SMcCandlish

[Wikiguy.DC]

This is related to the ongoing NFL Draft drama identified in the Dicklyon thread, but I figured SMcCandlish (T-C-L) deserved his own thread. I'm surprised he doesn't have one already.

Anyway, during the NFL Draft drama, Stanton decided to make changes to Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_extended_FAQ (T-H-L) a page he created and maintains on his own. (This somewhat obscure page had been linked to the main MOS talk page, but has since been removed.)

A user tried to remove Stanton's latest addition to the page, and when Stanton reverted her, she took him to AN. The response at AN has been almost unanimously against Stanton, which is somewhat surprising given how long he's skated by. A different user also filed a report against Stanton at AE, citing Stanton's response to the AN complaint and his general assholerly when it comes to the MOS.

[rnu]

Ongoing AE discussion (permanent link)
Ongoing AN discussion about MOS extended FAQ (permanent link)
Ongoing AN close review for Capitalization of NFL draft article titles (permanent link)

Edit: Walls of text warning for all three discussions -- if you really want to get to the bottom of all of this I suggest you don't make any further plans for the weekend.

[No Ledge]

He's a member here.

He thought I was "WP:INVOLVED" with Dicklyon. The difference between him and Dick is that I generally like Dick and just wish he wouldn't be so obsessive about particular matters where he has a false sense of overcompetence.

McCandlish's posts frequently make my blood boil, making it impossible for me to evaluate him while staying calm and dispassionate. Thus I am "INVOLVED" with this guy whether I want to be or not. You just can't avoid running into his areas of influence because he injects himself everywhere.

He may be hard to control because avoiding "INVOLVEMENT" with him is nearly impossible, if you're an active administrator.

[Randy from Boise]

So I take it the issue is NFL Draft vs. NFL draft.

Who gives a fuck, really? Pick one and leave it.

I've recently been doing almost all my WP work on NFL-related topics and I prefer NFL draft myself, since it's really not a proper name. But, whatever.

t

[Wikiguy.DC]

So I take it the issue is NFL Draft vs. NFL draft.

Who gives a fuck, really? Pick one and leave it.

I've recently been doing almost all my WP work on NFL-related topics and I prefer NFL draft myself, since it's really not a proper name. But, whatever.

t

The locus of the dispute is the NFL Draft, however, the bigger issue is Stanton and his clique using the MOS as a cudgel to enforce their preferences in subject areas that quite frankly they wouldn't otherwise care about. To quote Newyorkbrad, "The parade of decapitalization crusades in various subject-matter areas, against the longstanding preferences of the editors who work in those subject areas, has had a consistently demoralizing effect for a very long time, and should be strongly discouraged." You can substitute "decapitalization crusades" with whatever crusade Stanton or Dick set out upon at any given time.

[Randy from Boise]

So I take it the issue is NFL Draft vs. NFL draft.

Who gives a fuck, really? Pick one and leave it.

I've recently been doing almost all my WP work on NFL-related topics and I prefer NFL draft myself, since it's really not a proper name. But, whatever.

t

The locus of the dispute is the NFL Draft, however, the bigger issue is Stanton and his clique using the MOS as a cudgel to enforce their preferences in subject areas that quite frankly they wouldn't otherwise care about. To quote Newyorkbrad, "The parade of decapitalization crusades in various subject-matter areas, against the longstanding preferences of the editors who work in those subject areas, has had a consistently demoralizing effect for a very long time, and should be strongly discouraged." You can substitute "decapitalization crusades" with whatever crusade Stanton or Dick set out upon at any given time.

Rather than micromanaging little things and fighting over every detail, they need to come up with a big-picture rule. Something like "proper names are capitalized; other nouns are not."'

We use NFL season not NFL Season.

We use NFL championship and NFL Championship Game.

Maybe the answer is something like NFL draft and 1977 NFL Draft.

That would sort of make sense I guess. Current form is 1977 NFL draft.

Meh, they should just leave stuff alone, it's fine the way it is.

t

[ArmasRebane]

So I take it the issue is NFL Draft vs. NFL draft.

Who gives a fuck, really? Pick one and leave it.

I've recently been doing almost all my WP work on NFL-related topics and I prefer NFL draft myself, since it's really not a proper name. But, whatever.

t

Yeah fundamentally the issue I have with the MOS sticklers is Wikipedia has such a diffuse manual of style it really is a case of "who the hell cares?" If there was tangible efforts towards collapsing the exceptions and guidelines to something more akin to a real manual of style, I'd at least understand it a bit more (and personally, even if I'd disagree with the benefits of something like AP style versus Chicago versus Oxford, I'd vastly prefer making a single arbitrary guide the only option instead of what is fundamentally "do what you want as long as it's consistent in an article but remember the national ties of the subject and argue about that, and also here's a bunch of random stuff stuck in the dark recesses no one else remembers".)

And yeah, there's very good reasons for "outsiders" to trundle into the subject-matter specialist silos and break shit up. But capitalization (versus reliable sourcing practices, etc.) really isn't one of them.

[Elinruby]

So I take it the issue is NFL Draft vs. NFL draft.

Who gives a fuck, really? Pick one and leave it.

I've recently been doing almost all my WP work on NFL-related topics and I prefer NFL draft myself, since it's really not a proper name. But, whatever.

t

The locus of the dispute is the NFL Draft, however, the bigger issue is Stanton and his clique using the MOS as a cudgel to enforce their preferences in subject areas that quite frankly they wouldn't otherwise care about. To quote Newyorkbrad, "The parade of decapitalization crusades in various subject-matter areas, against the longstanding preferences of the editors who work in those subject areas, has had a consistently demoralizing effect for a very long time, and should be strongly discouraged." You can substitute "decapitalization crusades" with whatever crusade Stanton or Dick set out upon at any given time.

Rather than micromanaging little things and fighting over every detail, they need to come up with a big-picture rule. Something like "proper names are capitalized; other nouns are not."'

isn't that in fact the rule? Maybe this is some weird sports thing, which.would put it among the things that I ignore, but I always.silently edit sentences to for example say either the king of England, Charles III or King of England Charles III,.but not the King.of England Charles III. I would never go to war over this, mind you, but nobody has ever.tried to make me, either.

I guess I need to go look at some.walls of text for the answer to that question, eh?

[Elinruby]

Ongoing AE discussion (permanent link)
Ongoing AN discussion about MOS extended FAQ (permanent link)
Ongoing AN close review for Capitalization of NFL draft article titles (permanent link)

Edit: Walls of text warning for all three discussions -- if you really want to get to the bottom of all of this I suggest you don't make any further plans for the weekend.

Wow, just wow. I sort of want to post something that shows he does have a sense of proportion, but it is unrelated and might be seen as irrelevant. Also, I am going to have to involve myself in a different thread and realistically I don't have time for either one.

Too many ANI regulars on this one and too steep a learning curve. I'll say it here though -- gotta give him credit for taking Lithuania vs Poland to an Arbcom clarification. That was helpful.

[Konveyor Belt]

My take which nobody will care about is that NFL draft should refer to the actual drafting process while NFL Draft should refer to the event at which it is held. So you might say "he was taken in the 6th round of the 1977 NFL draft" but also "he was interviewed by the media at the NFL Draft".

[Kraken]

Stanton is a curious mix of wikilawyer and hothead. But he is also reflective and does stuff. And crucially, not really very important stuff. And he has been on Wikipedia a very very long time.

Ideally he should be forced to realise his shortcomings and work on them, because he is still clearly causing problems that are easily avoided and which new editors cannot get away with. But he probably won't.

The golden rule applies pending a cultural shift on Wikipedia. If you don't like conflict or having your own time wasted, stay away from the people who do.

I think it was the beginning of the end of Wikipedia as a mass participation effort when you started to see Administrators acting like their time was more valuable than those they were promoted to assist. Or worse, acting like any time spent on formal structured dispute resolution (even time spent on moderating dispute resolution) is worthless and everyone should just go and write an article instead.

A Wikipedia where the only dispute resolution available is the chronically useless AN/I, a place where you're inexplicably more not less likely to encounter behavior guaranteed not to produce an effective and lasting resolution. Unless you count quick and easy blocks of newbies whose potential will never be known.

No real surprise that with that kind of Admin in ascendancy, Wikipedia has essentially regressed to the early years, where a single person could have a massive impact on the content, culture and direction of Wikipedia. Which is exactly the Wikipedia Stanton cut his teeth on. One surmises Stanton's most difficult years on Wikipedia were the late 2000s and early 2010s, but he just hunkered down and added more Stanton to the mix, powered on through and ultimately survived.

This is the side of Wikipedia Administration where nothing gets done about Bureaucrats who fail to disclose a COI and are evasive about it when challenged, and where a user with hundreds of thousands of edits is pretty much in sole control of what happens to them even though their behavior routinely crosses red lines (even red lines drawn up specifically for that person as a result of many hours of hard won dispute resolution).

[No Ledge]

Only one block in his log. Why no more than that?

Not listed on the restrictions page, either.

Though I see there that Dicklyon has been banned by the community from making edits with any assistance from automated or semi-automated tools, since 23 September 2023. (Dicklyon and semi-automated edits)

I guess you can get away with more if you limit your disruption mostly to talk pages (drama boards).

[Randy from Boise]

Manual of Style warriorism is still a thing, I reckon, but it seems something that is more and more pointless over time as the mountains of content more or less conforming to the status quo of style accumulates.

Just leave shit alone and find something productive to do, MOS warriors.

t

[jf1970]

Ideally he should be forced to realise his shortcomings and work on them, because he is still clearly causing problems that are easily avoided and which new editors cannot get away with. But he probably won't.

How does a website force someone to realise his shortcomings and work on them? Why would an encyclopedia website help its contributors with personal growth, and even if it could, how would this be "ideal"? Ideal for whom? Certainly not for the website.

[Kraken]

Ideally he should be forced to realise his shortcomings and work on them, because he is still clearly causing problems that are easily avoided and which new editors cannot get away with. But he probably won't.

How does a website force someone to realise his shortcomings and work on them? Why would an encyclopedia website help its contributors with personal growth, and even if it could, how would this be "ideal"? Ideal for whom? Certainly not for the website.

You tell him he's a wikilawyer. You ask him to stop engaging in wikilawyering behaviors. You block him if he doesn't. You do it because wikilawyering wastes people's time and makes people angry. It helps Wikipedia because the time of volunteers is a limited resource. Nobody is being paid to edit, and normal people will only edit if it makes them happy.

[Elinruby]

Ideally he should be forced to realise his shortcomings and work on them, because he is still clearly causing problems that are easily avoided and which new editors cannot get away with. But he probably won't.

How does a website force someone to realise his shortcomings and work on them? Why would an encyclopedia website help its contributors with personal growth, and even if it could, how would this be "ideal"? Ideal for whom? Certainly not for the website.

You tell him he's a wikilawyer. You ask him to stop engaging in wikilawyering behaviors. You block him if he doesn't. You do it because wikilawyering wastes people's time and makes people angry. It helps Wikipedia because the time of volunteers is a limited resource. Nobody is being paid to edit, and normal people will only edit if it makes them happy.

wikipedia is so not about editor happiness.

[AndyTheGrump]

Ideally he should be forced to realise his shortcomings and work on them, because he is still clearly causing problems that are easily avoided and which new editors cannot get away with. But he probably won't.

How does a website force someone to realise his shortcomings and work on them? Why would an encyclopedia website help its contributors with personal growth, and even if it could, how would this be "ideal"? Ideal for whom? Certainly not for the website.

You tell him he's a wikilawyer. You ask him to stop engaging in wikilawyering behaviors. You block him if he doesn't. You do it because wikilawyering wastes people's time and makes people angry. It helps Wikipedia because the time of volunteers is a limited resource. Nobody is being paid to edit, and normal people will only edit if it makes them happy.

wikipedia is so not about editor happiness.

It sure as hell isn't about informing and educating its readers,

[jf1970]

Ideally he should be forced to realise his shortcomings and work on them, because he is still clearly causing problems that are easily avoided and which new editors cannot get away with.

How does a website force someone to realise his shortcomings and work on them?

You tell him he's a wikilawyer. You ask him to stop engaging in wikilawyering behaviors. You block him if he doesn't. You do it because wikilawyering wastes people's time and makes people angry. It helps Wikipedia because the time of volunteers is a limited resource. Nobody is being paid to edit, and normal people will only edit if it makes them happy.

"forced to realise his shortcomings and work on them" = "told to stop and blocked if he doesn't"

[nableezy]

Ideally he should be forced to realise his shortcomings and work on them, because he is still clearly causing problems that are easily avoided and which new editors cannot get away with. But he probably won't.

How does a website force someone to realise his shortcomings and work on them? Why would an encyclopedia website help its contributors with personal growth, and even if it could, how would this be "ideal"? Ideal for whom? Certainly not for the website.

You tell him he's a wikilawyer. You ask him to stop engaging in wikilawyering behaviors. You block him if he doesn't. You do it because wikilawyering wastes people's time and makes people angry. It helps Wikipedia because the time of volunteers is a limited resource. Nobody is being paid to edit, and normal people will only edit if it makes them happy.

wikipedia is so not about editor happiness.

Depends on where, and when for that matter, you edit. When the roadies were popping out hundreds to thousands of articles about their hobby I’m sure it was enjoyable. But as things get more heated that falls away and then it can become about doing something somebody thinks matters. We’ve apparently lost some of our Russian disinformation artists here, but I’m sure the people editing about Ukraine feel it matters to push back on them there, even if it is draining from their happiness and not adding to it. For the topics that aren’t really going to have that level of dedication if it gets too contentious, like roads for whatever reason, people will leave unless they have other reasons to stay.

P.S. Kraken, if more of your posts were of this length and level of manufactured outrage, instead of the treatises that embark on an effort to demonstrate how utterly immoral and outrageous Wikipedia is, you would find a more receptive audience here.

[The Blue Newt]

P.S. Kraken, if more of your posts were of this length and level of manufactured outrage, instead of the treatises that embark on an effort to demonstrate how utterly immoral and outrageous Wikipedia is, you would find a more receptive audience here.

Meh.

Still nothing to Crow about.

[Elinruby]

Ideally he should be forced to realise his shortcomings and work on them, because he is still clearly causing problems that are easily avoided and which new editors cannot get away with. But he probably won't.

How does a website force someone to realise his shortcomings and work on them? Why would an encyclopedia website help its contributors with personal growth, and even if it could, how would this be "ideal"? Ideal for whom? Certainly not for the website.

You tell him he's a wikilawyer. You ask him to stop engaging in wikilawyering behaviors. You block him if he doesn't. You do it because wikilawyering wastes people's time and makes people angry. It helps Wikipedia because the time of volunteers is a limited resource. Nobody is being paid to edit, and normal people will only edit if it makes them happy.

wikipedia is so not about editor happiness.

Depends on where, and when for that matter, you edit. When the roadies were popping out hundreds to thousands of articles about their hobby I’m sure it was enjoyable. But as things get more heated that falls away and then it can become about doing something somebody thinks matters. We’ve apparently lost some of our Russian disinformation artists here, but I’m sure the people editing about Ukraine feel it matters to push back on them there, even if it is draining from their happiness and not adding to it. For the topics that aren’t really going to have that level of dedication if it gets too contentious, like roads for whatever reason, people will leave unless they have other reasons to stay.

Ok good point. My recent return to Algerian stuff on some level does make me happy, I guess. But that's more about feeling that it's a privilege to polish something important.

[tarantino]

Ok good point. My recent return to Algerian stuff on some level does make me happy, I guess. But that's more about feeling that it's a privilege to polish something important.

Nothing you're doing on wikipedia is important. You should go outside instead.

[Elinruby]

Ok good point. My recent return to Algerian stuff on some level does make me happy, I guess. But that's more about feeling that it's a privilege to polish something important.

Nothing you're doing on wikipedia is important. You should go outside instead.

I said I was polishing (T-H-L) something important, not doing something important, just for reference. Four centuries of naval warfare in the Mediterranean is kinda important, I submit, Mr Moderator sir. Getting its Wikipedia article to GA is... Wikipedia. About which you would have a point about outside if there wasn't alushstorm out there with high winds

[Ryuichi]

a lushstorm

That's a high quality typo.

I have acquaintances who resemble that remark.

[Elinruby]

a lushstorm

That's a high quality typo.

I have acquaintances who resemble that remark.

I have the best typos. Binders full of typos.