Archives

User talk:Eric/Archive 1, 2006 thru 2012 User talk:Eric/Archive 2, 2013 thru 2014 User talk:Eric/Archive 3, 2015 User talk:Eric/Archive 4, 2016 User talk:Eric/Archive 5, 2017 User talk:Eric/Archive 6, 2018-2020 User talk:Eric/Archive 7, 2021-2022

Hello! I just saw that you did a little copyediting on my edit in Sarcomyxa edulis entry, thank you. I appreciate it. I look forward to your continued interest in my sharing, and help improve it. When necessary, please leave a message on my User talk. Thank you so much! Ping an Chang (talk) 09:46, 18 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I'll try to take another look at the Tilia article soon. Eric ^talk 14:36, 19 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I have a problem with your edits.Infactinteresting (talk) 17:51, 18 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Such as? Eric ^talk 00:14, 19 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

You reverted me and it may seem not too important. In this instance it is just a comma or lack of one. I realize you have been here quite a long time. Also you said to a user, "you're embarrassing yourself".Infactinteresting (talk) 04:23, 19 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I found it odd, your edit consisting of simply removing that comma. And I found the removal itself to be an error: Doing so created what is known as a "run-on sentence". You can look up that phrase if the concept is unfamiliar to you. As for the comment you attribute to me: Though I can certainly be pushed to make such an observation, I don't know what edit you are referring to, nor why. Eric ^talk 14:28, 19 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hello. I've run into the editor "Bon courage" and discovered his/her insistence on maintaining the word "fringe" in the article about Jay Bhattacharya. Is there some kind of territoriality at work here where this editor is trying to claim certain content as their own, so they can espouse their viewpoints? What's the history? (I see you tried to remove "fringe" from the article about two years ago.) BleedingKansas (talk) 00:22, 6 March 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hi BleedingKansas- First, Wikipedia is overly fond of the categorization "fringe", in my opinion. I'm not familiar with Bon Courage, but I gave up pretty quickly, over two years ago, on trying to bring any balance to WP articles relating to A Certain Topic. I found that my attempts, and those of others, were quickly reverted by members of a handful of editors who seemed to me to be acting as Defenders of The One True Narrative. I had the impression they enjoyed some kind of carte blanche in their endeavors, and around the same time I noticed a disturbing new sanction regime had been put in place, and these Faithkeepers were making threats to heretical editors, invoking The Sanction. In the end I was forced to conclude that WP was not adhering to its stated policy of neutrality on this and other topics, but had instead taken on a role of ideological enforcer for the Ministry of Truth on certain topics. So I abandoned any attempts to bring us back to neutrality in these areas. Here are a couple related talk posts, one from above, here on my talkpage: User_talk:Eric/Archive_6,_2018-2020#Bhakdi_page_deletion; and another linked from within that discussion, but now archived: User_talk:Newslinger/Archive_4#Question_re_threats_of_sanction. I later learned that Larry Sanger, one of the co-founders of WP, had become disillusioned with the direction the project took some time ago. WP blocks linking it here, but go to YooToob and search on "Wikipedia co-founder: I no longer trust the website I created". Let me know how you fare in your efforts on this topic. Eric ^talk 01:35, 6 March 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Eric, thank you. I am not a typical person to be editing on Wikipedia - conservative Christians aren't known for their presence in these spaces. Yet, I understand the absolute essential nature of accurate information - I was in the Army - omissions or prevarications get people killed. I guess I naively thought Wikipedia could still be about honest pursuit of the truth. Sadly, your reply likely confirmed for me that Wikipedia, on the contentious issues, is now a lost cause. Thank you for your reply. BleedingKansas (talk) 03:41, 6 March 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

You're so lucky you have a faith. Imagine what it's like out here in the wild for a fallen Unitarian like me! Hang in there. Eric ^talk 03:45, 6 March 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

PS, you will no doubt have noticed further examples of the above in the recent edit history of the GBD article. (And now see below.) This is why I abandoned the effort in 2020. And this is why serious people no longer take Wikipedia seriously. Eric ^talk 04:54, 6 March 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hi Eric, I prefer not to template the regulars, but please stop edit warring at Great Barrington Declaration. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 04:49, 6 March 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

How very good of you. As I suspect you are aware, I was not edit-warring, but attempting to remove bias, knowing full well it would likely be restored. Just to demonstrate a point. By all means, carry on your good work. Eric ^talk 04:59, 6 March 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

You have recently been editing COVID-19, broadly construed, which has been designated a contentious topic. This standard message is designed as an introduction to contentious topics and does not imply that there are any issues with your editing.

A special set of rules applies to certain topic areas, which are referred to as contentious topics. These are specially-designated topics that tend to attract more persistent disruptive editing than the rest of the project and have been designated as contentious topics by the Arbitration Committee. When editing a contentious topic, Wikipedia’s norms and policies are more strictly enforced and Wikipedia administrators have special powers in order to reduce disruption to the project.

Within contentious topics, editors should edit carefully and constructively, refrain from disrupting the encyclopedia, and:

adhere to the purposes of Wikipedia;

comply with all applicable policies and guidelines;

follow editorial and behavioural best practice;

comply with any page restrictions in force within the area of conflict; and

refrain from gaming the system.

Editors are advised to err on the side of caution if unsure whether making a particular edit is consistent with these expectations. If you have any questions about contentious topics procedures you may ask them at the arbitration clerks' noticeboard or you may learn more about this contentious topic here. You may also choose to note which contentious topics you know about by using the ((Ctopics/aware)) template.

Thank you for your humorous anecdote. I found it to be both careful and constructive. I especially appreciated the use of the passive voice. Eric ^talk 05:07, 6 March 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I appreciated your input on the Vienne article concerning "Cardinal of Tournon" and the valley of the river Gère. The second doesn't sound bad to me because I'm used to hearing insular English, but I'd prefer to use the less marked international form (Gère river valley). As for Cardinal of Tournon, while it may be used in English (which I didn't know, but see is true), I've decided to use his full name because he was Archbishop of Lyon at the time of the condemnation of Servet and I don't want to confuse matters. I do appreciate the input though. -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 22:14, 25 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hi SashiRolls- Yes, if it isn't the person's name, you would write The cardinal of Tournon baked SashiRolls a cake. If the word "cardinal" is being expressed as a title, it is capitalized: In the year 9999, SashiRolls was made Cardinal of Tournon. As for rivers, a general rule might be The Romans built a temporary bridge across the river Rhine (mostly UK?)(maybe also River Rhine?) / Rhine River (mostly US?) so the legion could cross it and retaliate for the raid. Some guidance here: WP:NCRIVER. Eric ^talk 23:22, 25 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Adding note re "Marquis de Sade": Though that is a title, anglophones treat it like a person's name, since it virtually always refers to that specific marquis, Donatien Alphonse François. Eric ^talk 23:26, 25 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

OK, I'll fix that to Gère River valley. Being reincarnated as the cardinal of Tournon sounds like fun: I remember thinking that the cardinals frolicking around in the snow looked so happy (and cold) as a kid... that said, I will be awfully lonely there unless the climate or the polarity changes a bit by 9999. But I guess if there's still people around I could eat a lot of their grapes! :)

It seems that French, for once, follows the same rule as English, because I see that when the Cardinal is mentioned alone in the text it is capitalized, and when he's referred to as the cardinal de Tournon it is not.

With regard to your comment on my t/p, though I do know the template, I'd never thought of using it on my u/p. I do love that episode... and book. :) Its entry has recently been brought to BA-status over on fr.wp, someday maybe I'll get the courage to work on (a much shorter) one in English. -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 00:12, 26 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@SashiRolls: Oh, sorry! I meant to say earlier that although most style manuals would probably call for "Gère River", "Gère river valley" might be preferable because "river valley" could be considered its own generic attribute to the river itself. But I forgot to mention that because I was in a hurry to run off to supper. Comme je suis nul, quelle horreur! Eric ^talk 01:26, 26 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

SashiRolls, forgive me, but I think a lack of clarity on my part may have mislead you: I just capitalized "Cardinal" in that article because it is being used as a title. Hopefully my changes make sense. Eric ^talk 01:44, 26 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hi Eric, you reverted my edit on Dane Axe, presumably because you consider it to be incorrect or, perhaps, a hyper-correction.

The issue is that "thin" is an adjective but "forged" is a verb (past-tense). Adjectives are used to describe (or define) nouns. However, adverbs should be used when describing (or modifying) verbs. Thus "forged thinly" is correct while "forged thin" is not.

It's exactly the same rule by which "the car moved really quickly" is correct but "the car moved real quick" is most definitely not.

The edit is not controversial so I will put it back.

Best Regards, 220.235.82.123 (talk) 03:44, 26 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thanks for the grammar lesson, though a glance at my user page might have spared you the effort. I'm well aware of how the parts of speech are employed. In this case, "thin" is not meant to describe the manner in which the blade was forged (adverb), but rather the resulting property of the blade (adjective). A blade might be forged carefully or hastily or skillfully, but it is not forged thinly. Eric ^talk 12:04, 26 September 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

You reverted my edit on the article Auvergne on the ground of WP:OVERLINK. I looked at the article and saw that there was not a single wikilink to the article France anywhere in the article. I thought the reader would be interested in looking at the article about the country where Auvergne is. JIP | Talk 08:02, 19 December 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hello JIP- My read of the overlink guidance is that names of countries seen as familiar to most readers are generally not linked. Following that thinking, we may expect most readers here to know that France is a country, and that wikilinking the word would not be necessary. That said, the guidance does read Unless a term is particularly relevant to the context in the article..., so the matter is naturally subject to interpretation. If you feel that readers coming to the Auvergne article might not be familiar with France, you could of course restore the link. Note: I think that the inclusion of a location map in the infobox helps make such things clear at first glance; and just now, seeing that the map had no caption, I added one. Eric ^talk 14:22, 19 December 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Can you please further explain your edits here[1] and [2]? "not an improvement" is a very strange revert for a good faith, high quality photograph contribution to further expound on food subjects, which are pretty dreadful on English Wikipedia. It's important to show food and how it is presented in other countries outside of it's "native" country (such as France in this matter with cassoulet) and there is no photograph depicting a Jerusalem artichoke, therefore it is very important for us to have. I'll likely add that one back here in a moment, since it is educational in value and important for readers to see how one can use that vegetable per Wikipedia:Image_use_policy#Adding_images_to_articles.

I also notice you nominated one of my photos on Commons. Not sure why you're suddenly choosing to mess with my contributions. Thanks and Happy New Year. Missvain (talk) 05:06, 1 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Re "very important for us to have": There are multiple photos of the Jerusalem artichoke in that article. The one you added could be a potage of any one of many vegetables, and does not enlighten the reader regarding the plant. You might find further guidance on this topic at WP:NOTGUIDE.

Re "messing with my 'contributions'": See my reply on the deletion discussion page. And find some comfort in the strong possibility that the "consensus" will be to keep your food-related snapshots on Commons. Eric ^talk 14:56, 1 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hi Eric, regarding your recent revert [[3]] at Black-capped chickadee, I first want to say thank you for correcting my wording of the image caption - it's definitely an improvement. I do still think that license plate should be used over registration plate. While the site you link actually has both registration and license plate named, license plate is the common term throughout North America where this bird lives.

Vehicle license plates of the United States

Vehicle registration plate - "license plate (US English)"

Your last revert left the article with a mismatch - "license" appears in the text, "registration" appears in the image caption. I'm planning to do more edits to this article to get it ready for GA review, and ultimately I don't care which term is used, but I'd at least like to have it consistent and avoid an edit war. Unless there's good evidence why this shouldn't be the case, I'll eventually change it back to license through my edits.

Thanks! grungaloo (talk) 02:04, 18 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hi- I understand that "license plate" is common, and in over half a century of gently trying to correct friends when they use that term, I have to admit I've made little to no progress. Cars aren't licensed, they are registered. And the mere fact that Wikipedia asserts something becomes less of an indicator of reality with each passing day, I'm sorry to report. That said, I acknowledge this was a lost cause a long time ago, and your endeavor to improve the chickadee article is more important to me than my futile attempt to retro-fix American English. And now I see that even my former trusty ally, the AHD, has an entry for the term. Have at it! Eric ^talk 03:57, 18 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Ha! Saw what you did there, ol' Grungaloo. Now watch, someone else will come along and change it back anyway! Eric ^talk 02:54, 30 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

im sorry im sorry im sorry im sorry, to my mother im sorry im sorry im sorry im sorry. Shlomper2 (talk) 18:38, 18 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Hi Eric, as I have explained in the edit notes, phrases such as "one of # NOUNS", "one" is a pronoun for "one NOUN of # NOUNS". What you have reverted to is a common mistake of thinking "two regions" is the clause" because you see two next to regions, and think it should take a plural form verb. Are you familiar with the term propositional phrase? "of two" is a propositional phrase which can always be omitted for the sentence to still contain the main meaning and make sense. If you remove "of two regions", (its an alternate form of "one region (out)of two"), then you see the sentence becomes "one region that does...". Then you can see the subject is "one (region)". Please refer to the below link for thr grammar explanation and example. I'd appreciate that after you read it and understand it, to please revert your revert. thanks. https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/256479/one-out-of-three-people-thinks-or-one-out-of-three-people-think Mistakefinder (talk) 18:06, 24 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Mistakefinder: Thanks for your kind efforts to explain your notions of English usage to me. I am perfectly aware of the many issues that native speakers of English have in subject-verb number agreement these days. What you assert above and in your edit summary is incorrect, your use of ALLCAPS notwithstanding. The usage discussion you link above represents quite a different issue from the one in the Brittany article. This may help to clarify: Brittany does not contain any landlocked departments. There are two French regions that do not contain any landlocked departments. I hope you understand this. Eric ^talk 18:34, 24 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

	The Hard Worker's Barnstar
	For your continued help on Black-capped chickadee - thank you for catching and correcting my mistakes! grungaloo (talk) 00:15, 30 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Please keep it coming! grungaloo (talk) 00:15, 30 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

You're the one who's doing all the work! I'm just a drive-by copyeditor who likes chickadees. Thanking you for all your work on that article! Eric ^talk 00:19, 30 January 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you.TSventon (talk) 01:41, 3 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

"The user is deleting my edits with invalid reasons. I really do a lot of research, I consult the English language vocabulary "Collins Dictionary" (https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english), I make 100%, or almost 100%, accurate edits, and a user who doesn't know the rules well (he wrote "Parmesan" with a lowercase initial ("parmesan"), removed useful wikilinks (such as the wikilink "Italy" in the infobox), and, not happy, deleted italics from uncommon English language terms, such as "tortelloni"). I request a temporary block for this user."

This is what I wrote in the closed block request. JackkBrown (talk) 02:00, 3 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

We don't italicize the term that is the subject of the article throughout the article. We don't wikilink common vocabulary, such as country names. We only boldface the first instance of the article subject. We don't go on campaigns to make mass changes across many articles that run counter to established style guides. And, finally, we endeavor to come up with helpful section headers when we start talkpage discussions. Eric ^talk 02:12, 3 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Eric: by the way: it's spelled "Parmesan", not "parmesan". JackkBrown (talk) 03:19, 3 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Not sure what the entirety of this disputation is about, but I've tried to steer JackkBrown a bit with regard to the Italian cusine editing. This one would not be italicized, because it's entirely assimilated into English; Parmesan is one of the best-known continental European cheeses to English speakers because of its heavy use in Italian food (or at least the Italian-American version thereof). It would be capitalized as an adjective derived from a proper name, same as with "French bread" and "Sindhi biryani" and "Lighvan cheese", etc., etc. Only boldfacing the first occurrence per MOS:BOLDLEAD and MOS:BOLDSYN is correct.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:51, 3 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@JackkBrown: No need to ping a user whose talkpage you're posting on. Hi SMcCandlish. While I of course agree with your capitalization examples, I wouldn't necessarily tend to always capitalize parmesan, especially when used as a standalone noun, as it refers to a tabletop foodstuff, in many settings an everyday condiment, that long ago became part of everyday anglophone life. But that is of course a subjective matter, and is in any case far from being the focus of my reverts of JackkBrown's problematic edits, which I see to be numerous and disruptive, and accompanied by uninformative edit summaries. JB seems to be focusing on that one P rather than addressing what I have pointed out as a broadly problematic editing campaign. Eric ^talk 04:10, 3 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I'm not privy to the entire history, but have suggested multiple times that JacckBrown should probably stop trying to adjust italicization and other style matters pertaining to use of Italian-derived words and names in English, because it requires a completely-fluent sense of what has and has not been assimiliated into the language. I'm not sure if that's entirely what this is about, though. As for [p|P]armesan, it is rather consistently capitalized in English-language sources, and that form has always dominated [4]. If you went around de-capitalizing it, then it would likely produce conflict with other editors, on the one-hand, and inspire unhelpful monkey-see-monkey-do decapitalizing of other geographic names in adjectival form, on the other.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:17, 3 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I too was hoping to get him to slow down and look at the guidance. But my edits seem to have provoked his ire instead. As for the parm thing, that was a small part of my reverting, in one rollback action, a bunch of problematic edits. De-capitalizing such terms would not be a goal for me. Eric ^talk 04:27, 3 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Eric: "We don't italicize the term that is the subject of the article throughout the article"; you're probably the only one who thinks so. Look at Juz' page, for example, where this word is always written in italics, and this is just one of many examples. Your behaviour is very strange, and the curious thing is that you attack my edits, accusing me of being in error. Congratulations. JackkBrown (talk) 05:29, 3 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Jackk, over at my talk page, seems particularly up in arms about you (Eric) saying something to the effect of "We don't italicize the term that is the subject of the article throughout the article". If that means "we do not italicize non-English in an article about the subject, simply because it is the subject", then that would be incorrect. We not only italicize it (more precisely, put in ((lang|it|...)) or whatever is the appropriate language code, which italicizes and also does language markup) throughout, we also put ((Italic title)) at the top of the article. But not if it's a fully-assimilated-into-English term like "pizza". If that meant something more like "This particular term is not italicized throughout this particular article, so I object to your italicizing it in this particular spot", then it's a matter for seeing whether a preponderance of mainstream English-language dictionaries treat it as an assimilated term and have an entry on it, as they will for "pizza" but surely not for pizzoccheri. If it's something that should be italicized as a non-assimilated foreignism per MOS:FOREIGN, then it should be done consistently throughout the article (and at other articles that mention it). Not sure why there is this level disputation, since it's a pretty simple matter. [shrug]  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:22, 3 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@JackkBrown: The fact that it took you seven edits over eleven minutes (all without edit summaries) to express your feelings here might serve as an indication of how your edits might come across to other editors as being chaotic, not well thought-out, and disruptive.

@SMcCandlish: I would not italicize a foreign-language article subject term in that manner. Repeatedly italicizing the term that is the subject of the article is distracting, and unnecessarily so, one reason being that the reader already knows the article is about that term, and that it comes from a foreign language. When leaving edit summaries for the reverts I made, I looked for guidance, including at MOS:FOREIGN, MOS:LEADLANG, and MOS:FOREIGNITALIC, and did not find any that treated this situation. It seems to me that such guidance is lacking. If I were involved in helping formulate it, I would suggest treating such terms as we do foreign-language proper names (with respect to italicization), as is mentioned mid-section at MOS:FOREIGNITALIC. Eric ^talk 13:18, 3 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I've had the same issue with Jackk (e.g. 11 edits to complete two sentences). As for the italics, I'm not sure what you find unclear about the guidelines. MOS:FOREIGN: Use italics for phrases in other languages and for isolated foreign words that are not current in English .... Where possible, this is best done with the ((lang)) template. MOS:FOREIGNITALIC in more detail: Wikipedia uses italics for phrases in other languages and for isolated foreign words that do not yet have everyday use in non-specialized English. Use the native spellings if they use the Latin alphabet (with or without diacritics) .... The ((lang)) template and its variants support all ISO 639 language codes, correctly identifying the language and automatically italicizing for you. Please use these templates rather than manually italicizing non-English material. .... Loanwords or phrases that have been assimilated into and have common use in English, such as praetor, Gestapo, samurai, esprit de corps, e.g., i.e., etc., do not require italicization. MOS:LEADLANG generally isn't relevant here; it's about when there is a native English name and a non-English name for the same thing, and some material on proper names, and on not cluttering the lead with irrelevant additonal language stuff. MOS:OTHERLANG: Non-English words or phrases should be encased in ((lang)), which uses ISO 639 language codes .... Rationale: ((lang)) enables speech synthesizers to pronounce the text in the correct language. It has many other uses; see Template:Lang/doc#Rationale for a comprehensive list of benefits. WP:ITALICTITLE: Use italics [in the page title] when italics would be necessary in running text; for example ... foreign phrases are italicized both in ordinary text and in article titles. ... A title or part of it is made to appear in italics with the use of the DISPLAYTITLE magic word or the ((Italic title)) template.. So, what part of this needs revision? None of this is new; it all dates to 2010 and earlier. A typical compliant article: chicharrón.

We would not treat such foreign terms the same as foreign proper names, since they are not proper names. If we did, then these guidelines (plus part of AT policy) of course would not exist. Also, why would we treat non-English common nouns and other generic terms as if they were proper names, when we do not treat English-language ones as if they are proper names (e.g. by capializing them like "Dog", "Hermeneutics", "Computer", "Swimming", etc.)? PS: Actual compliance with this is still spotty, because it's tedious and takes a lot of WP:GNOME work (like so) that most editors aren't interested in doing. E.g. a whole lot of ((lang|es)) needs to happen at many articles on Latin American cuisine. Anyway, the important thing is to not interfere with this cleanup work, which serves accessibility and other purposes, even if you don't want to participate in it (and even if someone like JackkBrown sometimes overdoes it – despite a lot of help, he often seems unclear what is an assimilated loanword like "pizza" versus an unassimilated foreignism like pizzoccheri).

PPS, after edit conflict: If you really wanted to propose we switch to a system of italicizing foreignisms only one time per article, you could make such a proposal at WT:MOS, but I do not think it would meet with success, in part because it would be inconsistent, in part because where a particular piece of text is in the article can change radically at any moment, and the actual markup to do it (e.g. ((lang|it|pizzoccheri|italic=unset))) is more complicated, but would still be needed to prevent screen readers from mangling pronunciations. Readers understand that a foreign term put in italics is italicized as a foreignism; it's simply a convention, which has existed for centuries before WP, and does not represent a form of emphasis. In this, it is just like italicizing movie and book titles, and scientific names of species, and various other purely typographic, non-emphasis uses of italics.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:22, 3 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Eric: @SMcCandlish: guys, I'm ready to discuss. Eric, let's work something out, I value consistency, and I'm going to italicise or not italicise all Italian foods, so can we kindly establish which foods to italicise and which not to italicise by establishing consistency? I constantly check English vocabularies to make sure which foods are known or not, I have consumed a lot of my time on this. Kindly, what do you propose? Anything is fine with me, as long as there is consistency for all articles on Italian foods. Would you prefer that I remove italics from all articles on Italian food? I'm here to discuss calmly and find a solution. User:Bazza 7 (this isn't a criticism of him, but a praise), he taught me (and I thank him very much for this) to use the vocabularies of the English language to determine which foods are known and which are not; I, therefore, used many vocabularies for each Italian food, taking up a lot of my time; why are my edits now no longer considered correct? JackkBrown (talk) 15:32, 3 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

SMcCandlish, First, re proper nouns: I was only referring to italicization, not suggesting that we treat pizzoccheri as a proper noun; sorry for any confusion.

I'd already read everything you excerpted, thanks. And at the point I was first reading it—in a tedious quest to leave an edit summary that was as informative and explanatory as possible—I was already spending more time on this issue than I wanted to. I felt I was going beyond the call of duty to explain something that should be obvious, in hopes of slowing down what I saw as a possible runaway campaign in progress. But it seems that what I see as obvious is not so to others, and that my view might be more subjective than I realized. I do not see any guidance that specifically addresses how to treat a foreign common noun in the body text of an article of which this term is the subject. My subjective view is that it should not be treated the way we treat a book title, for example.

While I fully understand your points above, I am sure that in the publishing world, such terms would not be repeatedly italicized once introduced. It seems obvious to me that to do so is unnecessarily distracting, and I believe it would be viewed as such by most professional editors. But I am way past the point where I would go on a campaign to bring about this approach on Wikipedia. For what it's worth, in a former life I worked as a translator and as a copy-editor of translations, and that experience informs my views here, even if it runs counter to the dreaded most holy "consensus".

JackkBrown, it's nice to see that something eventually moved you to want to discuss things calmly. While we were waiting for you to arrive at this happy juncture, I think I already made my views clear above. I will be away from Wikipedia for several days. And once again, there is no need to ping a user to alert him to a post on his own talkpage. Also, you might benefit from a perusal of the guidance at Help:Edit summary and Help:Show preview. Happy editing, as they say. Eric ^talk 17:13, 3 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Eric: Off-site publishing varies by publisher. I read a great deal of material about historical Scotland and Ireland, and in the professionally produced and edited works, the practice is to uniformly italicize the material in Irish and Scottish Gaelic, Scots, and Ulster Scots, as well as other non-English when it appears (usually Latin and Norman French, occasionally also Manx, Welsh, Middle and Old English, etc.). This is the norm across such material in books from reputable publishers, and academic journals. Same goes for all the material I studied at university about Spanish and pre-Columbian societies of the Americas; non-self-published material routinely puts all the Spanish, Portuguese, Puebloan, Quechuan, Aztec, Maya, etc., material in italics (other than proper names, and terms from those languages well-asssimilated into (at least regional) English, like "pueblo" itself). The italics practice might not be followed in something like a language-learning manual of Gaelic or Spanish, in which something like 25% of the material is non-English vocabulary and example phrases, but even then many of them do it (or use some other font-change choice to distinguish English from the other language).

In amateur and/or self-published writing, like individuals' blogs, and Scottish clan society newsletters, and Spanish teachers' web-posted lesson plans, and so on, the italics are fairly often dropped (though sometimes replaced by quotation marks, underlining, or other markup). When I lived in New Mexico, the local English of which has absorbed much more Spanish vocabulary than would be the case in, say, Wisconsin or Lankashire or Western Autralia, Spanish terms were less often italicized in newspapers and magazines than they would have been somewhere else. To return to the cuisine theme, cookbooks (mostly produced by amateur writers and subject to editorial revision by the publisher only rarely) often drop all italics, even for terms almost entirely unknown outside of a small area in a minority language. I'm skeptical there's a Wikipedian appetite (pun intended) for handling MOS:FOREIGN stuff differently on a category-by-category basis (e.g. dropping italics for all cuisine terminology). Terms that are firmly assimiliated in a particular dialect of English do seem to drop the italics in WP, probably owing to articles generally being written in the English that most pertains to the topic, and usage spreading from the main articles on the subjects in question. So "crore" and "lakh" usually don't take italics despite being virtually unknown outside of Indian and closely related Englishes, and (back to food) "chile", meaning New Mexico chile in particular, isn't italicized as Spanish despite the spelling being "chili" in every other English dialect (or, outside North America, sometimes "chilli").

@JackkBrown: "I have consumed a lot of my time on this" – I'm going to suggest for about the dozenth time that "policing" italics usage with regard to terms with varying absorption levels into English is a very poor choice of activity for a non-native speaker of the language. It is guaranteed to lead to a high error rate and to conflict with other editors. It would be of vastly higher value to the project, to the readers, and to your own peace of mind, for you to identify topics that are notable and on which it.wikipedia has a good article but en.wikipedia does not (or has a crappy stub), and do translation work and porting over of reliable-source citations (plus do some translation in the en→it direction). When we need a house built, it involves a lot more hauling of lumber and hammering of nails than polishing of doorknobs.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:43, 3 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@SMcCandlish: yes, but at least for Italian cuisine (see list of Italian dishes, you can find them all here) there should be consistency. As soon as we have an agreement, I will start working on it, and I promise not to clog up the watchlists, limiting myself to one macro-edit per article. In the meantime, I will also work on expanding these articles. JackkBrown (talk) 23:25, 3 February 2024 (UTC)Reply[reply]