User talk:Polar Apposite

Although some prefer welcoming newcomers with cookies, I find fruit to be a healthier alternative.

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Did I forget to sign any of my talk page contributions? Polar Apposite (talk) 08:46, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the fruit. Polar Apposite (talk) 08:47, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

And thanks for the warm welcome. I am really getting into editing Wikipedia. It is *fun*. Polar Apposite (talk) 21:38, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

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July 2023

Welcome to Wikipedia, and thank you for your contributions. Although everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia, please note that there is a Manual of Style that should be followed to maintain a consistent, encyclopedic appearance. Deviating from this style, as you did in Unreasonable ineffectiveness of mathematics, disturbs uniformity among articles and may cause readability or accessibility problems. Please take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. MOS:PUFFERY - AquilaFasciata (talk | contribs) 17:16, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

August 2023

Hi Polar Apposite! I noticed that you have reverted to restore your preferred version of Nuclear weapon design several times. The impulse to undo an edit you disagree with is understandable, but I wanted to make sure you're aware that the edit warring policy disallows repeated reversions even if they are justifiable.

All editors are expected to discuss content disputes on article talk pages to try to reach consensus. If you are unable to agree at Talk:Nuclear weapon design, please use one of the dispute resolution options to seek input from others. Using this approach instead of reverting can help you avoid getting drawn into an edit war. Thank you. VQuakr (talk) 19:10, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

I'm confused. I didn't mean to undo anyone's edit, and I didn't know that I did. Which edit are you referring to? Polar Apposite (talk) 19:24, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

I also replied to you on the Talk page of the article. Polar Apposite (talk) 19:25, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

About ten minutes ago. Polar Apposite (talk) 19:25, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

I had a look at the Revision History page of the article. I should have looked at it straight after the first time I replaced a nuclide symbol with an IUPAC name. I am fairly new to Wikipedia, I guess. Newer than I realized :) I didn't realize my edits were getting undone and that I was redoing them, I guess because I was drudgery fashion going through the article using control find, and not really noticing much.

Anyway, you are right that there wasn't a proper consensus on the Talk page of the article. I thought I had a green light, but it seems I misread the situation. Polar Apposite (talk) 19:45, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

And just now I noticed that NuclearSecrets had edited the nuclide symbol style several days ago, on the19th, without saying anything about it on the Talk page. Polar Apposite (talk) 19:56, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Yeah but those are uncontroversial changes to match the Manual of Style, [1]. Apples and oranges. VQuakr (talk) 22:11, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

True, but I wasn't making a comparison there. I was just explaining that I didn't know he had made any edits since I started that section on the Talk page.

Also, my changes didn't *conflict* with the Manual of Style, did they? It's just that the Manual of Style only talks about *how* to use symbols in prose, without saying anything, as far I know, about what constitutes overuse of symbols.

And nuclide symbols are a somewhat special case among symbols in being remarkably, perhaps even uniquely harmful to readability of prose, due to having the superscript and/or subscript placed before the element symbol.

So, surely, my changes really didn't conflict with the Manual of Style? Polar Apposite (talk) 23:54, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Is it your policy to undo any edit I make anywhere in the article that substitutes the full name of a nuclide for the nuclide symbol? Polar Apposite (talk) 21:15, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

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October 2023

Please do not use styles that are nonstandard, unusual, inappropriate or difficult to understand in articles. There is a Manual of Style, and edits should not deliberately go against it without special reason. Specifically I am seeing a lot of edits from you that use colloquial, emphatic, or generally informal unencyclopedic language with edit summaries saying "Improved some of the English". Please review WP:TONE and WP:FORMAL before continuing to make these edits. ––FormalDude (talk) 21:01, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Could you give me an example of an edit of mine that you think is not an improvement? Polar Apposite (talk) 21:18, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

I will look at those two links. Polar Apposite (talk) 21:19, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

I read the two links and I found them very interesting, especially the link within about the inverted pyramid's origin. On the other hand, I agreed with everything there, and do not recall, and would be surprised if I went against anything in your two links. So I am sincerely at a loss here. Please could you give me an example or two of edits that I mind that you didn't think were good ones. Polar Apposite (talk) 21:48, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

I am now looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Basic_copyediting Polar Apposite (talk) 21:52, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

I see now that my edit summaries probably should have been more informative and detailed, after reading this just now in the Basic copyediting article: "Make your changes and fill out an edit summary. Be helpful to the editors who follow you by giving a summary of what you have done. Simple "Copy edit" is fine, but "Edited for tone" is even better. The most commonly used abbreviation for "copy edit" is "ce", which is better than nothing, but it is more helpful to include one or more words or phrases such as "capitalization", "subject-verb agreement", "fixed dangling modifier", "logical quotes", or whatever describes your edit." Polar Apposite (talk) 22:10, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Your edits that stood out the most to me were this and this. It's not a big deal, but we shouldn't be overemphasizing, adding cleverness, or rewording just for the sake of it. Better edit summaries are always appreciated, and it would help if you explained specifically how you are improving the wording. Justifying your edit with a specific policy is ideal too, but not required.

And the inverted pyramid is not what I was talking about, I was referring to the Tone section of that page. ––FormalDude (talk) 00:49, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

On reflection, I completely agree with you about the first edit that you linked to, about information about living persons, because conversational language like "it bears repeating" is out of place in an article, especially one that is stating the official rules of Wikipedia about a highly emotive and contentious subject. Not my best edit. The revert was a good one.

Regarding the other edit, about the definition of "life", I would like to point out first that the edit I made there was not the edit I intended to make. It was not the final version that I typed, as I recall. I don't know what went wrong, but I guess it was that I forgot to save the changes of my latest version of my edit. Up to but not including ". It has", it's as I intended. But where it reads, ". It has", in my latest typed version, it read, ", more specifically: ". The "it" of "It has" is terrible writing, because it's not clear what it refers to. It could refer to life, to matter, or even (conceivably) signaling. In conclusion, while acknowledging that it was seriously flawed, it was still better than the original text, and it was flawed only in one part, and in a way that you could have fixed. I think reverting was too extreme a measure. Just my opinion.

One reason I kept my edit summaries short was that I didn't know how long they were supposed to be. Is there a character limit? Do other editors appreciate a detailed justification (perhaps with mentions of specific policies - I hadn't thought of that, and I think it could prevent a lot of unnecessary debate. Thanks for that.) for an edit in the edit summary? I was worried that it might take up too much space on the revision history of the article.

I just think the origin of the inverted pyramid is incredibly fascinating and very instructive (a good lesson in not just guessing at the history of things). I didn't think you were drawing it to my attention. I just happened to stumble on it while exploring your links. The most amazing fact I've learned in a long time. It's so surprising, isn't it? I can't believe I never heard it before. I'll definitely be looking into this.

What else could I do to improve my edits? Polar Apposite (talk) 01:11, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

I reverted your edit to Life because the previous version was much easier to understand and had a more intuitive flow. I also note using phrases like "that is to say" is considered too personal and informal for encyclopedic writing. My other concern was that the existing wording had been recently reviewed via the good article process, meaning an experienced editor thought it was of quality with no major problems. A significant rewording of the lead sentence is not really justifiable in that case, at least not without prior discussion.

There is an approximate limit of 500 characters for edit summaries. They are intended to be brief, normally I wouldn't make one any longer than three sentences. Most all policies have a WP:SHORTCUT that you can use to link to them in your edit summary. If you can't explain your edit in 500 characters, it should probably be discussed on the talk page first.

One of the main ways I learned to write here is by reading quality articles, such as aforementioned good articles or, even better, featured articles. ––FormalDude (talk) 03:40, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

I have spent a lot of time reading Wikipedia articles over the years. Not sure whether any of them were featured articles. I will certainly have a look at some featured articles in order to see what is valued on Wikipedia.

I had a look at the history of the Life article, and, like you said, it got upgraded or whatever to "good article" status. And *very* recently (and it looks like you were instrumental in making that happen--congratulations on that. It certainly is an awesome article. I will certainly be checking the talk pages of any articles with a plus sign at the top before editing the lead sentence, at least if it's an important article like "Life".

May I ask you whether I have been correct in thinking and acting on the belief that it is wise to edit just one sentence of an article and then wait to see whether it gets accepted, and a week or so later revisit the page and then edit another sentence. Or should I edit several sentences if see several that I think I can greatly improve? Or should I only correct one apparent mistake at a time, even if there several within a sentence, and wait a few days, say to see whether it gets reverted? Polar Apposite (talk) 06:58, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, but I actually had nothing to do with getting that article to GA status (I only nominated it for DYK, which is different and doesn't require editing the article).

I don't think it's a bad idea to start with one sentence before jumping into major edits to an article. On the other hand, bold editing is a fundamental principle of Wikipedia, so it's up to you. The important part is that you learn from mistakes if you are reverted. One thing I can suggest is making individual edits for every substantially different change you make so that you have an opportunity to explain each edit in its own edit summary, rather than making a bunch of changes at once and trying to explain all of them in a single edit summary. Don't go overboard with it though, you don't want to flood the page history with a dozen minor edits in a short period. Just use your best judgement. ––FormalDude (talk) 07:12, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

I like the "separate edits allow separate summaries" idea. That's really helpful.

Regarding trying to explain a bunch of changes in one edit summary, it sounds like you looked at my contributions page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Polar_Apposite and saw the filled-to-bursting edit summary for my edit, on 12 October 2023, to "Hard problem of consciousness":)

I ended up reverting it because it contained essentially the same mistake about four times, which was to convert "easy problems" to "easy problem" which involved changing a bunch of plural pronouns and so on to singular as well, so that they matched the new form, and to change them all back would take a while, so I just reverted the whole thing.

Luckily, after a bit of Googling (better late than never), I had realized, within minutes of making the edit that in fact "easy problems" is *not* wrong, and that for years *I* had been wrong, or at least in the minority, in calling it "the easy problem". Chalmers who originated this term of art and the idea it refers to, in fact always writes it as a plural, and I haven't been able to find anyone who uses the singular. I've been reading about the easy problem of consciousness for a while, and it seems that I had been laboring under a misconception the whole time.

I can't believe how much I am learning while editing Wikipedia. It is very educational. They should teach school kids to edit Wikipedia from an early age, perhaps. What do you think?

One or two days ago, out of the blue, it struck me that your user name might be an allusion to the word "formaldehyde", via a possible interpretation of "FormalDude" as "For mal D ude" which sounds a bit like "formaldehyde". Since I had already associated you with biology in my mind, it seemed plausible. Or am I reading too much into it?

One other thing. Is there a particular amount of time that people are expected to respond to edits or article talk page questions or suggestions?

I ask because on one forum, not part of Wikipedia, I acquired the distinct impression that if you didn't respond to a question, say, within about 24 hours, you would be seen as ignoring it. It seemed to make sense, because even if your only chance to visit the website was before going to work, or just before bed, or during your lunch break at school, or whatever, if you've got time to post at that time on one day, you should be able to do so again on the following day.

Is it the same on Wikipedia? Polar Apposite (talk) 22:13, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

I'm worried that I wasn't very clear about my perception of the unwritten time limit. I meant that (although my ideas about this are a bit muddled, I suspect) if I posted something, and someone replied immediately, I had about 24h (36 hours max, I think) to reply to the other person's reply, or be taken to have ignored the reply, or at least to be very slow about replying. Polar Apposite (talk) 22:46, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

FormalDude is not a pun on formaldehyde, though that is an interesting thought that I haven't heard before. I actually came up with it while trying to think of an oxymoron.

There's no exact time limit for someone to respond on Wikipedia, certainly not 24 hours. See WP:There is no deadline and WP:Silence and consensus. ––FormalDude (talk) 00:35, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

I noticed straight away that FormalDude contains an oxymoron-like contrast. I like being the first to think of, or ask about, something, so I am delighted to find out that I was the first to notice the possible formaldehyde connection. Of course a lot of people have user names that are/contain plays on words, mine included of course.

I just got a notice from Wikipedia that because I've got 500 edits now, from now on I have free access to the top 99 subscription only databases. That is awesome. I often find myself frustrated by paywalls like that, so this is super awesome. And it feels like Christmas Day :). I'm surprised that I didn't hear about it before. Should I refrain from telling everyone? Polar Apposite (talk) 02:57, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

Regarding the Jewish Population by Country article, there's been no reply to any of our article talk page posts, the latest was my reply (15th October 2023) to your awesome comment. What, if anything, do we/I do now? Polar Apposite (talk) 12:19, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for saying regarding a possible pun on formaldehyde that my thought was an interesting one. I do think that is very kind of you. The more I think about it, the more it seems like an absurd stretch. Having said that, I suppose there is a place in this world for that kind of thinking. I also humbly apologize if I was too forward or over familiar. By the way, I think the thought came to me after I searched on Wikipedia for your user name and the first suggestion when I got to "FormalD" was "formaldehyde". So maybe, if it is funny or clever (that would be a kind evaluation), Wikipedia search box deserves some (all?:)) of the credit.

I really appreciate the free tips and teaching regarding how to make better edit summaries. I have followed your advice as far as I have been easily able to (references to the MOS in my edit summaries will start some time in the future, I expect, when I know more about how to do that). What do you think of this edit summary that I have been using quite a bit lately: "Copy edit: Clarified the meaning by correcting some of the grammar."

If you have any suggestions or criticisms about anything please don't hesitate to fire away.

Cheers. Polar Apposite (talk) 09:54, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

No need to apologize, I'm happy to have discussions like that.

Your edit summary here was fine, but for such a small edit, I would've just left "CE" as my edit summary (an abbreviation of copyedit). It could've been marked as a minor edit as well. You may want to familiarize yourself with what constitutes a minor edit (essentially, any edit that doesn't change the meaning of the text), as those edits typically require much less explanation than non-minor edits.

Thanks for accepting constructive criticisms so freely, that is an important trait for editors to have. Right now I don't have much for you, except that (as you appear to have been informed of already) your lengthy and continuous discussions may appear to some as bludgeoning, WP:TLDR, or WP:PEPPER. On Wikipedia, the ability to be concise and quickly get to the point is highly valued. ––FormalDude (talk) 11:14, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

Am working through the links you gave me. Thanks for the links. They are interesting.

I edited each of the four hovers attached to the four instances of "pct" in the header, just now. Should I post a reply on the article talk page saying that I have done that? Polar Apposite (talk) 18:44, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

Tried referencing the MoS in an edit summary here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hard_problem_of_consciousness&diff=prev&oldid=1181893273 and would appreciate any thoughts about whether I could do better next time and/or how.

In the same link you can see another first (as far as I can recall) for me: intentionally reverting someone else's good faith edit. Any thoughts on that, and how I worded the edit summary? Polar Apposite (talk) 16:31, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

PS It was quite a big coincidence, because it was the first edit that I made today. Here it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Phonics&diff=prev&oldid=1193035915.

Although not an edit to the first sentence of an important article, it was an edit to the first sentence of an important section (IMHO) of an important article. Polar Apposite (talk) 19:13, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Happy New Year.

By pure coincidence, my thousandth edit was on this special day, as I realized when I got a nice (albeit automatic) message congratulating, and thanking me about that.

I thought of you when I looked at that thousandth edit, and saw that it was marked as "minor", a technique you had taught me, and its summary read just "CE", as you also had taught me.

I really like documenting an edit like that, especially when it is to the first sentence of an important or highly-viewed article. If you hadn't told me, I might never have realized that such an edit should still be marked "minor".

Thanks for all the awesome advice. I hope you have a great year. Polar Apposite (talk) 19:05, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

PS It was quite a big coincidence, because it was the first edit that I made today. Here it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Phonics&diff=prev&oldid=1193035915.

Although not an edit to the first sentence of an important article, it was an edit to the first sentence of an important section (IMHO) of an important article.

Polar Apposite (talk) 19:23, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

What should I do regarding the revert that I am discussing on the Barack Obama article talk page?

What should you do regarding the revert being discussed at Talk:Barack Obama § My copyediting was reverted. Can we discuss this, please? Leave it alone, back away from the discussion, find another article, and work on that one instead. Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 02:44, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for your prompt response. Would you please share your reasons for saying I should leave it alone? Polar Apposite (talk) 02:48, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

I recommend that you read Wikipedia:Don't bludgeon the process. You have failed to gain consensus. Please drop the matter and move on. Cullen328 (talk) 18:46, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

I'm reading your link. Google doesn't know what "!vote", which is a term used in your link, means. Do you know? Polar Apposite (talk) 08:10, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

"It is not your responsibility to point out every flaw in everyone's comments. If their opinion is so obviously flawed, give other readers the benefit of the doubt in figuring that out on their own." is in the link. I find this hard understand, especially the second sentence in the quote. Polar Apposite (talk) 08:31, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Your link contains, "It is not necessary or desirable to reply to every comment in a discussion." which I find hard to understand. I get "not necessary", but why not even desirable? If I post a comment, I generally hope for a reply, a better still, many replies. Polar Apposite (talk) 08:34, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

You would seem to correct that I have failed to gain consensus (I like that phrase), and I am willing to move on. I still don't understand what happened. I don't see it as a big deal, but I am mildly curious about this. Polar Apposite (talk) 08:41, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Can you tell me what, if anything, I should do about the "you asked a question' or whatever template/tag below? Polar Apposite (talk) 08:43, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

I read more or less the whole of your link, and it was very helpful. I never would have guessed replying to every reply I get was frowned on. I still don't understand that idea, but it's good to be aware that this is in the guidelines.

By the way, I appreciate your taking an interest in this situation. Polar Apposite (talk) 08:46, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

I suggest that you read WP:!vote and understand that Google is not very good at finding Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, since the Wikipedia pages going into detail about such matters are not indexed for Google searches. Google bots can easily find our articles, but not our internal discussions. Cullen328 (talk) 08:56, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

I read WP:!vote. I understand it more or less, now. Thanks for the link. Thanks for the heads up about Google. Do you know why they are not indexed for Google searches? Polar Apposite (talk) 14:53, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

I verified that inputting the string "!vote" into the Wikipedia search box found it straight away. Thanks again for that.

By the way, I seem to be again (so soon) at the beginning of the revert protestation process (I have posted my concerns on his talk page) after Fowler and Fowler reverted a bunch of my edits that I still think were good.

Any thoughts that you'd care to share? Polar Apposite (talk) 16:05, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Congratulations on Wikipedia library access

I just want you not to get expectations that are too high. With a lot of the databases, you only get access to a small subset of the database, and it's not even made clear when your access is limited, except that your efforts to get access fail.

The one database I've found that I'm able to consistently get access to is jstor (though admittedly, I've really only tried to access a handful of all the databases presumably provided by Wikipedia library access).

Even with jstor, it's not as though you can just login and then the jstor links just work. What you need to do is to replace everything before the jstor number with https://www-jstor-org.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/stable/.

The Wikipedia library login session seems to be pretty persistent, so once you've logged in through the Wikipedia library page, that will generally be persistent, e.g. https://www-jstor-org.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/stable/42842703 will continue to work, but keep in mind, you wouldn't want to post this link on a wiki page (ideally, the "jstor" citation parameter would expand to the appropriate link based on the user environment). Fabrickator (talk) 21:28, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. I will probably ask you some questions at some point in the future. Polar Apposite (talk) 13:10, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Will I get a better kind of access to the databases if and when I have more edits to my name, say 5000 or 50,000? What other cool things can I expect to happen due to reaching a particular number of edits? Polar Apposite (talk) 13:13, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

It seems you were right about it not just working. I logged in successfully, I thought. Then I did what you said with pasting the jstor number on the end of your link. Now I am faced with "You can also use your Artstor username and password." What is it talking about? Polar Apposite (talk) 16:28, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

To your question about getting more database access with more edits, insofar as I am aware, the answer is no. I'm pretty sure there's really no increasing levels of privileges based on number of edits, incentivizing a higher edit count is a really poor idea, IMO.

The fact that you saw the thing about "Artstor", that's telling me you got the jstor login popup, and from that, I infer that you used the "jstor.org" url. That's not going to utilize your Wikipedia library access. If you've used the right url, it will say "Access provided by Wikipedia" at the top of the screen. The correct domain name will end in idm.oclc.org, and it will start with www-jstor-org (note the hyphens instead of periods). Fabrickator (talk) 19:49, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, I really appreciate all the info.

Are you saying they shouldn't give people this library access at 500 edits? Polar Apposite (talk) 19:57, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

An article in need of investigation

I have come across Mo'orea, a Polynesian island which Darwin visited and which is also known as "Eimeo".

The article has a bunch of claims with very little that is sourced. If you search for the claims now, you'll find sources on the web that support these claims, except that it looks like most of the sources were actually published after they were added to the Wikipedia article (a situation which is known as citogenesis).

The journals of Darwin's voyages are available online (with the longhand converted to text).

I am thinking (hoping) you would find that dstablishing the validity or invalidity of the claims made in this article would be more satisfying than the kind of nitpicking back and forth we commonly see in the general article edits ... and either way, a worthwhile accomplishment.

One tool you might want to become familiar with is the "find addition/removal" tool (technically it's called "wikiblame") which lets you search an article history for the version where text was added or deleted. With this, you can establish when specific text was added to the article, which helps you establish whether something else found to have been published on the web in a particular time range occurred before or after what was added to the Wikipedia article.

Just a thought ... it seems like the usual editing is quite contentious ... and that's because everybody has an opinion, and whoever is able to intimidate the other person automatically wins, and that almost always seems to be the other person. Fabrickator (talk) 05:16, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

I'll have at look at the Mo'orea article.

That "wikiblame" tool could come in handy. Thanks for telling me about that. I have been wondering for a long time whether there was a way to see who had added what, and when, to an article. Where can I find it?

I actually find polishing a sentence until it is positively dazzling very satisfying indeed. Even removing a single blemish from a sentence is fairly satisfying. I like making excellent prose better still, or, ideally, perfect. The fact that I am reading the article indicates that I think it is at least good prose, and so, when I spot a blemish, it feels good to remove it. I sometimes think of myself as a road user who hits a pot hole, says "ouch", and then stops to fill it in.

As often as not, a local inhabitant, or someone from the roads department soon digs out in a jiffy what I filled the hole with, so that the pot hole is recreated. Sometimes there's an explanation, sometimes there isn't. Once in a blue moon (it seems to me), it turns out that I had accidentally created a new pothole, thinking I was erasing one. My recent edit of the Biographies of living people article is one of those. FormalDude reverted it, and in the end I applauded him for doing that. But I seem to have succeeded in filling a lot of pot holes, so it's a case of "some you win, some you lose", or rather "some you win, some you draw", perhaps. After all, when the pot hole is recreated, it is no worse than I found it. so there is no net harm to the road.

Also, at the end of the day, my edit is still there in the revision history, and I hope history will vindicate me.

Regarding intimidation, it seems a bit disappointing that it would be allowed on Wikipedia. Also, isn't there arbitration and voting and so on to settle issues. Could you tell me how intimidation comes into it? Where can I read about this?

And finally, you have been so helpful, a real mine of information. I'm curious about what initially drew my talk page to your attention. Polar Apposite (talk) 12:10, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Relying on some kind of effective resolution of disputes (e.g. arbitration or voting) really is just not the way to go. In fact, there is not voting. People express their opinions, and some seemingly self-appointed arbiter does what they want. Spending effort on these drawn-out disputes doesn't do much for Wikipedia ... plus a lot of these things are just subjective... should the "simple past" or "past perfect" be used? You might get something resolved this week, but a week or a month or 3 years later, somebody's probably going to undo it... and if they don't change the text you edited, they may change the text before or after it, which then makes your changes inappropriate.

I don't know what you are asking about regarding how intimidation comes into it. If you keep reverting after somebody reverts your change, then you're subject to sanctions. It matters not that you're right and everybody else is an idiot. And if you raise the issue of your proposed "correction" on the article talk page ... well, this is a frustrating way to go, because it mostly gets ignored or else gets rejected as not being properly requested. This is especially true for the "stylistic" sorts of changes that you seem to be very fond of... and IMO, it's just the wrong place to be expending a lot of energy.

BTW, "wikiblame" has a lot of peculiarities, I can't explain them all. And it's slow, and sometimes .... sometimes ... it will just quit, your browser stops spinning and wikiblame hasn't actually finished. Ok, I'll give you one clue to interpret the results ... as it walks through the revisions (either in a form of "binary search" or the "sequential" search, which is limited to 25 revisions), it displays either an "x" or an "o". The "x" means it didn't find the text, the "o" means it found the text ... I think of the "o" as meaning that it found the text and it "circled" it. This gets more confusing, because yuo can also ask it to search for when the text was removed, so if it circles it, then it hasn't found what you're looking for. Also, I usually increase the number of revisions it looks through... 500 is the default. There's really not much harm in just asking for a couple of thousand or more. Bear in mind, this "binary search" can miss stuff. I'm really somewhat impressed that it works as well as it does, because there's not really a way to do a binary search, and if it finds what you asked for, it may not have found the most recent revision where the change occurred. But still, it's helpful to find how things got to be the way they are, then you understand why Wikipedia is like a game of "whisper", where the content you're looking at bears no relation to the facts. You're worried about some rule that your grammar teacher tried to explain to you, but the reality of what's important or what's accurate just gets overlooked. True, you might come back 5 years later and your changes are still intact and nobody has screwed up the text before or after. But this is really the "fool's errand" of Wikipedia editing, IMO, at least. Fabrickator (talk) 15:17, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Could you tell me how you heard about me and began communicating? Do you contact everyone when they get library access, to help them out? Polar Apposite (talk) 16:57, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Wikiblame behavior

(this has been made into a separate section) I tried using WikiBlame about an hour ago. It didn't work. The browser spun for a long time, and then, nothing (that I could see). I was trying to find out who (and when it happened) added the ridiculously wrong data to the Jewish population by country article. Polar Apposite (talk) 21:25, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

I did mention that this can happen. I would be more able to help if I knew exactly what values you had used for each option. However, my experience with this case where the search just quits, without giving any results, is that it's likely to work if you redo it (then again, after 3 or 4 times, I would probably try something different). There can be content that's simply difficult to "identify" (the exact comparison it's doing is never spelled out, which makes some things difficult to know the right way to do them). It may be worth trying to do a search on the wikitext (and specifying the wikitext option), but I can't give any guarantees. Fabrickator (talk) 21:39, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

I just used the default settings. Polar Apposite (talk) 14:23, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

(... for some reason, I was thinking I was editing my own talk page ... otherwise, I wouldn't have gone off and created a new talk page ... sorry) Fabrickator (talk) 21:51, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

What new talk page? Polar Apposite (talk) 14:21, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

dependent clause subject

In one case, you made a change in the form "...what (is|are) a, b, and c". I suppose you had presumed that there was a subject which came before the "what", so the singular form of the verb was used. But that's not the case... the subject is "a, b, and c", so the plural form of the verb is correct. Fabrickator (talk) 17:34, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

What are you referring to, specifically? Polar Apposite (talk) 17:37, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

This is a series of 3 edits you made about 1.5 days ago. Obviously there is a disagreement about "number", because the verb had been "are" and you changed the verb to "is". Sorry but I can't be more explicit. Fabrickator (talk) 17:58, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

And that was what initially brought you to my talk page? Polar Apposite (talk) 18:04, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Talking to you on your talk page is more or less a way of communicating in a slightly less public place. But looking this change over again, I take back my criticism. The intention of this statement was made confusing by the pre-existing content. Fabrickator (talk) 20:37, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Hello. Why did I not get a notification that Fowler&Fowler had replied to my comment on his talk page? He replied within an hour or two, and I only found out just now, after seeing a weird notice about something seemingly (but I could be wrong) nothing to do with me, and investigating. Thank you in advance, for your help.

What is a good way to monitor the pages I have edited so that I find out ASAP if someone reverts or edits over my edit? I always click "watch page" but I still don't find out until much later, often by chance. By the way, am I allowed to click "ask question" and ask another two questions in the second box, before the first has been answered, like this?

Please see WP:WATCHLIST for more information about watchlists, and how they can be configured. If you want more help, change the {{help me-helped}} back into a {{help me}}, stop by the Teahouse, or Wikipedia's live help channel, or the help desk to ask someone for assistance. Primefac (talk) 11:57, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

I have re-closed your help request, because both questions should have in theory been answered by my reply above. If this is not the case, please ask a further question so that we can better answer you. Primefac (talk) 19:51, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

multiple help requests

Am I allowed to click "ask question" and ask another two questions in the second box, before the first has been answered, like this? If it is allowed, how is it regarded? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Polar Apposite (talk • contribs) 20:33, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

You are welcome to ask multiple questions. What the {{help}} templates do is enroll the page in Category:Wikipedians looking for help which is watched by some bots (who transfer the request to an IRC channel) and by some users. You don't need to use the template when asking followups of a particular editor. For that, you are better off using the {{reply}} template or one of its synonyms. — jmcgnh^{(talk) (contribs)} 22:29, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Word to the wise

This kind of thing:

The above quote from the [guideline] might be intended to imply that if an article contains "2023" for any reason, including because it means "the year 2023", all other four-digit numbers should be written without a comma. Full disclosure: I would like that because I think four-digit numbers should never be written with a comma.

is very strongly contra-indicated at Wikipedia. See WP:WIKILAWYER, WP:GREATWRONGS, etc. Any time you are looking for a loophole to exploit in guideline or policy wording, against the clear intent of the material and its consensus implementation, you are making a mistake. Most especially if you are doing it to go on the warpath about some writing-style "wrong" that you want to "right". If you think, for example, that the MOS:NUM guidelines about 4-digit numbers should change, then open a discussion at WT:MOSNUM about changing it and what your rationale is. Don't wikilawyer for ways to get what you want by bending rules on a technicality, willfully misinterpreting them to seem to mean what they clearly never have meant and could not reasonably mean. If the rule states, as it does, that comma-grouping of four-digit numbers is optional, and should simply be consistently done one way or other in an article, it is stark obviously not possible at all for your interpretation to be correct that injecting a date "magically" allows you to go on a comma deletion rampage, or the guideline could not say anything like it does about commas being optional. They would simply be banned as being inconsistent with date formatting. Wikipedia is not a playground game written by children, so please do not approach it as if it is one.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:52, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

Template tag question

Just now I put a template or tag or whatever on a statement that was contradicted by its own citation and was likely vandalism in my opinion, but the template came out in red and in the wrong font (full size), and not the blue superscript font I wanted. I left the ugly but accurate tag or whatever in place, but I'd like to fix it, as it is indeed quite an eyesore, albeit at the very end of the section.

Here's a link to the section: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_population_by_country#Rest_of_the_world — Preceding unsigned comment added by Polar Apposite (talk • contribs) 19:57, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

Fixed. Made article consistent with source cited and removed template. Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 23:58, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing it. Can you tell me what I did wrong, to get red font like that, and what should I do next time? Polar Apposite (talk) 14:11, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

Avoid adding non-existent templates or tags. Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 22:43, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

What should I do instead? Polar Apposite (talk) 14:03, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

I didn't intend to create anything. I was just trying to put some small font blue text as a superscript to warn readers that it was likely false. I didn't realize that it was a link. Silly of me, I suppose, not to realize/remember that all blue text is a link. I also hadn't realized that the red text was link. Silly of me, for the same reason.

Having said that, it seems like a useful template. Am I allowed to create that template? The page I came to when I clicked on my red text (the copy of it in my quote on the article talk page) invited me to do so.

Also, why doesn't such an obviously useful template already exist (or does it?), and is there an equivalent template (tag? -- I am so out of my depth with the technicalities here) that does exist so that there's no call to make the one I am thinking of? Polar Apposite (talk) 14:16, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

This is interesting, I think.

@Fabrickator I did my own manual binary split to home in the origin of what looks like vandalism (the editor has been permanently blocked, I think), after WikiBlame seemed not to work. Any thoughts?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Jewish_population_by_country#Two_bits_of_wrong_information,_that_are_each_possible_cases_of_*serious*_vandalism Polar Apposite (talk) 17:27, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

How can I edit the title of an article? Thank you in advance for your help.

WP:MOVE - Rich^T|C|E-Mail 16:09, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Should I ask on the article talk page before renaming an article? It's quite an important page. I want to rename "Biological life cycle" to "Life cycle (biology)". My thinking is that I've never heard anyone say "The biological life cycle of the mosquito." only, "The life cycle of the mosquito." I've not heard "biological life cycle" at all, as far as I can recall. Googling that phrase brings up on page one only hits for "life cycle" except for the single hit for the Wikipedia article with that title. Polar Apposite (talk) 16:24, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Yes, you should try and gain consensus - Rich^T|C|E-Mail 23:59, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Okay. And now I'm wondering whether "Life cycle" without the "biology" in parentheses might be better still. What do you think? Polar Apposite (talk) 07:08, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

Is there anything in the MoS about how to make a general statement, and especially about when to use a singular vs a plural, or the definite vs indefinite article: "A dog is a loyal animal." vs "The dog is a loyal animal." vs "Dogs are loyal animals."

MOS:PLURALS might help - Rich^T|C|E-Mail 00:00, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

Very interesting material, and I read for a long time, and I will read some more there later, so thanks for that, but there was nothing there relevant to my question. My question is about choosing between singular or plural, when both are grammatically correct, in order to optimize the text for things like clarity and brevity.

Is there anything else in the MoS besides what you linked to?

The reason I ask is that I have found that most articles in Wikipedia that are reasonably long have at least one sentence that contains or uses a plural that when replaced with a singular is better, by which I mean clearer, shorter, and/or more readable.

For example, "When men and women get married they usually produce children." is not as good as "When a man and a woman get married they usually produce children." The latter is much better despite containing slightly more characters, words, and syllables, because it is so much more clear, and precise. Like I said, there are sentences similar to the former, using one or more plurals when a singular or singular would be better all over Wikipedia, and nearly every article of any length has at least one. Polar Apposite (talk) 07:51, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

One of my rules of thumb for good English writing is to avoid the use of a plural whenever reasonably possible, and thus have greater clarity. I mainly have general statements in mind. Thus one would avoid the first sentence, and write instead the second or third, depending on what precisely your intended meaning was.

1. "When men and women get married they usually produce children."

2. "When a man and a woman get married they usually produce a child."

3. "When a man and a woman get married they usually produce children."

Whether or not this is a good rule of thumb, I seem to be the only person to have said anything about this, so maybe I have come up with an original idea. About half a day of my best googlefu turned up nothing relevant. I even looked at every instance of the word "plural", using control F in the entire text of Pinker's awesome Sense of Style, and that of the Chicago Style Manual, and that Strunk and White's The Elements of Style. Polar Apposite (talk) 20:45, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

November 2023

You have been blocked temporarily from editing for persistently making disruptive edits. Once the block has expired, you are welcome to make useful contributions.

If you think there are good reasons for being unblocked, please review Wikipedia's guide to appealing blocks, then add the following text to the bottom of your talk page: {{unblock|reason=Your reason here ~~~~}}.

Cullen328 (talk) 20:16, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

@Polar Apposite: In one of your many recent questions asked at the Teahouse, you enquired what a "friendly block" meant, as used in the essay WP:NOTHERE. I thought you might find it helpful if I were to copy/paste my reply to you, here on your talk page, so that you can consider it once your temporary editing block expires.

"@Polar Apposite I would refer you back to a post on your Talk Page entitled "Word to the wise" in which your constant, pedantic nit-picking and sometimes seemingly pointless question-asking is reaching the point in some editors' minds where your activities are liable to be deemed as WP:Disruptive editing.

The kind of 'friendly block' is one that I might be minded to offer someone such as yourself for what we see as disruptive editing and constant questions over trivia, but which you seem to see as quite justified and normal behaviour. It would be done without enmity [and] for your own good, as well as to avoid further wasting the time of volunteer editors. Initially it would probably be applied for a relatively short period of time, which might lengthen if that disruptive behaviour continued. (For the sake of clarity, there is no formal definition of a 'friendly block', it was just a term used in an essay, but I would hope you are capable of getting the gist.)

NOTE: As I draft this reply, I see that Cullen328 has imposed just such a 'friendly block' on you. It seems quite justified to me.

When it expires and [if] you choose to return to editing, you need to have changed your approach to engaging with other editors here, and take time to understand the norms of this community and its editing guidelines and policies so that it doesn't need to be applied again. Some people might call that 'learning to read the room'. We wish you well and hope you will return to constructive editing from now on without such time-wasting over trivia."

I hope you will ponder this advice, and that you find it of use in your future editing. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 21:13, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

If, once the block ends, you persist in trivial queries at Teahouse, the next step is an indefinite block. There is an appeals process, but it requires the blocked editor to explain at length why they were blocked and promise to cease the disruptive behavior. An Administrator will then decide. David notMD (talk) 21:34, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

Got it. Polar Apposite (talk) 22:34, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

I am pondering it. Polar Apposite (talk) 22:35, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

Hello Polar Apposite. I am a host at the Teahouse, and I have seen your questions many times. You have edited the Teahouse 72 times, which is almost 10% of your total edits. In the past couple of days, you've created eight Teahouse threads. The nature of your comments seems to point to you posting a lot on purpose in order to find something out or to get a reaction (in your reply to Lemonaka, you said "[Do] you think anyone has failed to be civil in any of the threads I have started in the Teahouse during the last twenty-four hours?" [2]). The Teahouse is for new editors who have questions about editing Wikipedia. You have had an account for over a year now and many of your questions aren't about editing. I suggest that after your block expires, you should think about whether your question is important to editing Wikipedia, and whether it is worth taking time from a volunteer. Also, if you have questions, you should ask them at the WP:HELPDESK, which is a place for experienced editors similar to the Teahouse. —asparagusus (interaction) ^sprouts! 21:46, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

Now up to ten Teahouse threads, which are now regrouped together for easier access, and to declutter other discussions. Mathglot (talk) 19:32, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

Ah, I didn't notice that. That's ridiculous. —asparagusus (interaction) ^sprouts! 22:08, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

I don't think it's ridiculous. I was impressed at the brilliance of doing that. I had not thought of it.

It makes it easier for me, and anyone else, to read them all quickly, and try to figure out why a block was put on my account. There is quite a bit of cross referencing going on between them, such as when I asked whether I could ask another editor to refrain from trying to "help" me, in one thread, it was because of my perception of what had happened in one or more other threads. Polar Apposite (talk) 22:30, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

I was talking about the original amount of threads. —asparagusus (interaction) ^sprouts! 22:39, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

That's funny. I *think* I'm glad to hear that. Polar Apposite (talk) 22:48, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for doing that. It's very helpful IMHO. Polar Apposite (talk) 22:31, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

You're most welcome. Mathglot (talk) 16:40, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

The link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:TEA#Prolific_questioner to the group of threads isn't working the way it was, and I can't find any of the threads on that page, not even using control F. What should I do? Polar Apposite (talk) 20:59, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

They have been archived to WP:Teahouse/Questions/Archive 1205. VQuakr (talk) 21:08, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

That link works. Thanks. Polar Apposite (talk) 01:51, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Got it. Polar Apposite (talk) 22:32, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

November 2023 Fabrickator thread

I mostly wanted to comment that I thought putting the block on you was a very hostile thing to do, and really unnecessary. You may not have appreciated how your activity on the WP:Teahouse was disruptive or annoying, but all they really needed to do was to ask you to have any extended discussions in your own space, rather than a public shared space that hundreds or thousands of editors may be checking. (Whether there's a rule that prohibits even this, I'm not sure, but at least nobody has a role which obliges them to monitor this specific page.)

I was actually contemplating the possibility that imposing such a block could violate the Federal ADA law. Probably not because there are no federal funds involved. (Mostly I'm unhappy how this was handled, we don't know what your real situation is, but the fact that you didn't perceive you were doing anything that might be annoying to others suggests at least the possibility of some cognitive issue ... please don't take offense, my real concern is of such inappropriate negative feedback being directed at participants who are acting in good faith.)

Feel free to solicit my opinion, though even here, I won't be surprised if somebody finds reason to object, which itself would be quite revealing. Fabrickator (talk) 09:42, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

@Fabrickator: there is no right to volunteer regardless of the use of federal funds, so the reference to ADA seems frivolous. Speaking generally and not directed at Polar Apposite: some protected classes under ADA lack the WP:COMPETENCE to be editors here; see also WP:THERAPY. VQuakr (talk) 20:03, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Seriously, @Fabrickator? If a new user is struggling, how exactly are you going to help them by going to their talkpage, speculating (apparently based just on your own perception?) that they have a cognitive disability, and then suggesting a hysterically wrong legal analysis? This just seems like baiting Polar Apposite to say something that will get them in more trouble. I'm sure that's not your actual intention, but it's indistinguishable from that. Words of encouragement are great. I know that kind of thing meant the world to me when I was blocked as a newbie. This, however, is not that. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|she) 20:23, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

@Tamzin: I'm just calling out the fact that you have misquoted me. I stated there were "cognitive issues". I'm certainly not in a position to say whether or not those are a result of a cognitive disability. Fabrickator (talk) 03:25, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Polar... I notice that you recently posted a message on User talk:Jayron32. His last edit was over a month ago, so it's quite likely he hasn't even seen your message (and of course, we actually have no way of knowing what his status actually is). Fabrickator (talk) 07:30, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Regarding your solicitation for comments on your "rule of thumb" about avoiding plurals... I found myself a little perplexed, since I didn't immediately realize that it was on your "user" page rather than your "user talk" page. I"m not saying there's anything wrong with that, though I think it will make people less likely to respond. But I'm going to make a prediction ... that you will not get any responses, not because of having posted it on your "user talk" page, but because this is not the sort of "style" issue that Wikipedia editors concern themselves with. That said, there are people who want to find fault with what I say, so they might decide to respond just to prove me wrong! Fabrickator (talk) 22:59, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Polar ... I believe I'm the one who suggested that you would be given more latitude if you posted your ideas in your own space (e.g. "user" and "user talk" pages), and the indication is so far, that has proven to be the case. That is to say, you have made substantial postings and nobody has suggested that any sanctions should be imposed. That does not mean that you can continue doing this without limit. I don't want to be the one who told you it was okay to do this, and then have somebody decide that this violates some policy. I think you may be near the point where that is likely to happen.

Bear in mind that I have no official role, and I'm not objecting myself. To me, all you're doing is wasting a few kilobytes of storage, but others have different ideas and may suggest some kind of sanction is needed.

BTW, in lieu of copy/pasting a version of a page, you can provide a "permalink", e.g. Polar Apposite's "rule of thumb about plurals" as of 21:11, 8 November 2023.

FWIW, the fact that your edits haven't been reverted shouldn't be treated as evidence of general concurrence that those changes are generally accepted as being an improvement. Nobody has the time to object to every edit they come across that they think is undesirable. Fabrickator (talk)

My new rule of thumb for good writing: "Avoid plurals when you can." (Copypasted from my user page) Please share your thoughts.

TLDR: Links to my actual edits that were based on this rule of thumb and have seemingly been accepted by other editors (so far) are at the end.

I'm not sure where this material should be. It was initially on only my user page, but people can't or don't or won't AFAIK reply on my user page, so I posted a copy here to make replying easier.

I came up with this a few months or possibly a few years ago, and that has informed my editing at Wikipedia for at least several months.

Here is the rule of thumb:

Avoid the use of a plural whenever reasonably possible, and thus have greater clarity. I mainly have general statements in mind. Thus one would avoid the first sentence, and write instead the second or third, depending on what precisely your intended meaning was. 1. "When men and women get married they usually produce children." 2. "When a man and a woman get married they usually produce a child." 3. "When a man and a woman get married they usually produce children." Whether or not this is a good rule of thumb, I seem to be the only person to have said anything about this, so maybe I have come up with an original idea. About half a day of my best googlefu turned up nothing relevant. I even looked at every instance of the word "plural", using control F in the entire text of Pinker's awesome Sense of Style, and that of the Chicago Style Manual, and that Strunk and White's The Elements of Style.

When I see a sentence like #1, I usually start wonder whether I can change it to be more like #2 or #3.

Here are some more examples of sentences with plurals and some possible "singularized" versions, for comparison.

"Atoms are made of nuclei and electrons." "An atom is made of a nucleus and at least one electron."

"Trees usually have leaves." "A tree usually has leaves."

"Methane molecules contain hydrogen atoms and carbon atoms." "A methane molecule contains hydrogen atoms and a carbon atom."

"Hydogen cyanide molecules contain hydrogen atoms, carbon atoms, and nitrogen atoms." "A hydrogen cyanide molecule contains a hydrogen atom, a carbon atom, and a nitrogen atom."

"Fish have brains, heads, tails, scales, and gills, " "A fish has a brain, a head, a tail, scales, and gills."

"Dogs have noses that give them senses of smell that are usually very good, pairs of eyes that work well enough to let them know what is going on far away from them (though not as well as eagles' eyes do)."

"A dog has a nose that gives it a sense of smell that is usually very good, a pair of eyes that let it know what is going on far away (though not as well as an eagle's eyes do)."

"A dog has eyebrows (a wolf does not)." "Dogs have eyebrows (wolves do not)."

"They have circulatory systems. They have hearts, arteries, veins, blood, skin, and (usually) fur."

"It has a circulatory system. It has a heart, arteries, veins, blood, skin, and (usually) fur."

They have various foods in their stomachs and guts, including all amino acids.

"It has various foods in its stomach and guts, including every amino acid."

"They have very good senses of hearing." "It has a very good sense of hearing."

"They want to be loved by human beings." "It wants to be loved by a human being."

"They sometimes want to mate with members of the opposite sex." "It sometimes wants to mate with a member of the opposite sex."

Below's (can I say that?) an example or two of an actual edit that I did, that got accepted (so far, so good, at least), where I substituted a singular for a plural in one or more places in a sentence, usually for the sake of clarity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=prev&oldid=1182591957

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=prev&oldid=1183051017

For more examples of such edits of mine (mostly accepted by other editors), check out this list of edits of mine generated by a search of my edit summaries using the string "plural":

https://sigma.toolforge.org/summary.py?name=Polar+Apposite&search=plural&server=enwiki&max=500&ns=

P.S. I would appreciate it if you would take the time to share your thoughts about this with me on my talk page. Polar Apposite (talk) 21:03, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Sure; here's my thought. The manual of style ((WP:MoS) specifies "Where more than one style or format is acceptable under the MoS, one should be used consistently within an article and should not be changed without good reason. Edit warring over stylistic choices is unacceptable." If you start changing the style of an article from plural to singular, as you did on the article Sex, you will more than likely, quickly, end up being indefinately blocked. Please consider this a very firm and final warning. --Tagishsimon (talk) 03:38, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

I would opine that anyone who would write this:

"Radon is, under standard conditions, gaseous and easily inhaled, and therefore is a health hazard, although by far the greatest part of the danger is not from inhaling radon itself, but rather is from inhaling the radon daughters that although, in a sense, are solid, nevertheless float on the air, due to being single atoms, or more usually ions, or ions (ions tend to stick to things) having attached themselves to the particles of dust that float on the air. This is because radon, being a noble gas, does not stick to the inside of the lung, and if inhaled is usually exhaled before it decays, whereas the radon daughters and/or the particles of dust that they are stuck to, do stick."

Should never, ever attempt to create rules of thumb or instruct others in any aspect of writing, grammar, or style. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.37.164.20 (talk) 23:32, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

What's wrong with what I wrote? By the way, I didn't write it alone. I edited what someone else had written. Polar Apposite (talk) 20:45, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

What is the best way of going about resigning or saying farewell to Wikipedia?

I am starting to think that my style of editing Wikipedia is not welcome here, or that editing Wikipedia is generally a thankless task, and I am thinking of quitting. What is the best way of doing that? Polar Apposite (talk) 14:23, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

Generally users put {{Retired}} on their user page. Wikipedia editing is not for everyone. --Tagishsimon (talk) 14:45, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

,

How to resign/say farewell to Wikipedia. If someone wants to quit, what is the best way to do that?

You can just stop editing, nothing else is required. Theroadislong (talk) 14:54, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

What if I want to resign/quit explicitly as a protest? Polar Apposite (talk) 15:06, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

See WP:POINTY. --Tagishsimon (talk) 15:46, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

And WP:FLOUNCE. VQuakr (talk) 17:49, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

Flounce is an interesting term ... it can be thought of in different ways, e.g. "a flurried bounce" or "to bounce with a flair".

You never know, you might at some point decide you'd like to participate, and then you'd be faced with announcing your return (even if only to respond to some comment). Seriously, nobody will care about your protest, inasmuch as the efforts to get you to modify behavior had proven to be ineffective.

You've effectively already announced it, there's no Wikipedia process that depends on editors formally retiring. Fabrickator (talk) 19:20, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

I am not, and never was, with you, Fabrickator.

You came onto my talk page uninvited to rush to tell me not to be so happy about getting access to the Wikipedia Library 99 biggest databases thingy after I posted that I felt like it was my birthday or Christmas or whatever. I thought that was an odd, and rather ambivalent, way to introduce oneself. But at first, I thought you might give me some useful teaching. I felt increasingly disappointed with your teaching. I found it hard to understand what you wrote. You ignored a some of my requests for clarification. You didn't seem that friendly, and at times not ever a basic level of respect was there, e.g. "But still, it's helpful to find how things got to be the way they are, then you understand why Wikipedia is like a game of "whisper", where the content you're looking at bears no relation to the facts. You're worried about some rule that your grammar teacher tried to explain to you, but the reality of what's important or what's accurate just gets overlooked." You actually said "tried to explain" rather that just "explained" like you were flaming me, without any provocation. I also started to wonder what you were doing on my talk page, and more generally, what you were doing on Wikipedia if it was that bad ("bears no relation to the facts").

The last straw for me was our conversation in the thread I started on the Sigmoid colon article talk page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Sigmoid_colon#Length_of_sigmoid_colon_in_the_diagram_is_not_35-40_I wrote you off after reading that, and resolved no have as little as possible to do with you. This is because I did not feel confident in my ability to deal with you. You seemed unpredictable. As you may have noticed, I gave you the shortest possible reply consistent with civility, with the aim of ending the conversation. Since then, you have not put me in a position where I felt that a reply was called for, such as asking me a question, and I was able to avoid replying to your comments.cm.

I felt ambivalent about your comment in my recent threads in the Teahouse. I was *very* tempted to thank you for seemingly being displeased with the harsh words that I was being subjected to by one or more other editors. But when I thought about it, I decided it was just not worth the hassle, in light of the Sigmoid colon article talk page conversation. It was not an easy decision, I kept being tempted to reply to that comment and the comments you posted subsequently on my talk page. I was *very* tempted to clarify that I thought you were wrong to say: "Polar ... I believe I'm the one who suggested that you would be given more latitude if you posted your ideas in your own space (e.g. "user" and "user talk" pages), and the indication is so far, that has proven to be the case. That is to say, you have made substantial postings and nobody has suggested that any sanctions should be imposed. That does not mean that you can continue doing this without limit. I don't want to be the one who told you it was okay to do this, and then have somebody decide that this violates some policy. I think you may be near the point where that is likely to happen. Bear in mind that I have no official role, and I'm not objecting myself. To me, all you're doing is wasting a few kilobytes of storage, but others have different ideas and may suggest some kind of sanction is needed." I don't think you ever suggested that I post my ideas in my user and user talk pages. If you did, I had forgotten it. I came with the idea, seeminly independently, after realizing that posting a link to my new rule of thumb idea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Polar_Apposite#My_new_rule_of_thumb_for_good_writing:_%22Avoid_plurals_when_you_can.%22_(Copypasted_from_my_user_page)_Please_share_your_thoughts.would have been better than posting a copy of the text itself on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jayron32 and could be better if I wanted to talk about something like that at the Help desk or on another editor's talk page. Even though, like i said, I felt tempted to correct you, I stuck to my resolution to keep communication to a minimum, partly because I felt no would believe you, since you didn't provide any evidence. I want to stress that my policy of not having anything to do with you was already in place, and had been for quite some time when I looked at your talk page and saw this:

I looked at Fabrickator's talk page and saw this: "I am not optimistic that a warning of "admin abuse" will have any useful result. I suggest that some form of subterfuge and distraction would be more effective (and I feel like there are some employing this, e.g. first make your substantive edit, just for fun, mark it as minor, and don't include an edit comment, then follow this up very shortly thereafter with some inconsequential edit. Thus the most recent change will be inconsequential, and looking over the recent changes (e.g. using "history"), it will appear there's nothing of concern. Best would be if there wer a way to hack their watchlist, so you can do your editing and they just wouldn't have any notification of the change. Fabrickator (talk) 06:44, 7 October 2020 (UTC") I want to say that I was pretty amazed to see such words. Let me be clear that I am not here to fight Wikipedia, or the owners or admins or whatever powers that be here. I am not taking a side in Fabrickator's fight, if it is a fight (I don't know what to make of it: it looks like a joke or troll but it seemingly is intended to be taken seriously). But I want to distance myself from Fabricator. Fortunately, we never were friends, so the decision is not a stressful one. Polar Apposite (talk) 17:17, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

@Fabrickator I forgot to ping you. First let me apologize for the sketchy formatting of my first post, which I was unable to fix. Like a wobbling gyroscope, the more I tried to fix the paragraph breaks the worse they got. Maybe I need to learn how to use that type of editing box. Second, I want to clarify, especially for any newbies, that the text I put in bold above, from on Fabricator's talk page public text. Also, Fabricator got taken to task by a senior editor and was warned that he could get blocked for saying that. So I am not in any shape or form telling anyone here anything they don't already know about Fabricator. In short, I did not rat Fabricator out. FYI, I don't rat people out. Period.

I just realized that I shouldn't assume that it will become clear to you, without explanation, what I didn't like about our conversation at the article talk page of the Sigmoid colon article. So I thought I'd try to clarify that for yo u Here's the link again: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Sigmoid_colon#Length_of_sigmoid_colon_in_the_diagram_is_not_35-40_I.

Here's a copypaste of the whole thread, which contains posts only by you and me, with notes by me added now, in italics and , so it's clear they have been added subsequently by me:

"The sigmoid colon (or pelvic colon) is the part of the large intestine that is closest to the rectum and anus. It forms a loop that averages about 35–40 centimetres (14–16 in) in length. The loop is typically shaped like a Greek letter sigma (ς) or Latin letter S (thus sigma + -oid). This part of the colon normally lies within the pelvis, [...]" says the beginning of the lead section. But 35 cm is the distance from one side of the abdomen to the other, while the sigmoid colon in the diagram is at most half that. So either the diagram is wrong or the given length, or so it seems to me.

What are your thoughts? Polar Apposite (talk) 06:33, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

My thoughts are that you should explain how other editors should respond to your question. Fabrickator (talk) 00:19, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

I just meant, is the diagram wrong, or is the given length wrong, or are both wrong, or am I wrong? Polar Apposite (talk) 03:51, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

All I asked is that you explain how you think other editors should respond to your question, but unfortunately, you have decided to ignore that request. (Note: I didn't like being accused, in the form of a statement of fact, of something that I have no way to argue against. What possible way is there for me to prove, or even provide the slightest evidence that I didn't decide to ignore that request? I also didn't like being accused, in the form of a statement of supposed fact, of something that there is no way Fabricator can possibly know for sure. How can he know what I decided, short of having telepathy, which, of course, doesn't exist. So I didn't like that. This alone was probably enough to at least get me started wondering whether I should start avoiding Fabrickator) I really don't think I should let you get away with this, but I suspect we would just go around in circles, and that gets tiring, so I'll just overlook the fact that you've ignored my request. (Note: Fabrickator sounds like he thinks he is in charge. But he is not an admin. Also, overlooking what I supposedly did would entail deleting any reference to it from the comment before posting.)

However, I will cite a rule that I don't necessarily agree with. You are trying to evaluate the validity of the reported typical length of the sigmoid colon based on this diagram plus your knowledge about the dimensions of the pelvis, and your attempt to ascertain what might be a reasonable value for this length constitutes WP:OR. (Note: Fabrickator states as a fact that I am guilty. He doesn't explain why I am guilty. I don't see it, as a matter of fact, and would welcome any opinions on this from anyone except Fabrickator, who I am done with. Done and done. Because of this conversation ten days ago.)

If you are skeptical of the information provided (i.e. the range of lengths of the sigmoid colon), you might look for other sources. Doubtless, there is a distribution of lengths among any given population, and there may also be differences in just how this measurement is determined. However, this creates a bit of a conundrum, because you'll realize that there is inconsistent information. So do you just pick the one that you like, or do you take an average or establish that one source is more reliable than all the rest?

All that's required on WP is a WP:RS. Arguably, once you've seen the variations in the reported measurements, they can't be unseen, even if the rest of us have no way of knowing you've seen the reported variations in this measurement. Fabrickator (talk) 05:51, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

"All I asked is that you explain how you think other editors should respond to your question, but unfortunately, you have decided to ignore that request." I didn't decide to ignore your request. Maybe quit speculating about the motivations of other editors.

How about you give me an example of what you mean by "explain how you think other editors should respond to your question"? I thought it was clear that I wanted other editors to *answer* my question, but that is seemingly not what you want. So tell me what exactly you want me to do, and I will try to do it. Polar Apposite (talk) 06:05, 30 October 2023 (UTC) (Note: This was a sincere attempt on my part to be constructive while working with someone I regarded by this point to be probably at least, someone to avoid. He fails to answer this question in the rest of the thread. And he fails to say why he won't answer this. It's as if he just forgot about it.)

I suggest that other editors should respond to your request the way I responded to your request, i.e. by telling you that this the talk page is a place to discuss how to improve the article. What you are suggesting is WP:OR, and we're supposed to avoid that. More specifically, these talk pages aren't places for general discussion, everything's supposed to be about how to improve the article. The only thing you need is a WP:RS. We could discuss other sources and the relative merits of each, but that should be independent of what value they specify. We should not really consider whether one has a more plausible answer than another, though I'm sure somebody would try to claim that an outlier value would make the source dubious for that specific information.

It's so easy to find other sources, yet you don't mention that you've done that. For the sake of discussion, if you did check other sources, and none of them come up with a range that corresponds to your estimate, yet they also have similar diagrams, then I guess you will suffer some cognitive dissonance.

You're so perplexed about this that I'm allowing myself to go into some hazardous territory. You might try examining some diagrams of the pelvic area to see if there's a way that the sigmoid colon could take a route that's not the most direct route (e.g. by "doubling back"). I don't know, maybe they measure it while it's stretched out and that accounts for the discrepancy. This assumes, or course, that other sources show similar lengths to this source. As I say, for our purposes here, we don't actually care, the principle on WP is reliable sources, even if they provide incorrect information. Fabrickator (talk) 07:00, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Nowithstanding the fact that this conundrum doesn't really affect things from a Wikipedia perspective, I am curious about what your personal thoughts are on the apparent incongruity beweeen your estimate of what the length should be and what multiple sources report. Fabrickator (talk) 09:13, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

Maybe they measure it stretched out, like you said. Polar Apposite (talk) 17:27, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

(Note: Here you can see that I give a reply calculated to politely bring the conversation to an end, having decided to have as little as possible to do with Fabrickator)

(Note: That's the end of the thread.)

Fabrickator, did I explain to your satisfaction why I am done with you? If not, say so, and I will try to clarify. Also, I want to make clear that I am not at this point saying I will not work with you. I will work with you, and talk to you when the needs of Wikipedia require that. But we are not and never were friends (how fortunate) and I don't think we ever will be, unless you change you communications style, which, I would guess, has about a one in thousand chance of happening. And I will be continuing to try to keep my interactions with you to a minimum.

Also, please note that the reason I want nothing to do with Fabrickator is the Sigma colon article talk page conversation, the reason that I am writing so much about this is that I am concerned that I some sort of guilt by association could rub off on me, and that is why I am taking so much trouble. I guess also maybe because I think Fabrickator probably means well, and it seem to be the right thing to spell out to him exactly why I will be avoiding him. I'm tempted to give some advice to Fabrickator, but I will refrain from doing so, as I suspect it would inflame the situation. Maybe someone else could try to do that.? Polar Apposite (talk) 18:39, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

Ignoring someone requires zero words. This is many words. I suggest you quit musing about this editor in any way if you do not wish to interact with them. Your concerns about "guilt by association" are unfounded. VQuakr (talk) 19:21, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

Tee hee ... it's actually only 6 days since your last post... not so much that it's "ancient history", so I wanted to address the statement you made that you didn't think I had suggested it might be better to make greater use of your user and user talk pages rather than other talk pages. Here it is... On 21 October 2023, I wrote:

"... your talk page is more or less a way of communicating in a slightly less public place ..."

You can insist that this wasn't a suggestion, and it doesn't really matter. I'm just saying that this was the basis for my subsequent comment that you took my suggestion. Fabrickator (talk) 19:50, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

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Copyediting

If you're going to take up copy editing, take the time to double check your spelling and grammar. That's twice in a row you put errors into an article. MrOllie (talk) 02:13, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

I see that I wrote "form" instead of "from" in the second edit that you reverted. Is that the only error in the second edit? I looked at the first edit and couldn't find any errors. Could you tell me what the error is? Polar Apposite (talk) 02:20, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

By the way, point taken, regarding the second edit at least. That was careless of me. Polar Apposite (talk) 02:21, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

I mean, well spotted. Polar Apposite (talk) 02:23, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Plurals

Please stop doing edits like this. The removal of the plural here sounds unnatural, and there was no reason to do so. VQuakr (talk) 02:53, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

I was thinking of a phrase like "Clash of the AIs", which is a real headline as you can see here: https://www.adesso.de/en/news/blog/clash-of-the-ais-bard-and-chatgpt-are-like-peanut-butter-and-jelly.jsp.

The plural is "AIs" and so the singular I guess would be "an AI" as in "Bard is an AI".

OTOH, to say "ChatGPT and Bard are AI" would, although *possible*, not be as natural. So it is, I would have thought, a singular machine that can be referred to as an AI, at least primarily, and to refer to two or more machines, as AI is not as clear. I would say "Bard and ChatGPT *have* AI" and "They *are* AIs". Only in a vague, or perhaps metaphorical sense can several machines be referred to as "AI".

Just my two cents worth. At least I may have convinced you that I sincerely did think that it improved the text. I only want to improve the text. I am well aware that plurals are not in themselves bad things, and I never would change a plural to a singular except in order to improve the text.

If you don't agree with what I just wrote, could you please say why, if you are not too busy. Polar Apposite (talk) 03:33, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

You're applying a grammar rule you made up one day to article space, and generating oddball sentences as a result. See hypercorrection. Also, referencing an English translation of a German-language newsblog for sentence structure is a terrible idea. VQuakr (talk) 04:26, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for responding. I don't see it exactly the way you do, but I will endeavor to go along with what looks like a consensus of sorts that I shouldn't convert plural to singulars. As you as look at my recent edits makes clear, I have gone out of my way to avoid doing this.

First, thank you for implying with "you made up" that (correct me if I'm) I an the originator of the idea that plurals are over used in the English language. Secondly, I don't see it a rule of grammar, but rather as heuristic that can help with finding ways to write better, or copy edit existing text, and I don't think I ever called a rule of grammar, only a rule of thumb. Each case has to be judged on its own merits and it is a matter of art, creativity, and judgement. It's just a good idea to bear in mind that a plural can *sometimes* be usefully replaced with a singular. That's all I meant by my "rule of thumb".

I had a look at your hypercorrection link. I didn't see anything relevant to my case. Polar Apposite (talk) 21:00, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Solicit opinion on Mockbuster

I see you are back to contributing on Wikipedia. I was hoping you might be willing to provide feedback on a couple of sentences I found a bit "irksome" in the Mockbuster article:

• "Two Italian directors directed unofficial ..."
• "The popularity of the Batman films, most especially the 1966 TV series, has led to numerous unauthorised remakes ..."

I'd be interested in hearing whether you also find either or both of these annoying, as well as your suggestions for improving them. Fabrickator (talk) 22:59, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

After I posted the above, I realized that I might have been cryptic about what bothered me about them. In the first case, stating that "directors directed" makes it feel redundant. In the second case, we would generally consider TV series and films as being distinct and generally mutually exclusive, while this wording implies that "films" includes the TV series. Fabrickator (talk) 03:40, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

typo in Established Titles

I notice that there's an obvious typo in your edit of Established Titles. I'll leave it for you to fix. Fabrickator (talk) 16:25, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Einstein

(Corrective Edit by Polar Opposite: Note that the section title, "Einstein" here is a little too vague. The title should be something like: "DVdm's reversion of Polar Opposite's edits of the "Political Views of Albert Einstein" article.) Polar Apposite (talk) 16:02, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Hello, I'm DVdm. I noticed that you added or changed content in an article, Political views of Albert Einstein, but you didn't provide a reliable source. It's been removed and archived in the page history for now, but if you'd like to include a citation and re-add it, please do so. You can have a look at referencing for beginners. If you think I made a mistake, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thank you. - DVdm (talk) 13:09, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Note regarding my revert of your edits to the Einstein article, I have restored the original content for the reasons given in my edit summary. - DVdm (talk) 13:12, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

"Einstein" appears in several dictionaries. I don't know where "an Einstein" came up. StephenMacky1 (talk) 13:48, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

@StephenMacky1:, according to http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=Einstein "Einstein" is a noun, so it can be preceded by an indefinite article, such as "an". Note that it is omitted in the phrase of the example "but he's no Einstein", aka "not an Einstein". So the article would be ok, but not needed, which is the reason why I did not revert this edit. - DVdm (talk) 15:09, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

You didn't explain what was wrong the reasoning in my edit summary. You just said, "there's no reason", in your edit summary. You should explain why the vague "socialism" is preferable to the clear "communism", given that Einstein was a communist.

As I see it, I only corrected the English. I did not add any content. The word "socialism" here, clearly (to experts) means "communism", but many readers won't realize that. If someone thinks the state should own the means of production, he or she is a communist. It's just the meaning of the word. Polar Apposite (talk) 05:35, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

The cited sources in the long standing version of the article clearly support the use of the term socialism, not communism. What we personally think about the term having the same meaning is not relevant for Wikipedia. If experts think that the terms are synonyms, changing one into the other would be a school book example of wp:SYNTHESIS. Even if the terms would be synonyms according to all dictionaries that we can find, changing one term into the other would still be not ok without a valid reason: doing so tends to be rude against the editors of the original text. For style and language variant editing there is this guideline —wp:RETAIN— which goes in the same direction. Making such a change can (and likely should) be proposed and discussed on the article talk page. - DVdm (talk) 07:17, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

I didn't say "socialism" and "communism" are synonyms, nor did I say experts think or know that they are. If they were, there would be no pressing need to replace the former with the latter in the article. When Einstein wrote that article endorsing communism, it's possible that "socialism" did mean no more and no less than "communism". But right now, communism is a type of pure, radical, or extreme socialism, or perhaps one sense of the word "socialism". If someone rode a horse five hundred years ago, we say he rode a horse, not whatever they called a horse in the cited material if that is unclear or unfamiliar, e.g. "mount" or "steed" or whatever. Is there anything the MoS that says we should use the exact wording, without quotes, when describing something today, as is used in an old citation (or one that is badly written, or deliberately obfuscatory - many politicians will deliberately use a vague, inoffensive term to describe the political position they or an ally holds. "Socialism" is a case in point. Many people fear "communism" but not "socialism" and this was probably true even when (if they were) the terms did mean the exact same thing)? Wikipedia should accurately and clearly call things what they are. Probably many admirers of Einstein, who has been unfairly accused of not doing anything original by some fascists, would call him a socialist despite knowing he was that type of socialist known more precisely as a communist. Wikipedians should sift through the literature and create an intelligent summary of it, as the MoS puts it, not a parrot fashion use of the exact same words used, regardless of changes in meaning, or incompetence, or deception.

It's also not a question of the style or language variant of the article as a whole. It's just one word being used as a sort of euphemism, while the hard truth is found further down in the article, with the Einstein quote where he clearly implies that he is a communist, even while not using that word, but rather "socialist" which, as I said, may have been perfectly clear when he wrote, but now is incredibly vague, meaning anything from Lenin's position, to that of the Labour Party of the UK, to center left positions that would be extremely hostile to communism of any kind, but favor the nationalization of a few industries, or a free national health service.

Also, I forgot to mention that reverting my entire edit (the entire series, I mean) goes against the MoS, in my opinion. You should have refined it, and/or reverted each one with a justification, one by one, I think. For example, you reverted my addition to "controversial" to the first sentence. You seem to object only to the word "communist" (perhaps with good reason, as it does hurt Einstein's reputation, and help that of communism, which was something I absolutely have no wish to do. But I tend to think that the biggest problem is ignorance, and therefore telling the truth, and clearly, in Wikipedia and elsewhere will in the end help people have balanced, helpful views of both Einstein and communism. On a side note, I think it is fascinating that E was a communist, and very instructive. If people see that when stumbling across the beginning of the article, in a hover, say, their curiosity may well be piqued, to everyone's benefit.)

Finally, it is the fact that E was a communist that is important, not any particular word, I think. The word "socialism" is highly unclear, but "Leninist", or "Marxist-Leninist" would be clear enough, if slightly more abstruse than "communist". Even just "Marxist" would be enough to give a clue to the alert reader that E was probably a communist. And maybe that could be a compromise we could agree on. Polar Apposite (talk) 08:16, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

I had a look the WP Synthesis link you included. I couldn't find anything in it, or even in the entire article about "copy editing", or "style", or "correction'. I maintain that copy editing is all I was doing. I did not even know E was a communist or even any kind socialist until I read some of the article. I did look at any citations. All my information was plainly stated in the article itself. All I did was make it clearer, and/or move it up higher. I also copy pasted some of the Einstein article into the PVOAE article. If you know of some other part of the MoS, or anything else relevant, I am all ears. Polar Apposite (talk) 08:28, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Where it says, "I did look at any citations", it should say, "I did not look at any citations." Polar Apposite (talk) 08:31, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

You open this reply with 'I didn't say "socialism" and "communism" are synonyms, nor did I say experts think or know that they are.' In your previous reply you said 'The word "socialism" here, clearly (to experts) means "communism".'

The Political views of Albert Einstein article talks about his views on socialism with sources and all. He wrote an article Why Socialism? and we have an article about it. He did not write an article Why Communism?.

With this edit you replaced one term with the other. That is not copy-editing, but changing content. And changing the lead in a way that is not supported in the article body - see wp:LEAD.

With this edit you added unsourced content and comments reading like personal opinions to the lead, again not supported in the article body. That is not copy-editing. Even if something is written in another article, we cannot just repeat it in this article without citing proper sources. By the way, also note that Wikipedia itself is not a wp:reliable source - see wp:CIRCULAR.

wp:SYNTHESIS goes like this: Source A says that person X adhered to property Y. Source B says that property Y amounts to property Z. Claiming that person X adhered to property Z is synthesis, a form of WP:original research. - DVdm (talk) 09:21, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Hello Polar Apposite. We can continue the conversation about "Einstein" here. I didn't revert the edit where you removed the term "originality". While it can be preceded by an indefinite article, it doesn't have to be and in the sourced example, it doesn't have one. I don't think it suggests that you could also say "he is composer of Einstein", since it's not compatible with any of the synonyms of the word. "Einstein" is both a name and a word. Even an unit of measurement was named after him, but it was not capitalized. StephenMacky1 (talk) 13:55, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Why do you want to continue the conversation here, rather than where the beginning of that conversation is? Polar Apposite (talk) 05:04, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

This is where the conversation begun. I'm not free to discuss no more though, since I'm gonna be pretty busy this week, so it's better for you to make your proposals on the Einstein article talk page. StephenMacky1 (talk) 14:42, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

I think I see what you mean: that the conversation you started with DVdm in this section is the beginning of the conversation. That was actually earlier than my post on your talk page where I laid out in some detail why I think your revert was not warranted: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:StephenMacky1&oldid=1193886349

I was confused by your remark, "Hello Polar Apposite. We can continue the conversation about "Einstein" here." I thought you were referring to *our* conversation, which the beginning of which was already on your talk page.

I still think you should reply, on your talk page, to the points I made on your talk page. Your revert of my edit to the "Einstein" article is a quite separate topic from DVdm's revert of my edit to the "Political views of Albert Einstein" article, and this section, I think, should be only about the former.

Waiting a week is no problem for me. Polar Apposite (talk) 15:45, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for your patience and understanding. I have no opinion about the word "originality", however if you're making proposed changes in your third point on my talk page, then I can confirm that I'm not opposed to them. StephenMacky1 (talk) 21:26, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

You wrote, "You open this reply with 'I didn't say "socialism" and "communism" are synonyms, nor did I say experts think or know that they are.' In your previous reply you said 'The word "socialism" here, clearly (to experts) means "communism".'"

True. I don't see what point you are making, though. Could you please explain.

You wrote, "The Political views of Albert Einstein article talks about his views on socialism with sources and all. He wrote an article Why Socialism? and we have an article about it. He did not write an article Why Communism?." Again, true statements, but what do you conclude from this?

You wrote, "With this edit you replaced one term with the other. That is not copy-editing, but changing content. And changing the lead in a way that is not supported in the article body - see wp:LEAD."

I think it *was* copy-editing, and not changing content, because the meaning (albeit using poorly or deceptively chosen words initially) is the same before and after my edit, except it's more clear after, due to a better choice of words. First, I didn't change the meaning of the lead, I only clarified the meaning. Second, the article body says E believed that the means of production should be owned by the state, which means E was a communist. It's just what the word "communist" means.

You wrote, "With this edit you added unsourced content and comments reading like personal opinions to the lead, again not supported in the article body. That is not copy-editing. Even if something is written in another article, we cannot just repeat it in this article without citing proper sources. By the way, also note that Wikipedia itself is not a wp:reliable source - see wp:CIRCULAR."

Could you say which statements of mine you are referring to and what is wrong with each one? That edit contains several sentences.

You wrote, "wp:SYNTHESIS goes like this: Source A says that person X adhered to property Y. Source B says that property Y amounts to property Z. Claiming that person X adhered to property Z is synthesis, a form of WP:original research."

How is that relevant?

Polar Apposite (talk) 05:45, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

@DVdm The software seems not to be indenting replies correctly, and so I might have had my reply to you get attached to another user's reply, hence the ping. Polar Apposite (talk) 05:50, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

I have fixed the indentation by removing a colon on each of your lines. See wp:THREAD, wp:INDENT. It's a matter of using colons at the immediate start of a line. The software increases the indentation with each leading colon. You can practice with your sandbox.

Regarding your requests for clarification of what I wrote, I don't think I can be more clear than I tried to be. I would only repeat myself. In fact my entire reply already was sort of a repetition of what I already said and what the guidelines and policies explain. - DVdm (talk) 06:30, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

I was impressed by how polite you were to me at the beginning of this section, and therefore I attempted to reciprocate. Maybe I overdid it, making it look like my objections to what you said were mere requests for clarification.

Would you like me be more direct? Polar Apposite (talk) 15:20, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

From your responses I can only infer that your objections to what I said amount to misunderstandings of (and/or objections to) aspects of Wikipedia guidelines. The best approach to get clarification of (and/or apply changes to) guidelines, is probably to go directly to the guideline talk pages. I recommend being as direct as possible, as criticism concealed as requests for clarification will be quickly spotted. - DVdm (talk) 19:25, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

It seems that you would not like me to be more direct in my communication with you.

Why do you think I am seeking clarification about the guidelines? I was seeking clarification about what you were trying to prove.

Let me see if I can be a little more clear, and not seem to be merely asking for clarification about what you said, but to be clearly criticizing your arguments and logic.

You wrote, "You open this reply with 'I didn't say "socialism" and "communism" are synonyms, nor did I say experts think or know that they are.' In your previous reply you said 'The word "socialism" here, clearly (to experts) means "communism".'"

True. So what? What do you think you have proved?

You wrote, "The Political views of Albert Einstein article talks about his views on socialism with sources and all. He wrote an article Why Socialism? and we have an article about it. He did not write an article Why Communism?." Again, true statements, but what do you conclude from this?

You wrote, "With this edit you replaced one term with the other. That is not copy-editing, but changing content. And changing the lead in a way that is not supported in the article body - see wp:LEAD."

I think it *was* copy-editing, and not changing content, because the meaning (albeit using poorly or deceptively chosen words initially) is the same before and after my edit, except it's more clear after, due to a better choice of words. First, I didn't change the meaning of the lead, I only clarified the meaning. Second, the article body says E believed that the means of production should be owned by the state, which means E was a communist. It's just what the word "communist" means.

You wrote, "With this edit you added unsourced content and comments reading like personal opinions to the lead, again not supported in the article body. That is not copy-editing. Even if something is written in another article, we cannot just repeat it in this article without citing proper sources. By the way, also note that Wikipedia itself is not a wp:reliable source - see wp:CIRCULAR."

Could you say which statements of mine you are referring to and what is wrong with each one? That edit contains several sentences.

You wrote, "wp:SYNTHESIS goes like this: Source A says that person X adhered to property Y. Source B says that property Y amounts to property Z. Claiming that person X adhered to property Z is synthesis, a form of WP:original research."

That is not relevant, IMHO. Please demonstrate the relevance of this guideline to our discussion. Or if you are unable to, how about withdrawing the criticism?

Polar Apposite (talk) 16:14, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

Feedback

• Creating a bunch of short talk page sections is obnoxious. Keep them grouped together when possible, please.
• This was not an improvement. Tighter wording is a better default. VQuakr (talk) 18:58, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

  Okay, thanks for the talk page convention tip. There's not need to use a rude word like "obnoxious", though.

  I unbolded the "(PR)" so that it couldn't be mistaken, by a layman, for being part of the name, and thus could be recognized as an abbreviation of that name (or of "protease" - I'm still not clear what "PR" means, exactly).

  I added the "i.e." to let the layman know that "(retropepsin)" wasn't part of the name, that is to say, to make it clear that "retroviral aspartyl protease (retropepsin)" is not a type of "retroviral aspartyl protease".

  I broke it into two sentences because as it was it seemed too difficult, long, and complex for a layman to handle comfortably. I see now that I could have done that shorter and better without putting "it is" where I did.

  By the way, "an enzyme involved with peptide bond hydrolysis" seems a bit vague. Could we have instead the shorter and more informative, "an enzyme that hydrolyses peptide bonds"?

  And, "essential" seems way to positive sounding a word to use with regard to anything that HIV likes or thinks it needs. It could even sound homophobic, or insensitive to the feelings of HIV infected people, or their friends and relatives. How about saying instead something to the effect that the *HIV virus depends on* the process and therefore on the enzyme. Polar Apposite (talk) 20:45, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

"Obnoxious" is not meant to be rude, it is meant to be accurate and succinct. Viruses do not think or like anything. No, the term used in biochemistry is "essential". Feel free to propose the other edits (which are neither minor nor copyedits) on the article talk page. VQuakr (talk) 00:09, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm going to make an official complaint against you for saying what I did was "obnoxious". Polar Apposite (talk) 18:47, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

It's a characterization of behavior not a personal insult. To say that taking it to ANI would be an overreaction, would be an understatement. VQuakr (talk) 04:26, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

The guidelines about complaining about incivility Wikipedia:Civility#Dealing with incivility seem to say I should try to talk to you about this before posting on the Admins noticeboard. So here goes.

You could have just said that what I did was "wrong". There was no need to use the word "obnoxious". When I read it, I took it to mean that I am obnoxious. I don't see how it can be understood any other way. This is especially the case, since it is the first thing you say after starting a section called "Feedback".

I guess this is as good a time as any to raise an even more important issue: for months now I have seen you and Fabricator replying to my posts on talk pages randomly scattered across Wikipedia. It's too much of coincidence. Very often, after one or both of you does this, no one else does. What are the odds of that? Also, if one of my edits is reverted, there is a good chance (way above the odds) that either you or Fabricator turns out to be responsible. Furthermore, there is a lack of balance, especially in *your* comments, which are nearly always hostile. In fact, Fabricator's behavior has not been a significant problem to me. I have ignored his comments, and put up with the occasional ill-considered reversion, and maybe will one day even talk him about one or two of the reversions he has done of my work. But I do wonder why he is doing this. I told him I was done with him, two months ago in this post: I am not, and never was, with you, Fabrickator. So why he is still shadowing me like this, all over Wikipedia, I wonder. I don't expect you to speak for Fabrickator, or explain his behavior, and I include it here only because he is the only other person to have ever done this to me. Are you and Fabricator allowed to shadow me like this (and harass me, as I see it)?

At least Fabrickator has sometimes seemed to like me, at other times not, and at other times be neutral. You have been much less balanced, and I really do feel ambivalent about Fabrickator while what you have been doing seems like harassment, pure and simple. Once in a while you have made a helpful point in a civil way, but that has been very much the exception. Also, you keep telling me what to do or not to do, as if you are my supervisor, usually without adequate explanation for why I should do it, or not do it. I don't think you are an admin. Do I have to do what you tell me?

You are racking up edits for your edit count with your short comments and commands, but it's not very useful for me to read them, because they are too short. Also, I don't feel like you are reading carefully what I wrote before reverting or commenting. For example, earlier in this section, where you said, ""Obnoxious" is not meant to be rude, it is meant to be accurate and succinct.", your paragraph gives very perfunctory consideration to a few of my points, and none at all to others, and concludes by sounding like you were commanding me to not even bring up my issue with the phrase containing the word "essential" on the talk page.

What are your thoughts? Polar Apposite (talk) 20:02, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Polar... You wrote

I have seen you and Fabricator replying to my posts on talk pages randomly scattered across Wikipedia. It's too much of coincidence. Very often, after one or both of you does this, no one else does. What are the odds of that?

I don't just go to random pages. Every page I edit, I add to my watchlist and I'm pretty much constantly checking my watchlist for changes, so this is not a matter of random chance. Although you might consider something someone has posted to be annoying, you are obliged to WP:AGF. If someone posts some comments, you should assume that in some way, it is to make things better. In other words, if it is criticism, you should try to interpret it as constructive criticism.

BTW, I find that I can be fairly loquacious. But I think you have me beat there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fabrickator (talk • contribs)

@Fabrickator Why do you keep following me around, commenting on my talk page, and so on? I told you two months ago that I was done with you. Why did you even come onto my talk page in the first place? What do you want from me? I'm asking out of genuine curiosity. Is there something interesting about me? Do you lavish this amount of attention on anyone else? I almost never look at the list of contributions of another editor. The most I'll do normally is look to see how many contributions he or she has made. I look at articles and talk pages, not other contributors. Why should I care what another editor is doing? So why don't you just edit articles, like I do, without regard to who else has edited them? Did someone ask you to introduce yourself to me on my talk page? Is that something that is recommended? ::::::::What is the significance of being loquacious? Is this supposed to be some kind of euphemism? What does it matter who is more loquacious out of the two of us?

Are you claiming that the "Jo Koy" and "Sigmoid colon" articles were on your watch list, and that's why you edited them straight after I did?

(reply from Fabrickator, January 18, 2024)

(I apologize if I'm not putting this response in the appropriate place, I really don't understand what you're doing with the formatting of these conversations. It's possible you're doing everything exactly right and I'm just not "getting it".)

You have repeated this issue of the fact that I comment on some of your edits. FWIW, I've also solicited your opinion, and you did not respond. Of course, I can't mandate your response, but these were legit questions, and the fact that I would genuinely solicit your opinion would be considered a show of respect. If you didn't feel like responding to my question, it would be ordinary courtesy for you to respond that you didn't care to offer your input.

You seem to be of the opinion that you have the authority to regulate how other editors may respond to your edits, i.e. to dictate that they may neither revert or modify your edits, nor comment on them. I believe you are wrong about this, though of course, other editors must not be abusive about this.

It is true that I follow your edits. I respond as seems appropriate. Quite frequently, I feel that your edits do not materially improve the article, and on the basis that an edit which doesn't improve an article is a detriment, I might revert or comment, though I think that's quite infrequent. I might also make some unrelated change to the article, as I did with molnupiravir.

In the case of Jo Koy, I reverted your edit changing the gendered word "filipina" to "filipino". Either term is evidently acceptable (your finding one person offering a different opinion does not constitute conclusive evidence to the contrary), and my message is to avoid wasting the resources to make a change that provides no improvement. I'd extend that to suggest it should provide more than a scintilla of improvement. (When I refer to "resources", I include not just computer storage and the marginal overhead of each revision, but also the fact that every time somebody looks through the history, that's one more extraneous line to look at ... of course, when I revert your edit, it would seem that I'm violating my own rule, except that I'm doing it to make the point. Though in point of fact, it tends to save others some mental effort, based on the idea that less cognitive effort is required to ignore a revision which has been reverted.

Oh, but then there's your brilliant change of making an additional edit to Jo Koy to point out that you had failed to mark an edit as minor, and to "beat that", you inserted an extraneous space into the text of the article, which gave me the opportunity to revert your edit. But the fact that you thought it was appropriate to add a revision to point out that you had forgotten to check the "minor edit" flag shows that you have difficulty keeping things in perspective. (The use of "minor edit" is highly subjective; the strongest case for this option even being available is that malicious editors might check it in the hope that their malicious edit will not be reviewed.)

To everybody else, I apologize for the length of this comment. It really seems difficult to do otherwise. Fabrickator (talk) 08:40, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

I am not an admin; anything I say to you is not a directive (generally anything an admin says isn't a directive either; admins are janitors not managers). I am an experienced editor and am attempting to provide feedback in a collaborative editing environment.

WP:IDENTIFYUNCIVIL provides some examples of uncivil behavior. Insults, threats, and gross profanity are examples. What I said in the first reply of this section is none of those things, nor is it similar to any of those. Saying a specific talk page format is obnoxious is absolutely not the same thing as an insult directed at you personally! It was, perhaps, a little blunt. But I have found that being blunt rather than circumspect can be more effective. I view not wasting my reader's time with unnecessary verbage to be an indicator of respect.

Harassment is a serious accusation with a precise definition and is not a term that should be thrown around casually. I have a lot of pages on my watchlist and you edit a lot of pages, so you do pop up on my watchlist not infrequently. I have also reviewed your edits, because there are ongoing issues in them with hypercorrection and mislabeling of edits as copyedits and/or minor when they are neither. My goals in doing those reviews is to accomplish two things: to maintain quality of Wikipedia and to help you improve. I have not tried to be hostile towards you. Of course, feedback is usually negative: if you make a good edit, there is less reason to revert or follow up here or on the article talk page.

I don't think anyone cares about my edit count. I don't understand why a short communication that conveyed the information would have less value than a lengthy communication that conveyed the same information. Feedback here would be about your edits and similar content; discussion of article content should be on article talk pages which is why I didn't go into depth here.

Ultimately I'm providing this sort of feedback because not only is there room for improvement, there's capability for you to improve. You've had good comments on the HIV-1 protease article, for example, that have resulted in improvements. I'm sorry to hear that that's been interpreted as hostility because that isn't the intent. VQuakr (talk) 21:42, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

As a result of what I see as your harassment of me (as I see it), I started thinking about abandoning this Polar Apposite account, and starting another, and carefully trying to avoid you, and especially not let anyone realize it was me, just to get away from you, VQuaker. I felt like the more edits I racked up in my edit count, the more I would be ditching when I abandoned the Polar Apposite account, and started afresh. So you really did almost drive me away from Wikipedia, or at least away from this account. And there is a chance that I would not come back to Wikipedia at all as an editor.

I was afraid to complain about you. Fortunately (I think: so far so good), when  you called my action "obnoxious", it enraged me, and it seemed like the last straw, and I lashed out (recklessly, as I saw it at the time) with my announcement that I would be making an official complaint about the incivility.

In fact, on it's own the incivility was nothing compared to the barrages of attacks you have subjected me to, as well as my sense of my every edit being constantly watched by an invisible hostile unknown quantity. You have never explained why you seem to think I should be driven off Wikipedia, or at least punished. I never did anything to you, so I tend to wonder whether you must be doing this on behalf of someone else. I have wondered whether there are gangs on Wikipedia, and whether you might be a member of one. Although I've not had any rows with you, I have been critical of some others. I wondered whether someone else sent you, or you were just doing a favor to another editor in order to get something similar back later, when someone did cross you (which I never did - did I?).

You seemed to hate me so much that I even sometimes wondered whether you might be stalking me in real life (not very often), and wondered whether you might be in a car parked in the road near where I live, late at night (again, not very often, and it was just a fleeting thought, but it did cross my mind).

So, yes, harassment is what it seemed like to me. The facts are there in the edit history of Wikipedia, and there's nothing missing. There's no doubt about what expression someone had, or what tone of voice, which is something you never have in real life. Even a video doesn't catch every microexpression, tone of voice, or odor. That's something neat about Wikipedia.

As I see it, this section you gave the title, "Feedback" shows a representative sample of pretty much all the features of your behavior that I have experienced off and on, in barrages of attacks, ever since I first met you on Wikipedia, several months ago. The use of overt incivility has been rare. The experience has been more intimidating than enraging. There was only one other case of incivility that I can recall, and that is only perceived by me as incivility, and I probably can't prove it. It was when you appeared to refer to me as "Oxford comma", or so I imagined, in your comment on a talk page where I had repeatedly commented favorably on the Oxford comma.

Here's the quote in full,

"Silence aside, there's clear consensus per the above discussion that this proposed edit wasn't an improvement. I agree with the others that the edit added words to no benefit. Changing to a 3-point list with Oxford comma would be better and I support that change, which I will propose now. VQuakr (talk) 22:54, 13 October 2023 (UTC)"

This comment seemed to me to be probably calculated to intimidate me, while appearing innocuous. It seems to me to have probably been remarkably cleverly phrased. It seems to me to have probably been calculated to very subtly mock me for my repeated use of the phrase "Oxford comma", earlier in the discussion, which I started on the talk of page of the Barack Obama article after my copy edit was reverted.

One reason I have up until now kept quiet about your harassment of me (as I see it) is the way other editors have no spoken up about it. I now see (I think), if a prisoner is told to hand over a cigarette that he doesn't owe, by another prisoner, no one will stand up for him if he doesn't stand up for himself. And it's the same on Wikipedia, I guess. Maybe everyone is as scared of you as I am. And of your croneys, if there are any. I'm wondering whether I will get blocked without warning just for posting this on my talk page. Anyway, it feels great to get it off my chest.

I see that you and Fabrickator have continued to follow me around despite my complaining to you about that. Having said that, Fabrickator didn't do anything hostile, and you, although hostile, were noticeably less hostile, in your edits. You reverted about half of my edits to the Harvard University article, which is still wrong of you, but not as bad as all of them, which is what I had expected that you would do. All of my edits to the Harvard University article were good ones, IMHO, and so you shouldn't have reverted any of them. But I suppose I should be grateful for the one's you left alone. Also, I actually learned something from something you said in a civil way (first time in a long time) because of your edit summary saying why you deleted my "clarification needed" superscript. I didn't know you could link to the talk page so easily, nor a bunch of other things that I found out as I looked into your claim that you aren't allowed have such a superscript without a corresponding post on the article talk page.

I am not out to get you into trouble. I just want this pattern of behavior to stop. If you agreed to stop following me around, and stop bossing me around, and stop intimidating me, and give me permission to ignore you generally, I would be happy to agree not to post on the ANI about you in connection with what has happened between us.

Okay, let me start to respond to what you posted. Are you saying that I am free to disregard your commands? What will happen if I do? Will you retaliate or punish me? What you said is not really clear, because you said I don't have to do what you say, and I also don't have to do what the admins say, if I understood you correctly. It sounds like you think you have some sort of authority comparable to that of an admin.

You wrote, " I have also reviewed your edits, because there are ongoing issues in them with hypercorrection and mislabeling of edits as copyedits and/or minor when they are neither." Could you please provide some examples of this, and also say what "hypercorrection" means here, in plain English. I'm familiar with the word from linguistics, but the linguistics term would make no sense here, IMHO.

You wrote, "I don't understand why a short communication that conveyed the information would have less value than a lengthy communication that conveyed the same information." The problem is that there has not been enough information in your communications. Nowhere did I complain of you not being concise, nor of being too concise. What I don't like is being given commands with little to no justification, and comments that merely state your position without presenting adequate explanation or argument to back it up. Naked assertions. Flatly contradicting me, and then.. nothing.

You said no one cares about your edit count. I do, for one. If you had less of an edit count than me, or the same, I never would have got onto the slippery slope of deferring to you, which you seemed to interpret as the cue for you to be even more aggressive in your harassment (as I see it) the next time, until, as we see in this section, you called my innocent (at worst an innocent newby mistake) action "obnoxious". BTW, what *is* wrong with giving each point it's own section on a talk page? And where does it say that in the guidelines?

You wrote, "Ultimately I'm providing this sort of feedback because not only is there room for improvement, there's capability for you to improve. You've had good comments on the HIV-1 protease article, for example, that have resulted in improvements." Thanks for the kind words. This is the nicest thing you've ever said to me, by a long chalk. You never said *anything* nice to me before I threatened to post a complaint on the ANI. So thanks, but I'd need to see something more tangible before I feel differently about you. Right now I feel like you might have said that mainly to impress any third parties who might read it. But...thanks. Polar Apposite (talk) 22:57, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm not going to reply to all 16 paragraphs but in short:

• Yikes.
• Your interpretation of [3] as an insult, especially when it was paired with an article edit that added an Oxford Comma, really highlights how important it is to assume good faith. Like, if that's all it takes for you to see an attack you really need to reevaluate your approach to collaborating.
• Stop with the accusations of harassment or we will indeed have an issue needing escalation; see WP:AOHA. Consider this a second and final warning.
• You, me, or an admin have equal amounts of "authority".
• Whether it's by me or other editors, whether you're using this account or a valid alternate, your edits are going to get scrutinized, tweaked, modified, further edited, and sometimes reverted. This is normal, it is not personal, and it is not an attack.
• Article-specific questions about edits or contested edits to an article are best addressed on the article talk page, not in user talk space. VQuakr (talk) 06:29, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Barack_Obama&diff=prev&oldid=1180013554. I admit that I had not noticed that edit, and it does make your comment (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Barack_Obama&diff=prev&oldid=1180013566), that mentioned the idea of an Oxford comma, look much less worrying. Back then I had not yet learned to frequently look at the article history. I had been advised here to "back away from the discussion" by two editors, at least one of whom was an admin, at least one of whom was an admin, and I had already decided to follow that advice/request. That's why I [edit: didn't] follow up at all. I may have glanced at that part of the article subsequently, but, if I did, I did not notice your change, which was not what I had thought you had described in your comment. I had thought you had described, when you said, "3-point list", a list with three bullet points, or perhaps three numbered points, with an Oxford comma added, saying this as a sort of joke. So when I saw nothing like that (I saw the same four points that I'd initially found when I first read that part of the article, and the same flaw(s), in that part of the article, I guessed that it was as I originally found it. So I admit that I slipped up in not noticing that you had edited the article, but your comment was not terribly clear, and so it wasn't entirely my fault.

I never stated as a fact that you were mocking me by referring to the Oxford comma. I said, "There was only one other case of incivility that I can recall, and that is only perceived by me as incivility, and I probably can't prove it. It was when you appeared to refer to me as "Oxford comma", or so I imagined, in your comment on a talk page where I had repeatedly commented favorably on the Oxford comma." I was just qualifying my claim that your calling my action obnoxious was the only time you had been uncivil with me. I was only saying that there was a possibility that it wasn't the first time. So, you have misrepresented me by saying, "Like, if that's all it takes for you to see an attack you really need to reevaluate your approach to collaborating." All I had seen was the possibility of incivility (albeit subtle).

So, your second bullet point was helpful. I'm glad I brought the matter up, because you have clarified an important point.

Unfortunately, that was the only part of your reply that was helpful. Nothing else was helpful. You ignored a lot of important points and questions that I made. When you wrote, "You, me, or an admin have equal amounts of "authority"." didn't clarify anything. It doesn't help. Have you given up hope of resolving our differences here on my talk page?

I see that you are still reverting large numbers of good edits that I've made. You found time to do that, and to talk about it here at some length (User talk:Polar Apposite#Unnecessary edits). I think you should instead have addressed the points I made. If I'm wrong about something, tell me. I'm all ears. And I'm willing to admit that I'm wrong if you can provide evidence of that. I really would like to resolve our conflict here rather. Wouldn't you?

If we don't resolve our conflict here, I will take our conflict to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents, so, if you don't want that, please make at least one additional response to what I said. Polar Apposite (talk) 14:59, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

You are not owed a certain length of reply, and your reply at [4] was quite long and contained some content (for example about your mental health) that I am absolutely not going to address. Can you please briefly repeat or emphasize what you feel to be the most significant outstanding item that you would like to see addressed? I have not reverted any of your edits that I consider good edits; if they were good edits I would not revert them. VQuakr (talk) 00:29, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

You wrote, "You are not owed a certain length of reply". I never said I was. I just said that instead of creating a new section on this talk page, you should instead have responded the points I made in this section. It looks to me like, in many cases, you have not been able to come up with any good counterarguments, and therefore your only option was to ignore many of my arguments, except for trying to make some excuses for not addressing them, such as, "I'm not going to reply to all 16 paragraphs but in short:". It's not clearly stated, but there seems to be a vague implication that sixteen paragraphs is too many. The reason there are that many is firstly that you have caused me a considerable amount of suffering, and I wanted you to know some details about that, and have done quite a bit of harm to Wikipedia by discouraging me from making copy edits to Wikipedia. The suffering I have experienced at your hands is minute compared to the suffering of the readers that have read and will read badly written prose in Wikipedia that I corrected and you reverted, or that I would have corrected, but didn't because of your open hostility and frequent unwarranted reversions of my edits. Secondly you made a large number of false or misleading claims and to debunk each claim clearly, warranted a separate paragraph for each claim. A large number of paragraphs resulted.

You wrote, "and contained some content (for example about your mental health) that I am absolutely not going to address." I just read the whole link and I didn't see anything about my mental health. Could you please quote the relevant part?

You wrote, "Can you please briefly repeat or emphasize what you feel to be the most significant outstanding item that you would like to see addressed?" Okay, I'll repeat this point:

"

"You wrote, " I have also reviewed your edits, because there are ongoing issues in them with hypercorrection and mislabeling of edits as copyedits and/or minor when they are neither." Could you please provide some examples of this, and also say what "hypercorrection" means here, in plain English. I'm familiar with the word from linguistics, but the linguistics term would make no sense here, IMHO.

"

You wrote, "I have not reverted any of your edits that I consider good edits; if they were good edits I would not revert them." I have to assume good faith, so I accept your first claim here. But I disagree with the second, because IMHO most (and possibly all) of the edits I made that you reverted were good ones. You keep making naked assertions. You should provide some argument to back up a claim, especially when you are justifying one or more reversions with that claim. Polar Apposite (talk) 11:33, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

You're still talking about "attacks", so let me use a little bold here: a revert is not an attack. Get out of this victim mentality, it's not good for you and it's certainly not going to help your case if you keep demonstrating you can't tell the difference between a disagreement on content and a personal attack. We can do away with implications: 16 paragraphs is too many, by a margin of about 14 paragraphs. Concision is expressly noted in WP:TPYES. I was referring to the paranoia you expressed at imagining you were being followed. [5] is an example of hypercorrection, by which I mean over-applying or misapplying a grammar "rule" resulting in weird phrasing. Any of your edits that are not trivial formatting changes or fixes of misspellings, should not be marked minor. If you think an edit I challenged was challenged in error, then take it to the article talk page and get consensus to restore it. VQuakr (talk) 20:39, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

You wrote, "Any of your edits that are not trivial formatting changes or fixes of misspellings, should not be marked minor."

But Help:Minor edit says

"This page in a nutshell:

• Checking the minor edit box signifies that the current and previous versions differ only superficially (typographical corrections, etc.), in a way that no editor would be expected to regard as disputable.
• Any edit that changes the meaning of an article is not a minor edit, even if the edit concerns a single word, and it is improper to mark such an edit as minor."

I knew about this rule, and I carefully checked that I had not changed the meaning of the article before marking the edit as minor.

Please show me an example of an edit of mine, that I marked as minor, that changed the meaning of the article. Polar Apposite (talk) 13:24, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

You wrote, "You're still talking about "attacks", so let me use a little bold here: a revert is not an attack. Get out of this victim mentality, it's not good for you and it's certainly not going to help your case if you keep demonstrating you can't tell the difference between a disagreement on content and a personal attack."

That's some other recent incivility that you might want to apologize for.

You wrote, "We can do away with implications: 16 paragraphs is too many, by a margin of about 14 paragraphs. Concision is expressly noted in WP:TPYES."

But the very first sentence in your link is, "These guidelines apply specifically to discussion pages which are used for collaboration, which includes just about all talk pages other than user talk pages."

The sixteen (mostly very short) paragraphs were on this page, which is my user talk page. So it is not relevant.

Anyway, I had already presented a rebuttal (which you ignored) of your claim that sixteen paragraphs were too many. Polar Apposite (talk) 14:03, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Correction. Where it says "So it is not relevant.", it should say "So the link is not relevant." Polar Apposite (talk) 14:05, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

I point out victim mentality hamstringing your ability to receive feedback, and your response is more victim mentality. Obviously coaching from me isn't going to be effective here, so we'll keep it simple: keep making unnecessary "copyedits" and someone will eventually pursue a block to bring a stop to the disruption. If you disagree with any of my article space reverts, either existing or future, we can discuss in article talk space. Kind regards. VQuakr (talk) 17:15, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Someone said what I did was "obnoxious". I don't think that's civil. How do I make an official complaint?

WP:ANI. Bear in mind that your conduct will be scrutinized as well as the editor about whom you complain.--Bbb23 (talk) 19:05, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. Do you think my conduct leaves something to be desired? Polar Apposite (talk) 20:03, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Unnecessary edits

In this string of edits you made several of the same mistakes you've been called out on in the past. Most of these changes were not improvements, you further added to the history clutter with a dummy edit to unnecessarily clarify an edit was minor, you inaccurately labeled non-minor edits as minor, inaccurately labeled edits as copyedits, and you returned to enforcing your made-up grammar rule that unnecessarily changed a subject to singular, producing the awkwardly-phrased sentence starting "Every student is a member..." From my chair, it appears that rather than taking the substantial feedback you've been getting on this sort of thing, you're actually getting worse, to the point that your editing patterns disruptive. I believe you're acting in good faith, but ultimately the issue is that this editing pattern is not a net benefit to the encyclopedia. I'm not optimistic that you're going to listen to feedback from me given the diatribe above, but please: consider carefully whether an edit is an improvement before hitting that "publish" button and for crying out loud quit with the dummy edits. If you are unwilling or unable to improve, at some point the decision to stop is going to be made for you. VQuakr (talk) 21:18, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

I disagree with almost everything you've said in this post. I will respond eventually, but right now, I don't want to distract you from our discussion in the section on this page called "Feedback". Polar Apposite (talk) 15:33, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Ok, but to my understanding it is these bad/questionable copyedits that are the entire locus of our dispute. VQuakr (talk) 00:26, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

First, what I see as I as your incivility is still a big part of this dispute, and so "entire locus" is inaccurate.

Second, you shouldn't assume what you are setting to prove - please don't forget that I don't agree that they are bad or questionable copyedits.

Third, you should not have created this new section (now it's here, we might as well leave it here), but should have made your points within the section called "Feedback".

Fourth, but most importantly, you should have first attempted to justify, or at least explain, your reverts and comments that I had already complained about, in the Feedback section, and on the basis of which I was and am considering making an official complaint. For example, in the Feedback section, there is this exchange,

"

"[Your copyedits have] ongoing issues in them with hypercorrection and mislabeling of edits as copyedits and/or minor when they are neither." Could you please provide some examples of this[?]"

"

and you should have responded with some examples of when I had been guilty of those alleged errors, or else admitted that you had not been able to find any. I put it to you that you were unable to find any, and yet were unwilling to admit that. Silence would have made you look bad, so instead, so as to be able write *something* with some semblance of relevance, you made a large number of new (equally misguided IMHO) comments regarding a multitude of reversions of edits that I made since I accused you of bad reversions and bad comments and incivility - and which are therefore not strictly relevant to whether I was justified in making that accusation. Polar Apposite (talk) 12:14, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

I have been consistently civil to you as well as extraordinarily patient. I have provided lots of diffs, most recently at the start of this section. If you really think these edits are good, then discuss on the article talk page to build consensus for their inclusion. If you can consistently do that, then that's strong evidence that I shouldn't be reverting these edits and I can recalibrate. VQuakr (talk) 20:19, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

You called what was at worst an innocent newby mistake on an article talk page "obnoxious". You still have not apologized for that. You recently implied that there is a problem with my mental health (or that I implied that there was one). When I asked you to quote the specific part of the text, you did not do so, and instead made another naked assertion, this time saying, "I was referring to the paranoia you expressed at imagining you were being followed." That isn't a quote. Please show me an actual quote. You have taken your incivility to whole new level with these naked assertions. I suggest you apologize as soon as possible, as that will make you look a little bit less bad if I complain about your behavior on Administrators Notice Board. And it looks like you are absolutely unwilling to try to resolve our dispute here on my talk page, and so it looks like I will have to complain there.

I repeat: please show me an actual quote that supports your claims related to my mental health, or else apologize. Polar Apposite (talk) 13:41, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

You are not a newbie. I was referring to [6], though it seems remarkable to me that you wouldn't already know that. Desperately scrambling to put on a mantle of victimhood is not the trump card you seem to think it is. VQuakr (talk) 17:01, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Polar ... Regarding the topic of this section ("unnecessary edits"), I just ran across this comment you made a couple of months ago:

I actually find polishing a sentence until it is positively dazzling very satisfying indeed. Even removing a single blemish from a sentence is fairly satisfying. I like making excellent prose better still, or, ideally, perfect. The fact that I am reading the article indicates that I think it is at least good prose, and so, when I spot a blemish, it feels good to remove it. I sometimes think of myself as a road user who hits a pot hole, says "ouch", and then stops to fill it in.

Considering the fact that you seem so enamored of this position, I think your continued participation on Wikipedia can only be problematic. Fabrickator (talk) 17:23, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

You wrote, 'You are not a newbie." I did not say I was. I said, "You called what was at worst an innocent newby mistake on an article talk page "obnoxious"." Compared to you, I am a newbie, I think. I have just over thousand edits, whereas you have about a hundred thousand. Anyway, how would you define the word "newbie"?

You wrote, " I was referring to [6], though it seems remarkable to me that you wouldn't already know that.". How would I know what you are referring to when you make a false claim and don't quote me properly? I have asked you to show me a quote or quotes of what I said that justifies your claim. What part of that do you not understand? When I do this, as I have done many times in this section, I start by typing, "You wrote, " and then follow that with a copypaste of something the other person wrote, in quotes. I am asking you to do that or something equivalent to that. Or else apologize. Polar Apposite (talk) 07:51, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Less than 40k counting deleted edits, which isn't very close to 100k. I don't know why you think you are entitled to demand that I respond in a particular format, where did you get that idea? The original reply was directly after the thing I was referring to, which is why it was surprising to me that there would be any confusion about what I was replying to. We use the indent format to thread replies per WP:TALKGAP. VQuakr (talk) 17:41, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

You wrote, "Less than 40k counting deleted edits, which isn't very close to 100k." Okay, I misremembered how many edits you had. I thought it was about a hundred thousand, but really it was about forty thousand. But I think you are splitting hairs here. My point was that compared with you I am newbie, because you have many times more edits than I do. Whether it's about forty times as many as I have, or about a hundred times as many, it is still true that you have many times more edits than me. I think it's telling that you can find the time to invest in catching me out (if it can even truly be called that) regarding such an insignificant detail, and yet you seem not to have time to respond properly to all, or even half (I think) of my arguments. I think it is additional evidence that you would respond if you could, but you simply can't. I suggest that you have been *seriously* uncivil by publicly making those claims relating to my mental health or alleged problems or whatever with my mental health. You may even have broken the law of the land in some way. |There are laws against slander, libel, and such like things and I might be able to sue you. To vindicate yourself you need to quote me. You can't just link to a long passage. I expect you know that, but I'm not sure.

You wrote, "I don't know why you think you are entitled to demand that I respond in a particular format, where did you get that idea?" Are you trying to be funny? I don't care what format you use. I just want you say what I said exactly that justifies your claims. Is it so hard to apologize? You are making a rod for you own back. The longer it takes for you to apologize, the worse you look. The more you waste everyone's time with hairsplitting, the worse you look. It's still not too late to resolve matters here without a complaint about you on the Administrator's Notice Board, but at any moment, I could complain there. There might not be any further warning. It looks to me like you have given up any hope of resolving our differences here. Instead you are just wasting my time.

"You wrote, "The original reply was directly after the thing I was referring to, which is why it was surprising to me that there would be any confusion about what I was replying to. We use the indent format to thread replies per WP:TALKGAP." I find myself in dilemma. On the one hand, I don't want to accuse you of incompetence, and on the other hand, I don't want to accuse you of bad faith. Can you really not see that see that you stand accused of a very serious infraction of the rules of Wikipedia and that just saying, in effect, that what I said that shows you were justified is somewhere in this link, or that preceding passage, is not making a proper response? Of course, I suspect that you have already searched the passage and found nothing to justify your claim.

I think you are possibly guilty of hounding, possibly aggravated by extreme (possibly libelous) incivility. This is quite serious.

I don't care about you. I just want you to leave me alone. If you get blocked, you will have brought it on yourself. Please, apologize for the incivility, and promise to leave me alone. Polar Apposite (talk) 09:51, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

More importantly, you are hurting Wikipedia and its readers. I have not done any copyediting in Wikipedia lately, and it is mainly to entirely because of you discouraging me by reverting nearly every copyedit I make, regardless of how good. Polar Apposite (talk) 10:27, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Please note: I was not, and am not, threatening, or even considering, legal action against you. I apologize if I gave that impression. Please see my reply to the excellent comment by @DVdm in the section titled "Legal threats". Polar Apposite (talk) 15:46, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

I said I would respond eventually, and I will do so now, because I have given up all hope that you will ever properly respond in the "Feedback" section of this page. None of the points you have made in the comment I am replying to are relevant to the accusations I made in the "Feedback" section, because they refer to edits that i made later. Nevertheless, I think you may benefit from learning that your claims are wrong, and likewise anyone else who reads your claims and doesn't immediately realize they are wrong. Also, I don't like loose ends. By the way, to focus on edits I made after accusing you of reverting good edits, and ignoring my justifications of those edits, does look a bit like a sort of ad hominem attack, because your argument seems to be "Look how bad these later edits are. It proves you are a bad editor, which proves that your earlier edits were probably bad." Be that as it may, they weren't bad edits. They were excellent edits, as I will show.

I expect you will complain, as usual, that there are too many paragraphs in this reply. In fact, not only do I have the right to debunk every false claim that you make, but I have a duty to do so. So if you don't like seeing your false claims getting debunked, how about you quit making them?

The first error is in the title you gave to the section, which was "Unnecessary edits". There no point in wondering whether an edit is nececcary, but rather only whether it is benefinicial or harmful. I Googled "unnecessary edits on Wikipedia" and not only is there (of course) no Wikipedia guideline saying that unnecessary edits should be reverted, but I found a Wikipedia essay section (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Revert_only_when_necessary) stating clearly that no edit should be reverted purely for being an unnecessary one. It says,

"Do not revert unnecessary edits (i.e., edits that neither improve nor harm the article). For a reversion to be appropriate, the reverted edit must actually make the article worse. Wikipedia does not have a bias toward the status quo (except in some cases of fully developed disputes, while they are being resolved). In fact, Wikipedia has a bias toward change, as a means of maximizing quality by maximizing participation.

   Even if you find an article was slightly better before an edit, in an area where opinions could differ, you should not revert that edit, especially if you are the author of the prior text. The reason for this is that authors and others with past involvement in an article have a natural prejudice in favor of the status quo, so your finding that the article was better before might just be a result of that. Also, Wikipedia likes to encourage editing."

You wrote, "Most of these changes were not improvements [...]". This confirms that you really thought that a change can be reverted for not being improvement.

You wrote, "[...], you further added to the history clutter with a dummy edit to unnecessarily clarify an edit was minor,[...]". More confirmation that you really thought that an edit, or in this case, an edit summary, could be condemned for being unnecessary. Furthermore, I think that is exactly the sort of thing a dummy edit is normally used for.

You wrote, "you inaccurately labeled non-minor edits as minor, inaccurately labeled edits as copyedits". At the time you wrote this, you had already (about three days earlier at 22:57, 17 January 2024 (UTC)) ignored my polite request for examples what you were talking about, in the "Feedback" where I said, "

You wrote, " I have also reviewed your edits, because there are ongoing issues in them with hypercorrection and mislabeling of edits as copyedits and/or minor when they are neither." Could you please provide some examples of this, and also say what "hypercorrection" means here, in plain English.

"

So really, repeating your naked assertion, like a broken record, really was rather poor behavior, I think. I suspect that you did that because you could not find a single example.

You wrote, "you returned to enforcing your made-up grammar rule that unnecessarily changed a subject to singular, producing the-phrased sentence starting "Every student is a member..."". First, I already explained to you that although it seems I do have the honor of having originated this idea, it is not a rule of grammar when I said (here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Polar_Apposite#Plurals) this: "[...]I don't see it a rule of grammar, but rather as [a] heuristic that can help with finding ways to write better, or copy edit existing text, and I don't think I ever called [it] a rule of grammar, only a rule of thumb. Each case has to be judged on its own merits and it is a matter of art, creativity, and judgement. It's just a good idea to bear in mind that a plural can *sometimes* be usefully replaced with a singular. That's all I meant by my "rule of thumb"." As usual you ignored my correction of your confusion. Again, the misconception, that whether an edit is necessary is of any relevance, is seen. How I came to the conclusion that I could improve the text with a copyedit is also irrelevant. Certainly, there was no "enforcing" of anything. It just so happened that to improve the sentence it was helpful to convert it to the singular form. Maybe I was able to see how to fix the sentence because I had not forgotten that plurals are often unclear, but I had not gone out of my way to find and fix plurals in this case. Your claim that I produced an awkwardly-worded sentence is especially interesting, because IMHO, the exact opposite is true. I *replaced* an awkwardly-worded sentence with a good, clear sentence.

You wrote, "[...] and you returned to enforcing your made-up grammar rule that unnecessarily changed a subject to singular, producing the awkwardly-phrased sentence starting "Every student is a member... [...]" Again, there is the misconceived concern with whether a change was nececessary. You didn't quote the whole sentence, which was highly remiss of you." It reads: "Every student is a member of a college." There's nothing awkward about this. The previous wording was not only awkward, but also unclear, and, atrocious writing. It read, "All students are members of a college." That subtley suggests that there is a college to which all students belong, which is not the case.

You wrote, "[...] this editing pattern is not a net benefit to the encyclopedia." Another naked assertion. And as usual, absolute nonsense.

You wrote, "If you are unwilling or unable to improve, at some point the decision to stop is going to be made for you." You do have some skill at saying intimidating things that don't obviously bread any rules, I will give you that. I used to be quite scared of you, and this sort of extremely vague threat is a good example of why I was. I'm not scared of you anymore, though. You are the one who needs to improve. You've made forty thousand edits and I have made just a thousand, and yet you seem to know less than I do about the rules of Wikipedia, about proper argumentation, about copyediting, and about what constitutes good English. I'm starting to wonder what dialect of English you speak, and even whether you are a native speaker of English. Your claim that "Every student is a member of college." is awkward is incredibly absurd. Do you also think that "Every ship has a captain." is awkward? Do you think [shaking my head] that, "All ships have a captain." is better? Polar Apposite (talk) 15:57, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

This isn't an article talk page, so see [7] regarding my thoughts on content discussion. VQuakr (talk) 03:48, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

I have to assume good faith throughout, and I have done so.

Here is the woefully inadequate and inaccurate edit summary VQuaker appended when reverting all but one (about seven) of the changes that I had made to the text of the article:

"Rv wordiness, further overloading of first paragraph, other non-improvements. Retained the new source less unnecessary quote and the grammar fix."

Wikipedia rules say you should revert only the bad parts of an edit, leaving the good parts. And where possible the, bad parts should be improved if possible, with full reversion of the part being an action of last resort. VQuaker reverted about seven separate edits of mine, many of which had a edit summary, with a single reversion, and with zero specific explanation, just the vague, short, and inaccurate edit summary you see above. The edit summary looks like an extremely rushed job and is extremely badly written. It is unclear what, "Retained the new source less unnecessary quote and the grammar fix." means. At first glance, it looks like it might mean that neither "the grammar fix" nor "the unnecessary quote" were retained.

This unjustified group of reversions comes after I had already presented arguments as to why previous reversions by him were bad. He just ignored my arguments, with the exception of perhaps one in ten of them, where he could catch me out in some inconsequential error, or was able to split a hair, such as when he corrected my claim that he had a hundred thousand edits to my one thousand, pointing out, accurately but trivially that he had "only" about forty thousand edits. I think he just could not and cannot fault my arguments, and yet this did not stop this very harmful reversion of about seven good edits of mine to the lead section of the University of Oxford article, which gets about 130,000 views a month. That's a lot of people each month that suffer a small but real disservice due to what VQuaker has done here. About seven times 130,000 times a month, which is about a million times a month. This is nothing compared to the effect of discouraging me by reverting nearly every edit I make, regardless of how good. The harm to me is very minor, and may even be good for me (pushing me away from Wikipedia, and towards paid copyediting, and other paid writing work). The harm to Wikipedia and to its readers is huge, though. I was adding about a million dollars worth of value (my estimate, and I think it is a conservative estimate) to the lives of Wikipedia's readers with each quarter year of copyediting I did for Wikipedia. But I have not edited Wikipedia articles lately, and at this rate may not start again, ever. I could create a new account, but I prefer to confront this matter head on.

Here is the entire reversion VQuaker made: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=University_of_Oxford&diff=next&oldid=1197471226

Below is a copypaste of it, with my comments cut into it, enclosed in numbered square brackets.

Line 37:

The '''University of Oxford''' is a [[collegiate university|collegiate]] [[research university]] in [[Oxford]], England. There is evidence that there wasof teaching as early as 1096,<ref name="OxHist" /> [1. The reverted version here is worse, because it seems to imply that the evidence exists (i.e. existed) in 1096. It's not exactly misleading, because the context rules out this absurd implication, but it is bad English, and a distraction.] making it the oldest university in the [[English-speaking world]] and the world's second-oldest university in continuous operation, after the [[University of Bologna]].[The post-revert version is worse, because the reader will wonder what it is second to, and will be on the horns of dilemma as to whether to click on the relevant link to find out, and if reading the article on paper (or e-paper, of course), will be torn as to whether to invest the very considerable time needed in this situation to find out what it is second to]<ref name="OxHist" /><ref>{{cite book|author=Sager, Peter|year=2005|title=Oxford and Cambridge: An Uncommon History|page=36}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.timeshighereducation.com/student/best-universities/top-50-universities-reputation|title=The top 50 universities by reputation|date=3 November 2020|website=Times Higher Education |access-date=26 November 2020|archive-date=24 October 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211024172157/https://www.timeshighereducation.com/student/best-universities/top-50-universities-reputation|url-status=live}}</ref> It grew rapidly from 1167, when [[Henry II of England|Henry II]] banned English students from attending the [[University of Paris]].<ref name="OxHist" /> After disputes between students and Oxford townsfolk in 1209, some academics fled north-east to [[Cambridge]] where they established what became the [[University of Cambridge]].<ref name="Early records">{{cite web|url=http://www.cam.ac.uk/about-the-university/history/early-records|title=Early records|publisher=University of Cambridge|date=28 January 2013|access-date=10 October 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131011174430/http://www.cam.ac.uk/about-the-university/history/early-records|archive-date=11 October 2013|url-status=live}}</ref> The two English Oxfordancient University and Cambridge Universityuniversities [After the revert, it's not immediately obvious what "the two ancient universities" refers to.] haveshare many similaritiescommon features [After reversion, there is redundancy. The two have many things in common. The two are similar in many ways. There are many similarities between the two. There are many common features. They share many features. There is no problem with any of those five statements. But "they share many common features" contains redundancy, which is bad English, and therefore distracts the readers attention away from the intended meaning and towards the low quality of the prose, and of course makes Wikipedia look bad. It's especially distracting to see such bad English prose in the lead section of an article about a renowned university in England. And the name of *this* renowned university is a byword for correct English. There is a book called "Oxford English", for example, that states the rules of good English writing. The reader is liable to go off on a tangent (I did), wondering about who wrote or copyedited the lead section, and how many of the editors were staff, students, or alumni of the institution.] and are often jointly [The post revert version is worse, because "Oxford and Cambridge" is also a common way of jointly referring to the universities, as well as "Oxford University and Cambridge University", "Cambridge University and Oxford University", and cutting the word "often" creates the false impression that "Oxbridge" is the only way the two are jointly referred to, and also suggests that this might be standard usage in formal English, which it is not. The fact that "Oxbridge" was originally the name of a fictional university suggests that the term will never be completely acceptable in formal English.] referred to as ''[[Oxbridge]]''.<ref>{{cite web| title=Oxbridge|url=http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/135559 | website=oed.com|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|quote=Originally: a fictional university, esp. regarded as a composite of Oxford and Cambridge. Subsequently also (now esp.): the universities of Oxford and Cambridge regarded together, esp. in contrast to other British universities. ''adj'' Of, relating to, characteristic of, or reminiscent of Oxbridge (freq. with implication of superior social or intellectual status |edition = 3rd |year=2005}}</ref> [Removing the hover note might have been reasonable. I don't know enough about the rules of Wikipedia to properly evaluate this reversion. My feeling is that reversion made the article worse.]

The University of Oxford is made up of [[Colleges of the University of Oxford|thirty-nine semi-autonomous constituent colleges]], four [[permanent private hall]]s, and a range of academic departments. The latterwhich are organised into four [[Divisions of the University of Oxford|divisions]]. [This reversion makes the article worse, because the text is then less clear. It isn't clear that it is only the academic departments that are organized into four divisions, rather than the academic departments together with the four private halls, or even everything in the list i.e the entire university.]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ox.ac.uk/divisions/index.html|title=Oxford divisions|access-date=26 November 2013|publisher=University of Oxford|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131020114217/http://www.ox.ac.uk/divisions/index.html|archive-date=20 October 2013|url-status=live}}</ref> Each college is a self-governing institution within the university, controlling its own membership and having its own internal structure and activities.[It's interesting note that VQuaker didn't revert, or even comment on the preceding sentence, which where I had replaced some unfortunate plurals with singular forms. I would have expected VQuaker to claim, as usual, that this is a case of enforcing a grammatical rule I made up (utter nonsense, by the way, as I explained to him, but he ignored my explanation, and he simply made this type of claim again, quite casually, as a naked assertion (as usual) a few days later.) As usual, VQuaker did not thank me, praise the edit, or even mention this edit that I did that was okay in his judgement.] EveryAll studentstudents isare a membermembers of a college.[This reversion makes the article worse, because it makes that article less clear. It leaves open the possibility that all students are members of the same college. You might as well change "Every ship has a captain." to "All ships have a captain." Not only is it not an improvement, it is worse, because is sounds like it might mean that there is a captain of all ships. An admiral, or God, perhaps, in some mystical sense.]<ref name=CollegesandHalls /> The universityIt does not have a main campus, and its buildings and facilities are scattered throughout the city centre.[This reversion results in it not being immediately clear what "It" refers to. It looks like it might be the "college" referred to in the previous sentence. Normally "it", used like this, does refer to the latest prior singular noun. In fact, it shouldn't refer to the word "college". It should refer to the university as a whole. It is not the case that each college is scattered throughout the city center. It looks like VQuaker thinks it is the case.] [[Undergraduate education|Undergraduate teaching]] at Oxford consists of lectures, small-group [[Tutorial system|tutorials]] at the colleges and halls, seminars, laboratory work, and occasionally further tutorials provided by the central university faculties and departments. [The reversion removes my Oxford comma (the irony of it), creating a bad sentence that implies that "laboratory work and occasionally further tutorials provided by the central university faculties and departments" is in some sense a single thing or single type of thing, like "the colleges and halls" really are.] [[Postgraduate education|Postgraduate teaching]] is provided in a predominantly centralised fashion. [This reversion makes the article worse. VQuaker claimed in his edit summary to be reducing wordiness, and yet here he adds several words for no good reason, and in the process hurts readability.] Polar Apposite (talk) 16:40, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

I think you are severely wasting your time. - DVdm (talk) 18:12, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Why do you think that? Polar Apposite (talk) 14:56, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Legal threats

Your recent edits to User_talk:Polar_Apposite could give Wikipedia contributors the impression that you may consider legal or other "off-wiki" action against them, or against Wikipedia itself. Please note that making such threats on Wikipedia is strictly prohibited under Wikipedia's policies on legal threats and civility. Users who make such threats may be blocked. If you have a dispute with the content of any page on Wikipedia, please follow the proper channels for dispute resolution. Please be sure to comment on content, not contributors, and where possible make specific suggestions for changes supported by reliable independent sources and focusing especially on verifiable errors of fact. Thank you.

This is regarding the phrases in this message:

• "You may even have broken the law of the land in some way. There are laws against slander, libel, and such like things and I might be able to sue you."
• "I think you are possibly guilty of hounding, possibly aggravated by extreme (possibly libelous) incivility."

- DVdm (talk) 10:39, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

@DVdm You wrote, " Your recent edits to User_talk:Polar_Apposite could give Wikipedia contributors the impression that you may consider legal or other "off-wiki" action against them, or against Wikipedia itself."

Your point is a reasonable one. Thank you for giving your opinion. I did not mean to give the impression that I might consider legal action against any contributor or against Wikipedia. I did not at any time consider either of those options. I was only pointing how serious the incivility was, and therefore how great the danger of getting blocked for that was. I certainly did not threaten legal action.

Thank you for all the other good points you made in your post.

I will be more careful in future. Polar Apposite (talk) 15:40, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Given WP:REDACT, you might consider using <del> and </del> tag pairs to strike the relevant parts. - DVdm (talk) 16:58, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the editing tip. I have wondered for a long time how the struckthrough script was generated. On the other hand, I think it would be redundant (and therefore poor writing) to strike through text that I have already clarified in an appended comment. Also, it would not be clear whether the striking through occurred before or after the clarification, which would be bad writing, and before or after my associated apology for any misunderstanding. It was a rather generous apology, considering that I did nothing wrong, and am still waiting for an apology from @VQuaker for calling my mental health into question, which *was* (very) wrong of him.

Please bear in mind that mind that all I did was discuss the possibility that the text was libelous. "A discussion as to whether material is libelous is not a legal threat." says Wikipedia:No legal threats#Defamation Polar Apposite (talk) 16:16, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Be very careful.

And by the way, an enforced apology is worth nothing. Nobody owes you anything on Wikipedia. - DVdm (talk) 19:26, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

In your opinion, does anyone owe anything to Wikipedia's readers? Polar Apposite (talk) 16:48, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

I most certainly did not call your mental health into question. VQuakr (talk) 03:46, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

I think you did, and I believe I can prove it. Polar Apposite (talk) 16:47, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

sigmoid colon redux

In the sigmoid colon discussion that you initiated, you cited a source that specified the typical length of the sigmoid colon as 35-40 cm, but expressed doubt as to the accuracy of that information, and you asked for my thoughts on the matter.

My response was that you should explain how other editors ought to respond to your question.

So that's my question ... you've had another 3 months worth of editing experience under your belt. If an editor encounters a source with this information about the average length of the sigmoid colon yet they have some doubt about the accuracy of that measurement, then based on how Wikipedia operates, what would you suggest as the appropriate response for the editor to make? Fabrickator (talk) 09:23, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Here (User talk:Graham Beards#Please advise me regarding dealing with Fabrickator.) Graham Beards kindly advised us as follows: "Since you asked for my advice, I suggest you simply disengage with one another because this would be the for best for the project." How about we follow his suggestion? Polar Apposite (talk) 15:55, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

It was a mere suggestion, and not something I agreed to. Meawhile, my question for you remains outstanding. This is a very basic question. You had identified a source that stated the typical length of the sigmoid colon. How would you advise an editor who had asked you about a situation such as this, where the editor is skeptical of the accuracy of certain information? Fabrickator (talk) 18:41, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Why are you so interested in me? Polar Apposite (talk) 12:31, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

I'm not going to directly respond to your question, but I'm going to relate to you something I just encountered while looking through my "recent changes" (which it is just my "wont" to do from time to time). As you'll recall, the word "hypercorrection" came up on your talk page, which had motivated me to look at the article on that term, and which resulted in my making a couple of edits to the hypercorrection article. But today I noticed you had previously made an edit to the "hypercorrection" article in which you inferred a distinction in meaning between "overapply"/"overapplied" and "over-apply"/"over-applied". You inferred this based on looking at two sources which presumably used the two different spellings (i.e. with and without the hyphen) in presumably different contexts.

What more can I say? You completely synthesized this rule about "overapply" and "over-apply" having different meanings (though I am not suggesting this violates WP:NOR). I will simply state (with a somewhat humorous "Judge Judy" sense) That's outrageous"!

You can't just look at two different unrelated texts and presume that's sufficient to infer this distinction, especially when you have no demonstrated expertise in lexicography. That's just outrageous!!! Fabrickator (talk) 17:34, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

I would suggest an interaction ban for you guys (whether it be one-way or two-way). —asparagusus (interaction) ^sprouts! 17:39, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

In hopes of avoiding a permanent ban, I will agree to a 60-day interaction ban. Fabrickator (talk) 19:04, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Why do hope to avoid a permanent ban? Polar Apposite (talk) 14:58, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

An interaction ban would be a good solution, IMHO, because there is no reason for us to communicate or to revert each other's edits. I think it should be permanent, because if by some sort of miracle Fabricator mends his ways, the ban can be lifted by the powers that be, and a temporary ban would be like a (figurative) ticking time bomb, from my point of view.

I don't care much whether it is one-way or two-way, as long as Fabricator can't continue to communicate with me nor continue to revert my edits. The latter behavior is currently a major hassle for me. OTOH, a no fault two-way ban would not signal to Fabricator that he had done anything wrong, and I think he has done a lot wrong by reverting good edits of mine without proper discussion, and by posting frequently on my user page even after I said I was done with him (here: User talk:Polar Apposite#I am not, and never was, with you, Fabrickator.), and might suggest to some that both of us were at fault, when in reality, only Fabrickator was at fault in this matter. But, I would indeed be content with a two-way ban, as long as it is permanent. Polar Apposite (talk) 15:24, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

You should allow for the possibility that I can mend my ways and that our communications can be useful at some point in the future. You will note that there had been communications in the past which I believe you considered to be useful. The intention isn't one of extracting some punishment but to have the party or parties involved give greater consideration to how they interact. Additionally, adhering to these bans for extended periods simply makes every activity fraught with the risk of inadvertently doing something that violates the ban.

So this is a measure of compromise. From my perspective, this is essentially a one-way ban, because I had never objected to communications from you. It is also a reminder that (following the 60-day period) if I'm going to interact with you, I need to do so in a more respectful way, as well as an acceptance on your part of the possibility that I can indeed do that. Fabrickator (talk) 15:59, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

I have repeatedly told you that I do not want you to communicate with me. Why do you want to communicate with someone who does not want to communicate with you? Polar Apposite (talk) 16:11, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

And yet here we are, communicating again. Okay, so the interaction ban isn't in effect, and we are trying to have a useful communication. Kind of ironic, isn't it?

I believe you are really saying that you don't want to receive any criticism from me, and more generally, you just want me to leave your edits alone. Why not just generalize that further and say that you want nobody to criticize your edits and that everybody should leave your edits alone?

Of course, that's not an option. What I'm asking is that you assume good faith that after the 60 days, I will exercise greater judgment in interacting with you. 17:15, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

User:Fabrickator: interaction bans are usually put in place by an admin. What you are proposing is voluntarily not interacting with Polar Apposite for an arbitrary amount of time. This cannot be enforced, and you probably cannot be given any consequences for not following it. —asparagusus (interaction) ^sprouts! 17:40, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

User:Asparagusus/Sprouts I presume that interaction bans are not automatically granted, which would seem sensible since an interaction ban grants immunity from criticism by the banned user. So if I were to violate this interaction ban, that would be the basis for granting an "official" interaction ban. That's certainly not nothing. Fabrickator (talk) 19:01, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

I forgot to say something.

If Fabricator is banned from interacting with me by a one-way ban, I promise to, to the best of my ability, avoid interacting with him. Polar Apposite (talk) 19:17, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Please clarify whether you're responding to the proposal for a 60-day voluntary ban on my part. That is what I have put on the table. Fabrickator (talk) 20:11, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

I took your proposal into account.

To be clear, I mean that if Fabricator is banned from interacting with me by a one-way ban, whether temporary or permanent, I promise to, to the best of my ability, avoid interacting with him for the duration of the ban (which I think would ideally be permanent, although that is not up to me). Polar Apposite (talk) 18:21, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

I agree, of course. I have posted on the ANI noticeboard about this, just now. Here's the link: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Please ban Fabrickator from interacting with me. Polar Apposite (talk) 21:26, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Some stroopwafels for you!

Have a good day! —asparagusus (interaction) sprouts! 18:49, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. Polar Apposite (talk) 15:03, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

ANI and Fabrickator question

I posted a request on the ANI noticeboard for Fabricator to be permanently banned from interacting with me a few hours ago. Here's the link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#Please_ban_Fabrickator_from_interacting_with_me. On the one hand, I feel like I should correct every false claim made about me, but on the other, I don't want to be accused of "bludgeoning the conversation" (a term of art used only by Wikipedians, it seems ). So what should I do? Can someone perhaps tell me roughly what percentage of claims that I think are false, that are made in the ANI thread that I've started, I should ignore, and what percentage I should comment on?

It's not bludgeoning to civilly respond to arguments/posts made in and of itself; it might be if, say, if you had a snarky response to every comment about you. I would make a single, calm comment responding to claims made about you. 331dot (talk) 08:08, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

@331dot Sorry, do you mean a single, calm comment for *each* claim made about me? Polar Apposite (talk) 22:28, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

I would make a single comment responding to everything, not a comment for each post. 331dot (talk) 23:03, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

One comment that contains within it several responses, one for each claim? And if so, do you think it would be alright if, within the single comment, I ping each person that made each claim that I respond to? Polar Apposite (talk) 00:02, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Minor thing

You may want to consider Help:Archiving (plain and simple). Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:33, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. Should I be archiving something? Polar Apposite (talk) 22:31, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

I was thinking of this talkpage. It could save some people some scrolling. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 23:17, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

I thought you might be.

Graham Beards archives his talk page quite often. How does it save people from scrolling? I found GB's talk page *harder* to use, after he had archived the part I was interested in (BTW I am a bit clueless with technical aspects of Wikipedia). I normally get around my talk page using control F.

What do have in mind as an archiving format? Polar Apposite (talk) 00:08, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

My default assumption is that a page with less text on it requires people to scroll less. I have no personal preference on archiving format, IMO the one applied by the Help:Archiving (plain and simple) method works well enough, it's what I use at my talkpage. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:15, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Second ANI and Fabrickator question

Primarily in the hope of stopping Fabricator from reverting good edits of mine, I asked here at ANI for Fabrickator to be banned from interacting with me.

I asked what I could do to avoid being accused of "bludgeoning the conversation". In accordance with the response here, I posted one comment containing all my responses. I still got accused of "bludgeoning".

And there was a second round of claims I think are false. So should I post *another* single calm comment containing my responses? Or do two singles make a double? :) Also, could someone tell me whether I did the right thing by replying to myself like I did?

PS I get that I should have put my links inside words, and it would have been a lot less work to do that at the time of writing than to copyedit the post later. I understand now that concision is highly valued on talk on pages, and not just in articles (even more than it is in articles? Just kidding), and I will act accordingly in future.

Shorter is always better. If you feel that you have something new which will positively contribute to a discussion, you should do so. If you have been warned against excessively posting, though, consider whether you need to post it. If you want more help, change the {{help me-helped}} back into a {{help me}}, stop by the Teahouse, or Wikipedia's live help channel, or the help desk to ask someone for assistance. Primefac (talk) 07:50, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

You changed the help me tag back without adding an additional question or context. I have deactivated the tag again - Rich^T|C|E-Mail 12:15, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

I did what I was told to do. Polar Apposite (talk) 12:39, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

March 2024

Please stop. If you continue to use talk pages for inappropriate discussion, as you did at Talk:Stereotypes of British people, you may be blocked from editing. Theroadislong (talk) 15:24, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

I looked at your links. What was inappropriate about my talk page comment about Mr. Bean that was deleted? Polar Apposite (talk) 15:47, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

”Mr. Bean is more of a clown minus the costume, I think. For sure he is very talented, but Mr. Bean is not Atkinson's best work. The simplicity of it, and that lack of spoken or written words of course makes it easy to export to all parts of the world. Hilariously (in a way) explorers and scientists making contact with nomadic tribes in the wilderness have often found (so I heard) them gathered around a single smartphone watching a Mr. Bean video. Fawlty Towers is highly regarded. Mr. Bean is merely popular”,

Talk pages are for discussing improvements to the article, not for giving our personal opinions on the topic. Theroadislong (talk) 15:54, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Point taken. I was trying to support my position that the article should not put Fawlty Towers and Mr. Bean together and say they are renowned. But I strayed off the subject at hand. Polar Apposite (talk) 14:11, 27 March 2024 (UTC)