This is an archive of past discussions with User:Lesser Cartographies. 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.
Lesser Cartographies, you are invited to the Teahouse
Hi Lesser Cartographies! Thanks for contributing to Wikipedia. Be our guest at the Teahouse! The Teahouse is a friendly space where new editors can ask questions about contributing to Wikipedia and get help from peers and experienced editors. I hope to see you there! Writ Keeper (I'm a Teahouse host)
Hi - I note you have removed a few flags in infoboxes. Please read WP:MILMOS#FLAGS which makes it clear that "when dealing with biographical infobox templates, the most common practice is to use flag icons to indicate allegiance or branch of service, but not place of birth or death." Thanks in anticipation. Dormskirk (talk) 22:55, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
WP:ICONDECORATION also adds: "Avoid adding icons that provide neither additional information (what the icon looks like itself is not additional information unless the icon is the subject of the article) to the article subject nor navigational or layout cues that aid the reader. Icons should serve a purpose other than solely decoration". Between the three guidelines there is a pretty clear message - all three argue against national flags in biogs. LC, you wrote on PIA's page "WP:MILMOS#FLAGS appears to trump WP:INFOBOXFLAG." In fact both argue the same thing. Span (talk)00:48, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
"When dealing with biographical infobox templates, the most common practice is to use flag icons to indicate allegiance or branch of service, but not place of birth or death. However, there remains considerable disagreement regarding the appropriateness of flags in such cases, so editors should not regard this as a universal rule."
I was treating WP:INFOBOXFLAG as a universal rule when it came to MIL biographies; MILMOS says it's not a universal rule. I'll let the folks who have spent more time editing MIL articles than I have fight this one out. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 07:07, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
Disambiguation link notification for June 16
Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Kingpin (automotive part), you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page John Barrow (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). 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.
Thanks. I'm trying not to step on toes today (I'm too tired). Just did a check for "Joe Pullum" to find that. However, I think it was Hamer using that name since the name is also used by a blues musician who did perform in the area. Overall, I think we're almost done here. LionMans Account (talk) 03:24, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
Could you give it a check. I think I'm close to being finished with it, but might need a once-over before putting it up for review or just moving it. Thanks. LionMans Account (talk) 01:38, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
Hi. Thanks for taking a look at the edits to Tweetmyjobs. Just added 3rd party sources to all of the edits that were made - feel free to give the article a look to verify. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Colelave (talk • contribs) 01:28, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
Hello, it seems you are trying to clean out Infinit (technology) which seems to me far too detailed and promotional, so agree it does not belong. I noticed there is also an article Infinit (company) on the company promoting this for the past two years. Not sure if it is more than "two kids and an app", but I did try to rescue it a bit and make one somewhat decent article. Seems like there is a long history here. Take a look at Infinit, which started out as a similar uncited promotion back in 2008 by single-purpose account Special:Contributions/Mycure. Monsieur Quintard supposedly graduated from Université Pierre & Marie Curie and the user mycure on Github belongs a Julien Quintard. That 2008 article was proposed as a speedy delete, but the tag was removed by User:Ginkgo100. Then in July 2012 another single-purpose account Special:Contributions/Pwperl added more, still with no citations. In May 2013 User:Tassedethe did a proposal for deletion. Pwperl added some more, and then an anonymous user blanked the content and made it a disambig page to the two separate articles (which removed the prod tag). A couple weeks later (May 18) Mycure stuffed about the same content into the "technology" page, and on May 27 made the company page in another burst of edits within a day. My proposal was to attempt to rescue the company article, delete the other two (never really cited well), and move back to Infinit which would require an admin. Or is it worth saving? Thanks. W Nowicki (talk) 22:34, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
Hi W Nowicki. Thanks for the impressive amount of legwork there! While I'm comfortable reviewing articles based on peer-reviewed scientific literature, I don't have any particular expertise or experience working with corporate articles. That said, I like your idea to move Infinit (company) to Infinit; I assume that should wait until Infinit (technology) is deleted, yes?
I looked at your edits on Infinit (company) and you've already found all of the citations I was going to suggest. I'm not sure there's much more to say there, but after your work I think the article is well worth keeping.
Sounds like a good plan to me. No hurry but best to not fall through the cracks. In the meanwhile, I also noticed Opaak, Kaneton, Kastor (kernel) and Kayou from the same article spammers. Sigh. Not sure these are worth a merge or just four deletions? Know it might not be your field; I have been almost full-time cleaning up these vanity software articles since I retired a couple months ago.... W Nowicki (talk) 23:56, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
Ouch. I'm doing due diligence now, but I should be able to prod all of those within the next hour if you don't get to them first. (Yes, these are very much in my field.) Lesser Cartographies (talk) 00:17, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
Thank you. I was thinking about trying to keep Opaak and merge the others, but there is not much to merge, so probably just making a clean break is fine. Also it seems there are a bunch of other things named Opaak, so Google searches are misleading. In particular, http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2307664 seems to be another one. So if software is your area, there are still quite a few very promotional but mostly unsourced articles on European projects that were created circa 2008 to 2010. It seems there was an organized effort to spam Wikipedia with articles promoting such projects (perhaps similar to the current wave of "two kids and an app" companies), although we tend to delete or merge them from time to time as we run across them. Most talk about "The Grid" for example, which was a popular buzzword (including the caps) during that time period, generally now replaced by "The Cloud". For example, see GUSEP-GRADE PortalSZTAKI Desktop GridOMII-UKBPEL4PeopleDIETGridRPC etc. Most of these soud like make-work projects for grad students that might not have been used by anyone else, but hard to tell. W Nowicki (talk) 17:09, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
This is right up my alley; feel free to send over any of these projects you're not sure about. As to Opaak, rest assured that it wasn't a close call. Should be able to take a look at these within the next 36 hours. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 17:22, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
OMII-UK is not obviously notable; will need to spend some more time with this one.
SZTAKI Desktop Grid. This one is going to be a judgment call. There are a few papers out there, but none with more than 40 cites. I'll defer judgment on this one for the moment as well.
GUSE is probably not notable, but I'm not ready to pull the trigger on it yet.
Using google scholar might be a little tricky if you're not an academic. My rule of thumb is that if a topic has a primary paper with >100 cites and several secondary papers, or the primary paper has >200 cites, the topic is almost certainly notable. The tricky bit is making sure the article lines up with a paper: I just sent Robotic clusters to AfD because while there were four solid citations to the peer-reviewed literature, only one of them had anything to do with robotic clusters.
For advice. Well taken. It comes from needing to be so careful about neutral language in articles; perhaps I tend to let go too much in the discussions. Certainly not worth alienating anyone. W Nowicki (talk) 18:58, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for taking the advice in the spirit in which it was intended. You're a good editor and this was to prod you along your path to becoming a great one. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 19:12, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
RE: On being an effective editor
Thank you very much, Lesser Cartographies, for the wise and lengthy advice that you gave me, which I'll be more than glad to heed, and in fact I have often wondered how to improve the rating of the Harp Twins article from Start-Class. I know I have much to learn. However, could you please edit the article in a way that will protect the discography section? That's my only concern. In fact, if you look at the page history carefully, you will see that I had not contributed in a significant manner to that article since May. This entire ordeal began when an anonymous user changed the format of the references section, which was then done again by Duffbeerforme, which prompted me to do a ton of research to increase notability, to protect the article from what I perceived was an attack, especially since Duffbeerforme desperately tried in vain to have the page deleted several months ago.
So, I really don't mind leaving the article alone for even more than two months, but please help me. With your experience I'm sure you can fix the page in such a way that the discography section will be protected in very few minutes. That way I'll have peace of mind at last.
I'm so grateful for all your help, Lesser Cartographies, on the Reliable Sources discussion board, on my talk page (all the guidance and advice), and for editing the Harp Twins page (and for including it on your watchlist). I feel so much better now, and thanks for letting me know that you are willing to help if there are disagreements between editors in the future. You've been super kind and generous. I thought I would not donate to Wikipedia again, but you've made me change my mind. I'll follow the steps you gave me. It might take more than two months but I really am determined to learn as much as I can. All the best, and thanks again! Dontreader (talk) 20:24, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
Thanks so much for the ongoing improvement of the Camille and Kennerly Kitt page. I'm sorry to hear about the dead link since it showed the Toshiba tablet commercial with the Harp Twins being featured rather prominently. Thanks again for your help. Dontreader (talk) 21:21, 24 September 2013 (UTC)
It's not my intention to edit the article but if Duffbeerforme was sincere when he stated that he was there to improve it, then I wish he had replaced the link related to the release date of Politics of Love; he has done nothing to improve the article; he only criticizes it. I see in him the same hostile spirit that he showed during the discussion for deletion. However, if you want me to completely stay away from the page, and not even add a link, then please tell me, and I will completely trust in you. Thanks again for all your help. Dontreader (talk) 01:21, 25 September 2013 (UTC)
Dontreader, you've learned all you're going to learn from editing Camille and Kennerly Kitt. If your goal is to become a more effective editor, take that article off of your watchlist and start working on other articles and participating in other discussions. It's perfectly reasonable for you to be obsessing over Duff's behavior—you've only interacted with a handful of editors and he's made quite the impression. Once you've interacted with a few hundred editors over several dozen articles you're going to have a very different perspective. That perspective may still be that Duff acted like a WP:DICK; that's fine. But having success at other articles means you're going to be a lot more confident that you know what you're doing, and the next time you run into a storm of criticism you take from it what's useful and shrug off the rest.
Okay, I got the message very clearly. I'm just struggling to find time to do what you've recommended since I'm currently overwhelmed with unforeseeable problems, but I'll sort things out as soon as possible. Thanks again very much. Dontreader (talk) 09:22, 25 September 2013 (UTC)
I've added additional links to the AFD page, showing Usenet discussions going back to 1989 on the comp.mail.mush newsgroup. I hope that clears up the reliability question of mush's existance. Slaurel (talk) 03:13, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
Thank you for the detailed suggestions. I chose the page in question because I was surprised that it didn't already have an article, and because I find Wikipedia is a very good place to find the most authoritative reference sites for most software packages. I definitely plan to add more of the unique content about mush over time, but thought that getting the page started might give it a chance to collect improvements from others, since there's a lower barrier to edits than to page creation. I especially appreciate the pointers to DYK and NSOFT, as I hadn't seen those before. The Google Books suggestion is a good one too. I'll get the dead trees and obtain those references. Slaurel (talk) 03:36, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
First book has arrived - albeit the least interesting of the 3 I think. Working on the request for Userfication tonight, and I'll edit it there until ready for review. Slaurel (talk) 04:45, 13 September 2013 (UTC)
Hello LC - I believe both other books have arrived at The UPS Store, but I haven't gone over to pick them up yet. The Userified page is here: User:Slaurel/MUSH_(e-mail_client)
I thought I'd added the first reference, but it was a rush right before a trip and seems to have been lost. Will re-do. I will do the others once the books are in hand. Slaurel (talk) 18:46, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
I've added citations to the Userified page User:Slaurel/MUSH_(e-mail_client), perhaps excessively so, as backlash to the deletion. I'm not happy with the content yet, but Notability shouldn't be an issue any more. The Z-Mail handbook references Mush or Mush features in Z-Mail on nearly every page, but I haven't put in more than a key handful of those. I'd welcome your opinion on the latest edits. Slaurel (talk) 05:29, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
Thank you very much for the detailed review. I've addressed some of the points here, and will continue with the rest later. Btw - is there a guideline for trimming down these talk page discussions? At the discretion of the page owner, or some kind of mutual agreement? I don't need to clutter your page with all of the MUSH article history forever....Slaurel (talk) 15:44, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
The talk page length doesn't bother me, and yes, it's completely at the user's discretion. Once it gets long enough I'll archive it. However, I have the article on my watchlist, so you can make specific comments on that talk page. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 17:48, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
Some edits on Harp Twins page
Hello Lesser Cartographies,
I very much appreciate the time and effort you have put into editing the Camille and Kennerly Kitt article; however, I have just noticed that you have taken out my references to their coverage on a nationwide Spanish TV channel and two nationwide Russian TV channels, asserting that the articles that accompany the videos (broadcasts) are too short. In my opinion, the fact that the Harp Twins were featured on TV on foreign nationwide channels is very notable, and that's why I included that information in their Wikipedia article. I never claimed that the short articles accompanying the broadcasts were reliable or verifiable sources of useful information; instead, I believe those websites are important to keep because they prove that the Harp Twins were on multiple TV channels which showed some of their work as musicians. As you know, it's one thing when a website merely shows one or several YouTube videos of theirs, with a short article, as is the case with La Repubblica, which you took out as well, but it's a different matter when the video with a short article happens to be material that was aired to potentially tens of millions of homes.
I fail to understand why you don't see the notability (having reliable sources to prove it) of being featured on nationwide TV channels, regardless of the length of the articles that accompany those broadcast videos. By taking out those references, I think the notability of the Harp Twins has been weakened, and it will be harder for me to defend the article against another predictable proposal for deletion coming from someone whom I will not mention. Other than that issue, I certainly think the article looks much more professional now, and I'm very grateful for the help. Thanks in advance... Dontreader (talk) 09:36, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
Thank you for your kind words.
I notice you haven't contributed to any articles or participated in any conversations at WP:AFD, WP:AFC or the WP:TEAHOUSE. So let me summarize what you would have learned there regarding your question.
1. Notability is binary. That's a fancy computer-science way of saying that once you've established the minimum threshold of notability, the article is notable. Knowing where that line is requires a bit of experience, but in my judgement the Harp Twins article has cleared this low bar. Arguing for additional cites to increase notability will not be particularly persuasive if the article is already notable.
2. Television appearances do not establish, nor do they contribute to notability. The gold standard for reliable sources is material that other (independent) sources have published regarding the topic. These sources give us something on which we can hang and article. A performance doesn't give us that kind of information (although a review of a performance would; I haven't been able to find any, though). If other sources aren't writing about the performances (beyond a simple notice that they occurred), then we shouldn't write about them either.
3. Articles on musical groups don't (usually) mention individual performances. That's simply not appropriate for an encyclopedia article, unless the performance is notable in its own right.
The article is going to be much stronger if we can get it down to a couple of paragraphs.
Yes indeed; that helps a lot, and again I thank you for your generosity. I hope this doesn't sound too idiotic but I actually did edit one page about Ignoring All Rules, very recently, which had an increasingly common grammatical mistake. Anyway, I have not forgotten about the places you told me to visit and learn from. I'm not trying to deceive you or seem like a liar about my intentions. I had been virtually absent from Wikipedia for a long time due to serious personal complications (without intending to sound dramatic), and the problem that arose on the Camille and Kennerly Kitt page with another user whom I remembered from the deletion discussion forced me to come back here and spend tons of time when in reality I was in no position to do that. If you look back at my first stage as a Wikipedian I was quite a bit involved in articles concerning demonology, and I think I made at least one very important contribution. I have always wanted to improve the encyclopedia and I will continue to do so (after following the steps you gave me) as soon as I get some things under control. What you said regarding the notability of the Harp Twins article is very comforting since I had the impression that it could be nominated countless times for deletion. I look forward to getting my act together and learning how to become a much better editor. Thanks again for your continued kindness. Dontreader (talk) 00:37, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
I am just now seeing that the page on the Qore Programming Language was slated for deletion. Please let me know what I can do to reverse this decision and make the article suitable for safe keeping.
I am happy to address any concerns, but I am not sure what they are.
Hi Estrabd. The article was deleted because we couldn't find enough evidence of the topic's notability. If you can dig up three or four independent (i.e. not written by the developers) reliable sources (i.e. not blogs) that discuss the topic at length, then recreating the article shouldn't be difficult. The software-specific notability guidelines are at WP:NSOFT. If you want access to the original text, take a look at WP:REFUND. Ping me if you have any questions.
In a word, no. That's most likely going to be a WP:PRIMARY source, and while that can be used in an article it does not help in establishing notability. An article in a magazine or the peer-reviewed literature would be great, so long as it wasn't written by the authors of the language themselves. Let me know if you have any more questions; I'd love to see an article on this language, but as best I can tell the sources just aren't there yet. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 19:57, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
Okay, thanks for working with me on this. Brett
By the way, unless you're editing an article, it's helpful to append four tildes (like this: ~~~~) after your contribution. That puts your user name, your talk page and timestamp in automatically. Thanks! Lesser Cartographies (talk) 14:46, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
More problems on the Harp Twins page
Hello, Lesser Cartographies. First of all, please notice that I have dedicated a substantial amount of time (by my standards) to either improving or trying to improve several articles, as suggested by the administrator BrownHairedGirl, including a vigorous attempt to reach consensus on the talk page of the Nontrinitarian article here: Talk:Nontrinitarianism#nontrinitarianism or non-Trinitarianism.3F. Also, soon I will begin to take the steps you suggested. However, in the meantime, more problems have arisen on the Camille and Kennerly Kitt article, and I believe it would be unwise for me to interact with that editor in any way, shape or form, so I'm asking once again for your help. An effort is being made to reduce the Harp Twins to a mere blog phenomenon, as was done by the same editor in the discussion when the article was proposed for deletion.
Please look at this edit: quoting Mallika Rao, the editor changed the word "said" to "blogged". Is that necessary? Is that supposed to be regarded as a good-faith edit? An effort to improve the article? Here's what the Huffington Post says about Mallika Rao:
So, exactly what could the good-faith purpose be of changing the word "said" to "blogged"?
Also, concerning the other edit, although Bailey Johnson does write for The Feed Blog (exclusively or not, I do not know), does that take away the fact that this person is a CBS News contributor? Or at least a CBS News online version contributor? Must that person be called "The Feed blogger"? Here's the source:
From that article you can say that it was in The Feed section of CBS News, but it clearly remains a CBS News article, and therefore Bailey Johnson is a CBS News contributor. Besides, after some last-minute research, I have found that Bailey Johnson is not solely a The Feed Blog writer. Here's an article from Crimesider (also from CBS News online):
Therefore, is it accurate to reduce Bailey Johnson to "The Feed blogger"?
I must stress that in each case the article begins with (CBS), and the source is http://www.cbsnews.com/ Bailey Johnson is a CBS News contributor. That cannot be disputed, unless you want to call Johnson a CBS News online version contributor, or a cbsnews.com contributor, but Cbsnews.com redirects you to CBS News on Wikipedia.
Since the last time you've graced my talk page, you've made 31 edits to around 7 different articles. Compare that to 71 edits you've made to Camille and Kennerly Kitt and Talk:Camille and Kennerly Kitt, 14 at the AfD discussion, and 8 on my talk page.
As of a few minutes ago, your edits to the Kitt pages are 93/322≈29% of your wikipedia experience (and that's not counting the edits you made on other editors' talk pages discussing the Kitt article). Because that percentage is so high, and because you've had a limited number of interations with other editors (and other styles of editing) across a range of other articles, you don't yet have a good model for how User:Duffbeerforme's edits are going to be perceived by the wider community.
Here's my best guess as to how a random experienced editor would evaluate Duff's edits. First, they're minor and, at least on their face, correct. Second, "blogged" is more specific than "said" and gives the reader more information, and "Feed blogger" likewise (arguably) better characterizes the source. Duff's intentions may have been wholly malicious, but WP:AGF means that if it's reasonable to construe edits as having been made in good faith, we should do so.
It's ok to disagree with a good-faith edit, but: I've yet to find a wikipedia article that I couldn't improve in some small way. A good editor prioritizes. By reverting an edit, you're making a claim that not only does your reversion improve the article, but also that the improvement is significant enough to justify taking the time to explain your rationale and potentially enter into an extended discussion.
When 29% of your edits have concerned one article, it's perfectly natural for you to think that any change to the article is significant (and warrants 600 words across my and User:bgwhite's talk pages). Once your Kitt contributions are closer to 1% of your total, and once you've hung out for a while at the WP:TEAHOUSE and WP:ANI, your perspective will be closer to that of the wider community: Duff's edits are well within what is accepted, and unless they're factually wrong they should stand without further discussion.
I see that over at User:bgwhite's page you've asked that Duff be banned from the article. That request reflects poorly on you.
I respect your passion, and I appreciate you coming to me instead of returning to the article. I want you to be able to channel your passion into making this a much better encyclopedia. So I'll ask you again: take the Kitt page off your watchlist, don't look at it, don't think about it, and go make a thousand edits over a couple hundred articles. Then come back and we'll talk about how to improve the Kitt article.
Thanks for your observations and advice. I think a very elemental fact has to be established here before I continue, which is that the Wikipedia world, with all of its rules, is just a tiny fraction of the real world. In the Wikipedia world you can systematically use your vast experience to tell me that I'm wrong in some sense or another; however, in the real world, in general, I have been a very successful person, and when it comes specifically to debating issues based on logical thinking, I'm a very tough opponent. What I pointed out to you last night had very little to do with the Wikipedia world and its rules.
One example is that you claimed that "blogged" is more specific than "said" and gives the reader more information. That issue is hardly within the Wikipedia realm, so I'm not at a disadvantage this time. If "said" is inappropriate because it's an article, a suitable word could be "wrote" or "expressed", for example. Since the Huffington Post is already being mentioned, if you believe it's a mere blog (which is highly disputable), then to say that she "blogged" is redundant. You can certainly "write" or "express" something in a blog if you believe that the Huffington Post is nothing more than a blog (for the sake of argument), and perhaps you believe that her description as "contributor" (versus "blogger") to the Huffington Post is a mistake made by the Huffington Post (for the sake of argument), but that does not change the facts I wrote in this paragraph.
Likewise, to replace the word "credited" with "called" is an edit that you cannot claim is "more specific" and "gives the reader more information". You did not use those words for that edit since you did not address that edit at all, but it's simply a stupid edit. That is true in the real world, and has nothing to do with the Wikipedia world. You cannot cite a Wikipedia rule to prove that I'm wrong. No one can. It's a stupid edit. Period.
The same goes for "CBS News contributor" versus "The Feed blogger". The rules pertinent to this case are the same inside the Wikipedia world and in the broader real world. Johnson is not merely a The Feed blogger. I established that Johnson writes for CBS News online on a variety of topics, some of which belong to The Feed Blog, and others which do not. The article was written as a CBS News article, and there is nothing wrong with calling Bailey Johnson a CBS News contributor. If there really is an urgent need to clarify (which there is not, since no one is being mislead), one could specify that Johnson is a CBS News contributor who wrote those comments in The Feed Blog.
So, I must emphasize that my concerns regarding these edits have virtually nothing to do with the Wikipedia world and its many rules. Therefore, you cannot assert that you are right and that I'm wrong based on Wikipedia rules. One of the very first things I did on Wikipedia was notice that an article said, "Some of the attacks leveled against Peck are...", so I looked at the source that was provided, and it was just one person's views, so I informed the administrator Doug Weller, and he told me to go ahead and name that person in the article as the person making the attacks, which I did, and no one could revert it. That's because it was strictly a matter of logical thinking, even though I knew nothing at all about Wikipedia.
Furthermore, you stated that my request to have Duff banned from editing only that article reflects poorly on me. Well, you might be entirely right since that petition certainly belongs to the Wikipedia world; however, as a very experienced Wikipedian, can you name ONE other person who feverishly tried to have an article deleted, and then came back SEVERAL MONTHS later (not immediately) suddenly claiming that he wanted to "improve" it? But who resorted to reverts instead of trying to reach consensus on the talk page (you don't me to tell you that reverts can cause edit wars), AND who targeted another main contributor, to the point that he made him leave Wikipedia? If you cannot come up with a similar example, then who looks bad here? And how much of a loss is it to not be able to edit ONE page out of many thousands? Especially given the facts I have stated?
And look, regardless of what my ENTIRE edit history has been on Wikipedia, you give me absolutely zero credit for the efforts I have made over the past few weeks to improve the encyclopedia (and in a civil manner, I must add, inviting people to discuss important changes on the talk pages, for example). I am a better writer than most editors, and I have the potential to further improve Wikipedia, and more substantially than I have so far, but you are imposing a heavy burden on me. A thousand edits over a couple hundred articles before we can improve the Harp Twins article? Maybe you are in a very privileged situation but I have bills to pay, including enormous bills for my mother's care. You have to take into consideration that we all have different lifestyles. Your intentions are noble; I understand them, but you cannot force me to change my lifestyle and starve to death. I am at my limit with the time I dedicate to Wikipedia; in fact, I'm beyond my limit. I can visit the tea house and comply with your other requests if they are not very time consuming, but if I am expected to spend hundreds of hours here before I can have the Camille and Kennerly article corrected, I will most certainly leave Wikipedia entirely just like Robcamstone did, all because of one user.
I too have limited time to dedicate to wikipedia, and I think we've reached the point of diminishing returns here. I wish you the best in your editing. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 03:53, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
I believe that certain actions make the assumption of good faith absurd. For example, when the Camille and Kennerly Kitt page was nominated for deletion (by the way, the "contributor" that proposed the deletion has vanished since then), and someone promotes in a militant fashion the deletion of the page during the discussion, it's because he is convinced that there is NO WAY to improve the article to a point where it could meet Wikipedia standards. Or am I wrong? Therefore, when he comes back half a year later to allegedly improve the article, that's a clear contradiction. Or am I wrong? That was when I no longer assumed good faith on his part. As I said recently, if you can recall one contributor who fought hard to delete a page and then came back to improve it, and was actually helpful, please let me know, and I will reconsider my reasoning. Dontreader (talk) 04:33, 22 October 2013 (UTC)
Dontreader: You don't assume good faith until receiving sufficient provocation to stop. You assume good faith to convince others that you're the adult in the room. When you continue to assume good faith even after being provoked multiple times, admins figure out that you're not the problem.
There are legions of blocked editors who were Right(tm) and had the impeccable logical arguments to prove it. They aren't missed. What we're looking for are effective editors who can figure out how to work with people they disagree with and know how to avoid people they can't work with. (Some of us have also figured out how to provoke editors we don't like into getting themselves kicked out.)
To answer your specific questions: being right isn't going to prevent you from getting blocked. You need to decide if you want to be right or if you want to be effective.
If Bgwhite sees any need for changes to the article, I will discuss them with him, not with you. What you are suggesting is to make drastic unnecessary changes to the page, at the request of you-know-who (which was my concern when he showed up with a revert a few weeks ago, several months after the AfD discussion). You have already wiped out many well-crafted sentences and paragraphs that took me a long time to compose. You've done enough to that article. Since you said your time is limited for Wikipedia, please focus on other articles. Your plan will only cause serious trouble. Dontreader (talk) 03:15, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
Once upon a time I was also protective of my well-crafted sentences. You learn to get rid of that very early on in the Ph.D. process. I recall that the intro section to one of my papers underwent 41 separate revisions, and when I got my dissertation draft back and opened it to a random page there were 14 separate corrections. So I've learned to be fond of my ideas and to let go of the words.
Allowing other people to change the words gives them a sense of ownership (in the positive sense of that term), and lets you been seen as a collaborative editor. And, just fyi, talking about your "well-crafted sentences" is going to be seen as WP:OWN (ownership in the bad sense) by other editors.
As to the Kitt article, I'll only be making changes that I believe improve the article and that Bgwhite agrees to (unless he prefers another arrangement). The resulting article won't be what you want, won't be what Duffbeerforme wants, and certainly won't be what I want. That's how we know we've arrived at a good compromise. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 15:39, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
My master's thesis was a sea of red ink when I got it back from the editors office. This was after the untold number of revisions made to the thing. I actually saw a student cry when the editors office approved their dissertation.
Every article on Wikipedia can be improved. I've taken several articles to Featured Articles or Featured Lists. They were reviewed and edited by 10-15 people during the process of attaining Featured status. Kitt's article can be improved. I think Lesser has worked out a wonderful solution. Everyone has their input. Lesser is neutral and isn't taking sides. Help Lesser to improve the article. Bgwhite (talk) 18:27, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
I just noticed this activity since there is no reason for Lesser Cartographies' talk page to be on my watch list. If Bgwhite believes that Lesser Cartographies is neutral, even at this point, then so do I; however, Bgwhite, I still don't understand how I can be a part of this effort to improve the Kitt article given what you said in your Final Warning. Please explain how I should proceed, and thanks in advance. Dontreader (talk) 22:23, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
Dontreader, Lesser came up with the idea after my warning. I think Lesser has a very good idea.
Lesser will be making the changes in the article. You and Duff are not making any changes.
You are welcome to make a list of changes that should be done. You are also welcome to talk about any changes Lesser may be may or may not be doing. You will be discussing the changes on your talk page. Duff won't be writing on your talk page and visa versa. Focus on the edits and not who proposed them.
You won't like some edits being made. You will like other edits.
Neither you nor duff are editing the article or talking to each other. Lesser is acting as a neutral party making the changes. Things are ok with respect to my warning. But if one of you starts editing the article or talking to each other, well, lets not go down that path. Bgwhite (talk) 23:11, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, Bgwhite, for your explanation. Now I understand and I agree with this solution. This approach also provides a way for me to indirectly add new material (for example, the Harp Twins will release a physical CD later this year). Thanks again Bgwhite and Lesser Cartographies for your time and help. Dontreader (talk) 23:39, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
Soviet capture of Vienna
(Undid revision 568570723 by 94.101.4.209 (talk) Reverting "conquest"; happy to discuss on the talk page.)
"As a result, the victory of a Soviet offensive toward Austria and the liberation (by the Red Army)" is incorrect and should be changed to "capture" or "conquest", as Austria was de facto, de-jure and de fideli a part of the Greater Germany. Therefore the term "liberation" is incorrect as Vienna as major city of the 3rd Reich. Saying "Berlin was liberated from the Germans" or "Vienna was liberated from the Austrians" makes NO sense at all. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.101.4.209 (talk) 10:12, 26 October 2013 (UTC)
English isn't a particularly sensible language, and arguments from incredulity aren't often effective. If you put "liberation of Berlin" into Google Books you'll get about 1700 hits. "Liberation of Vienna" has even more. If the underlying sources use the term incorrectly, then we should too. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 19:35, 26 October 2013 (UTC)
Simple because some (english-language) sources got a self-evident fact wrong, Wikipedia shouldn't. I'm not that keen on being an accomplice in the spreading of historical inaccuracies just because somebody else got the terminology wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.101.4.209 (talk) 19:00, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
See WP:FLAT. If Wikipedia had been available around the fourth century B.C., it would have reported the view that the Earth is flat as a fact and without qualification. And it would have reported the views of Eratosthenes (who correctly determined the earth's circumference in 240BC) either as controversial, or a fringe view. Similarly if available in Galileo's time, it would have reported the view that the sun goes round the earth as a fact, and Galileo's view would have been rejected as 'original research'.
If you've got sources that say otherwise, then we can go through the process of deciding which sources to favor. But where the [preponderence of (late add, LC)] sources are wrong, we're cheerfully wrong as well. This solves many, many more problems than it creates. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 19:08, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
OK, here goes, first pass.
1. My Russian is lacking so my position may be fundamentally flawed. Lightweight news item on viral video. Not appropriate for an encyclopaedia. Content tells us nothing not found in sources already used.
Ah, good point. I thought this was a live or taped performance for Russian television, but it looks like they're just playing the video. No, it's not even one video, just a montage. Stricken. Nice catch.
4. Most are purely sourced by primary sourcing, most likely the Kitts promo materials. If it's not covered by independent sources, does it belong, probably no. The President is the exception here, there is independent sourcing. However that coverage seems to just mention it as a point of trivia (no specifics, when, what event, why) so not really appropriate. Happy snaps are not independent reliable sources.
If the article was relying on these to establish notability, or if the article relied on these for a controversial claim, then I'm on solid policy ground for excluding them. However, as best I understand it, we do allow unreliable sources for uncontroversial claims. I'm not willing to so far as facebook, twitter or their own CV. Haven't looked at these cites in a while, but IIRC I'll allow them.
5. The events were not neceserilly for those pollies. At dinner/event attended by pollie would be a better version from the source.
Giving the name of the event would be better still. Hmmmm.....
6.I note someone else suggest it being bad to lose it because the acting section is so slight. If their acting careers are slight then the section should be as well.
Agreed, will probably be merged in with another paragraph.
7.Also worth asking is the relative weight given to marginal sources.
3 - HuffPo. Looks like blog. Author looks like local reporter [1], not an expert or big name.
12 - HuffPo blog post, light weight
14 - ABC blog. Big org might make it ok (editorial oversight extends to blog?). Author is digital reporter. Cute and strange type blogging [2]? Not the best for a blp.
Agreed.
8. Also of concern is the particular choice of quotes used, both from blogs reposting a viral video, lightweight articles. The emphasis given to these two. Do they reflect the wider reaction or were they picked because they were the most complimentary found. The sort of cherrypicking of quotes press kits use.
I don't get the sense of cherrypicking here. I think any review you find is going to be favorable because there's nothing to be gained by writing an unfavorable review for this kind of group.
9. Do independent reliable sources describe the author at all.
Haven't looked yet, thought you might know.
10. The problem here is the sentence was changed but the source was not [3]. Source says 31 videos and no hit number. It should either go back to what is way and say something like "in march 2012 there was". Or remove the source from there. Finding a new independent source with up to date figures would be ideal.
Nice catch; this does need fixed. I'll flip through the sources we have and see if I can find something better, but your fix would work as well.
11.This is the wrong way around. You don't write a peacocked preferred version then hope someone might find some sources. You first find sources then write based on them. Contrary to one of the replies It does not matter who first introduced the sources. It's the quality of the sources and what they say.
Starting an article without sources is the most common mistake I see made by new, enthusiastic editors. No idea how to fix it.
12. composers - No
I also removed performers, as I thought it was redundant.
13. Not that I've seen. Uploaded is an alternative.
Ok
14. It's a bit crufty and the large list does dwarf the article a bit. If listed maybe collapse.
Collapse was a good idea. Done.
15. Not a usable source.
You are correct, sir.
Additional
Ref section need work. They are currently lacking in detail and in at least one case deceptive (6)
Yes, and on my list.
You raise the possibility of a list of performances/tv appearances. I have yet to notice similar in feature articles. Listing every little show or soundbite seems to me excessive and more at home on a dedicated fans own site.
Other points
This became a non-issue when I saw what the TV refs actually were. Thanks for pushing me to take a look.
A simple yes/no reply is of very limited use. This is not a vote.
Well, they were unsolicited and from newish users, so I gave them a bit of weight and left it at that.
Why does this edit still stand? It jumped over the top of an ongoing discussion and was against the then consensus. (No comment on the editor or their intention should be implied) duffbeerforme (talk) 06:34, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
Stop the editing the Raul Cuero page. You can edit the information without source but you can not delete the intro of articles that are in scopus database or the awards that have a source. Thinks like awards before 1994 on sports can not be deleted because they are confirmed by PBS in the special about creativity. A page about a scientific is not interested in personal media interest. Stop editing the page and let the original where i was working, I'm adding links to all the references to confirm information. if you want polemic you can add a part but not to delete the complete page. Remember in USA he is a person who promote the science. If I adding something is with links. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SwinburneMel (talk • contribs) 22:27, 30 October 2013 (UTC)
Hello, SwinburneMel, and welcome to wikipedia. I'm sorry you're getting off to a bit of a rough start, but you've picked a difficult subject as your first article.
Let me clear up a few points of confusion. Citing a reliable source is necessary but not sufficient for including a claim in an article. In this case, a list a papers is not appropriate. Likewise, a list of awards is also not appropriate. If you look at our article on Francis Crick, you'll notice we only mention a handful of his awards, list just five of his books, and don't list his papers. I assume you're not asking that the subject of this article be treated differently.
As you've noticed, it's just as easy for me to delete material as it is for you to add it (even easier, actually). To prevent getting into a cycle of adding and deleting, let's discuss what should go into the article. If you go to your user page, you'll see a "sandbox" link at the top right. If you click on that you'll be taken to a page where you can take your time building the article; it's not a "private" page (all pages in wikipedia are public), but since it's not in the main space no one will be editing your work. Once it's ready you can move it out into the main encyclopedia. I'd be happy to help you set this up if you like.
This article looks like it could be quite interesting and I'm looking forward to editing it with you.
Thank you so much, Lesser Cartographies, for all the valuable time you have invested in improving the Harp Twins article. As Bgwhite predicted, there are edits that I like and others that I am not fond of, but I think I have shown during this process that I'm willing to make concessions and to compromise. By the way, I hope Bgwhite will continue to enforce the rules he gave Duff and me since the core problem remains unresolved.
Here are some minor details in the article that I ask you to please address (nothing controversial):
1. "as well as music scored for video games." Very well written but please change that to "video games, TV shows and movies." because they have covered the theme of The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, Doctor Who, Star Trek, The Hobbit, and more are coming, they have said.
2. "The Harp Twins’ have posted" seems to have kept an apostrophe from a previous edit, so please delete it.
3. (Not your fault at all): "Harp fantasy (2013)". Please make that "Fantasy".
4. (not your fault at all): "(Harp covers of Video Games, Anime, Movies and TV soundtracks)" Please change Video Games, Anime and Movies to lower case.
Many thanks in advance, Lesser Cartographies, and thanks again for the very detailed work and research, including a good analysis of the references. Have a nice day. Dontreader (talk) 00:11, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
Dontreader, I have the Kitt article on my watchlist, so I'll still keep tabs. As always, give me a yell about the Kitt article and any other questions you have. The Walking Dead? Harps make angelic sounds not deep base. Bgwhite (talk) 09:21, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
Bgwhite, thanks so much for your help and generosity despite your busy schedule. I will indeed contact you if something unpleasant happens on the Kitt page. And regarding The Walking Dead, when you watch that video on YouTube, make sure you use headphones. That's not a joke. Under the video, if you click on "Show more", it says "Please listen with headphones for more complex sound and fuller bass lines!" You can certainly thank me later. Dontreader (talk) 20:30, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
Lesser Cartographies, that's even better than what I suggested. Thanks so much! But I somehow forgot to mention the references section; do you think it should be improved? Yesterday I added sources to the following article using the automatic Wikipedia citing tool:
Please take a look at how my style looks in my references in the references section (I included the names of the articles, for example, but I may have messed up elsewhere). If what I did is okay, I myself could use the same style for the Kitt article if you are too busy, plus I've bugged you enough already, but I would need permission from Bgwhite (just for that specific task, since it wouldn't cause controversies). Please let me know what you think, and thanks again. Dontreader (talk) 00:27, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
Dontreader, go ahead and make a copy of the article in your sandbox and edit that version. I'll copy the changes from there. Add an html comment <!-- Like this --> to point out what you've changed. Thanks! Lesser Cartographies (talk) 13:53, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
This day isn't going well
I'd like to edit and actual article today. Colombian profs, sockpuppets and new articles with spam links. To top a wonderful day, I'm apparently getting sued... User talk:Ross-Novak.
Dont asked me to look at a version of the Kitt article in his sandbox. It was mostly moving the refs up into the article. I didn't see a need, but I made the other minor changes he requested, including all refs using templates. Bgwhite (talk) 08:42, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
I thought about jumping in and asking User talk:Ross-Novak to strike that, but it's grant season here and formatting my bibliography looked like more fun. Thanks for the help on the Kitt and prof articles. Deadline is Wednesday, after which I should be able to get some sleep and then hop back in here. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 17:21, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
Ah grant season. The time of the year where one is willing to sell their soul for money, of which 1/2 gets laundered to your employer. Who says prostitution and pimps are illegal.
An editor blocked Ross-Novak. In Ross-Novak type cases, they are harmless and there is nothing to do but laugh. I enjoy those because I see too many as#*&# #*$&@)$ editors. Bgwhite (talk) 22:02, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
Logical additional information required on Harp Twins page
Hi Lesser Cartographies,
I did not see your last reply until many days after you wrote it (I don't watch this page, and you took a while to reply, plus you did not mention me in a way that would have sent me a notification, so I forgot to check for a long time). I will make observations in my sandbox as you suggested as soon as possible. User GoingBatty has actually made some of the corrections I wanted, even though I never contacted him. My main concern is with the references section, which you changed entirely; it has its pros but also its cons. Most potential contributors are likely to insert material into the article and put a source right there, which would mess everything up. That's why I prefer to insert citations right next to the claims that are being made, with the website and everything. My sandbox has that method restored, plus the references are more complete and consistent (title of article, and author if available, for example). Please consider going back to the original style for the references section, which I do believe is the more common one, and more user friendly.
I see that you had a lengthy discussion with Duff here about the article... I was not aware of that discussion until tonight, so I wonder if I missed it each and every time I actually was visiting your page frequently during the discussion process, or if it was hidden for some time. I disagree with some of the conclusions that were reached. Why should I care, for example, that performances are not listed on Featured Articles? Why is the Kitt article being held to that standard? Do you see potential for it to reach Featured Article status any time soon? Likewise, I have found MANY articles about songs of very famous musicians, with links to iTunes and Amazon, for example, so I don't understand the double standard. Will anyone fight to eliminate these links on Lady Gaga or Katy Perry songs, as was done on the Harp Twins page? I can send you a list of articles with iTunes and Amazon links. If no action is taken soon on those pages, how can you justify keeping them out of the Kitt page? No one will control the page; they are not famous and lack big sales, unlike Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Selena Gomez and others.
But for now I realize that something important is missing from the Kitt article, and it's a question that shows up in virtually all of their interviews. At least a sentence is required to explain why they cover metal, rock, etc., despite having been trained classically. This is my proposal:
In their biography section, after "Both sisters hold a Bachelor of Music degree in Harp Performance and graduated with highest honors at Wheaton College Conservatory of Music.", I would take out the period and replace it with a ";", and add the following text:
"however, they were uninterested in only playing classical music, preferring instead to arrange and perform versions of rock, metal, and other contemporary genres, as harp duets."
That should do. My source is one that you sort of trashed, but again, I was somehow totally unaware of that exchange that took place above, and I could almost swear it was not there during the discussion, but I could be wrong. Here's the source:
Would you consider Becky Bratu to be a "blogger"? Is this an unreliable source? Look, I've seen "blogs" written at NBC News by the editor-in-chief! My point is that the term "blog" can be deceiving. You simply cannot justify trashing the ABC News link just because it has the word "blog" in the URL. And you went on to minimize Eliza Murphy by agreeing that she's a "digital reporter. Cute and strange type blogging". Here's her website:
This is the sort of mistake that could have easily been avoided if you had consulted with me during the process. So please insert the sentence I provided (actually, not a sentence because it comes after a ";", and with that source, which is absolutely valid).
And when did you tell me that the Huffington Post articles were unacceptable to you??? For example, you agreed that this link was unacceptable without having the courtesy to tell me anything:
You agreed with "Looks like blog. Author looks like local reporter, not an expert or big name." Why exactly do we need a national reporter or a big name, or an expert on the matter? Those are very weak arguments. We are not talking about quantum mechanics here. Lizzie Schiffman (the author) is a journalist. Why is that not enough for an article about two musicians? MANY seasoned Wikipedians say that the Huffington Post is a reliable source, but by dismissing that site, you found a pretext to erase the performances for Barack Obama and other politicians. You did NOT have to do that. As long as there are reliable sources saying that these events took place, they can be included. There is no need for detailed articles on the matter.
I'm sorry if I sound upset with you, but I had the right to be consulted when someone else was making claims to try to remove material from the article, but you did not inform me or let me defend content. Some material must be added again because some portions were deleted due to mistakes. The Eliza Murphy mistake is particularly serious, but clearly it's not the only one. Please also remember suggestions I made above. Finally, any further suggestions by the interested parties should be made publicly, as I always made them, not through private emails, which is a big reason why things must now be revised. This also kept Bgwhite in the dark. Thanks. Dontreader (talk) 09:47, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
I made more observations on Bgwhite's page. I explained more calmly why I'm upset with the situation. Of the things you removed, all I'm asking for is a few performances of the hundreds of their performances. Dontreader (talk) 02:19, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
Finally, for now, I don't think it's fair to say that Camille and Kennerly are not known for their live performances. Many links have expired, but I found some which I never dreamed of putting in the article:
Hi Lesser Cartographies. I have calmed down quite a bit and I've had some time to think things over. I apologize for giving you a hard time with this latest situation. I probably misunderstood the timeline. Even if you did discuss matters with Duff privately and then posted a summary here, and then you made drastic changes to the article the next day or so, without giving me one last chance to counter arguments, you probably were sure that what you were doing was the right thing to do. At least I do see that what you discussed with Duff privately and then posted here was included on the talk page of the article. Basically, if everything had been done publicly, I would have preferred that. And if you had notified me of your conclusions with Duff before making big changes to the article, I would have liked that. Anyway, I do appreciate important contributions that you made to the article, particularly the Bledsoe dissertation, which was a very time-consuming process. I know your intentions were noble, and I thank you for all your help. Again I apologize for getting so upset with you. Dontreader (talk) 08:50, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
Example table
Hi Lesser Cartographies, your ideas sound interesting yet I cannot quite imagine how this would work within table format. Maybe I can get a clue if I see an example, feel free to use the talk page, thanks, --Jackentasche (talk) 11:26, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
For your efforts in assessing a question at the Teahouse based on the merits of the topic... a good assessment and very valuable. Your feedback makes a difference. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 01:14, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
Harp Twins
BG White has repeatedly violated an understanding that you have helped broker. Instead of edit warring both myself and Dontreader were to discuss any changes to the Camille and Kennerly Kitt page with yourself and changes would be made by you. The agreement did not include Dontreader whining to BG White and BG White kowtowing to his every whim. BG White has been repeatedly introducing linkspam into said page. attempt to raise the issue with BG White was met by silence. duffbeerforme (talk) 05:45, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
Insulting someone usually leads to silence. Agreement was to not to edit the page and instead to discuss on my or Lesser's talk page. You already said you don't have to abide by that. Dontreader has been coming to both Lesser and me as per the agreement. He has not edited the page. I've have told Dontreader no and yes to things he has proposed. Links in question are sourcing that there was an album released and when it was released. This is permitted and unfortunately, Amazon iTunes seems to be the ones people choose. This is why I added it. I already asked if you had a better link and so far have been ignored.
Remember, I issued you both warnings not to edit war over the Kitt page. I warned the next time I would block both of you. So far you have thrown the agreement out, not civilly discussed, reverted and thrown insults at every change.
Lesser has been on a Wikibreak for a bit. When he returns, if he want to decide to remove, keep or change links, that is fine by me. Bgwhite (talk) 06:38, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
Hello Lesser Cartographies. This is a Featured Article, and it has several iTunes and Amazon links in the Release history section to support content. Please notify Duff about this. Unless he is willing to wage war (successfully) to remove "shop" links from every Featured and Good article on Wikipedia, there is absolutely no justification for him to insist on removing the CDBaby links from the Kitt page. Have a nice day... Dontreader (talk) 05:35, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
Don: As to the Madonna article, this site is a far more reliable (and complete) source than amazon. As to justification for removing certain commercial links, I can think of several, but WP:LINKSTOAVOID is sufficient ("Individual web pages that primarily exist to sell products or services"). Here's a better argument: if the information you're trying to cite can only be found on pages selling the product, that information probably doesn't belong in an encyclopedia article.
Duff: I don't want to work with someone who yells "hypocrite" at the first (or second, or fifth) sign of a misunderstanding. Not only was that uncivil, it was counterproductive: you've removed any incentive for Bgw to come around to your point of view, and you've made me very reluctant to agree with you and be seen as rewarding your behavior. Your actions are making it more difficult for me to remove links that we both agree shouldn't be there. Please don't do that again.
Bgw: Thanks for stepping in during my absence. That was the right thing to do. Thanks for the "remove, keep or change links", and I'm happy to reciprocate. I think you've proposed the best solution: replace those links with better ones. Until I can find something better, I don't see any harm in leaving the article as-is.
Thanks for your reply, Lesser Cartographies. However, although the Madonna site that you provided is more complete than Amazon or other shops, I fail to see why it is reliable after doing some research; that site is run by a Czech fan who doesn't even provide a full name, and using what appears to be a free blog service from the Czech Republic. I don't see why that information should be considered accurate or reliable (even if it might have correct information). From the Wikipedia article concerning links that should be avoided, we also read the following:
"Blogs, personal web pages and most fansites, except those written by a recognized authority. (This exception for blogs, etc., controlled by recognized authorities is meant to be very limited; as a minimum standard, recognized authorities who are individuals always meet Wikipedia's notability criteria for people.)"
Honza is not a recognized authority, and this server seems intended for creating free blogs or personal pages. Also, from the quote "if the information you're trying to cite can only be found on pages selling the product, that information probably doesn't belong in an encyclopedia article." I must emphasize probably and I must remind you that multiple Featured Articles about music have shop links. Admittedly it's not an ideal situation. Thanks again. Dontreader (talk) 03:05, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
To your first point: See
Wicke, Peter (2009). "Confessions on a dance floor: Das Lied als Industrieprodukt". In Leimgruber, Walter; Messerli, Alfred; Oehme, Karoline (eds.). Ewigi Liäbi: Singen bleibt populär. Germany: Waxmann/SVG. p. 92. ISBN978-3-908122-85-2..
That looks like an impeccably recognized authority to me. [Perhaps I should spell this out a bit more. When your blog is cited as an authority in academic literature, we as editors may assume the blog is both recognized and an authority.]
As to your second point: What percentage of featured articles have shop links? What percentage of those would be improved by citing reliable sources instead?
I've now replaced the cdbaby cites with a cite to the twins' home page. The fact that the albums exist and were released on such-and-such a date is uncontroversial enough to use a less-reliable source. That leaves the track listings uncited, which was (unspoken) issue all along, right? So I'm guessing that since nobody else (not even the twins themselves) has bothered to reproduce the track listings, our choices come down to (a) leave the material uncited, (b) remove the material, (c) restore the link spam, or (d) find a better cite. I have enquires in progress for (d), and until I see how those pan out we'll stick with (a). Lesser Cartographies (talk) 06:36, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
Lesser Cartographies, what does that book and its author Peter Wicke have to do with the Czech guy Honza and his website? You said that website was much better, not a book.
Secondly, what matters is not the percentage of Featured Articles that have shop links. What matters is that there are Featured Articles with shop links. Would having different links be better? Yes, but that's the way it is currently. It's today's reality with Wikipedia. If you want to begin a crusade against the shop links, you have every right to do so. But until then, look, you said you saw no harm in keeping the Kitt article as it was, so why did you take out the links again, as Duff did? Dontreader (talk) 07:47, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
To your first point: you claimed that based on your "research", the madonnacollector website was not a recognized authority. It took me all of two google searches to find out that madonnacollector a recognized authority, and academics were the ones doing the recognizing. I didn't want you to have to take my word for it, so I provided the citation. As an aside, when someone goes to the trouble of giving you a citation, it's generally best to look it up before responding.
Now let's talk about citations for track listings. We have many, many examples of albums released by novelty cover bands. Here are a few examples. Let's see how they handle citing the track list.
Not one of these provide a citation to the track listing. That got me thinking as to why that might be. Could it be, perhaps, that the track listing of an album is similar to the table of contents in a book? That seems like a pretty solid comparison. We don't provide independent citations to tables of contents, and it looks like we don't provide independent citations for track listings, either.
Recall that the Madonna citation was for the release date. Well, we already have a non-shop-link cite for that, and that's what is now in the article.
So, I think we're done. Having looked at several other examples, the track listings can stay without any citation, and the release dates are cited sufficiently. We also got rid of the shop links. So I'm going to call this an unqualified success.
Lesser Cartographies, I'm sorry, but there is no way to reason with you. The Madonna link you provided was terrible. Why can't you accept that? It's one Czech guy with a collection of Madonna stuff who calls himself "Honza". No last name. And he asks for donations. Does that sound like a "reliable" source to you? A reader of a Wikipedia article is not supposed to have to perform two Google searches to verify that a link is reliable. You are simply cornering yourself. You should have admitted your mistake when I pointed it out to you.
And I could not care less about that list of bands that you provided. You cannot distract me, Lesser. I know two things:
1) After saying "Until I can find something better, I don't see any harm in leaving the article as-is.", you quickly changed it and replaced the links with a new link that DOES NOT SUPPORT THE CONTENT. Your attempts at obfuscation do not work with me. All you did was please Duff. Period.
2) Let me repeat this: THERE ARE FEATURED ARTICLES OF MUSIC THAT HAVE SHOP LINKS. So you cannot apply a different standard to the Kitt article. PERIOD. You have NO WAY to justify pleasing Duff this time. All you are doing is coming across as someone who thinks he's far superior to me intellectually, cannot admit his mistakes, and can fool me with cheap tricks. Period. Revert that edit and let an administrator replace Bgwhite for a while. You have lost whatever credibility you had. Dontreader (talk) 09:15, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
"Harp Attack (December 2013). Harp covers of rock and metal songs."
The cited material says:
"In December of 2013, Camille and Kennerly released their much-anticipated first cover albums: Harp Attack - Featuring 14 of their most popular rock and metal arrangements, "
Now, take a deep breath and explain how the new cite "DOES NOT SUPPORT THE CONTENT". (Recall that I just demonstrated that track listings do not need citations.)
As to your second point: it is obvious and uncontroversial that featured articles have shop links. Among the errors in your reasoning is drawing from this premise a conclusions that this article needs shop links. As to admitting I was wrong: I was. I thought we needed a citation for track listings, and I was keeping the CD Baby link for that purpose. Once I sat down and look at how other articles handle the question, I discovered I was in error and no such link was needed. So I changed the link to the twins' home page so we'd have a cite for the release date. All the content stays and we've removed a shop link that we didn't need.
From the point of view of improving the article, we're in better shape now than we were at the start of the week. From the point of view of winning and losing, Duff didn't get his preferred edit (removal of the link entirely) and neither did you. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 17:11, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
Four things.
a) Lesser, you are right, my accusation was not justified by the situation, I withdraw it.
b) The seems to be some question about sourcing the tracklisting. Tracklistings are more often than not non controversial. For such things primary sources are readily usable. If you really thinks it's needed, use the album or the Kitts discography (if they include that info). No need to support any retailer interests for this information.
c) I fail to see the need to precise details of the exact date of each minor variation in release dates in different territories. If release dates don't get mentions in independent reliable sources then is it really that significant. The use of lot's of shop links to "source" such a trivial details is galling and at times seems designed to promote sales. Many links to what is usually the one retailer goes against what Wikipedia should be. Wikipedia should not, such as in the case of 4 Minutes (Madonna song), be providing commercial advantage to Amazon or to any individual retailer.
d) The suggestion that any one volunteer here is obligated to "wage war" on articles specified by another is insult to everyone who helps here. duffbeerforme (talk) 11:40, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
Duff: (a) Thanks. (b) Agreed. (c) Where there's not much in the way of reliable sources, we (myself emphatically included) have a tendency to write monographs instead of encyclopedia articles. Not necessarily a bad thing—we have some great monographs here—but it can lead to editors working at cross-purposes. (d) Don is frustrated because he doesn't yet have the tools to accomplish what he wants to accomplish but is still unwilling to back down. So he's cycles through what he knows (I see he's asked you to be banned again) hoping that it will work this time around. He is doing better: pointing to GAs and FAs is a huge improvement over where he was five months ago. Once you see things from his point of view, though, it's hard to feel insulted, even when he's trying to do exactly that. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 17:11, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
The link you provided when you replaced the CD Baby links DOES NOT support the content properly. If you have "demonstrated that track listings do not need citations", then why don't you go to Roar (song) and see if they will let you remove the Amazon links? ( DoneLesser Cartographies (talk) 16:15, 10 March 2014 (UTC) ) That's a Good Article, mind you. That article received Good Article status from an administrator who thoroughly reviewed it, yet he/she saw no need to remove those links. And recently a top Wikipedia editor, GoingBatty, asked me to provide links to support the dates of the Single releases section. You can find that on the talkpage of the Kitt article, and you'll see my reply on his own talkpage. Yet you think you know better! And you keep on claiming that I'm so ignorant here! Very well, then. Back it up if you are right. All I'm asking for from you (the experienced editor, in contrast with me, a Wikipedia peasant), is that you take your brilliant logic to ONE article and see if your superior intellect works there! If you can get those Amazon links removed from Katy Perry's song "Roar", then your credibility will be reestablished, and you will cease to look like you are helping Duff have his way. Duff removed the links (twice), was reverted by a Wikipedia ADMINISTRATOR each time (who claimed the links should remain there to support content), yet you overruled him! You are a very confident man, I see! I have decided to accept your changes, but since you are so confident, knowledgeable and bright, and since you have nothing personal against me or the Harp Twins, I trust you will not object to attempting to achieve the same results with the Roar article. In fact, why don't you team up with Duff to speed things up?! You'll surely get the job done in NO TIME!!! And that request is not insulting. What's wrong with you? Can't a man ask for fairness??? Dontreader (talk) 22:03, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
Thanks Lesser Cartographies! That's a very academic way to admit that your source is USELESS!!! I told you so! Had you admitted here that you were wrong, instead of being insolent, you would have been spared a public embarrassment. What was the name of that book again? LOL Keep underestimating me and I will continue to humble you, Einstein! Dontreader (talk) 08:35, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
4 Minutes
Lesser C, I have reverted your edits, please discuss in the talk page before messing up an existing track listing format. Or better, take it to a higher avenue if you feel this is a correct way of presenting the information and let's set a precedence for it. —Indian:BIO · [ ChitChat ]17:41, 10 March 2014 (UTC)
Hi IndianBio. I've started the discussion at the article talk page. I don't have much of a preference as to formatting as long as identical track listings are duplicated multiple times (and I don't care too much about that, actually). Let me know on the article talk page how you suggest I should proceed.
The University of California, Berkeley's Berkeley Center for New Media is hosting our first edit-a-thon, facilitated by WikiWoman Sarah Stierch, on April 5! This event, focused on engaging women to contribute to Wikipedia, will feature a brief Wikipedia policy and tips overview, followed by a fast-paced energetic edit-a-thon. Everyone is welcome to attend.
Please bring your laptop and be prepared to edit about women and women's history!
The event is April 5, from 1-5 PM, at the Berkeley Center for New Media Commons at Moffitt Library.
I find it very difficult to credit her claims to have worked in even the laxest kinds of "journalism" for twenty-five years, frankly. Take a look at the breathlessly promotional prose with which she littered the article: the mixed metaphors, the fractured syntax; and you will understand what I meant. I still do not believe that she is an impartial editor, based on the kind of content she was adding to the article. I have added back in the statistical data, which is now properly sourced; and I certainly won't object if you or anybody else helps improve the article with WP:NPOV, WP:TONE and WP:RS issues properly addressed. --Orange Mike | Talk17:56, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
Orangemike, I certainly agree that the tone was promotional (in the enWP sense) and, having not looked at the sourcing issues, I'll trust your judgment there. For someone with <250 edits I personally would have done a bit more handholding, but that's a question of personal style rather than policy (and there is no question that you were correct on the merits). If you think that, with a judicious amount of mentoring, she could make a net positive contribution here, you might want to drop her a note to that effect. Or wait and see, the ball being in her court. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 18:19, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
I fear she will not heed anything I say. If you could be so kind as to offer a helping hand (pseudopod? tentacle? whatever ya got), I'd consider it a real favor. There's a reason I was gently urged not to hang around the Teahouse, as I apparently scare the noobs more than I realize. (Hey, I was a cracker long before I became a Quaker.) --Orange Mike | Talk21:28, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
Hi there,
you gave me feedback on the teahouse after looking in my Sandbox at an article I was working on about Internet Addiction Disorder and said that I needed to have a "lead" that set an introduction for my article. I wasn't sure if this was necessary as the article exists already, the part I linked you to was a section I would be adding to the page. Also, did you want me to change my heading that states "is Internet Addiction a Disorder?" because it is a question, and do you have any suggestions as to what I could change it to?
Thank you,
Sarahmckinley4 (talk) 15:22, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
Good morning, Sarah. My mistake—I thought that you were proposing a new article rather than adding to an exiting article. Yes, the lead in the existing article is fine. As to the the section heading, calling it "Controversies in Diagnosis" or something similar would be closer to the tone we're looking for.
(As an aside, if you start a new section on someone's talk page, the convention is to put the new section at the bottom. New users like yourself tend to put new sections at the top, and that's (in part) why the Teahouse is an exception to the rule. It took me all of two extra seconds to locate your message, so not a big deal at all.)
Thank you very much for your help User:Lesser Cartograpgies it is much appreciated. I will alter that heading! And my apologies on the positioning of my comment, I will know for next time!
Hey, I was just looking at your actions at the Teahouse and can agree with you that it probably isn't the best place for said discussions...and I'm striving to maintain NPOV on here (lol; this was the main reason I changed the subject). I got a tad bit irritated at the, "It is absolutely untrue that there is any view by more than a rounding error of actual scientists that the earth is anything but billions of years old (though there may be debate about the exact age), and the same is true of the view of evolution (see e.g. Project Steve), which is just about the most weighty, accepted view in all of science, opposed only generally by trotting out idealogues who got their degrees from cracker jack boxes, but fostered by the alarming spread over the past twenty years of the yellow journalism that passes for news, where every time there is a legitimate scientist describing evolution, they think journalistic even handedness requires presenting an opposing viewpoint regardless of weight (and then you have the pure bias of non-news, inculcating organizations like Fox)," phrase. Thanks for closing out the discussion. On a different note...would you give your insight into the Crimea talk Talk:Accession of Crimea to the Russian Federation—you seem to have good sense and could probably really give good insight! Anyway, I'll get off your talk page now! Thanks!
"Accession" is the correct term of art and reliable sources are using that term. "Annexation" has a different set of connotations, many of them negative, and I'm seeing it used primarily as an attempt to influence public opinion against Russia. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 02:02, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
I might disagree with you but thank you for abstaining from actions and behaviors which do not honor wikis spirit. My talkpage is strong evidence of that , threads etc . I m not claiming I m right in everything and Im ready to change my mind if good arguments are presented. Best----George1935 (talk) 22:57, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
Hi George1935, and thanks for the kind words. I know this is a lot to ask, but given the discussion at ANI could I talk you into taking a break from homeopathy for a couple of weeks? I'd like to take that time to have a more focused discussion here on not only what you'd like to see in the article, but also how to get your edits to stick without being dragged of to ANI. If you'd like to keep doing what you're doing, that's fine too, of course. Best, Lesser Cartographies (talk) 00:56, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
They want to ban me for ever. At this point the civility issues are more important than the article. Thanks for you response. I just tried to protect our conversation in the homeopathy talk page from being rudely closed. Best. --George1935 (talk) 01:16, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
George1935: I think it would be more accurate to say that people what you to stop doing what you're doing, and if you keep doing what you're doing I expect that a ban will be the result. If it's important to you to keep doing what you're doing in the manner in which you're doing it, that's fine. If you want to keep your ability to edit the article, though, you're going to have to make a few tweaks with how you interact with people. If you take a break (and announce that you're doing so, politely), you've removed the reason for the topic ban.
Ultimately this comes down to being right versus being effective. If you think you're doing the right thing (and everybody on wikipedia thinks they're doing the right thing), and being right is really important to you, then you can be banned and be comfortable knowing you didn't compromise. If you're willing to give a little bit, though, (like I was giving a little bit when I took your suggestions seriously), then we can start talking about repairing a few fences and what it takes to become an effective editor.
I'm not going to tell you one way is better than the other; they're paths to very different goals. I just want you to be aware that there's more than one path.
Thanks. I thought we had a conversation civil and productive until it was rudely interrupted and closed in a abusive manner-At the end we almost agreed. I did not do anything wrong - did I ?this is not a rhetorical question. My talkpage is spammed with hostile messages and uncivilly . I think it is very evident at this point who is misbehaving and who is not. Isnt it? Thanks for your input and the info I ignored about the article regarding the Vet people. Best regards. --George1935 (talk) 01:58, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
We can have a conversation of who did what wrong to whom after folks have calmed down a bit. I've only read a small part of the entire exchange, so I can't say any more than that right now—except that it's obvious to me you're editing in good faith. (And yes, we were having a civil and productive conversation, and I should have asked your permission to move it to its own thread. No worries, we can revisit it later.)
Sure.Feel free to move things around. Of course technically I will be banned indefinitely. Out of curiosity take your time and read - and you will see what I m talking about. Especially this one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:George1935#ANI_Notice - other people very notable have tried to address the situation and behavior. In the beginning I thought I was crazy and was imagining things. --George1935 (talk) 02:20, 29 March 2014 (UTC)Best. --George1935 (talk) 02:20, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
If you're willing to take a break, there's no immediate need to give you a topic ban. Let me post a note to ANI and see what the response is. Just so there's not a misunderstanding: you're not going to edit Homeopathy or Talk:Homeopathy for two weeks, and you're not going to discuss the topic anywhere other than here. If somebody posts a comment that you want to reply to, point it out to me and we'll probably invite the person over here to have the discussion.
If you like, I'll be happy to post a note on the talk page saying that you've taken a break so folks there know what's going on. I'll post something similar on ANI now.
I dont think they will listen to you but go ahead. Thanks for the offer. I intended to take a break as well. My real life calls me back.I agree with the restrictions. --George1935 (talk) 02:43, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
Very few people in the US understand Ezra Pound's real value. Probably because of his sinful political history, his work, translations and poetic ideas became almost invisible. I really love his work - and mainly his editing powers and precision ( he proved in editing the waste land ) I know all his poetry and translations - very beautiful - Best. In a lighter tone. --George1935 (talk) 04:00, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
Lesser Cartographies, you really should not hold out hope to George. He would be in violation of his ban in trying to get changes via a third party, and you would also be subject to sanctions for proxying for him. What George needs to do is walk away form homeopathy and its related subjects, and never look at them, ever again. Guy (Help!) 10:32, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
Guy: Thanks for your comment and I do understand and appreciate your concern. To avoid the appearance of proxying, I will make no further edits to homeopathy (not a particularly burdensome restriction, as I've only edited the article twice). My interest here is not the article, but in how we treat newbie, good-faith editors who make the mistake of contributing in WP:FRINGE areas before they learn their way around. If George had racked up 1k edits on Ezra Pound-related articles before starting in on homeopathy, we probably would have had a very different outcome here.
So while you're here, let me ask you about your interpretation of "broadly construed". George has an mildly inflammatory comment on his user page regarding the homeopathy article. I would like to be able to suggest to him that taking that comment down would be a good first step towards becoming a more effective editor. If he makes the mistake of responding to that suggestion by, say, reiterating a complaint about how he was treated there, does that (to the best of your understanding) violate his topic ban? I'm guessing it would, as would having a conversation about how we evaluate sources in fringe topics, should that conversation happen to refer to his experience at homeopathy.
I wish I could think of a better solution. I'll leave it at that for now.
Yes, if he commented further on the topic or the article of homeopathy, including in response to your suggestion, it would be a violation of his topic ban. I already suggested to him that he archive messages on his talk page in order to avoid the very concern you shared here, but he didn't seem to like my suggestion. I would recommend just letting it go, so as to encourage him to begin discussing a new topic. If he becomes involved in wikipedia outside of homeopathy, it is likely he will want to change that message at some point in the future anyway, all on his own. (It's worth noting that another editor may find leaving his userpage in that state to be problematic, in and of itself. But if they do, it can always be addressed at that time.) — Jess· Δ♥20:25, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
Apologies LC, I had quite a few notifications when I logged in this morning and yours got lost in the melee (both at WP:ANI and on my talk page). Your suggestions and ANI and FTN were good ones. I tried to make clear at ANI that I wasn't calling into question the judgement of those editors who had dealt with the issue (both admins, though I subscribe to the view that they are ordinary editors with extra burden, rather than extra power). Your commentary seems to expand on that nicely. I've spent plenty of time mentoring editors along the "fringes" of WP and spend plenty of time there (I think I'm "involved" in three discussions there now).
Getting to editors like that earlier in the piece would do a lot of good, I think. Guy's point at FTN is right in that we don't necessarily want to encourage more proficient fringe editors better able to insert rubbish but you seem to be advocating the right balance of "tough love". If you find anyone who falls into that category I'd be happy to help out. Cheers, Stalwart11110:04, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
Yes, a good suggestion considering your interests. I tend to "pick up" new users at AFD but those that make it to DRN have obviously missed out on support along the way. Good luck with it. Stalwart11112:41, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
Help with an article?
Hey, I wanted to ask if you could help with an article. It's for User:BrendonPorter and the article in question is Women's education in Saudi Arabia. Someone tagged it with a speedy for copyvio and I'm not sure where the copyvio is since they didn't specify where it was from. However it does have issues with being an essay and other stuff, so it could use some firm re-writes in general. Wanna help out? I'm going to do what I can with the page as well. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)06:25, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
Thanks! I get the impression he's really trying, so I feel sort of bad for him since he's so new to the whole process. I've cleaned up the lead (and created one in general) but there's a ton of other work to do as a whole. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)06:39, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
I figure you deserve one in general for helping out various newbies as well as for helping with the education article. Thanks for being willing to help- even if the save is ultimately unsuccessful, I'm just always so grateful when people show a willingness to help! Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)06:49, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
where is your sandbox?
Hi Lesser Cartographies, I am evaluating the Women's education in Saudi Arabia article, and noticed you've invited the editor to check out your sandbox for information. Clicking on your username does not take me there, where is it? Thanks (and thanks for your efforts helping this student). BerikG (talk) 23:25, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
Soliciting advise as to resolution of History of psychosurgery dispute
Hello Lesser Cartographies! In your posted comment in the Administrator's Notice board you wrote that "Rk asked that you take this up with mediation, a third opinion or an RfC (I'll add to that dispute resolution). That's how we handle content disputes, and I concur with Rk that that's what's going on here." You asked a question and I answered in the Talk page of History of psychosurgery. Are you the third opinion person? Is the dispute in mediation now? Is there anything else I need to do? My edits were removed unilaterally. Can you or I restore them and place an injunction against removal until the issue is resolved? Do I need to re-post or write something to the effect of what I wrote in the subheading, # "33. Request Neuroscience complaint be filed with possible reprimand of an editor" the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents in the History of psychosurgery Talk Page to solicit comments from others? Thanks in advance for your advice and suggestions.LeBassRobespierre (talk) 15:10, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
Hi LeBassRobespierre. My apologies; we have a convention of hyperlinking text. The ugly wiki-abbreviated link to the "3rd Opinion" process is Wikipedia:Third opinion, also known as WP:3RD or, using pipe notation like this "[[WP:3RD|a third opinion]]", renders as a third opinion. Click on any of those links (they all go to the same place), follow the directions, an an experienced editor will drop in in day or two with a different perspective (if not a different answer). I don't have access to the material in question, so I don't anticipate commenting further. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 15:36, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
I was offered a choice about putting the template on the talk page.
I took the option initially, but changed my mind. The material in the DYK is about the DYK and the process; it is not essential discussion of the subject of the article. It is not obligatory to have it on the article's talk page.
Amandajm, you're well into WP:OWN territory. There is no obligation for the DYK process to be on the talk page, or even be linked to from the talk page. But that's not your decision to make alone. Could we compromise and add a link to the discussion? Lesser Cartographies (talk) 18:25, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
Link to the discussion is good.
Circumstances
The subject of the biography has been dead about two weeks.
She, her family, and the majority of her close associates are/were conservatively Christian.
The discussion included the words "Jesus Christ" used as a profanity (and directed at me over a minor disagreement in the wording of the hook).
That profanity would seem inconsequential to the vast majority of people, but would be extremely offensive to a large number of those people who are likely to read the page.
We have an obligation to treat the living with respect (on Wikipedia pages). I believe that this respect could be carried over to the family of a recently-deceased person.
Since it is not necessary for the discussion to appear on the talk page, it would be better, all round, if it did not.
The other option is to delete the profanity from the discussion. I can handle the other insults being on public display; it is only the reference to Jesus that is seriously offensive under the particular set of circumstances affecting this talk page.
On the subject of deletions: I notified EEng that I had taken the matter to ANI. I was under obligation to place that notification on his talkpage. Another editor has now removed the notice from the EEng's talk page. Is it legitimate for another editor to remove a notification that someone else put in place? I have no doubt that the owner of the talk page can delete whatever he choses. However, I question this deletion by another party as a matter of form, in the light of this present discussion. Amandajm (talk) 02:09, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
Amandajm, I think I have a pretty good understanding of where you're coming from, and it's an entirely reasonable position to take. I do disagree with you on several points, but out of respect for your grief I'm disinclined to argue. Nevermind about the link to the DYK for now. You once did me a kindness in helping to edit my own DYK. Let me know how I can be useful here (aside from reverting silly COI claims, of course). Lesser Cartographies (talk) 15:38, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
As to your question about the ANI notice: I poked around EEng's page and couldn't locate where you added the notice in the history, but I didn't do an exhaustive search. The first question I'd ask is whether the removing account was an alternative account of EEng, and if not, whether the removing account had significant interactions with EEng. If the notice was removed before EEng replied at ANI, then a brief note at EEng's page with the diff would be appropriate. If the removal took place after EEng had participated in the ANI discussion, then the notice has served its function and EEng can take the matter up with the removing account if they like. I expect this was just a friendly gesture by someone who knows EEng well enough that the action would not be misinterpreted (but that's just a hypothesis; if you point me to the diff I might come to a different conclusion). Lesser Cartographies (talk) 15:56, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
httphotos
I'm not really frustrated about the article deletion itself even if I spent quite some time on it those last days. But I'm frustrated with the fact that we don't question the notability of Picasa that has been heavily promoted by Google and we want to ignore alternative solutions that don't have the same marketing power. It feels like we're fashion victims and that marketing wins.
Now if consider "whether it is worthy of being included in the pantheon of human knowledge", I would say that nor HTTPhotos nor Picasa are worthy being included in the pantheon as well as all other software. FromSpace (talk) 13:11, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
@FromSpace:, my Ph.D. is in computer science, so I expect my personal preferences for notability are a bit different from yours. But for notability here, we needed some easy-to-understand rule that can be evaluated by non-experts in a given field, and WP:RS does that pretty well. Yes, Google can probably get the requisite three-in-depth-articles just because people like reading about google (and so journalists will write about google). On the other hand, three-in-depth-articles is a pretty low bar, and plenty of free software programs have had no trouble meeting it (bash, R, gcc, byobu, ssh, LaTeX, BibTeX.... and those are just the ones I'll be using this morning). It's a compromise, and if I was in charge I would have drawn the line elsewhere, but as William Burroughs once observed: "If you cannot be just, be arbitrary." Lesser Cartographies (talk) 16:00, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
You say that "Google can probably get the requisite three-in-depth-articles" and I'm pretty sure it can. Now, I must say that a reference like PCWorld doesn't really look like an "in depth article" on Picasa, not to mention they don't look reliable when they state "Google's Picasa is the best free piece of photo managing and editing software you can find". I can't really tell New York Times makes an in-depth reference as well as it only gives a brief description of Picasa and IPhoto. See, even for a notable software, good sources are difficult to find. Unfortunately, we can't really add Picasa to the list of Comparison_of_photo_gallery_software because Picasa allows viewing, organizing and upload, but no gallery creation features like jAlbum or HTTPhotos. We can update this page to remove the link to HTTPhotos page, so someone who check this page will only be aware of the jAlbum shareware.
Hi Lesser Cartographies, I am one of the editors of Dr. Curran's page. Since I am new I just want to check on something with you. I have been reviewing other pages marked for deletion and I am curious about your review of Paul M. Gahlinger. You suggest "Keep" based on two manuscripts with citations in the 80s and the other in the low hundreds. On Dr. Curran's page marked for deletion discussion you suggest delete despite four publications with citations over 100 (234, 188, 159, 105 to be exact) as presented by user DGG. Could you comment on this and perhaps re-evaluate your stance on his page? Best wishes! 98.119.153.171 (talk) 14:38, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
Hi 98. At the Gahlinger deletion discussion, I pointed out his three highest-citation works and commented Not sure that's enough for WP:ACADEMIC. That might have been a little too polite; Gahlinger is not a notable academic, as his h-index is probably not over 12 or 13. I then went on to say but I expect WP:AUTHOR might work. That is correct: at least two of Gahlinger's book have received multiple scholarly reviews, and that's more than enough for notability via WP:AUTHOR. So I !voted keep.
After reviewing the discussion on Dr. Curran, I'm convinced that he would have a difficult time going up for tenure at any tier-1 research university. I went so far as to track down who had won the Shock award recently. It's a non-notable award, it has received zero press coverage a far as I can tell, and we don't have articles on most of the recipients of the award (and those where we do gained their notability elsewhere).
DGG and I have a difference of opinion as to academic notability, which is fine. Both of us use rather arbitrary cutoffs, and we're both willing to relax our requirements when needed. I'd be more sympathetic to his criteria if I wasn't well on my way to meeting it (probably not this year, but certainly by this time next year). I'm just two years out of my postdoc and only have one grant under my belt; there's no way in hell I'd consider myself to be notable, even with three papers cited 100+ times. My Ph.D. adviser has an h-index of 22 and 5 100+ cite papers, my group lead has an h-index of 28 and only one 100+ cite paper, and neither one of them have an article yet (and I'm not the right person to write those articles due to WP:COI). So I don't get too enthusiastic about someone whose CV looks too much like my own.
Hope that helped,
16:29, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
Yes this is exactly what I needed. I'll add this to the discussion on Dr. Curran's page. I think it is important to recognize the career stage of folks trying to influence pages. The fact that you are only a few years junior to Dr. Curran and base your judgement by comparison to yourself I feel is controversial. The absence of pages for a person should not be "evidence" for removal of another, but rather suggests that additional pages should be added. Best wishes! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.151.35.4 (talk) 20:08, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
Disambiguation link notification for September 5
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The Edit-a-thon will occur in parallel with Litquake, the San Francisco Bay Area's annual literature festival. Writers from all over the Bay Area and the world will be in town during the nine day festival, so the timing is just right for us to meetup and create/translate/expand/improve articles about literature and writers. All levels of Wikipedia editing experience are welcome. This event will include new editor training. RSVP →here←. --Rosiestep (talk) 03:24, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
Return of DeFacto
I'm sorry to bother you with this again, but it seems that DeFacto's latest sockpuppet ProProbly has again started reverting my edits after a few months of inactivity. Would you support opening a new SPI thread? Archon 2488 (talk) 14:54, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
@Archon 2488:: Given the conversation at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers I think there's more than enough evidence now. I'm doing the visiting scholar thing at UTEP for the next couple of days and then heading over to LANL. It's possible that I might have some time to write up with SPI in the evening, but I expect they're going to keep me occupied through Saturday. I start composing the SPI then if you haven't gotten to it already. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 12:19, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
I take it from your comments on the IP SPI you spotted the same behavioural similarities I did eg wikilawyering? WCMemail21:36, 4 November 2014 (UTC)
@Wee Curry Monster: No, the additional tells I was thinking of were linguistic. I didn't notice any wikilawyering in the sock's edits. Maybe my inability to see it is one the reasons I get along with Martin. I'm an aspie, so I tend to read what Martin writes more or less literally. I suspect that you and others find much more in there, perhaps more than Martin intended. Ultimately, that's Martin's problem to deal with, but that might help explain why the two of you keep locking horns. (Or maybe not; I haven't been around for the MOSNUM conversations, so maybe I'm off base here.) Lesser Cartographies (talk) 00:01, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
I'd spotted linguistic similarities too but I would pick out one edit in particular as characteristically wikilawyering in the Martin style. I don't know what his issue is, I have my suspicions but even when I walk away and leave him to it, he just won't let it drop. At the root of it, is that I think Martin sees things in binary terms, if you disagree, even slightly, from his position, then you're the enemy. Being an engineer, I'm pragmatic and I'll compromise, whereas I don't think he can. I just find the waste of potential, well sad, for want of a better expression. He's blown it again as far as I can tell. WCMemail00:18, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
Something I'd been going to ask about the monster draft: You started it with a mixture of (much less) D-M-Y and (much more) M-D-Y format; and, I'm pretty sure, US spelling. (Can't be bothered to check the latter right now.) Changing either date format or spelling style is normally a no-no; but now it's in D-M-Y format and British spelling. This was my miswork; and looking back I don't quite know how I made such decisions. I'd be happy if somebody else changed it all back (with a bot?), but this would be such a vast amount of work that I (without a bot) have no appetite for it. Could it please stay as it is? (Or if not, could I be exempted from the drudgery involved?) -- Hoary (talk) 03:14, 13 April 2015 (UTC)
@Hoary: I'm obsessive about many things, but date order isn't one of them. Thanks for thinking to ask, but in this case since you're doing the work, I'll support whatever format you like. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 18:33, 13 April 2015 (UTC)
Thank you! Though it's not so much the format I'd like; more the format that I rather arbitrarily chose. I can only suppose that I noticed the cooccurrence of D-M-Y and M-D-Y but not the imbalance between the two, chose D-M-Y because I prefer it (or Y-M-D), and then chose the spelling to match. (Actually I think that WP's opposition of "American" and "British" styles is silly: "theatre" is quite common in real-world US as is "jail" in real-world Britain; the biggest and greatest British dictionary uses "realize", "nationalization", etc.) ¶ A bit busy this week, but I'll try to add a little almost every day. -- Hoary (talk) 23:17, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
I agree that Hewitt has had quite a hard time understanding how Wikipedia works...and have been disagreeing with his content suggestions for another article...I stumbled over to his Wikipedia article, looked at the talk page...was wondering about the IR...if it's true that this is what his research has predominately been about for many years then isn't that in itself reason enough for inclusion? that is, even if IR itself is not notable enough to have a Wikipedia article...it has been determined that Hewitt himself is notable enough to have a Wikipedia article...so isn't it relevant/of note what he's been working on??68.48.241.158 (talk) 19:12, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
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Left this reply on my talk page years ago, but you didn't reply.
Lesser Cartographies, I have scanned the book covers, but when I try to upload them, it won't let me because the page they will be used on doesn't exist (outside of userified-space), so... catch 22, I can't ask for the article to go live without the backup corroboration of the images, and I can't upload the images without the page going live.Slaurel (talk) 20:02, 13 January 2014 (UTC) Slaurel (talk) 18:12, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
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