User talk:RandomCanadian

Your close

I disagree with your procedural close of the move requested by Keepcalmandchill on Russo-Ukrainian War. Unlike the earlier request, the new request presented a good target and rational for a move and the arguments against the first request don't all apply to the second. The current title page of the page is unclear for readers trying to comprehend the background of the latest Russian invasion of Ukraine in light of the longer conflict. Please can you undo your close so that we can discuss the request? Pious Brother (talk) 05:15, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

@Pious Brother: As I say in my close, it is bad practice to have repeated discussions about the same topic, and when a previous proposal which was somehow similar in intent if not in exact suggested title was overwhelmingly rejected in less than 24 hours, it is unlikely that a new proposal will attract much more support. Neither did I say that all arguments against the first could apply to the second, but most of them do: editors complaining about "conflict" or "intervention" being an euphemism is a valid one for both suggestions; as is the argument that recent events do not mean that what preceded them was not a "real war". On top of that, some of the comments in that discussion specifically address an alternative "conflict" proposal. Simply put, it is nothing but foolhardy to expect that this proposal will gain any significant support at this time. If you think the article is at a wrong title, my suggestion would be to let the dust settle (both the one on the unfortunately very real battlefields and the proverbial dust here on-Wiki, which I must remind is not a battlefield), and revisit this in a few months when there will be more coverage which is not in the heat of the current events. It might also be informative to look at previous discussions on the topic to see why the current title was chosen and has remained unchanged so far. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:13, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

A barnstar for your efforts

		The Current Events Barnstar
		Awarded for efforts in expanding and verifying articles related to the 2021–2022 Russo-Ukrainian crisis and 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Awarded by Cdjp1 (talk) 7 March 2022 (UTC)

		The Original Barnstar
		Awarded for being the top contributor to an article related to the 2021–2022 Russo-Ukrainian crisis and 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Awarded by Cdjp1 (talk) 16:02, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

March songs

I just listened to the charity concert mentioned here. I created the articles of the composer and the soprano. - Do you think you could word what the source "Mawick" says (p 6) about the melody of Bewahre uns, Gott? - It's probably still under copyright. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:06, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

Now, you can also listen on YouTube, and more music, the piece by Anna Korsun begins after about one hour, and the voices call "Freiheit!" (freedom, instead of "Freude", joy). Music every day, pictured in songs. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:20, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

The Prayer is on the Main page, finally + new flowers --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:31, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for your help with Bach's works and his No. 1 especially today! - Turning to BWV 56, - how about music examples? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:15, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

@Gerda Arendt: Will see what I can do. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 20:47, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

A barnstar for your efforts

		COVID-19 Barnstar
		Awarded for efforts in expanding and verifying articles related to COVID-19. Awarded by Cdjp1 (talk) 8 March 2022 (UTC)

Every time we almost improve Wikipedia it is destroyed

I am so frustrated. We slogged through a tough RfC, and got consensus to remove the ludicrous participation guidelines. It is being fought against. Than we have people who have the total audacity to say that Wikipedia does not have enough football bios. Half of our BLPs are on sportsplayers, and despitre the fact a huge number of fields one is unlikely to become notable before age 35 our largest birth year category is for 1989. There is no way we have too little coverage of any field of sports endevor.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:49, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

@Johnpacklambert: Some moderation is still required, and this isn't a battleground, so there's no point attempting to piss off other people. If you are genuinely frustrated by what some editors are doing (and, I also, at least in part, am), it's probably better if you let them dig their own hole instead of trying to push them in the ditch. Patience is likely to do more good both to you and to advancing the goal of reducing the sports-spam issue. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:09, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

What we need is less of the battleground mentality of Johnpacklambert and some other editors on this issue, and more of the collaboration between editors with different views. Of the people who are actively working on NSPORTS changes, I personally find RandomCanadian to have been one of the most helpful in trying to strike a balance between tightening the restrictions whilst also not just removing everything, which is unhelpful. So thanks for that, RandomCanadian- hopefully some of the versions of your proposals will actually get implemented. Joseph2302 (talk) 08:06, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

A suggestion on decorum

I agree entirely with the sentiment of this section header, but would counsel that a synonym like "this nonsense" or "this absurd display" might better suit the noticeboard. Cheers! BD2412 T 18:01, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

Your close of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Giants–Jets rivalry

Hello. Your close was a gross and inappropriate use of WP:SPK and WP:SNOW, especially as a non-admin closure while only allowing 7 hours of discussion! As a non-admin, I urge you to revert your closure, or reach out to WP:AN to have an admin review your application of WP:SPK and WP:SNOW. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 05:14, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

I was not involved in the discussion, but I just read it, and I'd have to agree with Gonzo fan2007. Though I don't have a problem with the non-admin fact, as you are certainly well experienced enough to close this, I do have a problem with your invocation of WP:SNOW and WP:CSK. ––FormalDude talk 05:18, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I must disagree. A simple glance at the article (not even necessary to make a google search!) reveals stuff like [1]; [2]; [3]; or even [4]. That's four examples of clear SIGCOV about the title subject (and the usual suggestion is WP:THREE, so you've got it covered and then some). Since the only valid reason for deletion was an alleged fail of GNG, and that is obviously wrong (the requirement for CSK no. 3), then there's not much room for debate. As for the "non-admin" bit, my point of view has always been WP:NOBIGDEAL; and this is also supported by WP:CLOSE (where, specifically, Closures will rarely be changed by either the closing editor or a closure review 2) if the complaint is that the closer is not an admin.. Nor does the argument against SNOW appear to have any merit, as there was not a single editor in favour of deletion besides the nominator.

Also, you shouldn't take this personally. The whole point of speedy closes and WP:SNOW is to prevent needless bureaucracy when the ultimate outcome is obvious (WP:NOTBURO and WP:5P5), and how long the discussion has lasted is not usually a material factor. It just happens that this was the case this time. I'd even consider it lucky: discussions where the outcome is not so obvious can degenerate into an unhelpful mess and then everybody has a hard time moving on. This way? Minimum drama, minimum waste of time, everybody can find something else to work and improve.

The CSK assessment was made independently of the rest of the discussion (since, for the nomination to be obviously wrong, one would assume that this would be obvious in the article itself), but once you take into account the actual comments at the AfD, one finds plenty of evidence, including multiple sources, which further make it clear that there is significant coverage about the topic (hence why I also mention WP:SNOW, as even a very brief discussion has shown the existence of such sourcing).

Of course, you're free to appeal, but unless you're telling me that none of the sources which have so far been shown are actually SIGCOV, that's unlikely to yield anything constructive. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 05:43, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

I personally think a team rivalry needs strong support in RS, since you could technically call any match that occurs between two teams more than once a rivalry, it is highly prone to a slippery slope. And the four sources that you say are clear examples all actually seem to cast some doubt on whether this can be considered a real/true rivalry. ––FormalDude talk 05:53, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

@FormalDude: Whether they are casting "some doubt" upon it or not, they're actually covering the subject (and we have plenty of articles about stuff which is outright false, or at best questionable, if it is covered in sufficient depth, so that is not really a consideration). On top of that, an intra-town rivalry (both teams are from New York) isn't exactly the kind of "exceptional claim which would require exceptional evidence"... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 05:57, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Fair enough. It's a close call and I won't be appealing it. ––FormalDude talk 06:04, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

I feel a little guilty about this one, having been the person silly enough to 'suggest' AfDing this one: though essentially rhetorically rather than in advocacy of doing so, in response to an WP:OTHERSTUFF whatabout, and not to Gonzo_fan2007 themself. I should have seen that coming, and not done so: Reichstags, Spiderpersons, beans, etc. Close seems fine to me, by way of being correct on its merits. Whether it was wise in terms of saving process overhead, and thereby leading to... yet more process overhead, is a subtler and closer question. On "rivalries" generally, in a sense the "LA" one doesn't even pass that (rather low) bar, by way of the "because same city at the same time" criterion. And I concur with RandomCanadian with the "protesteth too much" anti-rivalry coverage. Even if all the SIGCOV were of the 'it's definitely not a rivalry, but yet we keep writing about it much as if it were!' sort, it'd still argue for their to be an article, and at the very most to call into question what it might be called. ("Missouri Mongooses–Colorado Cobras soi-disant 'rivalry'.") 109.255.211.6 (talk) 00:17, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

I endorse this close. The question to ask here is whether there is any reasonable possibility that the discussion, if left open longer, would lead to an actual consensus to delete. There is not. I would also point out (and probably would have done so in the discussion had it crossed my rader) that a rivalry is not necessarily contingent on direct encounters between rivals. Teams can have a rivalry over who sells the most tickets, or who draws the best fans, without even facing each other on the field. I am particularly aware of this because I happen to be the author of the article, Rivalry. BD2412 T 06:31, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

• I have opened a discussion here regarding your close: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Review of Snow Close at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Giants–Jets rivalry. Please feel free to continue the discussion there. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 14:37, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
• Nevermind. Just nevermind. In the future, let deletion discussions go at least 24 hours, especially when established editors make a good faith nomination. That's just a recommendation. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 15:05, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Renaming an article whilst an AFD discussion is in progress

It's not actually forbidden, but there are a few fixups that one has to do that one would not normally have to do, namely going to the AFD discussion page and altering the section title, altering the section title link for the transclusion to the main per-day page, altering the {{la}} so that the closing administrator hitting the convenience links gets the right page, and performing whatever is necessary to note the point that the rename was done. (For the latter, in the case of Cochrane Road (Hamilton, Ontario) (AfD discussion), I'd already done my old long-standing practice of a horizontal rule at the point of a significant change to the article.) Speaking as the author of the Project:Guide to deletion I can say with confidence that I never wrote a rule forbidding this, just cautionary notes that it's more complex during an AFD discussion, so you aren't ignoring any rule from me. ☺ Uncle G (talk) 04:56, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

@Uncle G: I just happened to move an article to a new title that was undergoing an AFD myself (Clive Disposal Site). Is there any cleanup I need to do? ––FormalDude talk 05:05, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Alleluia! Sing to Jesus

I understood that categorisation should be at the target, when appropriate. I think that is an obvious choice here.

Besides this being the same song and this redirect being classified as Category:English Christian hymns not withstanding the target is at Category:Welsh music; Category:Easter hymns is a reiteration of Christian hymns, isn’t it?

Category:Songs about Jesus, as we have discussed elsewhere is pretty redundant here. It is also on the target.

Understanding how melodies and texts are used in church music, it might be better to have a redirect ‘hymnal text’ or similar which redirects to music, but as I have little interest and limited knowledge of the subject I shall not propose elsewhere.

Your revert of my edits will not be reverted, this and that page are not watched, unless I come across it again in my WP travels in months to come.

Happy editing, --Richhoncho (talk) 14:34, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

@Richhoncho: While there might be some general guidance about "songs", there's no formal prohibition about categorising redirects, and in this case it makes sense as the hymn (and in this instance, the text in particular) is a different subject from the tune. This is a bit of an odd ball as articles here are usually about the hymn texts and not the tunes, but in this case this seems to be the other way around (and the fact is that most hymns tend to be associated primarily with only one or two tunes, so usually it is not worth having a separate article about those), although eventually it would make sense to have a separate article on the text (hence why {{r with possibilities}}). Regarding your particular objections about categories, Category:English Christian hymns in this case refers probably both to the language (the text is in English) and the author of the text (W. Chatterton Dix, born Bristol, 1837); which are distinct from the composer of the tune. Category:Easter hymns is a reiteration of Christian hymns - no, not at all, you can have all sorts of Christian hymns (Christmas hymns, Easter hymns, hymns for other occasions or periods (Lent, Advent, ...). The by-language category tree and the occasion-in-the-liturgical-year trees are distinct. And while I have expressed my doubts about all of those "Songs about X" categories, in this case it's difficult to deny that this song is indeed specifically and primarily about Jesus... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:46, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

But surely Easter Hymns, or even Christian Hymns are automatically about Jesus, which makes it 'redundant' (which is the word I used before). As for melodies being about Jesus, I give up.--Richhoncho (talk) 23:51, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

@Richhoncho: You can have Marian hymns, you can have hymns which are about a saint or about an event involving Jesus but not directly about hymn, you can have hymns which are more of a personal thought on some religious matter... As for the tune, yeah, sure, if that category is there, then it should be removed, because a melody is not a song... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:53, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

Going back to my original point, can you please justify your reversion using WP Guidelines? Neither direct, nor target confirms the categories, which fails WP:V. Cheers. Don't worry about my tone, I do consider this a friendly discussion. --Richhoncho (talk) 12:14, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

@Richhoncho: None of the categories are contentious (and you can easily verify their accuracy by googling "Alleluia! Sing to Jesus"), so they don't really fail WP:V. As to your question, I can't find anything specifically about it, but my instinct is always less about rules and more about the end result (see WP:IAR). If something is not an improvement, or makes things worse, or removes pertinent and accurate information (as here), that is usually a good enough reason to revert. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:52, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

So you are saying we no longer need to cite references because we can find them elsewhere via Google? I thought everything, whether contentious or otherwise should be verified. FWIW, if the target article had the information, your reversion would have been proper and correct. --Richhoncho (talk) 14:06, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

@Richhoncho: Not what I said. What I said is that the information is easily verifiable. The target does say that "Hyfrydol has been used as a setting for William Chatterton Dix's hymn "Alleluia! Sing to Jesus!"" - there's also Wikipedia:You don't need to cite that the sky is blue... If you absolutely insist, one could add hidden references at the redirect, but that is not usually necessary for information which is not contentious - and that this is in English is obvious, that it is a Christian hymn is obvious, that it is about Jesus is obvious if you can read the text, and that it is an Easter hymn (or more specifically, for the Feast of the Ascension, which marks the end of Eastertide) is also not really controversial, and given the lack of a Category:Ascension hymns, this seems like the most reasonable compromise. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:05, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

• (and you can easily verify their accuracy by googling "Alleluia! Sing to Jesus"),

  . We fundamentally disagree. Plenty of other editors disagree with you, but as we are not moving in any direction, there is no point continuing this discussion. My last words on this is quite simply, that these cats do not assist the reader. Happy editing. --Richhoncho (talk) 16:21, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Avoiding using the word “flight” too often.

Thanks for this - I am unreasonably happy when I see such edits which improve the style of articles out of all proportion.

Regards, Springnuts (talk) 21:24, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

My overlinking

Re: The plane crash article

Yes, I do tend to add lots of links, and I've been trying to cut back on that, but I do have a reason. I think lots of articles on a wide range of topics have a tendency to be written by and for people who already understand the subject. I don't believe an encyclopedia should be written that way, so I often try to clarify things in ways the average person can understand without having to flip to one or more other articles.

You say meters per minute is the common method of showing descent speed, fine. I'd be willing to bet that no one without some amount of specialist aviation knowledge would know that. Furthermore, I'd also think that very few people have a mental conception of how fast that is. I had no intention of removing the meters per minute measurement, but I added mph and kmph just to make it easier for the average person to understand. It's the same reason other units are given in both metric and imperial units.

For more common terms like "flight attendant," I was considering a potential reader who might be from some faraway place who had little or no familiarity with commercial flight. Maybe someone would be trying to learn something by researching a recent event, who knows?

And about linking to "wildfire," that was just a mistake. Sorry. --JDspeeder1 (talk) 21:53, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

@JDspeeder1: I don't believe an encyclopedia should be written that way - right, but there's no need to assume the reader is entirely unfamiliar with the subject (to the point of not knowing what a flight attendant is, really?) On top of that, since whatever the actions of the flight attendants might have been do not seem to have had any significance whatsoever here, that would just be a superfluous link which would not add much to the readers' knowledge and would more likely be a distraction than anything else.

Re. units - I'd be willing to bet that no one without some amount of specialist aviation knowledge would know that. It's long been accepted that articles should use whatever the conventions of the topic field. As an example, articles about trains in the UK use miles and chains (even though chains are otherwise pretty much obsolete and probably not used that much outside of that context in the UK). Articles about aviation tend to use the conventional units (which are, de facto, nautical miles for distance, knots for speed, feet for altitude) of that field.

Specifically for descent speed, as I hinted in my edit summary, stating it in feet/meters per minute avoids any possible confusion with the plane's actual speed (which is different from the vertical speed), and it is also a more practical unit not just because it is the one used by convention, but because, generally, climb after takeoff and descent prior to landing are rather rapid phases (taking a few minutes, maybe at most half an hour) so having a unit which is about the same magnitude as the phenomenon being described is more informative (and feet/meters per minute are easier to use: how much time does it take for a plane climbing at 1500 ft/min to reach a cruising altitude of 33000 ft, assuming for the sake of simplicity the rate is kept constant? 22 mins (33/1.5). Now do the same math with a plane climbing at 17 mph - or 27.4 km/h and an altitude of 10,050 meters, and it requires more calculation steps [slightly less so for the metric system, which is inherently better, but still - of course, if I also give you the climb rate in meters/minute [450], then it's as easy as feet and feet/minute above]...). Combine that with the absence of possible confusion, and feet/meters per minute is a clear winner.

Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:27, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Re: units

Sure, the metric system is indescribably more logical than imperial, but us US-ians typically have no internalized conception of what the metric units are. Blame our schools and our government, but it is what it is. Anyway, I wasn't suggesting that the feet per minute be removed, just added to. When I read the article myself and saw "31,000 per minute," I had zero clue how fast that is. It took an external website and a calculator app before I found a number that made sense to me. I don't think other readers should have to do the same thing.

I know lots of niche fields use units of measurement that rarely show up anywhere else. Let them keep doing that, but I would also add more familiar units afterwards. For example, the height of a horse is traditionally given in hands. 1 hand = 4 inches, and the average thoroughbred racehorse is 16 hands tall at the withers (the vertebra right between the shoulder blades). I don't know how much you deal with horses, but if you're like me, basically none. Without my conversion of hands to inches and explanation of what the withers is, do you think a person who is unfamiliar with the horse world would be able to make any sense of "16 hands"? Without resorting to doing math, "16 hands" barely gives any information at all. I wouldn't remove the measurement in hands, but I would add feet+inches and centimeters to it. JDspeeder1 (talk) 01:19, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

That's why templates like {{cvt}} or {{Hands}} exist. If your beef is specifically with using specifically feet/meters per minute, I hope I've explained why that is preferrable, in this instance, to using the standard miles/kilometers per hour, and why adding those would actually have a potential for confusion and not provide much useful data to readers in return. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 04:41, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

ANI notification

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 21:41, 29 March 2022 (UTC) — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 22:02, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Concern regarding Draft:List of compositions based on the British national anthem

Hello, RandomCanadian. This is a bot-delivered message letting you know that Draft:List of compositions based on the British national anthem, a page you created, has not been edited in at least 5 months. Drafts that have not been edited for six months may be deleted, so if you wish to retain the page, please edit it again or request that it be moved to your userspace.

If the page has already been deleted, you can request it be undeleted so you can continue working on it.

Thank you for your submission to Wikipedia. FireflyBot (talk) 19:02, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Copyright question regarding "Dove sono" page

Hello! HandsomeMrToad here. Thank you for several very nice additions to the brand new "Dove sono" page I created. I'm just a little concerned: are you quite sure that the YouTube video you linked to - Dorothea Röschmann singing the aria, with the Royal Opera, 2006 - is in public domain and not under copyright? I ask because I have gotten dinged (rebuked by lords of the Wiki-verse) for posting links to YouTube uploads which turned out to be violations of copyright. We all must resist the urge to just assume that if there were a copyright problem YouTube would take care of it or delete the upload - unfortunately, we cannot count on this! I'm not blaming you for not knowing; I was very surprised when it happened to me. But do please investigate and if it's under copyright, try to find a recording which isn't. Getting rebuked by someone with actual authority here (unlike me who have no authority at all) is no fun.

Best wishes, and thanks again - HandsomeMrToad (talk) 08:58, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

I saw a concert version which should be fine, and a staged version from Vienna which I'm almost sure is not, so no link to RgiHATejS2E --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:26, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

@HandsomeMrToad: The video is from the ROH's official channel, so there shouldn't be any issue... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:48, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Aha! Great! Nice work. Thank you. HandsomeMrToad (talk) 20:54, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

can you help in Order of battle for the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine?

i have seen a lot of errors in the page, including bare urls, sources that don't mention the division on it, unreliable sources (tabloids and stuff), etc, and, as i have seen that you contributed to the page a while ago and removed some of the stuff i mentioned, im asking for you to sweep again through the page and do these fixes, thanks. 187.39.133.201 (talk) 23:43, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

focus more in removing unsourced content, content with bad sources and divisions where the source provided doesn't mention them, i have added the HUR MOU back with some sources on the page, although i do not know if the sources added are reliable (they're in Ukrainian or Russian), but i have seen these sources being used on several other pages, so i ask for you to check on them and see if they're reliable or not. 187.39.133.201 (talk) 01:11, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

IPs

Hey - regarding that revert, take a look at Special:Contributions/174.212.212.163/20, and also at Special:Contributions/174.212.227.189/20, who I suspect is the same person. They have a dynamic IP, which makes contributing to community discussions difficult, but they seem to be a fairly experienced editor and I don't see any reason to suspect bad faith. Cheers Girth Summit _(blether) 20:24, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Urgh, yuck - there's also a probable white supremacist on the same IP range. Well, I doubt they're the same person who writes extensively about schools, uses talk pages, understands sourcing policies, and makes arguments of the sort they made at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Houston Christian High School. Girth Summit _(blether) 20:30, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

ANI

You asked "What else would you do if there's obviously a disputed edit but the other party does not even wish to discuss it?" That's a fair question. In the case of a simple difference of opinion like this, it's often better to walk away and forget about it. When you revisit it in a few months' or years' time, you may find you no longer care. Deb (talk) 15:33, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

• Apologies for the close, RandomCanadian; would you prefer the discussion was re-opened? SN54129 15:40, 7 April 2022 (UTC)
  • @Serial Number 54129: Do as you wish. There's a fair question, but I'm not sure ANI's going to bring any useful outcome from that. @Deb: Obviously, ignoring it is an option. However, this is far from the first time this kind of stuff has happened. What really tipped over the balance was more this accusation of bad-faith than the rest (otherwise I'd probably just have let Lugnuts to his own devices). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:45, 7 April 2022 (UTC)
    • I would just say that, when you take something to ANI, you need to be very sure of your ground, and in this case I don't think you were justified. Deb (talk) 08:00, 8 April 2022 (UTC)
      • @Deb: I can't help but feel slighted (not by you) about the fact that communication is required and simply having a large enough "fan club" means that instead of getting anything productive out of this, which is a fundamental of Wikipedia, I now have the same "fan club" making personal attacks and bad faith accusations ([5]; [6]). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:17, 8 April 2022 (UTC)
        • I understand that, but ANI is seldom the right way to go in these cases. Lugnuts has almost as many detractors as he has friends, and I know he can be hasty in his responses, but I don't think this is a grudge match. In fact, I'm sure he is quite capable of seeing other people's point of view and you'll be able to work together in good faith in the long term. Deb (talk) 14:09, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

Related but unrelated

@Deb: Sorry for having gotten you involved in the whole Marseillaise shenanigans.

I find interacting with Mathsci very frustrating (even if they were not stalking me), as they tend to go on large off-topic tangents (for example, here, they go on and on about other prints of the same engraver and how they are held by the British Museum - I still haven't grasped how whether something is held by the British Museum or not makes it a proper image for a Wikipedia article; or how they started discussing details of the Egypt Campaign at length in Talk:Napoleon/Archive_7#Deletion_of_categories, where they had also followed me without any previous interaction, and then went on to revert my correct edits there and at other pages - Talk:Carlo_Buonaparte#Edit-warring). - the whole affair with Napoleon is from back in December (4 months ago), so this isn't just a short-term outburst.

And when I attempt to bring things back to order (by, for example, starting a talk page discussion); they flippantly dismiss it as TLDR (ex. [7]; and also [8] - ironically, their comment there isn't much shorter than mine...).

They also have a new bad habit of messing with my comments and moving them below headers so as to make them appear entirely out of context (a clear violation of WP:TPO; for example here where they collapse one of my comments directly refuting one of theirs, move one of my direct replies to the discussion section below (where it loses all context as being a direct reply to it); [9] where they put a header to split off my contribution which is directly related to the discussion at hand.

In short, their edits are nothing short of a pattern of harassment (another example: [10], which they had not edited at all previously) and they're often quite disruptively selecting their audience (for example, they pinged Jayron, who is the author of this misleading accusation). I've asked them to voluntarily stop editing pages each other edits, but their reply (or lack thereof) is clearly a negative, so if this continues, I don't know what to do... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:43, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

It doesn't bother me that you brought me into the discussion because I've had enough arguments and problems in 20 years on Wikipedia to last me a lifetime. Most of us feel aggrieved when other people disagree with us on edits we feel strongly about. But to be honest, what you've said above is very similar to what Lugnuts was saying about you, just a few days ago. Regardless of who is harassing whom, taking it to ANI doesn't help unless you can completely put aside your subjective opinion when you describe these events - which I fear you aren't able to do at the moment. Sometimes there are are other people with whom we just can't see eye to eye. However, the fact is that you and the person you see as your adversary in this case would probably be able to agree on many other topics, so don't be blind to that. My approach to issues like this tends to be to try to find a compromise on wording, images, or whatever the sticking point is, and this is usually best achieved by taking a slightly different route, e.g. changing the emphasis of the wording or seeking an image that you can both agree is suitable. Deb (talk) 15:51, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

@Deb: I suggested putting a lilypond score instead (or putting the image in the infobox, even if that is far from my preferred option). Mathsci not only put said score under a separate header (as though it was an entirely unrelated discussion); he restored his version (while combining it with a vandalism revert, thus making everything harder to clean up); and then entirely ignored my comments and started listing grievances and even attempting to ping carefully selected admins (I find that uncomfortably close to WP:ADMINSHOP). I've had plenty of disagreements which ended without me feeling harassed. The fact this is part of a long-term pattern is what's worrying here. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:57, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

It's funny, but when I looked at his/her comments to me, they sounded awfully similar to the ones I'd already heard from you. Don't let this turn into a tit-for-tat argument. Maybe stay off the article for a few days - you don't have much choice while it's protected - and don't go looking for trouble. Deb (talk) 16:15, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

@Deb: Not much to be done with the article, agreed (although I still find edit summaries like this one to be misleading and annoying, considering how the article looked before this happened). What do you do of stuff like [11] and [12]? That's clear evidence to me this is a long-term pattern and not a one-off occurrence. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:22, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

Seeking opinion on possible proposal

I wanted to seek your opinion on a possible proposal from the WP:WikiProject National Basketball Association on an addition to the WP:NBASKETBALL guideline at WP:NSPORTS. It would go "Significant coverage is likely to exist for basketball figures if they 3. Have appeared in one game in the National Basketball Association or its forerunner, the Basketball Association of America."

Now, we are very aware of the problems of the participation criteria in the old NSPORTS guidelines and I know for a fact that the old WP:NBASKETBALL was not based on any research but rather on what leagues some editors felt were notable. So do back up our claim we did a research on all 73 players who have exactly one career game in the BAA/NBA from 1946 to 2022 with the goal of adding multiple sources of significant coverage to their articles, something we feel we succeded in doing for them all.

The main reason that even one-game-wonders in the BAA/NBA generally have significant coverage is that they were usually a star somewhere else before joining the league, either in their home country or in the American high school and college system which both get quite alot of coverage. Basically you have to be the best of the best to get into the NBA as according to the NCAA about 3.5% of high school basketball players go on to play in the NCAA divisions (1% in Division I) and of those, about 1.2% go on to play in the NBA.

Note that we fully understand that this is not an automatic notability pass, this is meant to be a good faith guideline on player who are very likely to pass GNG.

Is this something that you would think is likely to pass or is there something we do better before proposing it at WP:NSPORTS? Alvaldi (talk) 12:10, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

@Alvaldi: Is this something which is being discussed at a central location or you just asking for my opinion here on my talk? I'll be busy over the week-end so likely won't have too much time for this at least for the short term. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 20:09, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

No worries, this is just me asking for your opinion on this as you have been a fairly reasonable voice in the recent NSPORTS discussions. Alvaldi (talk) 20:29, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

Ok, will get back to you when I've taken a look. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 20:31, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

Ahem...

FYI, That should be "showcase its good articles," not "showcase it's good articles." – Sca (talk) 17:09, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

@Sca: Ah! Always the same mistake, silly me... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 19:11, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

Ha. I just discovered I made the same mistake in an email today. Doh. -- Sca (talk) 23:59, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

For real?

It's worse than I thought, I suppose. Drmies (talk) 22:14, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

@Drmies: They literally call it "information warfare", and one sees why. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:22, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

Easter and the Hebrew Calendar

Hi RandomCanadian,

Thanks for pointing out the excessive number of and reliance on citations to the Bible in the Easter article. I notice that you deleted one such citation for the statement that "The first Christians, Jewish and Gentile alike, were certainly aware of the Hebrew calendar." I've searched a bit, and found cites for the proposition that early Christians used the Hebrew calendar, which does imply familiarity, but it leads me to think that the first sentence is just totally unnecessary. I was about to delete it, but wanted to see if you had any objection, and if you left the sentence in place because you think it's an important lead-in. Thanks, Wobblygriswold (talk) 22:27, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

@Wobblygriswold: No problem with the idea of removing it, since I guess, from the association with Jewish Passover, one could "deduce" the link, but saying it explicitly does no harm either (and the whole point is being informative to our readers, who might not know much if anything about the topic - and who might not even read the whole article), so if you have found sources which support it you should feel free to add an improved sentence to describe this. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 04:10, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

Good point, I'll do some more searching. I'll leave as is for now if I can't find grist for an improved sentence. Wobblygriswold (talk) 14:49, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

Revert on Hypixel

Special:Diff/1086084753 wasn't disruptive it was just too detailed without a source.  Nixinova   T   C   06:17, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

@Nixinova: Misclicked the rollback button and couldn't be bothered to make a dummy edit to fix it. At the same time, a very similar edit had been previously reverted (with objections rather clear as to why) so it was indeed borderline disruptive. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:19, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

FYI

Hi, RC, thank you for this. I arrived at the page from Talk:Hungary, where our friend has also posted, just now. Clearly, the IP and the new account CorruptCalvin1958 are one and the same. Compare my warnings at User talk:CorruptCalvin1958. Bishonen | tålk 20:57, 6 May 2022 (UTC).

NI election counts

Hey. Quick question, what source are you using for your count edits? I'm adding the stage 5/6 results to Lagan Valley now, and the numbers seem inconsistent with regards to what BBC and Belfast Telegraph are reporting. Sideswipe9th (talk) 22:24, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

Also are you rounding up/down when making the edits? Given the situation earlier with Joanne Bunting's transfer, you aren't allowed/supposed to round up or down votes. Sideswipe9th (talk) 22:28, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

@Sideswipe9th: I've been consistently using RTE ([13]). you aren't allowed/supposed to round up or down votes I don't know about you, but when I look at it (even in Belfast East - the difference between PBP and SDLP on the second count is 3 votes, far more than the "inaccuracy" introduced by rounding), the fractional votes do not seem to have a significant (if any) impact on the result or on who gets excluded on any given round. Plus it makes for more compact and consistent formatting. And then also we're an encyclopedia, not a database, so at some point our prime concern is giving a readable summary to our readers, even if that means sacrificing a little bit (a fraction of a vote is still a negligible amount) of accuracy - this in fact becomes necessary in cases like South_Antrim_(Assembly_constituency)#1982 (or 1973, which I still haven't got around to). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:44, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

The problem with fractional vote inaccuracies in the early stage compounds in the late stages. I'm currently correcting the numbers in Belfast East based on the current BBC counts. Also if you look at any of the Assembly elections, since its establishment in 1998, historically we've included to 2 decimal places when presenting results. Sideswipe9th (talk) 22:50, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

@Sideswipe9th: How does it "compound"? You can still give the exact "official" result, you just round it up or down so it's an integer (and really, even in later stages, and scrolling through the various pages rapidly, but I haven't yet found an example where the difference between two candidates is less than 1 vote). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:52, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

The exact official result is the decimal places. In an STV election, it is only guaranteed to be an integer in the first count.

The compounding effect happens in transfers of transfers in later stages, because the weighted value of the transferred vote is recalculated as candidates are elected or eliminated. Sideswipe9th (talk) 22:56, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

@Sideswipe9th: Where have you been getting results for Belfast East? Belfast Telegraph only gives me up to count 5, and RTE has up to count 4 (although the count 4 matches that of the BT); and none of them have SDLP excluded after count 4, not tied with PBP on count 5. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:03, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

With respect to the Belfast East results, those were taken from the BBC's page. Could you please self revert? Sideswipe9th (talk) 23:04, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

As for why the results of count 4 are the same as count 3, this is because Joanne Bunting's transfers were weighted to 0, due to them having a value of 0.006 and the law requiring transfer values to be only at two decimal places with no rounding. Sideswipe9th (talk) 23:05, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Also, I'm still of the opinion that, unless the decimal places actually meaningfully change the display of the results in the table vs. the official results, we shouldn't include them (and if we do include them, it should be only as much as necessary): in 99.9% of cases, they have no meaningful impact: whether a candidate has got 576.6 votes or 577 doesn't change much...). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:06, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

Respectfully, the issue of rounding is one that should be had where other editors can comment. I'd suggest Talk:2022 Northern Ireland Assembly election as it is the most centralised spot for this election. However as we have historically included them for all post-Belfast Agreement elections, I believe the defacto consensus is at this time to include the decimal places.

Also I re-iterate that the decimal places are the official results. In an STV election, the only count guaranteed to have an integer number is the first. In every other count, unless the fractions between counts cause it, the number is officially reported to two decimal places. Sideswipe9th (talk) 23:10, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

And unless there is a meaningful difference between the rounded values and the exact values, I don't see why we should bother with it: it only adds clutter (for little to no tangible gain) and is also very inconsistent when one value has no decimal places, the one above has two and the one below has one. Anyways, a discussion best had elsewhere. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:17, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

I'm making a post about this specific issue on that talk page now, summarising as best I can our respective arguments. Feel free to adjust my summary of your argument if you feel it's inaccurate :) Sideswipe9th (talk) 23:19, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

Decimal places part of this conversation re-posted here. Sideswipe9th (talk) 23:20, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, I've just expanded the explanation behind my position. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:34, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

@Sideswipe9th: I'm trying to make sense of the BBC's numbers but they've got the must unintuitive format possible... However, what I can confirm is that at no point in time does it appear like the PBP and the SDLP were tied: here you put both at 576.6 on the 5th count, but BBC clearly has SDLP eliminated after the 4th count... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:13, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

I'm assuming you're referring to Charlotte Carson. She was eliminated at count 5. The results of counts 3 and 4 are identical, with no candidates eliminated, due to the previously mentioned issue of Joanne Bunting's unweighted transfers.

I agree that the BBC's site is unintuitive. Instead of looking at the Status column, look at the Votes column. As soon as that column has a value of -- it is the elimination of a candidate. If you use that as the guide, you'll see that Eoin MacNeill was eliminated at count 3, Charlotte Carson at count 5, and Hannah Kenny at count 6. Sideswipe9th (talk) 23:18, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

Though re-looking at my old edit, I see I have accidentally transposed some of Charlotte's (SLDP) and Hannah's (PBP) votes. Would you be OK with my reverting your revert, and then correcting the transposition based upon the BBC's numbers? Sideswipe9th (talk) 23:22, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

I've also just checked RTE's count versus both the Belfast Telegraph and BBC. RTE seem to have excluded count 4, the count with Bunting's unweighted transfers, and what they call count 4 is actually what Belfast Telegraph and BBC call count 5. Sideswipe9th (talk) 23:28, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

@Sideswipe9th: Since there's WP:NORUSH, and since I'd rather we get this right, I'd suggest we keep the existing (up as far as count 3: I don't think there's any inconsistency between that in any of the sources) table until we can clarify exactly the situation. I mean, RTE has 4 counts, BT has 5, BBC has 6: obviously this requires a bit more investigation, so if you'll leave me a few minutes to compare the three... Thanks, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:37, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

Yes of course. I'll see if I can find any other media sources that are also doing constituency level results in the same manner. Sideswipe9th (talk) 23:39, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

While UTV, The Guardian, and the Irish Times have results at a per constituency level, they do not have a breakdown on a per count basis. While other prominent news organisations in the UK and Ireland are covering the election results, they are not doing so on a per constituency basis.

The Electoral Office of Northern Ireland is releasing result sheets on a per constituency basis, they have thus far only released the sheets for South and East Antrim. I suspect the Lagan Valley, and Newry and Armagh result sheets will appear there shortly, as EONI have released on their Twitter (not updated their website yet) the declarations for those constituencies. Sideswipe9th (talk) 23:52, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

OK, so after getting a bit sidetracked with other stuff, I've come back to this, and here's my conclusions:

• All sources agree on the first three counts (with RTE giving it rounded, the BBC to one decimal, and BT to two decimal places)
• BBC and BT agree that there was a fourth count, which is in effect the exact same result as the third one
• RTE's 4th (and final reported count so far) is equal to the BBC's and BT's 5th (again with the same difference in decimal places as with the first three)
• BBC has an additional sixth count

I've been looking through the live-blog news sources to see what they report, but the only thing I see is reports that the count is suspended for the night, without telling me which count they have gotten to or any further information. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:21, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

And just after I posted, found this, which confirms (at 23:13 EAST BELFAST) that the last count to have been completed was no. 6, with Karl Bennet eliminated. So that confirms the BBC is correct. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:23, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

@Sideswipe9th: The only thing I'll note is that BBC has 576.6 for Kelly (PBP) in the 5th count while BT has 576.76 (so it's not like one is just the rounded version of the other). Those both round to 577, however, so this would probably be another advantage of rounding the results (no need to attempt adjudicating which source has made a typo...) to the nearest integer. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:30, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

Awesome! The differences between BBC/BT and RTE's count count are due to the issue with Joanne Bunting's transfers, that I linked a tweet to previously. From what the pundits on BBC One NI were saying at the time that it happened, it's a relatively rare thing in STV elections in NI due to a quirk of the law, and only occurs whenever an elected candidate has a vote count only marginally above that of the quota. The result of such an event is a count where the elected candidate's surplus is transferred, however it is transferred with a weighting of zero, so the tallies between the two counts remain the same. Sideswipe9th (talk) 00:34, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

RE: Kelly's results, perhaps. Though looking at the EONI results sheet for East Antrim, all results on it are to 2 d.p. In this circumstance, I think the Telegraph has the more accurate result, though the BBC definitely had theirs out faster. That is the end of the results for today though, 4 constituencies have fully declared (South Antrim, East Antrim, Lagan Valley, and Newry and Armagh). Results sheets for the two Antrim constituencies are on the EONI website, and the other two are direct links on Twitter. Sideswipe9th (talk) 00:41, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

@Sideswipe9th: Wouldn't it be that the 2nd preferences of the candidate with transfers are counted, and then weighted accordingly (i.e. example here)? So, for example, if a candidate has 7253 votes, the quota is 7209 (thus 44 votes to be transferred), and say the 2nd preferences are split 4500/2000/753 between three candidates; the first would get (4500/7253*44=27.299; rounded down 27.29 if one insists); the second 12.13 and the last 4.56? Or is that not how they do things in NI? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:36, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

Kinda, but we do it a strange way. For transfer calculations we use the Gregory method. The weight of the excess votes is calculated first, by dividing the excess by the quota, and then this value is used as a multiplier on the surplus votes. However our electoral law (I wish I could cite the specific one but can't find it right now) requires all STV calculations to be done to two decimal places only and with no rounding up. So, to use your example, with a surplus of 44 and a quota of 7209, the weight of the excess votes is 44/7253=0.0060. But at an accuracy of two decimal places with no rounding up this value is actually 0.00. Then using your split of 4500/2000/753, the first candidate would receive 4500*0=0 votes, the second would receive 0 votes, and the third would receive 0 votes. This then results in the count stage where that candidate's surplus is redistributed, but for no vote counts to change because in effect the candidate had 0 surplus transfers.

As for what actually happened in the counting hall in Belfast, it's unclear as to whether they actually underwent the full procedure of assigning all of Joanne Bunting's transfers to the other candidate piles, or just simulated it as the effect would be the same for transfers between counts 3 and all subsequent counts. This is because Bunting's transfers would always have a value of 0, up to the 7 fractional transfer limit. Sideswipe9th (talk) 02:20, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

Austria-Hungary & Dissolution of Austria-Hungary

I made a full list of all entities formed on the territory of the former empire following its demise. What makes you think that you can decide which of them are important and which of them are not? It is quite arbitrary. Micga (talk) 18:07, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

@Micga: Short-lived entities which were promptly taken over by the more significant ones just add clutter to the listing. There's no reason to start listing all of them: we're an encyclopedia, which is a summary of information, not an indiscriminate listing of the whole of it. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:09, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

But they were listed anyway, only elsewhere (in the introduction to Dissolution of Austria-Hungary). I just moved them to the appropriate section in order to make the introduction more concise and less detailed. But you reinserted this list again into the introduction. Micga (talk) 18:14, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

In that case the solution is to remove the overly-detailed information from the introduction (which is supposed to itself be a summary of the article...) RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:30, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	I don't normally give these out, but I appreciate your hard work as we put together the results for the Northern Ireland elections. Bkissin (talk) 18:29, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

Closure at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/May 2022 Sri Lankan unrest

Given I made a specific argument that this passed NEVENT, thus justifying a stand alone article, the basis for your closure is incorrect. Claiming an A10 closure would require there to be a refutation of my !vote. As no refutation was made, your speedy closure is a Supervote. I ask you to reopen and contribute a !vote. Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 13:56, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

@Goldsztajn: I'm sorry, but your argument that the event might be notable is entirely irrelevant to the unambiguous fact that the article was an obvious duplicate of an existing English Wikipedia article [...] that does not expand upon, detail or improve information within any existing article(s) on the subject, which is already covered to far more detail in the article it's been redirected to. I hesitated between tagging it for CSD or just closing the discussion (since redirecting per A10 does not require admin attention); and settled on the latter as that prevented bureaucracy for the sake of bureaucracy.

Irrelevant to the AfD, even if the event were notable (and judging whether a recent event is independently notable is pragmatically nigh-impossible, see also WP:DELAY and WP:NOTNEWS), WP:NOPAGE could probably also apply. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:18, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

No doubt we disagree on this AfD and looking at the history of the article I see I'm not alone in my view; but your statement above and your closure are arguments for a particular outcome, they are not reflective of the discussion and thus incorrect procedure. Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 14:47, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

@Goldsztajn: The previous CSD in the article history is an obviously wrong WP:A11 (different criteria). My statement is not reflective of the AfD discussion because the closure of the AfD is merely a procedural courtesy as A10 (which does not require a week of bureaucratic waiting time at AfD in such an obvious instance) takes precedence. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:02, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

You are conflating your individual viewpoint with the role of a closer. I made a specific argument that this was a subject for a valid stand alone article, you disagree with that, understood, but your disagreement doesn't then validate the closure. You've substituted your !vote for closure. Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 04:49, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

Songs about religion etc,

This debate has been closed by non-admin as no consensus. I have taken issue with User talk:Steel1943 as including your nom it was 6/3 in favour of delete, weak arguments on both sides. --Richhoncho (talk) 11:08, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

My edit that you removed in 2022 Sri Lankan protests

You removed my edit in 2022 Sri Lankan protests with the comment "no need for this long of a listing which just makes everything hard to parse". I suggest putting the names back but as a list section such as "Properties destroyed" or similar. IMO the current version of the article is vague and has lost an amount of information that should be preserved for the future.NisansaDdS (talk) 09:22, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

The purpose of Wikipedia, being an encyclopedia, is to provide a summary of knowledge, not to be an indiscriminate collection of information. A listing of the names of all the affected government ministers is not a "summary" of anything, it's something which belongs in a database, not an encyclopoedia. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 20:21, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

Tannenberg

I think it would be better not to remove the numbers from the medical records. and vice versa, remove the figures of historians who obviously were not in the Russian or German military archives and did not count losses in personnel. their figures are much less authoritative than the medical records. I gave detailed figures, accurate to a single person. you removed them. instead, they left rough estimates of English-speaking historians who did not specifically study the issue of Russian and German losses. German losses are given from the 3-volume book "sanitary losses of the German army in the First World War" (in German). they are calculated from German medical reports. these figures can be correctly compared with Russian medical reports. and vice versa. it is incorrect to compare the official German medical reports with the figures of English-speaking historians who did not indicate the sources of their information in their books. 100% they were not in the Russian archives and did not count the losses of personnel for each regiment. Nelipovich calculated and published Russian military losses. I think Wikipedia should have the exact numbers of losses by Nelipovich, and not rough estimates accurate to tens of thousands of people. The spread of losses between 120,000 and 170,000 people is misleading. It is now 2022, and there is an exact figure for the losses of the Russian army according to medical reports.120,000 according to Russian military reports is a true figure, these are not the underestimated losses of 50,000-60,000 people that are currently listed on Wikipedia.--Vaclaw1990 (talk) 06:41, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

That's not how Wikipedia works. Numbers from German reports are notoriously underestimates (because the criteria for how German army counted "casualties" is different from the others); and we generally prefer independent sources (this applies to both Germans and Russians) per WP:NPOV. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:55, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

Your removal of Sunfed request on Wikipedia:Requested articles/Business and economics/Companies/M-S

Hi there,

Let me know if this is the correct etiquette for responding to an edit as I'm still new to Wikipedia :) I understand there is a conflict of interest when it comes to me making direct edits to pages, hence why I made a request through the Wikipedia:Requested articles/Business and economics/Companies/M-S page.

I understand that the following citations, (https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/119503949/kiwi-food-tech-company-eyes-global-domination-as-it-launches-two-new-meat-alternatives, https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/125190238/no-bull-food-tech-company-sunfed-launches-meatfree-mince, https://www.greenqueen.com.hk/sunfed-vegan-beef-launch-new-zealand/) don't meet the requirements of independence, as they are most likely based on press releases released by Sunfed. These citations can be removed, especially as the statements of Sunfed releasing certain products are verifiable, if not directly verified, meeting the standards of Wikipedia:No original research

The first article I cited (https://businessdesk.co.nz/article/the-life/my-net-worth-shama-sukul-lee-founder-and-ceo-sunfed), would not meet the requirements for independence if used as a primary source, however, this article is used as a citation for Sunfed's stated goal, "to create plant-based food products that have the eating pleasure and low-carb, high-protein nutritional benefits of the chicken, pork and beef they are intended to replace". This citation is to show that this is the CEO's motivation behind the creation of Sunfed, and the goals of the company.

As for this article, (https://thespinoff.co.nz/business/14-11-2019/beware-the-powerful-forces-behind-the-alternative-meat-labelling-war), while it definitely doesn't meet the requirements of an independent source on the subject. At the time it was the only source I could find that stated the outcome of the Commerce Commissions investigation. Instead I propose this source (https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/food-wine/101000330/what-motivates-us-to-eat-meat-reduce-consumption-or-be-a-vegetarian), which is independent from Sunfed, and confirms the outcome of the commerce commissions investigation "The overall context of the packaging means the product is not in breach of the code because the label identifies it as 'plant protein' and 'made from peas' and the ingredient list also makes it clear the product is not meat."

With your permission I will happily make these changes to the request. I just thought I should reach out to you first as courtesy. Additionally, let me know if this discussion should be moved to the talk page for the article itself.

Thank you so much for your time,

Eamonn at Sunfed (talk) 22:24, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

@Eamonn at Sunfed: You should look up WP:NCORP. To have an article on Wikipedia, the company needs actual in-depth coverage (not just a short paragraph about an event they might have been involved in) from multiple independent sources. An article by the business' founder and CEO is not independent, no matter what exactly it says. On top of that, most of the not-obviously-unsuitable coverage of the company seems to be about one event (some lawsuit about how its misleading advertising or something) and there's little if anything since then. Yet notability requires sustained coverage. I'd suggest you look for better sources, or just accept the company just isn't notable at this time (and, well, most companies are not notable, so that's not particularly surprising). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:45, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

Precious

Two years!

Precious anniversary

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 05:47, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

Please do not accuse editors of stalking without providing evidence at the same time

Also, although WP:STALKING is a redirect, stalking is a criminal offence, not a good idea to accuse someone of that. WP:HOUNDING is much better - and of course makes it clear when it's ok to follow someone's edits. Doug Weller talk 16:37, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: Mathsci following me around and getting involved in things (such as they did with these AfDs and now the ANI complaint) is self-explanatory; but if you want evidence here's some (and there's more recent stuff as well). And yes, I feel stalked by them (to the point I haven't edited any articles about classical music for a while - last time I did, Mathsci of course got involved and they reverted whole edits for what would really be described as minor disagreemets, again showing how unpleasant they are with me), and have repeatedly asked them to stop, and they haven't. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:49, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

I don’t have the time to unravel this, but your language there surprised me, you’ve got a confrontational style I don’t recall. This isn’t a judgement on who is right or wrong, just a comment. Doug Weller talk 17:34, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: If you don't have time to unravel this, may I suggest not criticizing the victim of something for the way in which they ask for help about the thing they're the victim of. I became concerned after reading ANI and I just posted some evidence to the other user's talk page, so there it is if you're interested. This was a legitimate complaint.

Also, though stalking is a crime, it's also a word we use in the English language to describe behavior. Accusing someone of "stalking" isn't accusing someone of a crime, just like accusing someone of "stealing my pen", "slandering me", or "killing me" are not accusations of criminal conduct. If someone is being stalked, it's perfectly OK for them to say they're being stalked, and it's really unhelpful for an admin to criticize them for that without even taking the time to "unravel this" or look into the merits of the allegation. Your message here is the kind of message that makes editors not want to ask for help.

RC, although you may not have the time/interest in dealing with this, know that others will. If it continues, I'd encourage you to report it. Levivich 16:14, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

@Levivich I thought we had asked editors not to use the word stalking but use the word hounding, but if I'm wrong, I'm wrong and I apologise. But "f off with you compulsive need to WP:STALK every single one of my edits" as an edit summary? And that was after my post above. The recent disagreements seem to be about a Nobel Laureate, and Mathsci didn't reinstate the large edits RC reverted. Doug Weller talk 16:29, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

At some point in the process (I was looking through edit history yesterday for evidence when I noticed that edit) I might have blown a fuse or something. You'll hopefully understand why... This isn't even the first time Mathsci does this exact same thing (reinstating categories which definitively are not necessary; ex. [14]). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:34, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

So, the thing is, when someone is complaining about being stalked, that is not the time to discuss whether or not "stalk" is the best word to use.

It's like if someone calls the fire department to report a fire and they dialed the business line instead of the emergency line, it would be a poor decision for whomever picked up the phone to explain to the caller about using the emergency line for emergencies instead of the business line. First, deal with the fire. Then, we can educate people about the procedure for reporting fires. Your message is the equivalent of saying, "I don't have time to deal with the fire, but I have time to explain to you the best procedure for reporting fires..." It's ridiculous. In fact, it's what motivated me to make time today to investigate this. I didn't want RC to think this is how the community was going to respond to this.

First, deal with the stalking. Then, talk to RC about the merits of using "hounding" instead of "stalking".

Similarly, if the person reporting the fire says, "There's a fucking fire!", it would be poor form to chastise the caller for the use of profanity. It's pretty understandable why a person being stalked would tell the person stalking them to "f off".

I posted to Mathsci's talk page just now a list of articles that Mathsci edited shortly after RC edited them even though Mathsci had never edited those articles before. Two of the articles involved edits after your message above (and message at ANI and Mathsci's UTP). If this doesn't persuade you that stalking is in fact going on, then I don't think anything will. Levivich 16:36, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

• Comment by an editor who has already been asked not to edit my talk page removed

  You deleted the message I left on your talk page about not stalking RC, and then decided to respond here, at RC's talk page. Cute. Levivich 21:43, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

  I'm almost nostalgic of the times when discussions with Mathsci were not so fraught ([15]). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:53, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Both versions of Pachabel's canon would be better than one.

Sir: I regret any inconvenience that you have been caused in the switching back and forth of the two versions of the Pachabel Canon. Frankly, I must say that I detest the version that you like and prefer. May I please suggest that we leave both versions on the website, and let each person browsing the page choose, to their own taste. Now, I am going to change it back, one last time, not out of disrespect, but from relative incapacity. (After all, you replaced the version that I favor, installing the one that you prefer. So you have the demonstrable capacity to do so.) I would do it myself, and not impose upon you, but I fear that I am lacking in the expertise needed. Equanimity and fairness being hallmarks of the Canadian national character {outside of hockey games, of course, where no quarter is to be expected} I hope this solution will be satisfactory to you. Kuk1910 (talk) 22:20, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

@Kuk1910: If the concern is about the versions being historically accurate, then the AF version if even further off (1. the arpeggiated pizzicato chords are not in the original score; and while maybe a baroque harpsichordist could have arpeggiated chords in a realisation, it would not be done in a way even remotely resembling this ; 2. it is very obviously played on modern instruments with modern technique). Neither of the versions is perfect (or even "good"), but replacing a "bad" version with a worse one isn't an improvement. If you really "detest" it, the option is to A) find a better version which is acceptable for use on Wikipedia OR B) get rid of them entirely. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:57, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

You've got mail

Doug Weller talk 15:33, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Königsberg

You've undone all my edits for no reason, under the accusation that they are not improvements, which I think is lazy and not fair. Could you please respond point by point:

1. Do you consider adjusting photo sizes to be more in line with each other as "messing with image sizes"? And if so, why?
2. Do you consider a more precise description of the events of the revolt against the Teutonic Knights and the city joining Poland, along with references to the specific treaties and agreements, to be worthless? If so, why? Those were signifant events in the city's history.
3. Do you consider technical corrections such as changing incorrectly spelled lowercase names to uppercase and adding/correcting internal links to be unnecessary or harmful and also requiring undoing?
4. Displaying current proper city names (e.g. in parentheses) next to former German ones is standard, from what I've seen so far on Wikipedia. Do you object?
5. Do you dislike the inclusion of information about Nazi German camps and the persecution of Jews, Poles and Romani people in the city?
6. Do you think correcting factual errors is wrong and needs to be undone as well?

Marcin 303 (talk) 08:41, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

1. There is no need to adjust photo sizes. In fact it would be best if they weren't present there at all because fixed image sizes are discouraged per MOS:IMGSIZE (Except with very good reason, a fixed width in pixels (e.g. 17px) should not be specified.. So this is not an improvement.

2 & 3. I don't have the time to go through your edits with a magnifying glass and pick and choose the bits which are good from the larger portion which really isn't.

4. It's really nonsensical to have stuff like in Königsberg (Kaliningrad) in an article about Königsberg... (as one would assume the name is already explained previously). As for the others, it just makes the text very heavy when you have a parenthesis after every second word (and these are redundant given these are all wikilinks to the proper page anyway). At some point common sense must also take over, and it makes little sense to start adding alternative names in other languages for an article that is clearly talking about a predominantly German period of the city's history; even more so when you have a list of nearly a dozen of them (The extensive Prussian Eastern Railway linked the city to Breslau (Wrocław), Thorn (Toruń), Insterburg (Chernyakhovsk), Eydtkuhnen (Chernyshevskoye), Tilsit (Sovetsk), and Pillau (Baltiysk). is just very unnecessary; and The extensive Prussian Eastern Railway linked the city to Breslau, Thorn, Insterburg, Eydtkuhnen, Tilsit, and Pillau. seems actually more appropriate because the Prussian Railways probably used the German names and sources about this probably also do use those names). Should we take your proposal to an extreme and change every instance of, for ex. Battle of Breslau; to Battle of Breslau (Wrocław)? In the same way it's the Battle of Stalingrad and not the Battle of Volgograd, and the Siege of Leningrad, not of St. Petersburg, some names, even if they are outdated now, are more appropriate in specific historical contexts, and this seems like an obvious case, where, on top of that, avoiding the parentheses actually improves the text's clarity.

5 & 6. If you'd bothered only including such simple corrections, instead of mixing them with other more questionable stuff, we wouldn't be here. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:52, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

1. Why not? Some photos are way bigger or way smaller than others (e.g. the synagogue) for absolutely no good reason. It makes the article look messy. Plus you mentioned the point about fixed sized images as if those weren't present in the article before my edits. But I get it. The fixed sized image argument is fair, but I could still adjust the photos by using the upright=scaling factor per the manual you sent. Would you oppose that as well?

2 & 3. Your assumption that the "larger portion" of my edits "really isn't good" is not fair. How can you say that my edits are not good if, as you yourself admit, you didn't even try to check them, you just arbitrarily reverted them with one click, even despite provided references. You haven't even answered my question from point 2. I have not added anything misleading or untrue. The description of the incorporation of the city into Russia in the 1750s is included in the article, while the description of its incorporation into Poland in the 1450s is completely omitted. The role of the city as a provincial capital within Prussia or Germany is included in the article, but its role as a provincial capital within Poland (although temporary) is completely omitted. Why mention the Russian period, but omit the Polish period, as if it didn't happen? Could you please answer my original question: Do you consider a more precise description of the events of the revolt against the Teutonic Knights and the city joining Poland, along with references to the specific treaties and agreements, to be worthless? If so, why?

4. Using old German names alone without mentioning current ones can be seen as biased. The whole idea of giving the official current names as well is to keep the article neutral instead of describing it from a solely German point of view. I am only trying to follow a standard commonly found on Wikipedia. You are the one trying to make an issue out of it. And at the same time, when I made an edit, which I would expect to be in line with your argument, and removed the part "in Königsberg (Kaliningrad)" in the description of the photo of Kant's monument as redundant, you also reversed it. So what is it then?

5 & 6. Apart of the photo sizes and names in parentheses, which I see you disagree with, could you please point out the supposed "questionable stuff" I've added. And why do you consider it questionable, so I could actually respond and provide clarification. And since you agree with at least some of the edits, please let me restore those without you reverting them.

Marcin 303 (talk) 16:26, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

The snark in your reply is unnecessary and unwelcome.

1. There rarely is a need for changing the size of pictures; unless they are maps or other visual depictions which rely on a textual or statistical element and where clarity can be helped by making them readable at default screen resolution. I wouldn't be bothered by someone taking the time to change this to upright; but as I've said in other situations, going from a bad option (one of the many possible variant of what look like arbitrary image sizes, using fixed widths) to an equally bad option (another possible variant of image sizes, still using fixed widths) does not seem like an improvement. A bigger issue is removing some of the unnecessary/duplicative images.

2 + 3. An encyclopedia is a summary of knowledge. Too much is just as bad as too little: we shouldn't get stuck up with little details (go read any other encyclopedia, like Britannica or maybe a more topic specific one; and you'll see that generally they don't bother with too much details either). In the same spirit, I've shortened the paragraph about the brief Russian occupation (and removed the unnecessary header-for-a-single-paragraph).

4a. The whole idea of giving the official current names as well is to keep the article neutral instead of describing it from a solely German point of view. I don't think this is an NPOV issue. This is an issue of style and not needlessly making the text full of unhelpful parenthesis (when the wikilinks already do this job). Picking one convention and sticking to it (i.e. since this article seems to be talking about a period where the city was mostly under Teutonic/later Prussian rule; sticking with the German names) for reader convenience seems like a necessity, particularly if you have long listings of names, where this just becomes burdensome. Somebody being offended by the alleged non-neutrality of this is really looking for a reason to.

4b (the image caption). See, that's the trouble with large editing sprees which try to do everything at once: people get confused.

5 + 6. Basing your edits on a book from over half a century ago (Gorski 1949) is not too good of an idea (WP:AGE MATTERS - and considering all that was happening in Eastern Europe right after WW2, that brings even more reason why such sources should not be used). Similarly, other parts of the edit seem to unduly focusing on minor events (for example, listing temporary military occupations in the infobox on the same footing as the far more obvious link with German rulers)... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:34, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Let's not be silly, there's no snark in my tone.

2. You're missing the whole point. Why just skip some information. Why not mention that the incorporation was in fact signed and the mayor pledged allegiance to Poland in 1454, just like there is a mention of the Russian ukase of incorporation and the burgher's pledge of allegiance to Russia from 1757-1758? That's not much. Literally two-three sentences, and provides clarity. Why do you insist on leaving this out? And the citations from the book (Górski 1949) are literally texts of medieval treaties and agreements from 1454 and 1466 in their original form in Latin and in Polish translation. These are not interpretations of historians, publicists, etc. This is why it is such a valuable source, because it does not rely on the interpretations of historians, publicists, etc., which can be biased, but gives the exact texts of the treaties.

3. Could you please answer my original question: Do you consider technical corrections such as changing incorrectly spelled lowercase names to uppercase and adding/correcting internal links to be unnecessary or harmful and also requiring undoing?

4. In regards to the names, if that is your position, you gave the example of battles, suggesting to use commonly used names, without unnecessary translations. Would you let me correct those in line with your argument? And do you object to the use of the Polish name for the city of Gdańsk in the section on the period when it was part of Poland, not Prussia or Germany?

5 & 6. For clarity. I'm restoring the edits, which you did not oppose to (the Nazi German camps and corrections of factual errors). Take a look and please don't just revert them.

7. And do you object to mentioning the Polish name of the city next to the Lithuanian name? If so, why? And do you object to mentioning the presence of Polish students and staff at the university when Lithuanian ones are mentioned? Poles, Lithuanians and Germans were significant groups there, why selectively omit one ethnicity (or two, if someone wanted to present it as solely German, which would be clearly misleading)? Both mentions are fair given that these were the three main ethnic groups of the city in the past, and the city played an important role in all three cultures. Marcin 303 (talk) 08:57, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

2. I'm not opposed to mentioning it; I'm opposed to using another too detailed section as an excuse for adding a similarly too detailed section. Re. Gorski: in that case, it is clearly a WP:PRIMARY source and should be used with caution. Given it is an ancient document (and translations are inherently difficult); for Wikipedia purposes, it would probably be best if any interpretation of the contents of this treaty or comments on them be based in more recent academic scholarship.

3. lowercase names to uppercase - this might occasionally be unnecessary, see MOS:CAPS for details where certain things should be in lowercase and others not; correcting internal links - this might have been lost in all the noise of the other edits

4. My argument is that the article should be internally consistent. Since it is clearly covering Königsberg in a period which was predominantly German (this isn't a matter of contention, I hope), it makes sense to pick that language and stick to it (as needlessly switching from one form of a name to another can cause confusion and really isn't helpful: we're truly referring to the same place, use the same name).

7a (name). IIRC; the inclusion of names is based on that given by the source (a Russian-language article in Deutsche Welle). Now I do speak some German, but no Russian, so my understanding of the DW article (via google translate) might be somewhat inexact, but it does not mention the Polish name (since it is not historically significant): only German (reasons obvious), Lithuanian (to quote: Most historians claim that until the middle of the 13th century, representatives of the Baltic people "Prussians" lived on the territory of the modern Kaliningrad region. And therefore, the Lithuanians consider these lands to be their ancestral home, and they call Kaliningrad in their own way - Karalyauchus, which means... "royal mountain"., and the modern [not the ancient and unused one] Russian name (reasons obvious). This seems like a reasonable selection, unless you find a source which also comments on the Polish name.

7b. I assume the text you are referring to is (see Lithuanians section below). Poles were also among the staff and students of the university (see Poles section below).. It makes little sense to single out Poles in that paragraph when it is clearly talking about something which is more related to Lithuanians. Not every single mention of Lithuanians needs a balancing mention of Poles. The presence of both Polish and Lithuanian intellectuals is already clearly detailed elsewhere in the article (namely, the two sections you yourself cited, which are clear enough); and repeating this there where you added it is somewhat redundant. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:52, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Lübeck

Hi, I see you reverted my reversal of your edits to the infobox of Lübeck. Your edits to the infobox removed some vital information, like the population. Lübeck is not just some village, but a large, historic city and Unesco World Heritage. Note that WP:INFOBOXBLOAT, which you quoted, is not a guideline but an essay. There is no rule against using photomontages in infoboxes (check MOS:INFOBOX), that's what {{Photo montage}} is for. I haven't yet checked everything else you removed from the article yesterday, I guess the tables with imports and exports in the 14th century you removed are not so relevant and should be replaced with a short paragraph about trade connections. Markussep ^Talk 07:17, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

@Markussep: I know full well what and where Lubeck is, having studied Buxtehude previously. There is WP:NOTGALLERY. The main reason I removed stuff from the infobox is because it is too long (on my rather standard and not too fancy desktop, so am confident I wouldn't be the only one with such issues) and this causes issues with the layout of pictures further down. Additionally, some details are not really "key features of the subject" (as INFOBOX suggest they should be), like the post codes. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:01, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

WP:NOTGALLERY says to avoid "Photographs or media files with no accompanying text". I'm not sure that was the case for all pictures you removed. Postal codes and area codes are in nearly all infoboxes for settlements, so I don't see the point in removing them from one infobox. If you feel so strongly about this, you should start a discussion at Template talk:Infobox settlement. Markussep ^Talk 18:15, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Astrology editor started an edit warring complaint

Hello. I’m too tired to deal with this right now but I thought you should know in case you haven’t already noticed that Mychemical just filed a complaint at the Administrator’s Noticeboard claiming that we are somehow the ones edit warring at Astrology, in case you want to go over there and make clear what’s actually happening from your perspective (I’ll give mine maybe tomorrow). Best, Cpotisch (talk) 04:04, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

List of people on the postage stamps of Czechoslovakia

Thankyou for your contribution to List of people on the postage stamps of Czechoslovakia. Your comments are very good and very needed. We have other such articles (some of which have lasted over 15 years with no sources), that are up for deletion. In a few cases people are arguing to keep them even in the absence of sources. This is very shocking to me.John Pack Lambert (talk) 12:03, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

• I just want to thank you for your many contributions to the discussion on these lists. Especially for your connection to the article on fancruft. I think some of the keep editors really need to read that article. I am not holding my breath for them to do so.John Pack Lambert (talk) 13:53, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

  @Johnpacklambert: Another example of people persistently making the same kind of evidence-free arguments is Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of people on the postage stamps of the Faroe Islands (2nd nomination). What's more annoying is when they completely refuse to acknowledge this. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:49, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Results of the 2022 Australian federal election (House of Representatives)

Template:Results of the 2022 Australian federal election (House of Representatives) has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. — Guarapiranga ☎ 12:12, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Thankyou

I would like to thankyou for some of your recent edits. They have been helpful.John Pack Lambert (talk) 12:48, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

The Kelly Hecking article

Since you placed the "in progress" template, do you know if it is acceptable to tag this article for things while it's up? I've asked TTT to draftify it (because he arguably has a COI; because the subject is evidently not notable per YOUNGATH and BLP1E; and because it will be awkward for him and humiliating for her for this to go through AfD) in several venues, but he has ignored me. JoelleJay (talk) 16:01, 8 June 2022 (UTC)