User talk:MichaelMaggs/Archive/2025

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LR.127 (talk) 20:56, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Don't think I'm realistically in a position to help with that, sorry. MichaelMaggs (talk) 17:14, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

Replaceable non-free use File:Lorna Doone, first edition 1869.png

Thanks for uploading File:Lorna Doone, first edition 1869.png. I noticed that this file is being used under a claim of non-free use. However, I think that the way it is being used fails the first non-free content criterion. This criterion states that files used under claims of non-free use may have no free equivalent; in other words, if the file could be adequately covered by a freely-licensed file or by text alone, then it may not be used on Wikipedia. If you believe this file is not replaceable, please:

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No objection to this deletion. I have uploaded a different 1869 image. MichaelMaggs (talk) 18:01, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

Note

Recently some mass edits of a now blocked editor were reverted. In the process, I think some of your edits to some of those pages may have been reverted as well (to go back to a more stable version of a page). You may wish to check the edit histories to see if any of your edits may need to be redone, if appropriate. - jc37 04:16, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

It appears that you want to keep those pages a jumbled, confusing mess. If things were more carefully checked, none of this would have happened. And I'm not just talking about Wikipedia pages. 103.82.39.42 (talk) 12:23, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

I have no knowlege whatsoever of these things, and I'd be grateful if any discussions could take place somewhere else. Many thanks. MichaelMaggs (talk) 17:12, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

Not sure if you realized this, but the original comment was referring to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Writing about fiction and Wikipedia:How to write a plot summary. 103.82.39.42 (talk) 19:03, 9 January 2025 (UTC)

Short descriptions

Hello—I've noticed that you take an active interest in the wp:Short description page. I've just made an initial attempt at what I think is a more accurate and explanatory version of the opening paragraph, and put it on the talk page here.

I've tried to emphasise that the title and short description work together, so it's obvious why one shouldn't repeat the other.

I didn't think I should just go ahead and change the article without any discussion, since it's so prominent and is more than just a copy-edit. Musiconeologist (talk) 00:59, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for commenting there. Is there anywhere else I should be alerting people to the suggestion so we get more feedback? I get the impression that new sections on that talk page can sit there unnoticed for quite a long time, though I suppose that's true of a lot of talk pages in general. Musiconeologist (talk) 18:03, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

The page is actually quite well watched, and contentious suggestions there can quite often result in significant feedback. It's true though that fewer editors turn up to say "yes, I like that". I'd suggest leaving your proposal up there for perhaps a week, and if nobody objects simply implementing it, mentioning the talk page discussion. If someone reverts, at least that gets the conversation going. You may well find, though, that your idea is just quietly accepted. MichaelMaggs (talk) 13:59, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks—I'll do that then. I realised there might be some silent watching going on when Jonesey95 added a reflist template to the section. Musiconeologist (talk) 14:41, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Precious anniversary

Precious

Two years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:53, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

Short description format

Hi, since you are another member of wikiproject short descriptions, I was wondering if you have any idea what would be a good short descriptions idea for the annual Pulitzer Prize articles (such as 1972 Pulitzer Prize). Everything in use (search insource:"short description" intitle:"Pulitzer Prize " prefix:"1" is subpar, and does not explain what the Pulitzer is.

Thanks, -1ctinus📝🗨 01:46, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

@1ctinus I agree that "Pulitzer" needs to be explained in all those examples. I'd suggest something like "Award for American journalism and arts". The official definition includes "letters" as well, but that's a minor aspect that could be omitted to keep the SD short. MichaelMaggs (talk) 14:07, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Following your undo of The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle

Hi Michael. You undid an edit I did following a request to expand the lead section of the page.

I went over your comments and as I'm still learning, I would appreciate if you could comment on the following.

1. You mentioned the use of American grammar and spelling. Is that an issue? I have been using American grammar, style and spelling for all my edits with no problems or comments so far, so just wondering if you could elaborate more on this.
2. Regarding the penultimate sentence, I thought it was not appropriate to list all the adaptations to film and radio/audio, as there are numerous adaptations and they appear in detail later in the page. The book on the other hand was the only version mentioned so I quoted it. Should I have not quoted anything (i,e just mention there are various adaptations to video, audio and books), or should I have references examples from the TV and radio sections so as not to make the book reference look random? Thanks for your input, It's a learning process :-).

Sablc4747 (talk) 08:54, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for your message here. On the variety of English, have a look at WP:RETAIN and WP:TIES. The article also has a specific template Use British English . So this article needs "humour" rather than "humor" and "Mr" (without a full stop/period) rather than "Mr.". On the second point, WP:LEAD says that the lead should be "a concise overview of the article's topic". So, a general overview rather than a mention of specific examples. Sometimes a particular example may be so important in context that it merits a mention in its own right, but that's not the case here. The other factor to watch for is the need to comply with WP:OR and WP:V when creating the overview. Editors often slip in comments such as "one of the best known" or "the most popular", which always need a source. AI loves generating that sort of filler statement. MichaelMaggs (talk) 09:29, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

Fiction guideline

For the sake of users seeking guidance, this edit needs to be adopted. You seem like the only one who might do that, though I doubt there is much actual content-based objection to most of those changes. If someone wants to re-add something, they should first check to see whether it might be redundant to something else on the page, and also consider whether it is actually helpful to those seeking guidance. Any article cited as an example should be checked very closely; this is also why I am skeptical about the list of articles that supposedly adhere to this guideline.

If this edit is not adopted, I am not sure how much if anything will ever get done here. Again, we need to consider users who are seeking guidance. 221.158.136.11 (talk) 03:57, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
	Thank you for updating and adding short descriptions to articles on Wikipedia. With your help, the WikiProject's top 3000 list has been cleared for March 2025 already! Your work has made Wikipedia better :-). LR.127 (talk) 02:03, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

That’s nice, thanks! MichaelMaggs (talk) 04:35, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

Mistaken Description

Hi there, you may have made changes to the bot since this edit - https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Eucalyptus_salubris&oldid=1009834723 - but I thought you'd want to be notified. It said that this tree is a grass. I've corrected the page. 220.235.78.155 (talk) 11:10, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

I don't recall in any detail I'm afraid, as that was over four years ago. Thanks for fixing it. MichaelMaggs (talk) 15:04, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
	Thank you for updating and adding short descriptions to articles on Wikipedia. With your help, the WikiProject's top 3000 list has been cleared for April 2025, the second month in a row! Your work has made Wikipedia better :-). LR.127 (talk) 12:52, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

Oh, thanks! MichaelMaggs (talk) 12:53, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

And much thanks again, where we've completed the list for June 2025. Cheers :-). LR.127 (talk) 01:55, 2 July 2025 (UTC)

Nomination of Health Protection (Coronavirus, Wearing of Face Coverings on Public Transport) (England) Regulations 2020 for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Health Protection (Coronavirus, Wearing of Face Coverings on Public Transport) (England) Regulations 2020 is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Health Protection (Coronavirus, Wearing of Face Coverings on Public Transport) (England) Regulations 2020 until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article until the discussion has finished.

Landpin (talk) 20:18, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

Smallbone Deceased

Hello. Thanks for your note. I am a great fan of Michael Gilbert, and I think Smallbone Deceased is one of his best. But a legal error in chapter 13 has bothered me for the last 50 years. In section I Bohun says that Abel Horniman handed over the (incomplete) deeds of Crookham Court Farm to National Provincial Bank when he mortgaged the farm to the bank in 1937. In section II the Husbandmen's League's solicitor says that, when "Stancomb Farm" was mortgaged to them in 1943, he made a search at the Land Registry and found the 1937 mortgage of Crookham Court Farm duly recorded. But the 1937 mortgage was a legal mortgage secured by deposit of title deeds, and would not have been recorded in the Land Registry under the Land Charges Act 1925; therefore a search would not have revealed it. Pomponiatus (talk) 16:25, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

I'm very sorry, but I'm afraid that is not going to work. It's a basic requirement of Wikipedia that added information can't be based on an editor's own personal knowledge or original research (WP:OR), including literary criticism such as this. It's not enough that you know the law was as you say, nor is it even enough that you are perfectly correct about it: the analysis you are hoping to add has to be based on some reliable published secondary source (WP:RS). So, even if you can show without a shadow of doubt that you are correct, you'd still need to be able to point to some reliable published source which has independently noted the same error, and which also expresses 'surprise' that the author should have made it. Unfortunate, I know, but Wikipedia relies more on prior publication in reliable sources than it does on abstract 'truth'. MichaelMaggs (talk) 20:56, 5 August 2025 (UTC)

Jack and the Beanstalk, etc.

I don't know whether you have any interest in fairy tales, but the plot summary of Jack and the Beanstalk needs attention. The version in the cited source is the Joseph Jacobs one, which can also be found here. The current summary contains several errors:

• The story never refers to the giant's house as a "castle".
• Jack does not "find the giant's wife in the kitchen". The story specifies that Jack first sees her on the doorstep, outside.
• Could you please give me something to eat? I am so hungry! is not an accurate quote. What Jack says here is Good morning, mum. Could you be so kind as to give me some breakfast.
• There is no boy in here! is also not an accurate quote. What the giantess says is Nonsense, dear, you’re dreaming. Or perhaps you smell the scraps of that little boy you liked so much for yesterday’s dinner.
• "In the night" is not accurate. In the story, the giant goes to sleep after breakfast, and Jack escapes then.
• Jack never hides "under the bed". He hides in the oven the first two times, and in the copper the third time.
• Jack does not meet the giant's wife at all the third time. Rather, he sneaks into the house, probably because she knows by then that he is a thief.
• Help master! A boy is stealing me! is not an accurate quote. The harp simply calls Master! Master!

All of this can be solved simply by restoring this version.

I also thought this would be a good example for WP:PLOTSUM, better than the Red Riding Hood example which is currently there. But this was reverted and revdeled. I wish people would focus on actual content.

Improvements to WP:WAF and MOS:NOVEL were also revdeled. Maybe someone could request that an admin un-revdel these edits? Perhaps they could just strike the edit summaries, but leave the actual revision history in place so that established users can take a look when they have time? 47.83.234.100 (talk) 05:51, 13 August 2025 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for Berkhamsted

Hi. A page you have contributed to, Berkhamsted, has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:08, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

Replaceable non-free use File:The Highway Code, cover to 2022 edition.jpg

Thanks for uploading File:The Highway Code, cover to 2022 edition.jpg. I noticed that this file is being used under a claim of non-free use. However, I think that the way it is being used fails the first non-free content criterion. This criterion states that files used under claims of non-free use may have no free equivalent; in other words, if the file could be adequately covered by a freely-licensed file or by text alone, then it may not be used on Wikipedia. If you believe this file is not replaceable, please:

1. Go to the file description page and add the text {{Di-replaceable non-free use disputed|<your reason>}} below the original replaceable non-free use template, replacing <your reason> with a short explanation of why the file is not replaceable.
2. On the file's talk page, write a full explanation of why you believe the file is not replaceable.

Alternatively, you can also choose to replace this non-free media item by finding freely licensed media of the same subject, requesting that the copyright holder release this (or similar) media under a free license, or by creating new media yourself (for example, by taking your own photograph of the subject).

If you have uploaded other non-free media, consider checking that you have specified how these media fully satisfy our non-free content criteria. You can find a list of description pages you have edited by clicking on this link. Note that even if you follow steps 1 and 2 above, non-free media which could be replaced by freely licensed alternatives will be deleted 2 days after this notification, per the non-free content policy. If you have any questions, please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. 廣九直通車 (talk) 05:26, 1 September 2025 (UTC)

September music

story · music · places

Thinking of you on St. Michael's Day: on top of The Company of Heaven and a Bach cantata, I show a collection of DYK around people called Michael on my user page ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:20, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

That's nice, thank you. MichaelMaggs (talk) 16:16, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

Unity Mitford

I see you reverted my addition the the Popular Culture section on Unity Mitford's page, when I added details of her frequent appearances in the novel Munich Wolf, on the basis that the book is insufficiently notable. I would suggest this might be revisited. The book may not be high literature, but it is at least as notable in its way as, say, Outrageous, the TV series which is included. The author, Rory Clements, has sold more than one million books to date, published by major publishers such as Penguin, making him one of the UK's most popular current authors. Some of his books are currently being adapted for TV and the author himself has appeared on the Sunday Times bestselling list and has twice won the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Fiction Award. Munich Wolf itself is available via every major bookseller and, on Amazon, its reviews are in the thousands. Wikipedia itself states that 'Self-published content, books almost no-one has heard of' should not be included, but 'Popular television shows and best-selling books' should be considered. Clements, and Munich Wolf, are clearly much closer to the latter category than the first. On that basis, I think the entry should be included. If you still disagree, perhaps the question should be placed on the discussion page for a wider range of views? Neilinabbey (talk) 12:01, 23 October 2025 (UTC)

Hi, MOS:POPCULT makes it clear that Cultural references about the article's subject should not be included merely because they exist. Cultural aspects of the subject should be included only if they are supported by reliable secondary or tertiary sources that discuss the subject's cultural impact in some depth. The mere appearance of the subject in a film, song, video game, television show, or the like is insufficient. In order to include the book in the Unity Mitford article, you'd need to find some reliable source focused on Unity Mitford that discusses the importance of the book to an understanding of Unity. That's what's crucial, not the other way round: the importance of Unity to the topic of the book doesn't matter here.

The fact that some of the entries in the list may be bad isn't an argument for adding more. I haven't looked at existing entries, but some others may need to be cleared out as well.

You've argued that the book itself should be considered notable. That's not crucial here, as we're not creating a new book article. If we were, we'd need to consider WP:NBOOK, requiring significant coverage in multiple independent reliable sources. Volume of sales, reader reviews, popularity, or the notability of the author aren't in themselves enough; the requirements are much more specific than that. MichaelMaggs (talk) 12:47, 24 October 2025 (UTC)

Birth Years

I'm not sure if it notifies you when I responded on my talk page so I decided to put it on your talk page, too, to make sure you see it. I'm very sorry for violating the rules. I'm not well-versed in them so, to be on the safe side, I'll stop adding birth years altogether. I genuinely appreciate the warning and reversions. GamerKlim9716 (talk) 18:38, 7 November 2025 (UTC)

I did get a notoification when you replied on your talk page, but thanks anyway for your reply here, too. All the best, MichaelMaggs (talk) 18:41, 7 November 2025 (UTC)

Thank you!

Thank you MichealMaggs, for thanking me my edit from The Forsyte Saga (2002 TV series). 🍀🍀🍀 Eru719 (talk) 09:48, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

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A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	... is that right? 10 months in a row? With your help, the WikiProject's top 5000 list of short descriptions has been cleared for November 2025, an especially huge milestone when the list used to "only" be 3000 articles per month! Well done. Your work has made Wikipedia better :-). LR.127 (talk) 19:07, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

Wuthering Heights

Micheal: Thanks for your correction on the plot summary;

I have tried to incorporate the key points int the Character list - does that have a similar limit on length. otherwise I will see if I can rework the plot summary to remove the clear errors on the legal context. Which is important as one of the major themes of the boo - and which Emily Bronte took very considerable pains in getting right. TomHennell (talk) 23:35, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Have now done so; wordcount is the same as before. TomHennell (talk) 14:17, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

Thanks. Looking good. (Many of Jane Austen's books could do with something similar!) MichaelMaggs (talk) 21:43, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

Much appreciated; and yes, Jane Austen also has (from the force of her personal experience) a considerable expertise in Early Modern land law; as does George Eliot. Whereas the plot of Trollope's 'Orley Farm' is reported to be catastrophically undermined by his legal sloppishness. TomHennell (talk) 12:38, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

File:Kathleen Lyttelton circa 1898.png

Do you have the means to rescan this at a higher resolution? I'd like to restore it, and it would be easier to work with a higher-res version. Cheers! JayCubby 18:14, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

I don't have a better copy myself, but I can certainly email the owner of the original photo to ask if he'll do us a higher resolution scan. MichaelMaggs (talk) 22:14, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

I've sent you a high resolution scan by email. MichaelMaggs (talk) 18:11, 15 December 2025 (UTC)

@MichaelMaggs, thank you! Could you please upload it to a file host like https://catbox.moe/ or similar? My associated email is my name. Thanks! JayCubby 18:19, 15 December 2025 (UTC)

I'm actually going to re-check with the owner, as the size of the image I've received is still much smaller than I'd expect from a 600dpi scan. I suspect it's somehow been compressed. MichaelMaggs (talk) MichaelMaggs (talk) 18:28, 15 December 2025 (UTC)

Probably needs a setting tweaked on the scanner. The owner promises me he'll have another go at this after Christmas. MichaelMaggs (talk) 18:54, 15 December 2025 (UTC)

Wonderful! JayCubby 19:04, 15 December 2025 (UTC)