Chris the speller

This user is one of the 400 most active English Wikipedians of all time.

Archives

Archive 1 (October 2005 – May 2006)

Archive 2 (May 2006 – November 2007)

Archive 3 (up to 90 days ago)

Proposed deletion of Stefan Schaal

The article Stefan Schaal has been proposed for deletion. The proposed deletion notice added to the article should explain why.

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Qualitative Research and Documentary for Wikimedia

Hi Chris, (I tried reaching out using the "Email this user" form, though I'm not sure it went through) I’m an independent researcher conducting qualitative research for Wikimedia about the motivations and behaviors of top Wikipedia contributors. The interview would be about an hour or so and we would be happy to provide compensation for your time. Let me know if you’re interested and I'll provide more details. Thanks! Jonah Ginsburg (talk) 20:02, 20 February 2026 (UTC)

Limited edition

While I enjoy precision (Camparis and soda, not Campari and sodas), the hyphen seems to violate common usage standards. A hyphen is automatically necessary if the meaning is unclear or ambiguous without it, but otherwise there is no real need to change commonly accepted styles. I looked around the net for a second and would like to note that Merriam-Webster includes several example usages with no hyphen ("limited edition copies", "limited edition offerings") and no example with the hyphen. Thanks,  Mr.choppers | ✎  16:58, 1 April 2026 (UTC)

I also looked around and found OED quotation samples that appear to show it used adjectivally with and without the hyphen. I think it is absolutely correct with the hyphen, but am getting some friction from editors, so I will desist from adding the hyphen, as many people seem to enjoy it unhyphenated. Happy editing! Chris the speller ^yack 04:21, 2 April 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. I appreciate your flexibility; I hope I will always be able to approach things in the like manner.  Mr.choppers | ✎  13:05, 2 April 2026 (UTC)

Discussion

Hi. Just wondering if you could discuss your inclusion of a comma on the talk page. (I prefer discussions on articles to be on the article's talk page instead of a user talk page.) Nononsense101 (talk) 15:16, 17 April 2026 (UTC)

 Done Chris the speller ^yack 14:23, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

Apologies

Hi! I'd just like to apologise for my removal of your non-breaking space and commas. I have absolutely 0 recollection of what was happening, but I just checked back in then and noticed what I'd done...

I'm really sorry about that, I shouldn't have changed those.

Thank you for fixing that article up :) JordyGrey _talk🧸 11:09, 5 May 2026 (UTC)

No need for any apology. Water under the bridge. Happy editing! Chris the speller ^yack 13:46, 5 May 2026 (UTC)

"University Professor"

Hi. I've noticed you've changed several instances of "University Professor" to "university professor". Please don't do this without double-checking. "University Professor" is a job title, like "Distinguished Professor" or "Chancellor's Professor", that is given in recognition of highly successful academic careers. Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction (talk) 20:48, 5 June 2026 (UTC)

@Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction:@David Eppstein: I have already addressed one of the complaints from another editor about the Linda Argote article; I added the "Not a typo" template, whose documentation states that "Its purpose is to indicate passages that might appear incorrect to an automated tool, but which are actually correct." By adding that template, an editor vouches for its spelling and punctuation. By omitting that template, an editor opens it up to correction by automated tools that are bringing articles into conformity with WP:MOS, which specifies that WP does not capitalize job titles except in very limited situations where they are unmodified and globally unique, such as "Theresa May became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in 2016."; otherwise, WP, per MOS:JOBTITLE, does not capitalize king, pope or chief financial officer, even though most of them had highly successful careers, and WP certainly does not automatically capitalize university professor. You might claim that universities generally capitalize such ranks, but that would be falling into WP:SSF, which says to use "observation of what is most commonly done in reliable general-audience publications like newspapers and non-specialized magazines and websites", even though that is not the way universities enjoy doing it. If you use Google to search for <<site:washingtonpost.com "a university professor">>, the results are overwhelmingly in lower case, though admittedly most of them just refer to a person who has a job as a professor at a university. I feel that MOS:JOBTITLE clearly also applies to university professor, especially when it is preceded by the indefinite article a. If you are still adamant about upper case, I suggest rephrasing, such as "She achieved the lofty rank of University Professor". At any rate, I'm done, and any prolonged discussion should be continued on WT:MOSBIO, which is the talk page for MOS:JOBTITLE Chris the speller ^yack 22:43, 5 June 2026 (UTC)

You're missing the point. You say "admittedly most of them just refer to a person who has a job as a professor at a university". This clearly indicates that the capitalization in University Professor is semantically meaningful: it is a title that should not be considered the same as "professor at a university". The capitals are used to indicate that in written language. In spoken language, the emphasis on the syllables would be correspondingly different (slightly more stress on the first syllable). So you should not be making capitalization changes that change the meaning of text, regardless of whether people have used wording that you approve of to signal this difference.

As for your proposed "achieved the lofty rank", that violates WP:PEACOCK and most Wikipedia editors would correctly remove that wording. And how lofty it is varies by university; at my campus, it is such a high distinction that I think we may not currently have anyone with that title. At other universities, it may be more routine, a step above full professor but below Distinguished Professor (another of these titles where the capitals mean something: it is not a professor who happens to be distinguished). —David Eppstein (talk) 23:00, 5 June 2026 (UTC)

OK, the easy one first: if you use Google to search for <<site:washingtonpost.com "distinguished professor">>, you will see that it quite predominantly uses lower case, and in cases where newspapers and WP:MOS indicate lower case but universities want to capitalize, I'm following the MoS every time. In my remark about "lofty", I was being sarcastic (sorry you missed that); I never add peacock terms to WP articles. My suggestion to rephrase still stands; try "she held the rank of university professor" or "he held the position of university professor", and you won't have to fly in the face of the MoS. Chris the speller ^yack

Response to Talk page message

Sorry, I had to revert your edit in order to revert the wholesale changes made by the previous user which were contrary to MOS:THEBAND. I think you'll find I immediately restored the commas you had added. Thanks. Rocksymusic (talk) 19:09, 17 June 2026 (UTC)

All cool. Chris the speller ^yack 19:17, 17 June 2026 (UTC)