This is an archive of past discussions with User:Joe Decker. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
I created Craig v. Radford and you promoted it -- thanks. My question is about the banner link (the double curly brace object) above. It has right and left links directly to the previous and subsequent volumes but the center link goes to the entire volume list page. Seems that behavior is inconsistent and leads to confusion and back paging (for me at least).
You invited me to continue with SCOTUS pages but I actually am on a Radford mission. Radford is no relation to my family but among my history passions are Lewis and Clark and Civil War Naval battles. William Radford is a link to both Clark and the Monitor/Merrimack (CSS Virginia Battle of Hampton Roads). Admiral Radford's family tree has members who were nationally prominent in the past but forgotten now.
First, you are most welcome, thanks for all your contributions to the encyclopedia! It's great to see someone adding content on Wikipedia beyond their new band. :)
As for the box, I see your point. I would guess that the current behavior is intended to be differently consistent with the usual habits of succession boxes at Wikipedia (more information at Wikipedia:WikiProject Succession Box Standardization, but I dont' really know. You could certainly consider raising the issue at the talk page for that template (that is, the curly braces thing), which is at Template talk:SCOTUSCases or for the WikiProject SCOTUS group at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Supreme Court cases. I think that's particularly true in this case, where the list you're taken to doesn't give you anything that the template doesn't already give you.
Mostly I wanted to generally spread out the welcome mat to you, the Wikipedia environment can be a bit maze-like to navigate for relatively new editors, and if I can help point you in the right direction, don't hesitate to ask. Your contributions here are very much appreciated. Cheers, --j⚛e deckertalk23:08, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
Paul Drye
Hi there. You closed the AFD for Paul Drye recently. During the AFD, I suggested moving the article to Draft:Paul Drye if sources could not be found during the AFD; while no one supported that idea, no one specifically opposed it either. I was wondering if you have any objections to having the content moved to draft space so that it can be worked on? Thanks for considering. BOZ (talk) 03:27, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
I don't suspect that working to improve it, if possible, in Draft space will be controversial. It should be there now. Cheers, --j⚛e deckertalk03:56, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
Hello Joe, just realize that the Gigi D'Amico article has been deleted and I 'm trying to do it again and this time I want to do it good, I'm reading a lot around but trying to write it again the page says to try to contact you before... thanks and sorry for any inconvenience but I'm trying to learn how it works being an editor in wikipedia
thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Drklondon (talk • contribs) 10:33, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
Hi! I understand the challenges of figuring out our policies and guidelines. Because it was deleted as a result of a community discussion at AfD, you'll need to create a draft that can be looked at for approval, I'd suggest recreating any new version at Draft:Gigi D'Amico, and then, when you have something ready for review, adding {{subst:submit}} at the top. I notice that some of the editors in the discussion talked about "notability", and I should explain what that's about too, in our policies, that's a term we use for the question as to whether there is enough reliable, arm's length, coverage of the subject to really base an article upon. Exactly what we need in terms of types of sources can be very confusing to new editors, You may also take a look at User:Joe Decker/IsThisNotable. I'm still working on refining it, but my hope is to provide a more step-by-step (if still not simple) approach to explaining what we need in terms of demonstrating notability. I hope that it will be helpful.
If you have trouble getting the draft file started, you can create it in your Sandbox instead.
Finally, I would very much recommend the Wikipedia Teahouse if you have questions about navigating the process of writing a new article. They are a helpful set of editors who specialize in answering questions for relatively new editors here, and they're awesome folks. I hope this helps. Best regards, --j⚛e deckertalk13:46, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
A hoax to rival Morton Schwartz
Hey Joe, this recent Wikipedia hoax I got interviewed about [1] reminded me of the some of funny ones we found on the BLP referencing project -- like good 'ol Morton, remember him? I wish I knew how much stuff like this continues to exist, I am not aware of any reasonable estimates.--Milowent • hasspoken14:53, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
Nice interview! And oh yes, I remember Morton, I'm sure I've pulled him out of my mental attic a few times in talking about the big hoaxes I've seen. No stats, but I'd guess long-lived fabrications are pretty rare--I have seen one editor who has a pretty good track record of fabricating stage/screen credits, every couple of years someone digs out a new walled garden of fabrications. Nothing as funny as Morton, though!--j⚛e deckertalk16:51, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
New Purge Bot task
Hello Joe Decker, any chance you would be able to add WP:PERM to your purge bot? Edits are almost always made on transcluded sub-pages, so it needs purging a lot. Perhaps hourly? — xaosfluxTalk02:16, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
Sounds completely plausible in theory, I'll have to file the appropriate paperwork, probably tomorrow, but I'm guessing it will be accepted pretty quickly. I may get some push back on the rate, but probably not, and if I do, I'm sure we'd be able to manage at least a few times a day. Cheers, --j⚛e deckertalk03:27, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
Hmmm, I'm looking further, and am not sure why this would not happen automatically in time as part of the Help:Job queue. I'm doing some experiments, updates are certainly not happening immediately, but the job queue is about 80K jobs deep, I'm not sure what a typical level is. --j⚛e deckertalk18:33, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
Yeah, that's my sense. Null bot *would* work. The thing is, I don't suspect BAG will approve this (based on my previous experiences) if the requests are going to show up in a couple of hours without human intervention. The currently approved jobs, well, at least the first one, patches over a bug where we saw stuff get missed for weeks (certain sorts of category update aren't just delayed, they simply never happen without a cache invalidation.) We were seeing things not show up as expired deletions that had been overdue for a week or more.
The underlying bug for the jobs I have gotten approval for [2] is ancient, 7 years! But perhaps there is something else weird about WP:PERM that is causing trouble--it seems unlikely, but I figured it was worth some investigation. If I can identify whether or not that's "normal delay waiting for a transclusion to make it through the job queue" or not, that will help me make my case either way. Sorry for the delay. --j⚛e deckertalk03:38, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
Well, I'm on BAG - but would recuse as I was the requester :) No rush at all, just "felt" like it was running long, but it could be normal. If you notice anything especially unusual, please ping me. — xaosfluxTalk04:24, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
I approved the trial, I'm recusing for the approval step. Please post any 'results' on the bot request after a week. — xaosfluxTalk11:53, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
Congratulations, Joe Decker! You're receiving the The Articles for Creation Barnstar because you got more than 175 points during the recent AFC Backlog elimination drive in June 2014! Thank you for you contributions to Wikipedia at-large and helping to keep the backlog down. We hope you continue reviewing submissions and stay in touch at the talk page. Thank you and keep up the good work! (t) Josve05a (c)23:50, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
Deletion of wikipedia for Stanoy Tabakov
Hi, I was very surprised to find out my article was deleted. Could you please tell me what the reason is and if there is something I can do to return as all the information was correct.
Thank you very much for your time.
Stanoy Tabakov — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.87.237.226 (talk) 22:05, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
Hi,
Glad to help. The page was deleted because we have a policy that requires every biography of a living person to have at least one reliable source that talks about the person--that is very likely an easy thing to fix. There was a link in the article, but it lead to the main news page at [3], which at the time I checked (and when I rechecked now), didn't have a mention of you. However, it's plain to see that such sources exist, e.g., [4]. I'll restore it and add that source.
This may not prevent a future discussion on whether you meet the MMA inclusion criterion, if that discussion happens, there will be a note on the article for a week or more, and a place for you and others to comment on the discussion. If that occurs, relevant policies might be WP:MMABIO or WP:GNG. I wish you the best of luck! Cheers, --j⚛e deckertalk22:23, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
Syracuse, New York
It seems we were working on RD1 request at the same time. I noticed that you mentioned that you need to double check on the range. If my count's wrong, feel free to just revert what I've done so far. Also, you mentioned that you had a script to select the revision. Would you mind passing it my way? I'd love to take a look at it, as it might prove to be very useful. Thanks! Mike V • Talk02:41, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
Oops! Yeah, my concern was, well, usually copyvios start with a big inclusion of infringing text. The first one didn't look right, so I attempted to back out my settings so that the editor who tagged it could have a look, I"ll wait to see what his response is, I can always unprotect things. I could be wrong, too.
As for the script, I'd hoped to get Greasemonkey to do it, but my JavaScript is very rusty--there's a add-in for Firefox called CheckFox that will basically let you quickly check or uncheck all checkboxes in a selection. You want this, or something like it! --j⚛e deckertalk02:44, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
It's back, that is an amazing coincidence if you were editing just as it was deleted, for the first time in over six months. I'm sorry if you lost work, we do delete drafts when they have not been touched for six months. Best of luck with the article! --j⚛e deckertalk04:36, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
YES, I AGREE, JOE!!! Was actually watching "Chicago Fire" while doing editing on that page. . . and should add that I work on that show a lot, too! Thank-You for helping me on this project, too Joe!!! ALSO: you may delete all this convo after you read it!!! Thank-You! LESLesbrown99 (talk) 05:46, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
My pleasure. I have to leave this here for a few days, it will be automatically archived in a week--as an administrator here it's important that anything I do here remain accountable to the community. I took a look, and I understand that figuring out how our notability guidelines work can be frustrating for new editors. I don't know if it will be helpful, but you might take a look at User:Joe Decker/IsThisNotable to get a sense of the type of references we're looking for. Best of luck! --j⚛e deckertalk06:09, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
06:16:10, 2 August 2014 review of submission by 108.64.186.113
Just wanted to check, I can link to some articles about some of the things Nuh has done, but they don't necessarily mention him by name.
For example, there are lots of articles about the Engro Excellence Awards, and the ceremony and videos, but none mention the crew and directors/ producers, the only confirmation of it is via IMDB. Could I link to those sources, or will they have to be mention him by name?
Our WP:GNG requires not only sources that mention him by name, but that talk about him in depth. If there are sources, but only about the awards, the way to deal with that is to write the articles about the award rather than the person. You can certainly have a few other links to fill in information that don't mention him but are clearly connected, but to have an article on the first place, the topic of the article has to get signficant coverage itself. I realize our policies around this are confusing! Best of luck, --j⚛e deckertalk06:22, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
This is going to take longer than I have this afternoon to deal with, I will find someone to address it appropriately. --j⚛e deckertalk00:32, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
article for xoxoxpress
I must have done something wrong in the way I formatted the article.
I am the Producer & Co-Director for XOXOXPress, a small press out of Gambier, OH. Yes we are legitimate.
The reason I created an article at all is because we have several authors that have pages on Wikipedia, and their links were broken or incorrect. We recently launched a new website and things have taken time to re-institute. One of the links suggested us to create our own Wikipedia page, hence, my creation.
Please let me know what I can do better. We'd like this to work for all.
The first hurdle to make it over is our basic inclusion guideline, which are called "notability" guidelines. These require articles about organizations and corporations to have received in-depth coverage in multiple, arm's-length, reliable sources. These are almost always going to be newspapers, magazines, and books, but the specifics of what's okay to use and what isn't can be pretty bewildering if you are new here--I get that this place is difficult to navigate.
I made an attempt at one point at trying to break down what we're looking for, approximately, in a step-by-step manner. That's at User:Joe Decker/IsThisNotable, and it might be helpful. The main thing that's necessary is to try and find some sources on the press that meet the criteria listed there, add them to the article (WP:REFB can be helpful for that step), and to the extent possible.
I also left a pointer to the Wikipedia Teahouse on your talk page, by the way, this is an excellent place to get questions answered, it's dedicated in particular to helping new editors navigate this place.
Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Flexible battery, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Nanotube. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.
Hi Joe, I see you deleted an article about me at Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Slapin). I don't agree with some of the commentary I've read; that is to say within the viola world my music is widely performed, and I am well known as both a performer and composer. (I hope that doesn't come across as arrogant, but I can't assume everyone is familiar with the world of viola playing either.)
If the article is to remain deleted, my main concern is that currently Google lists the article as the second thing to show up. Then you click on the article, and it says is has been deleted, which... doesn't look good. Will Google ever stop listing the URL for the article, or will the URL ever be deleted entirely? As you can see, computers in general are not my forte-- I hope at least I have written you in the correct place. best, Scott Slapin — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.232.105.156 (talk) 13:48, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
Hi Scott,
First, yes, while we have no control over Google's "caching" of WIkipedia, in my experience they catch up with new changes, that isn't a permanent situation, and in general it's something they catch up on in a handful of days. I wish I could speed up that process for you, I simply don't have any way to do so.
With regard to the previous article, there were only two policy issues that I identified that resulted in the article being deleted. First, the article text was taken from [5] (the biography tab), and while I assume in good faith you're the author of both, if we're going to use any material at all we have to be sure it's clear, there is more information on this subject at WP:Donating copyrighted materials. (Note: A rewrite is probably preferable though--most people's autobiographies are somewhat less neutral than we aim for our biographies to be. As you are the article subject, you should definitely read WP:PSCOI if you would like to try and have an article here as well.)
The other issue is our criteria on sources, which we call a "notability" guideline but is, more than anything, a guideline for inclusion based on the amount of quality, arm's length sources discussing you (or any subject) in detail. Exactly what is necessary to meet that bar can take a little time to explain, but take a look at User:Joe Decker/IsThisNotable. I'm still working on refining it, but my hope is to provide a more step-by-step (if still not simple) approach to explaining the kinds of sources we need to see.
Hi Joe, thank you so much for your quick reply. Actually, I am the author of neither. Though... my first reaction is that Letsloop (a site I'm entirely unacquainted with) lifted their bio from Wikipedia, not the other way around.
I do know the author of my (former) Wikipedia article, a fan, who saw I didn't have an article and asked if she might write one. ("Sure!") That was many years ago, I want to say surely more than five. I can only imagine the Letsloop site is newer and needed a bio to accompany some of my music.
It's fine to scrap the article if it doesn't meet Wikipedia's guidelines. As long as the URL will disappear eventually from the search engines, that was my main concern. Thanks very much for replying! best, Scott — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.232.105.156 (talk) 15:06, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
One last point before I go though, Joe, and I thank you in advance for hearing me out. I see I'm mentioned in six other Wikipedia articles about viola-related stuff, both as performer and composer. (Ironically I'm on a list of 'notable violists'.) It seems rather unfair to me that the link from those pages then goes not to a page that says 'there is no article on this person' but rather to a page that states an article was deleted, and if you click on the discussion as to why, the first statement is "I can't find credible third-party references denoting notability. Fails" This person simply didn't do enough (any?) research. I'm now put in an awkward position of having to insist on being 'notable' within the world of viola playing, which greatly goes against my nature.
The two reasons given for deletion of the article aren't accurate. Clearly Letsloop lifted the article from Wikipedia (and not the other way around), and there are several distinct sources which would suggest eligibility for an article in Wikipedia. (That's not to say the article doesn't have issues.)
What I'd really like a blank slate. If there's no article about me... then I'd like truly no article about me, not what is currently there. If there can be no blank slate, I'm asking for the article to be reinstated, which others more capable in Wikipedia than I can edit, or else a couple basic sentences to be put there in its place. If we go the third route, I'd be happy to provide you with links to distinct sources which have nothing to do with me or the record companies/publishers that sell my CDs and sheet music.
I'm sorry the situation has become as ensnared as it has, but the current state of the page does not seem fair to me. Thank you for hearing me out. best, Scott — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.232.105.156 (talk) 17:00, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply, I owe you a response but probably won't be able to dig into it until tonight, or at worst tomorrow. Please accept my apologies for the delay.
One quick thing, I've gotten so far as to verify that you are 100% correct about the direction the information was copied in. (To verify this, I looked at the development of the versions of text on our site, and if there'd been a copy, we would see the two diverge as people continued to edit the copied version at Wikipedia. LL copied no earlier than 14 April (based on comparisons of the text) and there are very similar versions of text on our site that predate that, so there's no remaining doubt--LL copied WP, not the other way; you were right, I was in error.) More soon. --j⚛e deckertalk20:06, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
While I could certainly do a few things to remove you from the articles that have red-links, perhaps the next step is to figure out whether we can have an article on you under our policies. (Let me emphasize, by the way, that in my opinion we shouldn't have used the word "notability" in our guideline, simply "inclusion criterion.") That is, essentially a question that comes to what sources are available. If, after reading my fleshed out description of the type of sources we're looking for at User:Joe Decker/IsThisNotable have some suggestions, that would be helpful, but I wouldn't suggest writing/rewriting text until we figure out whether it's going to fly.
If we can have an article under those policies, that would certainly be my preference.
If not, then there are a few more things I can do to remove the links from your name elsewhere in the encyclopedia, and of course, the Google links will come down in time. But I hope that won't prove to be the case. --j⚛e deckertalk04:01, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
Hi Joe, thanks for all of your research. I'd suggest that removing links elsewhere in Wikipedia would only be a temporary solution. I'm one of four people to have been commissioned to write a compulsory piece for the major viola competition in the US (Primrose). I'm sure you could remove the link.... but somewhere down the line someone will end up putting it back. The same will happen for the list of composers of viola music and notable violists. I had no hand in having my name put in any of these places, and if we take it down, it's only a matter of time until someone will put it back. And then we're back to where we are now.
In any case, I don't plan to write or rewrite anything. (I'm most proud to be able to turn on the computer!) If you decide to put the article back up, I could send out a notice that the article is inadequate and needs to be 'cleaned up'. There surely is a violist with some Wikipedia editing/writing experience who would be more in the position to do that. (Still, if there's anyway just to revert to a truly blank slate, I have nothing against that also. It's only the current situation that seems unfair.)
Tomorrow I'll try to gather some links to send. I had a long article written about me in the Journal of the American Viola Society (Spring 2010), and I've been mentioned in one way or another in most of their issues in the past decade (and I was the soloist for their first recording.) I've been profiled in Strings Magazine, I've had reviews in most of the major string magazines, recently I was interviewed for an article in the Journal of the American String Teacher. None of this was my doing nor was it for profit. How much of this is online... tomorrow I'll find that out and get together a list to send you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.232.105.156 (talk) 08:17, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
Thanks to a little insomnia this is what I could find on the web. I've done my best to leave out the kinds of sources which fail according to your list. I'm sure I've also failed with a couple, but here is what I've found so far that's available on the web:
HI Scott, I should be able to look through these tomorrow, in particular, I got my EBSCOHOST access worked out (I think). My apologies for the delay, I haven't forgotten you. :) --j⚛e deckertalk03:16, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
Hi Scott, I'm more optimistic having seen the reviews via EBSCOHOST. Some of the other sites provided aren't going to work, it's not quite clear how much editorial oversight is provided at back-cantatas.org, for example, most of the direct web sites I found hadn't been discussed previously at our Reliable Sources Noticeboard. Magazine reviews with an editorial staff are very likely to be considered reliable, and to the extent that several of those reviews provide depth to their coverage of you, well, I think that will win the day.
I guess the first question is, do you have access to those reviews? If not, and you enable email, I can probably provide some assistance, but I was able to get access via my public library system.) Let me know, and then we can get to the next step. Cheers, --j⚛e deckertalk23:41, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
Hi Joe, I believe I have most of those reviews (the actual magazines) as well as about thirty others in Fanfare, Musical Opinion, Mundo Clasico, Journal of the American Viola Society etc. (I assume those count as well? They all have editor(s). And do newspaper reviews count? I have some of those, too.) I appreciate your taking so much time with this! best, Scott
Hi again Joe, a friend (with much more computer experience than I have) put in a tremendous amount of work and redid the page with a legitimate source for absolutely every word... and the page has now been flagged for "speedy deletion" by a Tchaliburton! It says at the top "any changes do not address the reasons for which the material was deleted." This is entirely untrue. Entirely. They have more than been addressed, and there is absolutely not one word in that article that is not referenced by a journal with an editorial board. I think if you check over there ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Slapin ) you'll find the original problems have been fixed. The references have more lines than the article itself, and every one holds up based on our discussion.
Still, if this is going to be an ongoing issue, despite all the work, I have to ask for a truly blank slate. Please just take me out entirely. I can't check the page every day to see if some new person thinks it should disappear. I don't care if there is an article on me. I just felt it unfair to have a page stating that you don't have an article on me because I'm not notable. An actual encyclopedia doesn't do that; is there's no entry... there's no entry! Sorry to come across as exasperated.... but I am. best, Scott
PS And now I see someone named Huon has taken away the request for deletion. OK, I'll just hang out and watch the tug-o-war! (And now Tchaliburton is questioning my notability... Is there any way to put a stop to this? It appears to be a one-man crusade.)
Oh dear! I step away from the keyboard for a day. Heh.
I'll take a look more later today, but for the moment things look stable enough. I see someone originally nominated this G4 (Roughly speaking: "hey, what's with bringing back the same article after we just deleted it?",) but of course, the article has seen improvements, so the decline was probably "that isn't the same article". I see there's a notability tag there, I would guess that someone wants another pair of eyes to check it, I would guess they haven't seen the EBSCOHOST (sp?) -hosted sources, etc., but at least for the moment, there's no immediate threat of deletion, if someone felt that deletion was warranted, we'd have to go back to another 7-day discussion, and I think there's enough to fix that.
When I went to double-check you'd put in the sources I'd sent, I noticed some of the ones I sent you didn't work for me anymore, which is weird, somehow the HTML I downloaded was still checking back in with the library. That may mean that there were sources you didn't get a look at. I'll see if I can trace that down later today. Cheers, --j⚛e deckertalk16:18, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
It's been the same person (even from the last version): Tchaliburton. (His was the first comment, and it was entirely untrue.) From his talk page I have the impression he flags a lot that gets reversed on appeal, and he generally doesn't respond to people on his talk page. It's true I wasn't able to see all of the sources you sent me; a library in California wanted me to log in to view them. Still, I did get to use three of them that I thought fit the bill (and a lot of off-line sources that I think fit the bill, too.) How long until his "The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's notability guideline for music" is taken down? Or what steps need to be taken? It says we need to add reliable secondary sources, but... we already have twelve. I kind of think Tchaliburton would flag the article if we had one hundred sources including the NY and LA Times. (And I also kind of think once his current objection is removed, he'll find another one.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.232.105.156 (talk) 01:19, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
Once I get a chance (and I'm sorry I haven't yet) to go back to the sources I failed to send you correctly, I'll add them and reevaulate whether I feel comfortable removing the tag myself, I expect I will, but I'll want to take a careful look. I expect too that the editor's distrust of whether the article meets our sources also stems in part from not having access to some of them, so I'll assume good faith here and move along.
In the meantime, while I think the tag is incorrect, I wanted to reassure you that it is not an imminent threat of deletion, either. There are currently more than 60,000 articles so-tagged on Wikipedia, over a thousand of which were tagged six years back. To a large extent, such a tag at best is a request for editors to do what they can to make the sourcing even stronger, I think it's an excessive request in this case, but give that I have more evidence of notability that I'd like to add anyway, it's my hope and expectation that it will all work out in the end. More soon, thanks for your patience.
And yes, the California library you got the link from is my local public library, which is my only route for accessing EBSCOHOST. Apparently my attempt to download the article only downloaded an intermediate HTML page of some sort. Probably a finger slip on my part. --j⚛e deckertalk19:35, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
Thanks, Scott, I really appreciate that. I've added a couple more refs, made one or two minor adjustments to the article, and removed the {{notability}} tag, let's take a pause and see if that sticks or if there's any remaining complaint. A lot gets done around here, once you're past the deletion hurdles, on the basis of bold, revert, delete, and that's sort of where we are right now. Talk to you soon, --j⚛e deckertalk01:10, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
Azabon
I included a couple (3 actually) more citations in addition to the one I initially provided. Please could you accept my article for movement onto to the main site.--82.25.236.99 (talk) 20:07, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
There's something going on with that last reference, although I know cite doi templates sometimes take some time to flesh out, if you'd check it, I'd appreciate it. Anyway, I've approved it, it needs work, but I think it's up to the point to include. Thanks! --j⚛e deckertalk03:18, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
As the User:Gulshankumargautam is blocked on 29th June 2014, they have edited their talk page (User talk:Gulshankumargautam) on 13th July 2014 to make it resemble an article. I guess they are blocked for multiple recreations of similar, if not same, advertorial articles in article space and sandbox. Can you please delete those revisions of the talk page; or do whatever is usually done in such cases? §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 11:02, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
Blanking (which appears to have been done) is usual practice here, there is a strong presumption toward never deleting user talk pages or revisions thereof (Wikipedia:DELTALK#DELTALK) and advertising isn't included in the REVDEL criteria. Blanking it was perfect, thank you for doing that. --j⚛e deckertalk19:25, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
I see! If the primary reason for blocking the user was those advertises, I thought it would be ok to delete those revisions. Anyways; thanks User:Dsprc for blanking it. §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 04:26, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
Yes, I think it does. If you can pick out which revision it came from that would be even better, the main reason is the preservation of the attribution history required by CC BY-SA 3.0, etc. I think {{Translated page}} should do the trick, would you like to the honors, or should I? Thanks for catching that. --j⚛e deckertalk18:05, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
HiDecker !
You have declined my article, Zulfiqar Bhatti,and I guess you have not vsited the websiete cited as reference- zulfiqarbhatti.com. or possibly I couldnt understand how to cite references. Zulfiqar Bhatti is the author of more than 150 books and all are published by different publishers of Pakistan(Asia)and most of them i gguess more than 100 are given in the website cited, there titles, inner pages, contents and some other pages from the books are given as well and also publishers are mentioned. Plese let me guide if still he is not a notable living person of one Asian country named Pakistan.
Regards — Preceding unsigned comment added by Anwerroshan (talk • contribs) 06:39, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
Thank you for the note. You have a misunderstanding of our requirements here. We require the article itself to contain references to reliable, arm's length sources. It is not sufficient to say "the sources are on this other site." Moreover, what we ask from sources are not works by the author, by sources about the author or his works, written by reputable and arm's length sources--generally newspapers, magazines, books and journals.
You can learn more about the proper mechanics of adding a reference to an article at WP:REFB.
You can learn more about the specific requirements we have for this type of sources at User:Joe Decker/IsThisNotable.
You may also find WP:Teahouse helpful, it is a question and answer place on Wikipedia specializing in assisting new editors.
I realize that our policies can be very confusing for new editors, and I hope you will persist and continue to work on improving the article, with the hope that it can eventually be included. Thank you. --j⚛e deckertalk07:20, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
JAM821
Hi there, I'm totally new to this process of submitting an article. I thought I was doing it correctly and am not sure whether its a technical reason, reference reason or a content reason as to why it has been declined. Where can I find an actual reason?
Regards,
Woollyboy (talk) 02:41, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
HI,
While I did leave a note at Draft:JAM821 when I declined it, our policies are pretty confusing to new editors, and I'm happy to try and explain. Articles on the English Wikipedia should (in most cases) provide references, according to our general notability guideline, to multiple, arm's length sources, generally newspapers, magazines, books, and so on, which discuss the topic of the article in some level of detail. Unfortunately, as our one of our most important guidelines, precisely what we need in terms of those sources can be difficult to describe. I have attempted a general step by step explanation at User:Joe Decker/IsThisNotable, that might be of some help. If you can find some appropriate sources and add them to the article, I'd encourage you to add them and resubmit.
While we call this a "notability" guideline, that's a bit of a misnomer, I think. The primary reason, or at least one of the primary reasons we have this guideline is that we desire articles based on neutral, verifiable information. Occasionally, we will overlook the specific requirements I mention if there is still verifiable, arm's length information that the subject meets one of the other criteria of WP:MUSBIO, for example, if they have produced a gold record, but in my experience in those cases it's not difficult to find the press coverage in the first place, at least for most subjects.
Again, I recognize that we have quite a maze here, one place that might help you navigate it going forward is the WP:Teahouse, which is a q&a resource specifically aimed at new editors. Best of luck! --j⚛e deckertalk13:56, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
Yes, I think so, after he has made an appearance in a game for Lumezzane, I would imagine that could be quite soon. The trade was only two days ago, I don't see that he's made an appearance yet. --j⚛e deckertalk14:11, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
VisualEditor newsletter—July and August 2014
The VisualEditor team is currently working mostly to fix bugs, improve performance, reduce technical debt, and other infrastructure needs. You can find on Mediawiki.org weekly updates detailing recent work.
Dialog boxes in VisualEditor have been re-designed to use action words instead of icons. This has increased the number of items that need to be translated. The user guide is also being updated.
The biggest visible change since the last newsletter was to the dialog boxes. The design for each dialog box and window was simplified. The most commonly needed buttons are now at the top. Based on user feedback, the buttons are now labeled with simple words (like "Cancel" or "Done") instead of potentially confusing icons (like "<" or "X"). Many of the buttons to edit links, images, and other items now also show the linked page, image name, or other useful information when you click on them.
Hidden HTML comments (notes visible to editors, but not to readers) can now be read, edited, inserted, and removed. A small icon (a white exclamation mark on a dot) marks the location of each comments. You can click on the icon to see the comment.
You can now drag and drop text and templates as well as images. A new placement line makes it much easier to see where you are dropping the item. Images can no longer be dropped into the middle of paragraphs.
All references and footnotes (<ref> tags) are now made through the "⧼visualeditor-toolbar-cite-label⧽" menu, including the "⧼visualeditor-dialogbutton-reference-tooltip⧽" (manual formatting) footnotes and the ability to re-use an existing citation, both of which were previously accessible only through the "Insert" menu. The "⧼visualeditor-dialogbutton-referencelist-tooltip⧽" is still added via the "Insert" menu.
When you add an image or other media file, you are now prompted to add an image caption immediately. You can also replace an image whilst keeping the original caption and other settings.
All tablet users visiting the mobile web version of Wikipedias will be able to opt-in to a version of VisualEditor from 14 August. You can test the new tool by choosing the beta version of the mobile view in the Settings menu.
The link tool has a new "Open" button that will open a linked page in another tab so you can make sure a link is the right one.
The "Cancel" button in the toolbar has been removed based on user testing. To cancel any edit, you can leave the page by clicking the Read tab, the back button in your browser, or closing the browser window without saving your changes.
Looking ahead
The team posts details about planned work on the VisualEditor roadmap. The VisualEditor team plans to add auto-fill features for citations soon. Your ideas about making referencing quick and easy are still wanted. Support for upright image sizes is being developed. The designers are also working on support for adding rows and columns to tables. Work to support Internet Explorer is ongoing.
Feedback opportunities
The Editing team will be making two presentations this weekend at Wikimania in London. The first is with product manager James Forrester and developer Trevor Parscal on Saturday at 16:30. The second is with developers Roan Kattouw and Trevor Parscal on Sunday at 12:30.
Please share your questions, suggestions, or problems by posting a note at the VisualEditor feedback page or by joining the office hours discussion on Thursday, 14 August 2014 at 09:00 UTC (daytime for Europe, Middle East and Asia) or on Thursday, 18 September 2014 at 16:00 UTC (daytime for the Americas; evening for Europe).
Hi Joe, I am confused as to why you deleted the page on Corey Fogelmanis. The page had sources and everything, and there was nothing wrong with it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kido1234567890 (talk • contribs) 03:58, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
The article was deleted as a result of a community discussion which you can read at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Corey Fogelmanis. That discussion was unanimous. We don't just require sources, our general notability guideline requires multiple, reliable, arm's length sources which provide in-depth coverage of the source.
You will want to take a look at WP:External links/Perennial websites for more information on why social media sites, IMDB, YouTube and/or Find-a-Grave are not generally considered reliable secondary sources.
You may also take a look at User:Joe Decker/IsThisNotable. I'm still working on refining it, but my hope is to provide a more step-by-step (if still not simple) approach to explaining what we need in terms of sources notability. I hope that it will be helpful. --j⚛e deckertalk04:07, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
Looking at your talk page, I can see that you've had a lot of trouble here on Wikipedia. Is there something I can help explain better? --j⚛e deckertalk04:11, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
Hi Decker !
Thank you very much for your kind reply, which encouraged me a lot. I will now try at my level best to improve the article and its references. Than you once again.
AnwerAnwerroshan (talk) 07:34, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
You are most welcome! What sort of article are you trying to create? (You may also be able to get answers at the WP:Teahouse, which is a Q&A resource designed for new editors here trying to find their way around.) --j⚛e deckertalk16:38, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
List of adverse effects of olanzapine
Hi Joe,
I saw the multi-month wait notice that came up when I submitted this for review and just submitted it directly. I did not mean to circumvent this rejection which I did not recieve until afterwards.
This format has been agreed upon at the Wikipedia Pharmacology Talk page as a way of reducing lengthy lists of adverse effects within drug articles, and has been used by the head of the Wikipedia Medicine project, Jmh649. It has been widely used on drug articles including:
No problem, I completely understand. I'll try and tag a few issues on the article in mainspace, but there's no policy that says you have to wait for AfC, we can't hold you there. :) --j⚛e deckertalk16:31, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
Thank you for your help with this. Much appreciated. I'll take a close look at whatever comments you add and implement them or come back here for discussion Formerly 98 (talk) 16:57, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
sure! if you are interested in feedback on it from a more knowledgable medical editor, you could also leave a note at the talk page of WikiProject Medicine, they're a great group of editors. cheers, --Joe Decker -- 17:13, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
I can definitely provide some advice. There is certainly not a problem with the total number of references, but many of the references won't be acceptable, and should be removed, and there are so many of those that it's hard to assess what's left. We consider links unacceptable in terms of reliability when they are not independent, or when they don't have formal editorial oversight, or when they are user-submitted data (wikipedia itself can't be used as a reference!)
So here's what I'd suggest as your next step. I want to you to carefully read two links I give you, and perhaps read some of the links they point at too, but at least the two links. I think, as you'll read them, you will at least be able to identify some of the links that should be removed. Go ahead and do that, and then drop me another note here and I'll give you my feedback.
The first link of the two I'll give you to read is WP:ELPEREN. This talks about a handful of very popular sites in pretty unambiguous terms.
The second link of the two is an guide I'm working on, User:joe Decker/IsThisNotable. It may give you some ideas too.
I would like some details to establish why the article has been declined. Could you please indicate how I might rectify the article to have it reviewed again?
The references you provided do not adequately evidence the subject's notability under our general notability guideline, which is spelled out in legalistic detail at WP:GNG, and which I try and explain in a still-complex, but more accessible style at User:Joe Decker/IsThisNotable. To rectify that, find multiple, arm's length independent sources that meet all the "ifs", "ands" and "buts" at that latter link, add them to the article, and resubmit. These will usually be things like newspaper articles, magazine articles, passages from books published by serious publishers, and/or academic journals. In terms of how to get them to show up in the article appropriately, the easiest way to start learning how to make references on Wikipedia is to read Wikipedia:Referencing for beginners, which includes a nice video showing how to use the RefToolbar, which makes working with references a whole lot easier.
Understanding this particular guideline is a big hurdle for many editors. You may also find the folks at the WP:Teahouse are helpful, that is a Wikipedia Q&A resource dedicated to helping new editors navigate our somewhat Byzantine ways.
I hope this helps! Cheers, --Joe
07:52:45, 10 August 2014 review of submission by GlennLawyer
I must have misspoken, because we have no disagreement about the reliability of the source you provided. My apologies.
The key word here is "multiple." Our inclusion criteria require multiple (appropriate) sources, you've provided one, but our inclusion criterion (we call it a "notability" guideline, it is at WP:GNG) require two or more. Cheers, --j⚛e deckertalk15:58, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
14:07:52, 11 August 2014 review of submission by TheRock2014
I pressed the review button twice by accident. Also, I'm not sure as to why this page on Ed Day was rejected. I am the communications director at the County of Rockland and I work for County Executive Ed Day personally. Therefore, all the info there is accurate and in my own words.
While this can be surprising to new editors, Wikipedia guidelines go more than asking that articles be true, it askes that they be verifiable, and our basic inclusion policy for biographies, which you can read at Wikipedia:BIO#Basic_criteria, tries (not very clearly, I feel) to explain what's required. Essentially, articles need to be based on reliable resources available to readers who arrive, they want to know not only what we say is true, but why we say it is true.
There are other reasons for that guideline but verifiability is one of the most important.
In any case, in terms of understanding the types of sources we require? You may also take a look at User:Joe Decker/IsThisNotable. I'm still working on refining it, but my hope is to provide a more step-by-step (if still not simple) approach to explaining what we need in terms of demonstrating notability. I hope that it will be helpful.
I've also left some links on your talk page which may help provide a broad overview of our policies and guidelines. Hope that helps. Best regards, --j⚛e deckertalk16:32, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
USS Oriskany draft references
Howdy! The reference issues with the USS Oriskany fire draft have been resolved. I have no idea where the Stewart reference came from; I must've had a brain fart on that one. RGFI (talk) 18:47, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
Happens to me a fair bit, I also occasionally see weird stuff from RefToolbar if you're using that. Anyway, congrats, the article is now in mainspace. Best, --j⚛e deckertalk04:02, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
List of intestinal stem cell marker genes
I added some descriptive sentences to this article, I hope it makes it clearer now. If you need more on this subject, I can try to write more--give me an idea of what else you'd like.
Also, I think that I re-submitted this appropriately, but if you could let me know if it is "in the que" that would be great.
Best regards! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eprofessa (talk • contribs) 21:55, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
Wow, that was more than I'd hoped for, I added a single lead sentence, made a handful of formatting tweaks, and approved the article. Thank you, that's some great work. Cheers, --j⚛e deckertalk13:45, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
hello, I chatted with an online help, he told me I need to publish mount of Delta first in the newspaper or magazine before I can continue on wiki. Or is there something else I need to do? Because I want to do it right!
Yes, there are two issues, and one of the is the "references" thing. This is an aspect of our policies that often confuse new editors such as yourself.
Each article on Wikipedia should contain, and to some great extent be based on, reliable, third-party references--these are the newspaper articles, magazine articles, and so forth that talk about the subject. Our policy pages do a bad job of explaining what specifically we need from those articles, an essay I'm working on, User:Joe Decker/IsThisNotable may explain it in a better way, I'm not sure.
The other issue is that the article must be neutral. That is, it must not be promotional and positive about the subject beyond what is said in reliable sources, and similarly, it must not be unduly negative either. Generally it makes the text sound more formal. You can read more about neutrality at WP:NPOV. In the case of your article, this should just involve changing some wordings here and there.
Hey Joe Decker, I guess if I found the original podcasts of Dr Craig’s explanation of the Ontological Argument on his website then that would be ok to replace the Youtube links with?
Also, I’m not quite sure what you mean by needing multiple, reliable sources for the Wontontological Argument. Everything relating to its creation and explanation are contained in the link on Venganza.org. It is the primary source. Do you mean that the argument simply needs to become popular in modern culture and other people have written their opinions about it in various sources before it can be added to Wikipedia?
Hi. The "multiple, reliable" criterion comes from WP:GNG, which you are welcome to read in its fully legalistic glory, but it is our inclusion criteria in any case. I've tried to explain what specifically required in a more down-to-earth manner at User:Joe Decker/IsThisNotable, perhaps that will help. --j⚛e deckertalk00:51, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
As far as I can tell, nothing of yours has been deleted. Your draft, Draft:Malvolio (2009 film), was declined, but that was a correctable matter of sourcing. In particular, you need to understand that we do not consider IMDB a reliable source. If you check the draft itself you will find a message which indicates why the draft was declined (that is, sent back to you for improvements and resubmissions), but if I can explain further, let me know. The short version, is that we need more in the way of reliable (not IMDB, but newspapers, magazines, that sort of thing) pieces talking in-depth about the subject in order to establish it's notability.
If this isn't about the 2009 film in particular, then I would appreciate you telling me which one, so that I can figure it out. Normally if someone has created an account here I can simply figure it out by looking at their contributions, and our records say that there are no deleted articles whatsoever associated with your IP address. Thanks for any information you can provide on the problem. --j⚛e deckertalk06:09, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
Bio work in progress
Hope I'm doing this right. OK, so we had a long talk about this in chat the other day and you were very patient (and calming, LOL!) I hope you don't mind if I ask your opinion again.
I've since had feedback from another chat helper who raised the following objections or red flags. He was really trying to be helpful but I don't think everything he told me was correct.
Footnotes - one for every sentence, or just related groups of sentences?
This helper stated that every single sentence needs to be footnoted. He was quite proud of an article he was in the process of writing in which that was demonstrably the case and had nearly 100 citations, and climbing - it was about a couple of celebrities so of course there are many places to FIND these citations.
Had I ever written a professional paper wherein I footnoted every single sentence, I would have had my hands slapped, and been taken out to the back alley and beaten to a bloody pulp had I persisted in doing that after the first warning.
Facetiousness. But only slightly. Surely wiki articles are not all about citation mining? Anyway.
Can I just cite entire paragraph(s) or groups of sentences to which the information applies, or must every single sentence have a reference?
Short answer: You can certainly, in most cases, do less than one per sentence. What does and doesn't need one is a little more complicated.
Long answer: While not every cite needs to be spelled out at every word, we do have a couple of different policies that require some level of sourcing.
First, there are a list of very specific cases in which a reference after the sentence is required by policy. WP:MINREF spelles them out. Now, if you have a quote and the actual ref is at the end of the paragraph it applies too? That's not right, but it's also not going to get your article deleted. I need to redo the way I attempted to bundle cites at one article that I created to meet that requirement, but it's sat there happily for a year without anyone giving me too much of a hassle about it. I should fix it though.
Second, statements about living people that are about contentious, promotional, negative, positive statements--anything more than mundania, probably want some sort of source, and in those cases, it will be important, usually, that the source is independent of the subject applies. This is WP:BLP.
Third, taken as a whole, reviewers are going to look at how many of the sources are independent and reliable. If most of the sources are not independent, that will be taken as a whole as a sign that the article is non-neutral. Where that is a problem, reducing the amount of verbiage that can only be sourced to non-independent sources is often the best solution. This is part of WP:NPOV.
Fourth, there must be, overall, enough signficant, independent sources to establish that the person is notable--that is, they have been noted in detail by the press, etc. This is WP:GNG.
Finally, in theory every statement, even the minor ones, should be verifiable in theory by credible sources even if a cite isn't in the article. This is WP:V. --j⚛e deckertalk01:26, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
This helper criticized the format of my (one at this time) publication, a book. I haven't published the rest yet because I'm trying to get more accurate cite numbers since Google Scholar seems to be so far off on those. I also would like to verify that I can go ahead and use the template, which I got from wiki itself, for the rest of the publications.
In REAL WORLD publications, only the first author is listed lastname, first name and all subsequent authors are listed firstname lastname, instead of listing all authors lastname, firstname. But the wiki templates do it BOTH ways.
They also say, or at least seem to imply, that the exact form you choose to use for your citations doesn't matter that much, as long as it meets SOME standard, whether it's Wikipedia specific or not.
I just picked a template and copied it without noticing that the wiki itself is inconsistent. I could still change that easily - I only have one publication up yet - but I DID follow one of the wiki-published templates. Need I bother?
Or, I could use the citation formats provided by Google Scholar - but there are 3 formats GS provides. APA, MLA, and Chicago. This, being a simple cut-n-paste - would certainly be easiest.
Of the many choices offered via the Wikipedia templates and Google Scholar's auto-generated formats, is one of these preferable over these others? Or rather - the easier question - are any of these TOTALLY DISALLOWED by Wikipedia?
Nah, not really. Doing anything too out of the ordinary will get you bitten even so, though, I'd try and stick with one of the most standard sets of templates. Citation formats vary widely by field and type of publication, which is why JSTOR exports like a few dozen formats.
Rather than focusing on what is stylistically pure, I would strongly recommend using something that can be generated by one of two approaches for automating citation generation . This hurts a lot less than hand-coding, and generates templates that are widely accepted.
If you are using the code editor, there is a thing called Wikipedia:RefToolbar which I live for. Read the documentation. I use the old-school 1.x version of it, which in my experience has more in the way of autocompletion features. The ability to get cite templates filled out automatically by entering a DOI, a Google Books URL, or a New York Times URL is golden. It's a litle buggy. You have to reposition the cursor in the text after you've filled out the form before pressing "add reference". But I can still add references with that several times more quickly than I can any other way.
If you are using the visual editor, which is a beta feature, there is support for adding citations via fill-in forms there as well. That doesn't have autocomplete (yet), but it does have some advantages. --j⚛e deckertalk01:32, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
Nationality/place of birth
This helper insisted that I cannot mention birthplace or nationality of origin because there are no online sources to verify that information.
In the first place, it was my understanding that Wikipedia does not require all citations to refer only to online information. In the second, verification of national origin does not seem to normally be necessary, as I never see this done except in specific cases where there is reasonably some confusion about this - such as for Bob Hope, who though raised in the USA, was technically British, having moved here with his family when he was 3. This is not one of those cases.
The helper said that even though I personally know this information to be true, unless I can provide suitable SPECIFIC online references (eg referring to him as "Indian American" won't do, they should say "Dr. Banda was born in India"), it must be removed from the article.
I have since delved more deeply into the details of the matter of the place of birth and related issues and this is what I have found:
The prohibition against OR means that all material added to articles must be attributable to a reliable published source, even if not actually attributed.[1]
1. By "exists", the community means that the reliable source must have been published and still exist—somewhere in the world, in any language, whether or not it is reachable online—even if no source is currently named in the article. Articles that currently name zero references of any type may be fully compliant with this policy—so long as there is a reasonable expectation that every bit of material is supported by a published, reliable source.
Emphasis mine. And BTW I think "exists" or "existing" is missing from the quoted sentence, since the footnote for that sentence refers to it but it doesn't appear there - they seem to be referring to the additional criteria for verifiability that follows. Still, the import seems clear.
My contention is that this supports some of my assumptions about what is and is not required to be footnoted in that it is a reasonable assumption that a birth certificate exists on file in India, and that there are INS records related to his subsequent attainment of US citizenship which perforce include those details.
In addition, it is reasonable to assume there have been various and sundry announcements in the papers local to his city of birth (starting with a birth announcement), and later, as he gained fame, Indian national newspapers and other sources, that support his nationality and place of birth, as well as his actual date of birth.
The fact that I do not read Telugu or Hindi or any of the other myriad languages in India, nor do I have access to printed newspaper archives in that country, should not preclude inclusion of this information, which is of great import and interest to NRI's (non-resident Indians) as well as the general population in India. In fact this article has been re-published on the Telugu wiki at https://te.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B0%B6%E0%B0%BF%E0%B0%B5_%E0%B0%8E%E0%B0%B8%E0%B1%8D.%E0%B0%AC%E0%B0%82%E0%B0%A6%E0%B0%BE. So clearly folks over there care.
I contend that it is reasonable to assume this information exists even though I personally am not able to access it; that this is not information that would normally be challenged; and that in fact it has not been challenged by the man himself (and he has had access to the page, though I can't cite any verifiable source for that, LOL!)
Additionally, he has been widely referred to as an "Indian" or "Indian American" scientist or engineer in every online source to which I DO have access. He has TWO degrees - his 2 first degrees - from Universities IN INDIA. The number of foreign students who attended University in India prior to the '80s is very close to 0. Even now, if you're there, you are either Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan (all of which are basically genetically and phenotypically, if not ethnically, Indian) or you're the scion of Indians who (fairly recently) emigrated to a bordering or nearby country. There is a preponderance of evidence that makes it reasonable to assume that the man is in fact Indian.
Sorry to go on about it, but I was and am a bit flabbergasted that someone expected this to be excluded if not referenced to an online (let alone any other specific) resource.
My understanding is this: if someone has evidence they can cite that shows that he was, in fact, born in Oslo, that would be a viable challenge and I would have to provide evidence to the contrary, or remove the entry. However since it is in fact the case that he was born and raised in Vijayawada, India, no evidence that conflicts with that exists. I don't have to produce actual citations for this UNLESS someone were to produce conflicting (cited) evidence, according to the wiki guidelines.
Because the helper was insistent that I must find an online source to prove he is Indian by birth (despite his name and the place where he got his first 2 degrees) I kept digging until I came up with this reference:
In this article in a magazine published by and for NRIs (non-resident Indians), he is specifically referred to as a member of the NRI population. I cannot give a direct link to the online India Abroad archives because they only go back to 2009, so I plan to just reference the newspaper itself rather than this link (especially since this kind of link is highly susceptible to rot).
I know that there have been MANY articles published about him in India Abroad over the last 35 years (it used to be a newspaper) but most of that would have occurred prior to 2009, so no online references are available. In recent years, they have concentrated more on Indian CELEBRITIES and business magnates than "normal" scientists and engineers. You have to pay to get access to their online archives anyway, so that's really not a viable place to go looking for online links anyway. Offline is the only way I really CAN reference that article.
But I digress. Sorry.
I don't feel I NEED this to support his nationality, but should I go ahead and use it that way anyway (sticking it on the sentence in Background that specifies his place of birth)? It's one more footnote to satisfy the citation miners, basically.
It will sound pedantic and silly, but nationality is often extremely contentious, and yeah, don't specify nationality or birthplace without a source that says is unambiguously. I think we take that too far some times, but oh my goodness can it prove to be contentious. Because it is so often (unimaginably) contentious, and because we are talking about a living person, WP:BLP and WP:MINREF apply. There is probably something that says this specifically in our policy docs under WP:BLP, but it is consensus in any case. One thing, though, if you have an offline source, that's actually completely acceptable. And one catch -- legal records, which are reliable enough, are often disallowed because we have a policy that requires that we try and not point people at legal documents if those documents contain fairly private information--we at wikipedia do not want to be in the business of publishing celebrity home addresses, etc. --j⚛e deckertalk01:42, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
Coincidentally, I noticed that the mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani, recent recipient of the Fields Medal, had page protection associated with her biography after a long series of edit wars surrounding her nationality. I"m not just making up that nationality issues get dramatic. Some of it is almost certainly good faith editors mistaking where one lives vs. what one's citizenship is vs. what one's ethnic heritage is, but some of it also seems to be an extent of nationalistic pride. In any case, such labels are, in our experience, problematic (as are labels surrounding sexuality and gender). I see this sort of issue all the time, it drives us all a little crazy. Cheers, --j⚛e deckertalk17:44, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
Number of references cited for career/education
The helper was also concerned that I had a single online source for evidence of his educational background and career. My feelings on the matter are
He has only ever worked for one employer since graduation (excluding adjunct faculty positions) which is a period of nearly 35 years, so how many different places are we likely to find that information online?
In this day of hypervigilence - or rather decade+ - do we SERIOUSLY think the Federal Office of Personnel Management is going to get that wrong for a USAF employee with the maximum security clearance available to a civilian? (Yeah yeah, I have no reference to support his security clearance, nor do I have any intention of adding that to his bio - but what kind of security clearance is it reasonable to assume that a man who is literally King of the Lab for the USAF's major research facility would have? LOL!)
We are back to Footnote #1 from the No Original Research criteria above, as it is reasonable to assume that such evidence exists in offline sources (such as the records offices of the Universities from which he graduated, and real-world published announcements from the various and sundry places he has lectured, organizations he has been on the board of directors for, journals he has edited, and organizations that have awarded him honors). That's assuming one rejects the reliability of the Federal Office of Personnel management.
Who is going to challenge this anyway? Unless it were blatantly false, in which case he's fooled everybody including the Royal Aeronautical Society, the National Academy of Engineering, the OPM, two national and reputable professional organization (the IEEE and the AIAA), an INTERNATIONAL professional association (IFAC), NATO itself, and 2 different presidents who pinned medals on him. Well, shook his hand and handed him a certificate of achievement, anyway.
It wasn't NOT footnoted; the objection was that there was only ONE footnote for his education/career. Given who he works for and how often that information has been cited in other sources (admittedly cut and pasted from OPM), I really feel like this was a non-issue.
However I have dug up a couple of other references that aren't clearly lifted wholesale (direct copy-paste) from the OPM website:
2)and should I clump the references together since they all show the same thing [1][2][3] or alternate among the 3 (so only one reference shows up at a time, I feel the former is correct). I ask because the helper sounded like I needed distinct sources for the footnotes for each different sentence. And in fact it did appear that that is how he was handling his own celebrity article. He didn't recycle many, if any, of his references.
With respect to the specific sources:
The second source will fail as a book published through a self-publishing firm.
The first source will also likely fail, generally bios in event announcements are not editorially overseen. I know that the National Park Service reprinted my artist bio when I was artist-in-residence at Petrified Forest National Park without any fact-checking, something similar applies here. A different NPS, but the same problem--independence.
More generally, if you can't verify every detail of this fellow's educational background with solid indpeendent sources, just remove the assertions, even if they are true. This isn't a resume, it's a biography. There is a difference, there is no expectation that we cover every fact about an individual, only those that are signficant. --j⚛e deckertalk01:54, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
So if I understand all that correctly, he meets the following criteria for notability:
Criteria #1 - Significant (to his field) scholarly contributions published in peer-reviewed books or journals, which I am actually not sure how to prove significance nor that I actually need to, see below about h-index. Also he has been editor for at least 2 journals, though not head editor, which should provide evidence of significant scholarly contribution to his field as well. (The latter is not yet added to the sandbox). Being head editor would meet Criteria 8. I have been told that he has turned those opportunities down due to being only one person, LOL!
Criteria #2 - Significant awards and honors of which he has 2 at the presidential level, several at the national level, and 2 at the international level.
Criteria #3 - Induction into nationally or internationally known and well-reputed professional societies, of which he has a total of 3, IEEE and NAE nationally, and IFAC internationally - IEEE being specifically referenced in Criteria #3
Criteria #7 - He is a member of the NATO Research and Technology Organization Technical Committee. I think that meets Criteria 7 for having impact outside of academia (I haven't added that to the sandbox yet either)
At this point do I need to worry that much about the h-index or notability, what with 2 major international awards (IFAC and the Royal Aeronautical Society International Silver medal) and 2 major Presidential awards, on top of induction into the IFAC (international), IEEE, NAE and AIAA (domestic)? If not I can stop worrying about cherry-picking journal articles for maximum cites and just list whatever looks good.
I think you thought this was OK before, but since having more doubts raised by helper #2, I wanted to double-double check.
As I recall, you had me before at PROF #C1 based on my estimate of his h-index, and by WP:PROF#C3 by his IEEE fellowship. I don't think this fellow is going to end up at a deletion discussion, so I wouldn't fret too much about other folks worrying about it, I close a lot of AfDs, and this guy is not at all likely to get deleted in such a discussion, and if a discussion starts, you'll have 7 days or more to point at evidence as you have with me. --j⚛e deckertalk01:47, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
Conclusion (and isn't that a relief!)
I hope asking for more help here is OK. I'm sure you have a ton of other things to do and you didn't even review this article, but you were so helpful on chat I was hoping I could get some more help from you. I HOPE this is about done and most of the concerns raised by the reviewer and the helper I spoke with the other night will now be addressed (or soonly, anyway). I hope this article is shaping up, and would value your opinion before republishing and running the gauntlet again (maybe - hopefully not).
I'm afraid to go back to chat lest I get yet a third series of new objections, and I'm not ready to face the scrutiny of the original reviewer again yet. So I hope you don't mind.
I know what's going on here is confusing, but honestly, you have an article in mainspace. Most new editors here never manage that, that it is here and not at a deletion discussion is a sign that nobody yet has had a good reason to think it should go away. Now we're just quibbling about the contents. It will all, in the end, be fine.
Hi Joe, looks like we both closed an AfD at the same time :) Just a courtesy note to let you know I undid yours, as it wrapped my close. Hope there's no dramas. Thanks, Daniel (talk) 01:41, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
Hello Joe Decker, I hope you are fine. I wanted to let you know that I have made many changes in the article I submitted which you recently declined. I have added references and I have changed the article type; I think this was the most important change as it is a club and I started it as a "building" but now it is a "foundation". Maybe I should create it as a "club", maybe you know which is the best category for it. It is a sports club but also the main state`s yachting club. Thank you very much! Pattycarabelli — Preceding undated comment added 20:28, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
I've added some categories and made a number of very minor tweaks and fixes, congratulations! I'm glad to see the article in our encyclopedia! --j⚛e deckertalk20:44, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
Thank you Joe Decker! I am glad too! Thank you for the corrections, additions and comments! Also, I noticed some pictures were removed, were they too many? Shall I leave just those two? Also, I have read that there is a sailing category I may contribute with information about sailor`s who have contributed to the sport or been recognized in the sport in some way and are not in wikipedia yet (if I can, obviously), would that be useful? Thank you once more and greetings Pattycarabelli — Preceding undated comment added 20:56, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
The image removal appears to have been a software glitch, it was not something I intentionally did, but was my edit that broke it. Let me investigate, I should be able to fix this in a few moments. --j⚛e deckertalk21:01, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
I'm sorry for the confusion, I have restored the images. Again, my apologies, I'll talk to the Visual Editor team about what happened there and see if I can file a bug report.
