User talk:Hoary

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Does this sound oddly familiar to you?

Wikipedia:Help_desk#Lupton_family Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:15, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Why, yes, so it does! It reminds me of something just a few centimetres above it. And of other requests. And of other requests, And of [et cetera]. -- Hoary (talk) 11:23, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Gråbergs Gråa Sång, it seems unending. -- Hoary (talk) 07:26, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I looked at that page like 2 min ago, it's on my watchlist. It's a sad situation, possibly because difficult circumstances, but we can but speculate. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:38, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Just curious, have you seen her around after the TA-change? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 05:40, 14 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

No, Gråbergs Gråa Sång, but I haven't looked. (And right now I may be excessively caffeinated.) -- Hoary (talk) 05:46, 14 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I still haven't, Gråbergs Gråa Sång. But I was feeling somewhat queasy as I went through this article a few minutes ago. No mention of Middletons or Luptons, so I wasn't so very worried. And then I looked at its history/authorship and was additionally reassured. (Incidentally, I hope that being "honourable" isn't of encyclopedic import; anyway, I deleted such descriptions.) -- Hoary (talk) 01:07, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Marcia Bricker Halperin

I was disappointed that the encyclopedia entry I started was rejected. Although you kindly recommended it, I decided not to follow your recommendation to create an entry for the book Kibbitz and Nosh. That will have to wait. Instead I revised the entry on Marcia Bricker Halperin this evening. I also asked @ForsythiaJo to help make the entry suitable to you and your fellow administrators. Because @ForsythiaJo had improved upon my start, I thought she could improve the entry further.

I bought Kibbitz and Nosh when it was first published. I was very impressed with her work. Bricker Halperin is an excellent "street photographer" in the mold of Helen Levitt, as ForsythiaJo pointed out in the text. I won two photographic awards myself but I am not in the league of Bricker Halperin. Iss246 (talk) 05:40, 25 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

And, Iss246, I was disappointed to decline it. (Sorry for the tiresome terminology lesson, but here in Wikipedia "decline" means "'no' for now, but there's hope"; whereas "reject" means "'no', you're simply wasting your and others' time". And while I'm pontificating, the great majority of draft reviewers aren't administrators; and if a reviewer happens to be one, this has no effect on the review.) I googled for the book after writing my first comment; and I liked what I saw (though my tastes are irrelevant) and was sure that the book was "notable" as defined here (which is highly relevant).

Your latest additions make it even clearer that the book would easily merit an article; but it does nothing for Halperin's work outside this book/series. I'm ready to believe that her series on Hell's Kitchen, Brighton Beach and then-new Soviet immigrants similarly merited/merit exhibition and publication, and that if that happened there'd be perceptive reviews that could fuel an excellent article. But as yet the draft doesn't show this.

There are few articles here about individual photobooks. And these articles are rather a sorry lot: some of the photobooks are of doubtful significance, and a number of the articles on photobooks of clear significance -- Suburbia, Tiny: Streetwise Revisited, Harvard Works Because We Do -- are feeble. The article The Sweet Flypaper of Life is a refreshing exception. -- Hoary (talk) 06:46, 25 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you user:Hoary for your response. I am going to continue to work on entry because I already feel momentum. I am going to make one or more additions today. If I ever get the entry accepted, I will turn to Bricker Halperin's fine book, which sits on my bookshelf with other photography books. I will continue to try to keep @ForsythiaJo involved, if she has the time (she is a very busy but excellent editor). Iss246 (talk) 19:25, 25 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Iss246, as I've indicated, I've mixed feelings about the order in which you're doing this, but I'm happy to see that you're persevering with coverage (whether in one article or two) of Bricker Halperin and her book. Certain aspects got me thinking ... and then I realized that it had been almost nine years since I'd created the article Jill Freedman. As for your bookshelf, my own has a lot fewer photobooks than it did a couple of years back, but still rather too many: one reason why I pretty much stopped writing about photographers was that reading up on them got me more interested in their work, which made me want to buy too many of their photobooks. They take up far too much space! ¶ Another matter: Dubrow's really deserves a decent article -- and an article about the photobook also deserves such an article on the cafeteria. But the article Dubrow's Cafeteria is shaky indeed. Much of it consists of unreferenced genealogy, as well as "popular culture" trivia. And a blog, no matter how conscientiously maintained, is not a satisfactory source (unless perhaps it's by a subject expert or has been praised by other, indisputably reliable sources). So if you have access to social histories of New York or similar, you might consider bolstering that article. -- Hoary (talk) 00:49, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate your interest in photography. My goal now is to bolster the article about Bricker Halperin. I do a little each day. I did not use any blogs in contributing to the article. Nor did @ForsythiaJo. I hope that user:ForsythiaJo, an experienced WP editor, returns to the draft. Getting the Bricker Halperin entry online would be good because then I can think about entries for both Kibbitz and Nosh and Dubrow's Cafeteria. One goal at a time. Iss246 (talk) 01:39, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

It's good now, Iss246. If you resubmit it, I'll "accept" (promote) it. -- Hoary (talk) 06:40, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I got your message about periods and commas.

Based on your message, I changed the text from "Little Odessa," to "Little Odessa",

I saw the following:

"the kind of family where my mother kept a kosher kitchen at home, but on Sunday nights we’d go out to the Chinese restaurant."

I left it alone because the period was part of the sentence by Bricker Halperin. I thought I was right to do that? Enlighten me if I got that wrong.

I also left this sentence alone:

"Her record of New York’s long-gone cafeterias, rendered in black and white, have graceful architecture, dazzling or moody lighting and more than a few characters, like Gene Palma, the slick-haired street drummer and Gene Krupa maven (who was also featured in Taxi Driver)."

It is a quote of a sentence by the writer David Gonzalez. Let me know if I got that wrong.

In the quote from Christopher Porter, which I indented, I now put quotations marks around it (I am accustomed to the use of an indent for a longish quote without quotation marks; I left the double quotations marks around the quote-within-a-quote alone because I followed Porter).

However, I put standard double quotation marks around the entire indented quote and put single quotation marks around 'liveliness and sorrow of urban life' because it is a quote within a quote.

Let me know what you think. Please edit if you think a punctuation persists. Iss246 (talk) 00:11, 27 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Iss246, "the kind of family where my mother kept a kosher kitchen at home, but on Sunday nights we’d go out to the Chinese restaurant" [I'll call this S (for "string")] is indeed rather complex. I took/take S to be the object of "had" (and within S, "where my mother kept a kosher kitchen at home, but on Sunday nights we’d go out to the Chinese restaurant" to be a relative clause, syntactically rather strained, as spoken English often is). That is, if S is a syntactic constituent. The alternative would be "the kind of family where my mother kept a kosher kitchen at home" as the relative clause, and "but on Sunday nights we’d go out to the Chinese restaurant" as a coordinate with "[I was brought up in] the kind of family where my mother kept a kosher kitchen at home" (in which of course "I was brought up in" is merely one of many possibilities). If "I was brought up in" or similar isn't added, S is not a constituent but instead just the concatenation of two constituents. But however I interpret S, it's not a sentence. On another hand (the third?), I haven't yet had my second coffee of the day, so I may be deluded.

I agree with you on the Gonzalez quote.

"[T]he use of an indent for a longish quote without quotation marks" is the way to go in en:Wikipedia too. For indenting block quotations within articles, we normally use either <blockquote> ... </blockquote> or Template:Blockquote. (There are also more or less exotic alternatives, which you needn't worry about. Anyway, not line-starting colons.)

As it's clear that you are concerned with even the smallest blemishes, you may have noticed, and been concerned by, the inconsistency in using (A) straight/non-directional/ugly quotation marks and (B) angled/attractive quotation marks. Wikipedia prefers the former. But don't waste your time converting: some "bot" (or person concerned about such trivia) will come along and do the conversion for you. -- Hoary (talk) 22:28, 27 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Gattonside House

Thanks for your edits to Gattonside House... crikey – a lot of clumsy mistakes on my part! Mac Edmunds (talk) 10:10, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Glad to learn that they went down well, Mac Edmunds. I hope you don't mind that I dehonourablized, e.g. changing "the Hon. Mr and Mrs Francis Montgomerie" to "Mr and Mrs Francis Montgomerie". I thought that mere honourables (as opposed to right honourables and certain others) weren't particularly eminent; and since Wikipedia normally skips "Ms", "Dr", etc, the word was dispensable. -- Hoary (talk) 10:56, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Not a problem with the honourables. As you say, they’re not particularly relevant given the context. And as Wiki tends to skip these sorts of pre-nominals, they’re probably best left out. Mac Edmunds (talk) 12:44, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Draft:Sophie von Hessen-Philippsthal

Hi Hoary, is there any chance you'd consider undeleting this draft? It was submitted as essentially a blank draft by a new editor struggling to start out, but I've offered to assist the editor with developing it (which I'd much rather than have them turn to ChatGPT). I know that the single reference had utm_source=chatgpt.com in the url, but that isn't a WP:G15 criteria, as it only indicates they used an LLM to search for sources (which I'll discourage them from doing so any further). Thanks! Nil🥝 05:25, 10 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Done. It looks an utterly hopeless cause to me; of course, I hope I turn out to be wrong. -- Hoary (talk) 05:36, 10 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, but we live in hope. Much appreciated! Nil🥝 06:47, 10 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

"Yes, me too", I'd like to say, Nil NZ; but as

no substantive change has been made to this "draft" in 23 hours;
it strikes me as just as hopeless as it did 23 hours ago;
WP:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources#Self-published_peerage_websites says The following self-published peerage websites have been deprecated in requests for comment: ... thepeerage.com ....;
no:Sophie_von_Hessen-Philippsthal, however incomplete this may be, has the woman look like a nonentity.

-- I trust that you will quickly improve the "draft" to a point where I don't regret its continuing existence. -- Hoary (talk) 06:14, 11 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

TFA

Thank you today for Adolfo Farsari, introduced (in 2007) as an "informative, very readable, and excellently illustrated survey of a nineteenth-century photographer"! -- Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:58, 11 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I was surprised to see no infobox for the photographer. I have a composer on the same page, Heinz Winbeck, my story today, and matching music. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:19, 11 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Gerda, I am happy to see no infobox for the photographer. Certain kinds of people -- models ("supermodels"), tennis players, porn starlets, prime ministers, etc -- lend themselves to such comparisons. Unless perhaps they are doggedly commercial photographers (reverently photographing models in frocks or with hair fictionally aerated with shampoos, etc) -- photographers do not. Though of course infoboxes for photographers can be bulked up with more or less promotional material, trivia, etc. -- Hoary (talk) 10:44, 11 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I don't want to disturb your TFA happiness. For me, an infobox is simply the place where, per our MoS, a reader can expect to find together when and where a person was born and died, standard for encylopedias. Compare Beethoven, - it can be as consise as that. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:53, 11 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

If the article on Beethoven started not Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 1770 – 26 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist but instead Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised Bonn, 17 December 1770 – Vienna, 26 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist -- close to what is done for the German, French, and Spanish articles about him -- there'd be one reason fewer for an infobox. The German article of course has no infobox, and is that much the better! -- Hoary (talk) 23:32, 11 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that a first line as you propose would serve the purpose, but our MoS is different, going for a more concise first sentence, which is a different advantage: getting past technical details to the person's doing sooner. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 00:33, 12 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

In the past, I've attempted more compact alternatives. Suppose it were discovered that the Beethoven baptized in Bonn on 17 December were somebody else -- a future notary, wool merchant, or whatever -- and that "our" LvB had instead been baptized on 6 January. I can't imagine how this would affect anyone's estimation of his symphonies (either their composition or their performance). The date must of course be specified, somewhere, and the specification must be accurate -- but it really doesn't matter. With that in mind, I've done the equivalent of simplifying Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 1770 – 26 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist to Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) was a German composer and pianist, deferring the details of birth to the first sentence after the lead. But I quickly gave up, as my idea was obviously unpopular (despite being licensed by MOS:BIRTHDATE). -- Hoary (talk) 06:47, 12 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, also for seeing "obviously unpopular". (I saw the same.) Giants remembered today, RD Helmuth Rilling and OTD Friedrich Cerha 100. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:10, 17 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for copy-editing! - Today something new: a 100th birthday of someone alive, György Kurtág! In 2004 I was there when he and his wife played for the Rheingau Musik Festival where he was the featured composer. They played as the 2019 DYK said, on an upright piano, - listen, the last piece was the same. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:53, 19 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Today's main page features four biographies I helped to bring there, two women and two men, three opera singers (one pictured) and an actor, - a record for me, I believe ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:43, 24 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

March music

Of the four topics I helped to bring to the main page, I'm most proud of a woman's work, so made it my story. As it happens, last year's story OTD was about the woman. -- Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:37, 16 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

on Bach's birthday, a story about my joy --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:45, 21 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

A barnstar for you!

		The Original Barnstar
		Thank you for being such great admins for this site! (Talk) PHLOGISTON ENTHUSIAST 17:43, 26 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Draft:Sergey Khrabrykh

Hello. Could you please take a look at this draft? A publication detailing Sergei Khrabrykh's biography has been added. Thank you very much. ~2026-19982-02 (talk) 07:32, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The draft's history shows that the latest request for a review was made just six days ago. At the top of the draft, we read: Review waiting, please be patient. / This may take 2 months or more, since drafts are reviewed in no specific order. There are 3,934 pending submissions waiting for review. -- Hoary (talk) 07:39, 31 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Happy Adminship Anniversary!

Wishing Hoary a very happy adminship anniversary on behalf of the Wikipedia Birthday Committee! ☘︎☘︎☘︎ALEXHammeke (talk | guestbook | sandbox) 01:39, 5 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Happy Adminship Anniversary!

Parameter template

FYI, instead of, say, <code>| website=ReverbNation</code>, you can write {{para|website|ReverbNation}}, which gives: |website=ReverbNation, using {{Para}}. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:32, 12 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Andy. But ... so many templates; so little brain available for the task of memorizing. -- Hoary (talk) 21:51, 12 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

AfD - soft delete

Hi Hoary, a page I nominated for deletion closed as a soft PROD but I wasn't aware of this. The page has been nominated a second time but looks headed for a weak keep despite not having 2 pieces of sig cov. Am I still able to delete it or tag it for speedy deletion? (Something tells me that might be frowned upon.) Thanks, Mme Maigret (talk) 08:22, 14 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

A "soft PROD", Mme Maigret? But aren't all PRODs "soft"? ("Soft" doesn't appear within the page Wikipedia:Proposed deletion.) And how can you delete anything (however deletionworthy it might be)? Anyway, if an AfD is in progress, you'd better not attempt to bypass it, unless you have a particularly pressing reason for doing so (e.g. the sudden discovery that much of it is a copyright violation). However, I may well be missing something here: Of late I haven't paid much attention to XfD and am sure that I could count my PRODs on the fingers of one hand (if I could remember any of them, and I can't). -- Hoary (talk) 22:39, 14 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks @Hoary I understand a bit more now. I AfD'd the article. It was deleted but treated as a soft delete or expired PROD because there was only one other person who commented (also recommending deletion). Someone subsequently asked for the article to be restored. It was immediately tagged for speedy deletion by another editor, the speedy deletion was reversed - apparently that's not allowed after a soft delete. So the tagger nominated it for a second AfD. It still doesn't meet GNG but looks likely to survive the second nom. Mme Maigret (talk) 23:24, 14 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

What's the article, Mme Maigret? -- Hoary (talk) 23:36, 14 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

It's David Murphy (Irish writer). Mme Maigret (talk) 00:51, 15 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Where do I find the appropriate discussion page?

My section https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Teahouse#skip-to-bottom-anchor appears to have been archived. It says in the notice saying it was archived that advice has already been given. It says to make any further discussions on the appropriate discussion page. I'm all confused what they mean. People need to be able to break in and compete. Sometimes, they will have a highly successful strategy. They might get things working for now with it. But tomorrow is a mystery. Somebody might need to be able to break in and compete again. If something is archived, how are they supposed to do so? Blackbombchu (talk) 00:11, 16 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

You're asking about this, which you started with Not one of the rest of us hasn't done all those complicated and advanced plans I can't follow giving me no part to play and starting to accumulate power. Those who know how to organzie it have something to look forward to 1000 years in advance and never give up and want to do their small part that looks at what's been getting attacked and guards it and not how we got there. This is only partly comprehensible. Your entire comment doesn't specify a single page of Wikipedia. Please interpret "Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page" as shorthand for "Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, if any". No Wikipedia discussion page would be appropriate. -- Hoary (talk) 00:52, 16 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I finally sort of see it. Blackbombchu (talk) 01:11, 16 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Greetings

You suddently flashed onto my watchlist. How are you? I don't think we've typed to each other for years. Tony (talk) 22:57, 24 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

PM sent, Tony! -- Hoary (talk) 04:04, 25 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Draft:Francesco Chiacchio

Hi, I saw the rejected request on Francesco Chiacchio's draft page, I think he is encyclopedic as he has worked for La Repubblica, Internazionale and the New York Times, and is already present on the wiki in 5 languages. ~2026-26149-33 (talk) 21:43, 29 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I did not reject Draft:Francesco Chiacchio. I declined it. (And for this reason you have been able to submit it a second time.)

In order for there to be an article about Chiacchio, he must be notable as defined by and for Wikipedia. (Let's call this "notable-WP".) In order to be notable-WP, he must meet either the general notability guideline or notability (people). (Let's call these "GNG" and "N(P)" respectively.) In order to meet N(P), he must meet either the "basic criteria" (which is just GNG for people) or (as he is an illustrator/cartoonist) "additional criteria" for "creative professionals". (Let's call these "N(P)BC" and "N(P)CP" respectively.)

This is simpler than it looks. There are just two paths for an illustrator/cartoonist to be demonstrably notable-WP: There's GNG (also called N(P)BC), and there's N(P)CP.

Perhaps Chiacchio is notable. But the draft has to demonstrate this. In my view, the draft fails to demonstrate either GNG (= N(P)BC) or N(P)CP.

I hope that this has clarified what you have to do to the draft. You have already resubmitted it, but I don't intend to review it a second time (although I might comment on it). -- Hoary (talk) 23:13, 29 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Precious anniversary

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:08, 30 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]