User talk:Polar Apposite - Wikipedia

Hello, Polar Apposite, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like this place and decide to stay.

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• If you have a question that is not one of the frequently asked questions below, check out the Teahouse, ask me on my talk page, or click the button below. Happy editing and again, welcome! Rasnaboy (talk) 08:07, 13 March 2023 (UTC)Reply

Did I forget to sign any of my talk page contributions? Polar Apposite (talk) 08:46, 13 March 2023 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for the fruit. Polar Apposite (talk) 08:47, 13 March 2023 (UTC)Reply

And thanks for the warm welcome. I am really getting into editing Wikipedia. It is *fun*. Polar Apposite (talk) 21:38, 10 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

  Welcome to Wikipedia, and thank you for your contributions. Although everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia, please note that there is a Manual of Style that should be followed to maintain a consistent, encyclopedic appearance. Deviating from this style, as you did in Unreasonable ineffectiveness of mathematics, disturbs uniformity among articles and may cause readability or accessibility problems. Please take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. MOS:PUFFERY - AquilaFasciata (talk | contribs) 17:16, 13 July 2023 (UTC)Reply

  Hi Polar Apposite! I noticed that you have reverted to restore your preferred version of Nuclear weapon design several times. The impulse to undo an edit you disagree with is understandable, but I wanted to make sure you're aware that the edit warring policy disallows repeated reversions even if they are justifiable.

All editors are expected to discuss content disputes on article talk pages to try to reach consensus. If you are unable to agree at Talk:Nuclear weapon design, please use one of the dispute resolution options to seek input from others. Using this approach instead of reverting can help you avoid getting drawn into an edit war. Thank you. VQuakr (talk) 19:10, 24 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

I'm confused. I didn't mean to undo anyone's edit, and I didn't know that I did. Which edit are you referring to? Polar Apposite (talk) 19:24, 24 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

I also replied to you on the Talk page of the article. Polar Apposite (talk) 19:25, 24 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

About ten minutes ago. Polar Apposite (talk) 19:25, 24 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

I had a look at the Revision History page of the article. I should have looked at it straight after the first time I replaced a nuclide symbol with an IUPAC name. I am fairly new to Wikipedia, I guess. Newer than I realized :) I didn't realize my edits were getting undone and that I was redoing them, I guess because I was drudgery fashion going through the article using control find, and not really noticing much.

Anyway, you are right that there wasn't a proper consensus on the Talk page of the article. I thought I had a green light, but it seems I misread the situation. Polar Apposite (talk) 19:45, 24 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

And just now I noticed that NuclearSecrets had edited the nuclide symbol style several days ago, on the19th, without saying anything about it on the Talk page. Polar Apposite (talk) 19:56, 24 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

Yeah but those are uncontroversial changes to match the Manual of Style, [1]. Apples and oranges. VQuakr (talk) 22:11, 24 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

True, but I wasn't making a comparison there. I was just explaining that I didn't know he had made any edits since I started that section on the Talk page.

Also, my changes didn't *conflict* with the Manual of Style, did they? It's just that the Manual of Style only talks about *how* to use symbols in prose, without saying anything, as far I know, about what constitutes overuse of symbols.

And nuclide symbols are a somewhat special case among symbols in being remarkably, perhaps even uniquely harmful to readability of prose, due to having the superscript and/or subscript placed before the element symbol.

So, surely, my changes really didn't conflict with the Manual of Style? Polar Apposite (talk) 23:54, 24 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

Is it your policy to undo any edit I make anywhere in the article that substitutes the full name of a nuclide for the nuclide symbol? Polar Apposite (talk) 21:15, 25 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

  You have recently made edits related to Eastern Europe or the Balkans. This is a standard message to inform you that Eastern Europe or the Balkans is a designated contentious topic. This message does not imply that there are any issues with your editing. For more information about the contentious topics system, please see Wikipedia:Contentious topics.

• Please note also the special rules regarding the Russo-Ukrainian War: Editors who are not extendedconfirmed may not edit in the topic area (although talkpage comments like the one you made are okay).

-- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 06:53, 22 September 2023 (UTC)Reply

  Please do not use styles that are nonstandard, unusual, inappropriate or difficult to understand in articles. There is a Manual of Style, and edits should not deliberately go against it without special reason. Specifically I am seeing a lot of edits from you that use colloquial, emphatic, or generally informal unencyclopedic language with edit summaries saying "Improved some of the English". Please review WP:TONE and WP:FORMAL before continuing to make these edits. ––FormalDude (talk) 21:01, 10 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

Could you give me an example of an edit of mine that you think is not an improvement? Polar Apposite (talk) 21:18, 10 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

I will look at those two links. Polar Apposite (talk) 21:19, 10 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

I read the two links and I found them very interesting, especially the link within about the inverted pyramid's origin. On the other hand, I agreed with everything there, and do not recall, and would be surprised if I went against anything in your two links. So I am sincerely at a loss here. Please could you give me an example or two of edits that I mind that you didn't think were good ones. Polar Apposite (talk) 21:48, 10 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

I am now looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Basic_copyediting Polar Apposite (talk) 21:52, 10 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

I see now that my edit summaries probably should have been more informative and detailed, after reading this just now in the Basic copyediting article: "Make your changes and fill out an edit summary. Be helpful to the editors who follow you by giving a summary of what you have done. Simple "Copy edit" is fine, but "Edited for tone" is even better. The most commonly used abbreviation for "copy edit" is "ce", which is better than nothing, but it is more helpful to include one or more words or phrases such as "capitalization", "subject-verb agreement", "fixed dangling modifier", "logical quotes", or whatever describes your edit." Polar Apposite (talk) 22:10, 10 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

Your edits that stood out the most to me were this and this. It's not a big deal, but we shouldn't be overemphasizing, adding cleverness, or rewording just for the sake of it. Better edit summaries are always appreciated, and it would help if you explained specifically how you are improving the wording. Justifying your edit with a specific policy is ideal too, but not required.

And the inverted pyramid is not what I was talking about, I was referring to the Tone section of that page. ––FormalDude (talk) 00:49, 11 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

On reflection, I completely agree with you about the first edit that you linked to, about information about living persons, because conversational language like "it bears repeating" is out of place in an article, especially one that is stating the official rules of Wikipedia about a highly emotive and contentious subject. Not my best edit. The revert was a good one.

Regarding the other edit, about the definition of "life", I would like to point out first that the edit I made there was not the edit I intended to make. It was not the final version that I typed, as I recall. I don't know what went wrong, but I guess it was that I forgot to save the changes of my latest version of my edit. Up to but not including ". It has", it's as I intended. But where it reads, ". It has", in my latest typed version, it read, ", more specifically: ". The "it" of "It has" is terrible writing, because it's not clear what it refers to. It could refer to life, to matter, or even (conceivably) signaling. In conclusion, while acknowledging that it was seriously flawed, it was still better than the original text, and it was flawed only in one part, and in a way that you could have fixed. I think reverting was too extreme a measure. Just my opinion.

One reason I kept my edit summaries short was that I didn't know how long they were supposed to be. Is there a character limit? Do other editors appreciate a detailed justification (perhaps with mentions of specific policies - I hadn't thought of that, and I think it could prevent a lot of unnecessary debate. Thanks for that.) for an edit in the edit summary? I was worried that it might take up too much space on the revision history of the article.

I just think the origin of the inverted pyramid is incredibly fascinating and very instructive (a good lesson in not just guessing at the history of things). I didn't think you were drawing it to my attention. I just happened to stumble on it while exploring your links. The most amazing fact I've learned in a long time. It's so surprising, isn't it? I can't believe I never heard it before. I'll definitely be looking into this.

What else could I do to improve my edits? Polar Apposite (talk) 01:11, 12 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

I reverted your edit to Life because the previous version was much easier to understand and had a more intuitive flow. I also note using phrases like "that is to say" is considered too personal and informal for encyclopedic writing. My other concern was that the existing wording had been recently reviewed via the good article process, meaning an experienced editor thought it was of quality with no major problems. A significant rewording of the lead sentence is not really justifiable in that case, at least not without prior discussion.

There is an approximate limit of 500 characters for edit summaries. They are intended to be brief, normally I wouldn't make one any longer than three sentences. Most all policies have a WP:SHORTCUT that you can use to link to them in your edit summary. If you can't explain your edit in 500 characters, it should probably be discussed on the talk page first.

One of the main ways I learned to write here is by reading quality articles, such as aforementioned good articles or, even better, featured articles. ––FormalDude (talk) 03:40, 12 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

I have spent a lot of time reading Wikipedia articles over the years. Not sure whether any of them were featured articles. I will certainly have a look at some featured articles in order to see what is valued on Wikipedia.

I had a look at the history of the Life article, and, like you said, it got upgraded or whatever to "good article" status. And *very* recently (and it looks like you were instrumental in making that happen--congratulations on that. It certainly is an awesome article. I will certainly be checking the talk pages of any articles with a plus sign at the top before editing the lead sentence, at least if it's an important article like "Life".

May I ask you whether I have been correct in thinking and acting on the belief that it is wise to edit just one sentence of an article and then wait to see whether it gets accepted, and a week or so later revisit the page and then edit another sentence. Or should I edit several sentences if see several that I think I can greatly improve? Or should I only correct one apparent mistake at a time, even if there several within a sentence, and wait a few days, say to see whether it gets reverted? Polar Apposite (talk) 06:58, 13 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

Thanks, but I actually had nothing to do with getting that article to GA status (I only nominated it for DYK, which is different and doesn't require editing the article).

I don't think it's a bad idea to start with one sentence before jumping into major edits to an article. On the other hand, bold editing is a fundamental principle of Wikipedia, so it's up to you. The important part is that you learn from mistakes if you are reverted. One thing I can suggest is making individual edits for every substantially different change you make so that you have an opportunity to explain each edit in its own edit summary, rather than making a bunch of changes at once and trying to explain all of them in a single edit summary. Don't go overboard with it though, you don't want to flood the page history with a dozen minor edits in a short period. Just use your best judgement.   ––FormalDude (talk) 07:12, 13 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

I like the "separate edits allow separate summaries" idea. That's really helpful.

Regarding trying to explain a bunch of changes in one edit summary, it sounds like you looked at my contributions page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Polar_Apposite and saw the filled-to-bursting edit summary for my edit, on 12 October 2023, to "Hard problem of consciousness":)

I ended up reverting it because it contained essentially the same mistake about four times, which was to convert "easy problems" to "easy problem" which involved changing a bunch of plural pronouns and so on to singular as well, so that they matched the new form, and to change them all back would take a while, so I just reverted the whole thing.

Luckily, after a bit of Googling (better late than never), I had realized, within minutes of making the edit that in fact "easy problems" is *not* wrong, and that for years *I* had been wrong, or at least in the minority, in calling it "the easy problem". Chalmers who originated this term of art and the idea it refers to, in fact always writes it as a plural, and I haven't been able to find anyone who uses the singular. I've been reading about the easy problem of consciousness for a while, and it seems that I had been laboring under a misconception the whole time.

I can't believe how much I am learning while editing Wikipedia. It is very educational. They should teach school kids to edit Wikipedia from an early age, perhaps. What do you think?

One or two days ago, out of the blue, it struck me that your user name might be an allusion to the word "formaldehyde", via a possible interpretation of "FormalDude" as "For mal D ude" which sounds a bit like "formaldehyde". Since I had already associated you with biology in my mind, it seemed plausible. Or am I reading too much into it?

One other thing. Is there a particular amount of time that people are expected to respond to edits or article talk page questions or suggestions?

I ask because on one forum, not part of Wikipedia, I acquired the distinct impression that if you didn't respond to a question, say, within about 24 hours, you would be seen as ignoring it. It seemed to make sense, because even if your only chance to visit the website was before going to work, or just before bed, or during your lunch break at school, or whatever, if you've got time to post at that time on one day, you should be able to do so again on the following day.

Is it the same on Wikipedia? Polar Apposite (talk) 22:13, 13 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

I'm worried that I wasn't very clear about my perception of the unwritten time limit. I meant that (although my ideas about this are a bit muddled, I suspect) if I posted something, and someone replied immediately, I had about 24h (36 hours max, I think) to reply to the other person's reply, or be taken to have ignored the reply, or at least to be very slow about replying. Polar Apposite (talk) 22:46, 13 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

FormalDude is not a pun on formaldehyde, though that is an interesting thought that I haven't heard before. I actually came up with it while trying to think of an oxymoron.

There's no exact time limit for someone to respond on Wikipedia, certainly not 24 hours. See WP:There is no deadline and WP:Silence and consensus. ––FormalDude (talk) 00:35, 15 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

I noticed straight away that FormalDude contains an oxymoron-like contrast. I like being the first to think of, or ask about, something, so I am delighted to find out that I was the first to notice the possible formaldehyde connection. Of course a lot of people have user names that are/contain plays on words, mine included of course.

I just got a notice from Wikipedia that because I've got 500 edits now, from now on I have free access to the top 99 subscription only databases. That is awesome. I often find myself frustrated by paywalls like that, so this is super awesome. And it feels like Christmas Day :). I'm surprised that I didn't hear about it before. Should I refrain from telling everyone? Polar Apposite (talk) 02:57, 15 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

Regarding the Jewish Population by Country article, there's been no reply to any of our article talk page posts, the latest was my reply (15th October 2023) to your awesome comment. What, if anything, do we/I do now? Polar Apposite (talk) 12:19, 21 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

What should you do regarding the revert being discussed at Talk:Barack Obama § My copyediting was reverted. Can we discuss this, please? Leave it alone, back away from the discussion, find another article, and work on that one instead. Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 02:44, 14 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for your prompt response. Would you please share your reasons for saying I should leave it alone? Polar Apposite (talk) 02:48, 14 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

I recommend that you read Wikipedia:Don't bludgeon the process. You have failed to gain consensus. Please drop the matter and move on. Cullen328 (talk) 18:46, 14 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

I'm reading your link. Google doesn't know what "!vote", which is a term used in your link, means. Do you know? Polar Apposite (talk) 08:10, 18 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

"It is not your responsibility to point out every flaw in everyone's comments. If their opinion is so obviously flawed, give other readers the benefit of the doubt in figuring that out on their own." is in the link. I find this hard understand, especially the second sentence in the quote. Polar Apposite (talk) 08:31, 18 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

Your link contains, "It is not necessary or desirable to reply to every comment in a discussion." which I find hard to understand. I get "not necessary", but why not even desirable? If I post a comment, I generally hope for a reply, a better still, many replies. Polar Apposite (talk) 08:34, 18 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

You would seem to correct that I have failed to gain consensus (I like that phrase), and I am willing to move on. I still don't understand what happened. I don't see it as a big deal, but I am mildly curious about this. Polar Apposite (talk) 08:41, 18 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

Can you tell me what, if anything, I should do about the "you asked a question' or whatever template/tag below? Polar Apposite (talk) 08:43, 18 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

I read more or less the whole of your link, and it was very helpful. I never would have guessed replying to every reply I get was frowned on. I still don't understand that idea, but it's good to be aware that this is in the guidelines.

By the way, I appreciate your taking an interest in this situation. Polar Apposite (talk) 08:46, 18 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

I suggest that you read WP:!vote and understand that Google is not very good at finding Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, since the Wikipedia pages going into detail about such matters are not indexed for Google searches. Google bots can easily find our articles, but not our internal discussions. Cullen328 (talk) 08:56, 18 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

I read WP:!vote. I understand it more or less, now. Thanks for the link. Thanks for the heads up about Google. Do you know why they are not indexed for Google searches? Polar Apposite (talk) 14:53, 21 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

I verified that inputting the string "!vote" into the Wikipedia search box found it straight away. Thanks again for that.

By the way, I seem to be again (so soon) at the beginning of the revert protestation process (I have posted my concerns on his talk page) after Fowler and Fowler reverted a bunch of my edits that I still think were good.

Any thoughts that you'd care to share? Polar Apposite (talk) 16:05, 21 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

I just want you not to get expectations that are too high. With a lot of the databases, you only get access to a small subset of the database, and it's not even made clear when your access is limited, except that your efforts to get access fail.

The one database I've found that I'm able to consistently get access to is jstor (though admittedly, I've really only tried to access a handful of all the databases presumably provided by Wikipedia library access).

Even with jstor, it's not as though you can just login and then the jstor links just work. What you need to do is to replace everything before the jstor number with https://www-jstor-org.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/stable/.

The Wikipedia library login session seems to be pretty persistent, so once you've logged in through the Wikipedia library page, that will generally be persistent, e.g. https://www-jstor-org.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/stable/42842703 will continue to work, but keep in mind, you wouldn't want to post this link on a wiki page (ideally, the "jstor" citation parameter would expand to the appropriate link based on the user environment). Fabrickator (talk) 21:28, 15 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for the heads up. I will probably ask you some questions at some point in the future. Polar Apposite (talk) 13:10, 16 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

Will I get a better kind of access to the databases if and when I have more edits to my name, say 5000 or 50,000? What other cool things can I expect to happen due to reaching a particular number of edits? Polar Apposite (talk) 13:13, 19 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

It seems you were right about it not just working. I logged in successfully, I thought. Then I did what you said with pasting the jstor number on the end of your link. Now I am faced with "You can also use your Artstor username and password." What is it talking about? Polar Apposite (talk) 16:28, 19 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

To your question about getting more database access with more edits, insofar as I am aware, the answer is no. I'm pretty sure there's really no increasing levels of privileges based on number of edits, incentivizing a higher edit count is a really poor idea, IMO.

The fact that you saw the thing about "Artstor", that's telling me you got the jstor login popup, and from that, I infer that you used the "jstor.org" url. That's not going to utilize your Wikipedia library access. If you've used the right url, it will say "Access provided by Wikipedia" at the top of the screen. The correct domain name will end in idm.oclc.org, and it will start with www-jstor-org (note the hyphens instead of periods). Fabrickator (talk) 19:49, 20 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

Thanks, I really appreciate all the info.

Are you saying they shouldn't give people this library access at 500 edits? Polar Apposite (talk) 19:57, 20 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

I have come across Mo'orea, a Polynesian island which Darwin visited and which is also known as "Eimeo".

The article has a bunch of claims with very little that is sourced. If you search for the claims now, you'll find sources on the web that support these claims, except that it looks like most of the sources were actually published after they were added to the Wikipedia article (a situation which is known as citogenesis).

The journals of Darwin's voyages are available online (with the longhand converted to text).

I am thinking (hoping) you would find that dstablishing the validity or invalidity of the claims made in this article would be more satisfying than the kind of nitpicking back and forth we commonly see in the general article edits ... and either way, a worthwhile accomplishment.

One tool you might want to become familiar with is the "find addition/removal" tool (technically it's called "wikiblame") which lets you search an article history for the version where text was added or deleted. With this, you can establish when specific text was added to the article, which helps you establish whether something else found to have been published on the web in a particular time range occurred before or after what was added to the Wikipedia article.

Just a thought ... it seems like the usual editing is quite contentious ... and that's because everybody has an opinion, and whoever is able to intimidate the other person automatically wins, and that almost always seems to be the other person. Fabrickator (talk) 05:16, 21 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

I'll have at look at the Mo'orea article.

That "wikiblame" tool could come in handy. Thanks for telling me about that. I have been wondering for a long time whether there was a way to see who had added what, and when, to an article. Where can I find it?

I actually find polishing a sentence until it is positively dazzling very satisfying indeed. Even removing a single blemish from a sentence is fairly satisfying. I like making excellent prose better still, or, ideally, perfect. The fact that I am reading the article indicates that I think it is at least good prose, and so, when I spot a blemish, it feels good to remove it. I sometimes think of myself as a road user who hits a pot hole, says "ouch", and then stops to fill it in.

As often as not, a local inhabitant, or someone from the roads department soon digs out in a jiffy what I filled the hole with, so that the pot hole is recreated. Sometimes there's an explanation, sometimes there isn't. Once in a blue moon (it seems to me), it turns out that I had accidentally created a new pothole, thinking I was erasing one. My recent edit of the Biographies of living people article is one of those. FormalDude reverted it, and in the end I applauded him for doing that. But I seem to have succeeded in filling a lot of pot holes, so it's a case of "some you win, some you lose", or rather "some you win, some you draw", perhaps. After all, when the pot hole is recreated, it is no worse than I found it. so there is no net harm to the road.

Also, at the end of the day, my edit is still there in the revision history, and I hope history will vindicate me.

Regarding intimidation, it seems a bit disappointing that it would be allowed on Wikipedia. Also, isn't there arbitration and voting and so on to settle issues. Could you tell me how intimidation comes into it? Where can I read about this?

And finally, you have been so helpful, a real mine of information. I'm curious about what initially drew my talk page to your attention. Polar Apposite (talk) 12:10, 21 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

Relying on some kind of effective resolution of disputes (e.g. arbitration or voting) really is just not the way to go. In fact, there is not voting. People express their opinions, and some seemingly self-appointed arbiter does what they want. Spending effort on these drawn-out disputes doesn't do much for Wikipedia ... plus a lot of these things are just subjective... should the "simple past" or "past perfect" be used? You might get something resolved this week, but a week or a month or 3 years later, somebody's probably going to undo it... and if they don't change the text you edited, they may change the text before or after it, which then makes your changes inappropriate.

I don't know what you are asking about regarding how intimidation comes into it. If you keep reverting after somebody reverts your change, then you're subject to sanctions. It matters not that you're right and everybody else is an idiot. And if you raise the issue of your proposed "correction" on the article talk page ... well, this is a frustrating way to go, because it mostly gets ignored or else gets rejected as not being properly requested. This is especially true for the "stylistic" sorts of changes that you seem to be very fond of... and IMO, it's just the wrong place to be expending a lot of energy.

BTW, "wikiblame" has a lot of peculiarities, I can't explain them all. And it's slow, and sometimes .... sometimes ... it will just quit, your browser stops spinning and wikiblame hasn't actually finished. Ok, I'll give you one clue to interpret the results ... as it walks through the revisions (either in a form of "binary search" or the "sequential" search, which is limited to 25 revisions), it displays either an "x" or an "o". The "x" means it didn't find the text, the "o" means it found the text ... I think of the "o" as meaning that it found the text and it "circled" it. This gets more confusing, because yuo can also ask it to search for when the text was removed, so if it circles it, then it hasn't found what you're looking for. Also, I usually increase the number of revisions it looks through... 500 is the default. There's really not much harm in just asking for a couple of thousand or more. Bear in mind, this "binary search" can miss stuff. I'm really somewhat impressed that it works as well as it does, because there's not really a way to do a binary search, and if it finds what you asked for, it may not have found the most recent revision where the change occurred. But still, it's helpful to find how things got to be the way they are, then you understand why Wikipedia is like a game of "whisper", where the content you're looking at bears no relation to the facts. You're worried about some rule that your grammar teacher tried to explain to you, but the reality of what's important or what's accurate just gets overlooked. True, you might come back 5 years later and your changes are still intact and nobody has screwed up the text before or after. But this is really the "fool's errand" of Wikipedia editing, IMO, at least. Fabrickator (talk) 15:17, 21 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

Could you tell me how you heard about me and began communicating? Do you contact everyone when they get library access, to help them out? Polar Apposite (talk) 16:57, 21 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

In one case, you made a change in the form "...what (is|are) a, b, and c". I suppose you had presumed that there was a subject which came before the "what", so the singular form of the verb was used. But that's not the case... the subject is "a, b, and c", so the plural form of the verb is correct. Fabrickator (talk) 17:34, 21 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

What are you referring to, specifically? Polar Apposite (talk) 17:37, 21 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

This is a series of 3 edits you made about 1.5 days ago. Obviously there is a disagreement about "number", because the verb had been "are" and you changed the verb to "is". Sorry but I can't be more explicit. Fabrickator (talk) 17:58, 21 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

And that was what initially brought you to my talk page? Polar Apposite (talk) 18:04, 21 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

Talking to you on your talk page is more or less a way of communicating in a slightly less public place. But looking this change over again, I take back my criticism. The intention of this statement was made confusing by the pre-existing content. Fabrickator (talk) 20:37, 21 October 2023 (UTC)Reply