User talk:The Duke of Waltham/Archive 5

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This is the fifth archive of The Duke of Waltham's talk page. An assortment of short exchanges is archived here, most of which are style-related; the longest ones concern succession boxes, the Style template, and the creation of a bot to handle DYK archiving. Here are stored all discussions beginning and ending in the time period from 30 March to 24 June 2008, namely the second quarter of that year, and two which started in this period but did not end in it.

Archiving took place on 10 May, 22 May, 20 June, and 8 September 2008, and on 13 March 2009.

H. Cartwright

Dash question

Hello, I see you are on a mission to standardize dashes/hyphens in Wikipedia... So let me ask you if this guy Vincas Mickevičius-Kapsukas should also use en dash? Renata (talk) 17:06, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Hello, Renata. I am just embarking on this dash-related journey, but I do hope to make a difference in the long run. In any case, a couple of points regarding the guidelines on dashes are sometimes a little unclear, especially when it comes to some fine differences; these are usually decided on a case-by-case basis.

Surnames can be debatable, and the issue has been recently brought up (here), even though it was not analysed in depth. In general, most surnames are hyphenated, and that is the safe option to take; I think en-dashing in these cases only has to do with titles, but I could be wrong. This looks like a proper surname, so I should say that a hyphen is in order. Besides, even if I were equally split between the two options, the hyphen would be the one least likely to be changed by someone.

I hope I have been of assistance. Waltham, The Duke of 19:22, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

PS: The image at the bottom of your user page is, arguably, self-referential (see "Unfunny memes"). :-D Waltham, The Duke of 23:16, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorry for late reply. So that means he should stay where he is. Ok, fine with me. As for the image, I put it up there as a NPOV balance to rant on Britannica. At the time I believed in it, now I think I changed my mind. Thanks, Renata (talk) 03:17, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Comment on AN/I

In case you were in any doubt whatsoever, I was joking. Dr. Tim Vickers (talk) 22:32, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps you were, perhaps you were not. Who is to decide it? Certainly not you.

(This is my idea of a joke. :-)) Waltham, The Duke of 22:44, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

		The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
		A peace offering, to mend any broken fences in your estates. Tim Vickers (talk) 15:33, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Ah, thank you so much, Dr Vickers, you needn't have. Well, maybe you did. :-D

Peace offer taken. I'll try to return the favour sometime. Waltham, The Duke of 02:25, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

WT:SBS

I recognized your outrageous April Fools' Day Joke and played off of it with all my heart. Perhaps the days of making fun of Infoboxes is over, especially since they really are creeping up and taking over many succession boxes. Perhaps a truce with the infobox team could make some nicer cooperative projects (hmm?). Anyway, I did enjoy your declaration, scanned and all, it reminds me of similar proclamations I made in high school, although I never did have or create a crest quite like yours. I will go to the talk page at once to clarify my position.

Regarding other matters of state, feel free to ask for technical help; I will work where I can in my limited capabilities. I have basically resigned most of my usual functions at Wikipedia due to too many other projects I find more pressing (plus continued graduate school problems that have haunted this whole semester). Oh, and learning French is almost as bad as trying to understand a French person. Right! One editor informed me of a problem with Template:s-ref that makes it so certain websites will not properly load as a note. Still note sure where the problems comes from but I have been selectively working on it in my rare bouts of free time, so if you have any further problems or plans, run them by me.

Alright, that is enough for now. May your excellence continue to grow in excellence. Happy April Fools' Day, may the next be as humiforous as the previous!
–Darius von Whaleyland, Great Khan of the Barbarian Horde 05:56, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Mostly just to make a point, I went to Napoleon Bonaparte's page and to the ugly pair of infoboxes, went to their source pages, utterly destroyed them and downgraded them to neat, concise, collapsible info boxes, and removed all instances of the previous two ugly ones (as well as the ugly one that was on the Legitimist Pretenders to France pages). In addition, I created a template for Carolingian Kings of the Franks since someone had missed that step when making Merovingian and Capetian collapsible infoboxes. Ha! Take that infobox-happy peoples! I still got it (breathes heavily while the world spins). Wow, is it really 3 AM? I need to go to bed. Toodles! (struts off as if he just had three Red Bulls and too much rum.
–Darius von Whaleyland, Great Khan of the Barbarian Horde 10:03, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

A Reply and Request

I will quickly reply to just a few of the notes you made and reply in full at a later point in time (soon, though). Some of my editing mishaps is because I am running my Mac in Windows XP mode which limits some of my abilities more than I like to admit. Yes, I know how to use PCs, I just hate doing so. I will systematically replace all dashes with n-dashes from my new templates tomorrow, rest assured. I suppose I can also remove useless year links as well, since they are, well, useless. In fact, I find most year links useless even when not on a succession list.

On other notes, I archived my talk page finally. You were right, I never had archived it and it really need to be cleaned. Fhew! I also reverted my default "skin" to MonoType (default) so when I edit, I actually can see exactly how non-signed in users will view the tables (better for editing I suppose). Finally, and this is the best part, I enabled email receipt so you can email me to your heart's content. Ironically, though, you yourself do not have it enabled. I tried to email you but to no avail. As soon as you enable you email link, we can communicate via that mode. I have used Skype before, and have accounts on Google Talk, AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo!, and others, but I have really given up on all of them mostly because live talking consumes a lot of time. I think email would be the best and I do check that the most frequently and reply the most eagerly. Plus, I don't have to format as much as I type. Ok, enable your email or contact me and we can chat some more. As for now, I am going to try and ACTUALLY get my personal work done, since today has been somewhat of a Wiki revival day. Cheers!
–Darius von Whaleyland, Great Khan of the Barbarian Horde 06:18, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

PS I finally moved my page from User:KuatofKDY to User:Whaleyland and redirected all my old pages to identical reincarnations of them under my new username. —Preceding comment was added at 06:36, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

It is ironic. It seems that I thought it was enabled by default or something like that. Anyway, I've just ticked the two boxes there, so there should be no problems from now on.

Although, to be honest, I only check my inbox about twice a week. Well, that's going to change... (I still believe Skype's more convenient, though; and no formatting is needed there either.)

I've never changed the "skin"; I like it just as it is. What I don't understand, though, is why you didn't just have a bureaucrat rename your account. Did you want to start afresh, or were you not aware of this capability? In any case, may the new account bring you luck and good ideas. Waltham, The Duke of 06:53, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

The other account I had already created accidentally about a year ago. Thus a bureaucrat is not able to erase and merge it according to Wikipedia rules stipulating that accounts cannot technically be deleted because they lose their contribution trail. Anyway, just thought I would clarify. I will write more fully tomorrow sometime.
–Darius von Whaleyland, Great Khan of the Barbarian Horde 08:52, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

The Mummy

I enjoyed reading your review of the FAC nomination. FAC needs people with copyediting/proofreading expertise.

Our Featured Article Criteria cover four broad points, some of which you've addressed directly. When you "support" an article at FAC, protocol should be that you have assessed it passes all of the four elements (and their subdivisions).

What I'd encourage (greatly) would be if you'd do as other FAC contributors do, which is to assess specific areas of nominations. For example, one prolific contributor merely checks that the links included work and do what they say they should; a tiresome and often overlooked task. Your expertise seems to be in areas 1a and 4, (although you've also usefully contributed towards a key element of 3). It would be wonderful if you could make a habit of checking articles at FAC against 1a and 4, noting where they do and don't meet our expectations.

Cheers --Dweller (talk) 11:17, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

NB You might find that {{User:Deckiller/FAC urgents}} is a useful addition to this page or your userpage. Try it! --Dweller (talk) 11:44, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

I see. I guess that I ought to take a more, urm, professional stance when it comes to candidacies. I knew (vaguely) the criteria, but hadn't studied them by the time I wrote the review. I have just done so, and I realise that I ought to have done that a long time ago.

Checking links is a boring thing to do, but I might get to it if I have time during a review; I have both wikEd and navigational pop-ups activated, which are helpful in such a task (although a slow connection severely limits the effectiveness of pop-ups, and mine often is).

As you said, I should probably be more useful in criteria 1a and 4. There are certainly editors better than me in evaluating good prose, but I am learning fast; criterion four is one which I can try to follow quite closely, if I give enough attention. I could also focus on the quality of captions, as well as on 2b, and potentially 2a.

Many of these are covered in my review, but I have not taken all of the criteria into consideration. Do you think I should change my Support to Comment?

As far as the template is concerned, I am aware of its existence. However, given that neither I am, nor do I intend to become, a regular visitor of FAC (being way too busy in other quarters), I'd say it will suffice to have a look once in a while in Sandy's talk page; if I find something interesting in the list, I'll make some time for it. My talk page is just fine as it is now, I think. :-) Waltham, The Duke of 19:05, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Na, no need to go back. And I wasn't coming here to have a go, by any means. I was impresed by your review and thought you'd find these comments useful. Please do become a regular! Cheers, --Dweller (talk) 19:11, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, thank you for your comments—which I have found particularly useful—but I cannot possibly become a regular, in the sense that I will not sustain a steady number of FACs that I shall review per week, be it one or five. I shall drop by whenever there are articles which appeal to my interests and if I have time to do the job properly. I recognise the need for volunteers, and I intend to help to the extent that I my time and abilities allow me, but I am a busy man, and some other areas of Wikipedia are higher in my list of priorities (not to mention my studies...).

Until our next meeting, in an FAC or some other talk page, so long. Waltham, The Duke of 19:59, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

FAC

Your Grace—I congratulate you on a thoughtful and incisive review of "The Mummy". TONY (talk) 11:57, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Tony. I am doing my best. Since I am not as versed as other reviewers in the criteria and processes of FAC, I am trying to offer an alternative perspective. As far as copy-editing is concerned, I am doing that whilst reading the article, thus getting an obstacle out of the way.

I do hope The Mummy passes; the opposing votes have all been withdrawn. Waltham, The Duke of 15:32, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Another dash question

How this article Polish-Lithuanian-Teutonic War is supposed to look like in terms of dashes/hyphens? It was Poland & Lithuania vs Teutons. PS. feel free to move the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Renata (talk) 13:37, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

You seem to have stumbled upon a particularly tricky case, dear Renata; the Manual of Style makes no mention of such complex constructs, even though it is arguably clearer than most of its counter-parts on the matter of dashes. After consultation with my associates, we have decided that the best formula for the article in question would be Polish-Lithuanian–Teutonic War, as it would plainly demonstrate the most important relation in this compound: the combatants. A double en dash would obscure this relation, while other proposed solutions have other significant disadvantages.

I must emphasise upon the importance of providing all sorts of redirects for the article, as the title could be entered in numerous different ways; there ought to be all, or at least most of, the combinations of spaces, hyphens, and en dashes. I could help in this respect—all you have to do is ask.

I hope I have been of assistance; I should like to thank you, in turn, for bringing this most interesting specimen to my attention. Waltham, The Duke of 00:19, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the answer. I personally would go with Polish–Lithuanian—Teutonic War, but ok. Just so you know today I moved quite a few articles related to Poland & Lithuania to match the new dash system. But if you are going to work in this area more extensively, know that you chose a giant task... Renata (talk) 06:35, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

It is an interesting proposition, except for...

(puts on scary mask) DO NOT USE EM DASHES IN ARTICLE TITLES! EVER!

(takes off scary mask) Get it? :-) Em dashes are purely for interruption (separators in sentences), and should not be used for disjunction (joining words together). In any case, this is a rare example; things are usually much more straight-forward. WP:DASH is rather clear, or at least becomes so once you get to understand its logic.

Believe me, I know very well how massive this undertaking is, but one must begin from somewhere. Think of the hundreds, probably thousands of articles throughout Wikipedia which are using the wrong dashes for their titles (not to mention the ubiquitous errors in the text of articles). This is truly a huge task, and something must be done about it.

More specifically, I have moved Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and fixed its most important links: the entry in the list of FAs and its links in anniversaries. I have also moved a couple of other, relevant articles, and copy-edited them in the process. I now intend to take care of the Polish History series (extensive copy-editing). By the time I finish with this business, I'll know more things about Poland than I ever imagined that I should. This is, I suppose, one part of the magic of Wikipedia... Waltham, The Duke of 20:31, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't believe it; there is another featured article in the picture... Well, that's more or less out of the way now. I have done extensive copy-editing, although, to be honest, it seems to me that the article needs some work as far as prose and citations are concerned (and perhaps, to an extent, layout as well). It's a three-year-old FA and the standards have risen significantly... Waltham, The Duke of 01:03, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

We're good, right?

Regarding my "looks stupid" comment, I find that there are words that are distasteful to some and downright painful to others, and that would be one of them. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 14:46, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I've just realised what you were talking about; I thought you had made a "looks stupid" comment about something I'd said and felt uneasy about it. As it turns out, it was about the opposite. Yes, I'm afraid my memory is quite bad in these things.

In any case, I probably made the comment because I generally don't connect frequenters of MoS with irrelevant-example-article creators... And because I didn't find it insulting... (I try to be polite, but aren't used to dealing with over-sensitive people...) Count in that I used "it looks to me" and not "it is"... And because I found it genuinely unreasonable to use an image twice in an article. Honestly, I cannot put myself in that person's mentality.

All that said, I will concede that you are right, given that Wikipedia values civility as few other things. Although I find myself rather excusable in making the comment in question, I shall attempt to refrain from making derogatory comments of any kind for editors in their absence. (I reserve my right to be straightforward with present editors in the way I see fit.)

Are we good? Waltham, The Duke of 01:27, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Certainly! You may be right. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 02:04, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

New MOSNUM policy to address more than just binary prefixes

Since you voted on a proposal to no longer routinely use the IEC prefixes (kibibytes & KiB), I thought you’d be interested to know that the best we could muster at this time is a more general principal here on MOSNUM. I’m sorry I couldn’t deliver anything better at the moment. However, I hope you will agree that it speaks to the basic principal underlying that whole debate. Greg L (talk) 03:32, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

I think it does... I have not been able to follow the entire debate, but this guideline sounds reasonable and leaves matters to editorial judgement (if a decision cannot be made otherwise, I suppose this is the way to go). Anyway, thanks. Waltham, The Duke of 14:22, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Change in Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)

I've gone ahead and added that change, although now that I look more carefully at the top of User talk:Tony1/Monthly updates of styleguide and policy changes, I think my change might fall under "Copy-editing and relatively trivial changes are generally not suitable for the update summary." So if someone thinks it doesn't belong on the update list, that's fine with me. Kingdon (talk) 03:43, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

That refers to changes to the MoS pages which do not constitute changes in guidelines; this one was a change. Just think that almost nobody italicised elements in the parentheses, but now this is encouraged. No, no, you have done well, there is nothing to worry about. (Besides, it is a talk page; the posted changes are evaluated before passing to the actual page.) Waltham, The Duke of 13:31, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

FYI

Kim Bruning is a man. Best, Darkspots (talk) 11:12, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

I hate it when this happens...

Anyway, thanks. Waltham, The Duke of 11:58, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

My username

(re: this difference)

My name translates as "clock", as that was what Nicolas de Lacaille was describing when he identified this. Horologium (talk) 12:04, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Ah, the constellation... Interesting back-story; nice to know. (I promise not to start calling you Clock henceforth.)

Thank you for promptly satisfying my curiosity. Waltham, The Duke of 12:13, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

North Carolina hurricanes

Thanks for clearing that up. I'm pretty weak in terms of MOS knowledge, so that was helpful. ♬♩ Hurricanehink (talk) 00:11, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

You are quite welcome. I agree with the delegation and specialisation which is prevalent on Wikipedia, and that each is best in an area; Manual of Style errors in articles will be noted and corrected sooner or later, by me or by others. It is just that errors in article titles are significantly harder to correct, so at least there some extra care should be taken.

Now that you know what to be careful about, would I be asking for much if I requested the correction of the Florida lists? There is no other meteorology-related Featured Topic that I know of, so this is the last matter of a relative urgency. There are many other lists whose titles require corrections, of course, but there is no rush there, and I should be glad to help in whatever manner I can when it comes to rectifying these errors. Waltham, The Duke of 00:49, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Two things

I've got some stuff tying me down at the moment, and you might want to participate in either or both. I promised to copyedit The Third of May 1808 over at WP:FAC when it was done, and they're asking me to get with it. And Lightmouse just moved an important discussion to WP:VPP (see one of the last threads at WT:MOS). - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 13:24, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Hm, I've heard of the painting. I'll see what I can do.

As far as the discussions are concerned, I am just monitoring at the moment. I might comment at a later time. Thanks for the notice, anyway. Waltham, The Duke of 20:54, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Back from the archives!

Oops, a little bit of a silence there. Sorry, Duke. Anyway, I hope that there will be only subtle changes, and not many major problems (such as everyone becoming homeless when they cannot afford to even go to work anymore, since gas prices will be sky-high.) And I love the BBC. I think they are one of the very few news channels that gives a global perspective. As for my duties for you, my Duke, I shall do my absolute best.  :] kkarma 01:19, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, we have to be realistic: if there are houses, people will be able to occupy them. Don't forget how the market works—the law of supply and demand always plays its part. Now, if we are to talk about the rise of the water levels and how that will submerge a few millions of houses worldwide, that is a completely different matter.

On the petrol front, I daresay that when it does start running low, the demand for alternative forms of energy will rise sharply, and so investments will be made to ensure that there will be a supply as well. I case you haven't noticed, the great petrol companies are the ones leading research into clean energy. Since they have so much money, why not invest it in order to ensure that in fifty years they will still be the colossi that they are today?

Generally speaking, the changes will be much subtler than one imagines, simply because these things happen gradually. However, this kind of change is by no means comparable to what people were used to in, say, the eighteenth century (not to talk about classical history). Time felt much slower in the past. No, no, one will have to see the greater picture, a period of perhaps ten or more years, in order to realise the true magnitude of the changes. Waltham, The Duke of 02:52, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I am sorry about taking ten days to reply. I've got a lot going on.
Anyways, when I mentioned everyone becoming homeless, I was refering to all the reports we've been hearing here in the US about all these home foreclosures, and pets being left behind to starve and whatnot. There may always be homes for people to live in, but that doesn't mean they'll get to stay in them.
And the petrol companies are researching alternatives, but I don't believe they are moving about it fast enough (for me, anyway). And, with everyone's banks being broken over the petrol prices, I doubt if anyone will be able to afford a new car when they're developed, for the alternative fuels. Unless they're planning on giving out a few million cars for free. Just recently, I've started hearing reports about a major drought that is going on in the western US. If that continues to go as they say, Los Angeles and Las Vegas will be in big trouble.
I'm sure we will all survive, though, it just might be rough for a while. kkarma 18:34, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Banks are, unfortunately, almost always ruthless; it would take a lot of "persuasion" by the government (any government) for them to take it easy with people and help with the human disaster that global-warming-induced massive flooding would cause by seizing less houses and selling their own for less money. And the governments would, in all probability, need some persuasion themselves.

Petrol prices will keep rising, as the geo-political situation deteriorates and the supplies diminish. Even worse, increased bio-fuel production is taking up land previously used for the growing of staples like wheat and rice; this is one of the main factors driving food prices up. Riots are already breaking out in many third-world countries, and these are not the only ones that will be affected.

Potable water is also in short supply, and getting worse. Mismanagement, altering weather patterns, and a growing population are making sure that the newer, and future, generations will have a huge problem in their hands. Wars will be waged over water in the 21st century, as they have been for oil in the twentieth, and for so many other things in the past.

We shall probably survive, somehow, but things will, in my estimates, be rough for much longer than "a while".

And I am supposed to be an optimist. Hell... Waltham, The Duke of 21:02, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Palace of Westminster

Don't worry not abandoned it! Only dipping in and out of WP for the next few days, will have a proper sit down and crack on with it when I'm free from of real-world distractions! Paulbrock (talk) 21:45, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Nice to hear. I like having fun with people, but some editors simply lack a sense of humour, and one cannot know who these are until one meets them. In any case, the article looks good, the user who has added the traditions section has now added another paragraph to it, and I am ready to work with you in addressing the remaining concerns. I have a great interest in the article, and I should be proud to co-nominate it for GAN and FAC when the time comes, if it is fine with you. Until next time, Waltham, The Duke of 21:57, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Styles in Suc. Boxes

Eh up "Your Grace". I've been looking at the line of succession to the British throne succession boxes (among others) on the British royalty biography pages, and wondered if you could point me towards a guideline as to how they should read. For instance, should HRH The Prince of Wales be referred to in-box as "HRH The Prince Charles, Prince of Wales", "The Prince Charles, Prince of Wales" "HRH The Prince of Wales" "The Prince of Wales" "Charles, Prince of Wales"? Do such guidelines even currently exist? And, if so, shall we start a cross-project (WP:BROY and SBS) discussion as to what they should be? Cheers DBD 15:23, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Forgive my delay, but things have been rather hectic lately, both on- and off-line. I have wanted to have a look on the issue before answering, as well.

So. As far as succession boxes are concerned, there are no guidelines on the styles of royalty. WP:SBSGUIDE, the succession-box guidelines currently in existence and maintained by WikiProject Succession Box Standardization, has several gaps which need to be filled, and this one seems to be amongst the greatest. We should definitely initiate an inter-project discussion to this end; I shall leave you to decide the venue.

Now, although these will also be mentioned in the discussion, I'd like to state them here first: A good basis would be the fact that we do not use addresses like Her Majesty, His Royal Highness, and His Grace (or any shortcuts thereof) in succession boxes, therefore all variations of HRH are automatically excluded (with the probable exception of the orders of precedence, where things are completely different; this is another subject altogether). Personally, and from what I remember (I haven't dealt with these boxes for some time now) I've been using Prince X, [Rank] (of) [Title] for nobles of royal blood, and Prince Charles of Wales in the particular case, in order to keep Prince and the name together.

What do you think? Waltham, The Duke of 10:14, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

That sounds fine, except for that Charles should *never* be "Prince Charles of Wales" because that form signifies a son of the Prince of Wales (cf. Prince William of Wales). So, I'll go with "Prince X, Title of Place", except for Charles, whom in such cases we call "Charles, Prince of Wales". Cheers DBD 10:55, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I've just made a fool of myself. Charles, Prince of Wales is the way to go; I now remember using the style used as article title (example: [1]). I plead guilty for misinformation and not doing my homework. Waltham, The Duke of 12:10, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

By the way, there should be no position numbers in the order of precedence; tens to hundreds could be affected with every little change in the line. Waltham, The Duke of 12:20, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

My thinking precisely — I've left them in those on the Queen's descendants' pages (although moved out of the 'years' field), because that's only 12, and is fairly unlikely to change for a while. I'll remove numbers from any after Zara Philips DBD 12:50, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

That would seem to be in order, even though slightly contrary to standardisation; editorial judgement should always play some part, I guess. Waltham, The Duke of 13:29, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Okay, another issue: Jack Straw#Offices held has loads of preliminary styles ("The Most Rev" etc.) where apparently we refrain from them (certainly as far as I'm aware, there are no "The Hon"s in the line of succession boxes...) Would you happen to be able to explain why this is? DBD 11:52, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Note 1: The Offices held heading looks redundant to me; succession boxes are always about offices held. On the other hand, this is not a standard career list, so the heading could be slightly inaccurate as well.

Note 2: The orders of precedence have not yet been addressed by SBS; there need to be standards, and then a cleanup of the orders should follow. There have been voices calling for the deletion of the orders, but this has not been discussed for at least a year. In any case, it is the only succession-line type allowing preliminary titles and the sort; it's about pomp and tradition, after all, even if it is a break from our tradition. Waltham, The Duke of 12:20, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Re Note 2: I've previously edited Lady Hayman's SBs and, apart from the 'Offices held' heading (for which I don't care), I think the precedence boxes are as they should be (i.e. personal links with official links) DBD 12:50, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps that is better, although the link for the subject's own title is redundant; it can be found higher in the box, and in bold. Other notes:

• The official name for the title is Lord Speaker; "of the House of Lords" is not necessary.
• I like what you have done with the header for the order of precedence, but we really need to find a more standard way of doing things. Orders of precedence are in a mess, generally speaking.
• You should know that the {{s-par}} header should only be used for seats; other headers are used for parliamentary offices and titles ({{s-off}}, {{s-gov}}, {{s-ppo}}, and {{s-hon}}, depending on the title).
• I have substituted the templates with the corresponding {{s-start}} ones; I have made use of the "as" parameter for the change of title in the first line.

Please have a look at the changes and tell me what you think. Waltham, The Duke of 13:29, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the wisdom shared

Thank you for your submission in re: transparency at the "top of the food chain." Full disclosure of credentials, and identities of the "ruling class" at Wikipedia, is long overdue. Your comment about the real world is very much appreciated; thank you and much admiration for certain. 12.35.96.66 (talk) 16:33, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your kind remarks. All I did was to say my opinion; although I do not believe that editors, or even administrators, should be forced to reveal their identities against their wishes, people in the highest stations of the community are morally obliged to be straightforward about who they are. The bad thing is that many editors still think they are in the fairyland that the early, juvenile Wikipedia used to be. They do not understand that this is a global educational organisation, with hundreds of thousands of members and millions of readers from around the world: there is media attention, there are great sums of money in the equation, there are real people's reputations on the line, and there are many really nasty pieces of work out there and in here. One must tread carefully, plan in advance, and be prepared for contingencies. People with sensitive characters and/or in places of high risk should lie low; people who can confront the dangers of the two interconnected societies, the real one and the Wikipedia community, should be candid about themselves and move forward without running the risk of any dirty secrets coming to the fore, real or fictitious. Waltham, The Duke of 21:38, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Questionable redirects of links to Church of St. Margaret, Westminster

[Jdforrester's cross-posted reply to a message in his talk page has been removed to keep the conversation concentrated and in-context.]

New thoughts on the use of succession boxes in venue articles

Good day, your grace. As spring gardening is in full force at the Waltham Hall estate, my mind wandered back over the topic of dealing with succession boxes as they relate to venues. Through continuing to come across the sad state of affairs this topic is currently in (and reading the discussions at wt:sbs), I wonder if it would be wise to form a subproject or taskforce within SBS to start fleshing out a recommended style for this area. Here is but a start to the list of items that I see possibly needing to be addressed in this area of work:

• no italics in before or after boxes (overformatting)
• no linking to non-topical host years
• linking to topical host years
• no bolding for host year (overformatting)
• what to do with odd situation like the use of dots in davis cup boxes in Germantown Cricket Club
• what should first stadium box say, "none", "first stadium"
• what should current stadium boxes say, "incumbent", "current"
• should the title use the name of teams at the time of their use?
• how to deal with non-sequential hosting (the topic that I first approached you with)?
• etc.

And it would make sense for the answers to these questions to be in synchrony with the SBS guidelines for people. Should you feel this is the way to go, I volunteer to try and coordinate these efforts and to try and find other folks interested in this niche of sbs. You thoughts would be most appreciated. Humbly yours, --Gwguffey (talk) 05:01, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I am terribly sorry for the long delay, Gwguffey. I owe you an apology (which you shall receive in the form of a generous pay raise). I have been phenomenally busy lately, and in the last few days I have actually returned to the realm of succession boxes, but I could have dropped in at least a short note all these days.

I am about to finish with the documentation of succession templates, and after that I promise that I shall bring up the subject of your succession box in WT:SBS. I am not sure how much response there will be, but I do know that several people are watching the page; if there is interest, there will be comments.

Now, about the sub-project idea... I don't want to be the spoilsport again, but if there are so few people in SBS, how could you find more to man a task force? It is rather unrealistic. In my opinion, we should simply integrate all these issues into the agenda of SBS proper (I think I have actually addressed some of them, now that I think of it). Although my plans of old for an organised agenda have resulted in a premature fiasco, I intend to bring it sideways: by posting the full to-do list in my private SBS subpage and letting people know that it's there. That could, perhaps, show what there is to do (and how much) and inspire some motivation for participation.

And there is, of course, my other, last, secret plan... But I think I'll save that for later. Waltham, The Duke of 07:21, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Ah, Your Grace, you are ever so wise and you have nothing to apologize for with your schedule. I was overly enthusiastic on thinking that I could recruit other folks as it seems that I may be one of a very small few that is interested in this specialized area (forest for the trees). I just see so many problems regarding the lack of definition in the stadium and arena articles that I spend the most time on. If if there isn't much enthusiasm for jumping into this work by SBS members, maybe there would at least be interested in overseeing and providing input towards efforts that I would put into it. Humbly yours, --Gwguffey (talk) 13:50, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Late again... But at least I have got the documentation pages out of the way. In any case, I am, at last, ready for the introduction of the "Sports Venues Bill" in the Commons. Do you want me to say a few words first or will you present it straight away? I suppose you prefer the first option, but I need your nominal permission for that. Waltham, The Duke of 10:39, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I would appreciate your doing the honors. The timing of this perfect as I am attempting to revive WP:WikiProject Sports facilities and having guidelines for the use of succession boxes on stadia pages would be valuable (whether the template I built is used not). --Gwguffey (talk) 13:26, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I have just made the introduction, with a four-day delay. It pains me to say it, but I am no longer efficient with regards to SBS; I am too much involved in other quarters, like the still on-going discussion on the auto-confirmation level, as well as the new effort to move the search box to the top, in the hopes that it will be more noticed. Misguided hopes, in my opinion, but most people will just not listen to reason. Anyway, I now notice that the Louisiana Superdome article is not using your template, but a rather botched-up HTML imitation; I suggest converting it, as a good example of the usage of the template. If we are to experiment with the page, at least we should do it well. Waltham, The Duke of 04:04, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I have updated the Superdome article to use the proposal and have tried to briefly state the issue that I am attempting to address with this. Any thoughts or clarification would be appreciated. --Gwguffey (talk) 16:52, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I have now added an additional example to attempt to illustrate the issue in the discussion thread. --Gwguffey (talk) 17:52, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

The Superdome box looks good. Especially for someone spending so much time weeding flower beds (it's almost summer, eh?). Waltham, The Duke of 02:46, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, Your Grace. BWT, the new irrigation system is doing wonders for the flowers now that I don't have to carry all of the pails of water myself...oops, I think Cartwright slipped the requisition for that in amongst some other items you rubberstamped and I wasn't supposed to say anything. I'll sure he'll be quite cross with me spilling the beans. So, much for the new rake in the fall...

Humbly yours. --Gwguffey (talk) 05:06, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

This is excellent news! Now I have something to torture Cartwright for. Let's see... Pay cuts... More errands... Most of them useless... (dark, evil grin)

Don't be misled, though, Gwguffey; this doesn't mean at all that I have forgiven you. It only indicates what my priorities are. If I were you, I'd be careful from now on...

Dismissed. Waltham, The Duke of 05:18, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Bored

I wouldn't say I'm bored enough to automatically do anything you suggest, and I have got a few things knocking around; but they're all waiting on someone else at the moment so it would be nice to have something not-too-urgent to fill the dull gaps. What have you got in mind? Happy‑melon 20:45, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I must admit that I, as well, am curious as to the nature of such an assignment. Nihiltres^{t.l} 22:50, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

It's top-secret, go away. :-D

All right... First of all, do excuse me, but I was surprised to discover that the bulk of the job has been taken care of already. Several days ago, actually... I was about to tell you to change the documentation in the various succession templates to {{documentation}}; the pages have been unstandardised for months. Ah, well, there are still plenty of tweaks to do.

Now, the desired standard format for each page is to use green documentation pages generated by the aforementioned template, the small versions of the "indefinitely protected template" red padlocks, and no image or code before the /doc page, as the examples are in it. An example of this format is... Well, there is no good example, but let's say {{s-par}} without the extra spacing is good enough. The list:

• In {{s-ach}}, please remove the code and change the full message box to the small padlock.
• In {{s-civ}}, change the full message box to the small padlock.
• In {{s-par}} and {{s-prec}} there is too much spacing at the top.
• In {{s-reg}} and {{s-sports}} there is no "protected" template at all; in the latter, as well as in {{s-rel}}, there is also an example at the top, which should go (please take care not to leave redundant spacing).

I should very much appreciate it if you could be troubled to fix these. If we want to call ourselves the Succession Box Standardization WikiProject, then our templates' pages should be standardised as well, but as they are all protected, an administrator is needed for even the slightest fix.

Apart from these, there are several templates which have no documentation appended to them. These are {{s-aca}}, {{s-bus}}, {{s-court}}, {{s-culture}}, {{s-dip}}, {{s-edu}}, {{s-gov}}, {{s-herald}}, {{s-hon}}, {{s-legal}}, {{s-lit}}, {{s-media}}, {{s-mil}}, {{s-off}}, {{s-other}}, {{s-ppo}}, and {{s-pre}}. I am not asking you to add documentation pages to them just yet, but I do believe that, even if there are no parameters for these templates, it would be a good thing to add some little documentation and a reference to the Template:S-start page. What do the two of you think? Waltham, The Duke of 23:00, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

 Done all the ones you've spelled out. Do you want me to apply the same general formatting (code in <includeonly> tags, {{pp-template}} with |small=yes, {{documentation}}, and no examples) to those other templates? Happy‑melon 09:09, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Excellent work, dear fellow. The template pages are now up to scratch. Thank you very much for your trouble.

About the documentation-less templates, now... I was asking for your opinion on this, but, as it turns out, I don't really need it. :-) As the self-declared benevolent dictator of SBS, I authorise you to proceed. I shall log in again in a few hours' time, and when I do I shall start providing the documentations straight away. And then it's the turn of {{succession box}}; it's not one of our templates, but we cannot forbid people to use it, so we could at least tell them how to use it properly and restrict its use to the bare minimum. I pledged to write the documentation for that one more than a week ago, actually... Too busy, too forgetful, I'm afraid. I think today's the time, finally, and your giving it an empty documentation page would be a good impetus for me not to postpone it again. Waltham, The Duke of 09:41, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

The first three you have done are great; {{documentation}} is so clever, in fact (or, rather, the people behind it), that clicking on the create link brings up a template (not in the Wikipedia sense) with the basics for a documentation page. I have provided these three with documentations, and started tweaking with the ones which already had such pages for standardisation. During the course of this, I have removed the protection template from {{s-civ}}, which should be on the template page and not on the documentation page. I did notice that the box was in the green space when compiling the list for you but didn't think much of it. Sorry for the extra trouble. Waltham, The Duke of 03:02, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

{{documentation}} is indeed an excellent template... not one I can put my name to, I'm afraid to say :D. I've done (or rather, am doing) the other templates you've listed above, so you can create the documentation for those too. Note that I'm removing the link to Category:Succession templates from the main template page, so you need to add this to the documentation ([[Category:Succession templates|{{subst:PAGENAME}}]] is a good trick). Happy‑melon 16:16, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

You are doing well, Happy Melon, so I shouldn't want to spoil the fun for you... You have done everything I have asked you to except from the addition of the red padlock to {{s-civ}}. I know it was a later request, but it was here. If you have time, I'd like you to take care of {{succession box}} as well, so that I can write its long-overdue documentation and steer some traffic from there to SBS and its templates. When you do that, you can receive the full praise for your work. :-)

On another note, I've just shown yet again how near-sighted I can be sometimes; when I saw your added category at Template:S-aca/doc I had the strange idea that you had re-added the categorisation to Category:Template documentation, which I had removed because it was redundant (already included in {{Documentation subpage}}). Then I realised what I had done and reverted my rollback, but my blunder has irreversibly gone down in (the page's) history. Sorry about that...

I shall start on the documentation pages immediately. And finally tick one item off the long SBS list... Waltham, The Duke of 00:34, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Hey, I just remembered that it's not just the headers' pages that need standardisation... Whenever you have time, could you please fix the following pages?

• {{s-bef}} requires code removal
• {{s-aft}} requires code removal and a red padlock
• {{s-new}} requires a red padlock
• {{s-vac}} requires padlock shrinking

I also believe that {{s-non}} is sufficiently used (and its usage is projected to increase) to justify a protection. I was actually surprised to find that it is unprotected.

These are the last ones, I assure you. There's nothing else, really. :-) Waltham, The Duke of 03:19, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

All done. I'm afraid that, with only 861 transclusions, {{S-non}} does not warrant protection. Anything else :D?? Happy‑melon 08:45, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

There are protected headers with significantly fewer transclusions... Perhaps you'd like to revisit them. Do tell me, though, how do you find the exact number of transclusions? This capability might prove useful to me. Waltham, The Duke of 13:59, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Templates are protected for two reasons: when they have been targets for vandalism, or when they have a very large number of transclusions such that any future vandalism (or even good-faith edits, which can be as bad or worse :D) would cause significant disruption. Header templates are, for some reason, much more commonly targeted for vandalism than more widely-used templates. I use two methods to look up the transclusion numbers: step 1 is to fire up AWB and create a list from the template based on transclusions. That provides a quick and accurate count, but will time-out for templates with more than about 10,000 transclusions. Fortunately, all templates with five-figure counts and above are in the top 1,000, and are listed on Special:MostLinkedTemplates - those statistics are always a couple of days out of date, but are quick and easy to look up. Happy‑melon 21:11, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

←Good to know. I'll have that in mind from now on.

That will be all, I believe. This co-operation has been most fruitful; perhaps we might repeat it in the future. For now, I bid you good-bye. We shall probably see each other in Imbox, Cmbox, and the Village Pump, anyway.

How useful boredom can be, sometimes, eh? :-D Waltham, The Duke of 22:15, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

City status in the United Kingdom

Your grace.. this article is (not unreasonably) up for FAR. I note you left a message regarding what a mess the article is, and this is also the reason for the review. I think we need to get the demolition squad in. I must admit I am responsible for a lot of those footnotes that seem to have taken on a life of their own. If you have any suggestions I'm happy to roll up my sleeves... Lozleader (talk) 18:02, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

As you are able to see, I have left my comments on the article's FAR page. The footnotes can leave along with the list for another home, where they will be accepted for what they are in the setting of a properly designated list. And the hybrid that so troubles us can now become a true article, and as such survive the ordeal of the Review. The problem of the short lead is being addressed as we speak... And that leaves us with the relative lack of in-line citations and the bad formatting of a number of footnotes. Could you do anything to help there? I fear that I am hopeless with sources. Waltham, The Duke of 00:39, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Lord

Perhaps Your Grace might wish to assist in the discussions currently taking place concerning the above article, which was once quite good, but has unfortunately become a confused mess because of the misguided efforts of some editors whose English writing and comprehension skills are worse than they appear to believe.GSTQ (talk) 00:24, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

List of UK place names with royal patronage

Can you please write an introduction for this article? Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 15:18, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

The tag has come back to haunt me, hasn't it? :-) The thing is, I am rather busy at the moment (I usually am), and I am in the habit of using tags for problems which I spot; there are usually people better than me at fixing the things I notice. I could try to write a short lead (you said "please", after all), but I have no information beyond what little is in the list, which means that the results will be somewhat uncertain. Waltham, The Duke of 21:25, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I am honestly sorry, but I cannot help. I have virtually nothing to work on, not the slightest piece of information. In addition, there is only one source, and the link gives an error message. Therefore, not only do I have no choice but to leave the tag until someone with knowledge on the subject comes around, but I must also add an "unreferenced" tag.

There are standards to uphold, Mr/Mrs crassicaudatus... I have done all I could; my work here is done, I am afraid. Waltham, The Duke of 15:47, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Taking your advice!

{{Talkback|Nancy|Duplicate messages}}

I have replied. Waltham, The Duke of 02:41, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the nbsp edit

Anyone who wants to tackle the issue, especially outside the US, of when publishers insert nbsp's, and more importantly why, would be a total hero, considering how much people have wrestled with this. Personally, I think the "why" is to keep things from looking odd at the beginning of a line, but I'm open to other interpretations. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 16:10, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I have no idea about the practices of publishing houses, but judging from what has been discussed so far, the examples in the section, and what makes sense, I found it prudent to strangle in its cradle the new practice of using hard spaces in constructs like 15 buildings. Granted, that will usually be found in more technical articles and lists, but nevertheless it is an unnecessary complication of the wrapping of text, as well as the edit window.

The beginnings of lines are important as far as hard spaces are concerned (this is, after all, one of the basic arguments in favour of unspaced em dashes), but in our case, keeping together compounds which would make reading significantly harder if separated is also an aim. From where I stand, there is nothing special with seven chairs, where seven is just another adjective. In measurements, however, ending a line with a number without a unit and then starting a line with a stray unit makes for two strange lines, and a broken up compound which is only meaningful united. The guideline is in place to prevent this from happening, and we should not make it look as if we encourage people to fill our articles with gratuitously wrapping-convoluting hard spaces.

That said, there are still cases apart from measurements where hard spaces are useful; this one is an interesting example I came across today. This relies on editorial judgement, however, and the Manual of Style should only make a reference to such cases, and not attempt to strictly regulate them. Waltham, The Duke of 16:49, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Governance reform

I haven't been following it as clearly as others either, but this is what I can see.

• 1 - Samohyl Jan seems to be completely opposed to any sort of governing bodies, saying direct democracy is the only way, and throwing up any argument he can to oppose all other arguments.
• 2 - Eric Moller in his foundation-I posting seems to be giving the go-ahead to all proposals at the same time, possibly, as I read it, maybe allowing any proposals to be created and function for at least a short time, and then maybe eventually the worse ones die out.
• 3 - Kim is deathly afraid of creeping expansion of power. So am I and a few others, but there's no real agreement on what way would be the best way to avoid that.
• 4 - The proposals by Jc37 and me have gotten a lot less attention, deservedly so in at least the latter case.
• 5 - Hiding says creation of any new body is unnecessary, as ArbCom can officially do all these things anyway. Possibly true, but they seemingly don't want to, so that could/should be resolved.
• 6 - Kim and Hiding both seem to be favoring single proxy systems, although there are difficulties with that as noticed by others.
• 7 - Thomas Larsen's Wikipedia:Guidance Committee seems to be agreed to be too vague to be useful at this point.
• Like I said, I ain't been following the discussion that closely myself, but those seem to be the major points. John Carter (talk) 17:56, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

There is always room for improvement, Mr Carter, but that does not negate the utility of your comments. Thank you very much for the briefing; it has been most helpful, and I shall attempt to re-enter the discussion at the nearest opportunity. You really are worth every penny, my greedy mercenary. Waltham, The Duke of 09:24, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Duh....closed poll

Sorry about that, should have READ the heading before I jumped in with my vote. Been sitting here merrily wiki-ing along for about 10 hours today, maybe it's a sign I should stop and have some dinner now.  :-D Textorus (talk) 03:20, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps it is. In this case, bon appetit. :-)

PS: Before you feel bad about yourself, have a look at my recent contributions. Waltham, The Duke of 03:47, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Category:Succession header templates

[MrDolomite's answer to a message here has been moved to join the rest of the conversation.]

Problem with MoS

I answered this at Template talk:Helpbox#Collapsibility, but decided to discuss it here – my proposition is off-topic. I'm concerned with the {{Style}} issue for a little while. The problem that we face is too much MoS sections and guidelines. They overlap each other and form a nice instruction creep. I don't think that what you are proposing is a solution to the problem. What would you say about deleting the project-specific links from the {{Style}} (e.g. anime, US highways, etc...)? --Kubanczyk (talk) 20:35, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I do not like duplicating discussions, so I shall only answer here.

The Manual of Style is not something each editor has a duty to know and follow—it is a guideline, and for a very specific reason. Apart from Featured Articles and Lists, there is no requirement from any editor to exert any amount of effort towards using or enforcing the provisions of the Manual of Style. Those who wish it, however, should be able to consult a definitive, to the extent that this is possible, document showing which style practices have consensus and should be used in articles. Therefore, the Manual must be clear and detailed, hence the various supplementary pages.

However, I do accept, as do others, that there are too many such pages, and that an effort should go into re-organising the Manual of Style into a tidier and more compact body. This task is, I am afraid, a slow one, but it proceeds steadily. The inclusion of the various project-derived guidelines is also part of the greater question about the processes governing the maintenance of the Manual, and have been, and will continue to, be discussed extensively. I believe that this is beyond us two and the matter in question, and that for it to be tackled great resources and effort will be required by numerous parties. It is no easy task, I assure you; many people have tried and failed here.

Now, as far as the Style template is concerned, there are plans for its refurbishment as well. In particular, the general-application guidelines are to be split from the thematic ones, and those regarding a more limited territory in general. However, all, or at least most, of the links in the template should remain, because they are as useful as they are important. Therefore, the issue of size remains. And here comes in collapsibility, which has worked splendidly with other long templates in the mainspace, such as those about the politics of countries. And it all comes down to this: Can you do it, or cannot you? Separately collapsing sections would ensure enough separation between the more general-use guidelines and the ones not as important, and would make for a short, manageable template with minimal impact on the layout of the pages transcluding it. What's wrong with that? Waltham, The Duke of 00:50, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Improvement/cleanup effort for Manual of Style - is WP:VP (policy) the most appropriate place to coordinate this? Or maybe there is a better one that I'm not aware of?

About {{Style}}, I would say that hidden sections only complicate things. Full navbox could be provided on the bottom, but on the top of the page the reader needs SIMPLICITY. It's terrible that one of the very first things that an eye spots on the main MoS page is the "Anime and Manga" link. I would replace all the topic-specific MoS sections with just a single link to a full list/category. Only the MoS sections useful for all editors should be in the top-right box. --Kubanczyk (talk) 12:22, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

The Village Pump is good for publicity, but not for long discussions; the natural venue for such things is Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style. There is also a WikiProject for the Manual, which was created a few months back but has been mostly dormant since. There are plans to re-activate it, so that it can take a central place in the improvement effort and move heated debate away from the main talk page, as much as this is possible.

I am not sure about how useful a box at the bottom would be; as I told you, the link you mention and all the other limited-jurisdiction pages are to move to a separate section, keeping only the general pages at the first one. The template is supposed to list all pages relevant to style—which is why not only MoS sub-pages are mentioned—so a link to a list would be even more unhelpful than having the links at the bottom. After all, they might not be useful to all editors, but each of them is useful to hundreds of editors. I still believe that collapsibility is the way to go, although I would agree with leaving the first section (with just the general links) uncollapsed, due to the greater importance of these pages. Thus, only the pages useful to everyone would be immediately visible, but the others would remain just as accessible. How's that for a plan? Waltham, The Duke of 02:41, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing me to the talk pages. I don't see that we two reach an immediate consensus on "the style of {{Style}}", so lets return to the subject later – in more public discussion. Regards. --Kubanczyk (talk) 10:36, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

We could, of course, invite more people here... But you are probably right. All I am asking for is not to delay too much—this is nothing especially urgent, or course, but the extra-long template is often problematic (in one case it actually had to be removed). Perhaps changing the sections first and seeing what happens might work better. Waltham, The Duke of 16:50, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Grammatical horror

I've replied (several times, actually. I must enjoy soliloquy) at Template talk:Fact#"This claim needs references to reliable sources since May 2008" --Dweller (talk) 13:00, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I was watching the page, but thank you for the notice all the same. I hope you don't mind my re-factoring your link; I dislike URLs in wiki-links (among other things, they wrap terribly). Waltham, The Duke of 16:37, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Good day

Your Grace,

I thoroughly enjoyed reading your biography page, especially your Arms. Did you design them yourself? I would like to be a Duke when I grow up. Do you think the Queen would hold against me the fact that I am American?

Your Grace's loyal subject,

Eleos^Prime 18:56, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your kind remarks, EleosPrime. I am particularly proud of the coat of arms, which is the most notable fruit of my amateurish interest in heraldry. I give the story of its creation in my real user page; most people don't seem to notice, but there is a navbox at the bottom of my main page with links to my subpages. There's also one right below, actually.

I'm not sure Her Majesty would regard your being American any more negatively than she does my being Greek. We are a more ancient and glorious people, of course, but let us not leave such trivialities affect our cause, shall we? :-D I might put in a good word or two for you next time we meet—you missed the Chelsea Flower Show, but Royal Ascot is just a few weeks away—as long as you do a few things for me in return. Let's see... There is an billet in Waltham Hall for a footman... (evil grin)

In any case, even if you are unlucky with the peerage, you could always try running for Prime Minister. If anything, it matches your username better. I also hear that it's more interesting, but this has different connotations for different people. Waltham, The Duke of 21:13, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

DYK bot

Hey, I came across Wikipedia_talk:Bots/Archive_6#DYK_Bot.3F. Whatever happened with that? Gimmetrow 09:11, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I see that you are interested in mediaeval history. Let me get my magnifying glass first; the lettering on these manuscripts is always so small... :-D

Hm. I had no idea about this. The situation is arguably rather bizarre. Not necessarily uncommon, but certainly interesting. From ten minutes' worth of digging around, I can tell that this old-generation admin (2004, imagine that), AllyUnion, has generally been editing only occasionally, and that his bots broke at least a couple of years ago due to a lack of maintenance. No wonder why nobody around here knew about the bot, or I am sure that some one would have mentioned it. Last March he received a notification for a conversation here, regarding the de-flagging of inactive bots; he maintained that he was reviewing Kurando-san—the bot once executing the DYK archiving, amongst other things—and that it would be operational again within the following two weeks. Clearly, this has not happened.

So the question remains: What now? Do we contact him for his past experience, in case it helps with building a modern bot adapted to the needs of the current DYK system? Or do we persuade him to deal with the old bot and we collaborate with him in patching it up? It's your call, I suppose; nobody forces you to write our bot. There is no rush, either; the system works fine as it is. All we are aiming for is to make it a little more reliable and to rest a few of the people working there.

PS: Why do you keep an underscore in your signature? I hate the whole lot of them, grrrr...

PPS: Might I inquire as to your gender, if I am not too indiscreet? Not knowing is a little awkward for when I want to talk about you behind your back. :-) It's one of those double-edged swords in the English language, I suppose; Greek doesn't use pronouns in sentences like "He enjoys drinking red wine". Waltham, The Duke of 01:07, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Used hooks used to be placed in a section at the bottom of Template talk:Did you know, where AllyUnion's script would find them and move them to Recent additions. Although AllyUnion still edits, the process now is slightly different. The underscore doesn't seem to matter except to some bots, and you can talk behind my back with my username. No pronoun, no need for gender.

So while I'm thinking this through, what do you think reaction would be to recreating all the achives by month, like WP:Recent additions/June 2008? Gimmetrow 03:01, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I'd love to see the archives re-organised. About other people's reaction, now... I guess it would be popular with people searching hooks by date, which is probably the usual form of searching, given that in the relevant message boxes in the articles' talk pages there is the date (but not the hook). My only concern is that of size; each month, between 90 and 120 sets of hooks are published, and each set has at least five or six hooks. Currently, the archives list 50–100 items each, which is long enough already. Perhaps weekly or ten-day archives might prove more practicable? Other than that, I cannot say much. I'll ask Mr LaPella for a second opinion; I am not that involved in the DYK process, after all... Waltham, The Duke of 05:42, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm deeply involved in proofreading DYK, but not in archiving. So I had to look at the existing process to know what Waltham was talking about. The existing archives of 50-100 items each come out every 5.2 days on the average, based on Wikipedia:Recent additions 162 (291 days ago divided by 56 archives ago). So why would we change it from 5.2 to 31? I think the bot would be just as happy making 5 day archives as 31. But loading the 80-90K files would be slower if they became 500K files. There might be an advantage to labeling archives by date instead of just a sequential number, to help find a hook from last year, but the files wouldn't have to be monthly to do that: Wikipedia:Recent additions (June 6 2008). Art LaPella (talk) 15:00, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I hadn't noticed that. Still, we are looking for opinions here; your contribution is valued, and if you know someone whose input to this discussion you think would be useful, feel free to invite them.

Monthly archives would be huge. I hadn't done the maths quite thoroughly before, but I now realise that even weekly ones would probably be rather large, especially if we start including images, which, as we all know, make downloading slower. I can therefore see a point for five-day archives, even though it looks rather random. People don't count time in five-day intervals. Daily would be nice, but it would create a mess (too many pages).

Or would it? Waltham, The Duke of 15:33, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

PS: This might be an opportunity to change the name of the archives. I like the idea behind "recent additions", but I suppose clarity has higher priority in Wikipedia than historical conservation. (sigh) Waltham

An argument against daily archives, and for longer archives in general, is to consider how they would likely be used. I have only used them once: to answer someone who claimed a hook had been done before. I looked for a similar hook in the archives. Naturally I didn't know the date, although I had some idea how long it had been since I had read something similar. So I searched every archive in the approximate date range for some keywords that were probably in the hook. That process would be made easier with longer archive files. On the other hand, does anyone else ever use the archive files in the first place? Perhaps the archives' main function is to give hook authors a misplaced feeling of satisfaction that all their work hasn't disappeared in 6 hours (the Buddhist attitude that nothing is permanent but change seems more relevant here, given how many people see the Main Page.) Art LaPella (talk) 04:23, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Nothing is permanent on Wikipedia anyway, if you consider the state of constant flux in which all articles are (at least in the ante-flagged-revisions period). It does bother me from time to time, you know; I enjoy stability more than the average person. Most people appreciate stability to an extent, as a result of natural instinct, which is why the idea of printing Wikipedia is not completely ridiculous. The Signpost ran a story several weeks ago about a German publishing house planning to produce an almanac of sorts based on Wikipedia. It could be successful; the article certainly let an amount of optimism come through despite the editors' diligent efforts to remain neutral.

But I am digressing... I agree that the searching method you employed would benefit from larger archives, but it seems more likely to me that the archives would usually be visited by people seeing the DYK notes in the talk pages of articles with the exact dates, which they could then use in their search for the exact hooks. Still, I have an idea to serve us both: what about using the system of the anniversaries? There, there is a page for every day, and there is a page for every month transcluding said day pages, and there is even a page for the entire year (which I have never really seen because I cannot download it on this slow connection); this exists for the express purpose of searching events in order to avoid bolding one article more than once. My point is that we could have our short, daily archives which people could search when knowing the date, and we could have larger archives, say weekly or biweekly, transcluding them for special searches. Four- or five-day archives, although convenient in size, are simply weird.

All this, of course, would be done automatically, so no added maintenance effort there. Now, if you find the archives less than useful, that is a different thing, but I am a person who likes archiving for the sake of having archives anyway, and I am pretty sure there are many people like me. (You see, I am very representative, due to an ego equalling the combined egos of all my subjects. :-D). Waltham, The Duke of 05:27, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

I found the monthly anniversary page. I didn't find an annual anniversary page, but it doesn't matter because if it can be done monthly, it can be done annually. Yes, that system would work for my application, which I have done once, and for your application, but have you used it that way once? Have you ever looked at a talk page, seen its DYK note, and then looked it up? (Looking up a DYK you wrote yourself doesn't count, because that wouldn't be representative.) If you haven't, then we're inventing a lot of programming for an illusion. Surely you didn't mean to say that there are many people like you, your Grace, but it's the best indication we have at this time. Art LaPella (talk) 07:01, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

The annual page is linked to from the instructions (Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/All). Urm, no, I have not used the archives in this way, but it was theoretically plausible. To be honest, I have no idea what people do (I was joking before). Perhaps a survey would be in order? Seriously, we need to know what the editors want so that we can respond to their needs. This insular mentality of making decisions based on limited experience and educated guesswork has caused many problems before and should definitely be avoided. Let's get organised. Waltham, The Duke of 13:00, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Did you know#Who uses the archives? and Wikipedia talk:Selected anniversaries#Annual list Art LaPella (talk) 19:28, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Interesting, Mr LaPella. I had not considered notifying anyone about the "hidden page". I just tried a trick: entering straight the URL for editing individual sections. There is no text before the first heading; the first section shows today's anniversaries and the ToC, the next next one shows January's anniversaries, and the final one is for December (there are no subsequent sections). I wonder if the page really has a problem, or if the combined mass of data makes it impossible for most people to download it in time. I am not sure it is really so extreme, though.

The other discussion merely serves, so far, to corroborate both our points, but with a twist. If it is simply a matter of finding which articles have been honoured with DYK hooks, then we could easily keep detailed daily archives, and for each month have a list of the articles sorted chronologically and/or alphabetically (a sortable table might be used to avoid redundancy, if a bot can edit it), linking to the appropriate archives. It is my previous idea taken one step further, but it would combine maximum search-capability effectiveness and high downloading speeds with minimum repetition of information.

PS: I should prefer not to see the hooks included in the talk-page templates, but direct links to the daily archives would serve as well. Waltham, The Duke of 20:40, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

So far, Wikipedia talk:Did you know#Who uses the archives? suggests these uses:

1. To find hooks relevant to the Organized Labor portal or the Film portal. Each hook would have to be skimmed through to determine if it relates to the subject, so the length of the archive file wouldn't matter.

2. To see what the hook was after seeing a DYK notice on a talk page, as you suggested. In that case, the date on the DYK notice would give the approximate date of when the hook appeared, so it shouldn't take more than a couple minutes to find the hook using ctrl-F in daily archive files, although longer archive files would be a little easier. This use ended with the words "More importantly", suggesting this use isn't important.

3. The archive file can be located using "What links here". That would also work no matter how long the archives were.

So in each case, it doesn't matter much how long the file is. None of these tasks would benefit from a list of all articles that had DYK hooks, so I don't know why we would want that. Art LaPella (talk) 21:28, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

It was just an idea... I see file length mostly as a factor affecting loading speed; pages with more data take longer to appear, and sometimes too long. There is also the matter of images to consider. Do we want images in the archives? I find that it would make them more complete and informative, and more true to the original hooks, as well as make the "pictured" tag—which remains in the archives, image or not—meaningful again. However, images delay loading significantly.

Perhaps daily archives with images and weekly archives transcluding the daily ones but without displaying images? Would that be possible? (Or, if we are to start talking about technical issues, a way to simply search the archives?)

You see that I am rather unwilling to have three-, four-, or five-day archives. They just look odd; their day number is meaningless and rather disconnected from any reasonable time-keeping unit. The only alternative I see is to use five-day time periods fixed within each month, with the last archive adjusting for February and the 31-day months. For instance, 1–5 June, 6–10 June, 11–15, 16–20, 21–25, and 26–30. I was hesitant to propose it due to the inconsistency in the last archive, but it might have its merits. Waltham, The Duke of 22:41, 8 June 2008 (UTC), updated 22:53, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't know how gung-ho Gimmetrow is for programming such details, but my sense is that the main priority is to automate some kind of archiving and thanking system. Then DYK administrators will have a lot more time for discussing things like what the ideal archiving period should be. Changing 5.2 days to weekly isn't a big change, but what's important is to have it running at all. Art LaPella (talk) 04:33, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I suppose this is why we are discussing this while Gimmetrow is still developing the robot... After we reach a conclusion, I assume it will be relative easy to make an amendment even if most of the 'bot has been written. The point is to create a system which will not need confusing re-adjustments after it starts functioning...

In any case, a difference of two days is around fifty hooks, so it cannot be taken lightly, even if we do decide to go weekly. Waltham, The Duke of 10:57, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Note that Wikipedia talk:Did you know#Who uses the archives? is accumulating new ideas. Art LaPella (talk) 01:08, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Why...? Why wasn't I watching that page? (scratches head)

Ah, well, I am now. Anyway, I think we should move the discussion and start commenting there instead of here. Unless you don't want us to disturb the deliberations of the other editors just yet... Waltham, The Duke of 02:49, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

After the summer break...

[2] There are two tasks - notices to contributors when the hooks go up, and the archiving. I wasn't too keen on the notice systems I saw discussed, so haven't done anything with that, and probably won't unless I see a clean system. Archiving looks better. The general idea is to go through T:DYK revision by revision. For each revision, get a list of the bolded words on the page. If that list has no overlap with the list from the previous version, it's an update, and all hooks from the previous version can be archived. That way the final version of a hook, including any typo fixes, gets archived. This seems to work most of the time because the format of T:DYK hasn't changed much. Since this goes by revisions, including a diff and date header would be simple. I also maintain the ArticleHistory template, and I wanted a way to link from the DYK date to an archive. If the archives were by month, it would be straightforward: an August 27, 2008 DYK would be in Archives/2008 August#August 27 (or something like that). Could do daily archiving but that seems like a lot of pages. An intermediate system could be set up with arbitrary breaks in the month, for instance day 1-15 is archive A, day 16-31 is archive B, so August 27 might be in Archives/2008 August B#August 27. Gimmetrow 06:06, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Feel free to try getting someone else to work on this. Gimmetrow 19:43, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh, erm, well, yes, not much progress has been made here, eh? I suppose we'll have put up a classified ad, then; we've always known how busy you are. Thank you for your contribution.

Now, before I forget to follow up again, it's time to make a decision about the archives. (Notifying LaPella... Done.) I've just read the above discussion, as well as the archive here. I've also had a look at Wikipedia:Recent additions, and saw that:

• There are timestamps to show the date and time of archived hooks (that I knew already).
• Archives are made weekly (every Friday), or at least that's what the current and two last archives follow.
• Images are still not archived, but "pictured" now links to the appropriate image.

The weekly archiving pretty much ends the debate on how long the archives should be, and the ingenious links make the costly archiving of images redundant. I suppose we could name the archives "2008 October A", "2008 October, Week 1/A", or something similar.

If all this is acceptable, the next step is to find someone to help with the development of a system for notifications. Waltham, The Duke of 21:21, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I like the bolded words comparison idea. " ... a system for notifications" sounds as if you haven't heard about the new system described at Wikipedia talk:Did you know#DYK crediting made easy. Art LaPella (talk) 22:25, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I have not, sir. The page is in my watchlist, but I never check on it. (Which begs the question why exactly I am watching it.) Hold, please...

(two minutes later) This is excellent news—as is the timing. Wait... Does this mean we're done? I mean, if the notification part has been taken care of, and Gimmetrow has found the formula for the archiving, maybe we won't need that ad. Waltham, The Duke of 22:51, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

editing your edit summaries (refactor debate)

I am moving one paragraph that you wrote here from "conditional support" to "support," and am also In the debate on being able to edit your edit summaries, I am moving the entire "Short break": section (which contains a comment from you) from its current location (where it appears to be a sub-section of "oppose") to where it seems to belong, which is under "support." If I am wrong then just revert me (being careful to revert only this edit and not the 4 before that). Thank you. 69.140.152.55 (talk) 13:39, 9 June 2008 (UTC) 13:42, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

It is all right... Although the proposal has probably already failed, I am sorry to say. Waltham, The Duke of 23:07, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Template:Fishing industry

Thank you very much your grace for your gracious, indeed splendiferous, edit of Template:Fishing industry. I feel profoundly honoured. Please excuse my idiocy, but I have often wondered why the noble knowledgeable ones replace the humble "-" in templates such as this miserable one with the most august "{{-}}", or indeed, as in your case with the even more splendid and regal "{{–}}". May I humbly solicit enlightenment from you (I may pass this way only once, and this may be my only chance!) Yours obsequiously --Geronimo20 (talk) 11:33, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

I wish to thank you for your compliments, my honourable colleague, and I shall of course provide you with an explanatory answer to your reasonable inquiry. As states the documentation for Template:Ndash—to which the shorter {{–}}, which I use due to its relative lack of intrusiveness in the edit window, redirects—this template supplies an easy and brief manner of entering an en dash preceded by a non-breaking space (better known as hard space). This allows the dash to remain at all times in its place after the previous word, preventing undesirable separation at the end of a line due to wrapping. I agree with the common view maintaining that leaving dashes stranded in the beginning of lines looks rather inelegant; also, terms at the end of lines might confuse the readers into believing that they are incomplete and continue into the line below if not visibly accompanied by the customary separators (be them dashes or bullets). An improved appearance of the box, combined with better readability, are the undisputed benefits to Wikipedia's readership of using such means as are available to the editing body.

As far as the substitution of hyphens with en dashes is concerned, I find them more effective as separators, and most authorities (including the Wikipedia Manual of Style) deem them more suitable for this application thereof in lists and similar uses.

I hope I have been of assistance. :-) Waltham, The Duke of 13:09, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Oooh...very nice, Duke, I didn't know about that template. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 18:46, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, although all I did was to bump into it while editing another template. :-) It's really useful, as is its bullet counterpart. Waltham, The Duke of 23:48, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

My mini-rant

My mini-rant today on WT:MoS sounds a bit populist or anti-powers-that-be, but it's not directed at you or at anyone, I'm just doing the best I can to generate enthusiasm from a wide audience for participating in language issues. I really think it would help to get people talking, as a prelude to some well-deserved peace and quiet for a few months.

P.S. Thanks for your encouragement yesterday, now I'm ready to stir things up.

- Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 19:12, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Forgive the delay (again); I intend to deal with the familiar style issues soon, and in depth. I want to get some other stuff out of the way first, though. Waltham, The Duke of 10:35, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Excavate cavities

Dig holes? ;) --Stephen 03:11, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I was hoping for something more... Well, scientific-sounding. :-D Waltham, The Duke of 03:32, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Marquis of Stafford

Sir,

I beg leave to acquaint Your Grace with the absence of an article or redirect at the title Marquis of Stafford, lest Your Grace should be disposed to rectify this situation.

I am, Sir, your humble and obedient servant,

Hesperian 05:00, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Sir,

I am most grateful to you for your notification, and I am exceedingly pleased to lay before you information that provision was made four years ago for the Marquess of Stafford, a redirect to the article for the Dukedom of Sutherland, of which it is a subsidiary title. The British name for the title Marquis being Marquess, it comes as no surprise that, as ascertained through laborious research, the practice of using Marquis in redirects for British titles of nobility has yet to gain any noteworthy appeal. Due to my reluctance to change this situation, which I do not consider particularly upsetting, and the question being one on which I have not made a clear and final decision as of this moment, I am sorry to say that I see fit to decline your offer of action, at least for the present time. I should prefer, instead, to leave it to your discretion and sound judgement, which I trust immensely. I kindly request that you should keep me informed of any subsequent actions on the matter at hand.

I wish welfare and prosperity for you and your kin. Respectfully yours,

Waltham 06:04, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Cheers. I was only asking because I was Wikisourcing an 1809 article by James Edward Smith, which begins "I have lately been favoured by the Marquis of Stafford with a specimen of a remarkable variety of the Pedicularis sylvatica, gathered by his lordship last summer on his estate in Sutherland." As here on Wikipedia one links to notable topics, there one links to the Author: pages of persons who merit such pages; thus the question arose whether George Leveson-Gower, 1st Duke of Sutherland had published anything of note; perhaps a Parliamentary Report on the Eviction of Old Ladies. My initial attempt at gathering information on this point was stymied by the absence of a redirect, coupled with my own gross ignorance. However I am quite happy to blame Smith and move on. Hesperian 06:54, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

The frustrations of having to deal with old spelling practices... Ah, well. I'll drop the blame on the French (it's their word, anyway). Waltham, The Duke of 07:15, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

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