User talk:Chris the speller/Archive 6

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Merry Christmas and a Prosperous 2015!!!

Hello Chris the speller, may you be surrounded by peace, success and happiness on this seasonal occasion. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Sending you a heartfelt and warm greetings for Christmas and New Year 2015. Happy editing, talk ) 18:08, 23 December 2014 (UTC) Spread the love by adding {{subst:Seasonal Greetings}} to other user talk pages.

Hi Chris,

With regard to your recent page move of

@Simon Burchell: After consulting Merriam-Webster and finding no adjectival form listed, I checked Collins, which says "Mayan" means "of, relating to, or characteristic of the Maya or any of their languages", so that's how I went. If you want to use "Maya astronomy", feel free. It was the capitalization of "astronomy" that stirred me into action. Happy editing and Happy New Year! Chris the speller ^yack 14:43, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Chris. I checked the Oxford dictionary and it gave Maya as both noun and adjective; I think for consistency's sake I will move the page. All the best and a Happy New Year! Simon Burchell (talk) 09:43, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi Chris, we're discussing considering art movements separately from musical and literary genres under the talk page heading you started, and I've started a proposal for a dedicated section for art in the MoS. I don't want things to get too far advanced before you've had a chance to respond, though. :) Ham II (talk) 13:32, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

SchroCat and I have Laurence Olivier up for peer review, with an eye on FAC in due course. May I yet again ask for your unblinking editorial eye over the prose? Best wishes, Tim riley talk 21:51, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

I see the traces of your magic wand in the article. Thank you, one again, for your help. It really is greatly appreciated. Tim riley talk 09:27, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Hi. I am Piotr Konieczny (

Why? Because I feel my time is better spent correcting deficiencies in Wikipedia. Chris the speller ^yack 14:45, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

I totally understand what you are saying. But could you do it as a favor for me - another active Wikiepdian? I am also in the Top 100 most active editors, with 500+ DYKs, 50+ GAs (not to brag, just to prove I am not some academic who sees Wikipedia as a tool for his career and doesn't care for your time otherwise), and I'd really appreciate you taking the 2-3 minutes needed to help me out here. Pretty please, with a Wiki-tan on top? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:29, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

 Done. Chris the speller ^yack 15:01, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for helping me. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:13, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Hi Chris, thanks for making this request. Strangely, the article had been moved 9 years ago in the other direction:

• 11:44, April 17, 2006‎ Fastifex (moved Resident magistrate to Resident Magistrate: conventional capitalization)

— Sebastian 05:31, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

@SebastianHelm: Thanks. I suspect that 9 years ago there was no WP:JOBTITLES section, or it was vastly different then. Chris the speller ^yack 05:41, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

@

Resident Magistrate; I have supplied one, and am fixing the double redirects. Chris the speller ^yack

05:45, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Oh, thanks! Yes, that was my error, I should have done at least one of the two. Usually in cases like this, I just fix the double redirects and don't create a redirect for the alternative capitalization since those are not needed for searching per

WP:POFRED. I think not having a redirect is actually better for Wikipedia, since the redlink alerts everyone that capitalization does not conform with the article title. Why do you feel they are needed? — Sebastian

17:38, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

BTW, despite your considerate ping, and my setting of "Mention", I did not get a notification. Would you have an idea why that may be the case? — Sebastian 17:38, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

@SebastianHelm: No idea why you didn't get notified. I disagree that the redlink is useful; it keeps readers from getting to the article (few readers will click on a red link, since they expect that it leads nowhere). And gnomes like me will find and fix the capitalization, eventually. More are fixed by gnomes looking for the wrong capitalization than by other editors just blundering onto a redlink, I think. Chris the speller ^yack 21:21, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Now it worked. Well, nothing is perfect.

I think you're misunderstanding my comment. Of course I agree that we don't want to have those redlinks in the article for the reader to see. I don't want to wait for editors just blundering onto them, either. When I change the links in the articles, as I usually do, there is no blundering, as there are no redlinks left. No, I had the editor who creates a new link in mind. Every good editor checks their edits with preview or after saving. That editor will see a redlink, and then be inspired to search for that term to see if the article name is different from what they expected. It's even easier for capitalization, because trying out the other way to capitalize it is a very straightforward change. — Sebastian 21:45, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

@

WP:MOR. Chris the speller ^yack

22:01, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Good point! I'm sorry, I misunderstood your earlier comment and didn't catch that there are still many remaining. In that case, you don't need to fix them manually; I used to use

WP:MOR; I'm thinking about whether it would be a good idea to add it there. — Sebastian

22:15, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

@SebastianHelm: I am an AWB maniac, and am fixing them all right now. I will let you know when I have finished. Chris the speller ^yack 22:18, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. I know that even with AWB it's still a lot of work, and you need to be commended for taking that on! — Sebastian 22:24, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

@SebastianHelm:  Done. — Chris the speller — continues after insertion below

Yay, thanks a lot! — Sebastian 23:46, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

What's the best way of handling this in the future?

But I don't think that much effort should go into eliminating one redirect in the future. Chris the speller ^yack 22:38, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, I used to do it, too. But I admit that I, too, sometimes had my doubts whether it's really worth it. There's probably a maximum number of changes that makes still sense, and I now tend to think it may be well below 50. After all, many good editors don't just look at whether they insert redlinks, but often also whether their links actually go where they think they go. It just occurs to me that it might be possible to run a bot to do this work instead of using AWB. Maybe there is one already? — Sebastian 23:46, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

@SebastianHelm: Next time, how about leaving the redirect, but adding a template "R from miscapitalization"? Chris the speller ^yack 15:36, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for the suggestion. I've never occupied myself with the categorization of

Wikipedia:Template messages/Redirect pages, as I personally find it more rewarding to work on real articles or help other users. I can see some benefit in deciding whether a redirect is printworthy, but I don't see why we humans should have to do that in the case of capitalization. That's child's play for a bot! What benefit do you see in having actual people busy themselves with this kind of work? — Sebastian

17:02, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

@SebastianHelm: It was your idea to skip the redirect so that someone (apparently me!) would see a redlink and fix the capitalization in all the articles. This template provides a way to let editors who wish to do so find these articles. Or, you can just have a redirect without the template, which is how all admins have handled these moves before, in my experience. Chris the speller ^yack 17:55, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

No, that's not what I meant. I meant the following scenario:

1. User:U requests move of article from AA to Aa.
2. User:V moves the article and looks at "What links here" and changes links in all those articles from "AA" to "Aa", creating no redirect.

   At this point, all involved articles look good, as far as the naming of and links to AA/Aa are concerned. Do you agree?

3. Some later time, in some other article EE, User:W adds a link to "AA".
4. User:W checks the preview and sees that the link is red.
5. User:W realizes that the article has a different capitalization (either by intuition or because they searched for the title).
6. User:W changes the link to Aa, and all is well.

Do you agree that this would be a desirable scenario? — Sebastian 18:14, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

@SebastianHelm: Yes, that would be fine if you can get all the admins to do it that way, but I anticipate a lot of resistance. Note that in the case we worked on, it was not User V who changed all the links, it was user U, who doesn't want to do that again very often. ;-) Chris the speller ^yack 18:50, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, and big thanks to User:U! Unfortunately, our case was not the perfect scenarion, since it wasn't user User:V who took up the move, but his lazy brother User:S. :-) Seriously, I agree that for 50 links it's probably not worth it. But if there were only a handful, I'd do it that way.

That leads us back to our original topic: Now that User:U did all the work, can we remove the redirect Resident Magistrate? — Sebastian 19:10, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

@SebastianHelm: Yes, you can. Chris the speller ^yack 19:14, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

 Done. — Sebastian 19:46, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The Modest Barnstar
		Hi Chris, your readiness to take on a task I had given you, while I wasn't even aware how much work it was, exhibits commendable modesty. In our conversation, you humbly strove to understand, rather than proving that you were right. — Sebastian 19:46, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

If you have time, can you look over my newly created article for copyediting. Thanks.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 12:26, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

 Done. Chris the speller ^yack 14:18, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks!--Doug Coldwell (talk) 14:31, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

[1] -- Unbuttered parsnip (talk) mytime= Fri 22:38, wikitime= 14:38, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

@Unbuttered Parsnip: It would be more constructive and efficient to consult Wikipedia's Manual of Style than to complain to an editor who is following the MoS, especially when the pertinent part of the MoS was linked in the edit summary: "A hyphen is not used after a standard -ly adverb (a newly available home, a wholly owned subsidiary)". Chris the speller ^yack 14:48, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

	The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
	You hit my watchlist 20 times today. Every single edit on it made the encyclopedia better. Thank you. Faceless Enemy (talk) 00:48, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Chris, would you please take a look at my question here and let me know what you think? I saw that you're a member of the disambiguation project. There are a lot of "Model X" pages out there that haven't been created yet, but I don't want to go ahead and create them if they should be properly folded into the "MX" pages. Thanks for any input or guidance you can provide. Faceless Enemy (talk) 14:38, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

 Done. Chris the speller ^yack 16:40, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Thank you Chris the speller for your help in fixing a grammar/typo issue in the Learning-Disadvantage Gap which I've created a couple of months back. I've received a notice regarding the nomination of the Learning-Disadvantage Gap article for deletion off of Wikipedia. I'm presenting this in response to Four Viola's and Audacity's notice about deleting the Learning-Disadvantage Gap article. FYI, please consider the following points, thank you:

The Learning-Disadvantage Gap report at first inspection may incorrectly be seen as a document of original concepts, especially by someone not immersed in the convoluted world of educational standardized high-stakes testing systems in use today, and the growing movement in opposition to it, but in fact it is not. The anti-standardized high-stakes testing movement is not my own. I am but a pawn in the movement. The Learning-Disadvantage Gap is a collection of original articles and studies that I have accumulated over the past five and a half years from reliable separately published articles not yet compiled in a format easily accessible to the public. Not even the Learning-Disadvantage Gap words and concept is original, as I have borrowed from references as well.

To clear up any possible misunderstanding, the Gap is compiled and written exclusively by myself with technical assistance by my staff. The name, Music Teacher’s Club, is just that, a name, and this is my very first proposed entry to Wikipedia. I am the owner of a music store, Johnny Thompson Music.com, and chair of Parents and Students for Music and Arts aka AllArtsAllKids.org.

Having studied Wikipedia policies I believe the Gap avoids cherry-picking of reference articles in a negative sense and synthesis of combining separate ideas to reach any conclusions. Actually, the report does not reach conclusions other that what is from any of the two hundred plus references. All two hundred plus references are interconnected by one goal: educational equality for all.

I do not pick references that agree with my personal view, rather, I learn first from each and every reference before I report on it. I am the student and messenger, not the teacher. That said, the report may be the first of its kind that combines original works of others that I am aware of.

This is a neutral report which includes reporting on current educational inequities and non-compliances of statutory and education laws by the United States Department of Education.

The collection of two hundred plus references to the Gap consists of works by U.S. Department of Education, K-12 teachers, principals, and district superintendents, university professors and studies, parents and students, civil rights groups, court cases, constitutional attorneys, statistical groups, arts advocacy groups, and more. Just one reference alone includes a list of five hundred plus university professors who as a group are petitioning the U.S. Department of Education specifically to stop test-focused reforms particularly NCLB (No Child Left Behind).

Although written by a potpourri of writers, each with their own expressed views, the goal of each and every reference, and within the stop high-stakes testing movement in general, is equal learning-opportunities for the disadvantaged and all students in America, without regard to their socio-economic and academic standings.

The Learning-Disadvantage Gap, and in fact big Gov’s standardized high-stakes testing, is not generally known by the American public. The national mainstream media has yet to cover the movement and to spark a national debate. That said, there is a substantial and growing grassroots movement, starting on the East Coast, that has tens of thousands of students “opting out” of March and April NCLB, Common Core, and other state test-based no-excuses high-stakes yearly testing. I will mention at this point that my group, Parents and Students for Music and Arts, has a twitter account and am proud to report that the largest independent anti-high-stakes testing group of teachers follows us on Twitter.

I consider this Wikipedia report, an honor should it be accepted, a very much needed public service article. It is my plan to continue upgrading quite often. Currently, we are doing so almost daily. I believe it to be a wonderful venue for educating people on the subject with limited time to invest. Also I believe it is so important that parents of economic and academic disadvantaged kids have a source to learn from that offers hope. The Gap welcomes contributions as well as other points of view from Wikipedia’s very large at-large contributing public editors. We are looking forward to having an active Wikipedia article.

JCharlesThompson (talk) 23:41, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Hi, I've seen you do some excellent work copy editing some of the finer points of prose. Would you be able to cast your eye over Live and Let Die (novel), which I currently have at Peer Review? If you don't have the time or inclination, then it's no problem at all. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 20:53, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

 Done. Just a little punctuation. Chris the speller ^yack 01:01, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

That's very good of you; much appreciated! Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 11:25, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

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Thank you, Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 15:56, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

How do you find all of those missing hyphens? I run across tons of them in the articles I'm reading. Do you have a script that looks for them? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 17:32, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

@Bubba73: An excellent question. The Wikipedia search box generally ignores hyphens and other punctuation/markup/capitalization, but you can get it to filter the results by having it look into the source afterwards, as in:

"two step process" insource:/two step process/

You can also find miscapitalized terms, too:

"took a job as an assistant professor" insource:/as an Assistant [Pp]rofessor/

Note that it will find "Assistant" capitalized, whether "professor" is capitalized or not. Chris the speller ^yack 20:09, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

But do you have to go search for "two step process" and any other combinations you think of? That seems like a lot of work, and I've seen a lot of results of your work. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 20:21, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

@Bubba73: You can cast a wider net with this:

"step process" insource:/ step process/

or find over 3,000 articles with this:

"year contract"insource:/ year contract/

I'm mostly using Auto Wiki Browser (

WP:AWB), so I can run hundreds of articles a day through it. But, yes, it's still a lot of work. Chris the speller ^yack

00:45, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

Well, keep up the good work. I do a lot of hyphens and spelling out small integers. And that is just in articles I'm reading - I don't search for them. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 00:47, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. I had a feeling that I wasn't entirely alone. Happy editing! Chris the speller ^yack 00:57, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

Hello, Chris. I wonder if I can yet again impose on you, to look at Maurice Ravel. I'm hoping to take it to FA, and your all-seeing eye over the prose would be a great comfort. Tim riley talk 18:34, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Warmest thanks for your work on the article. I'm in your debt once again. Tim riley talk 06:42, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Hey! Chris the speller, I Just Wanna Say Thanks For Your Contributions! National Names 2000 (talk) 03:11, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

What, no tomato? Well, it's the thought that counts. I'm touched. Chris the speller ^yack 03:20, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Hi Chris, I've just finished an overhaul of Burning of Parliament. Do you have the time to have a check for some of the more egregious errors I may have made? Many thanks – SchroCat (talk) 08:55, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

@SchroCat:  Done. There was very little to fix. If I had written it, "publically" would never have shown up; is there any reason not to use "publicly" instead? Chris the speller ^yack 04:24, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

My ignorance alone, I think! Now swapped over. Thanks so much for your efforts, once again. Cheers – SchroCat (talk) 05:58, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Hi Chris! I'm relatively new to Wiki, but I'm grateful for the attention paid to the Welsh language page. "[language]-speaking" definitely deserves a hyphen, since it's functioning as an adjective. However, "[language] speakers" should not be hyphenated because it is a noun phrase where "[language]" is modifying "speaker." I'll refer you to the "noun + noun, single function (first noun modifies second noun)" on page 4 of the following excerpt of the Chicago Manual of Style. Diolch am dy waith / thanks for your work! - TreyMcCain (talk) 21:03, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

@

Welsh Barony. Happy editing, and let me know if I can help in any way. Chris the speller ^yack

16:23, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

After further investigation, it seems we're on the same side of the pond after all. Chris the speller ^yack 16:27, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

@Chris the speller: Ah, that makes much more sense. While I can see the logic of your choices, usage prefers "[language] speakers." A short Google search reveals that the BBC, www.wales.com and www.omniglot.com (rather respectable sources to my mind) prefer "Welsh speakers." I think that "speakers" should clearly signal that language and not nationality is being referenced. For instance, I could say "French speakers" and refer at once to people in France or to people in Cameroon. "[language]-speaking people" seems a little clumsy to me when "[language] speakers" is perfectly acceptable. -- Yeah, I float between TX & MS right now, but I'm hoping to move to Wales next year. I've been a few times over the past ten years and fell in love with the people, culture and language. How cool that you're part of that heritage in the U.S.! I can't claim Welsh family, but it'll take more than that to keep me away. Diolch unwaith eto / Thanks again! TreyMcCain (talk) 01:29, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

It's "Mosin–Nagant" and "Lee–Enfield", not "Mosin-Nagant" and "Lee-Enfield", right? Faceless Enemy (talk) 15:06, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

@

WP:HYPHEN, hyphens indicate conjunction (Curtiss-Wright Corporation, Huntley-Brinkley Report), and en dashes indicate disjunction (the Paris–Montpellier route). In your rifle articles, conjunction is needed, so go with hyphens. Chris the speller ^yack

15:23, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Yeesh. Someone told me it was Mosin–Nagant and I've been en dashing everything ever since. Time for a bunch of self-reverts. Thanks for the info. Faceless Enemy (talk) 15:55, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Wait, so per the MOS: "An en dash is used for the names of two or more people in an attributive compound." Does this apply here? It's the Mosin-Nagant rifle (two people), the Lee-Enfield rifle (person and place/arsenal), or the Mannlicher-Schönauer rifle (two people). I can't think of any two-arsenal guns off the top of my head, but I'm sure I'll come up with one at some point. Faceless Enemy (talk) 16:38, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

@Faceless Enemy: You caught me flat-footed. I didn't go far enough down the WP:NDASH section. I guess there are exceptions to the en dash standard when the whole name is a formal, proper name, such as in the aircraft corporation and news report I mentioned above. The en dash is correct for the rifles. Sorry for the bum steer; I hope you didn't self-revert too many before smelling a fish. Chris the speller ^yack 16:57, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Hi Chris, you added renaming templates to a couple of categories for open-air museums, but it appears that you omitted to list them at

Pardon me for not being more helpful; they are Category:Open air museums by country and Category:Open air museums in the United States by state, tagged but not yet listed. Feel free to follow up with nominations for all their sub-cats. – Fayenatic London 19:27, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

please add Igwe Edwin Alaekee in one of the prominent people in Inyi. He is one of the old people that played active role in the unity and development mof Inyi along side with Rear admiral Alison madueke. He is presently the Traditional Ruler of Umuagu Inyi. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tochukwualaekee (talk • contribs) 16:48, 24 May 2015

The idea behind Wikipedia is that any person can make needed changes to a Wikipedia article. If you can edit my talk page, you can edit the Inyi article, so you should make the change yourself, if it is needed. But in my opinion, the article already lists far too many "prominent" people for one town. Chris the speller ^yack 02:06, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

		Editor of the Week
		Your ongoing efforts to improve the encyclopedia have not gone unnoticed: You have been selected as Wikipedia Editor Retention Project )

I would like to nominate Chris the speller (talk · contribs · count · logs) as Editor of the Week. Chris has been on Wikipedia for over nine years, and using AWB has made over 300,000 edits. I've never seen an edit from him that hasn't improved a page. He quietly copy edits, fixing spelling mistakes, typos, redirects and missing hyphens. He has an excellent eye for detail and works extremely hard. I believe he would make a very deserving Editor of the Week.

You can copy the following text to your user page to display a user box proclaiming your selection as Editor of the Week:

{{subst:Wikipedia:WikiProject Editor Retention/Editor of the Week/Recipient user box}}

Chris the speller

Chris is a rider as well as a speller

Editor of the Week for the week beginning May 24, 2015

One of the 30 most active editors, Chris is neither a bot nor an administrator. He feels his time is best spent correcting deficiencies in Wikipedia.

Recognized for

Over 300000 edits

Notable work(s)

Spreads The Kindness Campaign efforts by word and deed

Nomination page

Thanks again for your efforts! Go Phightins! 23:23, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

• Thanks for all you do. . Buster Seven Talk 01:35, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Well, this is an unexpected honor.

WP:EOTW says "Recipients aren't expected to be positively perfect in every way", and boy, they got that right! It gives me great pleasure to see my name up there with the great users that have already been honored. Thanks, especially to SlimVirgin, whose own edits have frequently been noticed and appreciated by me. Chris the speller ^yack

02:58, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

• Definitely a well-deserved award. Faceless Enemy (talk) 15:07, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

• You're very welcome, Chris, it was my pleasure, and thanks for everything you've done to help people over the years. Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 17:23, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

• Congrats! -Newyorkadam (talk) 00:29, 27 May 2015 (UTC)Newyorkadam

• Congratulations, very well deserved honor. You keep a very low profile, but every edit you make improves Wikipedia. It's important for you to know that people appreciate it. --MelanieN (talk) 16:52, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Request for some AWB advice

Hi Chris the speller,

I see you are a very productive contributor here and someone who seems very familiar with AWB. I use AWB too; however not here, as I am not a native English speaker. I am most active on the Norwegian Wiktionary project, where I am one of the most prolific contributors. That project is full of inconsistencies, some of which I attempt to rectify by letting AWB clean up. I am not much of a programmer but I am able to use the code others have made and modify it to suit my purpose.

What I would like to ask you is if you know why my XML settings file is not able to keep my end of line marker (\n) if the app crashes and I have to do a restart. All the \n instances in the from-sections are gone.

I literally have more than 250 find and replace instances where I manually have to add the \n after a crash. It’s difficult and tedious to have to go through these every once in a while. Like with the following example:

From

===Preposisjon===\n{{infl|es|prep}}\n

To

===Preposisjon===\n{{es-prep}}\n

I have tried to maintain my modifications in a separate Excel file so I could import my settings after a crash but I understand you cannot do that. So I am at a loss here. Maybe the solutions is easier than I thought, so that is why I am turning to you for some advice. Got any?
- Teodor (d • c) 13:28, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

@Teodor605: The best advice I have is:

1) Don't crash

2) (more seriously) Fix the XML file and save it. Make a copy of that XML file. If you crash, copy the saved file back to the original XML file name.

3) (even more seriously) You will get a better answer if you file a bug report for AWB at

WP:AWB/B. I use AWB, but I have no experience in debugging or fixing it. Good luck! Chris the speller ^yack

15:25, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Thank you Chris! Haha, but I find that AWB does crash if you leave it running for days. I have filed a bug report about that. However, I don't think this problem with the missing \n's is a bug. There is something about coding that I don't understand. Those \n charachters aren't present in the XML file in the from section. Only in the to: section. Only in the Find and replace edit window will I find the correct defintions of what is to be changed into what. And if I edit the XML settings file manually I will get an error message when loading it and the edits will be ignored.

An example of the wrong code within the XML setting file is:

        <Find>
---
</Find>
        <Replace>\n----\n</Replace>

whereas it should say:

        <Find>
\n---\n
</Find>
        <Replace>\n----\n</Replace>

I see you are mostly correcting things like "However bla bla" into "However, bla bla" so you proably don't need to look for complete lines. However, (sic) if you have an example of some of the things you have in your own XML file then maybe I will be able to figure out what to do.

Thanks a lot for your help!
- Teodor (d • c) 15:48, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

@Teodor605: My XML file does not lose the \n's.

      <Replacement>
        <Find>\n---\n</Find>
        <Replace>\n----\n</Replace>
        <Comment />
        <IsRegex>true</IsRegex>
        <Enabled>true</Enabled>
        <Minor>false</Minor>
        <BeforeOrAfter>false</BeforeOrAfter>
        <RegularExpressionOptions>None</RegularExpressionOptions>
      </Replacement>

For editing the XML settings file, try the firstobject free XML editor. It is easy to use, and it works beautifully. Chris the speller ^yack 16:54, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Chris. That's two good starting points for me. Will try the XML editor. And the second hint may be the isregex=true. I have isregex=false because I wasn't entirely sure what a regex was. Regex in combination with singleline or multiline was just too much for a linguist
- Teodor (d • c) 17:15, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Seems that I have to maintain isregex=true in the XML settings file and then do an "uncheck all regular expressions" within AWB whenever I import an updated XML. At least that works for now. Thank you very much for leading me on the right trail here :)
- Teodor (d • c) 22:33, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for all the help on the firearms pieces. Fixing those defects enhances our credibility! I truly appreciate it!--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 18:30, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

I'm with you on this one; it's always a very good thing when Chris starts hitting my watchlist. Faceless Enemy (talk) 18:37, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Untypically

There is absolutely nothing wrong with "untypically" ([3]), though there may be an ENGVAR difference - I would not use "atypically" much at all except in scientific contexts, certainly not at Nainsukh. I have reverted your change, and strongly suggest you avoid making this change elsewhere. Johnbod (talk) 14:53, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

@Johnbod: I have gone one better and removed the Typo rule that instructed AWB to make that change; just getting me to stop would not have prevented the dozens of other AWB users from making the same change. A nice touch would have been for you to just change the one disputed word, instead of undoing all the fixes to date formats. Another nice touch would be to find out what is meant by "The when he worked in Jasrota." and improve it. Happy editing! Chris the speller ^yack 16:30, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks - I have no idea how such tools work. I redid the other fixes (all dashes) & have since been busy adding more malformed dashes to fix later, in between undoing mistakes introduced by gnomes here and elsewhere. I'll look at the other typo. Johnbod (talk) 16:34, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

A favour, if you could?

Hi Chris,

P.G. Wodehouse and have just uploaded it to the mainspace. I wonder if you could cast your eagle eye over it to spot any errors? Many thanks - SchroCat (talk

) 20:26, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Chris the Man

	The Invisible Barnstar
	I am aware of your resilient work in the background - a big thanks to the guardian of style and form.Wikirictor (talk) 12:43, 20 June 2015 (UTC) Greetings from the Cambodia department

Vlaardingen

You did a minor thing here [4] But I don't know what. Salix2 (talk) 18:47, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

@Salix2: I put a comma hyphen between "open" and "air" because a compound modifier calls for a hyphen: "compound modifiers that appear before a noun phrase must include a hyphen between each word". The word "open" modifies "air", not "museum". An "open-air museum" may be closed on Mondays, while an "open air museum" may be a building that shows old aircraft and that happens to be open for business at any given point in time. Happy editing! Chris the speller ^yack 18:59, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

@Chris the speller: Do you mean "hyphen" rather than "comma"? Otherwise, your explanation is very clear and I agree with you. A hyphen can make the intended meaning absolutely clear. LynwoodF (talk) 10:40, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes, "hyphen", of course. Thanks. I have corrected it. Chris the speller ^yack 13:03, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Municipalities with language facilities

Hello, Chris the speller. As a linguist (I don't like the word linguistician, although I must admit that it is less ambiguous), I visit all sorts of specialized articles. Municipalities with language facilities is a good example. It deals with the very complex linguistic situation in Belgium, which has fascinated me for years.

I notice that there is a remarkable lack of hyphens. Somebody did a wholesale removal some time back and I think they were right about some of them. However, you would probably agree with me about French-speaking, etc. There is no problem for me – they are compound adjectival expressions. I am less sure about French speakers, etc. I am not inclined to put in hyphens and, given the nature of the article, the intended meaning is clear, and so I think it is not necessary to use longer-winded expressions.

Perhaps you would like to take a look at the article and bring it in line with best practice. I have come to trust your judgement on such matters. LynwoodF (talk) 10:25, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

@LynwoodF:  Done. Chris the speller ^yack 13:58, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for doing that. It certainly looks better now. LynwoodF (talk) 15:37, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

Hi Chris!

I noticed that you are fixing typos with AWB. I have made a preparsed list of about 20.000 articles that contain (possible) typos that can be fixed with AWB. I'm assuming that that is a bit too much for one person, but if you want to you can do some of them. Please remove the ones you want to do from the list so that other people don't have to look at them again. The Quixotic Potato (talk) 04:59, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

Invitation to WikiProject TAFI

	Hello, Chris the speller. You're invited to join members. Bananasoldier (talk ) 02:14, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Begging bowl out for a favour once more...

Hi Chris, I've recently been working on a re-write of the Hitler Diaries article. Could you take your customary read-through to spot the more obvious grammatical boo-boos please? Cheers – SchroCat (talk) 12:01, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

 Done. Chris the speller ^yack 16:30, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

Many thanks - much appreciated. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 10:45, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Hi Chris, can I ask for another favour? Could you have a look over Moonraker (novel) if you get the chance? Many thanks! – SchroCat (talk) 05:50, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

 Done. @Schrocat: it was pretty clean. Chris the speller ^yack 18:17, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Blitz and pieces

There's a consensus on the Blitzkrieg page to use lower case no italics for blitzkrieg as it was coined by English speakers and is part of the language now, unlike some of the recondite German technical terms.Keith-264 (talk) 16:52, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Oh and please, no commas next to conjunctions.Keith-264 (talk) 16:53, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

@

WP:WORDSASWORDS "The term panning is derived from panorama, which was coined in 1787". I'm not sure what you meant by "no commas next to conjunctions". Are you referring to commas before coordinating conjunctions? Every style guide in the English language calls for those. Chris the speller ^yack

17:45, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

OK; Oxford commas (commas next to "and")? Never.Keith-264 (talk) 17:48, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

@Keith-264: I'm still in the dark. Where did I make such an edit? Chris the speller ^yack 18:00, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Here (in square brackets), was nothing more than "ad hoc solutions that simply popped out of the prevailing situation"[.] Student described it as ideas that "naturally emerged from the existing circumstances" as a response to operational challenges"., I swapped it for a full stop.Keith-264 (talk) 18:09, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

@Keith-264:That was no Oxford comma. I inserted a necessary comma into a run-on sentence that consisted of two independent clauses connected by "and". The addition of a comma before a coordinating conjunction is one acceptable way of fixing it, and your removal of "and", splitting it into two sentences, is also acceptable. I think we're cool. Happy editing! Chris the speller ^yack 19:02, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

;O)Keith-264 (talk) 19:14, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Act

I noticed a few of your edits like this where you insist on spelling "act" with a capital "A". Why? Does that also apply to "scene", "season"? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 07:27, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

(butting in) - this is completely standard, effectively obligatory, for "Act", and usual for "Scene" ([5]). Seasons I don't know about. Johnbod (talk) 10:54, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

@Michael Bednarek:@Johnbod:Thanks, Johnbod. The difference between "the third act" and "Act 3" is that one is a common noun modified by "the third", and the other one is a proper name. Likewise, "Act 3, Scene 2" is a proper name. But "season 4" of a TV series is usually not treated as a proper name, though I am presently unable to articulate why that is. Chris the speller ^yack 14:16, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm aware that "Act 1" is the prevalent usage, but it's not universal. Apparently, MLA demands "act 1". However, Wikipedia's style guides are not based on prevalence but on encyclopedic principles and consensus, where a tendency to avoid capital letters is strongly represented.

MOS:CAPS is silent on "act", so it follows that it should not be capitalised. That "Act 1" is a proper name/noun seems dubious to me. "The aria in Act 1 of the opera …" vs "The aria in the first act of the opera …" vs "The aria in the opera's first act …" – why should the first case be treated differently? The Google search offered above is not fully supporting the case for "Act 1" because it also returns "act 1". Ngram shows a small but significant usage of lower case usage, too. In summary, I don't think there's a case for wholesale changes, but I won't do anything further about it than this. -- Michael Bednarek (talk

) 01:55, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Enrique Martinez Celaya

Noticed your recent edits to Enrique Martinez Celaya. Not sure why you lower-cased them, but I've reverted your edit as I'm under the assumption that actual titles as opposed to general jobs are capitalized? Am I mistaken? GauchoDude (talk) 18:44, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

@

WP:JOBTITLES: "Offices, titles, and positions such as president, king, emperor, pope, bishop, abbot, executive director are common nouns and therefore should be in lower case when used generically ...". The word professor could be capitalized in some cases, such as "Martinez Celaya met with Professor Blotherwicz in 2011." Chris the speller ^yack

19:14, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

@Chris the speller: I'll defer to your expertise as this seems to be much more in your realm. I guess I was operating under the assumption that it was more of a specific title-appointment as opposed to being a general "art professor" or something along those lines. GauchoDude (talk) 20:01, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

@GauchoDude: Cool. The titles in that article have been lower-cased again. Chris the speller ^yack 20:29, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Request for a new article

Hello I have an important social media Costa Rican that need a Wikipedia page can you add him email him at [email protected] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.234.204.16 (talk) 18:00, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

You don't need me to create a new article; you may add it yourself. However, the proper sources for Wikipedia articles are described in

WP:SOURCES. Sending emails to people to ask for information about themselves is not the way to go about creating an article. Chris the speller ^yack

01:08, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

You have been randomly selected to take a very short survey by the Wikimedia Foundation Community Tech team!

https://wikimedia.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_9mNQICjn6DibxNr

This survey is intended to gauge community satisfaction with the technical support provided by the Wikimedia Foundation to Wikipedia, especially focusing on the needs of the core community. To learn more about this survey, please visit Research:Tech support satisfaction poll.

To opt-out of further notices concerning this survey, please remove your username from the subscription list.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:57, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

marshall sons & co

i made some pictures in barga, italy, of a marshall sons & co machine. are you interrested? i am new in wikipedia, and i do not know how to handle pictures feeding in an article.

Ben.architektor (talk) 17:08, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

@

WP:HELPDESK. Chris the speller ^yack

02:42, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

An article about an unusual woman that could need some copy-edit

Hi, I have translated a article from Norwegian Wikipedia in Bokmål/Riksmål, but as English is not my native language I could need some help in fixing mistakes that I am sure are there, before I upload it to mainspace. If you could use a few minutes checking it I would be grateful. :-) If I could do some favor back I am all open for that, like translating any favorite article of you into Norwegian Bokmål/Riksmål. Ulflarsen (talk) 21:22, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

@Ulflarsen: I did some cleanup, mostly using her surname and dropping 'the' before 'MV'. I think "warsailor" (which is not a valid word) should be "sailor" or "member of the merchant marine" or "sailor in the merchant marine", and "plass" should be translated to "Place", "Plaza" or "Square". There is no need to pay me back; just keep up the good work. Chris the speller ^yack 02:36, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for taking time to look at the article, and about "keeping up the good work", I started to contribute in 2004 and if I keep my health I will keep on contributing in the coming years. :-) Ulflarsen (talk) 06:55, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

A pie for you!

Thank you for all of your hard work correcting spelling errors across Wikipedia! Much appreciated. Safehaven86 (talk) 15:35, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Marie Serneholt

If you want to, please take a look at the article about Marie Serneholt, which is this weeks selected TAFI article. Regards,--BabbaQ (talk) 16:18, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

WikiLove

Hello Chris the speller, SecretName101 has smiled at you! Smiles promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling at someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Go on, smile! Cheers, and happy editing!
Smile at others by adding {{subst:Smile}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

SecretName101 (talk) 07:15, 4 December 2015 (UTC) SecretName101 (talk) 07:15, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

SF Board of Aldermen, etc.

Most US styles including

MOS:INSTITUTIONS use initial capitals for named corporate bodies, such as the 19th-century San Francisco Board of Aldermen and Board of Assistant Aldermen. Indeed, the article on SFBOS members capitalizes the present-day San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Was there a reason it seemed best to put these terms in lower case here? Rupert Clayton (talk

) 04:55, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

@Rupert Clayton: Note that the Alderman article says "Boards of aldermen are used in many rural areas of the United States ...", and that sure sounds generic to me (I changed "Aldermen" to lower case in that article for that reason). It says that "board of aldermen" is sometimes used instead of "city council". Any good dictionary treats "city council" as a common noun and uncapitalized, so it follows that "board of aldermen" does not get capitalized, either. In the edit you asked about, I did not change "San Francisco Board of Aldermen"; the article only refers to it generically, as "board of aldermen", and does not provide a full name/proper name for that institution in the 19th century. I hope this makes clear why I changed it. Chris the speller ^yack 05:20, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

MOS:INSTITUTIONS says "full names of institutions, organizations, companies, etc. ... are proper names and require capitals. Also treat as a proper name a shorter but still specific form, consistently capitalized in reliable generalist sources..." It seems that supports capitalization so long as we have a majority of appropriate sources that do that. I'm not sure your arguments are very relevant—whether or not many rural areas have boards of aldermen has no bearing on whether to capitalize the 19th-century institution in very non-rural San Francisco. Rupert Clayton (talk

) 04:11, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

@Rupert Clayton: Are you saying that "board of aldermen" should be capitalized in a large city, such as SF, but not in rural areas? I don't buy that. Chris the speller ^yack 04:17, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm saying it should be capitalized if it's a "shorter, but still specific form" of an institution's proper name, which it is. You're the one who used a quote from a WP article (not a reliable source for this purpose) to make a claim that it "sure sounds generic to me". It appears that your argument would apply equally to the current San Francisco Board of Supervisors, which I have never seen uncapitalized in a reliable US source. Rupert Clayton (talk) 05:09, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

@

board of aldermen does not redirect to "San Francisco Board of Alderman", and board of supervisors dies not redirect to "San Francisco Board of Supervisors". They are generic forms. If you are still not happy with this, you might wish to take this matter to the talk page of the MoS. I thought rather long and hard before making that change, and I don't think it was a mistake. Note that "common council" was already in lower case; I didn't see you go after the editor who did that a couple of years ago. Oh, it was you. I hope you take that the way I said it, in good fun. Chris the speller ^yack

05:57, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

So do you have a rationale for leaving Board of Supervisors capitalized? As to my changing lower-casing common council, I really can't remember what I was thinking. Rupert Clayton (talk) 06:10, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

@Rupert Clayton: I was searching for "Board of Aldermen" in various articles. I haven't started searching for "Board of Supervisors". Chris the speller ^yack 17:15, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

I think you are misinterpreting the

MOS

guidance that proper names of organizations used in a "shorter, but still specific form" should be capitalized. The given example is actually a little unhelpful, because the United States uses the term "Department of State", which is not common in other countries, giving the misleading impression that capitalization may be justified by unique naming. Let's use the example United States Treasury instead. A later reference should still capitalize "the Treasury". If the organization in question was the UK Treasury, then that also should be "the Treasury" on later reference. If I'm talking in general about "the treasury departments of G20 governments", or "treasury functions in corporate finance", then there should be no capital.

Your interpretation is also at odds with most US style guides. For example the

Chicago Manual of Style

says that capitalization should apply to "the names of legislative, judiciary, and administrative bodies and governmental departments, and their branches, when specifically applied." It goes on to cite "Board of Aldermen" as an example, and makes clear that "such general, paraphrastic, or incomplete designations as: ... 'the board'..." should not be capitalized.

So references to a specific "Board of Aldermen", "Board of Supervisors", "City Council," etc. in US contexts should all be capitalized. I'm not going to extend that style advice outside the United States, as the conventions elsewhere are quite different. In the UK, capitalization tends to be much more selective. But we're dealing here with US organizations that are capitalized in almost every reference. I'll revert your changes to the SF article and I recommend you do the same elsewhere. Rupert Clayton (talk) 18:23, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

I agree that some outside advice might be good, so I did take this to MOS Talk. Let's see what other input we get. Cheers. Rupert Clayton (talk) 18:55, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

BENN JORDAN

This article has been tagged for deletion and is quite dubious as the musician clearly wrote it himself, is not notable, and has 18 seperate articles for purported releases that are unsourced, not notable or never actually released. Total Puff Piece. Please assist by locking page to amateur editors, and ensure the deletion process runs its course on the talk page

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benn_Jordan — Preceding unsigned comment added by Musicchief007 (talk • contribs) 10:56, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

You seem to have mistaken me for an administrator. I am just a humble, run-of-the mill editor. Chris the speller ^yack 14:57, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Season's Greetings

File:Xmas Ornament.jpg

To You and Yours!

FWiW Bzuk (talk) 03:37, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

"scaled down version"

Please read

MOS:HYPHEN

. Although "scaled down" is not specifically listed as an example, it does show that WP uses e.g. "wholly owned" even though oxforddictionaries.com shows "wholly-owned". Hyphens are necesary in compound modifiers for clarity or disambiguation (see other examples at MOS). But in the case of e.g. "scaled down version" there is no ambiguity and no loss of clarity from omitting the hyphen (nobody thinks we might be talking about a "scaled down-version"), so the hyphen should not be used.

In general, please stop using AWB so indiscriminately. Such edits clutter up the edit history of articles and increase the workload of other editors for no good effect.

Please also in the future follow

WP:BRD. If you're reverted, you're not supposed to simply re-revert to your preferred version. You're supposed to raise the issue on the article talk page. Jeh (talk

) 06:24, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

<TPS>Jeh, per MOS:HYPHEN, the reason "wholly owned" does not take a hyphen is that it is an "-ly" adjective. I don't see anything in MOS:HYPHEN that adds another exception for "scaled down". And small fixes like this are what AWB was made for; they may be small, but they're not "clutter". BRD doesn't really apply here; Chris made a minor fix. They then got reverted, undid the revert with a clear explanation, and then left it alone when you re-reverted. It's not like they added a whole paragraph on a contentious article and then added that back in or anything. Faceless Enemy (talk) 14:51, 27 December 2015 (UTC)</TPS>

A beer for you!

Chris the speller Wishing you a happy and prosperous new year! BoringHistoryGuy (talk) 17:14, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

Simon & Schuster

Chris, if you have time I'd appreciate help on changing all of the instances of "Simon and Schuster" to "Simon & Schuster". Could you put that find and replace into your AWB? It's very common (over 1000 pages linked to the wrong spelling when I started), and you hit a lot of pages that probably have it on a daily basis. Either way, thanks for all you do here. Faceless Enemy (talk) 03:34, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

(

WP:NOTBROKEN. -- Michael Bednarek (talk

) 04:34, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Because the publishing company is Simon & Schuster, not Simon and Schuster. "Simon and Schuster founded Simon & Schuster, which published a book about Smith and Wesson, the founders of Smith & Wesson." Faceless Enemy (talk) 12:59, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Right; we already have an AWB Typo rule for "U.S. News & World Report", so this should be treated the same. I will add such a rule for Simon & Schuster when I get a chance. Chris the speller ^yack 15:27, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

I added a Typo rule to AWB to fix these. But Typo rules do not touch text within references and templates such as {{Cite book}}, which is where the vast majority of these are found. They can be attacked with AWB using Find & Replace rules, but if it's just me, it would take over a week working full time to get them all; there are thousands and thousands of articles to fix, and I have lots of other things to work on. Anyone want to help? I will continue to chip away at this. Chris the speller ^yack 16:58, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Ack, someone pointed out here that Simon and Schuster is a valid name for division of Simon & Schuster. So I'm not sure they're all incorrect. I'm planning to open a discussion at the S&S talk page, or even reach out to the company directly. Faceless Enemy (talk) 16:53, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

For now, I have removed the Typo rule for AWB. Chris the speller ^yack 16:41, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Faceless Enemy When I look at Simon & Schuster's page on Divisions and Imprints, I don't see one called Simon and Schuster. GoingBatty (talk) 00:20, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi

If you want to, please take a look at the article about Lisa Aschan that I have created. Any help is appreciated. Regards,--BabbaQ (talk) 15:45, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

I tweaked the punctuation; otherwise, OK. Chris the speller ^yack 17:17, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

List of state leaders in 2015#RfC: What would be a gender-neutral description for the Cook Islands royal representative?

You are invited to join the discussion at

selbert

Sorry, there is really nothing of value I could add, and I have no opinion on the matter. Chris the speller ^yack 14:02, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

I understand, albeit a shame to hear. Kind regards.

selbert

16:46, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Just wanted to thank you for your help with Moss Jernverk. I usually keep to translating from English to Norwegian, but with articles that I consider no one else will translate and interesting/important, or both, I also do translations into English. Anyway I highly appreciate all help I get in correcting such work that border on what I really should keep away from... :-) Best regards, Ulflarsen (talk) 16:26, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

• [7]

"Well-received" isn't a mistake... [8][9] Deryck C. 21:48, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

@Deryck Chan: I consider dictionary.com and thesaurus.com third-rate sources. Try a real dictionary, such as collinsdictionary.com or macmillandictionary.com, both of which omit the hyphen except when the compound precedes the noun. The hyphen does not reduce confusion when the compound modifier is postpositive. In a compound modifier, a hyphen that does not reduce confusion or add clarity is just clutter. Chris the speller ^yack 22:09, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Hmmm. Actually you're right. I think I'll still request AWB to remove "well-received" from the list of typos, but I've restored your fix. Deryck C. 22:46, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Hi User:Chris the speller, can you add links and categories to, and maybe reword some of what's written on the Maiorana article to make it sound more proper, thanks. --Emperorofthedaleks (talk) 19:51, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

It looks like another editor beat me to it, and it no longer needs anything from me. Happy editing! Chris the speller ^yack 03:35, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Do you think they put the links in the right places, do "surname" and "personal name" need links added, people know what they mean, whereas "English" is unlinked. I don't know, but I trust what you think is right, cheers. --Emperorofthedaleks (talk) 19:45, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

@Emperorofthedaleks: I think the links are OK as they now appear. Chris the speller ^yack 21:22, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

I forgot to ask if there should be a coma between "origin" and "derived", and if the article is written right? --Emperorofthedaleks (talk) 21:46, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

@Emperorofthedaleks: A comma is not needed there. The writing is fine. Chris the speller ^yack 00:07, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Alright, thanks. --Emperorofthedaleks (talk) 00:22, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

please help translate this message into the local language

The Cure Award

In 2015 you were one of the top 300 medical editors across any language of Wikipedia. Thank you from Wiki Project Med Foundation for helping bring free, complete, accurate, up-to-date health information to the public. We really appreciate you and the vital work you do! Wiki Project Med Foundation is a user group whose mission is to improve our health content. Consider joining here, there are no associated costs, and we would love to collaborate further.

Thanks again :) -- Doc James along with the rest of the team at Wiki Project Med Foundation 03:59, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Hi Chris - just to let you know I reverted your endash changes to this article, as Anglo- is a combining form that should take a hyphen, not an endash (see Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Dashes). Colonies Chris (talk) 10:07, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

@Colonies Chris: Good catch, thanks! Chris the speller ^yack 14:52, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Hello, Chris. I'm knocking on your door with the begging bowl again. Might you have time and inclination to look in at GBS's page, which is up for featured article? It's 11,500 words, I'm afraid, but if you can face the marathon we'd be very grateful for your expert eye. Tim riley talk 16:00, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

My begging bowl is now full. Thank you so much, Chris. What would we do without you! Tim riley talk 17:19, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

Hi User:Chris the speller, as an expert on surnames and contributor to many Wikipedia articles on the subject, can you help me by giving your opinion on this question? Which of these two name origins ([10] and [11]) would you say is most realistic origin of the names Mayer, Mayor, Maior, etc. 1 or 2? Thanks either way. --Emperorofthedaleks (talk) 19:58, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

@Emperorofthedaleks: I wish I could help, but I have no special knowledge and absolutely no opinion about this. Chris the speller ^yack 20:05, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

That's fine User:Chris the speller, but if you could click the website sources, read them briefly and tell me which one sounds more realistic to you, irregardless of what the website itself says. If you don't know just guess, I'd appreciate it eitherway. It's 50/50, one or the other and it would help me out, cheers. --Emperorofthedaleks (talk) 20:38, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

@Emperorofthedaleks: I already viewed the websites, and it sounds like both of them are making stuff up. You could flip a coin, but better to show both sources and say that there is more than one theory. Chris the speller ^yack 21:20, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

@Chris the speller: Alright, thanks. --Emperorofthedaleks (talk) 21:23, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Hi Chris, I hope you're well. Would you be able to pass your eye over the Senghenydd colliery disaster article, if you have time? It's at PR at the moment, and I hope to go to FAC in the next week to ten days, so no great rush. Cheers – SchroCat (talk) 11:10, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

You are a star - many thanks indeed for your input. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 16:43, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

	The Copyeditor's Barnstar
	You've been copyediting for a while! Thank you for these minor edits. (BTW, do you mind if I nominate you to be an admin sometime?) Peter Sam Fan 02:16, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

My user page has a user box that proudly states "This user is not an administrator." I'd like to keep it that way, but thanks for the thought. Chris the speller ^yack 04:15, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

	<font=3> Wishing you a "Feliz Navidad and a Prospero Año Nuevo" (Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year) Tony the Marine (talk) External audio Jose Feliciano's "Feliz Navidad "

:-) Chris the speller ^yack 20:48, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

The Editor of the Week initiative has been recognizing editors since 2013 for their hard work and dedication. Editing Wikipedia can be disheartening and tedious at times; the weekly Editor of the Week award lets its recipients know that their positive behaviour and collaborative spirit is appreciated. The response from the honorees has been enthusiastic and thankful.

The list of nominees is running short, and so new nominations are needed for consideration. Have you come across someone in your editing circle who deserves a pat on the back for improving article prose regularly, making it easier to understand? Or perhaps someone has stepped in to mediate a contentious dispute, and did an excellent job. Do you know someone who hasn't received many accolades and is deserving of greater renown? Is there an editor who does lots of little tasks well, such as cleaning up citations?

Please help us thank editors who display sustained patterns of excellence, working tirelessly in the background out of the spotlight, by submitting your nomination for Editor of the Week today!

Sent on behalf of Buster Seven Talk for the Editor of the Week initiative by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:18, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

The Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation has appointed a committee to lead the search for the foundation’s next Executive Director. One of our first tasks is to write the job description of the executive director position, and we are asking for input from the Wikimedia community. Please take a few minutes and complete this survey to help us better understand community and staff expectations for the Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director.

• Survey, (hosted by Qualtrics)

Thank you, The Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director Search Steering Committee via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:49, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure this is a wise idea for an automated replacement. I believe that titles like "governor" or "president" are capitalized when referring to the specific person in the office at the time, e.g. "The Governor ordered budget cutbacks following the fiscal crisis." Is this incorrect? If not, AWB should probably be changed to not have that replacement... SnowFire (talk) 18:06, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

@

WP:JOBTITLES says capitals can be used "When a title is used to refer to a specific and obvious person as a substitute for their name". I was not making automated replacements; AWB is a semi-automated tool. Please show an example where I downcased such a use of "Governor", and please remember to sign your edits on talk pages. Chris the speller ^yack

17:43, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

@SnowFire: I should have pinged the correct user. Chris the speller ^yack 17:45, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

THought I signed it, sorry.

I saw this from [12] , which I largely edited. Some of the changes could go either way (does "governors" refer to governors in general, or specific Governors? Both make sense...), but others I feel are referring to a specific holder of the office, e.g. "Obama became President" (read: "Obama became (President Obama)"), not "Obama became a president."). SnowFire (talk) 18:06, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

@SnowFire: Let's go a step further: "Every four years someone is elected president." Should be lower case. "In 2008 Obama was elected president." It seems silly to capitalize just because we know who is holding the job. In "Obama became president", 'president' is not being used "as a substitute for their name", so lower case is correct. This is not the same as the case discussing Harry Truman's time as vice president: "the President and Vice President met alone together only twice during their time in office" obviously refers to Roosevelt and Truman. Chris the speller ^yack 18:19, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

• [13]

I'm not sure about this change. "Governor" is the title of the office, so I think it's okay to capitalise it, no? Deryck C. 10:28, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

@

WP:JOBTITLES "Offices, titles, and positions such as president, king, emperor, pope, bishop, abbot, and executive director are common nouns and therefore should be in lower case when used generically ...". Chris the speller ^yack

13:27, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

Your edit is incoherent with {{Infobox football biography}}. SLBedit (talk) 16:42, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

@

WP:DATE that allows using a four-digit year where a two-digit year would ordinarily be used, so I have undone my change. Happy editing! Chris the speller ^yack

18:05, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

Hi. I was wondering why you're changing première into premiere? The former is that given in the OED, with "premiere" listed as "also...". Cheers,  • DP •  ^{huh?} 16:24, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

@DionysosProteus: Please indicate what article's edit you are referring to, and what version of OED. Chris the speller ^yack 16:27, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

Well, it popped up in my watchlist for

Oh dear... I see from looking at your contributions that you've been spreading that error somewhat. It was a French word, but première is the standard English form too.  • DP •  ^{huh?} 16:39, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

@DionysosProteus: The article had a mishmash of 'première' and 'premiere', so I made them consistently 'premiere', as oxforddictionaries.com, macmillandictionary.com and collinsdictionary.com only show the word without the diacritical mark. To me, 'première' is French and 'premiere' is English and understood by American and British English speakers. I don't have access to the OED that you mention. Does it have a date? Chris the speller ^yack 16:45, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

Unfortunately, your sense of it isn't accurate. I suspect that the error has arisen as a result of relying on online sources--many of us tend to leave out diacritical marks when our keyboards don't make it easy. No, it's the standard English form, according to the OED. My edition is the fifth edition two-volume work, 2002. Regards,  • DP •  ^{huh?} 16:52, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

@DionysosProteus: Well, there are hundreds of articles that show the word both with and without the diacritical marks. I can leave British-based articles alone; do you want to take on trying to make the spelling consistent in those articles? Chris the speller ^yack 16:56, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

Not especially, no--it's just important not to 'correct' something that isn't wrong. But your sense that it's a UK/US difference isn't right either, I'm afraid. When that's the case (as it often is in these matters), the OED explicitly says so.  • DP •  ^{huh?} 17:07, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

@DionysosProteus: No American dictionary uses the diacritical mark, and if British English predominantly uses the diacritical mark as OED says, then there is definitely a UK/US difference. In the US, the use of the diacritical mark has to be viewed as a hyperforeignism. Chris the speller ^yack 17:12, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

Have you checked with a print version? I'm not sure you're right about that.  • DP •  ^{huh?} 17:15, 21 August 2016 (UTC) NB: A quick google books search returns books published exclusively in the USA that use it. [14] eg.  • DP •  ^{huh?} 17:38, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

Can you look over this article. Someday I am going to submit for GAN. Thanks! --Doug Coldwell (talk) 13:22, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

@Doug Coldwell: Done. Regarding the doctor's office, consider whether "of the 1900s" would be clearer as "of the early 20th century" (century/decade distinction). Regards, Chris the speller ^yack 16:43, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

• Thanks!!! --Doug Coldwell (talk) 17:34, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Hello I am trying to put a reference number on the Hellraiser 1987 movie. This comment is made by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:M555333555M555333555M on this day of Saturday, August 27, 2017. — Preceding unsigned comment added by M555333555M555333555M (talk • contribs) 17:09, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

I am not a good source for questions about references.

WP:Helpdesk, perhaps? Chris the speller ^yack

18:12, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Hi Chris, Cassianto and I currently have the Burke and Hare murders at PR. An editor has raised a question on hyphen use of which I am generally ignorant, doubly so in this case! The hyphens in question are in "a trade in which he experienced some success, earning upwards of £1-a-week". Could you clarify the point for us please? Many thanks for your help. Cheers – Gavin (talk) 15:11, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

@SchroCat: There is no need for hyphens in this case. Perhaps someone saw a few sentences like "He could not support his large family on his £1-a-week salary" and assumed that the phrase therefore always requires hyphens. No, in that example the phrase is used as a compound modifier and is hyphenated because it modifies "salary", but when it does not modify anything, drop the hyphens. Chris the speller ^yack 15:57, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

You're a star: thanks so much for answer - and even more for the explanation! (If only my English teacher had covered it so clearly...!) Cheers - Gavin (talk) 16:03, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

Hi Chris, can you take another look at this edit you made. The change of century looks dubious. Keith D (talk) 10:21, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

@Keith D: Not just dubious, flat wrong – an inexcusable typo, which I have corrected. Thanks much for pointing that out. Happy editing! Chris the speller ^yack 16:05, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

No worry we all make mistakes. Keith D (talk) 19:45, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

About edits like this one: could you point to the MOS entry where this is supported? When I look at

Sure. The paragraph just before the one you found says "Use an en dash for the names of two or more entities in an attributive compound." In this case, "Guillain–Barre" is the compound modifier of "syndrome", and is made of two attributive entities, "Guillain" and "Barre", so it gets an en dash. ("Barre" should actually be "Barré", with a diacritic mark, but I haven't gotten around to fixing all of those yet.) There might be some confusion due to the fact that "compound attributive", "compound modifier", "compound adjective", "phrasal adjective", and "adjectival phrase" are used in various places within Wikipedia to mean pretty much the same thing. Happy editing! Chris the speller ^yack 03:39, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

Can you please stop changing from British to US English in articles on British topics? This is an Americanism and grammatically never acceptable in BrEng when used to describe progression ("the winner moves on to the next round") and an inappropriate colloquialism to describe addition ("the ticket is loaded on to a smart card"). Chapter and verse from the OED here. ‑ 

OK, wasn't aware of its unacceptability in British English. Chris the speller ^yack 21:25, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

Hi Chris, Thankyou for correcting my em and en dashes (which I have never really got the hang of) and for your other thoughtful adjustments. I think I ought to reinstate an upper case 'A' for 'Assistant' in the lead paragraph, because (in this context) it does not merely mean that he assisted, but that he was named by royal appointment in the foundation Charter as one of the limited group - a particular class of officialdom - called 'Assistants' who were ancillary to the Master and Wardens (or in that case the Governor and Consuls) of the Incorporated Companies (see paragraph pp. 103-04) - i.e. it is a title. For that reason I shall just put that back and hope you will approve. With all good wishes, Eebahgum (talk) 11:45, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

@Eebahgum: Yes, I see in the references for Court of assistants that SOED shows this use as being capitalized. I am part of the vast majority of users in the US that has no access to the SOED (few public libraries even have it), so I am at the mercy of editors in the UK. You may wish to move the article to "Court of Assistants" for consistency. Thanks for pointing this out. Chris the speller ^yack 13:59, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

That would be best, but beyond my practical skills, I'm afraid, as there is already a Redirect page in that form. I expect I should hash up the move. The status quo is bearable (for me, at any rate!): one can always disambiguate in text. Best wishes, and thanks, Eebahgum (talk) 16:17, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

@

WP:JOBTITLES specifically says titles are not capitalized unless they are used as part of a person's name or as a substitute for a person's name. The style used in 1631 ("The governing body of the Company is the Court of Assistants, comprising the Master, three Wardens and not less than ten Assistants."), where nearly all the nouns are capitalized, is fine for the 17th century but not the style used in the 21st-century WP, except in such a direct quotation. Also note that the SOED version mentioned in the reference section of that article is more than a half-century old. I don't think it is helpful to capitalize "assistant" or "court" or "court of assistants" because there are a number of each of those, and they are not proper names. Chris the speller ^yack

16:37, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I have responded on the same article talk page. Eebahgum (talk) 18:54, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for all your work cleaning up spelling and punctuation errors CtS. Since some of your work is with hyphens I thought you would get a kick out of this T-shirt. Cheers. MarnetteD|Talk 19:32, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

You're right, I did. And emitted an audible chuckle. Chris the speller ^yack 03:01, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Hi! I've seen you around on The Beatles' articles... Would you consider becoming a member of WikiProject The Beatles, a WikiProject which aims to expand and improve coverage of The Beatles on Wikipedia? Please feel free to join us.

Abbey Road ... You're not in this picture... yet! Todo list: To-do list for User:Chris the speller/Archive 6: A list of articles needing cleanup associated with this project is available. See also the tool's wiki page and the index of WikiProjects. Here are some tasks awaiting attention: Beatle wives Other : Project: Add {{WikiProject The Beatles}} to the talk pages of all Beatles-related articles. Send a newsletter to members, canvas for new members and coordinate tasks. Enter articles assessed as stubs onto this list, also list articles needing cleanup and other work here. If you complete one of these tasks, please remove it from the list and add your achievement to the project log.

Thanks, but not at this time. Chris the speller ^yack 03:17, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Dear Chris the speller,
HAPPY NEW YEAR Hoping 2015 will be a great year for you! Thank you for your contributions!
From a fellow editor,
--FWiW Bzuk (talk)

This message promotes

WikiLove. Originally created by Nahnah4

(see "invisible note").

Thanks. Chris the speller ^yack 03:18, 1 November 2016 (UTC)