User talk:Tinkering Gnome

Tinkering Gnome is away until 4 November and will not edit or respond to queries during this time, and probably for a period of time afterwords as well.

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Welcome to Wikipedia, Tinkering Gnome! Thank you for your contributions. I am Jebcubed and I have been editing Wikipedia for some time, so if you have any questions, feel free to leave me a message on my talk page. You can also check out Wikipedia:Questions or type {{help me}} at the bottom of this page. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

Also, when you post on talk pages you should sign your name using four tildes (~~~~); that will automatically produce your username and the date. I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Jeb³ _{Talk at me here} 19:40, 21 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Tinkering Gnome (talk) 20:56, 21 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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22:51, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Short descriptions

When you add a short description to an article, I imagine you are usually getting the text from WikiData. However, some of the descriptions are meaningless. For example, the description you added to List of defunct airlines of New Zealand was "wikimedia list article". I fail to see how that is a useful description. Please look at the descriptions before you post them into articles. When you find one like this, please write a better one and update WikiData with it.-gadfium 01:18, 24 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW these are imported descriptions. Now, and ICOCBW but that doesn't seem to be a bad thing. Indeed, TTBOMK this kind of description is common among a diverse variety of featured lists (none of which BTW are my doing you can use WP:BLAME to confirm). Now, perhaps the current consensus on the utility of this description is wrong, and you are more than welcome to make such a case on this talk page and others, but that's neither here nor there for the moment. The important thing is, if you are dissatisfied with an article's short description don't delete it, change it! You see the very existence of a short description lets editors know that such a feature is available, and for this reason even a sub-par short description is superior in that it is much more likely that an article containing such will eventually be upgraded by a good short description than one that lacks a short description entirely.

On a separate note, it is possible, even likely, that these same articles you removed the short description from will have it readded eventually, as searches for articles lacking a short description return me to them (and the odds I remember editing the article previously or your reaction to it are basically nil). This can be avoided by either adding a short description in the interim, or by appending a hidden note that the local consensus is that said article should not have a short description, Thank You! Tinkering Gnome (talk) 22:35, 24 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

"Wikimedia list article" is the accepted shortdesc for list articles. (Not sure where, but try searching talkspace:). Crazy, I know. But it's not a new thing just here.

AFAIK, the assumption behind it is that the shortdesc is only ever to be used in conjunction with the article title. But this seems an unreliable assumption, especially when, as here, editors don't even know that's the expectation. Nor is it consistent with other shortdescs, which frequently overlap. Andy Dingley (talk) 22:14, 26 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with @Andy Dingley: on this. Adding the short description "wikimedia list article" to List of Talyllyn Railway rolling stock seems at best a tautology and at worst misleading (it is an Wikipedia article, most readers won't know what "wikimedia" is). On a separate but somewhat related matter, can you stop changing articles that are marked as {{Use British English}} to {{Use Welsh English}} as you also did to List of Talyllyn Railway rolling stock. That article is not written in Welsh English and is not intended to be written in Welsh English. It seems misleading to alter the template like that. At the least, you would need consensus for that change somewhere. Thanks, The Mirror Cracked (talk) 23:22, 26 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia_talk:Short_description/Archive_3#List_articles?, BTW.

On the whole, I think these things are useless and should be on Wikidata (one of the very few things that should be). I also suspect that these will all be deleted before too long anyway, in the way that so many "WP bright ideas" have come and then gone without trace. Andy Dingley (talk) 23:28, 26 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, this seems pretty problematic. Adding the "wikimedia list article" short description to Nant Gwernol railway station and Mid Wales, which are both clearly not list articles is pretty bad. If you have to use that short description, please take more care. The Mirror Cracked (talk) 23:31, 26 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Oops, it's possible things went awry during a few more rapid edits when going through wikidata I'll be more careful in the future, please feel free to rvt/change. Tinkering Gnome (talk) 23:59, 26 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Getting back to the earlier comments, IIUC the current consensus is that "Wikimedia list article" is the accepted shortdesc for list articles. Now perhaps you think this is wrong, and by all means work to get the consensus changed and I will implement the result to the best of my ability, whatever that may be. In the interim I am not offended if you think you have a better shortdesc and change what I leave in a later edit.

On the subject of langvar I generally try to follow WP:TIES to the best of my ability, hence things/people/places of New Zealand get the Template:New Zealand English; likewise things/people/places of Australia get the Template:Australian English, and things/people/places of Wales get the Template:Welsh English. That said if there is some consideration that applies to Wales specifically that I'm unaware of please point me in that direction, and I will yield to whatever the Manual of Style or consensus (as the case may be) dictates. For sake of civility and comity I will temporarily refrain for a few days from making any langvar changes in the Welsh context for the moment to give you time to point me in the right direction (however I will still add if no langvar is specified and the spell check shows a match). In any case I think your concerns over which variety these articles are written in is somewhat misplaced. These tags are primarily for automated spell-check purposes, and the spelling differences between Welsh and British English are minimal (as they are between most varieties of commonwealth (i.e not-American influenced) English). So in fact for practical purposes these articles are for the most part written in both (any edit war over this would rank very high on the lamest all time list). Please feel free to bring any additional concerns you have to me I'm always willing to temporarily pause editing in any area when there is a concern until a new consensus can be reached, appreciate your understanding, and thanks for the input. Tinkering Gnome (talk) 00:04, 27 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Tinkering Gnome. First, let me apologise for the rather abrupt (even rude) nature of my comments above. I very much appreciate the thoughtful and humble way you have handled this conversation, and will try harder to act in that fashion myself. On the Langvar subject... My opinion (and it's only opinion) is that at some point you get down to too fine-grained an application of WP:TIES. We don't, for example, tag the article Leeds as written in Yorkshire dialect. That would be a step too far. I believe that the right geographic level to apply a language distinction is the UK. Welsh English uses the same spelling and grammatical rules as British English - Wenglish is really a spoken dialect, not a written one. The fact that {{Use Welsh English}} redirects to {{Use British English}} indicates to me that in the written form, these are the same. Fewer than 100 articles have the {{Use Welsh English}} template, while over 220,000 have the {{Use British English}}. I would argue that we should just use {{Use British English}}.

It's also interesting to note that {{Use Scottish English}} also redirects to {{Use British English}}. This indicates to me that the written forms of Welsh English and Scottish English are the same as British English and the latter is the useful template to use. Best, The Mirror Cracked (talk) 22:29, 27 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

No worries, I have myself said/written many less than charitable things before my morning coffee, (and sometimes afterwards as well). I try to be understanding when things get a little testy, and hopefully I can rely on your forbearance should the shoe be on the other foot sometime in the future.

I also appreciate your honesty on the issue, many people try to position their opinion on the way things should be, as the way things actually are in a rather tendentious manner, such forthrightness is not as common as it should be.

FWIW had there been a {{Yorkshire English}} I almost certainly would have used it already since after first wandering around semi-randomly I set out deliberately to find suitable articles for all the various langvars for a short period each editing session. The idea being to spread knowledge of their existence around to other editors by using them in an appropriate context. Probably best for us all then that no such tag exists.

On the whole I find your reasoning solid if not completely persuasive. So I’m of two minds on this issue, on the one hand I’m not a fan of the idea that for a variant to be accepted on Wikipedia it needs to have an army and a navy. But OTOH when going the other way we have the problem you mentioned above where there doesn’t appear to be any non-arbitrary point at which to stop granularisation. Furthermore, the fact that the UK subnational varieties redirect to British English means that there is no practical difference between them beyond window dressing as the automated spell-checker is the same for all 3, (which is what these tags are really for) just as there is no practical difference whether the ‘U’ in use is upper or lowercased in the tag (then again people squabble about that sort of thing too), which suggests a default to the least complicated solution hence just use {{British English}}.

The other consideration that comes to mind is future proofing, perhaps the idea is that currently the formal written version of all these (the only register acceptable for an encyclopaedia) is the same but its best to tag now lest a future difference arise. But that seems too fall to much into the crystal balling category. Why not then create the templates NZ English (North Island) and NZ English (South Island), or templates for each Canadian province, you never know there might some day be a difference.

Sorry about all the extended stream of conscious above, I guess this is just a long way of saying that for the moment I plan to avoid tagging with the subnational varieties, unless failure to do so would send the hornet’s nest after me (e.g. things SNP or Plaid Cymru related). But I don’t really have any strong opinion either way on the matter, and it’s quite possible I’ll be persuaded to reverse course by someone else even if only in a local context. Either way if/when a clear consensus on this emerges, I intend to execute it diligently. Still a good discussion to have though, and thanks for your thoughtful comment. Tinkering Gnome (talk) 05:57, 28 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

So my curiosity got the better of me while I was writing and after searching around I came across this. It seems the concern is that certain articles were purged (by users not the auto-spellcheck) of terms like ‘outwith’ or had Anglican substituted for Episcopalian (understandably irritating for a Scotsman), and the separate templates are perceived as useful in discouraging this behaviour (I imagine similar concerns are at play in the Welsh context). It seems to me that the fix for this sort of thing could have been handled on article talk pages but OTOH maybe this was more expedient. In any case it doesn’t seem to have caught on much, fewer than 200 articles combined carry the Scottish or Welsh template (and I’m probably responsible for more than a dozen of each). Still not sure what to think of all this (and naturally I just go thanked for my addition of {{Scottish English}} to Coxton Tower the other day), seems like a topic ripe for an RFC, any thoughts? Tinkering Gnome (talk) 06:10, 28 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I think there may be an important distinction to draw between Scottish and Welsh English. Welsh English is, I think, much less divergent from "standard" British English than Scots English is. I am fairly sure this is because the Welsh language continues in regular use in much of Wales, while Gaelic is virtually dead, and has been for a long while. As a result, a very distinct Scots English has evolved, while Welsh English, particularly in the written form is much closer to standard British English.

I'm not sure the Episcopalian/Anglican example is a compelling one though, as Episcopalian churches are Anglican, just a more specific kind. "Episcopalian" isn't a Scottish English term for "Anglican" - it is also the common term for that branch of Anglican churches in America and several other countries. So I don't think this is a Scottish v British English question. Similarly "outwith" is used quite frequently in English mining and caving literature, and is more an archaic term rather than a specifically Scottish English one.

An RFC would certainly be an interesting discussion to have. Best, The Mirror Cracked (talk) 15:17, 28 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

October 2019

Wikipedia's technical logs indicate that this user account has been or may be used abusively. It has been blocked indefinitely from editing to prevent abuse.

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TonyBallioni (talk) 03:31, 9 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note, you have edited substantially logged out. While this is not in itself forbidden, the sock policy explicitly forbids Editing project space: Undisclosed alternative accounts are not to be used in discussions internal to the project. which you have done on multiple occasions while logged out. This has the effect of evading scrutiny that would otherwise be placed on your account for your actions. I've changed this block to a week since it was a first time and there were no other accounts, but you should only edit project space from this account going forward. Additionally, while policy does not prohibit the use of registered editors using IPs, your use of dynamic IPs in mainspace is extensive and makes it extremely difficult to track activity and scrutinize behaviour, especially when you have a registered account. I would strongly advise you to edit logged in going forward, because there is a fine line between editing mainspace as an IP in non-controversial areas, and evading scrutiny for mainspace activity that we would ordinarily expect from a logged-in user. Also note if you edit logged out while this block is in effect, it will become indefinite. TonyBallioni (talk) 03:47, 9 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This details of this issue need to be addressed privately, I believe given the nature of the edits the fact that this is not the work of a single individual will be readily apparent to an experienced observer, that said it is possible that even in the absence of explicit coordination more off-wiki discussion between individuals regarding the project than is healthy has occurred.

My understanding is that a checkuser can be e-mailed to get us started on this process please verify (note I don't plan on executing until I have more time to compose a thoughtful message, likely Sunday at earliest so there is no need for you to reply promptly), In the meantime I understand your concerns, thanks. Tinkering Gnome (talk) 01:03, 10 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You may email me at Special:EmailUser/TonyBallioni. The only off-wiki discussion was another CheckUser asking me for a second opinion. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:12, 10 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I was referring to off-wiki discussions that I am guilty of the details of which I wish to keep private for now, but I appreciate your full-disclosure as well.

On the earlier subject I just learned that more logged out editing has already occurred before I knew about this message, due to the high dynamicism of the IPs assigned to this location, which I do not control it is actually now IPV4 rather than IPV6 addresses, the details of which I will discuss with the checkuser, or whoever else is best suited for this. I can't actually make these edits stop, but I can most likely ensure they only come from devices that are using a different OS/browser combination from this one, which should presumably be visible in the technical logs.

To further compound things, I now see I did make some logged out edits prior to creating an account, again I believe that differentiation should be possible given the different editing styles of the individuals involved, Apologies in advance for this mess. Tinkering Gnome (talk) 01:27, 10 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It's fine. You're free to email me (I am a CheckUser, and I blocked in that capacity.) I'm well aware of the limitations of the tool, and am fine considering appeals that are reasonable, and unblocking if there is a legitimate explanation for the technical details. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:30, 10 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Checkuser please make note of the technical details of this edit, thanks. Tinkering Gnome (talk) 19:51, 16 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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