User talk:Dying

I hope that the username does not refer to any real medical condition - Skysmith 11:49, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

actually, surprisingly enough, dying is my real name. additionally, i suppose the medical condition of being alive necessitates dying as far as i know, but aside from conditions such as this, i am unaware of having any other medical conditions that might hasten my demise. however, your concern for my health is much appreciated. dying 03:53, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, is the name pronounced any differently from the word "dying"? That's an interesting name. --Mr. Billion 06:46, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

no, it's pronounced in the same way, unless, of course, you happen to pronounce the word "dying" in an unorthodox manner, in which case, i'm not sure. dying 06:52, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Well, you've been here longer than I have, so welcome is a bit of an odd statement. Still, good to have you here and all that, sorry about the mpack business, and if you need any help, advice, or anything else, please do ask. I'm looking forward to your further contributions. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 18:04, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

this section is in completely the wrong place on your talk page. That'll teach me not to edit on a phone.Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 18:06, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Dying –

I'm trying to get some discussion going on two proposals regarding the current events page, but so far have gotten little to no response. Since you have recently edited the current events page, I'm asking for your input on these two proposals:

• One proposal (this is the big one) involves putting the daily events from the current events pages into article-templates, a lá the monthly pages from 2003 to 2005, as well and having a consistent number of recent days on the current events page instead of a monthly archive. This would allow for the current events page and the respective month pages to be updated simultaneously without the monthly archival. For more, see the current events talk page.

• Another proposal involves merging the content of the regional current events pages (such as British and Irish current events and Canadian current events) into fewer continental articles. For more, see the current events WikiProject talk page.

Your input on one or both of these issues would be appreciated. joturner 22:19, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

personally, i feel that the current events page is suffering from feature creep. if you look at how the current events page looked about a year ago, you'll see that the page was quite simpler, and just about as effective. adding unnecessary features adds to the clutter, and makes it harder for a new contributor to understand how the page works.

the first proposal would make adding an event to the page much more complicated than it is now. even though this style appears to be used in some of the archived current events pages, a cursory look at these pages' histories should show that this style was applied after the pages were archived. also, if contributors are not careful, the pages could end up being a mess, as all the useless daybars in the current june 2005 article attest.

as for the second proposal, the regional current events pages are currently useful as an effective compromise between people who think an event of significant local importance should appear on the main current events page, and those who feel otherwise because it is insignificant outside of the local area. merging these pages together seems to partially defeat the purpose. besides, the impact of a local event to the global community is often determined by political boundaries rather than continental ones.

anyway, that's just my opinion. in any case, i do appreciate the thought and effort that has been put into trying to improve this area of wikipedia. dying 21:30, 6 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Left a message for you at commons. -- Bryan (talk|commons) 20:37, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

i am sorry, but that user and i are not the same. my name is dying. the extra effort taken to attempt to reach this other user, however, is much appreciated. dying 13:29, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:51, 23 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Lenin's Testament, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Troika. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

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An article you recently created, Artik & Asti, does not have enough sources and citations as written to remain published. It needs more citations from reliable, independent sources. (?) Information that can't be referenced should be removed (verifiability is of central importance on Wikipedia). I've moved your draft to draftspace (with a prefix of "Draft:" before the article title) where you can incubate the article with minimal disruption. When you feel the article meets Wikipedia's general notability guideline and thus is ready for mainspace, please click on the "Submit your draft for review!" button at the top of the page. buidhe 02:16, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

May I know why you prefer using Twitter instead of the government health website on the Covid19 with data of patients? M nurhaikal (talk) 13:37, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

actually, i have no personal preference between a government's twitter account and a government's web page. if a government's twitter account has more current information than a government's web page, i would prefer to cite the twitter account. similarly, if a government's web page has more current information than a government's twitter account, i would prefer to cite the web page. dying (talk) 13:43, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Under the source. Cntrl+F

"n.  139 tamponi totali effettuati, di cui 54  risultati negativi, 77 positivi e 8 in attesa di esito."

77 positive M nurhaikal (talk) 08:10, 13 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

i left a comment next to the value in the table, hoping that this would help other editors understand how to properly interpret the source before updating the value. i have reproduced it below for your convenience.

please be careful when updating this statistic, as the official government statistics may be presented in a confusing way, with "casi positivi" referring not to patients who tested positive, but patients recovering. add this number to the number "decessi" (deceased) to obtain the correct number. the number of positive results may be different from this number, on the assumption that some cases were tested more than once.

further explanation as to why i believe this is the correct interpretation of the source can be found in the discussion of that source on the talk page, which i reproduce below.

the sammarinese government source appears to first mention 67 "casi positivi" and enumerate where they are recuperating (with all 67 accounted for in the enumeration) and then mention 5 "decessi", so i have always interpreted this as meaning that there are 72 cases, with 67 recovering and 5 deceased. i do not speak italian (aside from maybe "grazie mille"), so if you do (or anyone else does), could you confirm? i currently have the table at 72 cases.

please also note that the official source uses the wording "tamponi totali", which means "total swabs", instead of different wording that would imply that they were listing the number of total people tested rather than just the total number of swabs taken.

i believe other aggregate sources are stumbling upon the same issue, which serves to explain why official government sources are to be preferred over aggregate sources when citing a source, regardless of whether the aggregate source is simpler to interpret.

however, as stated above, i do not speak italian, so if you have a better interpretation of the source that more strongly implies that there are 77 different people who have tested positive, then please let me know. thanks in advance! dying (talk) 08:40, 13 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, for your interest, I reverted a number of wrong statements in your edit. Hope my comments help improve. Cheers, --Malyacko (talk) 08:16, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

We try to avoid these. Also unless you have a mechanism to keep the numbers associated with a higher quality source I am not supportive of switching from WorldOMeter again. It did not work last time we tried. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:53, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Dying,

Thank you for creating 2020 coronavirus pandemic in the Isle of Man.

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

Thank you for creating this article and it will be very helpful.

The tags can be removed by you or another editor once the issues they mention are addressed. If you have questions, leave a comment here and prepend it with {{Re|Abishe}}. And, don't forget to sign your reply with ~~~~. For broader editing help, please visit the Teahouse.

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

Abishe (talk) 02:42, 20 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

When adding new territories to Template:2019–20 coronavirus pandemic data, such as your addition of Uganda, please reflect the current version of the template and don't copy formatting from an older version.
For example, the padding on the country name field is now 0px 2px 0px 1px and not 0px 2px 0px 0px. Thanks. Zarex (talk) 22:43, 21 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

hey, can you pls answer our requested edits on the talk page of Talk:Diamond Princess (ship), Talk:Costa Luminosa and Talk:MSC Magnifica for accuracy of this current pandemic. thank you. 49.149.111.53 (talk) 00:12, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for spotting this. I didn't get an edit conflict! Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 19:03, 24 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Your username is nefarious, iniquitous, unspeakable and intolerable! Poppycock! --Civilised Gentleman (talk) 13:16, 26 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. Would you please look at Help:Footnotes#Footnotes: using a source more than once, when using one multiple times, as you did here and more than once? Thanks. Wyliepedia @ 00:08, 30 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

	The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
	Thanks for helping me out in the George Floyd protests article. LoreMaster22 (talk) 05:50, 30 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Please do not use styles that are unusual, inappropriate or difficult to understand in articles, as you did in List of George Floyd protests. There is a Manual of Style, and edits should not deliberately go against it without special reason. Specifically, you can refer to MOS:DATES for formatting dates. —Bagumba (talk) 12:22, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Dying: Thanks for going ahead and doing the split of the List of monuments and memorials removed during the George Floyd protests (A) page with the new List of name changes due to the George Floyd protests (B) page. I hope you will continue to "patrol" A in order to snag entries that really belong in B.

I'm already seeing more "citizen petitions" being added to A in the "Removals under consideration" section. (sigh) I'm sorry, but sending in a citizen petition does not mean anything is under consideration. Maybe I should add a third bullet-point category "Citizen petitions" for people to plop their latest news "finds" into, and quit trying to fight against the blitz of google search results that people get excited about. The "Citizen petitions" section can always be deleted in the future when this movement winds down and this all becomes history.

Brundage: LOL, I finally saw the "Others" section (which I think I created a week ago). I was looking at the table of contents and thought to myself "He ain't a confederate, he ain't a conquester, it's artwork but not a non-sculpture. Oh crap, nowhere to put him." You're right, there's an "other section" he could have gone into. Still I feel strongly about some of these corporate "me too" decisions. I really don't think the Brundage was related to any George Floyd protests. But I won't object to someone adding Brundage somewhere, even under Other.

We're seeing all the downsides as mentioned in the Wikipedia:Recentism policy. But I think the onslaught is too great to fight against. (grin)

— Normal Op (talk) 13:26, 23 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Dying: i notice that you added on your new page a subheading titled "Decisions pending". It has just attracted Deisenbe's first "people would love THIS to happen" addition. Brigham Young will NEVER change their university name, and the gist of the article sounds like it was written by an EX-Mormon (meaning no one in LDS will ever listen to that person or his petition). I think Deisenbe is more hopeful that these changes come to fruition; someone needs to evaluate whether these petition claims have any clout whatsoever. She's gungho on the "rename Columbus, Ohio" movement, which will never happen. Reminder... WP:RECENTISM. You might want to rename that section, or add a leading sentence to clarify what should be included in it. I'm probably going to stay off your new page (except to plunk something in there that incorrectly showed up on the monuments page). So you might have to police your new page (if that's a hat you want to wear). Normal Op (talk) 14:18, 23 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'd appreciate it is you stopped collapsing cites, as you just did on List of name changes due to the George Floyd protests. Doing so makes them harder to consult or use in the future and serves no purpose at all. Please. deisenbe (talk) 12:48, 6 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

		WikiProject Ships Barnstar
		Awarded for creating MV Rhosus, per the bounty offered at WT:SHIPS. Mjroots (talk) 17:34, 5 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there, I'm MDanielsBot. I just wanted to let you know that Draft:Artik & Asti, a page you created, has not been edited in 5 months. The Articles for Creation space is not an indefinite storage location for content that is not appropriate for articlespace.

If your submission is not edited soon, it could be nominated for deletion. If you would like to attempt to save it, you will need to improve it.

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Thank you for your attention. MDanielsBot (talk) 03:40, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You are recipient no. 2439 of Precious, a prize of QAI. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:24, 30 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

oh, wow, i am honored. thank you very much, Gerda Arendt! your award is much appreciated. dying (talk) 23:54, 30 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! 👋 I refactored the discussion at Talk:List_of_George_Floyd_protests_outside_the_United_States#Countries_in_western_Europe to fit the traditional consensus format, and I listed your position as neutral based on your statement. I wanted to make you aware, so that you can change it if that's not your position. Thanks! — motevets (talk) 16:42, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

motevets, thank you for trying to help, but i have reverted your change to my comment. i did not mark my comment as neutral because i was not neutral on the matter. by the way, it is generally not a good idea to add or change a vote for another user without their prior consent.

in any case, thanks for notifying me of your edit. dying (talk) 04:07, 21 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! Voting in the 2020 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 7 December 2020. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate in the 2020 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:14, 24 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There is a photo of the vehicle which is clearly a 2000 model. A photo can be the reference. Google it.

I'm not going to contest your revert... just ask that you rethink it.

Thanks

Wiki-psyc (talk) 18:14, 28 December 2020 (UTC).[reply]

Thanks again for the exceptionally thorough rationale regarding computerized female voices, they sure don't necessarily emanate from gadgets born with a gidget, I see how I was wrong. Feel a little bad for inspiring you to type so much, but that mountain does stand on its own as a monument to absurdity, in my opinion, good stuff. Where do you stand on "ghost pirate" versus "pirate ghost" (in 25 words or less, if you want, no pressure!)? InedibleHulk (talk) 05:06, 29 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• a ghost pirate pirates ghosts.
• a pirate ghost ghosts pirates.
• if you leave sketchy ghost dealers on read,
• you're a pirate ghost ghosting ghost pirates.

sorry for taking more than two years to get back to you, InedibleHulk. it was difficult to get my thoughts down to 25 words. dying (talk) 05:07, 29 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The important thing is that you nailed it, not when; good stuff! InedibleHulk (talk) 05:43, 31 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Dying. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or Draft page you started, "Artik & Asti".

In accordance with our policy that Wikipedia is not for the indefinite hosting of material deemed unsuitable for the encyclopedia mainspace, the draft has been nominated for deletion. If you plan on working on it further, or editing it to address the issues raised if it was declined, simply edit the submission and remove the {{db-afc}}, {{db-draft}}, or {{db-g13}} code.

If your submission has already been deleted by the time you get there, and you wish to retrieve it, you can request its undeletion by following the instructions at this link. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the submission so you can continue to work on it.

Thank you for your submission to Wikipedia! UnitedStatesian (talk) 02:32, 12 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

What I mean by that is there's something you may or may not already know, and that would be this (following sentence): If you would have left that one low-profile living person named on the talk page, I wouldn't have held it against you, and wasn't exactly suggesting you should change your mind. But if you simply heard it and agreed of your own volition, that's simply beautiful. Like when a monster almost bites a poor merchant's head off for one little white rose, sets a rather harsh deadline and even worse terms of repayment, then his best daughter is like, "No, no, it's cool. He sounds at least half-reasonable. I'll fix the rest." And then just when the crowd is calling her stupid for it, BAM...happily ever after!

P.S. Ever wonder why nobody seems to care about Jay Baker's low-key, previously unknown privatish life?

P.S.S. Did you know you laid down a perfectly round 2,000-byter at precisely two minutes to midnight? Cool. Thanks! InedibleHulk (talk) 01:49, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

InedibleHulk, i admittedly had not even considered what my view was on the issue you had raised before you had raised it. considering that the victims' names have already been thoroughly publicized in multiple reliable sources worldwide, and i was unfamiliar with any reliable sources imposing a relevant publication restriction or moratorium, i had figured that the issue was a question of presentation rather than that of revelation. however, after you had brought up the issue and made your point, i fully agreed with you.

had i personally been in the same situation as the injured, i do not believe i would have minded either way, but i cannot presume that the injured party shares similar sentiments.

thanks for raising the issue. dying (talk) 13:59, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Good to know! InedibleHulk (talk) 20:42, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

p.s. regarding baker, perhaps ... it was a really bad day for him and this is what he did.

Hello, Dying. You are right, a link should appear only once in an article. I made a mistake, appreciated. AbDaryaee (talk) 12:36, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

love your name

Regards, Jeromi Mikhael 05:48, 7 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Just to say thanks for this change. I logged back in precisely to do something to that effect. After saying "claimed", I realised I was not too happy with the new wording. I was planning to say that she "provides an account etc.", though you beat me to the punch and your revision is an improvement. So thanks again. --Juicy Oranges (talk) 13:48, 10 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

	The Barnstar of Diligence
	Hi, thank you for inspecting my edits at KRI Nanggala. You are keeping Wikipedia as a reliable source of information for the public. Regards, Jeromi Mikhael 15:31, 1 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Belfast Marathon, to which you have significantly contributed, is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or if it should be deleted.

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Thanks for the careful editing! We're within a few characters of the upper limit (1025) ... what do you think of shortening this to "using a variety of attacks"? - Dank (push to talk) 10:46, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

thanks for the compliment, Dank!

i see no significant issue with what you propose. i had commented out "magical" instead of "fart" in case the mention of the latter was meant as a hook, but if all those modifiers were removed altogether, "using a variety of attacks to combat" can also probably be replaced with "fighting", since the act of fighting generally implies the use of attacks, and noting that there are a variety of such attacks is likely not going to be of significant utility to the reader. ("fighting" was chosen to avoid the issue of "combating" versus "combatting".)

if the character limit is still an issue, i would take out "whimsical" and "freely", and replace "a lack of " with "un". dying (talk) 23:18, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"fighting" works for me. Thanks again. - Dank (push to talk) 23:41, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

glad to be of service. dying (talk) 00:43, 5 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I just finished reviewing your July and August TFA edits ... I'm impressed on the copyediting points. I didn't personally review factual points, but you didn't get much pushback that I could see, so you must have been doing a good job there too. Would it be possible for you to get all your blurb copyediting done at least 48 hours before each blurb hits the Main Page? People may have points they want to make, or questions to ask, or there may be sources that disagree. - Dank (push to talk) 15:00, 24 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

sure, Dank. admittedly, i have been trying to give myself an internal deadline of 48 hours before a blurb is featured, for the same reasons that you have mentioned, but i have been falling behind recently, and i had preferred not to sacrifice quality in order to hit a self-imposed deadline that no one else appeared to care about. although my edit today will obviously be late, in the future, i will make an extra effort to adhere to the deadline. thanks for the feedback. dying (talk) 12:41, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I sympathize ... for such an important job, it does sometimes seem like people don't care much (until something goes wrong :) - Dank (push to talk) 12:55, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

oh, sorry, Dank! i had not meant to attempt to elicit sympathy with that last comment. i probably could have worded it better, but "no one else appeared to care about" was deliberately left slightly ambiguous to accommodate for both the interpretation that no one would care for an internal deadline of mine (since it was, after all, internal) and the interpretation that other editors also edit blurbs after the 48-hour mark (as i think they should if they believe they have found an error).^[a] i don't use social media, and forgot how contributions there are often made to solicit sympathy and praise. that being said, your sympathy (and praise) is much appreciated! dying (talk) 14:52, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Re: Wikipedia:Today's featured article/August 27, 2021, now that I'm active at TFA again, I will occasionally make edits after yours (and I think I can generally get them in before the 48-hour self-imposed deadline). You can always feel free to revert these, or discuss them here or at the blurb or at WP:ERRORS - Dank (push to talk) 15:47, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  it's good to see someone else making edits after me, since that generally means that someone has looked at my edit to make sure i haven't done anything egregious. of course, i would also be happy to discuss any of my edits that you do find questionable. i don't recall seeing an edit of yours that i would have reverted, and actually find it interesting that your recent edits have been very similar to ones i was thinking of making. for example, i had also considered dropping the hyphen in "non-profit", but ended up leaving it as is, since i wasn't sure what sources would be appropriate to use to determine if it should be hyphenated. i was also considering rephrasing "one of the greatest films ever made", especially since the film isn't even mentioned in the linked article, but i didn't think i had the experience to rephrase it appropriately. dying (talk) 14:52, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Wikipedia:Today's featured article/August 30, 2021: I need to decide what my role is here. Like everyone else, I have a tendency to work hard and take chances at first in a new job, but eventually I lose interest and become more risk-averse. But I want to avoid the mistake of simply occupying a slot as a TFA coord without actually doing anything ... that wouldn't be helpful for Wikipedia or for me. So, I have some questions about your edit: why do you prefer "likely" (as an adverb) to "probably", and "due to" to "caused by"? (I'm not completely clueless here, but if "caused by" is problematic, I've got a different solution in mind.) Does "a British novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer" have the same connotations and denotations as "a British writer of novels, short stories, plays, essays, biographies, and travelogues" (and, if not the same, is the change an improvement?) Most of your edits have been very helpful and minimal ... this one, maybe not so much, but I'd like to hear your reasoning. - Dank (push to talk) 22:34, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  the parts of the edit you are questioning were all made due to the addition of the marriage in the chronological part of the blurb; i would have normally left the other mentioned sections as is, but had implemented the changes to make space for the addition. i had actually agonized for hours over whether or not those changes were appropriate, for the same reasons that you are bringing up, but in the end, i had felt that the changes were a net positive contribution.^[b] i noticed that you had originally questioned the addition of the marriage before withdrawing your question hours later, so i think we both may have spent hours agonizing over it. if so, then i apologize for the time spent! i also apologize in advance for this lengthy response, but hopefully, this will help elucidate my general pattern of thinking when making these edits, so it will be easier to understand my edits in the future, and also allow you to critique what i may have gotten wrong.

  when i had first read the sentence beginning with "In 1822, her husband died", i was so confused that i had wondered whom "her husband" was referring to. i think i may have been expecting the marriage to be mentioned in the chronology because percy was introduced in the chronology as "the married Percy Shelley", implying that there was a later change in marital status at some point which may be of interest. however, since the chronology had not mentioned when they were married, i had wondered if mary shelley had another husband that died, or if "her" was referring to someone other than mary shelley (perhaps claire or mary's mother mary). i think the confusion had derailed me seriously enough that i ended up going to the article for clarification before reading the rest of the blurb, which i generally take as a sign that something should be changed. the wording i eventually used to state their marriage and percy's death was simply the shortest wording i could think of that did not significantly change the tone and did not feel like it was missing something.^[c] also, "her husband" was changed to "Percy" simply because it was shorter.

  regarding the list of professions, i had felt that the list was a bit excessive, especially since the professions were all related and could all fit under the description of "writer". in addition, although i may be wrong about this, my general understanding of the use of a list of professions in wikipedia is that the person described is strongly associated with that profession, to the point that no more than a few professions should be listed.^[d] so, although shelley may have been, for example, a short story writer in the sense that she has written short stories, describing her as a "short story writer" in the first sentence of the blurb may be technically correct but feels hollow, especially since the article itself appears to note that she was described as a "hack writer" with respect to such stories, and that she herself considered her stories to be of poor quality. that being said, i think both of these issues were more a matter of personal style, and i ordinarily would have ignored them, but surprisingly, the issue that stood out most to me was the use of the word "writer" twice, in "short story writer" and "travel writer", and on distant locations on the list. this seemed a bit redundant and clumsy to me, and did not appear easily solvable by rearrangement.^[e] however, moving "writer" to the root of the list appeared to fix all the issues stated above, so i ended up doing so when i realized that i was over the character limit, and that the change would shorten the blurb.

  although i think the original list of professions and my replacement do not have exactly the same connotations and denotations, i do not think the differences are significant, as the article itself actually no longer uses the list of professions anyway,^[f] preferring to simply describe her as a novelist,^[g] and doesn't even mention some of the professions on the list anymore.^[h] in addition, because i realized that there may be nuances that i may be overlooking, i took care to use only words that currently appear in the article body in order to at least try to reflect what is actually in the article rather than choose my own words, which is why i used "travelogues" rather than "travel writings" and "plays" rather than "dramas". also, using "writer" as the primary profession does not seem too unusual, considering that this edit replaced the list of professions in the article's short description with "writer".

  regarding the cause of illness, i would actually prefer "probably caused by" simply because that leaves the original words untouched, but generally consider "probably caused by" and "likely due to" to be roughly equivalent (aside from length, of course).^[i] to me, both phrases describe the probability of the existence of a causal relationship as above 50%, but make no stronger statement regarding the probability.^[j] also, i feel the former phrase suggests that the causal relationship is more active than the latter phrase does, but had not considered this difference significant enough to try to find characters elsewhere to remove.^[k] i had actually looked for mention of her death in other sources for additional details, but all the ones i found after a cursory search either mentioned the brain tumor as the definitive cause or did not mention it at all.

  there were a few other characters that i was considering dropping, but ended up feeling that their removal was not easily justified. i was considering removing "Together" and possibly reordering the phrases in that clause to read "They travelled through Europe with Mary's stepsister, Claire Clairmont", but ended up leaving it as is since the altered phrasing does not rule out the possibility that mary and percy travelled separately. i was also considering dropping the comma after stepsister, as it would have also conformed with the style of introducing a name without a preceding comma that was used in the rest of the blurb, but as those other introductions were in separate sentences, the parallelism would not be as strong (if it was even noticed). in addition, i was debating replacing "was to kill her at the age of" with "killed her at age", reflecting the same words currently used in the article lead, but had felt that the wording used may have been deliberate, so i left it alone. also, the definite articles used before the professions in the second and third sentences (e.g., "the political philosopher William Godwin") look like they could be removed, but i prefer to drop articles, definite or indefinite, only when trying to improve parallelism.

  anyway, hope that all made sense. feel free to revert any of my changes if you feel that my reasoning does not justify the change. hope this helps! dying (talk) 14:52, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  All that makes sense, and gives me some background I needed. I'll make a few edits, and please let me know whether I made things worse or better. - Dank (push to talk) 16:36, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Since the existing blurb was written so long ago and the lead has changed a lot, I decided to just blow it up and start over. We rarely need to do this, and it's a good idea to talk with people before trying it, but sometimes it's the only way. - Dank (push to talk) 22:11, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Dank, i like the new blurb, and how it now focuses on a different aspect of shelley's life, considering that the biographical details of the older blurb had already been featured before. i had wondered earlier why the old blurb had largely focused on the first half of the article, but obviously i wasn't about to personally change that. three minor points:

  • the link to lardner's work should probably bypass the redirect by linking directly to List of works in Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopædia. also, although "cyclopaedia", being an english word, should normally not be spelt with the ligature 'æ' as per mos:ligature, the same guideline makes an exception for proper names, which the title "Cabinet Cyclopædia" is.^[l] i don't know if there are any other applicable exceptions that i am overlooking, but since the cyclopaedia's article itself appears to use the ligature inconsistently when stating the work's title, and wp:diacritics seems to hint to me that much drama can be found when dealing with such letters, i trust your judgement on whether the ligature's use will be appropriate here, though i merely wished to point out the issue in case you had missed it.
  • the travel book rambles was published in two volumes, so although it is a book in the sense that it is one long work, it is two books in the sense that it was bound into two separate stacks of paper. the rambles article first introduces it as a "travel narrative", possibly to bypass the issue, but also refers to it as a "travel book" later in the article. i think bypassing the issue by using "travel narrative" is a good idea, but this point is really minor, since the wording is correct as it stands.
  • i am not sure if "particularly as practised by women" is an appropriate way to describe the "cooperation and sympathy" that shelley advocates for, although i have not personally read rambles to confirm this. also, although the phrase "particularly as practised by women" is currently used in the shelley article's lead, it is unsourced, and does not appear to be backed up by the article itself. i don't think the article noted that shelley had made a distinction between how "cooperation and sympathy" was practised by women and how they were practised by men, and that if there was a distinction, the way they were practised by women was preferred when "reform[ing] civil society". the article does appear to associate such qualities with women when it states that shelley appeared to "propose[] that when female values triumph over violent and destructive masculinity, men will be freed to express the 'compassion, sympathy, and generosity' of their better natures", but i can't tell if this association was made by shelley, the cited critic, or a wikipedia editor. in addition, this statement appears to consider "cooperation and sympathy" as they were practised by men to be positive as well.
    by the way, i also think shelley's views on this issue (as well as her mother's influence) may have been evident since her early works, instead of just in rambles, one of her last works, but i do not think it is necessary to change the wording to express this.

  everything else looks good. thanks for the rewrite! dying (talk) 12:10, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Excellent feedback. How does it look now? - Dank (push to talk) 14:52, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Btw, regarding our thoughts about praise, sympathy, etc. above: see the first quote on my user page. I've never explained that or the other quotes on Wikipedia before, they're meant for meditation, but to me, the first quote means something like: emotions are intimately linked to thought and to life, and in general, they can't be consistently or successfully ignored or compartmentalized in the ways that some people imagine. Wikipedia suffers because of some of the cultural values we have regarding a broad range of common human reactions and emotions. So: I'm happy to praise people for doing good things, and I often feel sympathy, and I admit it when I do. - Dank (push to talk) 15:51, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  looks great, Dank. thanks for addressing those points!

  i'm actually familiar with the song, but because i have trouble hearing lyrics, i don't think i've ever analyzed the song's lyrics before, so thanks for sharing your interpretation with me. i agree that ignoring emotions is often not a good thing, and that wikipedia suffers from some cultural issues associated with this, but i don't think this is a fault that is specific to wikipedia. i feel that much of life online is simply a reflection of life offline (and vice versa), and when comparing wikipedia with offline projects of similar scope, i'd say wikipedia has been pretty successful. over the years, i think wikipedia has been able to successfully address some of these cultural issues, and i feel the project has become more welcoming as a result, but i would obviously assume that you have much more insight into this than i do.

  i think sincere praise or sympathy is almost always universally appreciated, so i think it is often a good idea to express it when you feel it. for example, can you imagine how happy i was when you dropped by my talk page and told me i was doing a good job? i was ecstatic. i still am. i had only mentioned earlier that i hadn't meant to elicit sympathy because it was a common issue back when i did use social media, on the rare occasions when i did. my humor is naturally self-deprecating (which is a problem) but it doesn't translate well to social media; when i was hoping for people to laugh at me with me, i got sympathy instead. (this is where it is okay to laugh at me with me.)

  by the way, i find it interesting that, not only are we are discussing the same thing that shelley was advocating for in her works, but we have been putting it into practice, as this whole discussion has been marked by cooperation and sympathy, and i'm happy that a well-written blurb has been produced so quickly as a result. dying (talk) 10:50, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Your enthusiasm is contagious! I enjoy working with you. - Dank (push to talk) 14:42, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  thanks, Dank! i enjoy working with you as well. dying (talk) 08:38, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Going forward, I'll explain some edits in edit summaries, and just say something like "partial revert" for some, in which case the explanation is that your edit didn't seem in line with past edits at FAC and TFA. (So for instance, you changed "constructed" to "built" and I changed it back; people haven't had a problem with the word "constructed", and it's generally not okay to substitute a slightly shorter word at TFA just to bring it under the character limit, there has to be a reason involving usage or convention among Wikipedians or reliable sources.) I'm not asserting that my editing style is perfect ... in fact, it's a given that styles change over time and that each new generation of writers gleefully overthrows established conventions. If I hang around TFA long enough, some day my ideas will seem outdated and people will start to revolt. But we don't seem to have reached that day yet. - Dank (push to talk) 14:50, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  thanks for reviewing my edits, Dank. i had not previously known that substituting shorter words to avoid breaking the character limit was frowned upon, so thanks for letting me know.

  also, previously, when i wasn't sure how the character limit was enforced, i had simply tried to not make blurbs longer than they already were. however, after you had mentioned to me that there was a 1025-character limit, i have been trying to edit blurbs down to that length. should i stop doing so? i had thought that i was being helpful, but i am no longer sure that that is the case.

  by the way, how exactly are the characters counted? when i had previously believed that the ideal length was roughly 1000 characters, i had considered parentheticals such as "(pictured)" and "(Full article...)" to be exempt. however, ever since you informed me of the limit, i have been interpreting this as a hard limit that encompassed everything save for a caption. also, the margins around the '×' character i had counted as two separate spaces, even though they weren't characters, strictly speaking. dying (talk) 08:49, 4 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  This is the website I use to count characters ... I just paste everything in, including "Full article" and anything about Featured Topics, but not including the image or caption. Yes, the limits are important, but adding that constraint might transform your job from "hard" to "much harder" ... so for now, just make whatever edits seem right to you without worrying about length, and then if the end result is less than say 900 or more than 1050, let me know please. - Dank (push to talk) 15:25, 4 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  sounds good, Dank. it's funny that you had suggested this, as i had also been thinking of simply notifying you when a blurb had broken 1050 characters instead of trying to shorten it myself. dying (talk) 00:30, 5 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• The Triumph of Cleopatra: The blurb on September 22 is only 814 characters, but that's not a mistake; User:Iridescent likes to make the image larger than normal, and people have generally gone along with that. - Dank (push to talk) 21:29, 4 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  ah, that explains why the blurb for the sirens and ulysses was shorter than usual. good to know. thanks. dying (talk) 00:30, 5 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• "Can't Get You Out of My Head" (blurb):

  Dank, i am skeptical about the claim that the song has hit the top of the charts in "every European country except Finland", but did not want to comment it out myself as it is a substantial statement of the blurb.

  at the time the song was released, there were more than 40 countries in europe,^[m] while the blurb states that "[t]he song peaked at number one on charts in 40 countries worldwide".^[n] the first version of the article included a list of 37 territories^[o] where the song has apparently hit number one, but the list is missing quite a few european countries, and i do not know how accurate the list is if south africa is in the list while the current article has a sourced claim noting that its peak there was at number two.^[p] i'm omitting other details that have led me to suspect that this claim may be inaccurate, but let me know if you would like to see more.

  perhaps more appropriate would be the phrase "including every country in the European Union except Finland". at the time, the european union consisted of 15 countries,^[q] and the featured article currently includes data for 14 of them, showing that it had reached the top in all of those countries except finland.^[r] however, even if this modified phrase was factually accurate, making such a statement may violate wp:synth, so i would hesitate to make such a substitution without an appropriate source.

  by the way, removing the phrase altogether would drop the blurb to just below 900 characters.^[s] dying (talk) 09:15, 5 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  My recommendation is to raise this point at WP:ERRORS. No guarantees, but I think it will work. - Dank (push to talk) 14:13, 5 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  In the meantime, pinging the FAC nominator, Tomica ... any thoughts on this? - Dank (push to talk) 14:17, 5 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Dank. Hi. I might agree that the statement is a little bit misleading, but there is a source for both of the statements. And both sources are reliable. So I do not know how we proceed from here and reword this. Also, keep in mind that a lot of European countries did not have an official chart back then (and a lot of them still do not have one). — Tom^(T2ME) 15:08, 5 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  It's not my call, but I think User:Dying has a point here ... it's not true that the song hit the top of the charts in countries that don't have charts. If there's any wording that works for both of you, great; if not, I don't think it would be a mistake to get opinions at WP:ERRORS (I think this is eligible for ERRORS in 8 hours). - Dank (push to talk) 15:42, 5 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Dank, it looks like this has been resolved through wp:errors, so thank you for suggesting that option and for posting about it there. also, Tom, thanks for being thorough and cleaning up the article itself as well. dying (talk) 14:54, 6 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Precious

One year!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:00, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Gerda Arendt! how fitting it is for you to show up when Dank and i were just discussing the benefits of expressing praise and sympathy in the above section. thanks for the reminder. i still remember how speechless i was when you presented me with the award last year, as it was such an unexpected expression of praise. many thanks for administering the precious prize, as i think it has had an overall positive impact on the project. dying (talk) 21:25, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Small world, how fitting indeed. Normally when I go around, I see if could connect the precious-reminder to something, such as a fresh GA, but I didn't look too deep into this. I suggested the TFA for today (DYK?) in memory of its great author. - Precious - it wasn't my invention, I only built on what others did before me. Phaedriel was the greatest, selecting a dedicated image and poem to each recipient. Rlevse was the one who held on to it the longest, and daily, until stubborn me came ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:35, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Gerda Arendt, i had admittedly not known that; how coincidental that is. i actually do sometimes look at a blurb's nomination to better understand how a blurb was drafted and to try to avoid editing against previously established consensus. to be honest, though, had i reviewed this nomination, the fact that you had nominated it would not have stood out to me, simply because you have contributed so much to that area that finding out that you were the nominator would seem rather normal.

yes, Phaedriel and Rlevse were also impressive in their administration of the award, but i think you're the one that has developed it into an institution, so my praise for you remains unqualified. dying (talk) 06:41, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, I accept blushing a bit. (I have a corner for that on my talk, but so far it only has entries from that talk.) With Shelley, I brought four bolded names to yesterday's Main page, - don't remember anything like it, blushing a bit more. Feel free to copy-edit my English anytime! In Freundschaft is up for GA, with a story. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:48, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

oh, Gerda Arendt, i appreciate the offer to work with you on getting an article to ga status, especially since i have been hoping to gain some experience in that area, but at the moment, i am running behind where i'd like to be on copyediting tfa blurbs, and have a few other tasks on wikipedia that i really should be completing, so i feel it would be irresponsible for me to commit to something else at this time. however, if i do find the time to return to itn/c, i'd be happy to help copyedit one of your nominations again. perhaps someday, we'll set your main page record to five! dying (talk) 08:33, 1 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Congratulations on the precious award, dying. And also thanks for looking at TFAs in advance of them running. A much-needed service! Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 13:30, 6 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  thanks, Amakuru! happy to be of service. dying (talk) 15:01, 6 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Yes ... really good and consistent work. - Dank (push to talk) 13:58, 10 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've been here almost three years now, made 25,000 edits, and it never occurred to me to use a period in {{r}} tag names to organize multiple references from the same source until I saw your edit just now. Thank you for (unwittingly) teaching me this excellent method, I wish I'd learned it sooner! Levivich 17:14, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

thanks, Levivich, it makes me happy to know that you have found my editing style to be useful! dying (talk) 03:08, 9 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Nice job!  – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 19:44, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

thanks, John M Wolfson! dying (talk) 03:13, 9 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Today's blurb: I'd prefer that you dial back some of the preposition edits a bit ... I've gotten a lot of feedback over the years where people objected to my changing their prepositions (such as changing "in 1924 and 1926") if they thought their meaning was reasonably clear. It's just something people feel strongly about sometimes. - Dank (push to talk) 15:38, 12 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  interesting. i don't recall changing prepositions often, so i had no idea about that. i had admittedly made the change noted because i had stumbled over the phrasing many times, and had thought the addition would be helpful, but i have no problems with my change being reverted, having noted that the change was "not strictly necessary". in the future, i will try to refrain from changing prepositions unless i think their use (or lack thereof) is actually erroneous. thanks for the advice, Dank! dying (talk) 04:00, 13 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  I might be confusing your edits with someone else's ... this is the only preposition edit I can find at the moment. - Dank (push to talk) 04:11, 13 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  no worries, Dank. even if they were someone else's edits, i think it's still good advice. dying (talk) 14:00, 13 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Raymond Pace Alexander (blurb):

  there were a few minor issues with this blurb that i had left alone, as i did not know if changes to address them were warranted, but i thought i might bring them up with you to determine if any changes should be made.

  • although the blurb refers to the "Wharton School of Business", the name of the school is "Wharton School" according to wharton.^[1] also, despite the wharton article stating that "Wharton Business School" is another name for the school, i have a vague memory of once having referred to the school by that name, and being corrected by someone affiliated with the university, so i would be hesitant to use it. i believe both "Wharton School of business" and "Wharton business school" would be technically correct, but may appear to be capitalized incorrectly by people unfamiliar with the school's name. i tried looking through the blurb archives to see if any precedent had been set, but could not find a previous reference to the school, even though its founder had been mentioned in two blurbs. one interesting alternative is to use the name "Wharton School of Finance and Commerce", which was the school's name in 1920 when alexander graduated.^[1]
  • the blurb does not consistently use "African-American" or "black". technically, being the first african-american judge to sit in certain courts has a different meaning than being the first black judge to sit in those courts. however, in this case, i am presuming that alexander was the first of either group to do so.
  • along the same lines, even though they are technically different descriptions, using both the phrases "the first African-American judge appointed to the Pennsylvania courts of common pleas" and "the first black judge to sit on the courts of common pleas" in the blurb feels repetitive.
  • the photo has a bit of white along its borders that has not been cropped out. it is not really visible to readers using a white background, but since a similar issue had been corrected recently, i thought i might bring it up.

  in any case, i think the blurb is fine as is, so nothing needs to be changed if you don't think anything should be. dying (talk) 04:00, 13 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  If you're happy with it as it is, let's go with that. - Dank (push to talk) 13:27, 13 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  sounds good. thanks for looking over my concerns. dying (talk) 14:00, 13 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Wikipedia:Today's featured article/September 18, 2021: If my edit summary says just "trimming", that only means that I'm removing something rather than changing or adding ... it doesn't necessarily mean I'm trying to reduce the character count. (In this case, I decided I didn't like my previous edit, which left two instances of "probably" in close succession, among other problems.) Now it's 924 characters, which is fine, but if you want to add something now that it's shorter, that's fine too. - Dank (push to talk) 14:27, 15 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  good to know, Dank. i had been wondering about those two instances of "probably" in quick succession. i was aware that i was moving them closer in my edit, but wasn't sure what else i could do to avoid it. i remember you questioning my replacement of "probably" with "likely" in the shelley blurb, and since you had replaced "likely" with "probably" in your earlier edit to the blurb, i had figured that you may have had good reason to do so.

  i had briefly considered whether it was appropriate to add how the discovery of the species led to a different understanding of how the ichthyosaurs became extinct, but i don't think this can be easily summarized in about 100 characters, so i think Wehwalt was right in removing it from the blurb. i also think the blurb is fine as it currently is. thanks for checking to see if there was anything that i wanted to add. dying (talk) 01:22, 16 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• William IV (blurb):

  Dank, the image currently being used for the blurb has a filename that suggests that it is a cropped version of another file. however, the latest edit to this image appears to have largely undone the original crop, replacing the earlier image with what appears to be, at the time, the latest version of the source file, but with four rows of pixels cropped out. since then, the source image has been replaced by a different version of the image that does not appear to be a simple retouching of the earlier version, differing enough from the image it replaced that i wonder if there were originally at least two copies of the portrait painted. (notice, for example, the difference in the placement of the cord in the background relative to the architectural elements of the arch. also, the initial version of both files appears to be yet another version of the portrait.) i found a copy of the latest version of the uncropped portrait on the site of the royal academy of arts, and the prior version on the site of the royal collection trust. i am bringing this up because i am assuming that the intention was to present a cropped version of the image with the blurb, while what is currently present is largely uncropped. also, both the accounts of the two editors who last revised the two images appear to now be globally locked for long-term abuse, so i don't know how reliable the two revisions made are.

  by the way, the data on commons states that the portrait was painted circa 1833, while the royal collection's copy is listed with a date range of 1833–1834, and the royal academy reports a date of 1835, so i don't know if it would be better to change the caption to read "c. 1833" or simply omit the year altogether. dying (talk) 03:16, 18 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  If a blurb is within 48 hours of hitting the Main Page, I'd prefer that you raise image issues at WP:ERRORS. People there like to hear about these things. - Dank (push to talk) 04:19, 18 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  good to know. i will raise these issues there. thanks, Dank. dying (talk) 05:00, 18 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Star Control 3 (blurb):

  Dank, i have included the full date of first publication in the blurb because the blurb date was chosen to commemorate the 25th anniversary of this date. i recognize that when a biographical article is featured on the anniversary of the subject's birth date or death date, the relevant full date is usually included in the blurb. however, i am not sure if the same applies to dates of first publication.

  i think this may be the most significant addition that i've made to a blurb that was not a direct result of either a correction or a clarification, so i wanted to make note of it, in case it was unwarranted. admittedly, there is now a slight imbalance since a full date is not similarly used for the mac os release, but no full date for the later publication was provided in the article. dying (talk) 03:57, 21 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Really fine work. - Dank (push to talk) 05:14, 21 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Wikipedia:Today's featured article/September 27, 2021: Two great edits there. Directional words: I get that there was a problem but I tried a different solution, what do you think? - Dank (push to talk) 13:23, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  oh, that's a good edit, Dank. i had thought about dropping the directional adjectives (such as "southwestern" and "northwestern"), as there were so many directions that i was confused after reading the sentence multiple times, despite actually knowing where ecuador and venezuela were. however, i did not want to remove any detail unilaterally. admittedly, it had not occurred to me to simply drop the "south and east" that was causing my confusion.

  by the way, should the "from" and "in" be swapped?

  Done. - Dank (push to talk) 01:43, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  the original text had used the construction "two species ... found in forests [range]", where the range was described as "from ... to ...". using the south and east directions simultaneously confused me, but i had attempted to keep the meaning behind their usage, so i had described the range by using "as [adjective] as ..." with three directions used as adjectives. in doing so, i had dropped the "from". i am assuming that you had meant to return to the original construction, but accidentally ended up using "two species ... found from forests [range]", with the range being described as "in ... to ...".

  the current wording could also be interpreted as using the construction "two species ... found [range]", with the range being described as "from forests in ... to (forests in) ...", with the parenthetical "forests in" implied, but i wasn't sure if this was deliberate. dying (talk) 00:02, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm mostly leaving the hard work for you, but I'm making a few edits that I hope will make your job easier. I'm making sure the length starts off between 925 and 1025 900 and 1050 characters (and then you can aim for anything between 900 and 1050). Other than that, I'm aiming to troubleshoot certain sorts of problems before they arise.

• Wikipedia:Today's featured article/October 2, 2021: My version: "The blackcap's range has been expanding, even though it is hunted in some countries." You occasionally hear the misconception that that's grammatically incorrect, because it's the blackcap that is hunted and not the blackcap's range. People who make that claim generally break their own rule without noticing it. (I believe Pinker says something similar in The Sense of Style; I should be able to find it if you're interested.) No one reads the sentence "Mary's dog whined all night while she was out of town" and starts from the assumption that the dog was out of town. Grammatically (in versions of the Cambridge Grammar, anyway), the referent is the genitive "Mary's", not "Mary's dog". (Of course, when any actual confusion is possible, then disambiguation of some kind is necessary.) - Dank (push to talk) 15:28, 16 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  a former housemate's cat vomited in our living room when she had health issues (the cat, not the housemate). i miss her (both the cat and the housemate).

  anyway, Dank, i agree with your edit; it is difficult to see someone misinterpreting this, unless they were doing so deliberately. dying (talk) 16:02, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Great edits on this one, btw. Clearly, I'm going to have to up my game. - Dank (push to talk) 16:44, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  thanks, Dank. actually, i think your game is already plenty great, as you regularly tackle copyediting issues that i have trouble with or do not dare touch. for example, in the recent transandinomys blurb, you were able to resolve the issue of confusing directional words far better than i did. of course, there is always room for improvement for all of us, but please don't feel pressured to up your game on account of me. dying (talk) 15:48, 1 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• One more thing ... I don't adopt the position of some Wikipedians of labeling certain self-described copyeditors as "pedants" and trying to prove that they're guilty of hypercorrection. If a lot of so-called pedants believe that X is wrong, then I'll generally make at least an effort to avoid saying X. Copyeditors are people too, and most of them are doing the best they can; I don't go out of my way to tweak their noses. Where I draw the line is the rare times when they're being hypocritical or inconsistent ... in those cases, I can't go along, because then I might look hypocritical or inconsistent. I'm not talking about you of course. - Dank (push to talk) 15:50, 16 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  i don't think i've ever seriously tried putting my view on pedantry into words, but i think your statement pretty much captures my position as well. i am generally pretty happy when an editor corrects an error in my writing that i may have overlooked, though when i think an edit is unnecessary and mostly addresses an issue of style not covered in wikipedia's manual of style, i'll just let it be, and try to avoid the issue in the future.

  that being said, i understand that where people draw the line for unnecessary pedantry varies, so i won't pretend that all my edits will fall on everybody's necessary side, or that an edit i personally think is unnecessary would also be considered unnecessary by others. i actually try to regularly question myself if i am being unnecessarily pedantic, as i think it is healthy to reevaluate one's position every so often. so, if you ever think any of my edits cross where you draw the line, please let me know, and feel free to revert them. your previous comments have not led me to suspect that you were talking about me, but i appreciate the addendum.

  by the way, whenever i use "to avoid interpretation that" in my comments, it is generally because i personally made that interpretation on my first reading. (if not, then i likely made it on my second reading.) in such cases, i know i'm not editing something simply for the sake of making a correction, as i had been misled by the earlier wording myself. however, just because i was misled doesn't mean that others would be, so these edits can be reverted too if they seem unnecessary. dying (talk) 10:32, 17 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Wikipedia:Today's featured article/October 3, 2021:I'll warn you if the character count strays outside 925 to 1025 ... this one is 1043. - Dank (push to talk) 02:30, 17 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Wikipedia:Today's featured article/October 4, 2021: I added "with some fossils indicating". That's a guess, but if they were talking about estimates, the numbers wouldn't usually be that precise. "likely": I left it alone; the likely/probably distinction isn't important to me. You can change it if you like. - Dank (push to talk) 19:58, 16 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  the volume actually appears to have been directly calculated from six specimens, with the range given being the range of those specimens (and not the estimated range of the subspecies), which explains the accurate measurements. i am not sure how best to word this, so i left your wording alone.

  by the way, there were additional specimens, but the article states that the range is for the specimens "for which the metric is calculable". also, there appears to have been at least two skulls with brain volumes outside of this range, but it is unclear if these specimens belong to the solo man subspecies, as it "depend[s] on classification". dying (talk) 04:30, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  In that case, I agree that the current wording works. - Dank (push to talk) 06:05, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Wikipedia:Today's featured article/October 14, 2021: Jargony, but I'm not a cricket fan so it's not up to me to figure out how much jargon is the right amount to keep the cricket folks happy. Opinions vary on whether the birth and death dates or years should be included (and whether they're better off in the first sentence or placed after "Ring" in the second sentence). - Dank (push to talk) 13:52, 17 September 2021 (UTC) If the blurb is running on the death date, we don't call attention to the date unless the death itself was notable for some reason. - Dank (push to talk) 20:04, 26 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Dank, this blurb is running on an anniversary of ring's birth date, not ring's death date. does this mean that we should consider including the date? admittedly, ring's birth itself does not seem notable (aside from the fact that ring was born). personally, i think it would be nice to include it for blurbs of biographical articles, but as this article is not wikipedia's biographical article on ring, but rather an article about ring's performance in 1948, i have no preference. also, i agree that the blurb is somewhat heavy on the cricket terminology, but i also hesitate to significantly change that. dying (talk) 06:35, 10 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  I asked the coords about this; we're no longer mentioning the birth date, even if that's the reason we're running the blurb on that day, unless the name of the page is the name of the person. This one is about something that person did. - Dank (push to talk) 14:43, 10 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  sounds good, Dank. also, i recently realized that, compared to other blurbs that require specialized knowledge, this blurb does not have many links. i had been thinking of adding a few, but these links would constitute a rather bold edit if added all at once, so i'd like to seek your opinion on them beforehand.

"Fifth Test"	→	Fifth Test, 1948 Ashes series
"taking one wicket"	→	Dismissal (cricket)
"runs"	→	Run (cricket)
"innings"	→	Innings
"first-class"	→	First-class cricket
"expensive"	→	Glossary of cricket terms#expensive
"overs"	→	Over (cricket)
"spin"	→	Spin bowling
"the Tests"	→	1948 Ashes series
"the non-Test tour matches"	→	Australian cricket team in England in 1948#Other matches in Great Britain

i believe i'm erring on the side of suggesting more than enough links, as i'm not sure what is obvious to the reader and what isn't. also, the last link is to the same article that is linked from "1948 team", but as the proposed link leads directly to a section of that article, i'm not sure if it violates mos:dl. dying (talk) 19:34, 11 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know enough about cricket to answer the question. @WP:TFA coordinators ... anyone? - Dank (push to talk) 19:40, 11 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know what to tell you; feel free to ask at WP:ERRORS if you like. - Dank (push to talk) 18:40, 12 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

no worries, Dank, they were merely suggestions. i don't think they are important enough to raise at wp:errors, though i appreciate the ping to the other coordinators to see if they thought adding these links would be an improvement. dying (talk) 20:25, 12 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I should have thought of this earlier: the best thing to do (and it would have been better if I had done it yesterday) is to broach the subject at ERRORS like I just did, and see if there's any discussion. Then if people appear open to the idea of adding links, that might be the best time to add them. - Dank (push to talk) 16:43, 13 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Dank, thanks for raising this issue at wp:errors. it got a much more positive response than i was expecting. i think this was a good way to approach the issue, and if i have a similar issue in the future that i think might be worth addressing, i'll try to remember this approach.

by the way, when you brought up the issue on wp:errors, you mentioned that you "w[ere]n't sure if [you] should say anything", and i wasn't sure if this was because i stated that i didn't think it was important enough for wp:errors. if that was indeed the case, please don't let that stop you in the future. i only didn't bring it up because i didn't think others would be interested in what i thought was a minor issue, but clearly i was wrong about that. so, if you think something is important enough for wp:errors, please feel free to raise it. dying (talk) 07:51, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Wikipedia:Today's featured article/October 24, 2021: 1044 characters. - Dank (push to talk) 03:31, 17 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  the sentence "It is distinguished from the other raptorial sperm whales by the basin on the skull, and how it spans the entire length of the snout." feels somewhat redundant to me. the other raptorial sperm whales all also appear to have had a supracranial basin, so the distinction is not that livyatan had one and the others did not; i believe the main difference was that livyatan had a supracranial basin that extended down the whole snout, while it did not in the other raptorial sperm whales.^[a] i believe the sentence "It is distinguished from the other raptorial sperm whales by how the basin on the skull spans the entire length of the snout." has the same intended meaning using eight fewer characters. i admittedly added one character to the length of the already long blurb with my edit, so this may compensate for it. dying (talk) 17:34, 20 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Very short answer: I recommend not making that edit. - Dank (push to talk) 17:49, 20 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  interesting; obviously, i'll be following your advice.

  by the way, i don't think i've made this clear before (largely because i didn't realize myself that this was happening until recently), but in general, once i've copyedited a blurb, i think i've pretty much made all the edits i'm comfortable with making myself. i might bring up some points for your consideration, but after noticing that you generally implement what you think is worth implementing, and suggest that i try wp:errors if you think a point may benefit from additional consideration, i've been pretty happy with letting you be the one to make any further edits. is that okay with you? dying (talk) 14:08, 21 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Sure, and if you have any issues with an edit I do or don't make, let me know. - Dank (push to talk) 14:56, 21 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Btw, I'm not in any hurry here, take as long as you like to edit or respond or neither. I'm doing my part (which is less than your part) for the whole month ... I should be finished tomorrow. - Dank (push to talk) 04:40, 17 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Dank, apologies for the delayed response. i had been composing the response above for your earlier comment, but admittedly ended up being distracted by something else. this is all good information. i will likely respond to each when i am working on the corresponding blurb, so that i have a better understanding of the context when replying. thanks for leaving these notes! dying (talk) 10:32, 17 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• I'm having some health problems, mainly with sleeping. I'm going to stop for now. I was making a list of October blurbs that were too long or too short (which I'm now taking to mean less than 900 or more than 1050): Oct 12, 19, 22, 26, 29. On the other dates, the length should be right. Feel free to ask questions whenever you like, and I'll get to them when I can. - Dank (push to talk) 22:39, 19 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Dank, sorry to hear that you are having issues with sleeping. your health takes precedence over wikipedia, so although i may continue to post any questions i have for you, please don't feel pressured to respond in a timely manner, or at all. if i think something is important enough that it should be addressed before the blurb appears on the main page, i'll raise it at wp:errors. hope you regain your health soon! dying (talk) 06:58, 20 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Thanks. Btw, in the future, if you see that a blurb is too short or too long, it may just mean that the blurb hasn't really been written yet ... sometimes waiting a while to see if anyone gets to it is the best course. - Dank (push to talk) 13:47, 20 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Wikipedia:Today's featured article/October 31, 2021: There are general rules that usually work for writing blurbs ... and then there are the blurbs where we're never going to be able to follow all the rules-of-thumb, such as this one. Please don't be offended if I revert some changes (by anyone) on this one ... I think discussion is the best way to proceed here (despite my own edits). - Dank (push to talk) 15:41, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Dank, i smiled in understanding when i saw the subject of the new blurb. by the way, i don't know if you've ever refrained from reverting any of my edits for fear of offending me, but please don't feel like that should be a concern. i think all of your reverts of my edits have been insightful so far, and from what i've seen of your edits in general, it is difficult to see myself getting offended by any in the future. dying (talk) 11:15, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  I'm feeling a bit down at the moment and needed that, thanks. - Dank (push to talk) 13:21, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  sorry to hear that you were down, though i'm happy to know that, due to serendipitous timing, i was able to cheer you up when you needed it. dying (talk) 16:02, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Dank, copyediting this was quite an unusual experience compared to the other blurbs. my heart rate rose even though all i did in my copyedit was completely trivial and pretty much unarguably an improvement. there has been so much discussion over the blurb that i was too afraid to touch anything else there.

  1. the caption and the title of the image do not match. is this acceptable? i think it's too trivial of a matter to bring up at wp:errors, considering the blurb's subject matter, so if you don't really have anything to say about it, i'm happy to leave it alone.
  2. "Climate change" is used as the subject for the first two sentences. would it help to replace the second instance with a pronoun? (cf. edit summary here.)
  3. i had been thinking about replacing "in line with the Paris Agreement ambitions requires" with "in line with the ambitions of the Paris Agreement requires". when parsing the former, i initially thought that the paris agreement was a noun (and the end of the noun phrase), so i may have tried parsing "ambitions" as a verb, which made no sense. then, i saw "requires", and i think at that point, i couldn't figure out what was a verb and what was the plural form of a noun anymore and just went back to the start of the sentence to give it another try. to be clear, i think the sentence is unambiguous. i simply thought it was more difficult to parse than was necessary.

  dying (talk) 13:43, 23 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Wikipedia:Today's featured article/October 5, 2021: "American leaders and some Native leaders": I'm not a fan of leaders ... leaders, but you'll probably do a better job investigating this than I would. - Dank (push to talk) 19:28, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't understand your hidden comment; there's no <abbr> tag at for instance Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 21, 2021 (a page that corresponds to one of the ids you gave). I think what probably happened was that (somewhere, sometime) one person added a template, then Ravenpuff subst'd the template to reduce the total number of transcluded templates on the Main Page, and <abbr> magically appeared from the code for the template. (And maybe after that, people thought that was the way it was supposed to be, and copied it.) Anyway: we haven't used html tags in blurbs for as long as I've been doing blurbs (or at least, until I became inactive at TFA in January); code meant for coders and machines is off-putting for humans who want to edit. I'll revert. (I don't have a preference whether we include the {{circa}} template or not, I'm only opposed to html tags.) - Dank (push to talk) 17:49, 2 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    oh, sorry about not having made that clear. i had only meant that abbr tags were used, not that they were used directly. i think they have generally been used indirectly via the circa template. i had only used the tags directly in order to emulate Ravenpuff's example of expanding templates used on main page blurbs, but i don't recall Ravenpuff expanding a circa template before, so the direct use of abbr tags is entirely my fault. (i had only understood the practice since this edit summary, which is why i had not been expanding circa templates before.) i believe we have consistently been using the abbr tags (via the circa template) for the first instance of "c." for at least since the start of 2020, so i had thought that adding them would make this blurb consistent with the others. in any case, i will try to avoid using html tags directly in blurbs in the future. thanks for letting me know, Dank! dying (talk) 04:30, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    Done. - Dank (push to talk) 06:13, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • Also ... I'm just going to get rid of the "alarmed" sentence if that's okay ... I don't think it adds much. Blurb length is good without it. - Dank (push to talk) 18:26, 2 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    i think that's a good idea. i agree that the repetition of "leaders" felt a bit clumsy, but could not figure out any alternative much better than replacing the second "leaders" with a pronoun. dying (talk) 04:30, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Sooner or later, someone's going to ask me why I keep referring to you as "them" (assuming you plan to keep working on blurbs, and I hope you do!) Do you have a pronoun preference? - Dank (push to talk) 17:34, 30 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  i have no preferred personal pronouns.

  when i was a child, i made up my own set of gender-neutral pronouns, having found the english custom of denoting gender in pronouns strange. (wikipedia did not exist at the time, so i had not known that other gender-neutral pronoun sets had existed before.) i had considered them a replacement for the gendered pronouns (as opposed to an alternative coexisting with them), but did not use them since i did not think any such set would be successfully adapted within my lifetime, and the point of my gender-neutral pronouns was to sidestep any gender issues, not highlight them if i was the only one using them. apparently, i might have foreseen the issues of the current debate over such pronouns, though i was wrong regarding how quickly our society would enter such a debate.

  so please feel free to use whatever pronouns you prefer for me. thanks for asking, though. i think you might have been the first to do so. dying (talk) 15:48, 1 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  I hear that the fashion these days is to ask about personal pronouns. OTOH, I resist the fashion (online) ... I think it's nosy, unless the person has signaled that they're open to the question. OTOOH, there will almost always be someone nosy enough on WP to ask eventually, and I like to be prepared. I'll use they/them unless otherwise directed. I go by "he", FWIW.^{[dubious – discuss]} - Dank (push to talk) 16:43, 1 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  oh, i personally had not considered it nosy, but simply thought it was interesting that i think that was the first time anyone has asked me the question. it seems natural for you to have asked it if you saw yourself referring to me by a pronoun in the future, and wanted to make sure you were not offending me by using a pronoun i did not approve of. admittedly, since i do not communicate online much outside of e-mail and wikipedia, and my e-mail correspondence is largely with people i know in real life, in retrospect, it makes sense that the first time the question would be posed to me would be on wikipedia. in real life, it is not uncommon for people to ask me if i am male or female, though the issue of pronoun preference seems to largely be ignored, at least in my experience. dying (talk) 04:30, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• I've still got health issues, good days and bad days, and you're making important edits almost every day that sometimes require feedback, so we've got a problem here. If you're comfortable with editing, say, a week's worth of blurbs at a time, I should be able to keep up. Otherwise, one of the other TFA coords may be able to help out here. - Dank (push to talk) 20:02, 2 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  oh, i am so sorry, i had not known that my edits had been causing you unnecessary stress! i am assuming that the issue is that the two-day buffer is too short, and not that i actually have to edit blurbs a week at a time, correct? if so, then if you give me a few days, i should be able to shift my (now-external) deadline to a week before the blurb appears on the main page. i can also simply jump ahead and start reviewing blurbs a week away, skipping those of the next few days, if that is a better alternative. dying (talk) 04:30, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  You're not causing any stress. Yes, editing a week ahead would work well for me. No need to skip any blurbs, you're doing fine. - Dank (push to talk) 06:13, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Wikipedia:Today's featured article/October 8, 2021: I don't know if my edit made sense, but I like to draw a line between facts and statements that have some element of interpretation or point of view ... for the latter, my position is that it's better to ping the FAC nominator before making an edit (and some prefer to post a question on the article talk page instead). In this case, at least four people have claims to being co-founders, so there's probably some element of POV or interpretation involved. - Dank (push to talk) 22:05, 5 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  thanks for the partial revert, Dank. you made a very good point that i had inadvertently overlooked. i had assumed that Shooterwalker had meant that both miller and whitehead were co-founders, since the article body stated that miller and whitehead "start[ed] Activision in October 1979". the cited gamasutra source actually appears to state that crane and miller were the ones who first started activision, and that whitehead and kaplan joined later, so i reasoned that if whitehead was considered a co-founder, it seems evident that miller would likely be considered one too. also, the activision article led me to believe that miller's status as a co-founder was not in question. in any case, to be on the safe side, i had reworded the blurb to be noncommittal regarding exactly how many co-founders the company had, in case there was something that i was missing. (a simpler revision to "who had both previously co-founded Activision" may have more strongly suggested that there were only two co-founders.)

  however, because who the co-founders of a company were is often the subject of acrimonious dispute, and what seems evident in such disputes may be subject to interpretation (since, as you state, "who the 'founders' were tends to be a truth that shifts over time"), i agree that i should have been more cautious and raised this issue in a discussion before determining if such an edit was appropriate. this was an error on my part, not having thought through the nature of claims of being a company's co-founder.

  admittedly, i think the wording as it stands is fine, since i believe the blurb remains correct under the interpretation that "who had previously co-founded Activision" applies only to whitehead, since it is agnostic regarding whether miller is considered a co-founder or not. i had only made the edit to clarify something that i now am not sure was clear in the first place. do you think we should raise this issue with Shooterwalker? dying (talk) 05:27, 6 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  I don't have a preference. Good work. - Dank (push to talk) 14:11, 6 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  thanks, Dank. actually, during this past day, i have been wavering between bothering Shooterwalker with this concern and leaving the blurb as is since i believe it is technically correct. i've now decided to ping Shooterwalker, largely because i know that if another editor had a good faith suggestion for me, i would probably be interested in hearing it and wouldn't personally be bothered myself. (by the way, i'm still impressed by how beautifully worded the phrase "a truth that shifts over time" is, and am surprised that google returns no results for the phrase.)

  Shooterwalker, apologies for troubling you regarding your blurb on accolade so shortly before it is to appear on the main page, but i had a little trouble when reading the noun phrase "Alan Miller and Bob Whitehead, who had previously co-founded Activision", and thought i might bring it up with you. i had interpreted the phrase to mean that whitehead was a co-founder before i realized that it could also mean that miller was one too. i made what i thought was an edit to clarify this before Dank reverted it, pointing out that an edit of this nature should probably be discussed beforehand. details can be found above and in the blurb's history. (i want to make clear that, despite there being a revert, there is no disagreement here, and i fully agree with the revert. Dank has been nice enough to spend some time to review my blurb edits, and sometimes i make mistakes.) in short, i had three questions.

  1. did you mean to state that both miller and whitehead were co-founders of activision?
  2. if so, are you confident in stating that they are still considered co-founders of activision?
  3. if so, would an alternate wording better serve your purpose? i had come up with "both previously co-founders of Activision", but don't know if you think it is an improvement.

  in any case, please don't feel rushed to address these questions, as i think the blurb is currently fine as is. dying (talk) 13:51, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Hey guys, just finding this now. Thanks for the ping. I suppose if you wanted to be completely accurate, "who were among the co-founders of Activision" or "who were two of the co-founders of Activision." I'm not sure what's appropriate in terms of grammar, except to say, Activision had a few co-founders, they were a subset, and they split off to form their own company. If it helps, it's more or less spelled out at the top of this article.[1] I'm juggling a lot this week but I realize that this is going up soon, so feel free to ping me again to get my attention. Shooterwalker (talk) 14:30, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  thanks, Shooterwalker. my previous rewording had been chosen to roughly preserve the character count, but now that the logo has been resized in the blurb, i believe it might be better to include a few more words to be more clear. between your two possibilities, i'd prefer the latter as it avoids the issue of "among" versus "amongst". Dank, thoughts? dying (talk) 15:27, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  No preference with this one. - Dank (push to talk) 15:31, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Shooterwalker, i admittedly have a preference to "who were two of the co-founders of Activision" over "who had previously co-founded Activision", mostly because i was confused by the current wording. i gather that you believe the "two of" version is more accurate than the "who had" version, but am not sure if you have a preference over which to use in the blurb. if you have no preference or prefer the "who had" version, i'll just chalk my confusion up to me being ditzy, but if you have a preference to use the "two of" version, hopefully Dank will see this and make the appropriate change. (i cannot add it myself, as i'm not an administrator.) dying (talk) 17:41, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  If you two agree, I can make the change. - Dank (push to talk) 17:52, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  I prefer fewer words where possible, and I'm not even partial to the suggestions I just made. The current wording was already clear to me, but I could see how someone less familiar with the topic might have questions. It's the kind of thing that would just invite someone to read the article, if they really wanted to know exactly the connection between Activision and Accolade. I defer to you, if that's okay. Shooterwalker (talk) 19:11, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Okay, so what do we like? - Dank (push to talk) 19:58, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Dank, as Shooterwalker finds the current wording already clear, let's leave it as is. thanks for your time and input, Shooterwalker! dying (talk) 22:26, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Eastern brown snake (blurb):

  Dank, i am skeptical about the accuracy of the snakebite fatalities statistic. the source cited, a study by the australian snakebite project (asp), appears to qualify its statistic of 19 deaths by noting that these were only the deaths that were recorded by the asp^[b] where "[t]he snake type was accurately determined".^[c] in fact, box 3 of the asp source includes a further four deaths that were recorded by the national coronial information system. in addition, a quick comparison between the list linked in the blurb and box 3 of the asp source shows that many deaths are missing from both lists.^[d] i don't know if it is worth it to qualify the statement of the statistic appropriately without going into a level of detail that may be inappropriate for a main page blurb,^[e] but since you state that "[t]here are other options", is there another option that you think would be more appropriate?^[f]

  also, i was originally thinking of replacing "meters" with "m", to conform with the article lead and to avoid the issue of "meters" versus "metres", but had then realized that you had changed it from "m" to "meters" yourself. i see that another editor has already brought up the issue of using the australian spelling, so although that point now appears to be moot, i am still interested in whether there are any standards when it comes to expanding (or abbreviating) units in blurbs. for example, is there a general preference to expand "m", or is it a case-by-case determination? are there similar preferences for "ft" or other units? also, i am currently assuming that, if there is such a preference, it only applies to units not in parentheticals, as "ft" remains abbreviated in this blurb.

  apologies for bringing these issues up so soon before the blurb appears on the main page. i had quickly typed up some notes on the issues and resolved to address them after i had gone over the asp source one more time to make sure i wasn't missing anything, but i have obviously been distracted by other blurbs since. i might bring the first issue up on wp:errors if you don't have the time to address it properly, though the second issue can obviously wait. dying (talk) 13:00, 8 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Hurricane Fay (blurb):

  Dank, is there a reason why this article is being featured so soon after the last time it was featured, about four months ago? admittedly, i do not know much about the scheduling process, but i have noticed that articles are sometimes featured for a second time on an anniversary of a date important to the subject of the article. however, i do not recall an article featured twice in such a quick succession before (aside from nick drake). also, i noticed that hurricane fay is listed on wp:fadc, but am not sure if the list is considered current. personally, i do not mind if a blurb is featured for a second time so soon after the first, but i thought i might ask to better understand the scheduling process. dying (talk) 01:13, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Oops, thanks for catching that. Pinging @WP:TFA coordinators . This TFA ran in June. - Dank (push to talk) 01:16, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  oh, in case you weren't aware, a note at the bottom of Jimfbleak's talk page currently states that Jimfbleak is on vacation. dying (talk) 13:51, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Dank, i edited the hurricane fay blurb on the assumption that it will run again, since i am not sure if i'll have the time to edit a replacement blurb. as i've already edited a hurricane fay blurb before, i'm simply replicating the same edit i made for the previous blurb. also, as this blurb's date appears to have been chosen because it is the anniversary of fay's evolving into a subtropical storm, i am assuming that this date should be explicitly mentioned somewhere in the blurb. i did not add the date myself, since this would be a significant addition to the blurb, and i did not want to do so unilaterally. there also may be a mos:egg concern with "1987", though simply including "in" in the link text may violate mos:seaofblue. one alternative i'd suggest is "Emily landed in 1987", though i'm not sure if this wording is better. dying (talk) 17:34, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Thanks ... my guess is Fay won't run. - Dank (push to talk) 17:37, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Hurricane Rosa (2018) (blurb):

  Dank, i noticed that the article is part of a featured topic, so have added a link to the featured topic in the blurb. however, i am not sure when topics are linked and when they are not. are there any relevant guidelines to follow? feel free to revert me if that change was inappropriate. by the way, the extra length due to the addition of the featured topic link pushed the blurb to just under 1050 characters.

  also, i am not positive that rosa is the "first tropical cyclone to make landfall in Baja California since 1997".^[g] the sources cited, azcentral and mercurynews, appear to discuss storms as they relate to the southwestern united states, not as they relate to baja california. looking through the List of Baja California Peninsula hurricanes, i found that hurricane juliette apparently "ma[de] landfall in northeastern Baja California" in 2001. this statement appears appropriately sourced, and can easily be confirmed by looking at a map provided by the noaa. i am not sure how this storm was missed previously, but it seems possible that it was overlooked because it had made landfall in baja california sur first, and by the second time it made landfall, the storm was weak enough that it was largely ignored. however, i hesitate to replace "1997" with "2001" because my reasoning is clearly original research, and i have no source to back up this modified claim. admittedly, i'm not even sure that juliette was the most recent storm before rosa to make landfall in the state, since i don't know if the list of hurricanes i worked off of is complete.

  one possibility is to replace the statement with the claim that the hurricane was "one of only a few tropical cyclones to make landfall in Baja California during the last few decades". this statement still reeks of synth, and i don't know enough about reliable sources for pacific hurricane seasons to source this claim properly, but at least i'm fairly confident about that statement. alternatively, the statement can simply be removed altogether, since the blurb's length is now near the hard upper limit anyway. dying (talk) 23:41, 8 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Sorry, I'm not going to be able to help with these. Hopefully I'll be back online in a couple of days. - Dank (push to talk) 03:44, 9 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  no worries, Dank. i'll post the concern regarding the year of the previous landfall in baja california to wp:errors, but the question about featured topics can wait. dying (talk) 08:36, 9 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• "Home" (blurb):

  this issue is somewhat unusual, as it deals with a discrepancy between the blurb and the article, but i believe the article is incorrect, and not the blurb. i don't think it's important enough for you to address until after you're back, but also don't think it's important enough to raise at wp:errors, so i'm mentioning it on the off-chance that you're back before the blurb leaves the main page.

  recently, the article has been edited to state that the episode had not received "a viewer discretion warning for graphic content", contrary to the last statement in the current blurb. the editor's reasoning is that the tv parental guidelines were not in effect at the time of the episode's airdate. however, sources have led me to believe that viewer discretion advisories existed before the tv parental guidelines did. unfortunately, i don't have access to the offline sources originally cited, and the editor who made the recent changes did not provide any sources that i could review, but i did find an latimes source which states that the episode was the first of the series to carry the advisory, as well as a upenn source from 1994, years before the episode's airdate, which states that each episode of the television series nypd blue had been preceded with the advisory.^[h] admittedly, though, i am not familiar enough with television in the u.s. to know if my interpretation of the sources is correct, so i'm going to leave this issue alone.

  i also have a separate question about the image, but will bring it up at wp:errors as you requested. dying (talk) 08:36, 9 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Viewer discretion warnings occasionally ran in those years on American TV. I don't see a problem here yet. - Dank (push to talk) 19:22, 9 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Dank, the blurb states that the episode aired with a warning, while the article states that the episode did not. i admittedly see a problem, but am not sure if it needs to be resolved. by "I don't see a problem here yet", do you mean that the discrepancy does not need to be resolved? dying (talk) 06:09, 10 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Have you found a source for the statement? Is anyone arguing in favor of the statement? If not, I don't plan on investigating further. - Dank (push to talk) 14:39, 10 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  sounds good. i was just worried that i was missing something significant, since those edits hadn't been reverted. thanks for looking it over. dying (talk) 19:34, 11 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Wikipedia:Today's featured article/October 16, 2021

People have generally over the years tolerated some divergence between the blurb and the article lead, but Duncan objected strongly to "eight decades" vs. "seven decades" in today's blurb, and I think he's probably not alone in that opinion. I admit a little hypocrisy here ... my edits have tended to the the kind that haven't directly contradicted the previous text, but sometimes I've strayed into that territory. In cases where the blurb appears to directly contradict the article, it's not going to surprise me if the voices at ERRORS get louder on this issue over time, if they perceive that edits are being made that aren't taking feedback like Duncan's into account. For tomorrow's blurb: "1955" vs. "1960" seems jarring. There are no black and white rules, but things that people have asked for in the past have included:

Notifying the FAC nominator of the change by a note on their user talk page ... User:DrGregMN in this case

Posting a note on the article's talk page

Giving people enough time to do what they need to do ... they might not still have the source they used originally, and might not be watching Wikipedia every day, for various reasons. - Dank (push to talk) 14:40, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Making changes to the article lead first and seeing if anyone reverts or discusses it, before changing the blurb. (This has been a handy rule of thumb in the past ... people haven't been bringing it up recently, but if we get more comments like Duncan's, then I'm guessing people will start asking for that again.) - Dank (push to talk) 15:40, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm reverting the change from 1960 to 1955, because I don't think there's been enough time to discuss it, and a case could be made for 1960 ... namely, the census is a stronger source in general, and even if an author knows that one person left at a specific time doesn't mean that we can know for sure that no one returned after that. It's an interesting question, and I'm not confident that we'll be able to get it resolved in the next few hours. Of course, if the change is made to the article text and isn't reverted, then please let me know and I'll be happy to change the blurb to 1955. - Dank (push to talk) 15:14, 15 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

i'm fine with letting the original wording stand, as the wording remains technically correct, though possibly misleading (in the same way that "tecumseh lived between 1800 and 2000" is technically correct, though possibly misleading), and i admittedly don't think it is important enough to ask DrGregMN for such a quick turnaround at this point. i think i had thought that the year may have been simply copied from the statement about the census at the end of the lead's first paragraph, with the "by" before the year accidentally overlooked.

i agree that the u.s. census is generally a strong source, though in this case (assuming that this cited source is the source used for the 1960 census), the census's only direct mention of manganese appears to be in footnote 16 on page 25-26 (page 26 of the pdf), where it states "Manganese village disincorporated and area annexed to Wolford township"; since the township is listed as having a population of 67 (on page 25-18 (page 18 of the pdf), on the left, listed under crow wing county), this does not appear to confirm that manganese was uninhabited in 1960.

interestingly, the sutherland source i mentioned was used by the article to support the statement