I hope that the username does not refer to any real medical condition - Skysmith 11:49, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

actually, surprisingly enough, dying is my real name. additionally, i suppose the medical condition of being alive necessitates dying as far as i know, but aside from conditions such as this, i am unaware of having any other medical conditions that might hasten my demise. however, your concern for my health is much appreciated. dying 03:53, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, is the name pronounced any differently from the word "dying"? That's an interesting name. --Mr. Billion 06:46, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

no, it's pronounced in the same way, unless, of course, you happen to pronounce the word "dying" in an unorthodox manner, in which case, i'm not sure. dying 06:52, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Well, you've been here longer than I have, so welcome is a bit of an odd statement. Still, good to have you here and all that, sorry about the mpack business, and if you need any help, advice, or anything else, please do ask. I'm looking forward to your further contributions. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 18:04, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

this section is in completely the wrong place on your talk page. That'll teach me not to edit on a phone.Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 18:06, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Dying –

I'm trying to get some discussion going on two proposals regarding the current events page, but so far have gotten little to no response. Since you have recently edited the current events page, I'm asking for your input on these two proposals:

• One proposal (this is the big one) involves putting the daily events from the current events pages into article-templates, a lá the monthly pages from 2003 to 2005, as well and having a consistent number of recent days on the current events page instead of a monthly archive. This would allow for the current events page and the respective month pages to be updated simultaneously without the monthly archival. For more, see the current events talk page.

• Another proposal involves merging the content of the regional current events pages (such as British and Irish current events and Canadian current events) into fewer continental articles. For more, see the current events WikiProject talk page.

Your input on one or both of these issues would be appreciated. joturner 22:19, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

personally, i feel that the current events page is suffering from feature creep. if you look at how the current events page looked about a year ago, you'll see that the page was quite simpler, and just about as effective. adding unnecessary features adds to the clutter, and makes it harder for a new contributor to understand how the page works.

the first proposal would make adding an event to the page much more complicated than it is now. even though this style appears to be used in some of the archived current events pages, a cursory look at these pages' histories should show that this style was applied after the pages were archived. also, if contributors are not careful, the pages could end up being a mess, as all the useless daybars in the current june 2005 article attest.

as for the second proposal, the regional current events pages are currently useful as an effective compromise between people who think an event of significant local importance should appear on the main current events page, and those who feel otherwise because it is insignificant outside of the local area. merging these pages together seems to partially defeat the purpose. besides, the impact of a local event to the global community is often determined by political boundaries rather than continental ones.

anyway, that's just my opinion. in any case, i do appreciate the thought and effort that has been put into trying to improve this area of wikipedia. dying 21:30, 6 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Left a message for you at commons. -- Bryan (talk|commons) 20:37, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

i am sorry, but that user and i are not the same. my name is dying. the extra effort taken to attempt to reach this other user, however, is much appreciated. dying 13:29, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:51, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Dying. Voting in the 2016 Arbitration Committee elections is open from Monday, 00:00, 21 November through Sunday, 23:59, 4 December to all unblocked users who have registered an account before Wednesday, 00:00, 28 October 2016 and have made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday, 00:00, 1 November 2016.

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Hello, Dying. Voting in the 2016 Arbitration Committee elections is open from Monday, 00:00, 21 November through Sunday, 23:59, 4 December to all unblocked users who have registered an account before Wednesday, 00:00, 28 October 2016 and have made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday, 00:00, 1 November 2016.

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Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Lenin's Testament, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Troika. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

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An article you recently created, Artik & Asti, does not have enough sources and citations as written to remain published. It needs more citations from reliable, independent sources. (?) Information that can't be referenced should be removed (verifiability is of central importance on Wikipedia). I've moved your draft to draftspace (with a prefix of "Draft:" before the article title) where you can incubate the article with minimal disruption. When you feel the article meets Wikipedia's general notability guideline and thus is ready for mainspace, please click on the "Submit your draft for review!" button at the top of the page. buidhe 02:16, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

May I know why you prefer using Twitter instead of the government health website on the Covid19 with data of patients? M nurhaikal (talk) 13:37, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

actually, i have no personal preference between a government's twitter account and a government's web page. if a government's twitter account has more current information than a government's web page, i would prefer to cite the twitter account. similarly, if a government's web page has more current information than a government's twitter account, i would prefer to cite the web page. dying (talk) 13:43, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Under the source. Cntrl+F

"n.  139 tamponi totali effettuati, di cui 54  risultati negativi, 77 positivi e 8 in attesa di esito."

77 positive M nurhaikal (talk) 08:10, 13 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

i left a comment next to the value in the table, hoping that this would help other editors understand how to properly interpret the source before updating the value. i have reproduced it below for your convenience.

please be careful when updating this statistic, as the official government statistics may be presented in a confusing way, with "casi positivi" referring not to patients who tested positive, but patients recovering. add this number to the number "decessi" (deceased) to obtain the correct number. the number of positive results may be different from this number, on the assumption that some cases were tested more than once.

further explanation as to why i believe this is the correct interpretation of the source can be found in the discussion of that source on the talk page, which i reproduce below.

the sammarinese government source appears to first mention 67 "casi positivi" and enumerate where they are recuperating (with all 67 accounted for in the enumeration) and then mention 5 "decessi", so i have always interpreted this as meaning that there are 72 cases, with 67 recovering and 5 deceased. i do not speak italian (aside from maybe "grazie mille"), so if you do (or anyone else does), could you confirm? i currently have the table at 72 cases.

please also note that the official source uses the wording "tamponi totali", which means "total swabs", instead of different wording that would imply that they were listing the number of total people tested rather than just the total number of swabs taken.

i believe other aggregate sources are stumbling upon the same issue, which serves to explain why official government sources are to be preferred over aggregate sources when citing a source, regardless of whether the aggregate source is simpler to interpret.

however, as stated above, i do not speak italian, so if you have a better interpretation of the source that more strongly implies that there are 77 different people who have tested positive, then please let me know. thanks in advance! dying (talk) 08:40, 13 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, for your interest, I reverted a number of wrong statements in your edit. Hope my comments help improve. Cheers, --Malyacko (talk) 08:16, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

We try to avoid these. Also unless you have a mechanism to keep the numbers associated with a higher quality source I am not supportive of switching from WorldOMeter again. It did not work last time we tried. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:53, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Dying,

Thank you for creating 2020 coronavirus pandemic in the Isle of Man.

I have tagged the page as having some issues to fix, as a part of our page curation process and note that:

Thank you for creating this article and it will be very helpful.

The tags can be removed by you or another editor once the issues they mention are addressed. If you have questions, leave a comment here and prepend it with ((Re|Abishe)). And, don't forget to sign your reply with ~~~~. For broader editing help, please visit the Teahouse.

Delivered via the Page Curation tool, on behalf of the reviewer.

Abishe (talk) 02:42, 20 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

When adding new territories to Template:2019–20 coronavirus pandemic data, such as your addition of Uganda, please reflect the current version of the template and don't copy formatting from an older version.
For example, the padding on the country name field is now 0px 2px 0px 1px and not 0px 2px 0px 0px. Thanks. Zarex (talk) 22:43, 21 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

hey, can you pls answer our requested edits on the talk page of Talk:Diamond Princess (ship), Talk:Costa Luminosa and Talk:MSC Magnifica for accuracy of this current pandemic. thank you. 49.149.111.53 (talk) 00:12, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for spotting this. I didn't get an edit conflict! Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 19:03, 24 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Your username is nefarious, iniquitous, unspeakable and intolerable! Poppycock! --Civilised Gentleman (talk) 13:16, 26 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. Would you please look at Help:Footnotes#Footnotes: using a source more than once, when using one multiple times, as you did here and more than once? Thanks. Wyliepedia @ 00:08, 30 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

	The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
	Thanks for helping me out in the George Floyd protests article. LoreMaster22 (talk) 05:50, 30 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Please do not use styles that are unusual, inappropriate or difficult to understand in articles, as you did in List of George Floyd protests. There is a Manual of Style, and edits should not deliberately go against it without special reason. Specifically, you can refer to MOS:DATES for formatting dates. —Bagumba (talk) 12:22, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Dying: Thanks for going ahead and doing the split of the List of monuments and memorials removed during the George Floyd protests (A) page with the new List of name changes due to the George Floyd protests (B) page. I hope you will continue to "patrol" A in order to snag entries that really belong in B.

I'm already seeing more "citizen petitions" being added to A in the "Removals under consideration" section. (sigh) I'm sorry, but sending in a citizen petition does not mean anything is under consideration. Maybe I should add a third bullet-point category "Citizen petitions" for people to plop their latest news "finds" into, and quit trying to fight against the blitz of google search results that people get excited about. The "Citizen petitions" section can always be deleted in the future when this movement winds down and this all becomes history.

Brundage: LOL, I finally saw the "Others" section (which I think I created a week ago). I was looking at the table of contents and thought to myself "He ain't a confederate, he ain't a conquester, it's artwork but not a non-sculpture. Oh crap, nowhere to put him." You're right, there's an "other section" he could have gone into. Still I feel strongly about some of these corporate "me too" decisions. I really don't think the Brundage was related to any George Floyd protests. But I won't object to someone adding Brundage somewhere, even under Other.

We're seeing all the downsides as mentioned in the Wikipedia:Recentism policy. But I think the onslaught is too great to fight against. (grin)

— Normal Op (talk) 13:26, 23 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Dying: i notice that you added on your new page a subheading titled "Decisions pending". It has just attracted Deisenbe's first "people would love THIS to happen" addition. Brigham Young will NEVER change their university name, and the gist of the article sounds like it was written by an EX-Mormon (meaning no one in LDS will ever listen to that person or his petition). I think Deisenbe is more hopeful that these changes come to fruition; someone needs to evaluate whether these petition claims have any clout whatsoever. She's gungho on the "rename Columbus, Ohio" movement, which will never happen. Reminder... WP:RECENTISM. You might want to rename that section, or add a leading sentence to clarify what should be included in it. I'm probably going to stay off your new page (except to plunk something in there that incorrectly showed up on the monuments page). So you might have to police your new page (if that's a hat you want to wear). Normal Op (talk) 14:18, 23 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'd appreciate it is you stopped collapsing cites, as you just did on List of name changes due to the George Floyd protests. Doing so makes them harder to consult or use in the future and serves no purpose at all. Please. deisenbe (talk) 12:48, 6 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

		WikiProject Ships Barnstar
		Awarded for creating MV Rhosus, per the bounty offered at WT:SHIPS. Mjroots (talk) 17:34, 5 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there, I'm MDanielsBot. I just wanted to let you know that Draft:Artik & Asti, a page you created, has not been edited in 5 months. The Articles for Creation space is not an indefinite storage location for content that is not appropriate for articlespace.

If your submission is not edited soon, it could be nominated for deletion. If you would like to attempt to save it, you will need to improve it.

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Thank you for your attention. MDanielsBot (talk) 03:40, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

pandemic and protest

Thank you for quality articles such as COVID-19 pandemic in Ukraine (and other countries) and George Floyd protests in Germany (and other places), for copy-editing with love for detail, also in TFAs-to-be, for updating marathons, - you are an awesome Wikipedian!

You are recipient no. 2439 of Precious, a prize of QAI. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:24, 30 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

oh, wow, i am honored. thank you very much, Gerda Arendt! your award is much appreciated. dying (talk) 23:54, 30 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! 👋 I refactored the discussion at Talk:List_of_George_Floyd_protests_outside_the_United_States#Countries_in_western_Europe to fit the traditional consensus format, and I listed your position as neutral based on your statement. I wanted to make you aware, so that you can change it if that's not your position. Thanks! — motevets (talk) 16:42, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

motevets, thank you for trying to help, but i have reverted your change to my comment. i did not mark my comment as neutral because i was not neutral on the matter. by the way, it is generally not a good idea to add or change a vote for another user without their prior consent.

in any case, thanks for notifying me of your edit. dying (talk) 04:07, 21 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! Voting in the 2020 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 7 December 2020. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate in the 2020 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add ((NoACEMM)) to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:14, 24 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There is a photo of the vehicle which is clearly a 2000 model. A photo can be the reference. Google it.

I'm not going to contest your revert... just ask that you rethink it.

Thanks

Wiki-psyc (talk) 18:14, 28 December 2020 (UTC).[reply]

Thanks again for the exceptionally thorough rationale regarding computerized female voices, they sure don't necessarily emanate from gadgets born with a gidget, I see how I was wrong. Feel a little bad for inspiring you to type so much, but that mountain does stand on its own as a monument to absurdity, in my opinion, good stuff. Where do you stand on "ghost pirate" versus "pirate ghost" (in 25 words or less, if you want, no pressure!)? InedibleHulk (talk) 05:06, 29 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• a ghost pirate pirates ghosts.
• a pirate ghost ghosts pirates.
• if you leave sketchy ghost dealers on read,
• you're a pirate ghost ghosting ghost pirates.

sorry for taking more than two years to get back to you, InedibleHulk. it was difficult to get my thoughts down to 25 words. dying (talk) 05:07, 29 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The important thing is that you nailed it, not when; good stuff! InedibleHulk (talk) 05:43, 31 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Dying. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or Draft page you started, "Artik & Asti".

In accordance with our policy that Wikipedia is not for the indefinite hosting of material deemed unsuitable for the encyclopedia mainspace, the draft has been nominated for deletion. If you plan on working on it further, or editing it to address the issues raised if it was declined, simply edit the submission and remove the ((db-afc)), ((db-draft)), or ((db-g13)) code.

If your submission has already been deleted by the time you get there, and you wish to retrieve it, you can request its undeletion by following the instructions at this link. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the submission so you can continue to work on it.

Thank you for your submission to Wikipedia! UnitedStatesian (talk) 02:32, 12 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

What I mean by that is there's something you may or may not already know, and that would be this (following sentence): If you would have left that one low-profile living person named on the talk page, I wouldn't have held it against you, and wasn't exactly suggesting you should change your mind. But if you simply heard it and agreed of your own volition, that's simply beautiful. Like when a monster almost bites a poor merchant's head off for one little white rose, sets a rather harsh deadline and even worse terms of repayment, then his best daughter is like, "No, no, it's cool. He sounds at least half-reasonable. I'll fix the rest." And then just when the crowd is calling her stupid for it, BAM...happily ever after!

P.S. Ever wonder why nobody seems to care about Jay Baker's low-key, previously unknown privatish life?

P.S.S. Did you know you laid down a perfectly round 2,000-byter at precisely two minutes to midnight? Cool. Thanks! InedibleHulk (talk) 01:49, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

InedibleHulk, i admittedly had not even considered what my view was on the issue you had raised before you had raised it. considering that the victims' names have already been thoroughly publicized in multiple reliable sources worldwide, and i was unfamiliar with any reliable sources imposing a relevant publication restriction or moratorium, i had figured that the issue was a question of presentation rather than that of revelation. however, after you had brought up the issue and made your point, i fully agreed with you.

had i personally been in the same situation as the injured, i do not believe i would have minded either way, but i cannot presume that the injured party shares similar sentiments.

thanks for raising the issue. dying (talk) 13:59, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Good to know! InedibleHulk (talk) 20:42, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

p.s. regarding baker, perhaps ... it was a really bad day for him and this is what he did.

Hello, Dying. You are right, a link should appear only once in an article. I made a mistake, appreciated. AbDaryaee (talk) 12:36, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

On 5 April 2021, In the news was updated with an item that involved the article Constantin Brodzki, which you updated. If you know of another recently created or updated article suitable for inclusion in ITN, please suggest it on the candidates page. Spencer^T•C 17:28, 5 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

love your name

Regards, Jeromi Mikhael 05:48, 7 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

On 8 April 2021, In the news was updated with an item that involved the article 2021 Kosovan presidential election, which you updated. If you know of another recently created or updated article suitable for inclusion in ITN, please suggest it on the candidates page. —Bagumba (talk) 13:30, 8 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Just to say thanks for this change. I logged back in precisely to do something to that effect. After saying "claimed", I realised I was not too happy with the new wording. I was planning to say that she "provides an account etc.", though you beat me to the punch and your revision is an improvement. So thanks again. --Juicy Oranges (talk) 13:48, 10 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

On 22 April 2021, In the news was updated with an item that involved the article KRI Nanggala (402), which you created. If you know of another recently created or updated article suitable for inclusion in ITN, please suggest it on the candidates page. Stephen 04:51, 22 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

	The Barnstar of Diligence
	Hi, thank you for inspecting my edits at KRI Nanggala. You are keeping Wikipedia as a reliable source of information for the public. Regards, Jeromi Mikhael 15:31, 1 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

On 19 May 2021, In the news was updated with an item that involved the article Bruno Covas, which you nominated. If you know of another recently created or updated article suitable for inclusion in ITN, please suggest it on the candidates page. —Bagumba (talk) 06:23, 19 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Belfast Marathon, to which you have significantly contributed, is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or if it should be deleted.

The discussion will take place at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Belfast Marathon until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article.

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On 7 June 2021, In the news was updated with an item that involved the article David Dushman, which you updated. If you know of another recently created or updated article suitable for inclusion in ITN, please suggest it on the candidates page. PFHLai (talk) 10:37, 7 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

On 7 June 2021, In the news was updated with an item that involved the article 2021 Ghotki train collision, which you created. If you know of another recently created or updated article suitable for inclusion in ITN, please suggest it on the candidates page. BorgQueen (talk) 19:36, 7 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the careful editing! We're within a few characters of the upper limit (1025) ... what do you think of shortening this to "using a variety of attacks"? - Dank (push to talk) 10:46, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

thanks for the compliment, Dank!

i see no significant issue with what you propose. i had commented out "magical" instead of "fart" in case the mention of the latter was meant as a hook, but if all those modifiers were removed altogether, "using a variety of attacks to combat" can also probably be replaced with "fighting", since the act of fighting generally implies the use of attacks, and noting that there are a variety of such attacks is likely not going to be of significant utility to the reader. ("fighting" was chosen to avoid the issue of "combating" versus "combatting".)

if the character limit is still an issue, i would take out "whimsical" and "freely", and replace "a lack of " with "un". dying (talk) 23:18, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"fighting" works for me. Thanks again. - Dank (push to talk) 23:41, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

glad to be of service. dying (talk) 00:43, 5 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I just finished reviewing your July and August TFA edits ... I'm impressed on the copyediting points. I didn't personally review factual points, but you didn't get much pushback that I could see, so you must have been doing a good job there too. Would it be possible for you to get all your blurb copyediting done at least 48 hours before each blurb hits the Main Page? People may have points they want to make, or questions to ask, or there may be sources that disagree. - Dank (push to talk) 15:00, 24 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

sure, Dank. admittedly, i have been trying to give myself an internal deadline of 48 hours before a blurb is featured, for the same reasons that you have mentioned, but i have been falling behind recently, and i had preferred not to sacrifice quality in order to hit a self-imposed deadline that no one else appeared to care about. although my edit today will obviously be late, in the future, i will make an extra effort to adhere to the deadline. thanks for the feedback. dying (talk) 12:41, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I sympathize ... for such an important job, it does sometimes seem like people don't care much (until something goes wrong :) - Dank (push to talk) 12:55, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

oh, sorry, Dank! i had not meant to attempt to elicit sympathy with that last comment. i probably could have worded it better, but "no one else appeared to care about" was deliberately left slightly ambiguous to accommodate for both the interpretation that no one would care for an internal deadline of mine (since it was, after all, internal) and the interpretation that other editors also edit blurbs after the 48-hour mark (as i think they should if they believe they have found an error).^[a] i don't use social media, and forgot how contributions there are often made to solicit sympathy and praise. that being said, your sympathy (and praise) is much appreciated! dying (talk) 14:52, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Re: Wikipedia:Today's featured article/August 27, 2021, now that I'm active at TFA again, I will occasionally make edits after yours (and I think I can generally get them in before the 48-hour self-imposed deadline). You can always feel free to revert these, or discuss them here or at the blurb or at WP:ERRORS - Dank (push to talk) 15:47, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  it's good to see someone else making edits after me, since that generally means that someone has looked at my edit to make sure i haven't done anything egregious. of course, i would also be happy to discuss any of my edits that you do find questionable. i don't recall seeing an edit of yours that i would have reverted, and actually find it interesting that your recent edits have been very similar to ones i was thinking of making. for example, i had also considered dropping the hyphen in "non-profit", but ended up leaving it as is, since i wasn't sure what sources would be appropriate to use to determine if it should be hyphenated. i was also considering rephrasing "one of the greatest films ever made", especially since the film isn't even mentioned in the linked article, but i didn't think i had the experience to rephrase it appropriately. dying (talk) 14:52, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Wikipedia:Today's featured article/August 30, 2021: I need to decide what my role is here. Like everyone else, I have a tendency to work hard and take chances at first in a new job, but eventually I lose interest and become more risk-averse. But I want to avoid the mistake of simply occupying a slot as a TFA coord without actually doing anything ... that wouldn't be helpful for Wikipedia or for me. So, I have some questions about your edit: why do you prefer "likely" (as an adverb) to "probably", and "due to" to "caused by"? (I'm not completely clueless here, but if "caused by" is problematic, I've got a different solution in mind.) Does "a British novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer" have the same connotations and denotations as "a British writer of novels, short stories, plays, essays, biographies, and travelogues" (and, if not the same, is the change an improvement?) Most of your edits have been very helpful and minimal ... this one, maybe not so much, but I'd like to hear your reasoning. - Dank (push to talk) 22:34, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  the parts of the edit you are questioning were all made due to the addition of the marriage in the chronological part of the blurb; i would have normally left the other mentioned sections as is, but had implemented the changes to make space for the addition. i had actually agonized for hours over whether or not those changes were appropriate, for the same reasons that you are bringing up, but in the end, i had felt that the changes were a net positive contribution.^[b] i noticed that you had originally questioned the addition of the marriage before withdrawing your question hours later, so i think we both may have spent hours agonizing over it. if so, then i apologize for the time spent! i also apologize in advance for this lengthy response, but hopefully, this will help elucidate my general pattern of thinking when making these edits, so it will be easier to understand my edits in the future, and also allow you to critique what i may have gotten wrong.

  when i had first read the sentence beginning with "In 1822, her husband died", i was so confused that i had wondered whom "her husband" was referring to. i think i may have been expecting the marriage to be mentioned in the chronology because percy was introduced in the chronology as "the married Percy Shelley", implying that there was a later change in marital status at some point which may be of interest. however, since the chronology had not mentioned when they were married, i had wondered if mary shelley had another husband that died, or if "her" was referring to someone other than mary shelley (perhaps claire or mary's mother mary). i think the confusion had derailed me seriously enough that i ended up going to the article for clarification before reading the rest of the blurb, which i generally take as a sign that something should be changed. the wording i eventually used to state their marriage and percy's death was simply the shortest wording i could think of that did not significantly change the tone and did not feel like it was missing something.^[c] also, "her husband" was changed to "Percy" simply because it was shorter.

  regarding the list of professions, i had felt that the list was a bit excessive, especially since the professions were all related and could all fit under the description of "writer". in addition, although i may be wrong about this, my general understanding of the use of a list of professions in wikipedia is that the person described is strongly associated with that profession, to the point that no more than a few professions should be listed.^[d] so, although shelley may have been, for example, a short story writer in the sense that she has written short stories, describing her as a "short story writer" in the first sentence of the blurb may be technically correct but feels hollow, especially since the article itself appears to note that she was described as a "hack writer" with respect to such stories, and that she herself considered her stories to be of poor quality. that being said, i think both of these issues were more a matter of personal style, and i ordinarily would have ignored them, but surprisingly, the issue that stood out most to me was the use of the word "writer" twice, in "short story writer" and "travel writer", and on distant locations on the list. this seemed a bit redundant and clumsy to me, and did not appear easily solvable by rearrangement.^[e] however, moving "writer" to the root of the list appeared to fix all the issues stated above, so i ended up doing so when i realized that i was over the character limit, and that the change would shorten the blurb.

  although i think the original list of professions and my replacement do not have exactly the same connotations and denotations, i do not think the differences are significant, as the article itself actually no longer uses the list of professions anyway,^[f] preferring to simply describe her as a novelist,^[g] and doesn't even mention some of the professions on the list anymore.^[h] in addition, because i realized that there may be nuances that i may be overlooking, i took care to use only words that currently appear in the article body in order to at least try to reflect what is actually in the article rather than choose my own words, which is why i used "travelogues" rather than "travel writings" and "plays" rather than "dramas". also, using "writer" as the primary profession does not seem too unusual, considering that this edit replaced the list of professions in the article's short description with "writer".

  regarding the cause of illness, i would actually prefer "probably caused by" simply because that leaves the original words untouched, but generally consider "probably caused by" and "likely due to" to be roughly equivalent (aside from length, of course).^[i] to me, both phrases describe the probability of the existence of a causal relationship as above 50%, but make no stronger statement regarding the probability.^[j] also, i feel the former phrase suggests that the causal relationship is more active than the latter phrase does, but had not considered this difference significant enough to try to find characters elsewhere to remove.^[k] i had actually looked for mention of her death in other sources for additional details, but all the ones i found after a cursory search either mentioned the brain tumor as the definitive cause or did not mention it at all.

  there were a few other characters that i was considering dropping, but ended up feeling that their removal was not easily justified. i was considering removing "Together" and possibly reordering the phrases in that clause to read "They travelled through Europe with Mary's stepsister, Claire Clairmont", but ended up leaving it as is since the altered phrasing does not rule out the possibility that mary and percy travelled separately. i was also considering dropping the comma after stepsister, as it would have also conformed with the style of introducing a name without a preceding comma that was used in the rest of the blurb, but as those other introductions were in separate sentences, the parallelism would not be as strong (if it was even noticed). in addition, i was debating replacing "was to kill her at the age of" with "killed her at age", reflecting the same words currently used in the article lead, but had felt that the wording used may have been deliberate, so i left it alone. also, the definite articles used before the professions in the second and third sentences (e.g., "the political philosopher William Godwin") look like they could be removed, but i prefer to drop articles, definite or indefinite, only when trying to improve parallelism.

  anyway, hope that all made sense. feel free to revert any of my changes if you feel that my reasoning does not justify the change. hope this helps! dying (talk) 14:52, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  All that makes sense, and gives me some background I needed. I'll make a few edits, and please let me know whether I made things worse or better. - Dank (push to talk) 16:36, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Since the existing blurb was written so long ago and the lead has changed a lot, I decided to just blow it up and start over. We rarely need to do this, and it's a good idea to talk with people before trying it, but sometimes it's the only way. - Dank (push to talk) 22:11, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Dank, i like the new blurb, and how it now focuses on a different aspect of shelley's life, considering that the biographical details of the older blurb had already been featured before. i had wondered earlier why the old blurb had largely focused on the first half of the article, but obviously i wasn't about to personally change that. three minor points:

  • the link to lardner's work should probably bypass the redirect by linking directly to List of works in Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopædia. also, although "cyclopaedia", being an english word, should normally not be spelt with the ligature 'æ' as per mos:ligature, the same guideline makes an exception for proper names, which the title "Cabinet Cyclopædia" is.^[l] i don't know if there are any other applicable exceptions that i am overlooking, but since the cyclopaedia's article itself appears to use the ligature inconsistently when stating the work's title, and wp:diacritics seems to hint to me that much drama can be found when dealing with such letters, i trust your judgement on whether the ligature's use will be appropriate here, though i merely wished to point out the issue in case you had missed it.
  • the travel book rambles was published in two volumes, so although it is a book in the sense that it is one long work, it is two books in the sense that it was bound into two separate stacks of paper. the rambles article first introduces it as a "travel narrative", possibly to bypass the issue, but also refers to it as a "travel book" later in the article. i think bypassing the issue by using "travel narrative" is a good idea, but this point is really minor, since the wording is correct as it stands.
  • i am not sure if "particularly as practised by women" is an appropriate way to describe the "cooperation and sympathy" that shelley advocates for, although i have not personally read rambles to confirm this. also, although the phrase "particularly as practised by women" is currently used in the shelley article's lead, it is unsourced, and does not appear to be backed up by the article itself. i don't think the article noted that shelley had made a distinction between how "cooperation and sympathy" was practised by women and how they were practised by men, and that if there was a distinction, the way they were practised by women was preferred when "reform[ing] civil society". the article does appear to associate such qualities with women when it states that shelley appeared to "propose[] that when female values triumph over violent and destructive masculinity, men will be freed to express the 'compassion, sympathy, and generosity' of their better natures", but i can't tell if this association was made by shelley, the cited critic, or a wikipedia editor. in addition, this statement appears to consider "cooperation and sympathy" as they were practised by men to be positive as well.
    by the way, i also think shelley's views on this issue (as well as her mother's influence) may have been evident since her early works, instead of just in rambles, one of her last works, but i do not think it is necessary to change the wording to express this.

  everything else looks good. thanks for the rewrite! dying (talk) 12:10, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Excellent feedback. How does it look now? - Dank (push to talk) 14:52, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Btw, regarding our thoughts about praise, sympathy, etc. above: see the first quote on my user page. I've never explained that or the other quotes on Wikipedia before, they're meant for meditation, but to me, the first quote means something like: emotions are intimately linked to thought and to life, and in general, they can't be consistently or successfully ignored or compartmentalized in the ways that some people imagine. Wikipedia suffers because of some of the cultural values we have regarding a broad range of common human reactions and emotions. So: I'm happy to praise people for doing good things, and I often feel sympathy, and I admit it when I do. - Dank (push to talk) 15:51, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  looks great, Dank. thanks for addressing those points!

  i'm actually familiar with the song, but because i have trouble hearing lyrics, i don't think i've ever analyzed the song's lyrics before, so thanks for sharing your interpretation with me. i agree that ignoring emotions is often not a good thing, and that wikipedia suffers from some cultural issues associated with this, but i don't think this is a fault that is specific to wikipedia. i feel that much of life online is simply a reflection of life offline (and vice versa), and when comparing wikipedia with offline projects of similar scope, i'd say wikipedia has been pretty successful. over the years, i think wikipedia has been able to successfully address some of these cultural issues, and i feel the project has become more welcoming as a result, but i would obviously assume that you have much more insight into this than i do.

  i think sincere praise or sympathy is almost always universally appreciated, so i think it is often a good idea to express it when you feel it. for example, can you imagine how happy i was when you dropped by my talk page and told me i was doing a good job? i was ecstatic. i still am. i had only mentioned earlier that i hadn't meant to elicit sympathy because it was a common issue back when i did use social media, on the rare occasions when i did. my humor is naturally self-deprecating (which is a problem) but it doesn't translate well to social media; when i was hoping for people to laugh at me with me, i got sympathy instead. (this is where it is okay to laugh at me with me.)

  by the way, i find it interesting that, not only are we are discussing the same thing that shelley was advocating for in her works, but we have been putting it into practice, as this whole discussion has been marked by cooperation and sympathy, and i'm happy that a well-written blurb has been produced so quickly as a result. dying (talk) 10:50, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Your enthusiasm is contagious! I enjoy working with you. - Dank (push to talk) 14:42, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  thanks, Dank! i enjoy working with you as well. dying (talk) 08:38, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Going forward, I'll explain some edits in edit summaries, and just say something like "partial revert" for some, in which case the explanation is that your edit didn't seem in line with past edits at FAC and TFA. (So for instance, you changed "constructed" to "built" and I changed it back; people haven't had a problem with the word "constructed", and it's generally not okay to substitute a slightly shorter word at TFA just to bring it under the character limit, there has to be a reason involving usage or convention among Wikipedians or reliable sources.) I'm not asserting that my editing style is perfect ... in fact, it's a given that styles change over time and that each new generation of writers gleefully overthrows established conventions. If I hang around TFA long enough, some day my ideas will seem outdated and people will start to revolt. But we don't seem to have reached that day yet. - Dank (push to talk) 14:50, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  thanks for reviewing my edits, Dank. i had not previously known that substituting shorter words to avoid breaking the character limit was frowned upon, so thanks for letting me know.

  also, previously, when i wasn't sure how the character limit was enforced, i had simply tried to not make blurbs longer than they already were. however, after you had mentioned to me that there was a 1025-character limit, i have been trying to edit blurbs down to that length. should i stop doing so? i had thought that i was being helpful, but i am no longer sure that that is the case.

  by the way, how exactly are the characters counted? when i had previously believed that the ideal length was roughly 1000 characters, i had considered parentheticals such as "(pictured)" and "(Full article...)" to be exempt. however, ever since you informed me of the limit, i have been interpreting this as a hard limit that encompassed everything save for a caption. also, the margins around the '×' character i had counted as two separate spaces, even though they weren't characters, strictly speaking. dying (talk) 08:49, 4 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  This is the website I use to count characters ... I just paste everything in, including "Full article" and anything about Featured Topics, but not including the image or caption. Yes, the limits are important, but adding that constraint might transform your job from "hard" to "much harder" ... so for now, just make whatever edits seem right to you without worrying about length, and then if the end result is less than say 900 or more than 1050, let me know please. - Dank (push to talk) 15:25, 4 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  sounds good, Dank. it's funny that you had suggested this, as i had also been thinking of simply notifying you when a blurb had broken 1050 characters instead of trying to shorten it myself. dying (talk) 00:30, 5 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• The Triumph of Cleopatra: The blurb on September 22 is only 814 characters, but that's not a mistake; User:Iridescent likes to make the image larger than normal, and people have generally gone along with that. - Dank (push to talk) 21:29, 4 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  ah, that explains why the blurb for the sirens and ulysses was shorter than usual. good to know. thanks. dying (talk) 00:30, 5 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• "Can't Get You Out of My Head" (blurb):

  Dank, i am skeptical about the claim that the song has hit the top of the charts in "every European country except Finland", but did not want to comment it out myself as it is a substantial statement of the blurb.

  at the time the song was released, there were more than 40 countries in europe,^[m] while the blurb states that "[t]he song peaked at number one on charts in 40 countries worldwide".^[n] the first version of the article included a list of 37 territories^[o] where the song has apparently hit number one, but the list is missing quite a few european countries, and i do not know how accurate the list is if south africa is in the list while the current article has a sourced claim noting that its peak there was at number two.^[p] i'm omitting other details that have led me to suspect that this claim may be inaccurate, but let me know if you would like to see more.

  perhaps more appropriate would be the phrase "including every country in the European Union except Finland". at the time, the european union consisted of 15 countries,^[q] and the featured article currently includes data for 14 of them, showing that it had reached the top in all of those countries except finland.^[r] however, even if this modified phrase was factually accurate, making such a statement may violate wp:synth, so i would hesitate to make such a substitution without an appropriate source.

  by the way, removing the phrase altogether would drop the blurb to just below 900 characters.^[s] dying (talk) 09:15, 5 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  My recommendation is to raise this point at WP:ERRORS. No guarantees, but I think it will work. - Dank (push to talk) 14:13, 5 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  In the meantime, pinging the FAC nominator, Tomica ... any thoughts on this? - Dank (push to talk) 14:17, 5 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Dank. Hi. I might agree that the statement is a little bit misleading, but there is a source for both of the statements. And both sources are reliable. So I do not know how we proceed from here and reword this. Also, keep in mind that a lot of European countries did not have an official chart back then (and a lot of them still do not have one). — Tom^(T2ME) 15:08, 5 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  It's not my call, but I think User:Dying has a point here ... it's not true that the song hit the top of the charts in countries that don't have charts. If there's any wording that works for both of you, great; if not, I don't think it would be a mistake to get opinions at WP:ERRORS (I think this is eligible for ERRORS in 8 hours). - Dank (push to talk) 15:42, 5 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Dank, it looks like this has been resolved through wp:errors, so thank you for suggesting that option and for posting about it there. also, Tom, thanks for being thorough and cleaning up the article itself as well. dying (talk) 14:54, 6 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Precious

One year!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:00, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Gerda Arendt! how fitting it is for you to show up when Dank and i were just discussing the benefits of expressing praise and sympathy in the above section. thanks for the reminder. i still remember how speechless i was when you presented me with the award last year, as it was such an unexpected expression of praise. many thanks for administering the precious prize, as i think it has had an overall positive impact on the project. dying (talk) 21:25, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Small world, how fitting indeed. Normally when I go around, I see if could connect the precious-reminder to something, such as a fresh GA, but I didn't look too deep into this. I suggested the TFA for today (DYK?) in memory of its great author. - Precious - it wasn't my invention, I only built on what others did before me. Phaedriel was the greatest, selecting a dedicated image and poem to each recipient. Rlevse was the one who held on to it the longest, and daily, until stubborn me came ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:35, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Gerda Arendt, i had admittedly not known that; how coincidental that is. i actually do sometimes look at a blurb's nomination to better understand how a blurb was drafted and to try to avoid editing against previously established consensus. to be honest, though, had i reviewed this nomination, the fact that you had nominated it would not have stood out to me, simply because you have contributed so much to that area that finding out that you were the nominator would seem rather normal.

yes, Phaedriel and Rlevse were also impressive in their administration of the award, but i think you're the one that has developed it into an institution, so my praise for you remains unqualified. dying (talk) 06:41, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, I accept blushing a bit. (I have a corner for that on my talk, but so far it only has entries from that talk.) With Shelley, I brought four bolded names to yesterday's Main page, - don't remember anything like it, blushing a bit more. Feel free to copy-edit my English anytime! In Freundschaft is up for GA, with a story. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:48, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

oh, Gerda Arendt, i appreciate the offer to work with you on getting an article to ga status, especially since i have been hoping to gain some experience in that area, but at the moment, i am running behind where i'd like to be on copyediting tfa blurbs, and have a few other tasks on wikipedia that i really should be completing, so i feel it would be irresponsible for me to commit to something else at this time. however, if i do find the time to return to itn/c, i'd be happy to help copyedit one of your nominations again. perhaps someday, we'll set your main page record to five! dying (talk) 08:33, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Congratulations on the precious award, dying. And also thanks for looking at TFAs in advance of them running. A much-needed service! Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 13:30, 6 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  thanks, Amakuru! happy to be of service. dying (talk) 15:01, 6 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Yes ... really good and consistent work. - Dank (push to talk) 13:58, 10 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've been here almost three years now, made 25,000 edits, and it never occurred to me to use a period in ((r)) tag names to organize multiple references from the same source until I saw your edit just now. Thank you for (unwittingly) teaching me this excellent method, I wish I'd learned it sooner! Levivich 17:14, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

thanks, Levivich, it makes me happy to know that you have found my editing style to be useful! dying (talk) 03:08, 9 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

On 8 September 2021, In the news was updated with an item that involved the article Tangerang prison fire, which you nominated and updated. If you know of another recently created or updated article suitable for inclusion in ITN, please suggest it on the candidates page.  – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 19:44, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Nice job!  – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 19:44, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

thanks, John M Wolfson! dying (talk) 03:13, 9 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Today's blurb: I'd prefer that you dial back some of the preposition edits a bit ... I've gotten a lot of feedback over the years where people objected to my changing their prepositions (such as changing "in 1924 and 1926") if they thought their meaning was reasonably clear. It's just something people feel strongly about sometimes. - Dank (push to talk) 15:38, 12 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  interesting. i don't recall changing prepositions often, so i had no idea about that. i had admittedly made the change noted because i had stumbled over the phrasing many times, and had thought the addition would be helpful, but i have no problems with my change being reverted, having noted that the change was "not strictly necessary". in the future, i will try to refrain from changing prepositions unless i think their use (or lack thereof) is actually erroneous. thanks for the advice, Dank! dying (talk) 04:00, 13 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  I might be confusing your edits with someone else's ... this is the only preposition edit I can find at the moment. - Dank (push to talk) 04:11, 13 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  no worries, Dank. even if they were someone else's edits, i think it's still good advice. dying (talk) 14:00, 13 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Raymond Pace Alexander (blurb):

  there were a few minor issues with this blurb that i had left alone, as i did not know if changes to address them were warranted, but i thought i might bring them up with you to determine if any changes should be made.

  • although the blurb refers to the "Wharton School of Business", the name of the school is "Wharton School" according to wharton.^[1] also, despite the wharton article stating that "Wharton Business School" is another name for the school, i have a vague memory of once having referred to the school by that name, and being corrected by someone affiliated with the university, so i would be hesitant to use it. i believe both "Wharton School of business" and "Wharton business school" would be technically correct, but may appear to be capitalized incorrectly by people unfamiliar with the school's name. i tried looking through the blurb archives to see if any precedent had been set, but could not find a previous reference to the school, even though its founder had been mentioned in two blurbs. one interesting alternative is to use the name "Wharton School of Finance and Commerce", which was the school's name in 1920 when alexander graduated.^[1]
  • the blurb does not consistently use "African-American" or "black". technically, being the first african-american judge to sit in certain courts has a different meaning than being the first black judge to sit in those courts. however, in this case, i am presuming that alexander was the first of either group to do so.
  • along the same lines, even though they are technically different descriptions, using both the phrases "the first African-American judge appointed to the Pennsylvania courts of common pleas" and "the first black judge to sit on the courts of common pleas" in the blurb feels repetitive.
  • the photo has a bit of white along its borders that has not been cropped out. it is not really visible to readers using a white background, but since a similar issue had been corrected recently, i thought i might bring it up.

  in any case, i think the blurb is fine as is, so nothing needs to be changed if you don't think anything should be. dying (talk) 04:00, 13 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  If you're happy with it as it is, let's go with that. - Dank (push to talk) 13:27, 13 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  sounds good. thanks for looking over my concerns. dying (talk) 14:00, 13 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Wikipedia:Today's featured article/September 18, 2021: If my edit summary says just "trimming", that only means that I'm removing something rather than changing or adding ... it doesn't necessarily mean I'm trying to reduce the character count. (In this case, I decided I didn't like my previous edit, which left two instances of "probably" in close succession, among other problems.) Now it's 924 characters, which is fine, but if you want to add something now that it's shorter, that's fine too. - Dank (push to talk) 14:27, 15 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  good to know, Dank. i had been wondering about those two instances of "probably" in quick succession. i was aware that i was moving them closer in my edit, but wasn't sure what else i could do to avoid it. i remember you questioning my replacement of "probably" with "likely" in the shelley blurb, and since you had replaced "likely" with "probably" in your earlier edit to the blurb, i had figured that you may have had good reason to do so.

  i had briefly considered whether it was appropriate to add how the discovery of the species led to a different understanding of how the ichthyosaurs became extinct, but i don't think this can be easily summarized in about 100 characters, so i think Wehwalt was right in removing it from the blurb. i also think the blurb is fine as it currently is. thanks for checking to see if there was anything that i wanted to add. dying (talk) 01:22, 16 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• William IV (blurb):

  Dank, the image currently being used for the blurb has a filename that suggests that it is a cropped version of another file. however, the latest edit to this image appears to have largely undone the original crop, replacing the earlier image with what appears to be, at the time, the latest version of the source file, but with four rows of pixels cropped out. since then, the source image has been replaced by a different version of the image that does not appear to be a simple retouching of the earlier version, differing enough from the image it replaced that i wonder if there were originally at least two copies of the portrait painted. (notice, for example, the difference in the placement of the cord in the background relative to the architectural elements of the arch. also, the initial version of both files appears to be yet another version of the portrait.) i found a copy of the latest version of the uncropped portrait on the site of the royal academy of arts, and the prior version on the site of the royal collection trust. i am bringing this up because i am assuming that the intention was to present a cropped version of the image with the blurb, while what is currently present is largely uncropped. also, both the accounts of the two editors who last revised the two images appear to now be globally locked for long-term abuse, so i don't know how reliable the two revisions made are.

  by the way, the data on commons states that the portrait was painted circa 1833, while the royal collection's copy is listed with a date range of 1833–1834, and the royal academy reports a date of 1835, so i don't know if it would be better to change the caption to read "c. 1833" or simply omit the year altogether. dying (talk) 03:16, 18 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  If a blurb is within 48 hours of hitting the Main Page, I'd prefer that you raise image issues at WP:ERRORS. People there like to hear about these things. - Dank (push to talk) 04:19, 18 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  good to know. i will raise these issues there. thanks, Dank. dying (talk) 05:00, 18 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Star Control 3 (blurb):

  Dank, i have included the full date of first publication in the blurb because the blurb date was chosen to commemorate the 25th anniversary of this date. i recognize that when a biographical article is featured on the anniversary of the subject's birth date or death date, the relevant full date is usually included in the blurb. however, i am not sure if the same applies to dates of first publication.

  i think this may be the most significant addition that i've made to a blurb that was not a direct result of either a correction or a clarification, so i wanted to make note of it, in case it was unwarranted. admittedly, there is now a slight imbalance since a full date is not similarly used for the mac os release, but no full date for the later publication was provided in the article. dying (talk) 03:57, 21 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Really fine work. - Dank (push to talk) 05:14, 21 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Wikipedia:Today's featured article/September 27, 2021: Two great edits there. Directional words: I get that there was a problem but I tried a different solution, what do you think? - Dank (push to talk) 13:23, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  oh, that's a good edit, Dank. i had thought about dropping the directional adjectives (such as "southwestern" and "northwestern"), as there were so many directions that i was confused after reading the sentence multiple times, despite actually knowing where ecuador and venezuela were. however, i did not want to remove any detail unilaterally. admittedly, it had not occurred to me to simply drop the "south and east" that was causing my confusion.

  by the way, should the "from" and "in" be swapped?

  Done. - Dank (push to talk) 01:43, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  the original text had used the construction "two species ... found in forests [range]", where the range was described as "from ... to ...". using the south and east directions simultaneously confused me, but i had attempted to keep the meaning behind their usage, so i had described the range by using "as [adjective] as ..." with three directions used as adjectives. in doing so, i had dropped the "from". i am assuming that you had meant to return to the original construction, but accidentally ended up using "two species ... found from forests [range]", with the range being described as "in ... to ...".

  the current wording could also be interpreted as using the construction "two species ... found [range]", with the range being described as "from forests in ... to (forests in) ...", with the parenthetical "forests in" implied, but i wasn't sure if this was deliberate. dying (talk) 00:02, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm mostly leaving the hard work for you, but I'm making a few edits that I hope will make your job easier. I'm making sure the length starts off between 925 and 1025 900 and 1050 characters (and then you can aim for anything between 900 and 1050). Other than that, I'm aiming to troubleshoot certain sorts of problems before they arise.

• Wikipedia:Today's featured article/October 2, 2021: My version: "The blackcap's range has been expanding, even though it is hunted in some countries." You occasionally hear the misconception that that's grammatically incorrect, because it's the blackcap that is hunted and not the blackcap's range. People who make that claim generally break their own rule without noticing it. (I believe Pinker says something similar in The Sense of Style; I should be able to find it if you're interested.) No one reads the sentence "Mary's dog whined all night while she was out of town" and starts from the assumption that the dog was out of town. Grammatically (in versions of the Cambridge Grammar, anyway), the referent is the genitive "Mary's", not "Mary's dog". (Of course, when any actual confusion is possible, then disambiguation of some kind is necessary.) - Dank (push to talk) 15:28, 16 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  a former housemate's cat vomited in our living room when she had health issues (the cat, not the housemate). i miss her (both the cat and the housemate).

  anyway, Dank, i agree with your edit; it is difficult to see someone misinterpreting this, unless they were doing so deliberately. dying (talk) 16:02, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Great edits on this one, btw. Clearly, I'm going to have to up my game. - Dank (push to talk) 16:44, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  thanks, Dank. actually, i think your game is already plenty great, as you regularly tackle copyediting issues that i have trouble with or do not dare touch. for example, in the recent transandinomys blurb, you were able to resolve the issue of confusing directional words far better than i did. of course, there is always room for improvement for all of us, but please don't feel pressured to up your game on account of me. dying (talk) 15:48, 1 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• One more thing ... I don't adopt the position of some Wikipedians of labeling certain self-described copyeditors as "pedants" and trying to prove that they're guilty of hypercorrection. If a lot of so-called pedants believe that X is wrong, then I'll generally make at least an effort to avoid saying X. Copyeditors are people too, and most of them are doing the best they can; I don't go out of my way to tweak their noses. Where I draw the line is the rare times when they're being hypocritical or inconsistent ... in those cases, I can't go along, because then I might look hypocritical or inconsistent. I'm not talking about you of course. - Dank (push to talk) 15:50, 16 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  i don't think i've ever seriously tried putting my view on pedantry into words, but i think your statement pretty much captures my position as well. i am generally pretty happy when an editor corrects an error in my writing that i may have overlooked, though when i think an edit is unnecessary and mostly addresses an issue of style not covered in wikipedia's manual of style, i'll just let it be, and try to avoid the issue in the future.

  that being said, i understand that where people draw the line for unnecessary pedantry varies, so i won't pretend that all my edits will fall on everybody's necessary side, or that an edit i personally think is unnecessary would also be considered unnecessary by others. i actually try to regularly question myself if i am being unnecessarily pedantic, as i think it is healthy to reevaluate one's position every so often. so, if you ever think any of my edits cross where you draw the line, please let me know, and feel free to revert them. your previous comments have not led me to suspect that you were talking about me, but i appreciate the addendum.

  by the way, whenever i use "to avoid interpretation that" in my comments, it is generally because i personally made that interpretation on my first reading. (if not, then i likely made it on my second reading.) in such cases, i know i'm not editing something simply for the sake of making a correction, as i had been misled by the earlier wording myself. however, just because i was misled doesn't mean that others would be, so these edits can be reverted too if they seem unnecessary. dying (talk) 10:32, 17 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Wikipedia:Today's featured article/October 3, 2021:I'll warn you if the character count strays outside 925 to 1025 ... this one is 1043. - Dank (push to talk) 02:30, 17 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Wikipedia:Today's featured article/October 4, 2021: I added "with some fossils indicating". That's a guess, but if they were talking about estimates, the numbers wouldn't usually be that precise. "likely": I left it alone; the likely/probably distinction isn't important to me. You can change it if you like. - Dank (push to talk) 19:58, 16 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  the volume actually appears to have been directly calculated from six specimens, with the range given being the range of those specimens (and not the estimated range of the subspecies), which explains the accurate measurements. i am not sure how best to word this, so i left your wording alone.

  by the way, there were additional specimens, but the article states that the range is for the specimens "for which the metric is calculable". also, there appears to have been at least two skulls with brain volumes outside of this range, but it is unclear if these specimens belong to the solo man subspecies, as it "depend[s] on classification". dying (talk) 04:30, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  In that case, I agree that the current wording works. - Dank (push to talk) 06:05, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Wikipedia:Today's featured article/October 14, 2021: Jargony, but I'm not a cricket fan so it's not up to me to figure out how much jargon is the right amount to keep the cricket folks happy. Opinions vary on whether the birth and death dates or years should be included (and whether they're better off in the first sentence or placed after "Ring" in the second sentence). - Dank (push to talk) 13:52, 17 September 2021 (UTC) If the blurb is running on the death date, we don't call attention to the date unless the death itself was notable for some reason. - Dank (push to talk) 20:04, 26 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Dank, this blurb is running on an anniversary of ring's birth date, not ring's death date. does this mean that we should consider including the date? admittedly, ring's birth itself does not seem notable (aside from the fact that ring was born). personally, i think it would be nice to include it for blurbs of biographical articles, but as this article is not wikipedia's biographical article on ring, but rather an article about ring's performance in 1948, i have no preference. also, i agree that the blurb is somewhat heavy on the cricket terminology, but i also hesitate to significantly change that. dying (talk) 06:35, 10 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  I asked the coords about this; we're no longer mentioning the birth date, even if that's the reason we're running the blurb on that day, unless the name of the page is the name of the person. This one is about something that person did. - Dank (push to talk) 14:43, 10 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  sounds good, Dank. also, i recently realized that, compared to other blurbs that require specialized knowledge, this blurb does not have many links. i had been thinking of adding a few, but these links would constitute a rather bold edit if added all at once, so i'd like to seek your opinion on them beforehand.

i believe i'm erring on the side of suggesting more than enough links, as i'm not sure what is obvious to the reader and what isn't. also, the last link is to the same article that is linked from "1948 team", but as the proposed link leads directly to a section of that article, i'm not sure if it violates mos:dl. dying (talk) 19:34, 11 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know enough about cricket to answer the question. @WP:TFA coordinators ... anyone? - Dank (push to talk) 19:40, 11 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know what to tell you; feel free to ask at WP:ERRORS if you like. - Dank (push to talk) 18:40, 12 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

no worries, Dank, they were merely suggestions. i don't think they are important enough to raise at wp:errors, though i appreciate the ping to the other coordinators to see if they thought adding these links would be an improvement. dying (talk) 20:25, 12 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I should have thought of this earlier: the best thing to do (and it would have been better if I had done it yesterday) is to broach the subject at ERRORS like I just did, and see if there's any discussion. Then if people appear open to the idea of adding links, that might be the best time to add them. - Dank (push to talk) 16:43, 13 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Dank, thanks for raising this issue at wp:errors. it got a much more positive response than i was expecting. i think this was a good way to approach the issue, and if i have a similar issue in the future that i think might be worth addressing, i'll try to remember this approach.

by the way, when you brought up the issue on wp:errors, you mentioned that you "w[ere]n't sure if [you] should say anything", and i wasn't sure if this was because i stated that i didn't think it was important enough for wp:errors. if that was indeed the case, please don't let that stop you in the future. i only didn't bring it up because i didn't think others would be interested in what i thought was a minor issue, but clearly i was wrong about that. so, if you think something is important enough for wp:errors, please feel free to raise it. dying (talk) 07:51, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Wikipedia:Today's featured article/October 24, 2021: 1044 characters. - Dank (push to talk) 03:31, 17 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  the sentence "It is distinguished from the other raptorial sperm whales by the basin on the skull, and how it spans the entire length of the snout." feels somewhat redundant to me. the other raptorial sperm whales all also appear to have had a supracranial basin, so the distinction is not that livyatan had one and the others did not; i believe the main difference was that livyatan had a supracranial basin that extended down the whole snout, while it did not in the other raptorial sperm whales.^[a] i believe the sentence "It is distinguished from the other raptorial sperm whales by how the basin on the skull spans the entire length of the snout." has the same intended meaning using eight fewer characters. i admittedly added one character to the length of the already long blurb with my edit, so this may compensate for it. dying (talk) 17:34, 20 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Very short answer: I recommend not making that edit. - Dank (push to talk) 17:49, 20 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  interesting; obviously, i'll be following your advice.

  by the way, i don't think i've made this clear before (largely because i didn't realize myself that this was happening until recently), but in general, once i've copyedited a blurb, i think i've pretty much made all the edits i'm comfortable with making myself. i might bring up some points for your consideration, but after noticing that you generally implement what you think is worth implementing, and suggest that i try wp:errors if you think a point may benefit from additional consideration, i've been pretty happy with letting you be the one to make any further edits. is that okay with you? dying (talk) 14:08, 21 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Sure, and if you have any issues with an edit I do or don't make, let me know. - Dank (push to talk) 14:56, 21 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Btw, I'm not in any hurry here, take as long as you like to edit or respond or neither. I'm doing my part (which is less than your part) for the whole month ... I should be finished tomorrow. - Dank (push to talk) 04:40, 17 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Dank, apologies for the delayed response. i had been composing the response above for your earlier comment, but admittedly ended up being distracted by something else. this is all good information. i will likely respond to each when i am working on the corresponding blurb, so that i have a better understanding of the context when replying. thanks for leaving these notes! dying (talk) 10:32, 17 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• I'm having some health problems, mainly with sleeping. I'm going to stop for now. I was making a list of October blurbs that were too long or too short (which I'm now taking to mean less than 900 or more than 1050): Oct 12, 19, 22, 26, 29. On the other dates, the length should be right. Feel free to ask questions whenever you like, and I'll get to them when I can. - Dank (push to talk) 22:39, 19 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Dank, sorry to hear that you are having issues with sleeping. your health takes precedence over wikipedia, so although i may continue to post any questions i have for you, please don't feel pressured to respond in a timely manner, or at all. if i think something is important enough that it should be addressed before the blurb appears on the main page, i'll raise it at wp:errors. hope you regain your health soon! dying (talk) 06:58, 20 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Thanks. Btw, in the future, if you see that a blurb is too short or too long, it may just mean that the blurb hasn't really been written yet ... sometimes waiting a while to see if anyone gets to it is the best course. - Dank (push to talk) 13:47, 20 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Wikipedia:Today's featured article/October 31, 2021: There are general rules that usually work for writing blurbs ... and then there are the blurbs where we're never going to be able to follow all the rules-of-thumb, such as this one. Please don't be offended if I revert some changes (by anyone) on this one ... I think discussion is the best way to proceed here (despite my own edits). - Dank (push to talk) 15:41, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Dank, i smiled in understanding when i saw the subject of the new blurb. by the way, i don't know if you've ever refrained from reverting any of my edits for fear of offending me, but please don't feel like that should be a concern. i think all of your reverts of my edits have been insightful so far, and from what i've seen of your edits in general, it is difficult to see myself getting offended by any in the future. dying (talk) 11:15, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  I'm feeling a bit down at the moment and needed that, thanks. - Dank (push to talk) 13:21, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  sorry to hear that you were down, though i'm happy to know that, due to serendipitous timing, i was able to cheer you up when you needed it. dying (talk) 16:02, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Dank, copyediting this was quite an unusual experience compared to the other blurbs. my heart rate rose even though all i did in my copyedit was completely trivial and pretty much unarguably an improvement. there has been so much discussion over the blurb that i was too afraid to touch anything else there.

  1. the caption and the title of the image do not match. is this acceptable? i think it's too trivial of a matter to bring up at wp:errors, considering the blurb's subject matter, so if you don't really have anything to say about it, i'm happy to leave it alone.
  2. "Climate change" is used as the subject for the first two sentences. would it help to replace the second instance with a pronoun? (cf. edit summary here.)
  3. i had been thinking about replacing "in line with the Paris Agreement ambitions requires" with "in line with the ambitions of the Paris Agreement requires". when parsing the former, i initially thought that the paris agreement was a noun (and the end of the noun phrase), so i may have tried parsing "ambitions" as a verb, which made no sense. then, i saw "requires", and i think at that point, i couldn't figure out what was a verb and what was the plural form of a noun anymore and just went back to the start of the sentence to give it another try. to be clear, i think the sentence is unambiguous. i simply thought it was more difficult to parse than was necessary.

  dying (talk) 13:43, 23 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Wikipedia:Today's featured article/October 5, 2021: "American leaders and some Native leaders": I'm not a fan of leaders ... leaders, but you'll probably do a better job investigating this than I would. - Dank (push to talk) 19:28, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't understand your hidden comment; there's no <abbr> tag at for instance Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 21, 2021 (a page that corresponds to one of the ids you gave). I think what probably happened was that (somewhere, sometime) one person added a template, then Ravenpuff subst'd the template to reduce the total number of transcluded templates on the Main Page, and <abbr> magically appeared from the code for the template. (And maybe after that, people thought that was the way it was supposed to be, and copied it.) Anyway: we haven't used html tags in blurbs for as long as I've been doing blurbs (or at least, until I became inactive at TFA in January); code meant for coders and machines is off-putting for humans who want to edit. I'll revert. (I don't have a preference whether we include the ((circa)) template or not, I'm only opposed to html tags.) - Dank (push to talk) 17:49, 2 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    oh, sorry about not having made that clear. i had only meant that abbr tags were used, not that they were used directly. i think they have generally been used indirectly via the circa template. i had only used the tags directly in order to emulate Ravenpuff's example of expanding templates used on main page blurbs, but i don't recall Ravenpuff expanding a circa template before, so the direct use of abbr tags is entirely my fault. (i had only understood the practice since this edit summary, which is why i had not been expanding circa templates before.) i believe we have consistently been using the abbr tags (via the circa template) for the first instance of "c." for at least since the start of 2020, so i had thought that adding them would make this blurb consistent with the others. in any case, i will try to avoid using html tags directly in blurbs in the future. thanks for letting me know, Dank! dying (talk) 04:30, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    Done. - Dank (push to talk) 06:13, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • Also ... I'm just going to get rid of the "alarmed" sentence if that's okay ... I don't think it adds much. Blurb length is good without it. - Dank (push to talk) 18:26, 2 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    i think that's a good idea. i agree that the repetition of "leaders" felt a bit clumsy, but could not figure out any alternative much better than replacing the second "leaders" with a pronoun. dying (talk) 04:30, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Sooner or later, someone's going to ask me why I keep referring to you as "them" (assuming you plan to keep working on blurbs, and I hope you do!) Do you have a pronoun preference? - Dank (push to talk) 17:34, 30 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  i have no preferred personal pronouns.

  when i was a child, i made up my own set of gender-neutral pronouns, having found the english custom of denoting gender in pronouns strange. (wikipedia did not exist at the time, so i had not known that other gender-neutral pronoun sets had existed before.) i had considered them a replacement for the gendered pronouns (as opposed to an alternative coexisting with them), but did not use them since i did not think any such set would be successfully adapted within my lifetime, and the point of my gender-neutral pronouns was to sidestep any gender issues, not highlight them if i was the only one using them. apparently, i might have foreseen the issues of the current debate over such pronouns, though i was wrong regarding how quickly our society would enter such a debate.

  so please feel free to use whatever pronouns you prefer for me. thanks for asking, though. i think you might have been the first to do so. dying (talk) 15:48, 1 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  I hear that the fashion these days is to ask about personal pronouns. OTOH, I resist the fashion (online) ... I think it's nosy, unless the person has signaled that they're open to the question. OTOOH, there will almost always be someone nosy enough on WP to ask eventually, and I like to be prepared. I'll use they/them unless otherwise directed. I go by "he", FWIW.^{[dubious – discuss]} - Dank (push to talk) 16:43, 1 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  oh, i personally had not considered it nosy, but simply thought it was interesting that i think that was the first time anyone has asked me the question. it seems natural for you to have asked it if you saw yourself referring to me by a pronoun in the future, and wanted to make sure you were not offending me by using a pronoun i did not approve of. admittedly, since i do not communicate online much outside of e-mail and wikipedia, and my e-mail correspondence is largely with people i know in real life, in retrospect, it makes sense that the first time the question would be posed to me would be on wikipedia. in real life, it is not uncommon for people to ask me if i am male or female, though the issue of pronoun preference seems to largely be ignored, at least in my experience. dying (talk) 04:30, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• I've still got health issues, good days and bad days, and you're making important edits almost every day that sometimes require feedback, so we've got a problem here. If you're comfortable with editing, say, a week's worth of blurbs at a time, I should be able to keep up. Otherwise, one of the other TFA coords may be able to help out here. - Dank (push to talk) 20:02, 2 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  oh, i am so sorry, i had not known that my edits had been causing you unnecessary stress! i am assuming that the issue is that the two-day buffer is too short, and not that i actually have to edit blurbs a week at a time, correct? if so, then if you give me a few days, i should be able to shift my (now-external) deadline to a week before the blurb appears on the main page. i can also simply jump ahead and start reviewing blurbs a week away, skipping those of the next few days, if that is a better alternative. dying (talk) 04:30, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  You're not causing any stress. Yes, editing a week ahead would work well for me. No need to skip any blurbs, you're doing fine. - Dank (push to talk) 06:13, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Wikipedia:Today's featured article/October 8, 2021: I don't know if my edit made sense, but I like to draw a line between facts and statements that have some element of interpretation or point of view ... for the latter, my position is that it's better to ping the FAC nominator before making an edit (and some prefer to post a question on the article talk page instead). In this case, at least four people have claims to being co-founders, so there's probably some element of POV or interpretation involved. - Dank (push to talk) 22:05, 5 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  thanks for the partial revert, Dank. you made a very good point that i had inadvertently overlooked. i had assumed that Shooterwalker had meant that both miller and whitehead were co-founders, since the article body stated that miller and whitehead "start[ed] Activision in October 1979". the cited gamasutra source actually appears to state that crane and miller were the ones who first started activision, and that whitehead and kaplan joined later, so i reasoned that if whitehead was considered a co-founder, it seems evident that miller would likely be considered one too. also, the activision article led me to believe that miller's status as a co-founder was not in question. in any case, to be on the safe side, i had reworded the blurb to be noncommittal regarding exactly how many co-founders the company had, in case there was something that i was missing. (a simpler revision to "who had both previously co-founded Activision" may have more strongly suggested that there were only two co-founders.)

  however, because who the co-founders of a company were is often the subject of acrimonious dispute, and what seems evident in such disputes may be subject to interpretation (since, as you state, "who the 'founders' were tends to be a truth that shifts over time"), i agree that i should have been more cautious and raised this issue in a discussion before determining if such an edit was appropriate. this was an error on my part, not having thought through the nature of claims of being a company's co-founder.

  admittedly, i think the wording as it stands is fine, since i believe the blurb remains correct under the interpretation that "who had previously co-founded Activision" applies only to whitehead, since it is agnostic regarding whether miller is considered a co-founder or not. i had only made the edit to clarify something that i now am not sure was clear in the first place. do you think we should raise this issue with Shooterwalker? dying (talk) 05:27, 6 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  I don't have a preference. Good work. - Dank (push to talk) 14:11, 6 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  thanks, Dank. actually, during this past day, i have been wavering between bothering Shooterwalker with this concern and leaving the blurb as is since i believe it is technically correct. i've now decided to ping Shooterwalker, largely because i know that if another editor had a good faith suggestion for me, i would probably be interested in hearing it and wouldn't personally be bothered myself. (by the way, i'm still impressed by how beautifully worded the phrase "a truth that shifts over time" is, and am surprised that google returns no results for the phrase.)

  Shooterwalker, apologies for troubling you regarding your blurb on accolade so shortly before it is to appear on the main page, but i had a little trouble when reading the noun phrase "Alan Miller and Bob Whitehead, who had previously co-founded Activision", and thought i might bring it up with you. i had interpreted the phrase to mean that whitehead was a co-founder before i realized that it could also mean that miller was one too. i made what i thought was an edit to clarify this before Dank reverted it, pointing out that an edit of this nature should probably be discussed beforehand. details can be found above and in the blurb's history. (i want to make clear that, despite there being a revert, there is no disagreement here, and i fully agree with the revert. Dank has been nice enough to spend some time to review my blurb edits, and sometimes i make mistakes.) in short, i had three questions.

  1. did you mean to state that both miller and whitehead were co-founders of activision?
  2. if so, are you confident in stating that they are still considered co-founders of activision?
  3. if so, would an alternate wording better serve your purpose? i had come up with "both previously co-founders of Activision", but don't know if you think it is an improvement.

  in any case, please don't feel rushed to address these questions, as i think the blurb is currently fine as is. dying (talk) 13:51, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Hey guys, just finding this now. Thanks for the ping. I suppose if you wanted to be completely accurate, "who were among the co-founders of Activision" or "who were two of the co-founders of Activision." I'm not sure what's appropriate in terms of grammar, except to say, Activision had a few co-founders, they were a subset, and they split off to form their own company. If it helps, it's more or less spelled out at the top of this article.[1] I'm juggling a lot this week but I realize that this is going up soon, so feel free to ping me again to get my attention. Shooterwalker (talk) 14:30, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  thanks, Shooterwalker. my previous rewording had been chosen to roughly preserve the character count, but now that the logo has been resized in the blurb, i believe it might be better to include a few more words to be more clear. between your two possibilities, i'd prefer the latter as it avoids the issue of "among" versus "amongst". Dank, thoughts? dying (talk) 15:27, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  No preference with this one. - Dank (push to talk) 15:31, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Shooterwalker, i admittedly have a preference to "who were two of the co-founders of Activision" over "who had previously co-founded Activision", mostly because i was confused by the current wording. i gather that you believe the "two of" version is more accurate than the "who had" version, but am not sure if you have a preference over which to use in the blurb. if you have no preference or prefer the "who had" version, i'll just chalk my confusion up to me being ditzy, but if you have a preference to use the "two of" version, hopefully Dank will see this and make the appropriate change. (i cannot add it myself, as i'm not an administrator.) dying (talk) 17:41, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  If you two agree, I can make the change. - Dank (push to talk) 17:52, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  I prefer fewer words where possible, and I'm not even partial to the suggestions I just made. The current wording was already clear to me, but I could see how someone less familiar with the topic might have questions. It's the kind of thing that would just invite someone to read the article, if they really wanted to know exactly the connection between Activision and Accolade. I defer to you, if that's okay. Shooterwalker (talk) 19:11, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Okay, so what do we like? - Dank (push to talk) 19:58, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Dank, as Shooterwalker finds the current wording already clear, let's leave it as is. thanks for your time and input, Shooterwalker! dying (talk) 22:26, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Eastern brown snake (blurb):

  Dank, i am skeptical about the accuracy of the snakebite fatalities statistic. the source cited, a study by the australian snakebite project (asp), appears to qualify its statistic of 19 deaths by noting that these were only the deaths that were recorded by the asp^[b] where "[t]he snake type was accurately determined".^[c] in fact, box 3 of the asp source includes a further four deaths that were recorded by the national coronial information system. in addition, a quick comparison between the list linked in the blurb and box 3 of the asp source shows that many deaths are missing from both lists.^[d] i don't know if it is worth it to qualify the statement of the statistic appropriately without going into a level of detail that may be inappropriate for a main page blurb,^[e] but since you state that "[t]here are other options", is there another option that you think would be more appropriate?^[f]

  also, i was originally thinking of replacing "meters" with "m", to conform with the article lead and to avoid the issue of "meters" versus "metres", but had then realized that you had changed it from "m" to "meters" yourself. i see that another editor has already brought up the issue of using the australian spelling, so although that point now appears to be moot, i am still interested in whether there are any standards when it comes to expanding (or abbreviating) units in blurbs. for example, is there a general preference to expand "m", or is it a case-by-case determination? are there similar preferences for "ft" or other units? also, i am currently assuming that, if there is such a preference, it only applies to units not in parentheticals, as "ft" remains abbreviated in this blurb.

  apologies for bringing these issues up so soon before the blurb appears on the main page. i had quickly typed up some notes on the issues and resolved to address them after i had gone over the asp source one more time to make sure i wasn't missing anything, but i have obviously been distracted by other blurbs since. i might bring the first issue up on wp:errors if you don't have the time to address it properly, though the second issue can obviously wait. dying (talk) 13:00, 8 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Hurricane Fay (blurb):

  Dank, is there a reason why this article is being featured so soon after the last time it was featured, about four months ago? admittedly, i do not know much about the scheduling process, but i have noticed that articles are sometimes featured for a second time on an anniversary of a date important to the subject of the article. however, i do not recall an article featured twice in such a quick succession before (aside from nick drake). also, i noticed that hurricane fay is listed on wp:fadc, but am not sure if the list is considered current. personally, i do not mind if a blurb is featured for a second time so soon after the first, but i thought i might ask to better understand the scheduling process. dying (talk) 01:13, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Oops, thanks for catching that. Pinging @WP:TFA coordinators . This TFA ran in June. - Dank (push to talk) 01:16, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  oh, in case you weren't aware, a note at the bottom of Jimfbleak's talk page currently states that Jimfbleak is on vacation. dying (talk) 13:51, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Dank, i edited the hurricane fay blurb on the assumption that it will run again, since i am not sure if i'll have the time to edit a replacement blurb. as i've already edited a hurricane fay blurb before, i'm simply replicating the same edit i made for the previous blurb. also, as this blurb's date appears to have been chosen because it is the anniversary of fay's evolving into a subtropical storm, i am assuming that this date should be explicitly mentioned somewhere in the blurb. i did not add the date myself, since this would be a significant addition to the blurb, and i did not want to do so unilaterally. there also may be a mos:egg concern with "1987", though simply including "in" in the link text may violate mos:seaofblue. one alternative i'd suggest is "Emily landed in 1987", though i'm not sure if this wording is better. dying (talk) 17:34, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Thanks ... my guess is Fay won't run. - Dank (push to talk) 17:37, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Hurricane Rosa (2018) (blurb):

  Dank, i noticed that the article is part of a featured topic, so have added a link to the featured topic in the blurb. however, i am not sure when topics are linked and when they are not. are there any relevant guidelines to follow? feel free to revert me if that change was inappropriate. by the way, the extra length due to the addition of the featured topic link pushed the blurb to just under 1050 characters.

  also, i am not positive that rosa is the "first tropical cyclone to make landfall in Baja California since 1997".^[g] the sources cited, azcentral and mercurynews, appear to discuss storms as they relate to the southwestern united states, not as they relate to baja california. looking through the List of Baja California Peninsula hurricanes, i found that hurricane juliette apparently "ma[de] landfall in northeastern Baja California" in 2001. this statement appears appropriately sourced, and can easily be confirmed by looking at a map provided by the noaa. i am not sure how this storm was missed previously, but it seems possible that it was overlooked because it had made landfall in baja california sur first, and by the second time it made landfall, the storm was weak enough that it was largely ignored. however, i hesitate to replace "1997" with "2001" because my reasoning is clearly original research, and i have no source to back up this modified claim. admittedly, i'm not even sure that juliette was the most recent storm before rosa to make landfall in the state, since i don't know if the list of hurricanes i worked off of is complete.

  one possibility is to replace the statement with the claim that the hurricane was "one of only a few tropical cyclones to make landfall in Baja California during the last few decades". this statement still reeks of synth, and i don't know enough about reliable sources for pacific hurricane seasons to source this claim properly, but at least i'm fairly confident about that statement. alternatively, the statement can simply be removed altogether, since the blurb's length is now near the hard upper limit anyway. dying (talk) 23:41, 8 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Sorry, I'm not going to be able to help with these. Hopefully I'll be back online in a couple of days. - Dank (push to talk) 03:44, 9 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  no worries, Dank. i'll post the concern regarding the year of the previous landfall in baja california to wp:errors, but the question about featured topics can wait. dying (talk) 08:36, 9 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• "Home" (blurb):

  this issue is somewhat unusual, as it deals with a discrepancy between the blurb and the article, but i believe the article is incorrect, and not the blurb. i don't think it's important enough for you to address until after you're back, but also don't think it's important enough to raise at wp:errors, so i'm mentioning it on the off-chance that you're back before the blurb leaves the main page.

  recently, the article has been edited to state that the episode had not received "a viewer discretion warning for graphic content", contrary to the last statement in the current blurb. the editor's reasoning is that the tv parental guidelines were not in effect at the time of the episode's airdate. however, sources have led me to believe that viewer discretion advisories existed before the tv parental guidelines did. unfortunately, i don't have access to the offline sources originally cited, and the editor who made the recent changes did not provide any sources that i could review, but i did find an latimes source which states that the episode was the first of the series to carry the advisory, as well as a upenn source from 1994, years before the episode's airdate, which states that each episode of the television series nypd blue had been preceded with the advisory.^[h] admittedly, though, i am not familiar enough with television in the u.s. to know if my interpretation of the sources is correct, so i'm going to leave this issue alone.

  i also have a separate question about the image, but will bring it up at wp:errors as you requested. dying (talk) 08:36, 9 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Viewer discretion warnings occasionally ran in those years on American TV. I don't see a problem here yet. - Dank (push to talk) 19:22, 9 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Dank, the blurb states that the episode aired with a warning, while the article states that the episode did not. i admittedly see a problem, but am not sure if it needs to be resolved. by "I don't see a problem here yet", do you mean that the discrepancy does not need to be resolved? dying (talk) 06:09, 10 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Have you found a source for the statement? Is anyone arguing in favor of the statement? If not, I don't plan on investigating further. - Dank (push to talk) 14:39, 10 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  sounds good. i was just worried that i was missing something significant, since those edits hadn't been reverted. thanks for looking it over. dying (talk) 19:34, 11 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Wikipedia:Today's featured article/October 16, 2021

People have generally over the years tolerated some divergence between the blurb and the article lead, but Duncan objected strongly to "eight decades" vs. "seven decades" in today's blurb, and I think he's probably not alone in that opinion. I admit a little hypocrisy here ... my edits have tended to the the kind that haven't directly contradicted the previous text, but sometimes I've strayed into that territory. In cases where the blurb appears to directly contradict the article, it's not going to surprise me if the voices at ERRORS get louder on this issue over time, if they perceive that edits are being made that aren't taking feedback like Duncan's into account. For tomorrow's blurb: "1955" vs. "1960" seems jarring. There are no black and white rules, but things that people have asked for in the past have included:

Notifying the FAC nominator of the change by a note on their user talk page ... User:DrGregMN in this case

Posting a note on the article's talk page

Giving people enough time to do what they need to do ... they might not still have the source they used originally, and might not be watching Wikipedia every day, for various reasons. - Dank (push to talk) 14:40, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Making changes to the article lead first and seeing if anyone reverts or discusses it, before changing the blurb. (This has been a handy rule of thumb in the past ... people haven't been bringing it up recently, but if we get more comments like Duncan's, then I'm guessing people will start asking for that again.) - Dank (push to talk) 15:40, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm reverting the change from 1960 to 1955, because I don't think there's been enough time to discuss it, and a case could be made for 1960 ... namely, the census is a stronger source in general, and even if an author knows that one person left at a specific time doesn't mean that we can know for sure that no one returned after that. It's an interesting question, and I'm not confident that we'll be able to get it resolved in the next few hours. Of course, if the change is made to the article text and isn't reverted, then please let me know and I'll be happy to change the blurb to 1955. - Dank (push to talk) 15:14, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

i'm fine with letting the original wording stand, as the wording remains technically correct, though possibly misleading (in the same way that "tecumseh lived between 1800 and 2000" is technically correct, though possibly misleading), and i admittedly don't think it is important enough to ask DrGregMN for such a quick turnaround at this point. i think i had thought that the year may have been simply copied from the statement about the census at the end of the lead's first paragraph, with the "by" before the year accidentally overlooked.

i agree that the u.s. census is generally a strong source, though in this case (assuming that this cited source is the source used for the 1960 census), the census's only direct mention of manganese appears to be in footnote 16 on page 25-26 (page 26 of the pdf), where it states "Manganese village disincorporated and area annexed to Wolford township"; since the township is listed as having a population of 67 (on page 25-18 (page 18 of the pdf), on the left, listed under crow wing county), this does not appear to confirm that manganese was uninhabited in 1960.

interestingly, the sutherland source i mentioned was used by the article to support the statement that "Most of the remaining residents moved out around 1955.", although the source itself actually states that all of them moved out in 1955. the source also states that most of them moved out in 1954, so these two statements in the source may have been accidentally conflated (or perhaps purposefully so, considering the use of the word "around").

by the way, i encountered a few other issues that seemed worthy to mention. i think the first point is somewhat important, while everything else is rather minor.

1. "ore-producing unit" was linked to Geological formation in response to this featured article review edit, but i am unsure if it is the best article to link. geological formations are relevant to the subject of the article, and a stratigraphic column is included in the article, but, given that "ore-producing" is part of the linked text, i would have assumed that the ore-producing nature of the unit would have been highlighted in the linked article. however, the "geological formation" article appears to focus on how rocks are formed, and does not appear to mention ores explicitly at all, so instead of finding myself at an article discussing how the rock produced ore, i found myself at an article discussing how the earth produced the rock that will produce ore. one possible replacement is a link to ore#Ore deposits, a section that discusses such deposits that is followed by a discussion on how to extract the ore.
2. i was surprised to find that "U.S. state" was linked. is this a case of overlinking? recent earlier instances of the phrase (or the phrase "US state") in blurbs do not seem to link it, as seen in the blurbs for hurricane rosa, m-1, achelousaurus, and interstate 296.
3. it seemed like a link to manganese was warranted, so i linked the first instance of the word "manganese" (being used to refer to the element), as was done in the lead. alternatively, i think "the mineral" could be linked instead, even though this wasn't done in the lead.
4. "United States" is used in this blurb, even though the abbreviation "U.S." had already been used. i do not know if this was left unabbreviated deliberately, so have left it alone. are there any relevant guidelines regarding leaving a previously abbreviated term unabbreviated in a blurb? personally, i have no issue with them, but simply do not recall seeing one before in a blurb.

apologies for not having brought these points up earlier. i am seriously falling behind schedule, and am trying to prioritize increasing the buffer for now over raising smaller issues. there are some other possible issues in the next two blurbs, but i'll only raise one issue here for now, and let you decide whether or not you want to take action regarding it. there is a discrepancy between the blurb and the article body regarding the release date of the first issue of lazarus. i believe the article body is correct, but both sources cited do not appear to support the stated publication date (or mention it at all). this source, though a primary one, supports the article body's date. i suspect that there are reliable secondary sources, but have not seriously looked into it. dying (talk) 07:51, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In general, primary sources are acceptable for release dates. - Dank (push to talk) 13:24, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

No objection to delinking Geological formation; no opinion on other links. "U.S. state" should never be linked. "United States" vs. "U.S." vs. "US" vs. nothing is often problematic; there's no general advice. - Dank (push to talk) 13:27, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

And btw, for the blurb that's on the Main Page right now, if I had seen these things yesterday, I would have delinked "U.S. state" and changed "the United States" to "the country". I don't like to make changes when something is live unless the changes feel important. - Dank (push to talk) 18:05, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

And (I know it's a lot of little rules to keep track of ... feel free not to!), since we were recently talking about when and how to mention countries ... note that tomorrow's blurb starts off "a semiaquatic rodent occurring from southernmost Texas south to northwestern Colombia", without mentioning the U.S. The rule in my head here only requires the mention of one country ... you can get by not mentioning the other one if the other one is clear from context, and it is, because the state is very well known, and the country has to be north of Colombia. In my experience, we can generally survive WP:ERRORS with that much. - Dank (push to talk) 18:12, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Dank, i completely understand the reluctance to edit a blurb that is already on the main page. i think for now (at least until i get the buffer up to a week), i'll raise issues with you without looking seriously into the matter, in the hopes that they'll at least be addressed in time if deemed important enough.

also, i agree with you regarding not needing to state that texas is in the united states. however, i think the country should probably be added to the war memorial blurb, as i think it's really unclear to a reader unfamiliar with the context. if character limits were not a concern, i would add "the English city of" before "Portsmouth". what do you think?

also, i don't mind trying to keep track of a lot of little rules, as i think it's better to be aware of them than to attempt to infer them and accidentally violating them, so please feel free to mention any little relevant rules that come to mind. dying (talk) 23:49, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Wikipedia:Today's featured article/October 17, 2021

For a change that you have reason to believe people have already supported somewhere, such as "probably breeds year-round", you probably have a choice: you can make the change to the article text directly and leave a note in the edit summary or on the article talk page giving your reasons, or you could leave a note on the article talk page first stating your intention to make the change to both the article text and the blurb text. - Dank (push to talk) 15:26, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

this is a good point; i am still thinking about how i would go about addressing such changes. two quick points about the blurb:

1. i'm not entirely sure why "buff" was replaced with "brownish". if it was because "buff" is linked to a wiktionary article in the lead, i believe Ravenpuff has previously resolved this by linking to the appropriate wikipedia article. if it was because "brownish" is a word likely more familiar to our readers, then an argument could also be made to use "yellowish" instead, as the wikipedia article states that buff is "a light brownish yellow, ochreous colour".
2. from the taxonomy section, i can see why someone who studies rodents may state that there is "much geographic variation", though i don't know if using "much" is appropriate for an uninitiated blurb reader.

dying (talk) 23:49, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Not done; this one is already live. - Dank (push to talk) 00:37, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Dank, understood; i obviously didn't expect a quick turnaround for this. the first point was actually meant more as a question for future reference, as "buff" has appeared in a number of blurbs, though i probably should have more clearly phrased it as a question. dying (talk) 00:58, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Lazarus (blurb):

  Dank, two minor points:

  1. i have generally found mos:seaofblue to not be strongly enforced for the first few sentences of article leads, though it seems to be pretty evenly applied on blurbs. if so, should either one of the links in "dystopian science fiction" be dropped, or both replaced by something more appropriate? if the latter, i thought either a link to the article Utopian and dystopian fiction or its section Utopian and dystopian fiction#Dystopian fiction seemed appropriate, even though they technically also cover dystopian fiction that is not science fiction.
  2. i could not figure out why "collected into" was replaced with "published in". to someone unfamiliar with comics, i am assuming that the latter may suggest that the monthly issues were also published in paperback and hardcover formats.

  dying (talk) 00:21, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Done. - Dank (push to talk) 00:37, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• John, King of England (blurb):

  Dank, a question, and then three points:

  • should "the death itself was notable for some reason" (in the earlier statement regarding death dates) be construed to consider "the manner of death" rather than "the death itself"? obviously, the death of a monarch of england is likely considered notable under any circumstances. the notability of the manner of death, however, is questionable, as john died of dysentery while on campaign during the first barons' war. it is less notable than dying in battle, but more notable than dying of old age.

  1. i partially addressed this in my earlier edit of the blurb, but in addition to william ix, count of poitiers, henry ii also had illegitimate sons. the article on henry ii mentioned that he "had several illegitimate children", and lists geoffrey and william as "amongst the most prominent",^[i] but does not give an explicit number of sons he had in total. should their existence be taken into consideration by, for example, adding "legitimate" after "surviving"?
  2. i had significant trouble parsing the third sentence because "then absent on the Third Crusade" is a postmodifying phrase modifying a noun in a premodifying phrase. i don't know if i'm the only one having trouble with it, but if rephrasing it is warranted, the sentence "After King Richard died, John became king, despite having rebelled against him when Richard was away on the Third Crusade." avoids the awkward construction.^[j] also, i think "against him" can be dropped, but had kept the phrase to parallel the original sentence.
  3. i've noticed that, for images appearing with biographical blurbs, the caption (if there is one) will generally not mention that the image is a depiction^[k] if it is a known depiction of the subject of the blurb.^[l] the image accompanying this blurb is captioned as an effigy of the king. an effigy is a depiction, so if this image was an image of an effigy of the king, i would assume the caption is sufficient, and possibly even not necessary. however, this image appears to be an image of a depiction of an effigy of the king. (photographs of the effigy can be seen here.) should the caption note that this is a depiction of the effigy, and not the effigy itself? alternatively, since a depiction of a depiction of a subject can still be a depiction of the subject, i also see nothing wrong with simply dropping the caption.

  by the way, while reviewing this blurb, i learned that louis viii of france had been proclaimed king louis i of england during john's reign, only to later agree that he was never king of england in the treaty of lambeth about a year later. what an interesting truth that has shifted over time! dying (talk) 07:47, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Since I've asked the coords about the death date already for this one, I'd rather not ask again ... let's wait until the next time this comes up. The phrase "illegitimate children" has fallen out of fashion, even though of course its historical meaning is not meant to be inflammatory. "There is no such thing as illegitimate children, only illegitimate parents." "surviving sons of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine" seems clear to me. I think you make a good point about "absent", so I reworded to use "away". Although this sentence doesn't appear in the lead word for word, a longer sentence with the same basic structure does, so I'd prefer to leave the rest of it alone if that works for you. The caption question can be handled at WP:ERRORS. - Dank (push to talk) 14:53, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

of course, no worries about the death date concern. also, i'm glad that you brought up the concern over the term "illegitimate children". i had felt that there was something i was overlooking, but i couldn't figure out what that was. you're also right about the current phrasing being clear now. i was looking so hard for issues (ha!) that might not have been taken into account that i was ignoring the fact that a standard reading of that phrase would assume that the sons are sons of both named parents. anyway, i'll bring the caption issue up at wp:errors. thanks, Dank! dying (talk) 15:59, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• MLS Cup 1996 (blurb):

  i don't know whether the "the" should be added to the linked text in the "1996 season" link. the link leads to a specific instance of a 1996 season, but i doubt many readers would think that the current link would go to a page that covers all seasons of 1996. dying (talk) 15:59, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In general, I don't want to get involved in arguments over what should or shouldn't be included in a link. Do whatever you like ... ask someone else, or bring it up at ERRORS, or (my favorite choice) do nothing. - Dank (push to talk) 16:23, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

sounds good. doing nothing was my default solution for this one, but i didn't know if you had any additional insight. i'll avoid bothering you with similar issues in the future if i think they aren't that important. dying (talk) 16:48, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Smooth newt (blurb):

  this one has a few minor issues, but since the blurb is already near the maximum length, and addressing these issues may result in adding to the length, i was worried about doing so without additional feedback.

  1. "widespread in much of Eurasia" seems a bit inappropriate if this is the distribution of the species. it's definitely widespread in europe, but asia is nearly five times the size of europe, and the newt is only really present in western asia and a bit of central asia. perhaps "widespread in much of Europe and parts of western Asia" would be more appropriate. simply dropping the reference to asia would work too.
  2. "is introduced to Australia" sounds a bit off to me, but i don't know if this is perhaps an engvar issue. to me, "has been introduced to Australia" sounds better if "introduced" is interpreted as a past participle, and "is introduced in Australia" if "introduced" is interpreted as an adjective.
  3. adult newts apparently can live up to 20 years in captivity, so the statement "adults can live up to 14 years" may be more accurate if qualified by the phrase "in the wild", assuming there is space for it. alternatively, "14" can simply be replaced with "20" if there is no need to point out that this was observed in captivity.

  dying (talk) 09:39, 19 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'll change "can live" to "live" and add "introduced species". Since the first point depends on an interpretation of an image, I'd rather that you raise that at ERRORS. The main problem with animal lifespans at TFA is that most readers have intuitions that are based on how human lifespans work; in the wild, it's common for individuals of a species to have vastly differently lifespans, even when nothing eats them and they're basically healthy. Because many readers will misunderstand "live up to x years", it might be better not to mention lifespans at all at TFA. But I'd rather not invite a discussion on this right now. - Dank (push to talk) 16:03, 19 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

oh, good point; i will plan to raise the eurasia issue there then. thanks for addressing my other points. admittedly, i don't think i've ever thought that deeply about stating lifespans in tfa blurbs before, but i agree with your insight. by the way, i thought your dropping the "can" was a great edit, effectively addressing my point while also shortening the blurb. dying (talk) 21:36, 19 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

should i be sending a ping to the nominator whenever i post something to wp:errors? in the past, i have assumed that people simply posted their concerns and a responding administrator would send a ping whenever it was appropriate. i didn't want to violate that by sending a ping to a nominator presumptively, but i also don't want to avoid my duty if one should send a ping when posting a concern, but administrators usually ended up sending the ping simply because most people weren't familiar with the practice. dying (talk) 14:53, 21 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

For now, don't ping, and if someone complains, I'll take the blame. All things considered, that's probably safer. - Dank (push to talk) 15:13, 21 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

that's really gracious of you, Dank. thanks. dying (talk) 16:09, 22 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Hoopoe starling (blurb):

  would it be helpful to link "introduced species"? i believe every instance of the phrase's use in blurbs since 2018 appears to have had it linked. obviously, it was linked in the blurb for smooth newt. others include the blurbs for durrell's vontsira, cactus wren, snoring rail, and cape sparrow. dying (talk) 14:08, 21 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

You don't have to do this much work to justify your choices (especially, linking choices) ... usually, either I'll agree with you or it won't be a burning issue for me. Your call. - Dank (push to talk) 15:27, 21 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

sounds good, Dank, thanks. dying (talk) 16:09, 22 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• 1989 (blurb):

  ideally, would "1989" in the featured topic link not be in italics? i've often seen things normally written in italic type being written in roman type if it is part of a longer string of text that is written in italic type. i don't know if this is covered in the mos, but i've seen it practiced on wikipedia before. the tfafull template currently doesn't seem to support this, but i'd be up for modifying it if you think doing so is worthwhile, but don't feel like coding it yourself. (obviously, i'd ask you to make the actual edit to the template, as it's fully protected.) dying (talk) 14:08, 21 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Even though reverse italics (i.e normal font in place of italics and italics in place of the normal font) are somewhat standard in these situations in the publishing industry, we've found that they confuse many Wikipedia readers ... so generally if something should be italicized for two different reasons, I italicize it. OTOH, if people would like to change the FT format so that we use normal italics for the name of the topic [1989 (Taylor Swift album)], I'd have no objection. But beware: you can get pushback for even bringing up questions like this ... some editors think of the question as too geeky, and others think of it as above our paygrades. So generally, if no one is complaining, I don't raise questions of font or punctuation. It doesn't bother me a bit if other people raise the questions, though. - Dank (push to talk) 15:27, 21 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

you're right; that template is probably best left alone absent a request to change it. i should have realized this when i looked through the template's history while surveying how difficult it would be to implement the change. some time ago, i had the same idea as you did regarding the lack of a space before the ellipsis, and felt really bad for the pushback you had received, since i had thought that your edit was justified. since then, i had admittedly forgotten that you were the one who had did it, so you can imagine my surprise when i looked through the history again! anyway, if you ever feel like adding the space back in, you will at least have my support, for what it's worth. in the meantime, i'm also fine with leaving the reverse italics issue alone.

by the way, thanks for bringing up the term "reverse italics". i vaguely remember encountering the term before, but couldn't recall the term, since the topic comes up so rarely in normal conversation. dying (talk) 16:09, 22 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• 1920–21 Cardiff City F.C. season (blurb):

  Dank, i feel that this blurb may be suffering from some jargon issues not unlike those found in the recent cricket blurb. i think your edit that replaced one instance of "side" with "team" was a good idea, though i think it could still benefit from some more work. most glaring to me was the statement "a fixture clash forced them to field a reserve side". though i understood it, it may sound unintelligible to someone unfamiliar with football.

  1. i think linking "reserve side" to reserve team is a simple way to make it more clear that "side" means "team" without actually replacing the term, and may also help readers unfamiliar with reserve teams.
  2. there appears to be enough detail in the lead to suggest to a reader what the term "fixture clash" means. however, this detail has been dropped in the blurb. i had been considering replacing the term with "scheduling conflict", which better follows mos:commonality practices, but hesitated to do so because the nominator clearly likes using the word "fixture", as its overuse was noted during review. there's also the possibility of linking "fixture" to Glossary of association football terms#F, but i am not sure if that solves the problem, as "clash" could be misinterpreted if it isn't clear that it was based on scheduling.^[m] alternatively, "fixture clash" could simply be added to the glossary, and then linked to in the blurb. admittedly, i don't really know what the best thing to do here is, and if you choose to do nothing, that's fine with me.
  3. my mind thinks "with" should be added before "Billy Hardy playing in the most games", while leaving it as is would be considered acceptable but informal. however, i don't know if this is simply a mos:engvar issue.
  4. "Pontypridd" links to Pontypridd F.C., an article about an amateur welsh football club that appears to have been founded in 2018. although it was inspired by the professional football club mentioned in the blurb, i think it may technically be a different team.^[n] however, i left it alone because additional details about the professional team are mentioned in the linked article, and i cannot suggest a better link.^[o]

  dying (talk) 13:43, 23 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• "Rejoined" (blurb):

  1. the blurb states that this episode is the sixth of the fourth season, although the article lead and infobox states that it is the fifth. i believe the discrepancy is due to the season premiere of the fourth season being a double-length episode. it appears to be aired as two separate episodes in syndication. the edit summary here states that startrek.com considers "rejoined" the fifth episode. memory alpha labels it "4x06", having labelled the season premiere "4x01/02". wikipedia's own list of episodes for that season considers "rejoined" the sixth episode.
  2. terry farrell is not mentioned in the text at all, despite being pictured and her character being mentioned in the text. the blurb is also missing the usual "(pictured)", and i am not sure if this is because farrell is not mentioned. is this unusual, or is this perfectly acceptable and happens every so often? i'm not sure if this is considered an image issue, but i can bring it up at wp:errors instead if you'd prefer.

  dying (talk) 13:43, 23 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

military history

• Yugoslav monitor Drava (blurb):

  1. this edit summary seems to state that the featured article is part of a good topic, and not a featured topic. however, the talk page for the article states that it is "part of the Ships of the Royal Yugoslav Navy series, a featured topic" [emphasis removed], and the wp:ft page also includes a link to the featured article. in addition, the talk page for the topic also states that it is currently a featured topic. i am assuming the discrepancy is due to the blurb having originally been drafted in early 2020, while the topic was promoted from good topic to featured topic in late 2020, according to this issue of the bugle.
  2. i found an image of the ship, and plan on asking wp:errors if using it would be more appropriate than using one of sms inn, a ship of the same class, but apparently with a significantly different design, and built by a completely separate company.

  dying (talk) 13:43, 18 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Gog, I've added the FT language, but now it needs trimming ... 1065 characters. - Dank (push to talk) 14:07, 18 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Dan, done. (1,002) Gog the Mild (talk) 14:23, 18 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Wikipedia:Today's featured article/October 23, 2021: Generally, someone will complain if a blurb doesn't mention a country somewhere (if the subject of the blurb has a strong connection to some place) ... some will complain if it's not in the first sentence, but it's generally fine if it appears somewhere in the first two sentences. It's more of an art than a science to figure out the most natural place to mention the country. - Dank (push to talk) 03:15, 17 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Dank:

  1. i think "Town Hall" might be used generically here. if it is, i am assuming that it should not be capitalized, and the "the" should be inserted in the linked text, so that it parallels the link to the railway station. although the article on the building states that it was known as "Portsmouth Town Hall" until 1926, at which point "the 'Town Hall' was renamed the 'Guildhall'", in contrast, the source it cites states that "the town hall was renamed The Guildhall".
  2. i'm worried that the penultimate sentence may be misrepresenting the order of events. from what i understand from the article, a new wall was built in the 1970s, a world war ii memorial with a cenotaph was built in 2005, another wall was built with 610 names in 2012, and the rest of the names were added to the 2012 wall in 2013.^[p] (details can be found in the third paragraph of the history section of the article.) i think the lead summarized this correctly, but the blurb appears to state that the names of those who died during world war ii were listed in the 1970s.

  apologies for bothering you again on an issue that involved the linking of "the"; the crux of that issue was the capitalization, which seemed sufficiently important. dying (talk) 21:36, 19 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

You're never a bother. This one is Milhist, so pinging Gog. Thoughts? - Dank (push to talk) 22:27, 19 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• IMO Town Hall in this instance should have lower case initial letters.
• It is usual to not include leading definite articles within Wikilinks. The original version of this blurb omitted "the" from the railway station link.
• You are correct about the blurb mangling the chronology. Good spot. Feel free to correct it.
• I note that the lead does not actually state where the WW2 names went.
• I also note that the main article mangles this "A wall containing 610 names was added in 2012 ... The final names were added in 2013". Names of who? Marvel superheros? Feel free to draw both of these to the FAC nominator's attention. They are a friendly sort. Gog the Mild (talk) 15:59, 21 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Gog, i think linking "the" for specific instances of something may be a relatively recent practice that i admittedly don't think i fully understood until i read this discussion. i have since learned that i find the distinction helpful, so have also been adopting the practice. i believe mos:linkclarity has also been cited when discussing whether to include a preceding article in the linked text, but that section of the mos appears to only explicitly use the possessive determiners "his" and "Mozart's" as examples of what to include, so it's not clear to me whether the mos advocates for this practice with articles, whether definite or indefinite. in any case, if you disagree with the practice and prefer to have definite articles not linked, i can certainly do that instead. regarding this specific case, if "town hall" is used generically, i think it looks inconsistent to have one "the" linked and not the other. whether both are linked or both are not doesn't really matter to me.

My understanding is that definite articles do not preface links, just as they do not preface article titles; with similar exceptions. So I would prefer "the" not to be included in links. Gog the Mild (talk) 21:06, 22 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

that's fine by me, Gog. for clarification, does this also apply to indefinite articles, or only definite ones? also, i don't know if you accidentally missed them, but the two points below are also addressed to you. dying (talk) 21:39, 22 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

1. Yes.
2. Sorry. (i find these extremely long threads difficult to navigate. Have you considered inserting sub-sections? Gog the Mild (talk) 23:01, 22 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• would the following sentence work as a replacement?

In 2005, another cenotaph was added nearby in memory of those who died in World War II; a wall listing their names was added in 2012 and 2013.

It would. But I suspect that we are out of time.

i decided against using the word "casualties" because that often includes those wounded, and sometimes includes those sick, captured, or otherwise incapacitated. also, i replaced "the Second World War" with "World War II" because it used fewer characters, allowing my suggested replacement to not exceed the length of the original sentence.^[q] if there are issues with that substitution, please feel free to undo it. if the sentence is too long as a result, i would suggest dropping either "nearby" or "and 2013". the first was added to make clear that the second cenotaph is not part of the featured memorial, while the second simply acknowledges that not all the names were added at once. i dropped the earlier mention of the wall constructed during the 1970s because i did not think i could properly explain it without violating the character limit, and thought the characters saved could be put to better use explaining details of the later additions.^[r]

• you are right in that there are some issues with the article, though i would prefer to not attempt to correct them, if that is okay with you. i have previously tried doing this with articles of earlier blurbs, but then quickly realized that there were far too many other issues to address in the full articles that i would quickly get bogged down with that work, and end up not really going anywhere with the blurbs. dying (talk) 20:43, 22 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That is fine. (I wasn't suggesting that you fix the issues, but that you draw the attention of the main author to them, but it was merely a suggestion.)

no worries, Gog, this lengthy section is admittedly a bit difficult to navigate. when Dank and i started discussing the october blurbs, i don't think either of us would realize that it would get this involved. we had only discussed around eight blurbs for september. anyway, i've spun off the discussion of the three recent military history blurbs into a separate subsection. please feel free to fiddle around with the formatting further if you think it would help.

in any case, i will start conforming with your linking preference on future blurbs. admittedly, this will mean that i will be inconsistent on wikipedia as a result, since itn follows the other practice and i do not wish to violate their established standard when a decent amount of my editing deals with current events. i hope that inconsistency is okay with you.

also, regarding copyediting the articles themselves, although i appreciate your suggestion, i fear that, regardless of whether i was the one fixing the issues or simply drawing attention to them, the distraction would prevent me from copyediting blurbs in a timely manner. however, if you think an issue in an article is important enough that it should take priority, please feel free to let me know. thanks, Gog! dying (talk) 10:31, 23 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Battle of Marais des Cygnes (blurb):

  i was surprised at the use of "on the 25th" in the blurb when referring to two battles that took place on the same day as the one featured. when i was first reading that sentence, i had been wondering how the two later battles related chronologically with the first, only to then realize that they had occurred on the same day when i looked again at the start of the blurb. would "later that day" or something similar be more effective? the lead uses "later that morning" for the second battle, and "[t]hat evening" for the third, automatically making it clear to the reader that these all happened on the same day. dying (talk) 14:08, 21 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Gog the Mild has been handling most of the military history TFAs for years, and took on additional duties this year. I think at this point, rather than pinging him, it would make more sense for me to step aside and let you two work out how you want to handle military history blurbs. If there's anything I can help with, ping me. - Dank (push to talk) 14:56, 21 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• The event is a single battle. I am not sure where "two battles that took place on the same day" comes from. Or do you think it was three. Whatever, the events covered after the first three sentences of the blurb all relate to a single battle, the Battle of Marais des Cygnes. Gog the Mild (talk) 16:21, 21 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

i apologize for not having made this clear; i was referring to the "on the 25th" that is part of the last sentence, when it is used in the phrase "After two further defeats on the 25th", presumably referring to the battle of mine creek and the battle of marmiton river. in any case, Ravenpuff appears to have had the same issue that i did, and solved it by replacing "25th" with "same day" (which also works for me), so this point is probably moot now. dying (talk) 20:43, 22 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

On 5 October 2021, In the news was updated with an item that involved the article David Julius, which you nominated. If you know of another recently created or updated article suitable for inclusion in ITN, please suggest it on the candidates page. Anarchyte (talk) 06:12, 5 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

	The Original Barnstar
	Thank you for starting to cover the tower fire event, it really helps get the word out! Kazooduck (talk) 18:44, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Wikipedia:Today's featured article/November 24, 2021: "10 000 km3" looks wrong to me, but I don't understand the issues (and I haven't been keeping up like I used to). The November blurb pages haven't been created yet, so this is just a placeholder. - Dank (push to talk) 20:26, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Dank, thanks for calling attention to this. i believe sources in the relevant literature regularly use the unit "km³", and the unit has appeared before in blurbs on volcanoes, as seen in the blurbs for newberry volcano and mount takahe, so i left the unit alone. however, i replaced the delimiting gap with a comma to conform with mos:digits, which advocates for a consistent delimiting style, and i also added a value in imperial units. dying (talk) 23:34, 16 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Wikipedia:Today's featured article/November 29, 2021: When you get to the November blurbs, I recommend working on this one first. The old (2006) blurb is pretty bad. - Dank (push to talk) 14:15, 18 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  interestingly, i had actually started thinking about how to rewrite this blurb not long after you left me this note, but shortly before i was going to present Gog with a proposed revision, i noticed that two other editors (who had done significant work with the article recently) had already rewrote a good deal of the blurb, and did so in a manner surprisingly similar to how i was doing it. the differences between our versions are not very significant, and there are sections that i had written more briefly to fit in more material, but as resolving the discrepancies would have largely been an issue of personal preference, i was happy to simply copyedit what they had already done. in any case, i appreciate the heads-up. dying (talk) 01:49, 29 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• I asked you a while back to try to copyedit at least week in advance so that everyone has sufficient notice to respond. You asked me if it would be okay to skip some upcoming blurbs to make it easier for you to catch up. I've changed my mind ... yes, please skip some upcoming blurbs ... we really need to be giving people a week's notice, sooner rather than later. No one has said anything specific that makes me think we're in trouble, but past experience tells me, if we don't give people enough time to look things up in their sources and have on-line and off-line discussions about the points raised, eventually we're going to regret it. - Dank (push to talk) 15:08, 20 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • sure, i completely understand. the blurbs for the past two weeks seem to have been more involved than usual, so i grossly underestimated the time i needed to get that buffer up to a week. i'll finish off the blurb for Livyatan with the same level of quality as before, as i already did most of the work for it, but the next four reviews will be comparatively superficial. that should give us the desired buffer in short time. dying (talk) 16:23, 20 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Great, thanks. - Dank (push to talk) 16:27, 20 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • done. i have a few questions, but i will ask them separately. dying (talk) 19:42, 20 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• I've marked myself out, on a short wikibreak. Back soon. - Dank (push to talk) 15:38, 23 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  thanks for letting me know, Dank. take care. dying (talk) 15:42, 23 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, my mind isn't on Wikipedia right now. I'll be taking a break for a while, aside from my plant lists. I recommend that you just make whatever edits you're willing to defend. I hope to have better news within a couple of weeks. - Dank (push to talk) 23:05, 23 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

take all the time you need, Dank. i'll miss you, though hopefully, my editing without you will be much improved compared to how it was before you dropped by, as your feedback has been invaluable. i may still post a few questions here for you from time to time, but i don't expect them to be answered until you're back, and they will generally be of a nature where the answer will be useful for future reference. dying (talk) 04:45, 24 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks kindly. Copyediting requires calmness, and I just can't manage it at the moment, but I hope to be editing again soon. The coords haven't specifically offered to help with this particular job, but they're always available to help with blurbs, and of course WP:ERRORS is often helpful. - Dank (push to talk) 14:46, 24 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've got some health issues to work on, and I just stepped down as a coord. I'm still available (for anyone) for institutional knowledge, things like "Where did I see X?". Thanks for all your TFA work, it's been a pleasure to work with you. - Dank (push to talk) 16:37, 28 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Dank, i'm sad to see you go, but your health obviously comes first. it has been a pleasure to work with you as well. if you ever feel like it, you are, of course, always welcome to comment on any edit i make, or revert anything that needs reverting, whether or not you're a tfa coordinator, and whether or not it has anything to do with tfa blurbs. hope you get well soon. dying (talk) 19:57, 28 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Fingers crossed. - Dank (push to talk) 20:48, 28 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

My take-away from all of this is that images might be a bit of a problem going forward, and if so, you might want to make image suggestions to the TFA coords. - Dank (push to talk) 21:30, 13 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

understood. greatly appreciate your help, Dank. dying (talk) 21:44, 13 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Today's WP:ERRORS

FWIW, re: WP:ERRORS today, I don't anticipate that you'll raise any eyebrows if you reword "cast bronze bells" to "bells made of cast bronze" (as suggested) or "bells of cast bronze". But, as you're aware, that wouldn't work for some of the other examples mentioned, such as Banksia sceptrum and "bell tower". - Dank (push to talk) 20:32, 27 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

to be honest, at the time, i don't think i had seriously considered rewording to resolve the issue once i had spotted another instance of "bell" to which the link could be moved, and i doubt i thought much about the link placement since the banksia sceptrum example had been so extreme, with the fifth instance of the genus being linked (if the instances of "B." are counted). admittedly, had there not been an appropriate place to move the link, i might have simply dropped it due to mos:overlink, as Gog has stated that he tends to not link as much, and i assume most readers are familiar with bells.

however, after listening to the feedback at wp:errors, i see that others have found the link placement odd, so i will try to avoid doing that in the future by allowing myself a little more freedom with rewording if i can figure out a way to do it simply. obviously, i was happy to see your message, as it basically confirmed my resolution. of course, if you ever find that any of my revisions become a bit too involved, feel free to revert me.

anyway, thanks for the feedback, Dank! hope all is well. dying (talk) 01:49, 29 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Things are looking up, thanks. - Dank (push to talk) 02:19, 29 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

oh, that is good to hear! dying (talk) 02:30, 29 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I'm feeling better, at least. I hope to know more soon. - Dank (push to talk) 04:04, 29 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

military history

Charles Green (Australian soldier)

• article
• blurb
• review

Gog, i had a few questions regarding this blurb, if you have the time.

• this blurb is running on an anniversary of green's death date. Dank has previously told me that attention is not called to a death date "unless the death itself was notable for some reason". is this one such instance? green died during the korean war, shortly after being wounded by a shell fragment. he is the only commanding officer of a royal australian regiment battalion to die in active service.^[a]

The length needs to be 1,025 characters or fewer. Abbreviating the second use use of RAR seems sensible. Yes, add his death date to the bit in parentheses. (If you struggle to trim to 1,025, don't worry, I'll do it.)

Gog, done. 1,020 characters. i also added the birth date as i do not recall a blurb where, if both were known with certainty, only the death date was written in full. feel free to undo anything i did if you disagree. dying (talk) 16:13, 25 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• would it make it more clear that "Militia" is not being used generically by moving the "Australian" before "part-time" into the linked text? the capitalization by itself is sufficient, but i thought it would be helpful for main page readers who may not be familiar with the australian army reserve. something similar was done for the civil war mentioned in the blurb for the battle of marais des cygnes.

Sounds sensible. Do it.

done. dying (talk) 16:13, 25 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• similarly, would it be helpful to link "New Guinea"? it is not an extant country, and i assume a decent number of readers may be unfamiliar with the island.

OK. I am very aware of WP:OVERLINK and tend to link less than most editors, but that need not bind you.

i will follow your preference and leave it alone. my search through the archives had been inconclusive. dying (talk) 16:13, 25 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• is the "the" correctly included in the "the Broken Bridge" link? i believe it falls in the exceptions that you had carved out, since the "the" would likely be included in the article's title if the article was named after the broken bridge, but i just wanted to confirm.

You are correct, it is one of those exceptions, for the reason you give.

• by the way, would you happen to know how progress is proceeding with the blurb following this one? i had told Dank that i would try to complete my copyedits a week before the blurb appears on the main page, but obviously, if the article to be featured has yet to be decided, it may be difficult, if not impossible, to hold myself to that deadline. to be clear, i do not want to rush the process, and my assumption is that Dank would forgive me for being late with my copyedit in this instance, but it would be nice to know if i should just skip this blurb for now. thanks, Gog! dying (talk) 13:24, 25 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I am scheduling November. I am hoping to insert Sustainable energy, in honour of COP26, but it is currently stuck at FAC. If it is promoted in the next two days I will use it. As a FAC coordinator I will do what I can to push it along. If it isn't I will use Battle of Panormus. Gog the Mild (talk) 13:45, 25 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

sounds good. thanks for letting me know. i will look over both articles in preparation, but will move on to rhodocene. dying (talk) 16:13, 25 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• by the way, thanks for working on your articles on the punic wars. for years, i had been meaning to read up on the punic wars, so whenever one of your articles now shows up on the queue, i find myself looking forward to reading it. also, it looks like you are much more used to formatting as seen in fac reviews (i should have realized), so i have taken the liberty of reformatting this subsection to roughly follow that standard, as i'm sure you have noticed. i hope you don't mind. feel free to reformat it if you have a different preference. dying (talk) 16:13, 25 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Operation Grapple

• article
• blurb
• review

• Gog, would it be an improvement to state that grapple y was "the most powerful British nuclear weapon ever tested" or something similar, instead of "the largest British nuclear weapon ever tested"? the blurb's earlier use of the word "largest", with respect to grapple 2, appears to apply to the bomb's yield due to the context (although perhaps the metonymic use of "Grapple 2" could be avoided by replacing "was" with "had"). however, with respect to grapple y, the blurb explicitly states that it was the weapon that was the largest. although that could also be true, i am assuming that that was not what was meant. to be clear, i don't think the average reader would misinterpret this; i simply think the wording could be made more accurate. dying (talk) 14:20, 5 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, "most powerful" sounds good to me. I assume that this will still be under the max character count. Gog the Mild (talk) 14:29, 5 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

yep, of course. done. 1,023 characters. thanks, Gog! dying (talk) 14:47, 5 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! Voting in the 2021 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 6 December 2021. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate in the 2021 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add ((NoACEMM)) to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:01, 23 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

December songs

Thank you for your care for what to say for TFAs, today an Italian opera, my second ever, as the TFA written by two dear people, and a park where I went with dear people, as pictured DYK --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:35, 14 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

thanks for the acknowledgement, Gerda. just trying to be of help. hope all is well in bavaria! dying (talk) 00:36, 16 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

back home (infbox on my user page), Bavaria was great, today memories of singing Monteverdi, Handel, Rossini - a triple nod to Brian --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:36, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

You recently participated in a TFA discussion that I have referenced here. —  AjaxSmack  10:48, 8 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

On 11 January 2022, In the news was updated with an item that involved the article David Sassoli, which you nominated. If you know of another recently created or updated article suitable for inclusion in ITN, please suggest it on the candidates page. Spencer^T•C 15:44, 11 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

On 16 January 2022, In the news was updated with an item that involved the article Marlon Bundo, which you updated and nominated. If you know of another recently created or updated article suitable for inclusion in ITN, please suggest it on the candidates page. PFHLai (talk) 21:00, 16 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

February songs

frozen

Thank you for ITN, and for great help with tfa blurb, such as my joy! - more on my talk - The next is on March 25. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:29, 7 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Valentine's Day edition, with spring flowers and plenty of music --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:10, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

stand and sing --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:37, 25 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

March songs

Bach's No. 1 today (see above), thanks for the copy-edit! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:18, 25 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

next on 13 April, looking forward - I had three ITN RD today (not at the same time which can be depressing --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:20, 25 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

An article you recently created, Novus (supermarket), is not suitable as written to remain published. It needs more citations from reliable, independent sources. (?) Information that can't be referenced should be removed (verifiability is of central importance on Wikipedia). I've moved your draft to draftspace (with a prefix of "Draft:" before the article title) where you can incubate the article with minimal disruption. When you feel the article meets Wikipedia's general notability guideline and thus is ready for mainspace, please click on the "Submit your draft for review!" button at the top of the page. Akevsharma (talk) 01:45, 28 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I've left a comment on your Articles for Creation submission, which can be viewed at Draft:Novus (supermarket). Thanks! Robert McClenon (talk) 06:39, 30 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This was a little short to start with, and I just subtracted a few words ... if you feel like fiddling with it, great. It's a rerun btw. You've been doing great work ... anything I can help with? - Dank (push to talk) 01:34, 1 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Dank! it's a pleasure to see you gracing my talk page again. i was just thinking the other day about how i missed your input. thanks for the feedback and the heads-up regarding that blurb. as for any requests, would you be willing to field questions from me again from time to time? of course, as before, there's no pressure for you to answer them in a timely manner, or at all. dying (talk) 20:28, 3 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Happy to help, any time. I'm not completely out of the woods, but I'm optimistic. - Dank (push to talk) 20:46, 3 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This morning, it came to me where to draw the line: I can provide institutional memory in cases where I actually remember stuff that might be helpful, but I will shy away from most judgment calls. - Dank (push to talk) 12:11, 4 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Dank, that sounds like a good place to draw the line. admittedly, it also allows me to feel a bit less guilty about bothering you regarding an issue in which your institutional knowledge would be helpful, although if i ever accidentally ask a question that feels more like a judgement call, please let me know.

also, i took the liberty of trying to rewrite the blurb that you mentioned, since our blurb standards have changed significantly since it was first written, and it seemed more difficult to try to work with what was there. however, i did not want to replace the current blurb with my version unilaterally, and wanted to get your opinion on my draft.

please let me know what you think. of course, you are welcome to edit the proposed blurb directly, as at tfar. dying (talk) 23:58, 14 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think I like "died off"? "range has decreased [to ...]" would work, too. - Dank (push to talk) 01:34, 15 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The problem with "extirpate" is that it was being used in a sense that's nearly the opposite of the meanings given in m-w.com and ahdictionary.com, which have connotations of intentionality. Many biologists do use the word "extirpate" in the sense used in the article lead ... but if they want to be understood by non-biologists, then they shouldn't. TFA blurbs are one place where, over the years, we had some success with gently bringing text more in line with dictionaries, but without making a big thing of it ... the rare times when we were asked directly about changes like these, we'd typically say something like: non-technical language was perhaps more suited for the Main Page, with its broader readership. But I may be misunderstanding the problem. - Dank (push to talk) 12:57, 15 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

oh, ha! you were actually right about the length; i had completely forgotten to add the tfafull template to the blurb. i have now added the template and dropped a few additional characters by replacing "characteristics" with "traits".

i also like your edit; i had decided to use "extirpated" from the article lead, but had also been worried about it being more technical than usual for the main page. your version is easier to understand, and is shorter too. your analysis is also quite helpful; my experience with the term has largely been through wikipedia, meaning that i was previously unaware of the other connotations, so thank you for the insight. dying (talk) 20:30, 15 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks kindly. Your blurb looks good to me. - Dank (push to talk) 21:41, 15 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There's a complaint about this one at WP:ERRORS you might want to look at. I made an edit. - Dank (push to talk) 01:28, 23 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

interestingly, when i first drafted the blurb above, there were three points i was thinking of bringing up with you, but ended up not doing so due to lack of time. as it turns out, two of the points have now been raised: the use of possibly overly technical terms, and the discrepancy between the blurb and article regarding the age of the fossil record. the third point was completely trivial, but i thought i might share anyway at this point.

i had wanted to lament the fact that i could not find space in the blurb to mention that the american paddlefish had been accidentally successfully crossbred with the russian sturgeon. if i am understanding the paper correctly, scientists had mixed russian sturgeon eggs with (non-radiated) american paddlefish sperm as a negative control in a gynogenesis experiment, not expecting the hybridization to be successful. the sturddlefish was announced in 2020, so it would have been an upbeat update since the last blurb (as opposed to the decidedly less upbeat one about it now being the only extant taxon in its family).

in any case, thanks for letting me know about the error report. dying (talk) 11:56, 23 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Following your encouragement, I'll try to update the American Paddlefish article with more accurate information on the fossil record etc. In fact, looking quickly now, the information seems to be already in there, but there is additional incorrect information that needs cropping. Those errors arise both because some statements are not actually supported by the references cited and because some cited references contain false information (some examples of which you noted yesterday). This is a case where I think Wikipedia's preference for secondary sources over primary ones (i.e. the original scientific articles) is misguided. I'm a zoologist, but with no special knowledge of fish. Jmchutchinson (talk) 07:56, 24 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Done now! Jmchutchinson (talk) 12:05, 24 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Jmchutchinson, i'm glad that that section of the article has now been straightened out by an editor with some expertise in the area. (i'm not a zoologist, but i try to cosplay as one whenever a blurb on an animal species shows up in the tfa queue.) i agree that there are times when wikipedia would be better served with a primary source, though can also understand why there is a general preference for secondary sources. unfortunately, it appears that this was a case of secondary sources containing erroneous information. thanks for updating the article! dying (talk) 03:31, 27 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Battle of Vrbanja Bridge (blurb):

  Dank, what are your thoughts on the applicability of mos:gnl to tfa blurbs? the issue does not seem to come up often, so i think your institutional knowledge could be helpful here. for the blurb in question, there are two instances where the choice of words may be questionable: "French-manned" and "infantrymen". the context is a 1995 battle during the bosnian war, so it seems likely that all involved were considered male, although i have not followed any sources to confirm this. however, i also know that there is often a preference for the use of gender-neutral language even when all that are described are of one gender. interestingly, the article body (but not the article lead) avoids using "infantrymen" by dropping "men" from the word, but the resulting noun phrase, "70 French infantry", seems unusual to me, as i am unfamiliar with the use of "infantry" as a countable noun.

  offhand, if i were to pick substitutes, i might use "French-staffed" and "infantry soldiers" (and then drop the "were" after "seventeen" to get under the character limit), though i would obviously defer to any better suggestions you may have, if you think the original phrasing should be reworded in the first place. dying (talk) 03:15, 20 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I'd rather not comment on anything involving MOS:GNL. Apologies. - Dank (push to talk) 03:35, 20 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  no worries, Dank, i understand. i will leave the blurb as is, then, and keep an eye on wp:errors in case there is any useful feedback. dying (talk) 23:51, 20 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Time in Finland (blurb):

  Dank, i thought your edit improved the flow of the opening sentence and resolved the issue of the first link not being to the featured subject, but one thing that has been bothering me for a while is that it appears to violate mos:egg, since i think i had initially believed that the blurb was about clocks in finland when i first started reading it. would replacing "Clocks in Finland follow" with "For timekeeping, Finland follows" be an improvement? it resolves the mos:egg issue, but the link text's span is unusual. dying (talk) 03:29, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Agreed, that's better. - Dank (push to talk) 03:53, 29 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the dit you did on the May 29 FA blurb. I'd stared at it for a while but couldn't identify what about it made me uncomfortable. The inline comments you make are helpful for an aspiring copyeditor like myself. Ovinus (talk) 00:28, 22 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As you are fond of adding notes in hidden text to articles, I wanted to let you know that a project is underway to have a bot move all older instances of hidden text of more than 50 characters to the article talk pages, to avoid clutter of the wikitext, since hidden text is often not updated as the article changes. Since this will eventually catch up with text that you may have provided, please make sure than any passages of hidden text left by you are under 50 characters. Cheers! BD2412 T 17:43, 29 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the refs here [2], I suggest using the citation bot on WP:REFB and then archivebot to add the archive urls. The problem right now is that all the refs are missing the title and the newspaper names. Venkat TL (talk) 13:38, 5 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

On 5 June 2022, In the news was updated with an item that involved the article 2022 Sitakunda fire, which you updated. If you know of another recently created or updated article suitable for inclusion in ITN, please suggest it on the candidates page. PFHLai (talk) 18:45, 5 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Dying

Thank you for creating Saint Michael's Square.

User:SunDawn, while examining this page as a part of our page curation process, had the following comments:

Thanks for creating the article!

To reply, leave a comment here and begin it with ((Re|SunDawn)). Please remember to sign your reply with ~~~~ .

(Message delivered via the Page Curation tool, on behalf of the reviewer.)

✠ SunDawn ✠ (contact) 01:29, 8 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Dying

Thank you for creating Poznań Marathon.

User:SunDawn, while examining this page as a part of our page curation process, had the following comments:

Thanks for the article!

To reply, leave a comment here and begin it with ((Re|SunDawn)). Please remember to sign your reply with ~~~~ .

(Message delivered via the Page Curation tool, on behalf of the reviewer.)

✠ SunDawn ✠ (contact) 07:07, 22 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Your recent article submission to Articles for Creation has been reviewed! Unfortunately, it has not been accepted at this time. The reason left by S0091 was:

This submission's references do not show that the subject qualifies for a Wikipedia article—that is, they do not show significant coverage (not just passing mentions) about the subject in published, reliable, secondary sources that are independent of the subject (see the guidelines on the notability of organizations and companies). Before any resubmission, additional references meeting these criteria should be added (see technical help and learn about mistakes to avoid when addressing this issue). If no additional references exist, the subject is not suitable for Wikipedia.

 The comment the reviewer left was:

Many of the sources are routine coverage or trivial. The best source is Linga which did provide some in-depth analysis about the merger with Billa.

Please check the submission for any additional comments left by the reviewer. You are encouraged to edit the submission to address the issues raised and resubmit after they have been resolved.

• If you would like to continue working on the submission, go to Draft:Novus (supermarket) and click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the window.
• If you now believe the draft cannot meet Wikipedia's standards or do not wish to progress it further, you may request deletion. Please go to Draft:Novus (supermarket), click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the window, add "((Db-g7))" at the top of the draft text and click the blue "publish changes" button to save this edit.
• If you do not make any further changes to your draft in the next 6 months, it will be considered abandoned and may be deleted.
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S0091 (talk) 17:02, 24 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Dying! Having an article draft declined at Articles for Creation can be disappointing. If you are wondering why your article submission was declined, please post a question at the Articles for creation help desk. If you have any other questions about your editing experience, we'd love to help you at the Teahouse, a friendly space on Wikipedia where experienced editors lend a hand to help new editors like yourself! See you there! S0091 (talk) 17:02, 24 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Dying,

Thank you for creating Iron diplomacy.

I have tagged the page as having some issues to fix, as a part of our page curation process and note that:

Interesting article, but it might not meet the criteria for a neologism. Please see the tags I put on the page to remedy the problems.

The tags can be removed by you or another editor once the issues they mention are addressed. If you have questions, leave a comment here and begin it with ((Re|CollectiveSolidarity)). Remember to sign your reply with ~~~~. For broader editing help, please visit the Teahouse.

Delivered via the Page Curation tool, on behalf of the reviewer.

CollectiveSolidarity (talk) 00:17, 4 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

July songs

Thank you for your care of the TFA blurbs! - Last Friday, I attended a unique concert - the 18th Thomaskantor after Bach conducting - and with some good luck caught him happy afterwards! Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:36, 10 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

thanks, Gerda, happy to help. i should also thank you for keeping up with the precious awards. it is a pleasant surprise whenever i revisit a fac nominator's talk page and see that they have received that well-deserved award. i'm glad you had a good time in wiesbaden last friday. dying (talk) 10:06, 15 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

thank you, that feels good, and yes, another great concert yesterday, Voces8. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:42, 15 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

more July songs, from Swiss Alps and a funeral --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:30, 29 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

On 6 August 2022, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Iron diplomacy, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that Oleksandr Kamyshin, the head of Ukrainian Railways, who runs the iron diplomacy program that brings world leaders to Kyiv by rail, carries his gun and his son's stuffed owl with him? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Iron diplomacy. You are welcome to check how many pageviews the nominated article or articles got while on the front page (here's how, Iron diplomacy), and if they received a combined total of at least 416.7 views per hour (i.e., 5,000 views in 12 hours or 10,000 in 24), the hook may be added to the statistics page. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

— Maile (talk) 00:02, 6 August 2022 (UTC) [reply]

August songs

thank you - pics and thoughts on 13 August --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:52, 13 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Look at the church where I heard VOCES8. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:29, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Precious anniversary

Precious

Two years!

... and also just precious --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:09, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

oh, i had seen the sapphire grow on other user talk pages before, but i hadn't realized that it would look so large when it was on my own talk page. many thanks, Gerda! dying (talk) 14:08, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

at present, it will grow to nine, and then shrink and be stable for 10 ;) - glad you like it! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:28, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article 2022 World Athletics Half Marathon Championships, to which you have significantly contributed, is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or if it should be deleted.

The discussion will take place at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2022 World Athletics Half Marathon Championships until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article.

To customise your preferences for automated AfD notifications for articles to which you've significantly contributed (or to opt-out entirely), please visit the configuration page. Delivered by SDZeroBot (talk) 01:02, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Dying, hope you're well. I'm feeling better than I was a year ago, and I'd like to offer some input on some September blurbs that you haven't worked on yet. After some discussion, if you decide you're on board, then you can make the edits during your normal copyediting, and if not, that's no problem at all. The first thing I'd like to talk about, if you're willing, is "British former javelin thrower" in the first sentence of the blurb on the 13th. "British former" is a popular phrase in first sentences of our sports articles and I'm pretty sure nothing I say will ever succeed in eradicating it, but it's got three or four major problems IMO, and during my seven years of coordship, I was generally successful at changing it to something like (in this case) "former javelin thrower from Britain" (or the United Kingdom) or "British javelin thrower, active [in some regard] from [date] to [date]". - Dank (push to talk) 15:40, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Dank! so glad to hear that you're doing better. your input is always welcome. i had actually wanted to ask for your advice regarding this blurb, so your timing is serendipitous.

i'm not sure if we both have the same issues with "British former", or find it problematic on different grounds, but to me, it seems strange to label sanderson as a "former javelin thrower" if she presumably still has the faculties to throw a javelin. the article body states that she "retired from competition in 1997", so using "retired" seems more appropriate to me. also, according to my understanding of the order in which attributive adjectives are typically presented, "former" (or "retired") should precede "British", so if i were rewriting the phrase, i would have stated "retired British javelin thrower". however, wikipedia categories such as "Lithuanian former pagans" seem to disagree with me.

i can see the argument that "British" should precede "former" so that there is no danger of a reader believing that sanderson is no longer british. i have also switched the order of adjectives myself in a previous blurb, after having been confused by the previous placement of the word "former". however, i don't think it is likely that a reader would misinterpret "former British" in this case, as pragmatics suggests that her current (rather than former) nationality would be mentioned in the opening sentence. in any case, the point would be moot if "retired" is used instead.

that being said, had i been copyediting this blurb unilaterally, i would probably have left it as is, following the article lead. however, if you also think that there are issues with the current wording, i think changing it is warranted. your first suggestion sounds good (assuming that you have no issues with "former"), although the second, in this case, may require a bit of original research (as when sanderson started her career seems unclear), and the added length may be an issue since the blurb is already near the character limit.

i had also wanted to ask you about post-nominal letters, as two blurbs scheduled for september include them: this one for sanderson, and the one for alexander cameron rutherford. i had previously assumed that, if mentioned, such distinctions were generally described unabbreviated in the prose, as in this blurb for etta lemon. unfortunately, in both the sanderson and rutherford blurbs, it looks like squeezing in such a description without breaking the character limit would be difficult. has there been any previous guidance on the matter? dying (talk) 02:17, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

My answer to most of these questions is: I'm not sure. I was never the answers-to-all-your-language-questions person; my main contribution (if any) was doing some minimal copyediting designed to reduce conflict among Wikipedians (not an easy task, but an important one, I think). And then I got sick, and I haven't been keeping an eye on language discussions like I used to ... so, any information I have could be dated or just wrong. But I'd like to pass along some of what I learned during my years at TFA, and when I'm wrong, I'm sure people will figure that out ... in many ways, TFA is healthier than it ever was, with lots of smart contributors, including you of course. More soon. - Dank (push to talk) 17:23, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I really like your edits on this one, especially "retired". But, for bios, aren't we still using the name as it appears in the page title rather than as it appears in the first sentence? I checked all the blurbs for August and September and they seem to follow that rule (even for the fictional C.J. Cregg). It sounds like you've found plenty of support in other articles for "retired", but if that's challenged, please let me know. - Dank (push to talk) 01:35, 5 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

thanks, Dank! it was your raising of the issue that made me question whether the phrase should be reworded, so i'm glad you mentioned it. also, please don't worry if you don't have the answers to all of my questions; if you can't answer one, it's likely no one can. by the way, i agree that your conflict-avoiding style has made a big difference. i review our discussions here every so often to make sure i haven't strayed too far from your guidance, and became aware the other day of yet another group of potential conflicts that i could have accidentally walked into had i not followed your advice.

i believe you're right about the bolded link using the name in the article's title rather than the one in the article's opening. that issue was admittedly troubling me for a while, but i could not recall ever seeing someone correct it, so at the time, i had just made sure it conformed to mos:nickname. i've edited the blurb accordingly. thanks for pointing this out!

also, in case you haven't noticed, i have been trying to post my copyedits eight days before a blurb's run date (taking advantage of that schedule reshuffle about a month ago), so if something happens in meatspace that is out of my control (or if i simply forget to hit the publish button, like i did here), i should still be able to get my copyedits done at least a week before. of course, all my edits remain up for discussion, so feel free to revert anything that seems amiss. dying (talk) 07:20, 5 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, thanks for the timely copyediting, that helps a lot. Btw, I've just made a few edits on Wikipedia:Today's featured article/September 26, 2022 that I hope dealt with a few potential problems, but feel free to revert or change things, as always. - Dank (push to talk) 03:06, 8 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

admittedly, i am having trouble understanding why the road is being referred to as "U.S. Highway 8" rather than "U.S. Route 8", the article title. did you understand why during your copyedit? to me, it seems like most of the articles on the u.s. numbered highway system generally prefer to use the wording "U.S. Route x" over "U.S. Highway x". also, i found the image selection unusual, as the route marker probably will not noticeably improve a reader's understanding of the subject, and may be a violation of mos:decor, so i will likely try to ask Wehwalt about that later. dying (talk) 07:25, 11 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

False alarm ... the nominator objected to running this article at TFA, and Wehwalt has pulled it. Imzadi has a personal preference for the word "Highway"; I don't really understand the issue, but I've tried to keep that in mind. - Dank (push to talk) 16:01, 13 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

oh! somewhat unexpected on both counts. thanks for letting me know. dying (talk) 06:44, 14 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• First Battle of Newtonia (blurb):

  one of the articles linked to in the blurb, "Native Americans in the American Civil War", is a set index article. is this acceptable for tfa blurbs? personally, i have no issues with it, but i do not recall a tfa blurb linking to a set index article before, so i wanted to check to make sure there was no policy against it.

  the featured article mentions that the cherokee, the choctaw, and the chickasaw all fought in the battle, so it would be difficult to choose just one of the articles in the set index to link to instead. (the chickasaw are covered in the choctaw article.) also, since none of these groups are mentioned by name in the blurb, a main page reader encountering the set index article may be unsure which articles in the index are relevant.

  one alternative is to ignore mos:specificlink and simply link to "Native Americans in the United States" instead. dying (talk) 12:33, 29 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Off the top of my head, I don't recall using a link to a set index article in a blurb before. I see it's on the Main Page now, and no one has said anything. - Dank (push to talk)

• Today's featured article/October 4: Sorry, I just caught this one ... I don't like to cut it this close ... any thoughts on my edit before we go live? - Dank (push to talk) 18:02, 3 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  great edit. i had also thought the phrase was somewhat out of place in a tfa blurb, but had left it alone because i try to avoid removing details unilaterally. i also like how you expanded iucn as a way to keep the blurb about the same length. dying (talk) 21:32, 3 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Just a quick note on Wikipedia:Today's featured article/October 5, 2022: I just increased the character count a little bit, up to 1049. The upper limit was 1025 for many years, and it's fine by me if anyone wants to remove something to get it under 1025, but I'm personally comfortable with anything between 900 and 1050 these days (with the idea of making do-it-yourself blurbs easier). My edit: I thought "historical figure" was confusing; I removed that and added what they were known for. (No need to look at this until you're ready to copyedit it, of course.) - Dank (push to talk) 16:37, 10 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  oh, i am happy with anything between 900 and 1050 as well, but i have been trying to keep my copyediting within the more conservative range, since i know that Gog prefers to strictly observe the narrower set of limits and i wanted to respect that. if you are regularly reviewing my blurbs again, should i revert back to observing the more lenient limits? i feel bad whenever i end up rewording something solely due to the character limit. dying (talk) 07:25, 11 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Whichever works best for you. I wouldn't say I'm "regularly reviewing", I'd say that sometimes I see something in a blurb where I think I might be able to avoid a problem by making an edit, either before or after you do your thing. - Dank (push to talk) 13:12, 11 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  sounds good. i think i have decided to try to stay within the more conservative range, but if i notice that you have previously edited a blurb and it is outside that range, i will assume that that length for that blurb is okay too. dying (talk) 06:44, 14 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Well, you guys are doing the heavy lifting so it would make more sense for me to get on board ... I'll stick with 925 to 1025 (unless it's not clear to me how to do that, but then I'll note that I'm over the limit and ask for help). - Dank (push to talk) 10:01, 14 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  i tried to figure out how to squeeze in your description of george burroughs, but ended up being unsuccessful in doing so. one additional complication to consider is that, when describing the characters of a historical fiction novel, it may be unclear whether the description pertains to the real world or the fictional world. so if we state that burroughs was executed during the salem witch trials, a reader may be unsure if this execution occurred in the novel, or if burroughs was a real person who was actually executed during those trials (or both).

  i admittedly also had issues trying to determine, from reading the blurb alone, whether "fictional" was used to state that the character of rachel dyer was not based on a real person, or to state that dyer was a victim of fictional witch hunts, in the sense that the accusations in these witch hunts were fabricated. after rewording to conform with mos:seaofblue and adding "(depicted)", i could not figure out how to use the space left to better clarify who burroughs was.

  by the way, i should note that the only reason why i'm adhering to the stricter character limits is because Gog prefers to do so. if Gog only prefers to do so because you used to do so, and you no longer have such a preference, i don't see why we can't all collectively relax the limits (assuming, of course, Wehwalt and Jimfbleak are on board). i'm happy to adhere to whatever works best for everyone. dying (talk) 12:33, 29 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I don't have a preference. - Dank (push to talk)

• Today's featured article/October 6: Outstanding job. I made a tiny edit; feel free to revert or discuss (this is a standing offer, so I'll stop repeating it). - Dank (push to talk) 01:36, 28 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  oh, nice catch! by the way, i prefer your rewording of the sentence regarding the cretaceous over my rewording, though i am guessing that you may have also had trouble preserving the link to "Period (geology)". (i admittedly think i had misinterpreted the intended meaning of the latter part of that sentence; i had found it strange that the period was only described by one of its endpoints, but did not think to question it.) would it be better to simply drop the link and just state "Cretaceous Period" instead? the term is also linked in the first sentence of the "Cretaceous" article. dying (talk) 12:33, 29 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Over the years, we've had a problem with editors writing and linking "Late Cretaceous Period" in a way that seems to imply that the Late Cretaceous was a period (it was an epoch). So my main goal is trying to make sure that doesn't happen ... other than that, I don't have a preference. - Dank (push to talk) 15:07, 30 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Apologies, dealing with hurricane prep here, I'll get to this tomorrow. - Dank (push to talk) 04:19, 30 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  oh! no worries about responding; this can wait. stay safe! dying (talk) 05:46, 30 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Another WP:WTW issue to consider: "A 2021 study stated that the impactor likely originated in the outer main part of the asteroid belt." I'm not sure what meaning the readers are going to assign to "stated" ... is the writer saying "it's just one study, don't take it seriously until it's confirmed or denied by other studies"? (If so, my take is that it probably doesn't doesn't belong in a TFA blurb, with our space restrictions.) What do you think ... you've read that part of the article (I think), does the article take the position that the study is credible? - Dank (push to talk) 13:43, 4 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

i had thought it was strange that this study was mentioned in the blurb but not in the lead. i had noticed that it was added during tfa/r, after you had raised the point that the sentence it had replaced was no longer supported by the article. i had figured that the heightened scrutiny it had received meant that it was appropriate for the blurb, so i admittedly did not think to question it. the study is mentioned in the article in the middle of a list of theories, but i did not sense that the article took a position that this is now an established theory, or that it is a fringe or debunked one.

ultimately, i did not think the statement was as strong as the rest of the blurb, but do not think i have the experience to determine if it really belonged there. regardless, i would support a decision either way. if you do decide to remove the sentence and are looking for something to replace it, i would suggest mentioning the shocked quartz, gravity anomaly, and tektites. they are mentioned in the lead, and were also mentioned in the previous blurb. dying (talk) 01:32, 5 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Okay. The next time I see this issue at TFAR, I'll discuss it there. Since the blurb is protected now and will run tomorrow, I'm probably too late to change it. - Dank (push to talk) 02:21, 5 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I just noticed that "extinct" or "extinction" is now mentioned three times in one sentence ... this is the kind of thing that would have jumped out at me before. I'm getting concerned about how out-of-practice I am; I'll think about whether I want to throttle back at TFA and try something simpler for a while. Anyway: I think it would help to remove something ... maybe "a mass extinction"? - Dank (push to talk) 09:56, 5 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

the repetition is my fault; that sentence was taken near verbatim from the article lead. i had also noticed the repetition, but had figured that it was alright since it was present in the version that was kept during far, and i could not think of a more proper rewording. i had debated removing "a mass extinction", but did not want to remove a link unilaterally, and i believe its removal (at the time i had decided against it) would have resulted in a blurb less than 925 characters long. now that the blurb is slightly longer, i agree that removing it is a good idea. also, i think you out of practice is better than me trying my best, but i'll understand if you want to focus on something else for a while. dying (talk) 10:42, 5 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You're being kind, but thanks. I'm still here and paying attention, the best I can, I'm just going to set my sights lower and spend more time on other wiki-things. I've been reviewing some old files I wrote for myself where I tried to make sense out of how blurbs should handle contrast words (whereas, although, etc.) and implication words (because, thus, due to) ... I don't know. These are two subjects where it might be more helpful to try to cover the whole subject rather than just making drive-by comments now and then. Do you have any general thoughts, or links or RSs you want to point me to, concerning the use of contrast and implication words in general? - Dank (push to talk) 10:59, 5 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, maybe it would be helpful to at least say the main thing: don't use a contrast word (but, however, although, etc.) in a sentence if there's no actual contrast visible in that sentence, or at least some kind of violated expectation. (Sounds obvious but ... bad examples are surprisingly common. I'll add some of these examples below, soon.) Savvy readers know that there are many types of contrast that can be implied by a "but", and if they can't figure out what's being contrasted, they may keep digging in a vain attempt to find it. It's best if the contrast can be located immediately ... so, for instance, if a sentence starts with "Although", keep that first phrase short, and put the thing that's being contrasted immediately after that first phrase. Some common contrast words can be problematic: don't use "while" to indicate contrast, because it has so many meanings (at the same time as, although, whereas, except for), and the clues to its real meaning can be subtle. Also, since "however" can sometimes be complex and ambiguous, always replace it with "but" if "but" seems to make sense. - Dank (push to talk) 17:43, 8 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Today's featured article/October 7: Your thoughts are welcome, here or at ERRORS. Conceivably, the way I handled the discussion wasn't what you were expecting ... I have to be somewhat bureaucratic or "wonkish" in discussions at ERRORS because of the tight deadlines and all the unknown expectations. - Dank (push to talk) 01:23, 7 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  no worries, Dank, i completely understand. all had been excused even before you left me this message. dying (talk) 01:49, 7 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Today's featured article/October 8: AFAIK, MOS:CURRENT doesn't apply to TFA blurbs (or to any parts of the Main Page that are meant to appear for only one day). Many people use "it was built to hold X ... it now holds Y" to mean "it no longer holds X"; but of course there are various clever ways to imply "it no longer holds X" (if it's not already clear from context), if you prefer to get rid of the "now" (as you did here). More sophisticated readers will probably know right away that if it's a museum now, it's not likely to still be used for collecting duties ... but other readers, I don't know. That's always been the curse of the Main Page; no one seems to know who our readership is, which of course makes it very hard to know how to proceed. - Dank (push to talk) 16:47, 30 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Here too, it looks like I was distracted ... I think the general point was worth making, but the last sentence makes this point a non-issue here. Sigh. - Dank (push to talk) 10:07, 5 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• "Delicate" (blurb):

  i am not sure if the "revealed by the pouring rain" wording is yours, but if so, i thought i might ask you to watch the music video, if you haven't already, to see what you think. apologies for the late notice; i had previously thought i was just misinterpreting things, but recently took a look at the video again. dying (talk) 20:10, 10 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Thanks ... my edit is clearly wrong. I'll change it to something very close to the text in the article lead, but feel free to change it to something better if you like. - Dank (push to talk) 20:44, 10 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  looks good, thanks! dying (talk) 22:30, 10 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Operation Sandwedge (blurb):

  i think one of the first five links in the blurb may have a mos:egg issue, but do not know if it's just me. if, after checking them, you can't tell which link i am referring to, then it's probably just me. dying (talk) 20:10, 10 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Did that fix it? I also reworded one "would". - Dank (push to talk) 21:08, 10 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  oh! i actually had another link in mind, but i had thought the one you fixed could also have used some editing, so thanks for that. also, i noticed that the enemies list was apparently neither compiled nor written by nixon, so i am not sure if "designated" is the right word to use. would "targeted people that U.S. president Richard Nixon considered his political enemies" be more appropriate?

  the link i was surprised about was "1972 re-election campaign", which links to an article about the election rather than the campaign. there isn't an article on nixon's 1972 campaign (though there is one for mcgovern), but with that link text, i would have perhaps expected a link to the relevant section on nixon's biography. i don't know if you had also found that link to be an easter egg, but i thought "planned to help Nixon's campaign in the 1972 election" would be an improvement. dying (talk) 22:30, 10 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  You're right about that one too. I added "re-election", so that the reader wouldn't be thinking (even for a moment) "why are you calling him the president if he's running for the presidency?". - Dank (push to talk) 23:19, 10 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  oh, good point. thanks, Dank! dying (talk) 12:07, 11 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• My take on today's discussion at WP:ERRORS: At TFA, it's probably safer and better to reword to avoid prefixing a hyphen or dash when we know that not everyone is going to agree, rather than relying on MOS:PREFIXDASH. (And anyway, PREFIXDASH itself recommends rewording in some cases.) - Dank (push to talk) 16:02, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  i was admittedly rather surprised by that report, since i don't recall any editors stating that an en dash should be replaced with a hyphen-minus against mos:prefixdash (though this discussion comes close, debating whether there should be any punctuation at all). i had made the replacement to conform with the mos while keeping as much of the original wording intact as possible, but you make the excellent point that it may be better to simply bypass the issue in the future (which is something i should have realized before, given the length of the discussion i just linked). dying (talk) 23:05, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Just realized my wording was ambiguous: I meant "in those cases where we know that not everyone will agree". Figuring out which cases those are is the rub. We actually don't get very many of these at TFA, and I'll keep an eye out for them. - Dank (push to talk) 01:29, 14 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  no worries, Dank, i understood your point. my current strategy for mos:'s issues is to leave it as is if it already follows the mos, but reword it if it doesn't. so far, i don't think anyone has complained about this, so i think i'll be adopting a similar strategy for mos:prefixdash and mos:suffixdash issues. dying (talk) 09:26, 15 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Today's featured article/October 18: I took a whack at this one as well. I'll take another look after you do your thing, whenever that is. - Dank (push to talk) 21:44, 18 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  thanks, the blurb was much improved after your edits. by the way, i wasn't sure if the duplicate uses of "confirmed" and "mid-fourth millennium BC" were deliberate. if not, the first duplication isn't that noticeable, but can be resolved by replacing "confirmed a construction date" with "also concluded that it was constructed" or something similar. i can't figure out a good solution for the other without going into more detail about the dating. dying (talk) 20:10, 10 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I edited to address those points, but now it's 24 characters short, so something more is needed. Thoughts? - Dank (push to talk) 20:34, 10 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  what surprised me the most when reading the article after reading the blurb was the extent the site had already been damaged prior to the excavation. the fac nomination blurb highlights the site's gradual destruction by quarrying and ploughing, and the lead also mentions the prior ploughing (though not the quarrying). mentioning the earlier ploughing in the tfa blurb would allow the "Further", which i had removed in my copyedit, to be restored (since proper context is now provided), while mentioning the quarrying would better explain the map, which references the chalk quarry.

  one possible addition is the sentence "By this time, it had been badly damaged by ploughing and partially obliterated by a chalk quarry.", which would follow the mention of drewett but before the list of finds. most of the wording and diction in this sentence was taken from either the first sentence of the article lead's second paragraph, or from the article's second section. "obliterated", based on the article's use of "obliteration", was chosen to avoid using "destroyed", as the blurb already uses "destruction".

  i had also been thinking of mentioning how drewett cleared a large part of the site down to the chalk, but including the associated reasoning and findings would take up too much space. dying (talk) 12:07, 11 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Agreed to all of that. - Dank (push to talk) 13:54, 11 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  thanks. i have incorporated the sentence into the blurb. feel free to revise if you think of any better options. dying (talk) 23:05, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Today's featured article/October 20: This is the one you just copyedited ... when there's possibly outdated "as of" information, I used to leave a comment like the one I just left at User_talk:Deltawk#Amador_Valley_High_School_scheduled_for_TFA. - Dank (push to talk) 00:20, 12 October 2022 (UTC) Strike that ... rethinking it, I'm aware those numbers could cause any number of problems even if they're up to date (and such numbers are notoriously difficult to determine and defend if challenged). I took the numbers out ... does that work for you? Should we rewrite? - Dank (push to talk) 00:34, 12 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  normally, i would have considered numbers from 2020 reasonably current enough, and the "As of" providing a sufficient out if challenged, though i would have preferred to give an approximation for the student population, as seen here, as that can easily vary during a school year, and opinions may differ on how to count students. also, i am admittedly worried that dropping the numbers for advanced placement courses and varsity sports may deprive the sentence of much of its meaning, as i think they were mentioned because they were significantly higher than average. (i am somewhat less concerned about keeping those latter numbers updated, as they generally do not change much over a year or two.) by the way, i get the sense that Deltawk, the fac nominator, is interested in keeping the blurb and article updated and has significant respect for wikipedia's standards, so Deltawk may provide us with a better solution if made aware of how the previous wording was an issue. dying (talk) 23:05, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I've asked for Deltawk's input on their user talk page. - Dank (push to talk) 03:25, 14 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Thank you both for helping edit the blurb - I am happy with the version it is currently! Deltawk (talk) 01:59, 19 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  thanks, Deltawk! i am glad that you are happy with the current blurb. by the way, it is impressive that you were not only able to get this article promoted to fa status back in 2009, but also able to maintain its status for over a decade. thanks for adding a bit of variety to the featured articles on wikipedia! dying (talk) 02:27, 19 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Glad I can help! Thanks to you as well for making sure the front page blurbs are in good shape before being featured. Deltawk (talk) 02:44, 19 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Today's featured article/October 21: I removed "Because of its Internet-driven success" (and added another song chart to keep it above 925 chars). Either that phrase was saying the same thing as what had come before, or if it meant something new, it's problematic. - Dank (push to talk) 00:36, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I see I was just reverted. Do you have any clear preference one way or the other? - Dank (push to talk) 03:58, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, the offending phrase was just changed to "Driven primarily by streams and digital sales", which is much better. That was the only thing I was concerned about. I haven't looked at the other edits (but I'm happy to discuss them, if you like, as always.) - Dank (push to talk) 13:39, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This edit seems to put a finger on a problem. Main Page people are used to moving words around to avoid consecutive links, but that doesn't work well when wikiprojects and review processes have longstanding processes of figuring out where they want to put the words, and then those processes are ignored for reasons that seem arbitrary. I've generally dealt with this problem by not dealing with it, making it someone else's problem. How you want to deal with it is up to you. But if someone thinks you've put a word in a place that's clearly wrong, then they're not likely to believe that your other edits (which they may not be so sure about) are right. So sometimes it's better to just leave things alone. Delinking may be an option in some cases; if you want to do that but you need someone to publicly argue the case for it before you try, I can do that. - Dank (push to talk) 14:34, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Your Power's editing style is currently fascinating to me, as they are often second-guessing themselves, as seen in the blurb's history as well as that of the tfa/r nomination. (i do the same, but just don't hit the publish button as often.) the original blurb was actually written by Your Power themself, so much of the subsequent editing is self-critique. this appears to be Your Power's first tfa blurb, and it is clear that they want it to look as best as they can, so i would give them plenty of leeway. i think they take suggestions well, since they did not revert the comma i had removed from the caption (even though they had originally added it), and took the initiative to split a sentence when i had pointed out that it had been a string of independent clauses.

regarding mos:seaofblue, it isn't something i strongly adhere to, but i try to conform to it if i think it can be done easily without serious rewording, following your advice here. if another editor has an overriding concern, as seen here, i'm generally fine with it. in case you missed it, you might find this blurb's history interesting, as it lead to this discussion.

with respect to this blurb, i don't think the reason stated in Your Power's edit summary is actually true for tfa blurbs for songs. however, it may be true for recent tfa blurbs within the genres of their interest, which i would consider to be a sufficient enough reason. in any case, i admittedly don't really care to enforce mos:seaofblue against an fac nominator who prefers to override it, even if the fac nominator's preference had been whimsical (which i don't think is the case here anyway). however, i really appreciate the offer of you backing me up had i cared to enforce it. dying (talk) 23:05, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't following many MOS discussions while I was sick, which is one reason I'm very happy that you and the coords have been putting so much effort into blurbs. As long as you're aware of the pros and cons, I don't have a preference how you choose to tackle SEAOFBLUE issues. - Dank (push to talk) 03:25, 14 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

And ... good for you. IMO, making an effort to get a sense of what kinds of edits writers might be open to is indeed an integral part of this job. - Dank (push to talk) 13:32, 14 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• And Today's featured article/October 24. - Dank (push to talk) 01:05, 19 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I just gave that one another try ... but I haven't checked the length ... it may be too short now. Thoughts? - Dank (push to talk) 21:34, 10 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  A little explanation:

  We used to have a lot of castle articles that started out with something like "X Castle is a castle in X". The thinking went: the two things readers are most likely to want to know are "what do you mean by 'castle'?" and "where is X?", and you can't put either of those links in the bold part, so you have to repeat the words, to give readers access to the links they'll want. I was never on board with that ... the tone is wrong, for one thing ... and I see we've largely stopped doing that. We had a similar problem here IMO with "the Jamaican rice rat is an extinct rodent of Jamaica". It's perfectly reasonable to want to answer the question "where was this rat's habitat?" ... there are lots of animals named after a country that lived in other places as well ... but there's a better way to do it, I think ... I moved "Jamaica" down a bit.

  "the Jamaican rice rat is an extinct rodent ... similar to O. couesi of mainland Central America": well, that's a handy first sentence if you're familiar with O. couesi, but otherwise, not. And it's not generally the style in reviewed articles on Wikipedia: we don't start off an article on a star by telling the reader that it's similar to some other star. I moved the O. couesi bit down.

  I rewrote "incisive foramina (perforations of the palate)" to tell the reader what that means. - Dank (push to talk) 15:18, 11 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

military history

Second Punic War

• article
• blurb
• review

• i can't shake off the fact that this blurb appears to have a significant redundancy: the main areas where the war took place are essentially listed twice. after seeing you remove a similarly structured redundancy in the jamaican rice rat blurb, i was thinking of asking Gog for a rewrite. i think the first list can pretty much be removed (though "North" could be added before the last instance of "Africa", and some links can be moved to later instances), but i did not want to make such a drastic edit unilaterally, and the resulting blurb would also be too short. thoughts? dying (talk) 12:07, 11 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I see your point, but I guess I need to see what you have in mind ... can you paste your preferred version here? - Dank (push to talk) 13:54, 11 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  oh, i didn't have much in mind, preferring to defer to Gog for a rewrite, but here is one possibility.

  The Second Punic War (218–201 BC) was the second of three wars fought between Carthage and Rome, the two main powers of the western Mediterranean in the 3rd century BC. For 17 years the two states struggled for supremacy. After immense materiel and human losses on both sides the Carthaginians were defeated. Macedonia, Syracuse and several Numidian kingdoms were drawn into the fighting, and Iberian and Gallic forces fought on both sides. There were three main military theatres during the war: Italy, where Hannibal defeated the Roman legions repeatedly, with occasional subsidiary campaigns on the islands of Sicily and Sardinia and in Greece; Iberia, where Hasdrubal, a younger brother of Hannibal, defended the Carthaginian colonial cities with mixed success before moving into Italy; and North Africa, where Rome finally won the war. A peace treaty stripped the Carthaginians of all overseas territories, and prohibited them from waging war outside Africa. (This article is part of a featured topic: Punic Wars.)

  i mentioned the treaty to provide a more definite conclusion to the blurb (as it currently seems to end on a climax) and because i could not figure out how to add more detail regarding what happened during the war without making the blurb seem unbalanced. the sentence i added is based on the wording in the last paragraph of the article lead. dying (talk) 23:05, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Gog the Mild, thoughts? Short notice, I know. - Dank (push to talk) 02:34, 14 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Dank, looks fine to me. Gog the Mild (talk) 07:12, 14 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Borodino-class battlecruiser

• article
• blurb
• review

• after i pointed out a minor issue, the fac nominator has updated the article lead with a clarification, but left the blurb alone, presumably because it has already been protected. should the blurb be changed to reflect the updated lead? if so, here is one suggestion.

the lead actually now uses the wording "the three furthest from completion", but i dropped the detail since including it would result in "completion" being used thrice in the blurb, and once izmail is described as the one nearest to being finished, the status of the other three should be clear. also, regarding the last substitution, i had figured that it would be obvious that the plan was cancelled if the ship was scrapped. note that this blurb is scheduled to appear on the main page tomorrow, so i'll understand if you prefer to leave it alone. dying (talk) 09:26, 15 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging Gog the Mild and Sturmvogel 66: I see this will be on the Main Page in less than 11 hours. Sorry for the late ping. I have no preferences here; let me know if I can help. - Dank (push to talk) 13:22, 15 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That looks fine to me, except for the last one. Gog the Mild (talk) 14:31, 15 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, would you like me to make those changes? - Dank (push to talk) 14:42, 15 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) As the plan was cancelled in 1926 and the ship scrapped in 1931, linking the political manoeuvering and the scrapping seems potentially misleading. Perhaps "... but the plan was cancelled after political manoeuvring by the Red Army led to funding not being available. The ship was scrapped in 1931." if the character limit allows? Or "... ... but the plan was cancelled after political manoeuvering led to funding not being available. The ship was scrapped in 1931." Gog the Mild (talk) 14:55, 15 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I don't mind, but was there any reason I was included in the ping?

PS Putting some sub headings into sections like this would make live a lot easier for drive by contributers like myself. Gog the Mild (talk) 14:58, 15 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

sorry, Gog! reformatted.

i believe the substitutions i had suggested would result in a blurb with 1023 characters. there are a few other areas where characters might be trimmed, but i don't feel comfortable doing so without Sturmvogel 66 weighing in. i admittedly had not interpreted "after" to create a causal link, but can see how that might be suggested. my proposed edits were only meant to honor Sturmvogel 66's update to the lead, so if a more involved edit would be required to reflect the changes, it might be better to simply leave the blurb with a slight inaccuracy rather than change it to something that i am not sure Sturmvogel 66 would be happy with. dying (talk) 21:46, 15 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

An edit summary on a TFA blurb edit yesterday by one of the Main Page folks implied (to me) that more needs to be done. I'm not blaming you, obviously, but maybe a good place to catch some of these things would be around a week before they go live ... which, happily, is about when you're doing your copyediting. Before I dive in, I'd like to get a better sense of your own preferences ... I want to do my best to support your approach to these things. Maybe we could start with a few conversations about issues relevant to our words-to-watch guideline? I'm open to talking about pretty much anything relevant to that page, including words that contrast, contradict, promote, editorialize, add ambiguity, get the time sequence wrong, or make grand assumptions about the reader's knowledge. But if you'd rather take it one blurb at a time, that's fine too. - Dank (push to talk) 20:32, 25 September 2022 (UTC) To repeat myself: I'm not blaming you ... you're very good with all of these things. I'm just saying that making maybe a few more tweaks to existing blurbs each month will help to keep the peace. - Dank (push to talk) 21:53, 25 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

sure, i'm happy to discuss anything about the words-to-watch guideline (or anything else you'd like to discuss) whenever you would like, though i do appreciate you checking in to see if i had any preferences. by the way, i have noticed that the rate at which i post copyedits has been able to provide me sufficient motivation to focus my efforts on a decently finalized copyedit on a regular schedule (and, i have also found, generally allows me to let go of certain issues that i may be overthinking). however, this doesn't preclude me from addressing blurbs out of order. i currently don't have the habit of responding quickly to issues in blurbs that are weeks away (partially to focus on that day's copyedit and partially because i may not have any idea what my thoughts on the issue are at that point), but i can change that if you'd like.

anyway, i'm pretty flexible, so feel free to dive in, and i can follow your lead. dying (talk) 01:55, 26 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Quick question before we start: would it be helpful if you had the option of subscribing (long-term) to the TFA section of WP:ERRORS, so that you'd get a notification when someone posts there? ("Notifications" are what you get when, for instance, someone "thanks" you with the thank button). After some testing, it looks like I can make that work if I get permission from the ERRORS folks to pin a comment at the top of the section. I've started asking around. - Dank (push to talk) 15:33, 26 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

oh! good idea. i believe the subscribe link relies on javascript, which i generally don't use, so it had never occurred to me to subscribe to that section of the errors page. in any case, i am subscribed now, or at least until the comments currently there are cleared out.

does the pinned comment have to be visible, or can it be hidden in ways other than commenting it out? also, can the comment be empty, aside from its timestamp? for example, i am wondering if the following comment would work.

<!-- please do not remove this timestamp. it allows editors to subscribe to this section. --><span style="font-size: 0">00:00, 1 January 2000 (UTC)</span>

it may also be useful to ask other editors to comment below the timestamp, rather than above, if subscriptions are based on the timestamp of the top comment rather than that of the first comment. also, i am currently assuming that subscriptions are based on timestamps in signatures, though if they are based on timestamps in metadata, hiding such a timestamp may actually be easier. in any case, if this ends up being a successful long-term solution, i think it may be helpful to update the "Clear all reports" button to link to a version of the page that includes the timestamp. dying (talk) 20:59, 26 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

When I tested a hidden comment at a random WP-space page (I used WP:UPDATE), it didn't work ... I'm guessing that means that no hidden comment will work, but I don't know. Glad to hear you like this; I'll post my request at WT:ERRORS and see what happens. More to come! - Dank (push to talk) 21:02, 26 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I've just added the hidden comment you suggested to an old, generally unvisited page in WP-space that I use sometimes to test things: Wikipedia:Update (at the top of the first section). It doesn't seem to be working. - Dank (push to talk) 21:37, 26 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The "Clear all reports" button won't be a problem ... I see how to fix it to leave any comment I like ... if I can get consensus for the change. - Dank (push to talk) 21:38, 26 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

oh, interesting! it looks like the code for determining the first timestamp is more involved than i thought. thanks for testing my suggestion. dying (talk) 22:13, 26 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Success! I kept trying things until your suggestion worked. You can see the results at WP:Update#Content policy and WT:ERRORS. - Dank (push to talk) 22:27, 26 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

oh, sweet! thanks for tinkering with it until something worked. really glad that my suggestion helped. dying (talk) 22:51, 26 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Update: instead of "diving in", I think I'd prefer to deal with words-to-watch issues as we come to them, but feel free to ask if you have questions. - Dank (push to talk) 16:52, 30 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

On 28 September 2022, In the news was updated with an item that involved the article 2022 Berlin Marathon, which you created and nominated. If you know of another recently created or updated article suitable for inclusion in ITN, please suggest it on the candidates page. —Bagumba (talk) 08:08, 28 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

An article you recently created, Bulgaria Square, is not suitable as written to remain published. It needs more citations from reliable, independent sources. (?) Information that can't be referenced should be removed (verifiability is of central importance on Wikipedia). I've moved your draft to draftspace (with a prefix of "Draft:" before the article title) where you can incubate the article with minimal disruption. When you feel the article meets Wikipedia's general notability guideline and thus is ready for mainspace, please click on the "Submit your draft for review!" button at the top of the page. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 12:48, 6 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I promised above to share some things that I think I know about implication words in blurbs (because, due to, therefore, etc.). This is your user space, and I'm hoping you'll change and adapt much of this to match your own understanding and fit your own needs, but the main thing I want to say here is: heavy reliance on implication words almost always creates a non-encyclopedic tone. People start using ... and especially, misusing ... implication words in speech by age five. These words figure heavily in text where people are trying to assert without evidence that they know what's really going on and why, and in promotional and bombastic text. If implication words appear in blurbs when they're not being put to some legitimate use, they can quickly start to signal the wrong tone. So, my proposal is that we keep a running list of "things that should never or almost never be asserted as the cause of something in a blurb". I'll get us started.

1. Ambiguous things. Working out what constitutes an ambiguous cause can be hard, but I'm hoping that if we struggle with this for a while, eventually it will seem obvious enough that we can just condense it to a few snappy points that will be clear enough going forward. So, I'll start out by stumbling around a little. Here's a fictional example: the writer gives us "It had been raining all day, and the fallen leaves made the roads slick. A heavy fog had just settled in. Because of this, the next car that rounded the curve skidded into a ditch". A bad copyeditor might decide that the problem is the ambiguity of the word "this" and change it to "Because of all three of these things ...". Better would be to simply remove "Because of this". A big problem for Main Page writers is that we never really know who we're writing for ... the Main Page presumably has a broad readership, which makes precise advice impossible. But I think it's reasonable to assume that our target readership understands that the point of the first two sentences is to set the scene for the third sentence, and to suggest some actual or possible causes. What makes "Because" wrong is that there's some ambiguity here ... it might have been the rain or the leaves or the fog that was the biggest problem, or maybe the car was going too fast. Maybe the writer's sources didn't hazard a guess, or maybe the writer is skeptical. Bottom line: if there's any ambiguity in the cause, then "Because" is a mistake.
2. Anything connected to shame or blame. I've removed implication words from blurbs that seemed to be saying (paraphrasing): "The man was bad and, therefore, had to die" or "The habitat is inaccessible and, therefore, no one has provided a description of the species". Of course, some men have been bad, and some species are inaccessible. But criminal guilt and innocence are (ideally) decided at the courthouse, and whether a species description is up to scholarly standards is a matter for scholars to decide. Words like "therefore" can lead a reader to come to a conclusion before they've been presented with relevant evidence or with the full story of how things turned out.
3. Anything reflecting basic, universal knowledge of how the world works. One blurb used "causing" in the following sense (but the other words have been changed, as usual, to protect the guilty!): "The plane slammed into the cliff, causing it to burst into flames". None of my advice is guaranteed to work, because language changes all the time, sometimes in strange ways, but I'd be very surprised if this language ever catches on, in part because of the risk that it will come off as talking down to the reader. The usual way to write this is: "The plane slammed into the cliff and burst into flames".
4. Things that are being evaluated by scholars and critics. People who are paid to render an opinion on things really hate it when they're told that whatever it is they're studying "caused" them to come to some conclusion, as if they had no choice in their assessment.
5. Gatherings of all sorts. It's surprisingly common for writers to say that a race caused a death, or a technical conference caused a change in the industry. I don't know where this is coming from, other than: writing is hard, and sometimes writers say things that are kind of true because they don't have the details they need to give a more accurate picture. Whatever the problem is here, the word "caused" makes things worse rather than better.
6. Any reason given by an advertiser, promoter or personal agent. This used to be a "duh" point, cut-and-dried, but it's become much more complicated to identify and discount promotional language in the social media age ... promotion has become the fashion. I'm not the best person to give advice on this; I hate social media. You're probably better at picking up on these clues than I am. - Dank (push to talk) 18:40, 14 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

wow, this is really good advice. i'm sorry that i still haven't directly responded to your earlier question. i'm actually still reflecting on my current position, and have come to realize things about myself this past week that i haven't before. i'll take some time to digest this information, but wanted to thank you for it first. dying (talk) 22:06, 14 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. An occupational hazard of copyediting is learning things about yourself. I'm looking forward to finding out! But take your time. - Dank (push to talk) 23:13, 14 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Just a heads-up ... I seem to be sick again, hopefully nothing serious. I'll be back in a few days. - Dank (push to talk) 22:57, 15 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

oh, so sorry to hear. get well soon! dying (talk) 23:01, 15 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, yes, new health problems, but I'm not going anywhere. If you ask a question and I don't answer for a while (or at all), ask around. - Dank (push to talk) 13:32, 17 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

oof. well, please take care of yourself, and thanks for letting me know. as before, please don't feel obligated to respond to anything here in a timely manner, or at all.

by the way, i am slightly alarmed that i seem to have inadvertently inserted an 'i' in two successive blurbs (corrected here and here), incidentally forming different words that are also valid, but inappropriate in the context. i don't recall a pattern of erring in this manner before, but i've made a note to myself to watch out for this in the future, and thought i might also inform you so that you know of this apparent weakness of mine. dying (talk) 08:21, 24 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'll keep an i on it. - Dank (push to talk) 13:20, 24 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

ha! i was ... not expecting that. found its mark pretty well. thanks, Dank. dying (talk) 16:57, 24 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Roberta Williams (blurb):

  i couldn't figure out why this blurb doesn't have an image, as the infobox image appears to be licensed under cc by-sa 4.0 and its release was confirmed via vrt. normally, i wouldn't bother you with image issues, but since you were the one who drafted this blurb, i thought i might ask you first. dying (talk) 23:33, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  It's only because I haven't been giving any thought to images. But I definitely think someone should :) Yep, it's certainly usable. (Btw, I see you copyedited a sports article tonight ... FWIW, I've stopped looking at those, too.) - Dank (push to talk) 00:39, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  thanks for letting me know, on both counts. i will ask about including the image on the blurb's talk page. dying (talk) 23:09, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

On 15 October 2022, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article 2022 Berlin Marathon, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that in the 2022 Berlin Marathon, Tigist Assefa won by running the third-fastest marathon ever by a woman, in just her second marathon, breaking her personal best by nearly 20 minutes? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/2022 Berlin Marathon. You are welcome to check how many pageviews the nominated article or articles got while on the front page (here's how, 2022 Berlin Marathon), and if they received a combined total of at least 416.7 views per hour (i.e., 5,000 views in 12 hours or 10,000 in 24), the hook may be added to the statistics page. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Cwmhiraeth (talk) 12:02, 15 October 2022 (UTC) [reply]

October songs

thank you! - it's also featured on Portal:Germany --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:32, 15 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

oh, wow, that's great! thanks, Gerda! dying (talk) 12:59, 15 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

such a pleasure to have something which isn't nazi or music ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:12, 15 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

oh! i am slightly ashamed to admit that i have never noticed the bias, but am glad that i was able to help correct it. there is so much that germany has to offer! dying (talk) 21:18, 15 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

thank you for changing the bwv 56 blurb, but i'll be out now for the rest of the day, opera! don't feel ignored ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:23, 15 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

no worries, we have a week to get it right, so there's no rush, though i do appreciate the note. hope you enjoyed the opera! dying (talk) 21:18, 15 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

yes, spectacular music in an interesting interpretation, and two of "my subjects" singing well, others to follow - i looked at the blurb, and it works, - nice work about the collaboration! i'll look again with a bit more distance. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:54, 15 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

today's DYK: two facts from the two concert of this years Rheingau Musik Festival I liked best, both a cappella singing. If you follow the songs, you see a circus, where I performed singing, and in the end the whole tent joined for Dona nobis pacem. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:10, 19 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

who shall separate us --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:43, 22 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

thank you for your help with the blurb of Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen, BWV 56! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:16, 23 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

no problem, Gerda! i'm glad that we ended up with a blurb that you are happy with. always a pleasure working with you. looks like you had a good time at the circus! dying (talk) 08:36, 24 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

leaving the month with reformation and a cat treat --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:56, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

On 16 October 2022, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Ice XVII, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that ice XVII (structure shown) potentially has a use in green technology as a medium for storing hydrogen? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Ice XVII. You are welcome to check how many pageviews the nominated article or articles got while on the front page (here's how, Ice XVII), and if they received a combined total of at least 416.7 views per hour (i.e., 5,000 views in 12 hours or 10,000 in 24), the hook may be added to the statistics page. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:02, 16 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

		Hook update
		Your hook reached 10,407 views (867.3 per hour), making it one of the most viewed hooks of October 2022 – nice work!

theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 04:41, 17 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

On 19 October 2022, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Zunda Towers, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that the Zunda Towers (pictured) in Riga, Latvia, changed their name from "Z-Towers" to avoid being associated with Russia's invasion of Ukraine? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Zunda Towers. You are welcome to check how many pageviews the nominated article or articles got while on the front page (here's how, Zunda Towers), and if they received a combined total of at least 416.7 views per hour (i.e., 5,000 views in 12 hours or 10,000 in 24), the hook may be added to the statistics page. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:02, 19 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your work on this, feel free to put up your articles at Wikipedia:WikiProject Europe/The 10,000 Challenge.♦ Dr. Blofeld 08:51, 19 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

thanks, Dr. Blofeld! i had actually stumbled upon your project page some time ago, and had given some thought about joining it, but came to realize that i would likely be more productive working outside of the project rather than within it. in any case, i am glad that your project has been so successful, and if you think it will help the project, you are welcome to add to the list any contributions of mine that i could have added myself. thanks for the invitation! dying (talk) 08:29, 24 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

		Hook update
		Your hook reached 8,644 views (720.3 per hour), making it one of the most viewed hooks of October 2022 – nice work!

theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 07:57, 20 October 2022 (UTC) [reply]

November songs

Thank you for working while I was on vacation. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:44, 20 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanksgiving in the U.S. - Bach said it in music for peace --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:45, 24 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

thank you for your work to the writer who shaved their head. i'll look later today. opera and advent choral music on my talk --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:56, 28 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• WP:Today's featured article/December 23, 2022: This is a rerun ... it ran without an image the first time, but at the current length, it should have an image if possible. There's an image of the Stamper brothers in the article ... do you think that would work? - Dank (push to talk) 00:25, 11 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wait, great minds and all that ... someone just now gave it an image! - Dank (push to talk) 00:26, 11 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • actually, i liked your suggestion, as it would have added a little variety to the video game blurbs, since they are often run with an image of one of the consoles the game was released on. however, i am admittedly somewhat worried about the image's provenance, as the picture appears to be the only upload to commons by that editor. also, since the uploader appears to have last edited over six years ago, i am assuming that clarifying the copyright status of the image may be difficult, so i have no issues with using the image Schwede66 selected. in any case, thanks for the image suggestion! dying (talk) 02:25, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • (Btw, while I'm here ... great job on WP:Today's featured article/November 22, 2022. Impressive.) - Dank (push to talk) 16:50, 13 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • thanks, Dank! dying (talk) 02:25, 16 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• FWIW ... health problems, and I've unsubscribed for now from the TFA section of WP:ERRORS. Back soon. Keep up the great work. - Dank (push to talk) 14:28, 8 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  thanks for letting me know, Dank. get well soon! dying (talk) 00:05, 9 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Well ... not back soon. But then, you and all the participants at TFA are doing a great job ... no need to come back, I think. But I'm still available whenever you have questions such as "where did we last see X" ... there's a chance I'll remember. Thanks much for doing an amazing job at TFA, it really makes me feel better about the years I put into it, knowing that the tradition continues. - Dank (push to talk) 18:27, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Dying. Thank you for your work on Kherson Art Museum. User:SunDawn, while examining this page as a part of our page curation process, had the following comments:

Thanks for creating the article!

To reply, leave a comment here and begin it with ((Re|SunDawn)). Please remember to sign your reply with ~~~~. (Message delivered via the Page Curation tool, on behalf of the reviewer.)

✠ SunDawn ✠ (contact) 04:41, 15 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hi dying,

This edit? - completely my own oversight in reverting some odd changes. If there was some cussin' in Spanish there as well, I completely missed that too.