User talk:JMF/Archives/2021/October

Minor edits and edit summaries

I appreciate the feedback on my not-so-minor edits. I wasn't aware that was what minor edits were, I've marked nearly every edit I've ever done as that! Thank you, anyway. I will remember that for future.

Also, I don't know any kind of code at all so use the visual editor for everything. No idea how that affects things. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ollyhinge11 (talk • contribs) 15:40, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

@Ollyhinge11: No worries, it is a very common misunderstanding. We've all learned by making mistakes (ignoring the class swots who start by learning the Manual of Style off by heart!) So long as the visual editor lets you write a brief summary of what you've done, its ok. If I'm doing a one-line change, I just copy that line into the edit summary box. (There is no coding as such in the web editor, but it means that you have to spell out your citations. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 15:58, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

Edit undo

Thank you for reverting it, it was a mistake, I tried to fix it but I was having troubles ChefBear01 (talk) 10:54, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Your edit to Japanese punctuation

Hello! I note your edit summary: Changing short description from "Non-alphanumeric marks in Japanese" to "Non-alphanumeric marks in writing"

Hmm, I'm not entirely sure of the purpose of these "short descriptions", and normally ignore them, but I am intrigued by this example. It's a sort of bizarre "anti-explanation"; whereas the title "Japanese punctuation" would be immediately understood, even by persons entirely ignorant of the Japanese language, this "short description" needs an explanation, for which the title would suffice. It also does not seem to be remotely correct. "Alphanumeric characters" has a clear meaning within the ASCII character set, being the alphabetic characters plus the numeric characters; in respect of Japanese (for example), it is not clear that "alphanumeric" would have any different meaning. This dictionary says "combination of (Roman) letters and numerals". Then I wonder how it is improved by making it (arguably) refer to punctuation in for example English. But this isn't right, either, since +×÷≥⊃, to name but a few, are not punctuation. Imaginatorium (talk) 15:27, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

@Imaginatorium: Yes, I agree and was painfully aware of its (even arguably) limited application to Hiragana and not at all to Kanji. The fundamental problem is that these wp:short descriptions are limited to 40 characters due (IMO) to a serious error when specifying the Wikipedia app: see Wikipedia talk:Short description/Archive 9#Length – 40 or 90 characters??. The consequence is that the SD can be seriously misleading but the "party line" is that its primary purpose is to help visitors identify the article they want and "good enough" is good enough. For the long version, see WP:HOWTOSD. What that purist view doesn't recognise is that there are other uses of the SD: {{annotated link}} in particular, which turns a sometimes cryptic list of article names in a See Also into something actually useful to visitors not intimately familiar with the topic. In this case, the SD I wrote was a first (and second) attempt: you are totally at liberty to change it. As for the name of the article itself, I guess you need to take that elsewhere (though it may be of interest that what prodded me to add the SD was the See Also at the end of List of typographical symbols and punctuation marks, which could be a better title for the Japanese article?). --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 17:33, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for your response... I see you have been a bit involved in this. I think that if "short description" is meant as a disambiguation, particularly in cases like names ("John Smith (of some trade)", then this is a prime candidate for an SD of "none". Perhaps I will make this change and see what happens... Imaginatorium (talk) 02:38, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

@Imaginatorium: That unfortunately that repeats the "party line" in only recognising one use of the SD, the low-takeup app. Many articles now use the 'annotated link' for their See Also sections because it provides a great route for visitors to access related concepts. Yes, in this case the article content is clear from the name to most visitors, but that is not at all common. I won't dispute your action in this case [because "alphanumeric" is just wrong] but I certainly won't concede the principle that one bad decision when specifying an app should dominate and undermine all other uses. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 09:24, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

Superstate

19:20, 14 May 2021‎ John Maynard Friedman talk contribs‎ 7,832 bytes −385‎ Undid revision 1023093104 by AllChangeIsNoChange (talk) rv good faith but wp:wikipedia is not a platform for political argument Most things on Wikipedia are arguments (a reason or set of reasons given in support of an idea, action or theory). In the main body of superstate for instance the definitions from Harriman, Shoghi Effendi, Glyn Morgan, Margaret Thatcher are all arguments. Every political and social science Wikipedia entry is littered with them. If you remove ideas from Wikipedia, you just have history and science. Do you have another objection?

Yes, but these are arguments made by notable people. Your own arguments, or mine for that matter, have no standing. See WP:no original research. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 09:27, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

British Islands article

Having looked at the British Islands article it seems to rely heavily on WP:Primary and doesn’t seem to meet WP:GNG, it also seems to reference British Isles in some of the sources which already has its own article and is not relevant to the page. It seems to meet the criteria for WP:Deletion but I would appreciate if you could look as it found its way onto the main space and haven’t being flagged until I noticed it. ChefBear01 (talk) 23:09, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

It is defined in UK law, so that makes it notable. It is distinguished from British Isles in that the Crown has jurisdiction over the British Islands but not the British Isles. I advise you tread cautiously because this is a bit of a minefield: the Isles article was (probably still is, I don't watch) the subject of frequent disruptive editing by IP editors who object to the inference that Ireland is Brittish. Maybe the issue is that better sources are needed. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 23:31, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

It is the British Islands article I had issue with, mainly as it relies on WP:Primary sources when as far as I am aware an article must rely on secondary sources to prove notability, the article has criteria for speedy deletion if it doesn’t correct the error, maybe you can advise as I have always come up against wiki being a tertiary site, I have put a note on the article and now brought this to your attention which I think for now is enough. ChefBear01 (talk) 12:21, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

Your view on an non-consensual section deletion

Hi John. You have previously displayed good knowledge of edit policy and I would be interested in your view about section deletion being made by an unregistered editor here:

Eventbrite

Many thanks. Tomintoul (talk) 05:53, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

Looks like someone's engaging in nonconsensual secs axe. EEng 11:14, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

@EEng: No one has ever invited me to be a secs therapist before... --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 11:57, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

@Tomintoul:: the relevant policy is WP:bold, revert, discuss. If another editor makes a bold edit, it may be reverted and a discussion opened at the talk page. More generally, deletion of cited content may be reverted without comment: it is for the deleter to justify the edit. BUT this case is not a hill I would choose to defend if I were you. First, the only citation fails wp:PRIMARY, secondly the text declares that there are "multiple reports" but where are the multiple citations? The section as it stands is indefensible on Wikipedia policies alone. It needs a lot more work if it is to stay. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 11:57, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, JohnTomintoul (talk) 16:06, 31 October 2021 (UTC)