User talk:Noetica

Νοητικά means "things of the intellect", just as φυσικά means "things of nature (physics)". Using the approximate categories applicable to your species, I am male, and Australian. Stationed on the planet's surface awaiting orders for my next mission, I specialise in the details of Wikipedia style – at WP:MOS (punctuation and style recommendations for our 6,899,207 articles). I am also concerned with titling policy – rational arrangements for naming those articles (see WP:RM, WP:TITLE, WP:DAB).

If you post here, I will answer here. Tea?

Messages:

Appraising hidden agendas

You may be interested in the following 1999 news article from the Sunday Herald. [1] Since it is behind a paywall, allow me to quote from it briefly.

FORGET the old gag that Scotland's a place where men are men and the sheep are nervous. If you are Neil Lyndon, hero of the men's movement and self-styled victim of the massed ranks of feminist harpies, it's a country where women are women and the men are scared. Lyndon shot to infamy in 1992 with his anti-feminist tract No More Sex War. Within months of publication, he had vanished from sight, battle-scarred and broken from the flak and fireworks that greeted his book.

His career ruined by accusations of misogyny, his answer-machine plagued with messages from women vowing to castrate him, and his marriage in tatters, Lyndon decided to shut up and disappear. Seven years later, he has resurfaced in Scotland. Today, Lyndon lives in obscurity in Perth, where he is building his own house and re-building his life after his one-man war on women ended in financial ruin and shame. Fittingly for a man who railed against the inequalities of fathers in society, he is also raising his teenage son after a bitter divorce from his second wife.

The paper is apparently published in Scotland, and the Perth in question seems to be in the Scottish outback.

Lyndon was savaged in the press when his book was published. He was then one of the leading feature writers in the UK writing for most of the London broadsheets but, after a sound "monstering" in every newspaper in Britain for being a woman-hating boor, his work dried up completely.

Apparently political conservatism has not gained the traction in England that it has in the U.S.

Regarding recent wiki-wars, there is this site, http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/ and I understand it is traditional not to link to such sites here, so I encase it in "nowiki" markup. I had no idea such things existed. Note the telling "Overview of Mod Policy"

No linking to SRS or affiliated subs. Advocating for violence/illegal acts may be removed (this is not the same as advocating for changes to the laws governing these acts)

A further search for "SRS" yields something a little more informational in nature. [2] This site (Men's Rights, not SRS) has recently (2012) been identified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which I seem to remember took on pro bono cases for the purposes of advancing civil rights/voter's registration in America's troubled South back in the 60's. [3] report:[4]

Finally allow me to report this conversation from dinner last night: Kiwi: "Auckland isn't even known for linguistics, if you want a linguistics university you go to Waikato." Me: "And where do you go for men's rights?" Kiwi: "Men don't have rights. Get with the program. [sputtering, unintelligible...] Look at what happens when they get rights. Like [what goes on in Saudi]."

So I would suggest that the use of the phrase "men's rights" is undergoing or has undergone some sort of, I don't know, paradigm shift maybe. In the past it meant something like a Hammurabi-like delineation of the difference between free men and slaves, with property rights of women and orphans thrown in for good measure. Then it went to a "rights of man" kind of grandiose sweeping vision of standing up to oppressors. Women were not included in this assessment as they were generally not part of public discourse. Then perhaps the feminism of the 60s, where mentioning such legal situations as the unequal application of social security laws to men with regard to their wives' salaries was not unheard of in feminist tracts of the era. Now it is a wonder of the social media, perhaps a dog-whistle phrase like "states rights", and the occasion for sputters if mentioned over a glass of tea.

A pity this information is only available off-wiki. In connection with this, I note some recent conversations that have come across my watchlist about the future wiki use of social media, like quoting information from Twitter.

According to my talk page, I am extremely busy at the moment, so I had best vanish again. Cheers.

Neotarf (talk) 06:03, 26 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

All fascinating, Neotarf; as are the labyrinthine twists of WT:TITLE these days.

I will not be doing much directly with that perilous page Men's rights, or whatever political correctness would have us call it. As I said long ago when KillerChihuahua came to my page to tell me I was wrong during the 2011 RM, and to deliver her opinion on a core topic of the RM:

"I regard the article as a travesty of Wikipedian ideals, because of arrant political involvement from competing interests. I have simple factual material to contribute (as I have done); but I doubt that it can have a fair showing, so I expect that I will keep away. Another reason for doing so is that I feel intimidated and under threat of arbitrary sanctions, given the community probation you have imposed and the censorious moves you have recently made against an editor. It's just too dangerous, even for innocent bystanders. I see little hope for improvement of the article or the situation surrounding it."

That's from my Archive 6. My view has not changed; nor have my feelings of dread.

I have been reading David Benatar's The Second Sexism: Discrimination against Men and Boys (2012). What a tour de force! Great to see a professor of philosophy presenting a detached analysis of all the issues. Needless to say, he predicts the stupid formulaic reactions that his thesis will elicit in certain sectors that are immune to careful thought. Tsk! Well, that's the way of the world; and alas, the way of some parts of Wikipedia.

This is a kitten-free zone, of course. But we manage to maintain a perfectly comfortable environment. Stay for karkadé next time?

Noetica^Tea? 08:21, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Kathleen Parker#Career (version of 18:03, 22 August 2012.) mentions Save the Males: Why Men Matter, Why Women Should Care (New York: Random House, 2008).

—Wavelength (talk) 15:34, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There is a New York Times review of this book here. Neotarf (talk) 06:49, 29 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

See 080629A Save the Males. "CD copies are available at 1-800-747-7444. Ask for program number 08-06-29-A."

—Wavelength (talk) 01:02, 1 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Karkady....ahhhh....I haven't had that since the first time I was in Egypt, although I've never made it as far as the farflung (and non-rhotic?) Barfoo (or was it Fubar).
Thanks for the reminder about Men's rights; yes, I saw your earlier reservations, but I had forgotten them. As a new editor with less than a thousand edits, I'm not sure what to think when I get templated [5] by someone with a confrontational name, when an article has its own hand-picked, resident "uninvolved" admin, when someone who claims to be some sort of employee of Wikimedia Foundation accuses me of "bad faith"[6] after I post his exact words verbatim, along with a diff, or when someone claims I accused them of having "a point of view problem" when my exact words were "I don't see you as trying to push a particular POV." [7] Troubling too, when there are so many people in one place who do not seem to buy into the values of WP. And twice as troubling for a new editor who is still trying to figure out where all the landmines are buried.
Of course you can always write your own men's article. But I have to take issue with your "simple factual material to contribute". Nothing is simple with this topic. The mere act of choosing WHICH material to contribute can be political, in that it helps determine the focus of the article and any resulting public discourse on the subject. One thing I noticed about the previous men's rights article before it was scrubbed, was that it was a collection of random and unfocused factoids, that merely cataloged differences in policy between men and women. Interpretation here is everything. For instance, take the differences between screening for prostate cancer compared to breast cancer. What is the cost per test (last time I checked, the blood test for prostate cancer was expensive and not particularly reliable) and how many illnesses would be prevented (breast cancer is much more common, so the cost effectiveness would be higher.) How can you tell if a particular policy decision is being made by cost, and not by gender? More to the point, how do you allocate finite public resources? Or take military service. How do you interpret gender considerations of military service in terms of "veteran's preference", the practice in the U.S. of giving first pick of lucrative civil service jobs based on years of military service. The devil, as usual, is in the details, and especially in their analysis.
I'm afraid the book you recommend is not available here, as I'm in something of a backwater. We can get the usual man/woman/mars/venus lunacy, as well as either How to Make Someone Fall in Love With You in 90 Minutes or Less or How to Kill Your Husband which, although Amazon classifies this latter as "fiction", here it is shelved with "self-help". I'm afraid the focus of book publishing is too often on entertainment value, and not on scholarly thought.
My apologies for inviting kittens to your talkpage. Of course it was meant to be facetious, I doubt anyone took it seriously. If you do experience any manifestations, feel free to call on me to take responsibility for their removal.
Regards, Neotarf (talk) 23:39, 1 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Neotarf: Fear not!

I want little to do with that article. Of course it's all very complex, and of course it's riddled with politics. I would never have contributed to it at all, if I had not noticed that people were calling for hard, documented facts there. I optimistically assumed that the ones I was able to supply would be welcome. Alas not by everyone, as it turned out. Far from selecting in a necessarily slanted way, I simply contributed from a couple of research interests I have, but not with any "original research" of mine. It is beyond my control if the facts I documented are not to some people's liking; or if they remove the material under cover of misleading edit summaries. My main concern is not to behave like that myself. That's all. And I never do, as my record shows.

We'll see what happens. Those unruly RFCs at WT:TITLE are a worry. Food for the cognitive psychologist's thought! When things are quieter I intend to revisit the option of invoking Wikipedia:Move review – in the interest of seeing good procedure followed, rather than in the expectation of a healthy outcome for an article that was always destined for futility and turmoil.

Let's move on for now, and live what we can of life away from such a madding crowd's ignoble strife!

☺

Noetica^Tea? 07:37, 2 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My reduced Wikipedia presence

I have some pressing and unexpected things to attend to in real life, and will not be able to respond on some Wikipedia matters for a few days. I'll still check in; but in particular, I may not have access to all of my usual style resources and the like. I'll post a note when I am fully back.

Noetica^Tea? 02:02, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

These three things can help you in that situation.

a securely stored catalog of all the items
insurance for all the items against loss and damage
a contingency plan for replacing each item, if it needs to be replaced

Maybe you already have all those things.

—Wavelength (talk) 14:18, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wavelength, thank you for your solicitousness. But be assured: I have no fear for my library of style resources; it's just that I can't have access to all of them for a little while. I mentioned that because there are issues (at WT:TITLE and WT:MOS, for example) that those resources could normally help to settle.

Noetica^Tea? 07:20, 2 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hyphenation of "full-time" and "part-time"

Hyphenation of "full-time" and "part-time" is being discussed at Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Typos#"full-time" and "part-time" false positives (version of 03:40, 31 August 2012).
—Wavelength (talk) 03:44, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Misrepresentation of RfC on centralized discussion

The new RfC at WT:TITLE does not ask if RM should be required for controversial page moves. It acknowledges it as standard practice. It does require broad consensus but not RM. While I think we should have a discussion about requiring RM, the RfC that is there does not do that. I think your misstatement of the RfC will bias newcomers to the discussion and may already have caused some confusion. Please fix it. Thank you. Jojalozzo 04:29, 2 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Joja, I have addressed your concerns at the RFC you refer to, where I also offer my help. It is important to formulate things in a way that will not prejudge contentious matters, and that will conform to the NPOV requirements of WP:RFC. The discussion at those two overlapping RFCs at WT:TITLE has really been about what policy does currently say, and what policy ought to say to reflect the community's attitude to controversial page-move proposals (and the proper advertising of them). Let's focus on those underlying concerns, rather than wittingly or unwittingly serving anyone's preconceptions and undeclared agendas, OK?

Best wishes as always,

Noetica^Tea? 07:02, 2 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think your agenda is clear and I don't think your portrayal of the RfC is a neutral one. If we want an RfC about whether RM should be required (and I think we should have that RfC), then we should do that and not use the current one for a different purpose than it was designed.This already happened in the previous RfC and you can see that it causes confusion and makes consensus impossible. While I appreciate your attempts to help I don't think your efforts will achieve your purposes. Jojalozzo 13:12, 2 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I make no secret of my agenda, and I always declare my interests. Most people do not, right? See the RFCs at WT:TITLE, for example.

Of course you can change the notification at centralized discussion. No one else had notified your RFC there; and since these RFCs have important policy and procedural consequences, the community needs to hear about them. I just assumed that you needed help. (I did help you, when you mismanaged the markup for the RFC, right? I note that you have not thanked me ☺.) Anyway, I strongly advise you now: take note of the opinions at the RFC: people generally do not share your assumption of what is implicit in the current wording, or of what needs to be modified for clarity or to match the community's expectations. Your RFC was ill-advised, for the reasons I have made already clear.

Best wishes as always,

Noetica^Tea? 13:26, 2 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A request

Hi Noetica, I'd like to ask you again not to alter my posts. It has happened twice on the MoS talk page in recent days, and here on the article title RfC today, where you removed my follow-up comment that qualified my oppose. Refactoring RfCs to move threaded replies is fine, but it has to be done in a way that doesn't change what people have said, and people's qualifications of their own comments are normally left in place (provided they're not too long, and there aren't too many of them). Many thanks, SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:24, 2 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for coming here with that, Slim. As I point out above (and see more at WT:MOS, just posted), I cannot spend more time on these things. Please look again at how and why I have done what I have done, and how I have made sure to explain every time. Please consider contributng in a way that keeps an RFC readable (unlike the monstrosity that precedes the present one at WT:TITLE). And please consider presenting facts to the community fairly and accurately, which you did not do at WT:MOS. You imposed a burden on others. I strive to keep things transparent in the development of Wikipedia's manual of style, and I do not think it is fair when people generate unnecessary work to keep things orderly.

Posted with difficulty, from an iPad. I must now get on with other things in the real world.

Noetica^Tea? 23:01, 2 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The Olive Branch: A Dispute Resolution Newsletter (Issue #1)

Welcome to the first edition of The Olive Branch. This will be a place to semi-regularly update editors active in dispute resolution (DR) about some of the most important issues, advances, and challenges in the area. You were delivered this update because you are active in DR, but if you would prefer not to receive any future mailing, just add your name to this page.

In this issue:

Background: A brief overview of the DR ecosystem.
Research: The most recent DR data
Survey results: Highlights from Steven Zhang's April 2012 survey
Activity analysis: Where DR happened, broken down by the top DR forums
DR Noticeboard comparison: How the newest DR forum has progressed between May and August
Discussion update: Checking up on the Wikiquette Assistance close debate
Proposal: It's time to close the Geopolitical, ethnic, and religious conflicts noticeboard. Agree or disagree?

Read the entire first edition of The Olive Branch -->

--The Olive Branch 19:20, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Potentially controversial title changes must be advertised at Wikipedia:Requested moves

"Broad consensus must be reached before making any potentially controversial title change, and all such proposals must be advertised at Wikipedia:Requested moves" might have been more widely palatable if the order had been reversed: "Any potentially controversial title changes must be advertised at Wikipedia:Requested moves in order to build a broad consensus"... LittleBen (talk) 12:13, 6 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Little Ben. If you look above, you will see that Noetica is away at the moment, however he was not the one who wrote this proposal. Please see here.[8] Regards, Neotarf (talk) 14:16, 6 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for coming here, Ben. I accept what you say, and that wording might be better. But my aim was simply to show a minimal variant of the proposed wording that matched its form closely. I was not making a proposal, but showing what small alteration would make the wording acceptable to me.

Neotarf, I am here when I can find time. Pretty well confining myself to the important RFCs at WT:MOS and WT:TITLE, for now.

Noetica^Tea? 00:30, 7 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

New eyes

Is there a chance you can look at this? While there are probably some technical policy elements to this, I am mainly looking for subtlety and judgment, so if you are not free right now, I will wait. This is a stub I started about ~~Abdullah al-Hamid~~ (this version instead), who went to trial this week in Riyadh. My concern is mostly about BLP issues surrounding "persons accused of crime"; my particular focus is the infobox. The edit history is here.

I will put my concerns in a new section so you can look at them after you form an impression. Regards, Neotarf (talk) 15:43, 11 September 2012 (UTC) [UPDATE: After reviewing BLP, I've decided to revert for the moment; I've changed the link to the previous version. -N][reply]

New eyes, part II

The back story, what I know of it, is that this guy was arrested after providing human rights information to Amnesty International about treatment of Saudi dissidents. The "Specialized Criminal Court" that is trying him is for political trials; it has been used for Al-Qaeda and for the Riyadh compound bombings. Also as background, a curious view of adverbs.
~~My first concern is whether there is any BLP info that needs to be removed immediately.~~ I don't have time right now to go through everything added to the infobox, but I know some of the material in the box can be sourced and some definitely can not. I am also concerned that what leaps off the page from the infobox might be phrases like "Criminal ...spreading chaos, destabilizing" instead of "human rights". There are other details: isn't it pejorative, to refer to a language that uses a non-western character set as "native"? Is أبو (abu=father) a "name"? I thought about adding "citation needed" tags, ~~but it's a BLP, perhaps the whole box should be taken offline until it can be vetted~~. It's a bit sobering to wonder if I could have put someone in danger by starting this article. My second concern, as a relatively new editor looking for best practices, is the proper forum for decisions about the box. My initial foray at the RfC had a chilling effect, to say the least.
Thanks in advance for any observations you have time for. Regards, Neotarf (talk) 17:06, 11 September 2012 (UTC) [UPDATE: Obviously I've removed the material for now; I would still appreciate if you can glance at things. -N][reply]

I will look into all this tomorrow, Neotarf. ☺

Noetica^Tea? 11:09, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Much appreciated; I don't have time for this either. Neotarf (talk) 16:09, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have reviewed the situation, and I endorse your removal of the infobox until the wording is carefully sorted out (see my note on the talkpage). I have also given the article a light copyediting, with an edit summary that invites editors to discuss before proceeding. A neat and factual start for this article, I say. Well done! I'll try to monitor how things develop.
As for the "adverbial" asides, I advise stepping back from that issue for now. WT:MOS is not for the faint-hearted, at the best of times. I find myself under provocation there lately; but others might feel similarly affronted by me. My complaint is that some people react first rather than read first, which makes genuine dialogue impossible. Alas, we must live with the living.

Noetica^Tea? 23:03, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Again very much appreciated. Also thank you to your talk page stalkers; if the page view history is any indication, there are many eyes on that article. Will try to find time for a longer comment on this later. Neotarf (talk) 10:55, 14 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

RfC

Please leave the RfC alone, Noetica. If you want to open your own later, you can run it as you please, but I'd be grateful if the interference with this one would stop. I'm going to ask an uninvolved admin to close it when people have stopped commenting, and s/he will evaluate numbers versus arguments. Keeping a running tally isn't appropriate. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:37, 15 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

SlimVirgin, the only interventions you have seen or will see from me at WT:MOS are constructive. As I have already noted, you have more than once distorted the course of events that led to the present situation. Despite my requests, you did nothing to make amends. Instead, you complained and made life difficult for me when I set the record straight – which I did only after you refused my requests. Now you have restored a version of the discussion in which people's signatures are copied, which can only lead to confusion. You do not see that my clarifying work had zero downside, and several benefits? I advise you to think again. Duplicating an editor's contribution out of context is a misrepresentation tantamount to WP:Signature forgery. Don't do that! See also these guidelines at Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines:

"Do not misrepresent other people: The record should accurately show significant exchanges that took place, and in the right context."
"Generally, do not alter others' comments, including signatures."
[I would only do such a thing out of dire necessity, when someone's RFC advertisement is misleading and requests to fix it are ignored. And then I would label my interpolation, and keep it self-contained. What is your cautious practice in this regard?]
"Because threads are shared by multiple editors (regardless how many have posted so far), no one, including the original poster, 'owns' a talk page discussion or its heading."

That's right: you do not own an RFC, and on the present evidence you could use advice and assistance in keeping things on track toward the consensus that we all hope for.

I invite you to fix the present chaos in the RFC, which is largely due to your own actions. If that is not achieved within a day, I will make a clear declaration on the page that, by my experienced and expert evaluation, the RFC has no validity. It is a procedural mess; and people should recognise it as such. I do not want to wrangle with you, and I will not edit war – despite your making that one of the few available options.

♥

Noetica^Tea? 04:31, 15 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Noetica, in all fairness, you have not been helpful at the RfC, nor have you appeared to be willing to be helpful. You chided others for their language, only to go on to be the only one in the entire RfC to use any kind of strong language ("Obdurate obfuscation"). You open and re-open a completely pointless tally. Just accept the fact that you haven't even been trying to contribute constructively at the RfC. Your denial will not make it not so. --87.79.226.106 (talk) 01:12, 17 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In all fairness, completely and safely Anonymous, you make a claim but you back it up with zero argument. That is your prerogative, of course, just as it is mine to ignore such baseless assertions and to get on with efforts toward orderly discussion and ultimately consensus. Consensus-building cannot be done alone, by definition. If others do what they will against it, that is their choice and I will not attempt to deprive them of it. My record speaks of my efforts toward an excellent manual of style for Wikipedia, backed by the widest community input we can get. Of what does your record speak? ☺
Keeping a tally becomes valuable when signed votes are replicated in their entirety without comment or explanation, jeopardising evaluation of consensus by sheer weight of sprawling text. Your adjective "silly" is unwarranted. Go now, and think again.
Noetica^Tea? 01:41, 17 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have been meaning to update the tally but I haven't had time. There has already been one request for closure, and there have been some new responses.[9]Neotarf (talk) 00:34, 26 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Neotarf. It would be useful to update that tally, in a new subsection has not been interfered with in a way that smacks of "ownership". Easy to do in-line:

Support removal: [Editor 1], [Editor 2], ...
Oppose removal: [Editor 1], [Editor 2], ...

The note at the village pump and the one requesting closure are both worded prejudicially. So are the terms of the RFC itself. It should not appear as if the contested words are present on the page, awaiting possible removal. They were removed last year!

I would appreciate your taking care of this one. I've had enough of it.

Noetica^Tea? 00:59, 26 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Mm, that's not why I brought it to *your* talkpage, but okay, I will try to get to it soon. Neotarf (talk) 00:01, 27 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, thanks! Better that more than one editor be involved in keeping track of that typically unruly RFC. Noetica^Tea? 01:00, 27 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

And it was archived a few hours later. Not sure how to unarchive, perhaps a simple revert? Or perhaps no more needs to be done. Neotarf (talk) 13:24, 28 September 2012 (UTC) [Later: never mind, I've got it, it's done now. -N][reply]

Use of "should" and its alternatives

I have seen some of the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Policies and guidelines#Should (version of 12:24, 19 September 2012), and I am reminded of Wikipedia:Ignore all rules (version of 08:11, 14 September 2012) and Wikipedia:What "Ignore all rules" means (version of 12:02, 15 September 2012).
—Wavelength (talk) 23:00, 19 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The Heritage Illustrated Dictionary of the English Language—International Edition (1975), in its "Usage" note for "should", includes the following statement.

Should, in indicating obligation or necessity, is somewhat weaker than ought and appreciably weaker than must and have to.

As I understand these four expressions, they all can denote obligation, as when an army officer commands a soldier.

You should intercept this tea.
You ought to intercept this tea.
You must intercept this tea.
You have to intercept this tea.

Also, they all can denote recommendation, as when a person speaks to a friend.

You should try this tea.
You ought to try this tea.
You must try this tea.
You have to try this tea.

Intermediately, they can denote quasi-obligation or quasi-recommendation, as when a physician issues a "command" or a "recommendation" to a patient.

You should try this tea.
You ought to try this tea.
You must try this tea.
You have to try this tea.

Also, they all can denote probability, as when a person expresses a conclusion about what seems to be likely (and not necessarily desired).

This tea is very good, so it should be very expensive.
This tea is very good, so it ought to be very expensive.
This tea is very good, so it must be very expensive.
This tea is very good, so it has to be very expensive.

In my understanding, the four expressions differ in their intensity, but their meaning varies according to their context.
—Wavelength (talk) 16:08, 20 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for that analysis, Wavelength. I have done a great deal of similar research, but I am reluctant to spend time presenting the results here. No time! If it comes to a properly presented and regimented RFC in the appropriate forum, I will find time. Just brief observations, then.

Dictionaries are limited resources for the precise and overlapping meanings of expressions with "should" and "must". These are complex matters, even if (as I contend) the presence of unequivocal obligatory force is plain in contexts such as Wikipedia statements of policy. Among other variables that are sometimes present, though not cancelling or even diminishing that obligatory force:

differing expectations of compliance;
differing expectations for the consequences of failure to comply;
differing quasi-legal gravity of failure to comply (and possible sanctions against anyone failing to comply); and
differing admixture of non-deontic modality, along with the obligatory (deontic) force. An example: "A hidden comment must not be put on the same line as the heading of a section but following the final '==' markup." That imposes an obligation, but it does more. That "more" justifies the "must": if you do not comply, you will disable features of the markup. For one thing, the heading will not appear in an edit summary when the section is edited. So there is a kind of external necessity involved, distinct from but affecting the deontic necessity.

Such matters are covered in descriptive grammars, in linguistic texts concerned with modal auxiliaries (etc.), in philosophical treatments of modality and ethics, and in texts concerned with legal drafting.

All in good time!

Noetica^Tea? 01:34, 26 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You may be interested...

...in the link at the very end of this essay, titled The meaning of words like "must" and "should" [10] Neotarf (talk) 21:47, 20 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. See the list of contributors. And of closely related interest, see the list of Wikipedia-prefixed pages that link to what is essentially User:WhatamIdoing's individual take on the issues covered. I count 295 such links! There is cause for concern, if one editor is so heavily promoting an external "authority" without evidence of consensus.

To be borne in mind for future action?

Noetica^Tea? 01:09, 26 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm. [11] Neotarf (talk) 00:03, 27 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yep. Not easy to track down, are they? But ubiquitous. Noetica^Tea? 01:01, 27 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Major and minor keys

JackofOz asked about musical terminology at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language#Minor or major? (version of 22:34, 27 September 2012).
—Wavelength (talk) 23:12, 27 September 2012 (UTC) and 23:23, 27 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks

I want to thank you for your efforts to make WP a better encyclopedia, and I hope that you can recognize "Apple–Microsoft war" as not being a proper name would get an endash (except that out of the three books that use the term, one uses / and the other two a hyphen) and the "Roman-Syrian War" has achieved proper name status and gets a hyphen as supported by the way everyone writes it. There are a million other better ways to improve WP than this. Since Apple is not an adjective and is not used as an adjective, I would think you might agree that an endash is correct, but do you have any suggestion as to why these two books would use a hyphen: Face your brand! The visual language of branding explained - Page 133 by Alexander Greyling or Can India win the electronics revolution? - Page 222 by V. Isvarmurti - 1994 which says "Apple-Microsoft war hots up". India English? In researching endashes I kept finding references to Chicago Manual of Style saying one thing and most other style guides saying something else. What is the correct punctuation to use for Apple Microsoft war? Apteva (talk) 17:08, 28 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Admins

Admins have so special powers to close RfCs. If you don't like the closure, there are ways to deal with it besides reverting. -Nathan Johnson (talk) 22:56, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Nathan. Unfortunately your close of an RFC in which no consensus was reached was both premature and incompetent. Your summation shows that you failed to distinguish two sorts of consistency. The distinction was at the core of the matter. See Premature closure reversed: the subsection I have opened to discuss this at the talkpage.
♥
Noetica^Tea? 23:11, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The closure was neither premature nor incompetent, but you've cleverly exploited my not caring. You may continue arguing about something that no readers actually care about. -Nathan Johnson (talk) 14:51, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]