User talk:JMF

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History of Milton Keynes Milton Keynes Calendar (New Style) Act 1750 John Ogilby Robert Hooke

Infobox images

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Hi JMF. Our infobox image friend only joined WP a few months ago. Their entire 2,000 + edits are a systematic patrolling of every UK settlement and modifying every infobox whether a change to the image(s) is an improvement or not. The work is entirely in good faith but is causing many comments to be raised. There have been many friendly prompts in various places but encouragement does not appear to have any effect. I retired from Wikipedia governance five years ago and now mainly concentrate on maintaining and updating articles I worked on and the occasional new creation. I am hesitant to escalate - is there a better way? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:11, 17 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

So you already know that ANI doesn't adjudicate on content disputes. WP-UKGEO is the obvious forum but didn't seem overly exercised about it ()didn't help that the discussion got sidetracked into an argument about the Liverpool infobox). So in essence, local consensus applies. Except aht edits to GA articles must maintain GA quality and the "how to write about settlements" gives the required backing. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 10:17, 17 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I know all about ANI. However, not to put too fine a point on it, this issue could be considered borderline WP:DE. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:00, 17 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

IPA

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If this is inappropriate, this style can be found in almost all Latin alphabet articles. Does that mean they also used it inappropriately? And it remained in the article for a long time without anyone noticing. Perhaps you could also remove it and cite the MOS you are referring to, thank you. - Arcrev1 (talk) 12:03, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Arcrev1: There is a discussion about this very topic at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Writing systems#Angle brackets. You may wish to contribute there.
Meanwhile... I agree totally that angle brackets should be used in the body of articles, the equivalent of WP:WAW. The relevant MOS is Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section#Bolding of title and alternative names, amplified at Wikipedia:Writing better articles#First sentence content: "The article should begin with a short declarative sentence, answering two questions for the nonspecialist reader: "What (or who) is the subject?" and "Why is this subject notable?". To me, the key message there is that the wp:principle of least surprise applies. The visitor is expecting an article about A, not {{!xt⟨A⟩}}. If they are not familiar with IPA, they are immediately confronted with an unfamiliar notation that immediately questions if this is the right article.
This is not the last word of course and your interpretation may prevail if the consensus at WikiProject Writing systems agrees with you. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 15:52, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Queen on Fire – Live at the Bowl

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Hello JMF, just a courtesy note to let you know that I have undone your recent edit on this article to align it back to MOS:NOITALIC guide-lines. 217.43.183.214 (talk) 13:57, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hard to believe but I hadn't come across that guideline before. Thank you for letting me know. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 14:58, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Hard border" listed at Redirects for discussion

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The redirect Hard border has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Anyone, including you, is welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 August 31 § Hard border until a consensus is reached. 9ninety (talk) 17:49, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 9 September 2025

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File:Tannenberg Bold.png listed for discussion

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A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Tannenberg Bold.png, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for discussion. Please see the discussion to see why it has been listed (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry). Feel free to add your opinion on the matter below the nomination. Thank you. JayCubby 14:43, 9 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Proceeding with "List of uses for At sign in computing"

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I am following up about your proposal to proceed with creating a List of uses for At sign in computing page as you described in the Talk:At sign page. Are we waiting for any further responses, or can we begin working on this? Shall I begin writing a draft for this as well as dollar sign and asterisk (which will just be taking verbatim content from those pages and moving them to the new page)? 24.50.56.74 (talk) 22:47, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ideally we should allow at least a few weeks (three?) for comment. I don't think we need a full "request to split" process but if we have allowed a reasonable time then the BEBOLD is defensible.
Can you leave a "now hear this!" note at asterisk? (I think that the nite at dollar sign is adequate.) 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 23:20, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I'll leave notes at those pages, I'll leave one at dollar sign anyway just to hear what others have to say on it. 24.50.56.74 (talk) 14:47, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's been roughly three weeks now, is it time? 24.50.56.74 (talk) 15:11, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I guess so. I suggest that you go ahead with one article a day (or more), starting with @ sign as being the most substantial one. Then subsequent changes can refer back to it your edit summaries. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 15:37, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have gone ahead and created drafts for the pages:
(I have not created a page for List of uses for Asterisk in computing, because I found that the page was quite comprehensive and covered too many related topics to decouple computing from the list. Relevant sections include Censorship, Mathematics, Telephony, Typography, and perhaps a few more. If we were to separate the list I think a "list of uses for asterisk in science and technology" would probably be more appropriate.)
Feel free to give your own opinions and make whatever changes you deem necessary to these articles. 24.50.56.74 (talk) 18:57, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
i don't see that it is realistic in 2025 to describe social media, for example, as "computing". You may as well classify Wikipedia and The New York Times as computing. It needs to be restricted to programming languages to make sense and be accepted. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 22:27, 7 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 2 October 2025

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Andy Burnham

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Can you explain why you are removing Andy Burnham's date of birth from his article? None of the policies you've mentioned state that it should not be included and it is standard on most BLPs to include the full date. Orange sticker (talk) 09:57, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Orange sticker:. Please see Wikipedia:BLPPRIVACY. Not only is it it "not standard on most BLPs", the policy clearly deprecates it. So if you see any others, please remove them. Month and year is entirely adequate to indicate how old someone is. Giving the precise date of birth is prurience, has no encyclopedic value and needlessly facilitates identity theft. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 10:24, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A quick glance at his Instagram account shows that Burnham is not trying to obscure his date of birth and it is mentioned twice elsewhere in the article. I'm adding it back per MOS:BIOFIRSTSENTENCE, please find consensus on the article talk page before removing again. Orange sticker (talk) 10:30, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If he chooses to expose it, then we may report it, not that we must. So I won't pursue the point in this case.
But the general principle stated in WP:BLPPRIVACY stands for almost all BLPs: we do not give precise personal details without good reason and the default assumption is that they should be removed on sight unless an editor can show good reason to retain. Some people are born in the public eye, some people seek the public eye, but many people have the public eye thrust upon them by unethical tabloids. The first two are prepared for the consequences and can take steps to protect themselves but the third are thrown to the lions. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 10:50, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed deletion of Lunar phase (disambiguation)

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Notice

The article Lunar phase (disambiguation) has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Unnecessary DAB; this can be a hatnote

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Significa liberdade (she/her) (talk) 18:01, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ways to improve Lunar phase (Hinduism)

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Hello, JMF,

Thank you for creating Lunar phase (Hinduism).

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

Thank you for starting this article. It does not currently have any sources. Please add sources and footnote every claim in the article. Thanks and have a great day!

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

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

Mariamnei (talk) 11:20, 5 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Mariamnei: Thank you, that's fair. I am working on that issue and have asked for help at Wikipedia talk:Hinduism-related topics notice board. It doesn't help that the linked articles seem to be short of citations for their own subject! 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 11:29, 5 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Mariamnei: I have added a few citations, which I trust will satisfy your concerns. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 17:55, 5 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your comment and sorry for my delayed response. The article is indeed much better than when I reviewed it, but there are still a few sections that need footnotes. Have a great day! Mariamnei (talk) 12:24, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Survey

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Hi and thanks for your recent participation in AfD. I would like to hear your thoughts about the process. Please check this survey if you are willing to respond. FYI I found your participation via XTools.Czarking0 (talk) 02:25, 6 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Are you always this rude?

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Your response was presumptive and rude.

First, it's not my bot, it is the Wikimedia foundation's "bot".

You edit a bare URL, is a chance that the "add a citation" tool will create one for you. Many times a typical URL will generate a decently formed reference but almost never will it work if it's a PDF. This is a known issue, and I accpet that fixing it is problematic but typically if you try to convert a PDF URL, you get a message that it can't be done automatically and must be done manually. Which I often do, but it's a pain.

I was pleasantly surprised that the automatic option generated a reference, apparently looking to see if the PDF could be found in the way back machine and generating a reference with a link to the Internet Archive as well as a link to the original.

I thought this was a great option but it appears you have a different opinion.

If you think the resulting reference is malformed I'd like to hear what you think is wrong with it. If it is wrong, perhaps you should take it up with developers because I'm fairly certain I'm not the only one using it. S Philbrick(Talk) 20:33, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

when I see so incompetent an edit that considers title=Wayback Machine to be a serious attempt to correct a bare URL, then I have to assume that you didn't bother to check the result. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 20:58, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know what "never" refers to, but if that edit is incompetent, then your reaction is misdirected.
I did check it, as I was surprised that the tool even processed the url.
I confirmed that the link with the name "the original" brought up the original source which it did, and I confirmed that the link with the name "Wayback machine" went to the archived version at Internet archive.
However, I was mildly surprised at the structure of the citation. While I have fond memories of the original Wayback machine, I didn't expect to see the term used in a Wikimedia development tool. I thought it would be something much more formal. I assume the decision is documented somewhere but I don't know where. However that's neither here nor there, the point is that I did not make the choice for label, the Wikimedia development team chose it.
I can understand and even agree with you if you said the choice was too whimsical, but I'm not getting how it could be characterized as "incompetent". In fact I'm still so surprised, I am wondering if I'm missing exactly what you find so objectionable.
Feel free to respond or not but if you think the Wikimedia tool is flawed, I urge you to bring it up with them because it gets a lot of use. I'm not going to try and track them down because I don't yet know what the problem is. S Philbrick(Talk) 23:09, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Next response in order was an edit conflict, a continuation of my first response. If appropriate, I'll respond to this one after that. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 23:12, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
and if you consider Undid revision 1316835228 by Sphilbrick (talk) if your bot is creating silly titles like that, it [is] faulty or you aren't reviy[iewing]. Do it right or don't do it at all. is rude, you really need to get out more.
I'm astonished that someone running a tool like that doesn't immediately recognise "Wayback Machine" is the Internet Archive. This is editing 101. That should immediately have caused an alarm bell. And sorry, I don't buy the "its a PDF" excuse. A two second look at the url (https://www.nrr.co.uk/content/dam/newriver/corporate/documents/portfolio/asset-documents/NewRiver%20A6%20Portfolio%20Booklet%20-%20April%202025.pdf.downloadasset.pdf) has the cover page "Growing our Portfolio". Yes, using automated tools to fix bare urls, especially of PDFs, can certainly throw up oddities, but there really is no excuse for letting basic errors like "Wayback Machine" and "Archived copy" get past you.
And next time somebody challenges what you do, take a moment to check if perhaps maybe, just maybe, they have a point. If you can't see it, ask. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 23:10, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If I had called you incompetent, yes, that would be rude, maybe even a WP:NPA vio. But I did not. I wrote that the edit was incompetent, because it produced a result that was clearly, blatantly, wrong. When you use these tools, you must sanity check the result because they are not, and cannot be, infallible – there are too many strange, wonderful and yes, incompetently written websites out there. Yes, you should report back this anomaly but also, I suggest, you should also accept responsibility for your failure to identify a rather glaring error in the result. It is not like it was just one of a hundred corrections to that page, it was the only one. It is your bot if you choose to run it, it is not one of the regular cleaning droids that run all the time – that is why the save was done in your name and on your reputation. You need to at least do a coarse sanity check on what it has done. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 23:44, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So many things to respond to it's hard to know where to start. Well let's start in the middle:

And next time somebody challenges what you do, take a moment to check if perhaps maybe, just maybe, they have a point. If you can't see it, ask.

I couldn't agree more. It sounds like advice I often give. Now, maybe you could work on taking it yourself. This started with an edit I made to a URL. Did you take a moment to check to see if perhaps I had a point by asking me? No. Did you decide to revert it but do so politely and then reach out to ask me why I did what I did? No. You jumped to an erroneous conclusion. It's not my bot. It was created by the Wikimedia development team. Claiming that because I invoked it makes it mine is a stretch.

I'm astonished that someone running a tool like that doesn't immediately recognise "Wayback Machine" is the Internet Archive.

I'll see your "astonishment" and raise you "gobsmacked". I grant that you have no way of knowing:
  • That I'm a significant financial contributor to Internet archive (especially when they were in danger of going under)
  • I've met with the Internet archive staff at wikimania conferences (I think it was Montréal might've been DC)
  • I have saved literally hundreds of URLs to the Internet archive (I'm talking about manual saves not the automatic ones)
But even without knowing any of that information, I can't figure out why you concluded that I didn't recognize that ' "Wayback Machine" is the Internet Archive.'. Of course I know that. I was making the relatively minor point that I thought developers would choose "Internet archive" rather than "Wayback Machine" as a name.

When you use these tools, you must sanity check the result because they are not, and cannot be, infallible

. As I already explained I did check and confirmed that it was correct. You call it "a glaring error" but you've yet to identify the error. S Philbrick(Talk) 12:53, 15 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I had hoped that we had reached a stage where we could each see the other's point of view and leave it at that. It seems not.
  • First you made an edit which produced the output title=Wayback Machine. The only website in the world where that has ever been its title is the Internet Archive, a fact that you affirm you already knew.
  • Then I reverted that edit, calling it incompetent, because clearly not only was "Wayback Machine" not the title of the (PDF) report, nor was it obviously an unrecognisable and arbitrary pick from the file metadata (that anyone might miss), but it was laughably and embarrassingly wrong because of the IA's high profile.
  • Next you open a topic on my talk page Are you always this rude?, which is a blatant WP:NPA violation unless you can support it with any evidence for rudeness. Despite your walls of text above, you continued to fail to do so. I did not call you incompetent, I called the edit incompetent.
  • Your evidence that you are intimately familiar with the history of the Internet Archive (née Wayback Machine) means that you have no defence whatever to astonishment (or gobsmacking for that matter) because the error should have been more obvious to you than to almost anyone. If the title you ascribed to a report is "Wayback Machine", then someone somewhere is making (or possibly has made) a very silly error, one that should have set your alarm bells ringing straight away given your personal history.
  • You say As I already explained I did check and confirmed that it was correct. Do you seriously expect anyone to believe that? The title of the report (as I have already told you, is Our Growing Portfolio. Not Wayback Machine.
    • With thanks to Belbury (who fixed it this morning before I could), the correct citation is "Our Growing Portfolio" (PDF). www.nrr.co.uk. April 2025. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2025-07-05. Retrieved 2025-10-14..
    • So your assertion that you did check and confirmed that it was correct is not credible because it clearly contradicts the evidence.
  • We all make mistakes and occasionally we make silly mistakes but most of us have the self-awareness to admit them, try to rectify, and apologise to anyone who took time to clean up the mess. I struggle to understand why you would wish to double down on yours.
As far as I am concerned, this discussion is now closed. Given your continued belief that your edit was correct despite the evidence otherwise, I am not willing to waste any more time on it. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 19:32, 15 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, it is not closed.
The good news is there's finally some progress.
I have been asking what you found wrong with my edit, and it took far too long for you to explain but let's ignore the passage of time and thank you for finally explaining that you think it's inappropriate to use "Wayback Machine" as a title.
I don't disagree. It's an odd choice, not one I would've chosen but over the years I've learned that what I think ought to be a sensible practice isn't always the consensus choice of this community. In this particular case it's not quite the community's choice but the Wikimedia developers choice. That's an even tougher nut to crack and if if you want to take it on go for it.
Please consider this short list of selected articles with selected references:
  • Estonia[1]
  • Bald Eagle (Featured Article)[2]
  • Massachusetts (Good article)[3]
  • Syria[4]
  • Central Milton Keynes shopping centre[5]
  • Hinduism[6]

References

  1. ^ "Wayback Machine" (PDF). www.mkm.ee.
  2. ^ "Wayback Machine" (PDF). www.saj.usace.army.mil. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2023-11-09. Retrieved 2025-10-06.
  3. ^ "Wayback Machine" (PDF). www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org.
  4. ^ "Wayback Machine" (PDF). documents1.worldbank.org.
  5. ^ "Wayback Machine" (PDF). www.nrr.co.uk. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2025-07-05. Retrieved 2025-10-14.
  6. ^ "Wayback Machine" (PDF). www.pbs.gov.pk.
Would you characterize one some or all of these references as incompetent?
If you choose all, then try doing a search using insource: "title=Wayback"
The six in my list are not cherry picked anomalies but six of the approximately 2000 articles with similar references. Note that some of these articles are either good articles or feature articles.
Are you saying that every one of those references is incompetent? If so are you prepared to revert every one of them? Are you going to take the time to reach out to the Wikimedia development team to encourage them to change their bot?
I obviously haven't read every one of those 2000 articles but I glanced at some don't see any examples of any of those references being tagged as an appropriate or talk page articles complaining about the use of that type of reference. My interpretation is that the community has accepted that this is an accepted form of reference. If you disagree, I'd be happy to help you because I don't particularly like it, but I don't have the bandwidth to take this on myself. That said, given that the references work and bring you to the right site, it's not going to be an easy slog to explain why all those references need to be changed in some way. S Philbrick(Talk) 21:17, 15 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
(talk page watcher) I'd just like to step in here and make a point about the sentences It's not my bot. It was created by the Wikimedia development team. Claiming that because I invoked it makes it mine is a stretch. and similar uses of words like "tool" instead of "bot". When editing, just above the "Publish changes" button is the legal note as follows:

By publishing changes, you agree to the Terms of Use, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the CC BY-SA 4.0 License and the GFDL. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license.

Following that first link leads us to a page within which we find the following bullet point:
  • Responsibility — You take responsibility for your edits (since we only host your content).
There is no mention of bots, scripts or other tools. The implication is that the human who clicks (taps, activates, etc.) that "Publish changes" button is the responsible individual. Therefore, who wrote the bot/script/whatever is irrelevant; the person using it has the duty of checking that the action was correct. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:36, 15 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, some editors have tried to "blame the bot" (my words) in AN/I discussions and this is generally not accepted by the community. @Sphilbrick, the automated citation tool can place inaccurate entries in some of the fields so one should check the source document and amend the citation where necessary. Pointing out other "Wayback Machine" titled citations in good and featured articles shows the editors who placed these citations likely didn't check the result and either no one has picked up on the fact, or if noticed hasn't bothered to amend. It could be that many "Wayback Machine" citation titles have already been amended either when initially added, or changed later rather than tagged. Clearly, "Wayback Machine" is not the article title expected per WP:CITEHOW, so yes it would be preferable for the 2,000 or so references using this to be amended, but neither you, me, JMF or anyone else is under an obligation to take on the whole caboodle. As to JMF's edit summary comment, it comes across to me as 'not beating about the bush, no nonsense wording'. If directed to a newbie's edit it might be seen as a bit harsh and off-putting, but that's not the case here. Rupples (talk) 05:56, 16 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to correct a minor misunderstanding. I'm not trying to duck responsibility for the edit underlying this kerfuffle. I made it and I take responsibility for it. However a lot of work went into the automated citation tool and I didn't want anyone thinking I was trying to take credit for building that tool. I take responsibility for the edit but I don't claim authorship for the tool. It wasn't my decision to use "Wayback machine" as the title. I've already stated that that wouldn't be my choice, but someone else made that choice and given that it works fine, I decided to accept it.
This has turned into a far more interesting issue than I originally realized.
Why do we have references?
Before Wikipedia and before the Internet, we had scholarship. People would write articles and (excluding the extremely rare exception of writing things from first principles) make statements in the article that leaned on other works. It became convention to identify the source of those works. We developed the concept of references, to provide information to the reader so that they could see for themselves whether the assertions held up.
Our guideline on citing sources summarized this nicely:
A citation, or reference, uniquely identifies a source of information, e.g.:
Ritter, R. M. (2003). The Oxford Style Manual. Oxford University Press. p. 1. ISBN 978-0-19-860564-5.
Note importantly that this is an old school type reference. It's not a wiki link to something online, it's a collection of information to help the reader uniquely identify the source so that they could go to a physical library and find it.
That convention made sense if you are going to use a printed source that could be found in a book, a journal, a magazine, or a newspaper.
When sources could be found online, it was natural (although not obvious!) that we would use a similar convention with the minor but important addition that the citations include a hyperlink to an online source.
We could have chosen a different convention and many of us do in more casual situations. When I send emails to my board members, I often include links to online sources. Sometimes I will use a descriptive word and hyperlink that word but sometimes it's easier just to use the word "Link" and use that to link to the online source. If you revisit the definition of citation it qualifies. It does uniquely identify the source of information.
In theory, we could have chosen differently and permitted a different convention for online links. A single word or even a character with a hyperlink could qualify. Please don't misread me. I'm not advocating this and there are good reasons for not going this route, I'm only trying to point out that it would meet the definition of a citation.
Why wouldn't we consider going this route? The answer is link rot. A reference consisting of a single word with a hyperlink to a source is adequate as long as the link works and we know that this assumption doesn't reflect real life. For that reason, it makes perfect sense to continue to use references that could help the reader identify the source of the information even if the hyperlink doesn't work.
The entire justification for the Internet archive is the existence of link rot (a slight overstatement but not much). I realize we cannot guarantee that the Internet archive will be around forever, but if we are going to point to a source at the Internet archive, it seems highly likely that they are going to ensure that the link is going to work for a long time.
I don't know whether anyone has actually read this far but all of this was necessary to make the small point that if you want to make a reference that points to the Internet archive, it ought to point to the particular source of interest and the hypertechnical point that the title of the source of interest is something other than "Internet archive" is an odd thing to get hung up about. If you want to do better, go for it, but the citation produced by the citation tool worked, and calling it incompetent is over the top. S Philbrick(Talk) 12:57, 16 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Northern Ireland Assembly

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Apologies for not explaining my rollback. I rolled it back because in terms of the deputy and the deputy for the first minister, it is different in Northern Ireland. Politics has played a big role in this, but the "d" in "deputy" is not capitalized because if it was, it may show a difference in power each role has; however, that is the opposite. Each role for both first ministers has the same power, and the first minister cannot override the deputy first minister on any matter. Refer to the NI Assembly website. https://aims.niassembly.gov.uk/mlas/ministers.aspx this webpage shows that the d in deputy is not capitalized. Chrisinireland.2009 (talk) 00:32, 17 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, thanks for explaining. Accepted. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 09:18, 17 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 20 October 2025

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  • Traffic report: One click after another
    Serial-killer miniseries, deceased scientist, government shutdowns and Sandalwood hit "Kantara" crowd the tubes.
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Cranfield University

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Re: [1] your question of why, it's not about which region but which consortium they chose to join. I guess they could have joined the Eastern ARC consortium but it was more to do with the purposes of the consortium than the location. For an equally odd one, see how Cambridge University chose to join Science and Engineering South rather than Eastern ARC. FredWalsh (talk) 15:24, 26 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Then no probs. Pity you didn't use the edit summary to pre-empt the obvious question. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 15:31, 26 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's what happens with HotCat but it did have the category link in the edit summary. 🤷‍♀️ FredWalsh (talk) 15:46, 26 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Blocked After Wikipedia Page BC/BCE Era Change

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This is user cpuaggie. I changed date eras on a particular Wikipedia page from BCE to BC due to context apparently in error. You explained why I was in error, so I understand. I stand corrected. But why block for two years over that? I’m not one of those nefarious people who have hidden agendas and try to go through Wikipedia to make changes based on things other than fact. It was a legitimate thought given the context of the information as I explained in each change’s explanation box. Also, I do have VPN which might have been turned on at the time, but not intentionally to hide my location. I’ll turn it off. I didn’t know that was a thing. So, I apologize. Could my ban be lifted please? Cpuaggie (talk) 01:45, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I am an ordinary editor like you are. I do not have the authority to block you or to unblock you.
But what makes you think that you have been blocked? I see no notification to that effect on your talk page. And you were able to write anything here. I suspect that you have misunderstood something. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 09:04, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Cpuaggie: I've worked out what makes you believe you have been blocked. It's not personal . It is the VPN gateway that you used which has been blocked, not you, As you can see, there is no restriction on your editing privileges when you come in 'clean'. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 11:51, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

re: LLM blocks

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I'm not an administrator and I'm not involved in blocking anyone, and have only reported like 5-10 users with ongoing behavioral issues, so not sure why you're pinging me about this. Gnomingstuff (talk) 22:13, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Gnomingstuff: yes, I know that.
I had believed (incorrectly, as it turns out) that contributing LLM-written material has been declared to be WP:disruptive and could lead to a block. The discussion on your talk page seemed to suggest that the question is still open. That is why I contributed a note about the article in The Signpost, which asserted that people are being blocked for LLM use. But then I read the comments there, which say that the story is "creative" at best, so I reverted my contribution.
I won't bother you again. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 08:31, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Quotation marks

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JMF, I used the fullwidth angle brackets by accident. But I could add the evidence with the infobox so I could know that there are single angle brackets & double angle brakcets. ~2025-31563-08 (talk) 17:36, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 10 November 2025

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* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:53, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

(This message was sent to User talk:John Maynard Friedman and is being posted here due to a redirect.)

Revert

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small baby recovered from discarded bath water ~2025-32529-75 (talk) 20:08, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Referring to what? 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 20:36, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello and thank you

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Thanks again for your thoughtful engagement on PC. It’s a topic I had largely forgotten about until recently. When I left WP back in 2006, PC was (I believe, but could be mistaken - my memory is not what it used to be)) either a featured article or “good” article. More recently, my nephew had a school assignment on societal ostracization vs personal accountability (it touched on everything from McCarthyism to Cancel Culture) and was specifically warned to steer clear of the article. The instructor didn’t have a problem with WP per se, the objection was specific to the political correctness entry.

Upon further investigation, I noticed that the topic had collected a massive TALK archive since I had last viewed it. With so many different contributors, the entry apparently grew in a number of different directions (not a bad thing, but can be disruptive to the flow of the writing). So I decided to once again dive back into wikipedia with the intention of simply clarifying/organizing the topic while avoiding the potential political minefield surrounding it. Just thought I’d say hello and give some background. Slyfamlystone (talk) 01:11, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Your instructor is very wise: I agree, it's a tar pit topic. If ever there was a case of "when I use a word, it means exactly what I want it to mean, no more and no less", this is it. It depends on who wrote it, when they wrote it and in what context. See also semiotics and framing (social sciences). A five-year PhD thesis! 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 09:22, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There's glory for you! --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:58, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The "proper name mark" and "book title mark" of the Chinese language

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First of all, thank you for your contributions to the article Guillemets after I made this edit. It was a simple edit which I thought would adequately (but not completely) address the rather misleading nature of putting the Chinese language under the section "As quotation marks" when 《》 are not used as quotation marks in Chinese.

I did not expect anyone would follow up on such a minor edit, so I am surprised to see that the article changed so quickly afterwards. But I agree with your decision to remove Chinese from that section entirely, and I especially like that you relocated it to a new home in the "See also" section, which is not only appropriate, but more importantly ensured that useful information didn't simply disappear.

I see that you have also made edits to the article Chinese punctuation for proper nouns. As I'm writing this message, I'm also cleaning up that rather messy-looking article, so you can expect that a large number of sentences will be rewritten shortly. But to address your edit specifically, I think a section listing Unicode codepoints can be useful, although I think only 《》〈〉 should have their codepoints listed.

The reason for not listing ＿﹏︳︴ is because they are used in the article for demonstration purposes only. They show what the "proper name mark" (straight line) and the "book title mark" (wavy line) look like, and the relative position of the mark (under characters in horizontal writing, to the left of characters in vertical writing). You cannot actually use these characters to apply the "old-school style" (as the article calls it) of these two punctuation marks. You must use markup (such as HTML or CSS), or a rich-text word processor's formatting options, to add an underline (either straight or wavy, depending on which one you need).

As far as I know, in plain text, it is not possible to use the "old-school style" of the marks, because that requires overstrike, and on modern computers, a sequence of (for example) 大ASCII Backspace (0x08)＿ does not render as the desired 大, but as 大＿. This dependence on markup or rich-text support is precisely what the article means by "hard to typeset" and the reason why this "old-school style" is so little seen today. (Note that typesetting difficulties already existed before the computer age, albeit for a different set of reasons, so the decline of this style is not new).

Finally, there are 『』, which are mentioned only once in the article as the Japanese equivalent of the book title mark. Given that this article is about Chinese, I don't think listing a Japanese punctuation mark is useful. (Caveat: 『』 are proper Chinese punctuation marks. But they are quotation marks, never book title marks, so they are out of scope for this article. In Japanese they do double-duty as quotation marks quoting both speech and title of works, plus other things.) I would prefer not listing 『』; but if they are to be listed, then 「」 will also need to be listed, because they fulfill the Japanese equivalent of the Chinese 〈〉. See the table below for how these symbols are related:

Language Large Works
(e.g. book, album, TV series)		 Small Works
(e.g. chapter, song, TV episode)
English Title
(italics)		 "Title"
(quotation marks)
Chinese (Traditional) 《Title》 〈Title〉
Japanese 『Title』 「Title」

(Just in case it's not clear, ~2025-32554-56, ~2025-33062-01, ~2025-33087-47 are all me.) ~2025-33115-16 (talk) 23:22, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have zero expertise in Chinese, Japanese or Korean orthography. But it was important to affirm (and I'm pleased that you agree) that these angle-brackets are not guillemets. Superficially, they look a little like them, so it was reasonable to recognise that fact – a role that See Also is designed to provide.
So, although it looked odd to me that an article called "Chinese punctuation for proper nouns" should have so much on other kinds of punctuation marks, I decided to leave it firmly alone. But it certainly looks like a lot of duplication of content in Chinese punctuation. As you seem to have some expertise, you might wish to make a case to merge the articles? (see WP:MERGE). And, in documenting the fact that 『』 are proper Chinese punctuation marks, you can add a footnote that says that they are also used in Japanese for book titles.
I hope you find that helpful. May I suggest that you get yourself a full account, as it will make a lot of tasks quite a bit easier. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 23:52, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the quick response. I did have an account from long ago (around 2007) but cannot remember the password or the e-mail address associated with the account. Nowadays I generally read Wikipedia only, very rarely edit, and only do if it involves a glaring error that can be fixed quickly. (It's the age-old problem of not having enough time. Improving Wikipedia is rewarding but other aspects of life must be given priority, whether I like it or not.)
《》 are the "book title marks" in Chinese (not just used for book titles, but this English name is accurate because they are always called 書名號, whether they happen to denote the title of a book or not. 書 means 'book', 名 means 'name', and 號 here means 'punctuation'). They are definitely not guillemets, or quotation marks, and I would argue not angle brackets either; there is similarity in looks but the usage is completely different. Together I think we've done well in the Guillemet article.
The way I see it, the article Chinese punctuation for proper nouns is really an article about the "proper name mark" and "book title mark". The title is a strange one, because although it is accurate in the sense that these two punctuations do mark proper nouns in Chinese (and there are no other punctuations that serve this purpose), there isn't a term in Chinese to refer to these two punctuation marks collectively, so you cannot for example say "proper noun punctuations" in Chinese and be understood to be referring to these two marks. It is also not an established term in English. Perhaps the article should be renamed "Proper name mark and book title mark", but then the lead paragraph would require significant rewriting.
Splitting into two separate articles of "Proper name mark" and "Book title mark" will likely not be a good idea because there will be significant overlap and duplication. As for merging into Chinese punctuation, I think there is enough material to have a standalone article, with the two variants of the book title mark, the decline of the old style, and so on. Also, the article on Chinese punctuation is even messier, being very poorly organized, the book title mark described in two different places, and a number of uncited claims that are contrary to my knowledge of Chinese language usage. I might try to clean it up but feel it would be such a monumental task that even if I were to dedicate a massive chunk of time to it, that would still not be enough.
I have already rewritten part of "Chinese punctuation for proper nouns" and more will follow. But I need to know whether I can change the section on Unicode codepoints as I proposed.
  1. Would you object to removing ＿﹏︳︴? As I said previously, these characters are not used to input the proper name mark or the book title mark; instead, one must use markup.
  2. I would still prefer removing 『』 but would also accept retaining them while noting they are in fact quotation marks that in Japanese (but not Chinese) are used to denote the title of a work (as one of the functions of the Japanese quotation mark).
~2025-33115-16 (talk) 02:50, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Underlines: Of course, delete freely. I just blindly made a list of every character that was identified in the text, without regard to its significance.
  • 『』: my suggestion here is just delete as it is too far removed from the main topic. In the Chinese punctuation article (quotation-mark section), maybe a footnote to say that it is also used in Japanese.
You might want to review how this topic is handled in the main Chinese punctuation article? Although I've just now added {{main|Chinese punctuation for proper nouns}}, maybe a full section that summarises Chinese punctuation for proper nouns is needed? 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 11:07, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

ISBN

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Hello, I usually follow this guideline. ISBN-13 are found only in books published a few years before January 1, 2007, when they became standard. Hyphenating ISBN codes (both ISBN-10 and ISBN-13) is good, since they are more readable. Instead EAN codes should never be hyphenated.-- Carnby (talk) 22:54, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is that Special:BookSources can't handle them. See for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-415-28498-8
So you need to get that resolved first. Accessibility trumps "the rules". 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 00:21, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Apparently, search through Special:BookSources button has an issue; currently it doesn't handle any format: [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] and [7] [8] [9] [10] [11].
However it states: This page allows users to search multiple sources for a book given a 10- or 13-digit International Standard Book Number. Spaces and dashes in the ISBN do not matter.
The other tools available (e.g. Karlsruhe, Google...) do work.
--Carnby (talk) 06:10, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Why do you say Special:BookSources can't handle them? The link that you provide  Works for me, whether written as a full EL as above, or as a wikilink: Special:BookSources/0-415-28498-8. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:57, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
How odd. Yesterday I didn't get a response and jumped to the wrong conclusion. I'll revert my reversion of @Carnby's edit. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 10:34, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]