor, and that's not there anymore (but there are actually more things in the drop-down menu than before);

2) when I'm looking at edits in the Revision History, with current version on the right and the previous version on the left (I guess you'd call that the diffs), I used to see the option to rollback edits and I think there was also an option to welcome a new editor based on that edit. I have the rollback and pending changes reviewer right, but I don't see the options there that I used to see. I just re-added Twinkle a few days ago. Can you help? Corinne (talk) 19:46, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi Corinne. Re: 2): Go to Wikipedia:Twinkle/Preferences and scroll down the page and tick off the pages you want to see the Twinkle rollback links on. Be sure to Save your changes.
Thanks, Checkingfax. I looked at that page and didn't see anything I needed. I had never looked at that page before when I enabled Twinkle about two years ago and got rollback and pending changes reviewer rights about a year or so ago. Corinne (talk) 23:45, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
Hi Corinne. In the "Revert and rollback" section do you have all these checked off?
Show rollback links on these pages: [ ] Diff pages [ ] Contributions pages of other users [ ] My contributions page
Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 00:28, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
Still ruminating on 1). Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 23:35, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
P.S. I replied to the last comment at Phab, but haven't received a reply. Can you read my last comment there and perhaps tell me what to do? I don't understand "be sure to launch with.....null", and there is something that looks like a web page in green letters but I don't know what to do with it. These guys assume that everyone knows the lingo of computers. Corinne (talk) 23:47, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Bristol

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T124929

Checkingfax I was having trouble making any edits to Bristol, so I left a comment for Baffle gab1978; s/he replied, suggested I report it, so I left a comment at the Village Pump (technical); Baffle gab1978 made some fixes to the article. I haven't tried editing yet, but I thought you might be interested in this, particularly the unsigned comment with a link at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Having trouble making edits. Corinne (talk) 15:31, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

You'll see that I left an additional comment at Baffle gab1978's talk page. I was able to make the edit manually, but not with cut and paste. Corinne (talk) 15:38, 23 January 2016 (UTC) P.S. Can you figure out why the text throughout the article is shaded in gray in edit mode? Compare to the Exeter article that I believe was written (or expanded) by the same editor and which I copy-edited almost a year ago. The text in edit mode is black letters on a white background. Not only is it a little harder to see where regular text is compared to references, perhaps that is connected to the reason why I can't edit with cut and paste. Corinne (talk) 15:40, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Note: The material below was moved up from another section with the same heading (Bristol) further down the page.

Rodw I wanted to ask you about this passage in Bristol#Government:

  • Bristol City Council consists of 70 councillors, representing 35 wards. They are elected in thirds, with two councillors per ward serving four-year terms. There are elections in three years out of every four-year period.

The way the second sentence is constructed, it sounds as if the two councillors per ward are elected and serve at the same time. Is that the case? Or is it more that one of the two in a ward runs for election and serves for a term that does not coincide with that of the other councillor? If so, I'm thinking it might be better to move "with two councillors per ward serving four-year terms" to the end of the previous sentence:

  • Bristol City council consists of 70 councillors representing 35 wards, with two councillors per ward serving four-year terms.

Then continue:

  • Councillors are elected in thirds, with elections held in three years out of every four-year period.

and then:

  • Thus, since wards do not have both councillors up for election at the same time, two-thirds of the wards participate in each election.

so it would read:

  • Bristol City council consists of 70 councillors representing 35 wards, with two per ward serving four-year terms. Councillors are elected in thirds, with elections held in three years out of every four-year period. Thus, since wards do not have both councillors up for election at the same time, two-thirds of the wards participate in each election.

What do you think? – Corinne (talk) 19:42, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

 Done:I think your proposed revision is fine and supported by this source.— Rod talk 19:48, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Rothorpe and Checkingfax -- The section Bristol#Arts begins:
  • Bristol has a thriving current and historical arts scene. Some of these have merged with modern venues and digital production companies being based in old buildings around the city.
I have two questions about these sentences.
1) The second sentence begins "some of these". I assume "these" refers to "current and historical arts". However, that phrase is used as an adjective in the first sentence, so technically the antecedent for "these" is not a noun, noun phrase, or proper noun (name), as it should be. Is it clear enough to you? Shall I leave it as is, or do you have any suggestions?
I'm sorry my grammar skills are so limited I don't even understand your question.— Rod talk 09:42, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
Rod I'm sorry; I'm used to discussing wording of sentences with Rothorpe, a fellow retired E.S.L. teacher. The antecedent of a pronoun (he, she, it, they, him, her, them, (etc.), and this, that, these, those (when used alone, not before a noun, like this issue), should be clear. It should refer to something mentioned just before it in either the same sentence or the previous sentence. If there is more than one thing it could refer to, it is unclear, and so ambiguous, and should be cleared up. In this case, "these" probably refers to "current and historical arts" (which is plural, matching "these", which is plural). The problem is that "current and historical arts" is not used as a noun in the previous sentence; it is used as an adjective, modifying "scene" (which is singular, so "these" can't be referring to it). So it's a stretch to have a pronoun ("these") refer to a phrase that's used as an adjective. It should refer to a noun, or noun phrase, that is used, or functioning, as a noun or noun phrase. One solution would be to reword the first sentence. Another solution would be to use a noun after "these": "these arts groups", for example. I can only reword the first sentence properly, or use the right noun after "these", if I'm sure what is meant. That's why I asked you. (See more below.)
2) I'm not crazy about "being based". Do you think it's O.K., or shall I attempt a re-wording? Any suggestions? Corinne (talk) 23:39, 23 January 2016 (UTC)
It's a dreadful sentence, but I think you're on the right track to a decent rewording. Rothorpe (talk) 23:47, 23 January 2016 (UTC)
"Some venues have merged with modern ones and DPC are based..."? Rothorpe (talk) 23:57, 23 January 2016 (UTC)
Thank you, Rothorpe. I'm glad you agree that it's not a good sentence. I'm going to ask the article writer, Rod, about this; he may know what is meant. I'm thinking for the beginning of the second sentence, "Some of these groups", but then what are "modern venues". A venue is a location. How can a group merge with a location? Or is it that some of the historical arts groups have merged with more modern groups? For "are being based", perhaps "are renovating and moving into"? Corinne (talk) 00:26, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
Again I'm not sure what you are asking. Venues with the own in house companies can be groups as well as buildings. Some are new groups in old buildings, others old organisations based in new or renovated buildings.— Rod talk 09:42, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
Rod (See more a few lines above this.) By "new groups", do you mean what the sentence called "current arts"? By "old organisations", do you mean "historical arts"? It all sounds a bit complicated. I wonder what the main point is that you'd like made (and reflects the source). Why don't we use the wording you just used? It's clearer than the other sentence, something like this:
  • Some relatively young arts groups have renovated and moved into old buildings, and some older arts groups are based in new or renovated buildings.
If that's not exactly what you want to say, perhaps you could tweak it. Also, examples of the buildings might help. Corinne (talk) 18:49, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

In the section Bristol#Architecture, there is an image with this caption:

  • The Llandoger Trow, an historic Bristol pub

I realize that there are two pronunciations of "historic", and that when it is pronounced with a silent "h", the article "an" is used (not where I'm from, though). (a) I didn't see "an historic" elsewhere in the article; (b) in the article Great Gatehouse, Bristol, linked in this section, it says "a historic" in the lead. Rod, which do you prefer for the Bristol article? Corinne (talk) 01:09, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

As historic doesn't start with a vowel I would say "an historic" but would not be distressed by "a historic" building etc. I am grateful for the expert guidance— Rod talk 09:42, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
For many people, including myself, "historic" starts with a consonant sound; that is, the "h" is pronounced (aspirated), so would require "a" before it. For those people who do not pronounce the "h" at all (a silent "h"), "an" would be used. Corinne (talk) 17:33, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
Dear Corinne. OK I have percolated on this enough. I do not say iss-tore-ick, I say hiss-tore-ick‍—‌so for me it is "a historic". On the other hand, I would say "an honest" since I pronounce that "an on-nest" (roughly). I read online that both uses are common enough that either "an" or "a" may be used with historic‍—‌running about 66% for "an" and 34% for "a". I have heard "an historic" from a few pinky finger tippers in my day. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 07:50, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Bristol Byzantine

Rod Out of curiosity I've been reading articles linked from Bristol. One of them is Bristol Byzantine. I first looked at the images and read the captions. I changed "The Colton Hall" to "Colton Hall". Then I read the lead in the article and saw "the Colton Hall" there. Is that what it is called there? "The Colton Hall"? We (in the U.S.) would never say that. Corinne (talk) 00:33, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

There's also the Royal Albert Hall, but you Americans are also happily without royals! I suppose Carnegie, sans the, would be the nearest equivalent. Oh, and the Royal Festival Hall, which is an impersonal variant. Rothorpe (talk) 01:26, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
We would say "Royal Albert Hall", not "the Royal Albert Hall", but we would use "the" for the other two buildings in the sentence containing "Colton Hall" in Bristol Byzantine. Corinne (talk) 01:31, 24 January 2016 (UTC) Yes, and definitely "Carnegie Hall", not "the Carnegie Hall". Do you know how to get to Carnegie Hall? -- Practice, practice, practice. ;) Corinne (talk) 01:32, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
I would always say "the Royal Albert Hall" as I would for "the Colston Hall" (NB Colston not Colton - named after Edward Colston).— Rod talk 09:42, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
Rod O.K. I'll put "the" back into the caption then. Corinne (talk) 16:48, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Screenshots

Hi Corinne. I botched the ping from the Village Pump Technical to you again so I am posting here too in case you do not get that ping. Let me know if I can assist in capturing a screenshot of your edit window showing part of the issue. What operating system do you have? (what version of Windows.) Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 21:14, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

PS: Pasting might be a little confusing since you usually use right-click to paste and that will not work if the pencil is the selected tool in Paint. You have to change to the button with the dotted square‍—‌just press the dotted square then you should be able to right-click/paste. Or, you can simply click on Edit → Paste and it is the same difference, or you can press CTRL+V (V stands for paste)‍—‌CTRL+C= Copy, CTRL+X= Cut, CTRL+V= Paste, CTRL+Z= Undo. CTRL+Z is a real lifesaver if you overdelete some text with your backspace key or if you delete some selected text by mistake‍—‌it will undo your latest action. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 21:27, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Checkingfax Thanks for this information, but I had already followed your other instructions and uploaded the JPG file to Commons and then copied the URL and pasted it in a "Reply" window at Phab. I didn't know that right-click paste doesn't work in Paint if the pencil is the selected tool. Maybe it wasn't. I don't know, but I think it worked. I haven't received a reply saying they hadn't received the screenshot. I rarely use keyboard shortcuts. I don't think I could remember them unless I write them on a small piece of paper and tape it to the computer. I'll try to remember these instructions though. I'm afraid, though, that if I don't copy what you wrote above and paste it to my Useful Things, I won't be able to find it when I need it.
I wanted to ask you something. Rodw didn't reply to my last comment regarding the use of "a" or "an" with "historical" in Bristol#Architecture (a caption), and I see that it still says "an historical". Is that really the way they say and write it in England? The article has been undergoing a kind of final review of some sort (I can see from the last eight or so edits to the article), and none of the editors has mentioned it, so I guess they either didn't see it or think it's all right. In U.S. English, it would be "a historical", and "an historical" looks odd. I also wanted to ask you if you could tell me where that discussion is going on. I looked at WP:TFA review, and the talk pages of most of those editors, and the article talk page, and I couldn't find the discussion. I wish, when I compete a copy-edit, and it goes to a review of some sort, the requester would, just as a courtesy, let me know so I can see how other editors viewed my edits, what other changes they make, etc., but they rarely do. When I finally see the edits made in response to a discussion, it is almost too late to participate. Corinne (talk) 21:28, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
Thanks I thought I had responded to the question about "An historical..". The reason I asked for GOCE input was the comments at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/Bristol. Following your copy edits I asked at the talk page of the closing coordinator of TFA, who suggested I ask the people, who had objected on prose grounds, to take another look to see if they thought it would now be appropriate to renominate at TFA. Hence my question to several of them this evening which led to the flurry of edits. I did mention you on each of these discussion so thought that you would get the little link on your talk page saying "you were mentioned in discussion at ..."— Rod talk 21:37, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
Rodw I'm so sorry, Rod! I did see the three notifications to the three different editors. I looked at one but I didn't see the link to the TFA requests page. Thanks for not becoming irritated with me, and thank you for providing all the links. Corinne (talk) 21:58, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
Seeing so many changes made by John, Brian, and Dank, and then Espresso's comment at Re: TFA nomination for Bristol, makes me feel like I didn't do a very good job. I thought I had left the prose in fairly good shape, but obviously not. Corinne (talk) 23:20, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
I did put the link to the TFA nomination in my original request at GOCE to give context for the issues. I think your copyediting was a definite improvement on my poor grammar, but find often that everyone has slightly different views on the best way to word statements and that there is no "right or wrong" way. I will try to do some more edits to address some more of the concerns and, of course, anything further you want to do is great. If there are particular changes you want to explore further you can obviously ask those making the changes. Those involved are all experienced editors and I'm sure would not object to further discussion.— Rod talk 08:48, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
Hi Corinne. Phab has a couple of followup questions for you. AFK for now. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 02:27, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
Checkingfax Thanks! What does "AFK for now" mean? Corinne (talk) 02:36, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
Away From Keyboard. BBL. {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 03:58, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
Checkingfax Oh. Thanks. But what is "BBL"? Corinne (talk) 13:28, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
@Corinne: "Be Back Later" - @Checkingfax: stop confusing our dear 'gran' with all these new-age, hip slang-words. It's hard enough for me to decipher (without Google and Urban Dictionary, such good friends) and I'm only from the '90s! BBL, checking my other stalking grounds watchlisted pages, Doctor Crazy in Room 102 of The Mental Asylum 03:57, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Incognito browsing

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T124929

Hi Corinne. Phab can move very slow. You were lucky to get some quick answers right off the bat. They seem to get backburnered after that. I would copy the Bristol Wikipedia URL to your clipboard or bookmark it, then I would log out of Wikipedia. For Incognito Browsing in Chrome: Click on the 3 horizontal bars of the small square in the top right corner of Chrome → Click on "New Incognito Window" → then enter the Bristol URL in the blank address bar and hit the Enter key. Open Bristol in Edit source view. wikEd has a couple of buttons you can play with. Hover your mouse pointer on the buttons to find out what they do. They are toggle buttons. You can toggle text-highlighting on/off and you can toggle wikEd on/off and see if that makes any difference with your issue. I do not find the word "null" anyplace on Chrome. Can you be more specific on where you see that? Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 00:53, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 5, 2016)

The slaughtered swine (1652) by Barent Fabricius, a depiction of a killed animal
Hello, Corinne.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Killing of animals

Please be bold and help to improve this article!

Previous selections: Izakaya • Chowder

Get involved with the TAFI project. You can: Nominate an article • Review nominations

Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:07, 1 February 2016 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • Opt-out instructions

Invitation to the Google Doodle task force

Hello, Corinne. You're invited to join the Google Doodle task force of the Today's articles for improvement project. We aim to improve articles on current and previous Google Doodles to turn them into a valuable and inspiring resource for interested readers.

If interested in joining, please add your name to the list of members. Thank you for your consideration.

– Sent using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:54, 2 February 2016 (UTC) on behalf of WikiProject Today's articles for improvement

Mary, Queen of Hungary

Rothorpe Do you remember our discussion regarding the use of "the" before a name? I think you said you preferred to see it, and I said Americans usually did not use it. Well, I just finished copy-editing Mary, Queen of Hungary, and I see both styles used. Three different historians are mentioned. Shall I put the article "the" before "historian" in all three instances or leave it out? Or does it depend upon the construction of the sentence? Can you find them with the "Find" function? Any opinions on this or any other aspect of the article are welcome. I've left a few comments on the talk page, mainly intended for the requester, Borsoka. Corinne (talk) 01:59, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I was in fact remembering that exchange very recently, and nowadays adopt a non-interference policy. Consistency is overrated! But if it seems worth changing in any particular instance, change it. You could use the Find function, but typing in 'the historian' and then again with out the 'the'... rather laborious. So leave well alone. Now I'll have a look at the talk page. Rothorpe (talk) 02:09, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
Rothorpe Thanks for your judicious opinion. ;) When I looked for them, I just put in one word: "historian". That got me to all three. Tell me honestly which you prefer: "According to the 15th-century historian John Smith", or "According to 15th-century historian John Smith". Corinne (talk) 02:14, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
Thanks! I prefer with the 'the', but am inured to the journalese of without. Rothorpe (talk) 02:15, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
Borsoka This is the last thing left in Mary, Queen of Hungary, that needs attention. I'll let you decide which style you prefer. The three instances are inconsistent now, so need to be made consistent. With "the" is more correct, more traditional, more Br. Eng. Without "the" is more "journalese", becoming more common, and more Am. Eng. Corinne (talk) 14:39, 30 January 2016 (UTC) Oh, I see you already added "the" to one. That's fine. Corinne (talk) 14:43, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
Rothorpe I need your advice. Working with Borsoka (see the last part of Talk:Mary, Queen of Hungary#Some concerns following a copy-edit on January 29, 2016), we have formed a sentence that we both like better than what was there. See the last edit here. Here is the sentence as it is now:
  • Since Louis had fathered no sons, the expectation that he would bequeath Hungary, Poland, and his claims to the Kingdom of Naples and Provence to his daughters made them desirable spouses for members of the European royal families.
It's good, but I'm wondering whether it would read better if it was made clear who held the expectation.
  • Since Louis had fathered no sons, the expectation among European royal families that he would bequeath Hungary, Poland, and his claims to the Kingdom of Naples and Provence to his daughters made them desirable spouses.
You'll see that the next sentence flows well from either of these. I really can't decide and I need your opinion. Corinne (talk) 18:21, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
The first flows much better. In the second we wait too long for the daughters. Rothorpe (talk) 18:31, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
O.K. Thanks. Then I'll leave it as it is. (I had thought of moving "to his daughters" to right after "bequeath", but then the pronoun "them" would be ambiguous.) Corinne (talk) 18:54, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
Right! Rothorpe (talk) 02:34, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

(talk page stalker). Hi Corinne. You did not send out the Bat-Signal but I moseyed on by anyway. I saw an 1880's here that I thought should be 1880s but then I changed it to {{circa|1880}}. Is that OK? Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 07:10, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi, Checkingfax. I couldn't edit for three days because something was wrong with my computer. I took it to be repaired and just got it back. The "c. 1880" is probably fine unless someone comes up with a date for the painting that's much later in the 1880s than 1880. Corinne (talk) 04:14, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Have more fun with a Diff converter

Hi Corinne. I thought you might like to test out this Diff converter: User:Scottywong/diffconverter Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 00:17, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, Checkingfax. I'll look at this tomorrow (too tired now). Corinne (talk) 04:15, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Banksia aemula

Casliber I am reading the article Banksia aemula in preparation for shortening the summary of the article for TFA. I'm a little puzzled by something, actually two related things.

1) In the summary, which I haven't touched yet, I read this sentence:

  • Found from Bundaberg south to Sydney on the Australian east coast, it is encountered as a shrub or a taller tree to 8 m (26 ft) in coastal heath on deep sandy soil, known as Wallum.

The phrase "a shrub or a taller tree" sounds like a shrub is considered a tree. Is that true? I always thought a shrub was called a shrub because it is somewhat different from a tree. If a shrub is not a tree, I would remove "taller"; you're going to give the height anyway, and anything that reaches 26 feet in height is usually not a shrub. I also think "a...tree to 8 m" sounds like botanists' jargon. I'm wondering if it would be clearer to non-experts if it read:

  • a shrub or a tree reaching to 8 m (26 ft)...
yep. good catch. removed adjective Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 23:04, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

2) Then, in the article Banksia aemula, in the last paragraph in the section Banksia aemula#Distribution and habitat, I read:

  • On North Stradbroke Island, Banksia aemula is one of three canopy tree species of Eucalyptus signata dominated forest 12–15 m (39–49 ft) high, the third species being E. umbra.

(a) Do the height ranges 12–15 m (39–49 ft) high refer to Banksia aemula only (on that island), or to the general height of the three canopy tree species?

(b) If it refers by some chance to Banksia aemula, isn't that height quite a bit above the 26  mentioned in the summary (and copied above)?

it refers to the general canopy layer. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 23:04, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Also, the last sentence of that paragraph reads:

  • Here individual wallum banksias were measured at 8.3–12.1 m (27–40 ft) high, with a maximum diameter at breast height of 44 cm (17 in).

I know it says "individual wallum banksias", so are perhaps unusual in their height, but still, isn't that range also quite a bit taller than the 26 ft mentioned in the summary?

yes - lots of tree species will grow taller to stretch and reach the light. I will rejig it so it is mentioned in the description section. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 23:04, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Am I missing something? Corinne (talk) 22:43, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Casliber I finished shortening the summary, but last week when I was having trouble with my computer I removed the purge function so I couldn't "purge" the summary when I was done. I just added the purge function but don't know how to purge it now that I've saved my changes without making another edit to it. Dank I've finished the summary. It's at 1152 characters. Corinne (talk) 23:07, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
Looks good, I made some tweaks, see what you think. - Dank (push to talk) 00:20, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
Dank All good. I had thought about putting birds last, with "particularly honeyeaters" in commas after it, but I thought the creatures were in order of importance for pollination, with invertebrates placed last as least important, so I left it, but of course it reads better now. I keep forgetting to use the shortened form of a species after the first mention. Corinne (talk) 00:27, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 6, 2016)

Delivery trucks in San Salvador, El Salvador
Hello, Corinne.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Delivery (commerce)

Please be bold and help to improve this article!

Previous selections: Killing of animals • Izakaya

Get involved with the TAFI project. You can: Nominate an article • Review nominations

Posted by: MusikBot talk 02:00, 8 February 2016 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • Opt-out instructions

Pentecost

Checkingfax and Rothorpe I was just looking at a new comment added to the talk page of Pentecost – Talk:Pentecost/Archive 1#Small Potatoes (grammar), and I was astonished at the appearance (and somewhat at the writing itself) of the comment. The writing of the comment is generally correct, but a bit old-fashioned, as if it were written in the 19th century, but the spacing of the punctuation is unique. Also, I guess the writer is not familiar with the quality of conciseness. But regarding the message of the comment, I think s/he is right. For those not already familiar with the Christian calendar, it is not clear whether the phrase in parentheses applies to Ascension Thursday or to Pentecost itself. I'm not familiar enough with the calendar to feel confident in clarifying the sentence. If either of you are, perhaps you could add something and/or change the punctuation. Corinne (talk) 14:16, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Following the links, Feast of the Ascension is defined as "a Thursday, the 40th day after Easter". I agree the parenthesis is ambiguous, but it can easily be clarified. However, I don't feel like jumping in and doing that without your prior encouragement. Rothorpe (talk) 16:14, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
Rothorpe I thought my last sentence was encouragement. ;) Please feel free to make the necessary changes. Corinne (talk) 16:38, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
Encouragement level is now sufficient. Rothorpe (talk) 16:43, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Paleontology

Gorthian See also this at Paleontology. Corinne (talk) 21:12, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

I left a note on his talk page. — Gorthian (talk) 21:53, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Non-GOCE "in use" template

Checkingfax I saw you had placed the non-GOCE "in use" template at the top of the article on Humanism. I'm glad you're working on that article. It looked like it needed work. I saw your edit summary, kind of giving the template, but I couldn't figure out how to add it to my list of templates. I added the purpose of the template ("to....") right after the red "X" in my list of non-GOCE templates. Could you add the template right before the phrase "to....to indicate that an active copy-edit is underway"? Corinne (talk) 03:32, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Will do. Here is the mid-level version of the template:
{{In use|time=~~~~~}}
For a more abbreviated version you can use:
{{In use}}
The deluxe version includes a spot to include a note (like "I will be editing for about 30 minutes to improve the history section"):
{{In use|30 minutes to fix the information in the History section|time=~~~~~}}
If you are only editing a section, you can use:
{{in use|section}}
The five tildes (~~~~~) automatically sets the date/time that you placed the template, and the last time you saved an edit. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 04:11, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
Hi Corinne. I also added this link to that section:
Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 06:56, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
Checkingfax Thank you! Wow that's quite a list. I like the big blue question marks for "What???" or "What does that mean?" Corinne (talk) 14:02, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Non-language question

Hi Corinne, can I ask you something about categories? Greetings --Tschips (talk) 14:32, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Tschips I know nothing about categories. Perhaps Checkingfax can help. Corinne (talk) 15:03, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
Tschips and Corinne. I have created a few categories, and try to add categories to articles. I also "adjust" categories using WP:HOTCAT. What is the question? Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 21:39, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
@Corinne: Thanks for calling help!
@Checkingfax: Recently I started to do some edits at Igbo Wikipedia and found the category of "oceans :ig:Òtù:Oshimiri" as subcategory of "world :ig:Òtù:Úwà" (which includes others like "animals"). There is a category "geografy :ig:Òtù:Geography" which already contains "continents" as subcategory. Could I simply change the oceans-category's direction (from "world" to "geography") or will it crash the system? Greetings, --Tschips (talk) 22:05, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Hi Tschips. Can you enable HotCat in your Preferences? Go to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets, check off the box for HotCat, easily add / remove / change a category on a page, with name suggestion [example], and save your change. Then Refresh the page. Going forward, at the bottom of each article page you should have '+' and '-' signs next to each category, like this:

The new links are:

  • "(−)" after a category: when clicked, the category is automatically removed.
  • "(±)" after a category: when clicked, an input field to change this category is opened.
  • "(+)" at the end of the list of categories: when clicked, an input field to add a category is opened.
  • "(++)" at the front: when clicked, enters multi-change mode, allowing modifying more than one category.

To change a category, click the "(±)" link next to the category name. This will open the input box where you can enter a new category name.

To add a category, click the "(+)" link at the end of the category line. This will open the input box where you can enter a new category name.

The input box of HotCat

The input box of HotCat is very simple: a text field to enter the new category name, an indicator icon, and an "OK" and a "Cancel" button.

Let me know if this helps. Or, maybe I am not understanding your issue. PS: If you save a category and it shows up red, it means the category does not yet exist. Ping me back. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 22:32, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

@Checkingfax: Great, thanks a lot! I try it out -will need some time- and tell you if it works! --Tschips (talk) 12:13, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
@Checkingfax: Solved the problem, thank you for attending! --Tschips (talk) 20:03, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Why?

Kailash29792 I saw your comment, perhaps it was in an edit summary, expressing your dismay that Ssven2 was retiring from WP. I saw everything had been archived on his/her talk page, but I didn't see any notice about leaving or any block. I did see a comment directed to Dr. Blofeld that s/he wasn't leaving, but was just going to edit less to protect his/her eyesight. Can you tell me if Ssven2 is really retiring, and if so, why? S/He seemed to be a very nice and good editor. Corinne (talk) 23:45, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

I don't know if Ssven is retiring, though he is making productive edits less often, instead developing this. It is User:Krimuk90's exit that greatly upset me, considering how great an editor he once was, until an unnecessary edit war with User:Krish! made him suffer a nervous breakdown and he committed many kinds of vandalism which got him blocked indefinitely. Kailash29792 (talk) 03:41, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
(talk page stalker)Ssven2 is not retiring, he has just reduced his workload at Wikipedia. In a brief discussion, he said that his eyes are alright and there is nothing quite serious. Pavanjandhyala (talk) 04:21, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

Mohanlal filmography

Could you please help with this. Submitted a request at the GOCE. I see you are an active member of GOCE. --Inside the Valley (talk) 14:07, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

No good deed goes unpunished :-). Thanks for your help and all the best, Miniapolis 20:59, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
Miniapolis Wow. Thanks for the link as well as your good wishes. Corinne (talk) 03:36, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
Retrieved from "https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Corinne/Archive_17&oldid=1185973242"