User talk:Johnpacklambert/Archives/2022/July


Francisco Escárcega

Our article on Francisco Escárcega lacks any sources. The Dutch article looks to be as unsourced. There is no Spanish article. The Malagasy article lists a source but I see no way to determine it is a reliable source. Clearly we need better sourcing to justify the article.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:26, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

I am not sure how to create new categories when editing on my phone

I am editing on my phone right now. I am not sure how to create new categories when doing so. In the morning when I have access to a computer I will create the categories in question.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:15, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

Olha_Franko

I undid your category add. She is Ukrainian, not Polish. Unless I'm missing something? CT55555 (talk) 13:31, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

  • In 1929 Kolomyia, which seems to be where she was living and working at the time, was part of Poland. So she was a national of Poland, and so can be put in Polish categories.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:34, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
    Living somewhere is not synonymous with being a citizen of that country. I think we should go by the sources, and what you are proposing seems like WP:OR. I read the sources when I wrote the article and they all said she was Ukrainian. You are not following the normal cycle WP:BRD so I'l switch this conversation to the talk page of the article, but will ask you to revert that edit unless you have a source that identifies her as Polish. CT55555 (talk) 15:38, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

Virgil Melvin Hancher

Virgil Melvin Hancher is an unsourced article on a university president. We need sources. We could with sources probably say more substantial things about Hancher than the article currently does.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:59, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

Charles W. Howard

Our article on Charles W. Howard in some ways doubles as an article on his Santa Claus School. That part of the article is at least 13 years old. There are also issues with the tone. It would help if we could find sources that discussed his impact in a more academic way.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:11, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

V. R. Ramanatha Iyer

V. R. Ramanatha Iyer is said to have been mayor of Madras. This is very likely to be the level of mayorship that would make someone notable. However we need at least one more source. We also need more than the one sentence the article has. The article no only does not tell us anything else about Iyer than that Iyer was mayor of Madras, it does not even tell us when Iyer was mayor of Madras. I assume based on the source that it was 1956, but was it other years too? Was it earlier and the source mentions that Iyer was mayor of Madras as some point in the past? We need more substance to this article.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:51, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Category:1999 establishments in Northern Cyprus

A tag has been placed on Category:1999 establishments in Northern Cyprus indicating that it is currently empty, and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion. If it remains empty for seven days or more, it may be deleted under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself. Liz Read! Talk! 01:06, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

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Proposed deletion of Washington University (medical school)

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Lamar Perkins

Lamar Perkins was a member of the New York State legislator who represented Harlem. When? Evidently around 1930 but our article does not say which years exactly. This article is in severe need of improment.John Pack Lambert (talk) 12:11, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Louis H. Renfrow

I am unconvinced that Louis H. Renfrow held any position in government that actually makes him notable. He seems to have served below the level of notability, and there is nothing he did that would seem to make him notable. At a minimum we need better sourcing to show that he was notable.John Pack Lambert (talk) 13:46, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Fitch Robertson

Fitch Robertson was mayor of Berkeley, California. I am not convinced the sourcing is enough to justify an article. Mayors are not default notable, and I am less than convinced at the time he was mayor Berkeley was a significant enough community that the mayor would be likely to be notable.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:01, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Category:British expatriates in Gold Coast (British colony)

A tag has been placed on Category:British expatriates in Gold Coast (British colony) indicating that it is currently empty, and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion. If it remains empty for seven days or more, it may be deleted under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself. Liz Read! Talk! 01:18, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Category:Egyptian emigrants to Albania

A tag has been placed on Category:Egyptian emigrants to Albania indicating that it is currently empty, and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion. If it remains empty for seven days or more, it may be deleted under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself. Liz Read! Talk! 23:19, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Komaram Bheem, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Narsapur.

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Speedy deletion nomination of Category:British emigrants to the South Afircan Republic

A tag has been placed on Category:British emigrants to the South Afircan Republic indicating that it is currently empty, and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion. If it remains empty for seven days or more, it may be deleted under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself. Liz Read! Talk! 23:08, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Category:People of the South African Repbulic

A tag has been placed on Category:People of the South African Repbulic indicating that it is currently empty, and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion. If it remains empty for seven days or more, it may be deleted under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself. Liz Read! Talk! 23:11, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Herbert Hill Baxter

Herbert Hill Baxter may have been notable. We need more and better sourcing to show this though.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:35, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Letitia H. Erb

Hello, Johnpacklambert,

Just a reminder that you should post a notification on the talk page of an article creator any time you tag a page for any type of deletion (CSD, PROD, AFD/CFD/RFD/etc.). If you use Twinkle to tag articles, which I highly recommend, the program will post these notices for you so you don't have to remember all of the necessary templates. Just set up your Twinkle Preferences to "Notify page creator" and Twinkle will do the heavy lifting for you. It has a lot of other nice features and includes the ability to maintain deletion logs, report editors to noticeboards and to tag articles if you notice problems with them. It is very userfriendly and just adds a tab to the menu at the top of the page. But if you could remember to post notifications, I would really appreciate that as you do tag a lot of pages for deletion these days. Thanks! Liz Read! Talk! 20:00, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Teddy Carroll

I just got done trying to increase the encyclopedic tone of the article on Teddy Carroll. It still has a long way to go. It is at present mainly based on self-published sourced and blogspot entries. It reads more like a memorial essay than an encyclopedic article, and it coat racks a lot on broad track motorcycle racing. I am not sure he meets inclusion criteria, but I am hoping to get someone to look at the article who can better evaluate what sources we have.John Pack Lambert (talk) 12:11, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

Montagu Cleeve

Montagu Cleeve is an article built on one obituary and one interview with the subject. I am not convinced that is really enough for an article. I am hoping that posting about it here will get some searching done for more sources.John Pack Lambert (talk) 13:54, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

Eddie Collins (miner)

Eddie Collins (miner) is currently not based on sources that pass the reliable test. Well, the first one seems to be a free submission genealogical site. I added something that might work, but I only could get snippet views so I can not even well tell what it says on him. He seems to have also been known as J. T. E. Collins, which might help in searching.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:14, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

Maude Collins

Maude Collins was the sherrif of a not very populous county in Ohio. A lot of the coverage we have on her focuses on one murder case she solved. I am less than convinced we have enough to justify an article. We have what amounts to news coverage from elsewhere in Ohio, and a county organization providing coverage of her. I am putting it out here to see if others might be able to find more and better sourcing.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:17, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Category:British emigrants to Cape Colony

A tag has been placed on Category:British emigrants to Cape Colony indicating that it is currently empty, and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion. If it remains empty for seven days or more, it may be deleted under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself. Liz Read! Talk! 01:01, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

Nomination of LeGrand R. Curtis Jr. for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article LeGrand R. Curtis Jr., to which you have significantly contributed, is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or if it should be deleted.

The discussion will take place at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/LeGrand R. Curtis Jr. (2nd nomination) until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article.

To customise your preferences for automated AfD notifications for articles to which you've significantly contributed (or to opt-out entirely), please visit the configuration page. Delivered by SDZeroBot (talk) 01:02, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

Hugo Nielsen

Thank you for your note. I hope you are right. The amendment of WP:SPORTBASIC earlier this year is explicit: "Sports biographies must include at least one reference to a source providing significant coverage of the subject, excluding database sources." If nobody comes forward with even one example of SIGCOV, there is no support for those who vote keep. Cbl62 (talk) 21:01, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

You would hope so, but there have been some AfD's that have been kept despite failing that, including some which argued "Keep, meets WP:NCRIC."
Incidentally, why I tried to make those changes to NSPORT, to make it clear that NCRIC on its own isn't enough. BilledMammal (talk) 21:37, 20 July 2022 (UTC)
  • I have to admit that I am a bit frustrated at how many articles in Wikipedia do not even come vaguely close to meeting GNG. Even more frustrating is the number of editors who on some discussions vaguely assert sources, instead of finding them. Then there are those who say "this book mentions so and so" but do not bother to provide the information needed (such as page number) to find the mention in the book. Equally frustrating are those who say "I get 256 hits in a newspaper database" and then fail to add even 1 of those to the article. Any time I see that statement "AfD is not for cleanup" it seems the actual meaning is "I am OK with Wikipedia being total junk, and so if I can claim there is a search that produces sources, I will just state that, and will not bother trying to improve this truly sub-standard article." Apache May Slaughter is the article that seems to exemplify this the most. In the AfD there are claims that there are sources, including evidently 275 on newspapers.com. However not one editor has bothered to even try to add even 1 source to the article. Not even 1. There are some questions about propriety. For example there seems to be some speculation about who Ms. Slaughter's parents were, but I am not sure any of it is well sourced enough to justify putting in Wikipedia. We need to be diligent to keep articles on real people grounded in facts not rumors. I really think we need to expand the BLP unsourced prod system to being at least an all unsourced bio article unsourced prod system, or maybe even an an unsourced article prod system.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:49, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Idea

Wikipedia should ban all editing unless someone is using a registered account. There is far too much vandalism and harassment and blocking of improvements of edits down basically secretly by unregistered account.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:33, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Stefan Godlewski

I've deprodded it with additional sourcing. Feel free to ping me whenever you PROD a Polish topic. Btw, "The Polish article does not look to have adequate sourcing either." - incorrect. It cited online PWN Encyklopedia, a pretty good confirmation of notability. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 09:05, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Peter G. Keller

Peter G. Keller may be notable for being a leader of a stamp dealers association. We need more sourcing to show this is the case though.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:08, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Stanley Link was a cartoonist. The sources we have on him at present do not look to be enough to pass GNG.John Pack Lambert (talk) 19:39, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Nomination of Luis Garza for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Luis Garza, to which you have significantly contributed, is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or if it should be deleted.

The discussion will take place at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Luis Garza (2nd nomination) until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article.

To customise your preferences for automated AfD notifications for articles to which you've significantly contributed (or to opt-out entirely), please visit the configuration page. Delivered by SDZeroBot (talk) 01:04, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Proposed decision posted

Hi Johnpacklambert, in the open Conduct in deletion-related editing arbitration case, a remedy or finding of fact has been proposed which relates to you. Please review this decision and draw the arbitrators' attention to any relevant material or statements. Comments may be brought to the attention of the committee on the proposed decision talk page. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, Barkeep49 (talk) 01:19, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Sources existing and veifiability

I think these two policies fly in the face of each other. I think Nexist needs to be ended or at least changed. An editor claimed I violated it because I stated that to keep an article on someone based on a position they held we would need multiple in-depth mentions of the person in reliable, secondary sources that were I dependent of the subject. I did not say 'need in the article". No one has presented any such sources. So this amounts to an attack on me for making an argument I did not make. The whole process is very frustrating. Evidently in the view of some nexist means that you cannot invoke GNG ever.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:53, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

The flaws of Wikipedia

Wikipedia suffers from having been started with too little consideration of notability policies. This has lead to many oddities that make it not look much like a global encyclopedia.

Some overpowered topics are or have berm Louisiana politicians, Olympic competitors, wells in Iran, private air steips on ranches in Oregon, coastal and submerged rocks in Massachusetts, UD state beauty pageant winners, politicians in New Jersey, everyone in Norwalk, Connecticut; Dedham, Massachusetts; and soccer players.

I could name a few others that may be being supported by unwise policies. We have way more articles on members of the Wisconsin state legislature than any other state. I can see the argument that every state legislature member is notable. The policy has lead to thousands of 2 line 1 source articles that lack substance.

A lot of the odd clusters that I mention above have been driven by one editor. A few have seen some progress because of concerted efforts.

There are some other oddities where it is a true mess and little progess is being made. Wikipedia has huge numbers of unsubstantial articles on schools. 5 years ago a decision was made that not every top level secondary school that currently exists worldwide was notable. It was not clear than if GNG or Organizational notability was the new policy. Organizational notability guidelines now say they apply to schools. However the policy that existed for essentially 15 years lead to the creation of a huge number of low quality articles on Secondary schools, and very, very few quality articles on such schools. The alleged decision to not follow the end of school notability guidelines with massive deletion nominations did not lead to a systematic improvement in school articles. It lead to poor quality school articles remaining for another 3 years with very little scrutiny, and then about 2 years ago a few attempts to review articles on secondary schools in India and the Philippines. In the last six months or so we have seen some progress on improving articles on US secondary schools, but it has been very little. I think we have also rejected the idea that every degree granting tertiary institution is notable, but that is less clear. What has happened is there has been some push to stop having articles on every sub-unit of a university with college in its name.

One place we have a huge work to do is articles on university presidents. These tend to be unsubstantiated and lacking in substance. At the same time the academic guidelines suggest that not every accredited institution of higher learning grants notability to every head, but we have in general failed yo have the needed co versions beyond this.

Some of this is I bieve because AfD is broken. I think AfD is broken because the D unwisely stands for deletion and not discussion. Discussions of mergers, redirects and I would argue even renames I think would be better served by being done in the same format. We do such for categories and it seems to work. I think it would be good to do so for articles. As far as I can tell there is no easy way to propose a redirect if an article. The merger and renaming proposals lack a system that gets quick results or easy participation like the deletion discussion method. The deletion discussion method has flaws to though. We need to find ways to deescalate tension.John Pack Lambert (talk) 03:22, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia has far too many cases of massive lists created with huge numbers of redlinks. Such lists are rarely reviewed again, and without review can lead to the starting of false lists. I have found multiple film articles that end up with links from the cast section that go to people who are clearly not the cast members of that film. John Pack Lambert (talk) 03:25, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Should all of those redlinks be created? Patachonica (talk) 03:34, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

I have doubts that it is reasonable to assume that every cast member of a film is notable. There is a huge issue we have with film, actor, actress, director and some other film related professional articles sourced only to IMBd. Part of the issue may be that the guideline that says that "multiple" "significant" roles in "notable" productions has too much breath. What are significant roles? I would argue this should be accompanied by sourcing that backs at least 2 res being significant, but the number of articles that lack any such sourcing is high. I would also argue that Wikipedia articles should not be "Ann Smith (1899-1968) was an American actress who acted in films in the 1930s" followed by a list of all the films she appeared in. A related issue is some film cast listings are half or more uncredited performers, and some casting listings for actors are half or more roles they were uncredited in. Some even include roles that were cut from final production. Wikipedia is not supposed to be an indiscriminate listing of everything, but some of these issues approach that. Sometimes a filmography says it is "selected" and then proceeds to include huge numbers of uncredited roles. On occasion this may be justified, but there are times when it is not.John Pack Lambert (talk) 03:56, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Jimmy Cariggio

Jimmy Cariggio is a new record in not news violation. We have a news article from 1914 on his death, and some name drop in a book on New York gangs. This is not enough on its own to justify am article.John Pack Lambert (talk) 03:27, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia needs more clear guidelines

Wikipedia needs more clear guidelines. This is especially true when people are being told what they can and cannot do. Too often there is an expectation that people will follow assumed norms. These norms are hard enough to figue out in open societal interactions, but in an online community they need to be spelled out more clearly, and people need to be given more oppotunities to learn and follow them, and not be threatned with dire restrictions on a first interaction with the rules.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:08, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Precision v accuracy

Wikipedia needs to avoid being more precise than it is accurate. Thus, we should not put people in a specific birth year cat just because it looks good. If we have multiple equally reliable for that fact sources giving different birth years, we should put the person in a birth year category that does not rule out any of the given birth years. We have decades, centurites, Category:Year of birth uncertain, missing and unknow cats for a reason. We should not rush to place someone in some birth year category to look precise unless we have sourcing to know it is accurate. We clearly should never put someone in more than one birth year category, since people were only actually born in one year.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:10, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

James O. McManus

James O. McManus was a lieutenant governor so I am sure there are more sources on him. We clearly need to add some of them to the article.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:22, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

We need to end Nexist

Nexist is too often used to attack people for not doing searches in multiple languages. This is undercutting verifiability. Verifiability means that articles cannot state things that are not supported by reliable, secondary sources. We should not be writing articles from primary sources or from unreliable sources. This means articles should not be based on IMBd. Nexist is used to hand wave a lack of sources, and to mount attacks on people who do not do multi-lingual searching before nominating articles. This males people fear trying improvement and allows unsorced articles to sit for over a decade. The number of articles that were tagged as lacking any sources on or before Dec. 2009, over 12 years ago is distressing high. That ignores the fact many of those articles were actually u sourced longer than that. It seems 2009 was a year when many such takes were placed.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:58, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

I wish people would stop forgetting that WP:BURDEN is policy. People who wish for articles to be kept should be required to prove that the subject is notable. Spiderone(Talk to Spider) 19:03, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
Which is impossible. You cannot prove the absence of something. There will always be people expecting someone starting an AfD to do an exhaustive online and offline search. This is absurd. It's not possible to read every single newspaper, examine ever single website, listen to every single radio show and watch every TV show that might just happen to contain some coverage of a footballer who played 2 minutes then disappeared. Spiderone(Talk to Spider) 06:22, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
And that is assuming the person has a somewhat unique name. I have seen cases where it took a while for people to figure out if multiple people with the same name were multiple people or the same person doing various events. At various times the people have gotten so little attention for any of the multiple things that this amounted to guess work, and there was some possibility we might be about to build the frankenstein's monster. At other times searches get filled with Wikipedia mirrors, and sources that go back to Wikipedia. The worst was when I found a letter from the law firm for a city in relation to a law suit where they cited a Wikipedia article to argue something about the history of the city. It was a Wikipedia article with no sources.John Pack Lambert (talk) 13:24, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Olympic Notability

Despite the clear decision last fall that only medalists gain Olympic notability by default, too many editors try to sneak into AfD discussions an assertion that being an Olympian, or even being chosen for an Olympic team and then not participating, is grounds for inclusion. It seems with the fall of the notability guidelines for footballers, nominating football related articles has become the largest sports related nomination at AfD and Olympic nominations seem to have for the time dried up.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:54, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

This isn't as ridiculous as people trying to enforce a grandfather clause on footballers essentially permanently protecting them from the requirement to actually meet GNG/SPORTBASIC Spiderone(Talk to Spider) 06:23, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
I agree. That is a proposal that hopefully gains no traction. We cannot have different notability guidelines based on when an article was created on Wikipedia. Down that road lies madness.John Pack Lambert (talk) 13:14, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Yakov Popok

Yakov Popok is an article that needs more sources. I have not done a search yet. However, I strongly suspect many of the sources may be in Russian or Turkmen, and there may not be many easy to find in English.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:27, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Advice and Wikipedia

One issue with Wikipedia is that people giving advice on certain actions often do not really understand the situation and end up giving advice that is not helpful. There may also be at times people who offer advice with ill intent, but I think for the most part people give sincere advice, they just do not understand all the issues involved.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:25, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Thoughts

I am trying to figure out what I can do to convince the Arb com I will act more wisely in the future. I am not sure there is anything I can do about this at the present. John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:46, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Some unsolicited advice from someone who hasn't followed this case closely, and really has no context: Try to not keep making comments on the case talk page. The arbitrators have their evidence. They have heard your side, and at this point, the more you comment, the less likely they are to be charitable. Ovinus (talk) 18:58, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Category:French expatriates in New Caledonia

A tag has been placed on Category:French expatriates in New Caledonia indicating that it is currently empty, and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion. If it remains empty for seven days or more, it may be deleted under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself. Liz Read! Talk! 18:54, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

AfD not cleanup

We are told "AfD is not cleanup" and I understand the sentiment. There is one issue though. I cannot tell you the number of articles I have seen that were tagged in December 2009 or earlier with a note of having no sources, that still do not have any sources. If AfD is indeed not cleanup, which I accept, we need some other way to tag articles for cleanup that gets a response fasted than "more than 12 years in the future". I am not sure what this way is, but we need to find it.John Pack Lambert (talk) 19:05, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia tone

Wikipedia needs to find a way to improve the tone of what happens on it. I am not sure exactly how this is to be done, but it clearly needs to happen.John Pack Lambert (talk) 19:16, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Hi, apologies

Hi John Pack Lambert, I just saw the request on your userpage for you to be referred to by your full name or as Mr. Lambert. I'm sincerely sorry for not having done so and will endeavor to do so in the future. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 19:39, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Good advice

I have come to realize it is very hard to find good advice on Wikipedia. Some of this is because the people who most understand how to do things on Wikipedia focus on doing things, not going from talk page to talk page to offer advice. Although some people do offer good advice. Some offer what amounts to poor advice. I think mostly because they think they understand Wikipedia more than they do. I clearly do not understand it well enough, but I am trying to understand it better and operate in a more communally beneficial way.John Pack Lambert (talk) 19:44, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Of categories

I have noticed it is often hard to find multiple entries in categories. It is also at times hard to monitor them to make sure they do not get emptied for non-good editing reasons. I have also noticed that CfD is a very slow process compared to AfD. In some ways they have opposite rules. In AfD basically you want to nominate one article at a time, and multi-articles nominations are doscouraged. In CfD because so much of the discission is not about the merit of categories per se, but the name, often you have to nominate multiple articles at a time. Closely related to this, often Wikipedia articles have poorly chosen names, and people do not often bother renaming them. On the other hand in my experience it is harder to delete a category than an article. This is because categories are not judged on their current content, but on potential content, not just of articles we have but in theory of articles we could have. It takes lots of effort to build categories, but the building is not about sourcing but about finding or creating articles. The later is probably how most of the building of articles occurs, but I could be wrong.John Pack Lambert (talk) 19:52, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Size of birth year cats

I have mentioned before, but it is worth mentioning again, the largest birth year category in Wikipedia is Category:1989 births with 17,925 entries. The numbers go down as you go back or forward from there. This has been the largest birth year category for at least a year, and either it or 1988 has been the largest since at least 2017. So even though it is fairly recent (there are lots of fields of endevor where very few people reach notability by age 33), it is not moving towards the present very fast. 1988 has 17,907 so is very close, 1990 has 17,551. so much further behind, and 1991 only has 16,954. 1987 has 17,372, 1979 has 15,733 and 1947 has 14,901. By the time you get back to the 1890s you are looking at under 6,000 articles in each birth category. Some would argue my opening is not quite true, arguably the largest birth year category is Category:Year of birth missing (living people) with 147,625 articles, followed by Category:Year of birth missing with 21,063 articles. There are almost certainly articles that would meet the criteria for one of those categories that have not yet been entered. That is a huge number for living people, but I understand that privacy issues may make it hard in some cases to put people in the right category. Still that is a staggering number, so large that the largest birth year category may not mean what people think it means when first told it. It may mean that people who were under a certain age who came to prominence recently are more likely for us to be able to place their birth year than people who were of a slightly higher age when they came to prominence. Although at least with acting categories I have the vague sense that it is people who have emerged in acting in the last few years who are more likely to lack a specific birth year category than those who came before. Since there are 1,044,329 people in Category:Living people this means that we lack a birth year on at least 14% of them.John Pack Lambert (talk) 13:15, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Elmer Robinson

Elmer Robinson was mayor of San Francisco for 8 years. I am 100% sure there are sources. That was 1948-1956. In 1950 there were 775,357 people in San Francisco, the highest population for the city until 2000. So it was quite a large city, the largest in California north of Los Angeles at the time. I am sure he was covered in local and national newspapers for this, and I am sure there are other more recent sources that mention him. I am about to try and find at least some.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:21, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Julius Schulte-Frohlinde

Julius Schulte-Frohlinde is an article that does not have any sources. It has been flagged with this problem for over 12 years.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:56, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Religion topic ban violation in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wood between the Worlds

As I've noted here, I believe your participation in an AfD on a C. S. Lewis-authored fictional element arguably constitutes a violation of your topic ban which includes "religious figures, broadly construed". I realize others may think this is too broadly construed, and hence am not seeking sanctions for you on this basis, but am notifying you of my introduction of this topic in the DRV as expected courtesy. Jclemens (talk) 21:05, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

This is an element in a fantasy book. This seems a huge expansion of scope. The book itself is not generally considered a religious work, and this seems a very, multi step expansion of the ban into a far broader field of subjects. I would rescind my participation at this point to keep the peace, but this seems to me a very huge expansion of scope.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:11, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

The book itself where this appears was secular enough that my very much secular school allowed me to read it to my 5th grade students. So the notion that this was a religious topic had not even entered my mind.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:07, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I wouldn't consider this a violation of the topic ban. Editing C. S. Lewis's page might be, but this particular page has no religious connection. Polycarpa aurata (talk) 02:09, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
I see where both you and Jclemens are coming from... But I have to say that Mr. Lambert's contention that the book was "secular enough" doesn't really hold water when The Chronicles of Narnia is so significantly religious that we have a whole page (Religion in The Chronicles of Narnia) dedicated to it. This does appear to fall under "religion or religious figures, broadly construed" although I think more religion than religious figures. Personally I'm not a fan of the concept of "broadly construed" but consensus is for it. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 02:19, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

My statement is true, the school was secular and had the book stocked in its library. It was a point in my thinking, it might be a flawed thought process but it is what I thought. The article in question makes no mention of religion at all in any way. It is an article about a particular place in a fantasy book. As I said I would rescind my vote if that were possible now. The article in question is on one specific plot element in a work of fantasy. It makes no mention of anything at all religious. To class such as related to religion broadly construed is a very broad construction indeed.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:23, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Its Christian literature, as explained on the book's page "Lewis suggested that he did not directly intend to write his Narnia stories as Christian tales, but that these aspects appeared subconsciously as he wrote, although the books did become Christian as they progressed." Christian literature is definitely "religion broadly construed" and I'd suggest you avoid it. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 02:26, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

OK. I will avoid editing any article in any way on any aspect of a fictional plot until I can ascertain that it is not classed in some way as part of a body of religious literature first.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:31, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

I assumed you already did that as part of your due diligence in avoiding restricted topics. I'd also avoid books that aren't religious literature but have religious themes like the The DaVinci Code or Crispin: The Cross of Lead. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 02:37, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
I apologize if I offend anyone here but this seems like significant overreach. The optimum word in the topic ban is "focus", not "broadly construed". The article or edit must have a focus on a particular religion or religious figure or be directly related to those subjects. Something like this book may have religious overtones but to say it is focused on religion or a religious figure is a huge leap and stretch. You have to connect so many dots here that you could walk to the moon and back on those dots. @Polycarpa's concerns above, though I disagree with certain aspects of it, has more merit than this. It just feels like we are fishing with an unbaited hook hoping to catch a fish. The point of the topic ban was to stop disruption. It has done that. Now, honestly, the disruption appears to be the number of watchers looking for every reason to pile on Mr. Lambert. Even if it is done in good faith it is still a disruption to both his good faith editing and the betterment of the encyclopedia. I encourage Mr. Lambert to challenge these when they occur and force clarification. Either it is focused specifically on religion and religious figures or it is broadly construed. It cant be both broad and focused. I agree with @Horse Eye's Back about not liking "broadly construed" bans and I said as much in that topic ban discussion. I believe the community can do better than set what amounts to a trap for otherwise good faith editors that have an issue with editing in a focused field. --ARoseWolf 12:33, 28 July 2022 (UTC) --edited 12:41, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
The article is not even on a book, it is on one place in a book.John Pack Lambert (talk) 12:38, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
I must chime in and, well, not disagree but expand upon the statement of my good friend @ARoseWolf here. If we assign the parts of speech to each word in the topic ban and if we diagram it, we see that "focused" and "edits related to" receive equal emphasis. Then it continues "religion or religious figures, broadly construed". I am clarifying for everyone's benefit but especially John Pack Lambert's that the topic ban waters are not further muddied for him by not regarding the "edits related to" part of the ban. Please note that I'm not taking one side or the other on whether this is a violation.
John: You may, of course, take or leave this, but I, personally, would avoid all Lewis and even Tolkien-related content if I were under this topic ban, even if just to avoid long back-and-forths like this on my talk page wasting my time and stressing me out. Fancruft isn't worth it... though I can understand wanting to remind people that this is fancruft in the deletion discussion. DiamondRemley39 (talk) 16:29, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

I think it’s past time to drop this stick. Jacona (talk) 15:00, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Mr. Lambert

First, it's true what @GenQuest wrote on my Talk Page, I have indefinitely retired from Wikipedia. I only stayed a few extra days to try and help you through the ArbCom case and to advocate for you in some of the above discussions. But @Jacona is right. It's time to move on. It's not any particular happening that caused it and I'm not stepping away bitter but it's for the best. You and I haven't always agreed. Full disclosure, I am generally an inclusionist if that's even a real term, yet, I respect you and your unique perspective. When you have been wrong I have chastised you but always with respect and dignity. When I felt you were right, I praised you but tempered that with constructive thoughts on how you could improve. I have and always will support you and believe you are a net positive for the encyclopedia. Please follow any bans and consider all guidance in regards to those bans. I believe you can be released from them eventually if you continue to progress and take on praise and criticism alike. I believe every editor that has taken the time to write you here is trying to make sure you follow the restrictions placed on you by the community to remove any aspect of disruption from your editing. Listen to them. Be bold but follow those guidelines. My advice would be the same as my friend @DiamondRemley39's. When there is doubt then avoid it because it's not worth the project losing a good and experienced editor. It's been a pleasure watching you continue to edit here and I wish you all the best. --ARoseWolf 16:53, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

  • I do not know if it will do much good at this point, but I am going to abide by the spirt of the new topic ban and not comment on any AfD discussions, nor anything that might in some way relate to such, or do anything else along those lines, even though such a ban does not go into effect until the Arb com hearing closes. It is probably too late for this to do much good, but I am trying to show a willingness to abide by rulings and function in society.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:30, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Jānis Sudrabkalns

Jānis Sudrabkalns has categorizes that seem to suggest this person had positions in government. The substance of the article does not mention such positions as all. It looks like this article is in much need of expansion with more text.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:37, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

  • If I understand the terms right, the categories say Sudrabkalns was in 2 of the Soviet legislatures (I believe that is what the convocation was). However the text of the article does not mention activities in goverment bodies, or being in government bodies, or anything along these lines, at all.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:39, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

New redirect

I created Jane Levington Comfort Sturtzel as a redirect. It had not existed before. Since her birth name is bolded in the target article, and much is said about her, I was actually shocked that she was not already a redirect. There may be enough to create a seperate article on her. Or maybe the article on her husband should be renamed to be a joint article, since many of their works were written under a two name joint pseudonym. Or is it 2 pseudonyms that are used together? I am not sure. If I am my wife write as Melvin and Arkasha Mogadicz, is that a pseudonym for both, or am I writing as Melvin Mogdcz and she as Arkasha Mogadicz? Is it really clear if we always write and publish things together? Actually it looks from the article on Howard Allison Sturtzel that he did write a book as Paul Annixter not credited to Jane Annixter as well, that was adapted into a film. It also appears that there are several works that were written by Jane Levington Comfort either before her marriage, or after her marriage still using her maiden name. I have not even checked to see if Paul Annixter, Jane Annixter and Jane and Paul Annixter are existing redirects. I have also not even tried to do a search for sources, but my strong suspicion is one could find a few more than the 7 listed, especially if one did a search with all the variant names. It appears that only Paul Annixter is a redirect at present.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:53, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

    • Digging further I have confirmed that both Jane and Howard wrote individually as Jane Annixter and Paul Annixter. So I am includined to say that it is not a joint pseudonym, that Jane Annixter is Jane L. C. Sturtzel and Paul Annixter is Howard A. Sturtzel, and that it is not a joint pesuedonym. It would be nice to find a comprehensive secondary source that could shed a little more light on the key question, is the decision on listing who the writers are based on who contributed to the work, or are they making this decision as a marketing one, broadly described. I am not sure marketing is the best word. What I mean is that especially when you are using a pseudonym, it is not always clear that the decisions on writer naming or not naming are based on some easy to determine formula of how when someone goes from being an advisor and help to being a co-author. John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:15, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Since Jane outlived Howard, some of the Jane Annixter works may post-date his death. Library Thing does not seem to give publication dates for many of them.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:18, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
  • IMDB seems to suggest Howard was writting as Paul in 1920 for short films see [1]. The question is, are we 100% sure this is the same Paul Annixter (aka Howard Sturtzel)? This is the year he married Jane. If this is works by him we have him doing film short screen plays in 1920, her producing novels mainly aimed at adult readers in the 1930s, them jointly turning out works in the 1950s and 1960s primarily, and very little biographical detail as of yet about either.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:27, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

How to build community at Wikipedia

This is something I think we need to work on. Some of this boils down to what the goal is. To me the best Wikipedia biographies are those that tell us much of the subjects life. There are some people who spent much of their life without notice, but were noticed for a very short time. I think the bigger problem comes when we assume that just because a few people who held an office were notable, everyone was. The issue also comes up when people who are trying to complete a list rush in creating new articles. At least in some cases these new articles are on notable people who were covered by relief sources. When these are Mayors of regionally significant cities before 1970 or so, the sources do exist but too often the first creator of the article does not dig them up, and for way too long no one else does either. The sheer number of notable politicians is staggering. Articles will improve over time. I think we are at the point where we need to focus resources to article building. There will always be a need for more articles. However there are lots of areas where the most pressing need is to increase the substance and sourcing of articles that we do have. One such area is articles on university presidents.John Pack Lambert (talk) 03:34, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Category:People of the Italian colonial empire

A tag has been placed on Category:People of the Italian colonial empire indicating that it is currently empty, and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion. If it remains empty for seven days or more, it may be deleted under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself. Liz Read! Talk! 01:06, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Sorry to hear about what is going on

Honestly, Wikipedia can be a confusing, contradictory place to navigate. My advice would be to invest your energy in other parts of Wikipedia and real-life pursuits. For instance: https://civilpedia.org/p/?t=Theory-Freshly-milled-whole-wheat-flour-is-easy-to-bake-with&pid=431 Yleventa2 (talk) 14:46, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Thoughts on redirects

I am also thinking that we should change things so that creating redirects needs to be done either through the AfD process (with D changed to discussion as in CfD) or through some sort of Proposed redirect process. We do not let editors just come along and delete an article because they think that should happen, we have a set of processes they can use at that point, based on judgement about the topic. I really think that needs to become the starting point when turning an article into a redirect, and I think doing so will in the long run increase the level of cooperation on Wikipedia. I am right now reading the Wikipedia policy on redirects, which I do not think I have done closely in the past. The redirects from other subjects that are mentioned in an article I think needs more attention and more thought. It mentions something "mentioned in the text of a list" or something to that effect. I think we may want to think a bit more clearly about that. Or at least treat the issues in more than one section. There is a huge difference between an article that has lists that have 50+ people on them being redirect targets, and a case where you have a musical group with 3 members and none of them are independently notable. At least I think we should somewhere acknowledge that having a one paragraph mini-bio on a subject in an article, and redirecting from the name because having both an indepdent bio and the mini-bio in the other article is a very different issue than redirecting a to a list that tells us only that person x participated in event y in year z. The guidance could be use refinment. Redirects from the same subject by a different name and redirects from a different subject need to be covered better.John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:53, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

  • Even less clear is the very vague instructions on when redirects can be categorized. Only one example of the "from a subject where the category would not apply to the target" is given, and it is not even explained in the text, just cited as an example. The example is a member of a band redirected to a band, and the source category is categorized by birth and death years and a few other things. We really need better guidance here. In large part because there are a large number of things that come under the redirect umbrella from different topics that each call for different approaches. 1-there are redirects from important parts of a group to an article on the group as a whole. Some of these are musical groups, some of them are writing teams, some of them are comedy groups, and there are related things. In general the rule is that things done individually should be categorized individually, but things that apply to the whole group should apply to the whole group. The one issue where we may want better guidance is if a group of people are all killed in one event, does the group go in the say Category:1963 deaths category, or do we put each of the redirects from individuals in that category.John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:53, 30 July 2022 (UTC)
  • I would assume as a general rule, we should not place a redirect to another topic in a category, except when the text of an article supports that category. So some redirects are from Able Baker Charley to Death of Able Baker Charley. If the death of article does not say something on Charley, we should not say it in his category, but we should not put the death of article in a birth category, because deaths are not born. The same applies to another common redirect, which is between a company and a person who is either the eponomous founder, or a leader who is mentioned in the article on the company, but not worth having a seperate article. Sometimes the redirects go from the company or organization article to the person article. Either way the categories should be put under the person or cat article based on which they apply to, but it would seem best if the categories used were only ones that we have text to support. Thus if one finds a source telling one when John Smith, whose company John Smith Ltd., is very important but he is not really remembered, so John Smith is a redirect, if one has a source say when he was born, add the source and text built on that source to the article on John Smith Ltd., to the article and then go to the redirect and add the appropriate categories.John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:53, 30 July 2022 (UTC)
  • This would lead me to think that in the case of a redirect to a name in a list, we would not put that redirect in any categories that are not supported by the text of a list article.John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:55, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Interesting find

I either missed when people linked to this in the past, or it has not been widely advertised. [2]

I think some of my past actions would have been different if I was aware of this. I also have a sense that some comments I have seen in the last 3 or so months from others may have been different if they were aware of this. It might be something worth considering by editors more in future discussions.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:29, 30 July 2022 (UTC)