@FerriusUndermine some general advice: don't use chat gpt for technical things (it doesn't understand anything, and occasionally produces hillariously wrong things). Titlesec is not a difficult package to use, and the documentation is pretty good. Claiming "I am a novice" is fine, but don't use it as an excuse forever - read docs, and learn. Then you will stop being a novice.

You say that you have a problem, but don't say what the problem is. You redefine \section, and then state that it is a problem that your new definition is used. What are you execting, versus what are you getting?

Other comments also: The environment you have for poetry is not fantastic - you appear to be choosing the wrong layout, and then fighting it to get something approaching what you want. There are at least 3 packages relating to poetry, and at least 2 of them are about type-setting verse (verse and poetry). I can almost certainly say using one of those will make your poetry quote look better. And since you didn't write that poetry, you should provide a citation as to who did.

@cfr "working tree clean, nothing to commit" is git telling you that there are no untracked files (all the files present are either ignored or under git control), and there are no modified files (you haven't changed anything since the last commit).

@cfr Depending on what you actually want (not "this is what svn gives, I want that), there may be a few different ways to get it. For example, diffs between this branch, and main (if you use branches), or the diff between "what I have now" and "what was committed last" are both possible. It should also be possible to find what is different between your current branch, and the same (or different) branch on the remote.

@enkorvaks May i please know which packages you are reffering to?

I'd also like to include drama style quoteblocks... might that also be something those packages can do?

@enkorvaks But neither of those were true.

@FerriusUndermine one is called poetry, the other is called verse. You can find both on CTAN, or through the package manager (miktex or tlmgr).

@enkorvaks Usually, I want to know three or four things: (1) is this file tracked, (2) if so, where, (3) when was the last remote change to this file and (4) have I changed the working copy. I perhaps 25% understand svn and 2.5% understand git.

I don't exactly have an actual case because even stuff I have under git, I also have under svn. I'm really just trying to figure out how it works.

@FerriusUndermine I'm not sure what you mean by "drama style quoteblocks", but I suspect that there are packages for setting block-quote type work. If I was looking, I would start with a google search of the main tex.se site, and of CTAN to see what other people use.

@cfr I don't usually use git status with a filename, so I'm guessing here, but I suspect that my comment applies to "all the files you have listed as arguments to git status" rather than the whole repo.

@cfr for (1) and (4), if it doesn't show up with git status (with no other file arguments), it's tracked and unmodified (or ignored, but I'm going to assume that you don't have any ignored files). For (2) in git, the file is where it is relative to the repo-root - if you move it, git will show it in git status - git sits on top of the file system slightly differently to svn. For (3), I'm not sure that you can get that information easily (but you probably can get it).

@mickep oh, little Dodos. I hope they are doing fine! I guess the audience now knows that the moloch theme exists, so main goal achieved. It was a nice surprise that there were so many questions and comments from the audience.

@cfr That's fair. I'm still not fantastic with git (about 5% or maybe as much as 15%). I started with, and am very good with, ClearCase (and I apologise to anyone who was triggered by that statement). So git works in mysterious ways for me, too, and I get annoyed that info which "should be easy to get" (for a different version constrol system) isn't available.

@FerriusUndermine CTAN lets you search by topic. I'd try that first and then do a web search of this site for any packages which interest you.

@cfr On thinking about it, for (3), if you haven't modified the file, the timestamp (after running git pull) should show the last modified date. If you have, and want to know when someone else modified it on the remote, I have no idea.

@enkorvaks Or fetch without pulling? I guess it must be possible to get info for the fetched head, then? (Or have I got this the wrong way around?)

@enkorvaks And thanks for your patience. I must admit, I've never heard of ClearCase.

@cfr I'm not certain of the difference between fetch and pull exactly. But git changes the timestamps to match the repo (at least, it does on Linux), so after one or the other the timestamps will show the last modified time (by you or anyone else)

@cfr That's not surprising. Clearcase is a databse with a file-system driver, which masquerades as a Configuration Management System (rather than just a version control system). It was produced by Rational (and later IBM), and is completely over-the-top for individuals, it's for large corporations with lots of licencing budget (or I guess, a small organisation with a huge licencing budget) and a decent set of admins.

On the upside, you can find any information about any version which has ever been comitted (it's a database: information goes in, and can be retrieved, but is almost impossible to completely purge - at least if the admins set it up sensibly).

@samcarter Sounds great!

@mickep Indeed a great audience (both in-person and online)!