User talk:S Marshall/Archive15

Crash (1984 TV series)‎

Yes, a second non admin closure is far less than ideal. Please undo. Verbal chat 17:22, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

  • "given that both sides make strong arguments that have gone unrefuted." is factually incorrect. Not a single valid keep argument has been expressed. Userfication or delete are the only possible outcomes. If you do not undo your close this will needlessly go to DRV. Verbal chat 17:24, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

A village pump thread you may be interested in

I started this discussion at village pump policy about "defective AFDs". Since you participate in a lot of DRVs for these, you may be interested in this. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 23:42, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

  • It's hard to respond to that without naming specific problem editors, and I'm afraid I'm unwilling to bring that amount of drama to my talk page. Let's just say that on both sides of the current WikiWar, the editors involved believe that they themselves are simply trying to implement Wikipedia's policies and guidelines as written, while the other side are resorting to bad faith. And that's possible because our policies and guidelines are impossibly vague and mutually contradictory, and each policy page is jealously guarded by people who refuse to allow them to be fixed.

    Meanwhile we issue mixed messages to editors. On one hand we give them, "Hi, welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit! You can go ahead and edit this page right now! Be bold! You don't need to know all the rules in detail to participate." And then if anyone actually does what we explicitly invite them to do, but fails to cite a source, the next thing you know is that their talk page fills up with automated warning templates from new pages patrollers. These templates invite the user to participate in Wikipedia's discussion processes, but then when they actually do participate, they get an incomprehensible mess of alphabet soup followed by a decision they don't understand. In one recent case, a new editor had made it through the processes all the way to DRV, and nobody had even explained the concept of notability to him.

    In fact, this encyclopaedia's processes are utterly irrational and dysfunctional, and AfD is the worst problem of the lot. It's not fit for purpose because it's the exclusive province of the few hundred people in the world (at best) who can make any sense of it—and those editors largely know each other, have their own allies and enemies and factions, and all too easily divide up along partisan lines.

    Fixing AfD means introducing new people to it. And that won't happen on any useful scale unless we can give them one (1) simple, clear, and short set of rules, all together in one place, that they can read and understand and apply.—S Marshall T/C 10:19, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Sorry it took a while to respond to this, what I was really asking about wrt Wiki "Wars" or "AES" was are these terms invented by you to describe certain "ultra deletionists" or are these terms used by other editors who are actually coordinating their efforts somewhere?
On your second point, see this ANI post about policy hawks, another term for this might be "policy goaltending". This kind of thing is the reason why our "policies" should be viewed as "descriptive" and not "prescriptive". I further pointed out in the VPP thread a reason for this. WP:NOTPLOT, a common rationale used in AFDs of fictional elements, was first added after a discussion on WT:NOT involving 12 editors, not what I would call a "global" consensus. Therefore, it should only be enforced as long as people !vote "delete per WP:NOTPLOT" in AFDs. It would be inappropriate for a closer to set aside a "keep" consensus based on WP:NOTPLOT. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 13:47, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
"Article Extermination Squadron" and the WikiWars aren't terms that originated with me, but they aren't names that any users employ about themselves either; it's a semi-humorous reference to {{CrapArticle}} and WP:KILLWITHFIRE. In other words, my point is that there's an identifiable counter-ARS faction on Wikipedia. I'm sure you could name editors in the Article Extermination Squadron if you had a mind to.

Policy goalkeeping, as you put it, is another problem without a solution. If we put all the policies on the same page and capped them at 100 words each then the result might be comprehensible, though even then, knowing Wikipedians, I doubt it. There's the kind of editor who likes to work, and then there's the kind of editor who prefers to spend their time making rules about how other people ought to work, and the second kind of editor is impossible to deal with.—S Marshall T/C 15:35, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Do you know how to read????

OK, so apologies for that, but I have to ask. You prodded Gayla Leigh Shoemake because "This lady's one accomplishment was, apparently, to be Miss Kansas State University in 1959" which clearly shows you didn't read the article which states that Shoemake was, "a contestant in the Miss America pageant as Miss Kansas 1960". The fact that she held a state title and competed at Miss America establishes notability. As I pointed out at TFOWR's talk page its difficult to reference given she reigned in 1961 but the reason for the prod is spurious. Anyway, I've asked for it's restoration, just thought I'd alert you! Cheers, Carly PageantUpdater talk • contribs 10:33, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Prose

Hi, I found your name here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/List of participants, and we met briefly at the History of Hertfordshire FAC. I am in a jam/deadlock over John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland. The GA reviewers see prose problems, but will not specify. They request that "someone else" should go over the article for grammar/"copy edit". Just in case you are interested: It might even be o.k. if someone "uninvolved" have a look (and say that they did at Talk:John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland/GA1). In any case, thank you. Buchraeumer (talk) 11:52, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Thank you so much for your work, and so promptly! I still have to go through it for some tiny things, but I am so glad you and Magicpiano are satisfied and hope this will be a breakthrough. Buchraeumer (talk) 19:01, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
A pleasure, I hope you pass.—S Marshall T/C 19:55, 23 June 2010 (UTC)


The Article Rescue Barnstar
John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland is finally a Good Article! It was rescued from failing thanks to your vital help! I am happy you enjoyed it. Buchraeumer (talk) 12:21, 26 June 2010 (UTC)


your unfair remark

A part of your remark in deletion review of Forward 50 sounded rather unfair. Please see my response. I took it to I understand as a rather general grumbling rather than attacking me personally, but I would humbly suggest you to be more careful with wording, which some may find rather offensive, especially when undeserved. Bar-abban (talk) 14:52, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

P.S. After reading your response in section "A village pump thread..." above I see that you are a resonable person, so I guess you meant no evil, just harsh language, out of annoyance with all these deletion/restorstion wars. As I see now, annoyance is quite a common state of wikipeddians, so they must be given some slack for an occasional 4-letter word. :-) :-( . Bar-abban (talk) 14:59, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

DYK for Agriculture in the United Kingdom

— Rlevse • Talk • 06:02, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Jennipher Antoni

With regard to your edit summary; "Sources are listed. What's missing are inline references". Actually, this is not clear because all the external links are listed under "External links". Snowman (talk) 15:55, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

174.26.80.68

IP has again added unsourced info (overall number of episode sequence in entire series, which is disputed, as opposed to number of episode in season, which is not), after you gave the IP a final level-4 warning. Time for a block? -- Cirt (talk) 14:35, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

The IP has continued, engaging in the exact same pattern of disruption, across multiple other similar articles. -- Cirt (talk) 14:36, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Administrator abuse on Wikipedia

Hi, you wrote on the deletion review of Administrator abuse on Wikipedia: If we don't allow people to discuss this stuff on Wikipedia, then we'll drive meaningful discussion about how Wikipedia should be governed offsite, and that can't possibly be a good idea. Alas, I am afraid that has already happened: Google for "Wikibully", "Bullypedia", "Wikinazi" etc. and you will see that admin abuse (whether real or perceived, just or injust) is quckly becoming a "fact" on the internet. Sigh. All the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 19:03, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

AN/I involving Nineteen Nightmares

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there currently is a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you.

GA review Forestry in the United Kingdom

Hi S,

I've started to review Forestry in the United Kingdom, but one thing that needs fixing quickly for review is that the lead section does not actually mention the subject (i.e. the words Forestry in the United Kingdom), and so does not explain what the subject is.

In fact I thought I must have accidentally deleted the opening para. Which shows your remedy of course – add a short opening para defining the scope of the subject. I'll continue to review while you come up with that (I think it's too much for me to concoct a lead myself as the reviewer) but I thought I'd give you advance warning!

I've said as much on the review page, I just thought I'd drop you a courtesy note.

Best wishes Si Trew (talk) 14:18, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

I've passed the article as you've addressed most points.
I don't want to dilute the GA pass, but going forward I would like to see the timber industry section expanded, and I still feel that the list rather dominates the article, and perhaps would serve better as a separate article (although there seems to be some contention there, and the somewhat unencylopaedic content in the "debate" at the top of Trees of Britain and Ireland does not help, and perhaps indicates some previous struggle that readers should not need to be party to).
Congratulations and thank you for your hard work. Si Trew (talk) 08:08, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Agriculture in the United Kingdom

It is probably best I don't look at this article since it might rule out my doing the GA review by being an interested editor (not for any particular reason except obviously what gets reviewed depends on what people are interested in; I took the Forestry one primarily because I'm one of the minority in the UK ‹See TfM›Smile!, not because I'm particularly interested in forestry).

If I do get it at GAN I will just do the subbing/comments as part of that. There's nothing wrong with putting it on hold to address problems; I imagine most GANs go that way at first, though it seems to depend on the reviewer between them getting a cursory lookquick pass and a mercilessthorough review (e.g. me at Talk:Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard/GA1).

Best wishes Si Trew (talk) 11:24, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Just passing by

"This is the lesson of this site:- Do not trust what you read. You're on Wikipedia, which is by an order of magnitude the largest collection of information ever gathered in one place. It is also the largest collection of lies. Some are malicious lies, some are genuine misunderstandings, some are half-truths, and some are the lies that everyone believes—the theories that tomorrow's scientists will refute. Read, learn, but do not trust."

I agree there is a great amount of lies. Perhaps over 50% of pages have them, including FA's. Your page claim for example says Wikipedia, which is by an order of magnitude the largest collection of information ever gathered in one place. The 3.3 million wikipedia articles with history doesn't compare to the trillion plus pages stored in Googles data centers. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 15:03, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Inre Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2010 July 19#Stephano Barberis

I opined a "keep" at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stephano Barberis with the comment that that the article "needs cleanup for style and tone, and the addition of proper (and available) sourcing" as a surmountable issue... but had never stepped up and put actions to my words. So, since the DRV, I've been working the last couple days on a rewrite that would address concerns brought up at the AFD... in order to show that what I believed was possible, could in fact be done. Please compare THIS to my work at User:MichaelQSchmidt/workspace/Stephano Barberis and offer an opinion. And yes... I think the "Select videography" section will need massive trimming. Thank you, --Schmidt, MICHAEL Q. 23:14, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

  • Well, Michael, this is one of those BLPs on the margin of notability. I think you've done well from the sources available but I would struggle to !vote an unambiguous "keep" at AfD without a source that gives basic biographical details (e.g. date of birth...)

    Normally I'd volunteer to help you with this material but I'm afraid I'm off on holiday to Dover shortly and away for a week, so you may do better to find a different collaborator on this occasion. Sorry!—S Marshall T/C 23:29, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

    Enjoy your journey, and thank you. Schmidt, MICHAEL Q. 00:03, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
  • :Question for when you return: Since the biographical information is not upon which his notability depends, might it be okay to get at least birth and background from the subject's own website? Schmidt, MICHAEL Q. 04:57, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Found his birth announcement to confirm April 12, 1970 as birthdate, as well as some local stuff to build a better bio... all in his hometown... the Kitimat Public Library archives. Article has been further expanded and sourced. Whew. Schmidt, MICHAEL Q. 07:57, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Kim Ki Whang

HI

The revisions to the Ki Whang Kim page were correct. He trained with Kanken Toyama in Japan. Also, Master Richard Chun was another of his distinguished students in Korea. The revised styles and ranks are also more complete. Undoing the revisions replaced the errors. Do a quick Google search; the new info appears correct. With respect, I would leave them.

Sorry:)— Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.21.252.162 (talk • contribs)

GA review for Agriculture in the United Kingdom

Posted at Talk:Agriculture in the United Kingdom/GA1. I recommed delisting the article from the GAN board as failed: the sourcing issue is too serious to be quickly resolved. To be honest, the article falls short of B-class expectations. It's sourcing is not reliable for the scope of the article (#1), it omits or under-represents significant subtopics (#2), it's structure is defined but poorly shaped (#3).

This is my first GAN review, so I called for a second opinion on the board, but this may never happen.

East of Borschov 07:38, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

  • Not entirely what I expected from a GA review, I must say, and I'm rather taken aback by your remarks. I do hope a thorough second opinion will be forthcoming.—S Marshall T/C 17:00, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Agriculture in the United Kingdom

The reason I re-removed Category:Economy of the United Kingdom from Agriculture in the United Kingdom is because Category:Agriculture in the United Kingdom is a sub-cat of cat Economy of the United Kingdom and having both in the article is redundant. I made the same mistake recently and was corrected. --NortyNort (Holla) 13:54, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

User:Raul654/Raul's laws#Laws by others

See my recent addition of yours. You might like to reformat your name and/or rename the law. Peter jackson (talk) 14:50, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

My apologies if I seem "crabby"

I like your user page and the message there. But I could not help thinking that those two could be combined. Although I do not wish to steal your work or want to improve on the original, I thought you might be able to see the humor in this.

--JHvW (talk) 14:57, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

List of Australian and Antarctic dinosaurs

The reason I moved the lists is because it doesn't make sense. Why should there be a list for Australian and Antarctic dinosaurs? There are separate categories for Dinosaurs of Australia and Dinosaurs of Antarctica. Australia and Antarctica are two different continents. Why does there have to be one list for both of them. Dromaeosaur Dude 18:00, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Journal help

Hey S Marshall, how's life? I posted a question on DGG's talk page, but maybe you can help out as well, and your many talk page stalkers: what is Lodz Papers in Pragmatism? Who publishes it? Does it still exist? Most importantly: what is its status and authority, and in which field? I ask in relation to a question on Talk:American_exceptionalism#Problems_with_the_lede. Thank you so much! Oh, and while you're researching this, go ahead and write the article. If you do all the work, I'll let you take credit for it. ;) Drmies (talk) 17:48, 23 October 2010 (UTC)