User talk:WhatamIdoing

I'm approaching watchlist bankruptcy again. If you expected a reply on another page and didn't get it, then please feel free to remind me.

Please add notes to the end of this page. I'll probably reply here unless you suggest another page for a reply. Thanks, WhatamIdoing (talk)

AFT dashboards

As you were one of the people asking for per-article dashboards – the index on the AFT table I have been insistingly asking the toolserver folks for since August has eventually been released, so I started playing with this data, here's a first stab:

• http://toolserver.org/~dartar/aft2/?p=Justin+Bieber
• http://toolserver.org/~dartar/aft

Cheers, --DarTar (talk) 20:58, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

On the subject of the AFT; WhatamIdoing, first, thanks for all your useful comments on the AFT talkpage over the last few months :). The Foundation is trying to move forward and develop a new version of the tool, which is described at WP:AFT5. Can you give the page a read, and then give us your opinions on the talkpage? All comments are welcome - the WMF is really focusing on letting editors (to some degree) shape where the AFT goes. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 21:08, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

DarTar, that shows the number of ratings each day, but it doesn't show what those ratings are. I think a sort of trailing average for each of the four questions would be more useful than how many people rated it each day. The question people want to answer (as far as I can tell) is whether there is any overall trend in the ratings (and does any such trend happen to correlate with their subjective, but "expert", opinion on how the article did or did not improve during that time).

Okeyes, I've put the page on my watchlist and will get back to it after I've had time to think about it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:19, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

That's fair enough :). Hope to see you moseying around the talkpage soon! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 21:21, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, yes that will be the next step. The first concern was to display the daily volume of ratings/feedback as this is one of the main concerns we need to address: in many cases, including very popular pages, we have a ridiculously small number of data points. --DarTar (talk) 13:41, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Well Said

Right on with this one [1]. You're absolutely correct. Dayewalker (talk) 04:23, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. I'm glad that I'm not the only person who remembers being a newbie who benefited from other volunteers' patient and friendly help. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:49, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

My first round of edits, I met another editor who was really crappy to me. Very arrogant and dismissive, if not for a friendly editor who dropped by my page, I might have left Wikipedia and not returned. I try and remember that when working with the newbies. Dayewalker (talk) 05:10, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

I believe that those first interactions are the key to turning capable newbies into top editors. And if we're not providing a positive initial experience for them, then it's really our own fault that we're not seeing good new editors emerge from the newbies. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:38, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	Sorry this is so long after the event, but I want to thank WhatamIdoing for her patient, complete and so very helpful advice on my lame efforts editing parts of Talk:Breast Cancer. She thoroughly deserves a Barnstar/Burger/Furry kitten or whatever she fancies as appreciation for her hard and useful work. Treagle (talk) 17:51, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the kind note. I hope that your friend's wife is doing well at the moment. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:17, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Office Hours

Hey WhatamIdoing. Brandon Harris, Howie Fung, Fabrice Florin and I will be holding a second Office Hours session on IRC in #wikimedia office on Thursday, 3 November at 24:00 UTC. This unusually late time is aimed at permitting East Coast editors, who would normally be at work, to attend. We will be discussing the new Article Feedback Tool designs; if you have any questions about Office Hours, or how to get on IRC, feel free to leave me a message on my talkpage. I hope to see you there; thank you for your suggestions thus far, and your contributions to discussions about the existing AFT over the past year :).Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 19:22, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Sorry not to see you there; the logs can be found here if you're interested :). I should have an answer (re NOINDEX) very shortly, and I've responded to your other talkpage query :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 22:19, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

We've also started a discussion here on access issues for some of the features - I'd love to hear your thoughts :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 19:43, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

• Oh - and the next Office Hours session will be held on Thursday at 19:00 UTC in #wikimedia-office. Give me a poke if you can't make it but want me to send you the logs when they're released - we'll be holding sessions timed for East Coast editors and Australasian/Asian editors next week. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 22:49, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/First sentence/Procedural#RfC management, RfC bot tags

FYI, There is a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/First sentence/Procedural#RfC management, RfC bot tags.  Unscintillating (talk) 02:45, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the list of regular subject areas is inappropriate. No, I don't think that it's an enormous problem. Yes, I think the choice of subjects will result in charges of canvassing by attempting to include "the right" subject-area people (e.g., history, but not science). No, so long as they're determined to dump illegible, incomprehensible garbage onto those pages, I don't think it will actually make any difference. Nobody is going to respond to an RFC that is listed like this:

=== RFC Proposal re first sentence The proposal is in two parts... 1) change the opening paragraph: {

People are busy. They're not going to respond to garbage. Consequently, it doesn't much matter how many pages that garbage is listed on. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:02, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

WP:BAN

Hi! Recently a user asked me to see why was this done. I tried to explained him to be WP:BOLD, since i am feeling a little uncomfortable reverting it. He said that the user is not banned, so the revert should had been not done. Kindly see if the edit was done in mistake. Thanks. :) ♛♚★Vaibhav Jain★♚♛ ^{Talk Email} 14:07, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

It's a User:Random account 39949472 sock, and she is banned. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:50, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Gratuitous offensive content

Hi. Can you please remind me where that guideline is that you directed me to the other day? --Anthonyhcole (talk) 19:07, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Are you looking for WP:Offensive material? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:26, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Yep. thanks. :) --Anthonyhcole (talk) 19:40, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

WP:VPR

Hey, thanks for commenting on the shared IP talk page proposal. I put up a comment at the bottom there to try and reach a compromise decision about how often to archive. Feel free to comment. :) Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 21:33, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Car

Hi. With regard to this question, it might cut down extraneous argument if we were comparing (car + nude person) with (car +clothed person). --Anthonyhcole (talk) 17:20, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

It might, but it might provoke only a speech from the nudists about the preference for a clothed person is purely cultural and thus the images ought to be treated equally. My goal was to produce an example that included "offensive material" that was completely irrelevant. If your goal is to show readers what a sports car looks like, then the presence of any human is completely irrelevant, and the presence of a naked human is not only completely irrelevant, but additionally potentially offensive. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:28, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 17:33, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

MEDRS

As our primary/secondary/tertiary expert, and somone who is wise wrt sourcing issues, I think you may have something useful to say at Wikipedia talk:Identifying reliable sources (medicine)#Secondary sources verses a paper by the Institute of Medicine. Colin°^Talk 15:32, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the note, and for being a calm, rational voice in these discussions. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:17, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

So sorry...

I have recently accidentally reverted this edit of yours:

m Talk:Vitamin D‎; 17:20 . . (+95) . . WhatamIdoing (talk | contribs)‎ (Reference formatting) [rollback]

so sorry! Gandydancer (talk) 18:04, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Accidents happen. I've twice clicked on the red "rollback vandal" button when I thought I was clicking on a completely different link. Don't worry about it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:17, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Patrolled or not patrolled. That is the question.

Hiya!
Just dropping you a note to let you know that I really am working on it. I am a bit slow but reliable. I'll let you know here as well as on the technical props page when I have a definitive either working or not result. So far I have a button that does nothing and a desperate need for more tea! fg^t_c 10:03, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, Fred. I really do appreciate it, and I hope that the cup of tea provides the necessary inspiration. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:59, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Ok. As far as I can tell this works. I can't figure out how to make event listeners work if the script is imported so unfortunately you'll have to add this directly to your common javascript. Just paste all of it into the page as it is and save. When you visit the search results page you'll see a button top right of the list. Click and wait. It is not super fast (depends a little on your PC) so be patient (it's still faster than doing it by hand!). It will hide all the entries that have been patrolled. Drop me a message if it fails or you need help with it in any way.

importScript("User:Fred Gandt/getUnpatrolledOfAlexNewArtBotResultsPages.js");

 fg^t_c 06:28, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! It appears to work—or, at least, it erases all the links from the list, which suggests that nothing needs patrolling at the moment.

However, when I go to Special:NewPages, the first article in the list (Frederick Masoudi) is still listed as unpatrolled. So something's not quite right: it's removing pages that still need to be patrolled. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:37, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Ah ha! I thought something was amiss. Turns out (I didn't know this) that the [mark page as patrolled] link only shows if you are visiting it via Special:New Pages. I'll set to work on attempting to solve it asap. I actually manually checked the first 47 of the listed articles during tests to make sure everything was working right but didn't realise the [mark page as patrolled] link wouldn't....blah blah blah. Get right back to you. fg^t_c 16:11, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

To not put too fine a point on it; This is going to be quite complex. I know what to do but it won't be a 5 minute fix. Going to have to send requests (http) in all directions to get id's and all sorts. No worries though. Just hold on in there and all will be well. fg^t_c 16:27, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. There's no rush on my end. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:10, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

I've replaced the text in the code pane above to save space. It seems to be working ok. Give it a whirl and let me know if anything isn't right. Sorry the first one was a failure. I didn't mean to waste your time. I may post updates to you if I find anything wrong with it before you do. fg^t_c 20:05, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

It correctly (in my spot check) removes about two-thirds of the list, but it still leaves me with some false positives. For example, none of the Eulimastoma species should be left in the list. (I'm resisting the temptation to patrol anything, so as not to interfere with the testing process.)

Speed, by the way, isn't important to me: I'm happy to open it in a tab and let it process for as long as it needs to. I've been having kind of spotty internet errors recently (although none that I've noticed today), and I wonder whether the false positives could mean that it didn't get a response back for those pages. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:08, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

I've added a quick fix. The immediate issue was that the Eulimastoma were mass created by a bot. The resulting list(s) of that users creations are much longer than I would have reasonably expected. I've added a 500 result parameter to the php http query which should be way more than enough for human creations but apparently many hundreds of pages are being written by machines! I have an idea for a rewrite but in the meantime try this version out. fg^t_c 22:21, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

FG- anything I need to do to get this working on the NewArt results? For instance, User:AlexNewArtBot/ArchitectureSearchResult. I'm coming here with my botwriter hat on, not as a page patroller- in other words, let me know if I need to add any hooks to the search result pages. (I'll watch this page for a while) tedder (talk) 22:56, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Redundant

Simply changing the recognition condition for the button creation function (how many tions?) will set it up to work on any page with the same html structure of results. If there is possible wider use for this script than for one set of results I can rewrite it to add a button to all (how many are there? OMG!! I just looked. Lummy that's a lot of search results.) results pages. I thought this medical results page was just a one off thing. With regard to hooks: Element id's are always useful (cuts down on the sheer number of nextSiblings etc.) but where there's a will there's a way and I wouldn't want to cause a fuss. I need to twiddle with the script above to solve an issue I wasn't expecting so while I'm at it I'll set it up to function on any of your search results pages. I'm a bit too tired to think clearly about it right now though. Thanks for your interest  fg^t_c 23:17, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Hi Fred, I thought about mentioning all the others, but then I thought there'd be time enough to scare you later, especially when I realized that it was very late in your day. If I've made sense of the code, adapting it to other groups is just a matter of swapping out the file name.

Since we're on the subject: I suspect that MILHIST will be interested, because they're large enough to be interested in just about everything. I really, really hope that some of the music projects will be interested, because we get so many new articles in that area. I thought it'd be best to use my own favorite project as the guinea pigs, though: WPMED's pretty competent about things like this and pretty resilient if things don't work on the first try. It might be handy if it could somehow be bundled up into some sort of file that people could add with a single line (or two: one for the code and one for the file name) instead of possibly making dozens of copies of the code.

Tedder, would it be easy enough to add a plain link to the end of each line to make the "mark as patrolled" button appear? I don't want to replace the very useful wikilink at the start of the line, but ultimately it would be nice to have a straight path to the patrol button, without having to go find the article in Special:NewPages. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:53, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree, MILHIST and others will probably want it. I can do whatever FG says I should do; I think he's going to change the javascript to show up (right?). I can't simply add a link because I can't tell if it's been patrolled or not. tedder (talk) 23:56, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

I realize it's not an elegant solution, but my thought was to add the link to all of them, even if it has been patrolled. Then I can click on it or not, depending on what FG's script says. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:03, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

I just found a false positive (or a true negative o.O) so there are still bumps. The basic approach works but to be honest I wasn't expecting the mw software to actually allow it so kinda just threw it together to test and tidied it up when I realised it worked. I can add a "patrol" button to the end of each result left behind if you like (once I get it working 100% to start with). I'll have to grab the correct rcid for each entry instead of just check if there is one, but that isn't too tough at all.

Teddar: I have no idea what to say. You're clearly an extremely generous person. I'll get the basics working (hopefully without any errors (just need a loop in a loop (mhmm nested loops! My fave.))) then worry about how to improve efficiency. Right now I can't think of any obvious requirements. You can see it's really quite simple. Who made what? Query vars. They made these. Find the page. Has it got an rcid? If not hide it.

I'll make it more sophisticated tomorrow. fg^t_c 00:22, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm generous because I hate developing in javascript, but doing backend work (Java) is just fine to me Great work! tedder (talk) 00:32, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Lolz. Yeah I prefer PHP myself. Would lend its self perfectly to this job. But I'm 1/2 way there now so no point whining.

I've replaced the code panel again (saves space). In the process of doing this I have figured out what I was doing wrong before when trying to import event listeners so all good. Every update I make to that file will now echo down the line so you can keep on top easily. So all you need now is that one line in your common.js (at least I think so, you may need another bit but we can sort that out later). fg^t_c 03:14, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

I've made the switch.

Checking the first dozen left in the list after running the program, I get three false positives: Dr Gopal Kundu (has been moved to Gopal Kundu), Elias Mossialos (has been deleted), and Treegasm.

(The Nobel committee seems to be biased against software work, but maybe we could put you in for a Grace Murray Hopper Award, if you meet the age limit.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:48, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Aww poop too old as usual I wouldn't bother testing for a while yet. I have to turn it inside out and back to front to fix the problems. Basically speaking it isn't always finding it's target (I think) so it reports erroneously. It should be fixed and ready to roll before I next sleep (Just woke up). fg^t_c 16:55, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Latest

• Things are trotting along nicely. I have yet to add some rather complex looping but at least it appears to work within reason. If an editor has created more than 500 pages the lack of complex looping will make for slight error but otherwise it is basically done. I want still to speed it up (this is a matter of efficiency not impatience) but that will come with going loopy!! Give it a go and see what you think. Before telling me it's all screwy check you are using this version. fg^t_c 06:23, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
• Got some good work done. Latest working (not middle of rebuild) version is this one. fg^t_c 11:36, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
• Typically I spoke too soon. There are still issues (there always are). Moving swiftly on... fg^t_c 12:02, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

  I love the counter. However, it says "Unpatrolled (31)" (out of 173 originally) at the end, but the list on the page shows five screenfuls, or about 125. Also, did you intend for it to change the title (at the top of the browser window)? WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:31, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

  Ah you are using the very latest (ish). Unpatrolled 31 is how many are unpatrolled (ish(still not perfect but very close)). Yes the title changes to alert you if you have the page tabbed. I did a similar thing for a webchat I built. So you can see what's going on when you're not looking directly at the page. Whatever doesn't make sense for a while; don't worry. The script is undergoing constant change and some changes are purely to test things out. I'll let you know when it's complete. Then you can tell me what's wrong with it  fg^t_c 15:45, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

  I've no objection to the title changing (actually, I kind of like it, because I use tabs extensively); I just thought I'd check to make sure it was intentional. I'll be off and on wiki all day, so feel free to ping me whenever you'd like me to play with it. It's the beginning of the day here, and I don't expect to be away for more than an hour or two at a time. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:04, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Okies. I'm just fiddling with it for a while. I am reaching the end of my day. I'll be around though (I don't sleep regular hours at all). fg^t_c 16:12, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Is the " - Patrol" link showing up for you? It should appear at the end of the result entry if that entry is unpatrolled. fg^t_c 16:18, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes! I've got exactly 31 green "Patrol" links. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:32, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Cool. I just wondered if for some reason you might not have seen them. You know it works on any of the AlexNewArtBot...SearchResults pages too. I'll try and get it working on the archives too if needed but then don't unpatrolled pages quietly die if left unpatrolled for too long anyway? No matter. One thing at a time. fg^t_c 17:44, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Pages fall off of Special:NewPages after 30 days; a bot usually tags anything at the end of the list as needing review. I'm not sure that anyone really looks at the archives, so it's probably not necessary to expand it to those.

Are you ready to share this, or do you still have plans for further changes? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:00, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

It's not fully working yet. As far as I can tell the hits it gets are correct but it is missing some. I know why and need to install some dastardly loops to fix it. It won't be long. The basics are all done now. The Special new pages results are not as simple to search as I'd have liked. There are occasional variations that change how the search needs to be carried out. Thank heavens for Chrome or I'd be crying in a corner by now. JavaScript is also lacking somewhat in the range of functionality I'd like for this kind of job but, I won't go on. Bad workmen blaming their tools etc. Probably have it finished by this time tomorrow. fg^t_c 18:34, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your work on this. I'm pretty excited about it. There's no rush on my end: I've been wishing for this for months, so even if it takes a few more days, that's more than I had hoped for. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:38, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

You're quite welcome. Tell me (honestly) what you think of the style now. You'll have to clear your browser cache etc (I'm sure you know this). fg^t_c 19:21, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

I like the fact that the buttons are bigger and the little ones (but not the main one?) "light up" when you mouseover. I'm more of a high-contrast person, so green-on-medium gray wouldn't be my first choice. On the other hand, I make no claims of having a highly developed aesthetic sense, and what I care about is really just that it works reasonably reliably. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:07, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I've changed it all a bit. The grey is really quite light now (the mid grey was quite short lived in fact. I lightened it last night). The text of all elements my script creates (what you are calling buttons) all "light up" now. All "Patrol" buttons that link to pages you have already visited are now marked in red (I could make them disappear altogether but you might want to revisit). I fixed a couple of little technical errors. Now I am setting to work on the last leg which is a complex series of loops that should both speed it up and make it more reliable. fg^t_c 10:55, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Hiya. It's unlikely going to get any more accurate (at least for a while). I will however continue to work on making it more efficient. In other words, as it stands it's as good as completed. Any further changes will not change how it looks or appears to behave (except for possibly being a bit quicker). I did check it using IE and didn't even get a button. It may be my IE settings or it may be a general IE incompatibility. I really cannot abide that browser and refuse to bend over backward to pander to its idiosyncrasies. The script works in Chrome so should be fine in Safari. I'd be surprised if it didn't work with Firefox but am not going to download and install it just to find out (I'm a bit grumpy about cross platform compatibility since standards exist that if followed would guarantee compatibility without developers having to... seriously, I should stop now. I have). So go ahead and use it and tell others (if they're interested) where it is. Let me know if it breaks or has bugs etc. I'l be quietly tweaking off and on for a few more days but you shouldn't even notice (other than possible speed changes or if I make a mistake (which does happen (quite often))). fg 21:38, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Yay! It works for me, and I'm using Firefox. I've just patrolled two and re-run it, with the correct results. I'll announce it at WPMED in a few minutes. Thanks! WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:32, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

You're welcome. When I am fully satisfied I'll add notes and documentation. Let me know of any issues in the meantime. fg 11:22, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

New version

Hiya! I have not quite but very nearly finished the update. It is working but I like to twiddle to optimize. It's slightly faster. It's more efficient insofar that it makes fewer requests of MWF servers and databases (that was the whole point of the redesign). I'd appreciate if you could try it out and see if it works ok for you too. As far as I can tell it's accurate (within acceptable tolerances).

importScript("User:Fred_Gandt/test.js");
//importScript("User:Fred Gandt/getUnpatrolledOfAlexNewArtBotResultsPages.js");

Make sure (if you test it) that you comment out the other as above. Once I'm sure it's behaving I'll replace the original with the new code so no one will have to change anything (that's the usefulness of importing). Thanks! fg 18:52, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Works for me. It says "gathering data for __ unique authors" first, and then produces the usual links. I've tested one link (you'll get only 26 unpatrolled pages next time), and it all seems to work fine. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:25, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Awesome. Thanks for trying it out. Always best to get a second opinion just in case of delusions brought on by staring at a screen for too long. fg 21:36, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

All swapped over now so use the long named script. There'll be no more changes to the import link to worry about. I may still fix it up a bit later but basically it's all done. fg 04:12, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

I've reverted to the old name, and it seems to be working well. Thanks again. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:34, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Okies. Lemme know if it falls apart or if you want any others. fg 18:55, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

New Thanks

User:WhatamIdoing, Thanks for getting in touch with me and sharing the editing info about which I knew nothing. I'm a fairly eclectic reader and originally got interested in editing by seeing a notice on the Osama bin Laden article that requested an edit of a section for improved readability. I played with the idea of making the articles related to various aspects of Islam more NPOV. I'm a native English speaker, a non-Muslim, and my professional background gives me a mindset of "withhold judgment." I'm not sure what I could do, and I know I have a lot to learn, but I think I have something to offer. I've been extremely frustrated. I would really like to work with a group of people rather than in such an isolated manner. Again, thanks! Tina Carmaskid (talk) 20:14, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, if you enjoy copyediting, then Category:Wikipedia articles needing copy edit lists almost 4,000 pages that need attention. Controversial topics, like Osama bin Laden, seem to attract people who care more about fighting than about grammar or whether the reader can figure out what we're trying to say.

If you're interested in women's issues at all (there are too few of us women around Wikipedia), then WP:WikiProject Women's history seems to have some nice folks and a fairly broad interest area. If you posted a note there to say hello and offered to copyedit, I'd bet that you could find an appreciative response. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:27, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

hello

Hi and a question. I think the Vermillion Literary Project Magazine article ought to be listed as such, seeing how the Project it is affiliated is a seperate entity. I'm working on improving the article, and also want to put an image up too. Thoughts? Thanks!Jimsteele9999 (talk) 22:39, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, basically you're asking a dyed-in-the-wool mergeist whether she approves of splitting, so take my response with a grain of salt:

I wouldn't do it. Since it's not a "famous" subject, it's already at risk for notability challenges. Splitting the two either divides your sources across two articles (making both more vulnerable), or it results in substantial duplication, which puts it at risk for an WP:A10 deletion (officially, just in the short-term, but certain people have rather expansive definitions of some WP:CSD criteria).

Also, I believe that many readers will get more value out of a single article, and I know that they're far more likely to read about both the organization and the magazine if they're presented on the same page. It doesn't matter what the subject is: the law of the web is that every click loses readers.

In terms of images, organization logos are pretty common. You have to upload those to en.wikipedia, not to Commons. Be sure to click through to a couple of description pages on similar logos and have a look at how they write their fair use rationales. The process of complying with copyright laws isn't exactly difficult, but it is definitely not something anyone gets right if they're just guessing, and there are people who patrol that area fairly closely. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:45, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Usage share of operating systems

There is a poll Talk:Usage share of operating systems#Is there a consensus to include the median line. You might want to comment. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 23:32, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Dispute resolution for Usage share of operating systems

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is "Usage share of operating systems, Usage share of web browsers". Thank you. --Jdm64 (talk) 00:45, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Interview

Hi, I am a Wikipedian and researcher from Carnegie Mellon University, working with Professors Robert E. Kraut and Aniket Kittur. We’ve published many scholarly papers on Wikipedia and are partnering with the Wikimedia Foundation on several new projects.

I have been analyzing collaboration in Wikipedia, especially Collaborations of the Week/Month. My analysis of seven years of archival Wikipedia data shows that Collaborations of the Week/Month substantially increase the amount and nature of project members’ contributions, with long lasting effects. We would like to talk to Wikipedians to better understand the processes that that produce this behavior change.

We’ve identified you as a particularly good candidate to speak with because of your involvement with the WikiProject Medicine' Collaborations, which is one of those we’ve been investigating. It would really help us if you would be willing to have a short talk with us, less than 30 minutes of your time. We can talk via skype or instant messenger or other means if you’d prefer. Do you have time at any point during this week to chat? If so, please send an email to haiyiz@cs.cmu.edu or drop a line on my talk page.

Thanks! (This my personal website)Haiyizhu (talk) 02:41, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Since it's now Thursday evening, "this week" effectively means "tomorrow". My schedule for tomorrow is already as busy as I would like it to be. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:53, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

AfD on those hockey players

WhatamIdoing: Please see my 19:41 post on the talk page of that hockey player. As I wrote there, I could use some help shoehorning this into little-finger-out, proper form for an AfD. Greg L (talk) 19:43, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Are you sure it's not just a doomed effort? The folks who hang out at certain sections of AFD do not always seem to care very much about things like whether any reliable sources have been published. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:53, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

COI at Labiaplasty?

Thanks for your reply at WT:MED. I have responded there, but I find your blanket response a bit glib, and I would prefer an actual assessment of the changes that have been made.

When edits are made to an article about a controversial procedure by somebody who actually undertakes that procedure for money, I don't think there needs to be promotion of that individual's individual practice or publications for there to be the potential for COI. Jheald (talk) 10:36, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Sure—in the real world. On Wikipedia, COI violations are limited to situations that actually harm the encyclopedia. If the person's interests and Wikipedia's interests happen to coincide, then we call that a win-win situation, not a COI problem. This is because there's actually no conflict between the two entities' interests. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:44, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure why tilting the article to bury the controversy should be "in Wikipedia's interest". Changes to make the article more silently complicit with attempts to manufacture normality for this procedure quite realistically do harm our readers, and WP's reputation. Jheald (talk) 09:33, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by "tilting the article to bury the controversy". After Otto's work, the criticism section is three times as long as it was, and its location in the article has not changed. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:49, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

It seems notable to me that the discussion has been excised completely from the lead section; and for all the increased length (some of which is rebuttal), the criticism section is now actually much less direct, with the viewpoints now presented to seem more extreme and more marginal. Jheald (talk) 22:46, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

I think it reasonable for a criticism section to acknowledge perceived flaws in the critics' positions, just like I think it reasonable for the rest of the article to acknowledge relevant criticism. For example, if some particular surgical approach has (or might have) some particular failing, that ought to be explained right next to the procedure, not just in the criticism section.

Is there some particular reason you have not attempted to WP:BOLDly improve the lead? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:59, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Mediation Cabal

As advised by ItsZippy at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard‎, applied to Mediation Cabal. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 00:43, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

TNBC prevention

Hi, perhaps you have an idea where to place this -- "Among younger African-American women, we estimate that up to 68% of basal-like breast cancer could be prevented by promoting breastfeeding and reducing abdominal adiposity." ? PMID 17578664. -- Richiez (talk) 00:49, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, as an estimate from a single primary source on an extensively studied disease, about a single subtype in a particular population during low-risk (younger) years, I'm not sure that I'd put it anywhere. But Risk factors for breast cancer (an article that needs a lot of work) would be the obvious place to consider. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:45, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Mediation Cabal: Request for participation

Dear WhatamIdoing: Hello. This is just to let you know that you've been mentioned in the following request at the Mediation Cabal, which is a Wikipedia dispute resolution initiative that resolves disputes by informal mediation.

The request can be found at Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/13 November 2011/Usage share of operating systems.

Just so you know, it is entirely your choice whether or not you participate. If you wish to do so, and we'll see what we can do about getting this sorted out. At MedCab we aim to help all involved parties reach a solution and hope you will join in this effort.

If you have any questions relating to this or any other issue needing mediation, you can ask on the case talk page, the MedCab talk page, or you can ask the mediator, thehistorian10, at their talk page. MedcabBot (talk) 20:59, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for adding to the discussion at Vitamin D. I've learned not to try to form coherent opinions after spending a few hours relearning antibiotics and TB. The Haz _talk 04:38, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

What a complete mess that dispute is. Perhaps in ten years that article will quit being a hot-button. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:54, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

To say the least... I understand people wanting to get away from primary sources, but using some sketchy secondary sources doesn't make an article any better. I'm staying away from Vitamin D for awhile, at least the article on it. The Haz _talk 18:13, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Surgury Book

Hi. Not sure exactly what you were looking for, but here is the table of contents from that surgery book I've got my hands on:

Unit I
1 Concepts Basic to Perioperative Nursing
2 Patient and Enviromental Safety
3 Surgical Modalities
4. Infection Prevention and Control
5. Positioning the Patient for Surgery
6. Sutures, Needles, and Instruments
7. Anesthesia
8. Postoperative Patient Care and Pain Management
9. Wound Healing, Dressings, and Drains
10. Patient Education and Discharge Planning

Unit II
11. Gastrointestinal Surgery
12. Surgery of the Liver, Biliary Tract, Pancreas, and Spleen
13. Repair of Hernias
14. Gynecologic Surgery and Cesarean Birth
15. Genitourinary Surgery
16. Thyroid and Parathyroid Surgery
17. Breast Surgery
18. Ophthalmic Surgery
19. Otologic Surgery
20. Rhinologic and Sinus Surgery
21. Laryngologic and Head and Neck Surgery
22. Orthopedic Surgery
23. Neurosurgery
24. Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery
25. Thoracic Surgery
26. Vascular Surgery
27. Cardiac Surgery

Unit III
28. Ambulatory Surgery
29. Pediatric Surgery
30. Geriatric Surgery
31. Trauma Surgery
32. Complementary and Alternative Therapy.

I'm not exactly sure what you'd like out of these. I have zero medical background at all. The books basically ended up in boxes shipped to me and I was asked to hold onto them until my boss finds someone who wants them.--v/r - TP 16:07, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

I was thinking of Chapter 5, "Positioning the Patient for Surgery". It would be good to know if our seriously undersourced page at Surgical positions had a reasonably complete list of positions. Also, if we could get a simple description of each one, that would also be helpful. (For example, the Trendelenburg position has the patient lying down with his legs elevated higher than his torso.) Even if you don't know anything at all about the subject, I don't think that it would be too complicated for you, unless the book relies solely on the most obscure anatomical jargon and doesn't provide any pictures. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:14, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Would you mind if I gave you an oversight of what the chapter is about here and you can identify which parts I should try to paraphrase for that article?--v/r - TP 17:21, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Sure, that would be fine. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:24, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Huh?

What book is this? ISBN or title+author? tedder (talk) 19:03, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Alexander’s Care of the Patient in Surgery, ISBN 0323016227

If you have opinions about simple ways for a non-medical person to improve the article in question, please feel free to comment below. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:09, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm generally clueless, just didn't know the context; Mrs.Tedder is in med school, and this sounded somewhat familiar. In other words, let me know if there are content areas I can ask her for citations on. tedder (talk) 19:10, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

IMO being "generally clueless" is a fantastic qualification. We non-medical folks help keep the professionals from wandering off into their impenetrable forests of jargon.

If you can tell me what topics Mrs Tedder is studying, I might have some specific questions. For example, the articles on pregnancy and pediatrics are generally awful. Constipation and Infant both could stand to have a definition of what counts as constipation in the newborn, which has nothing to do with how much the baby grunts, and everything to do with the texture of the poop.

Have you invited her to improve Wikipedia's medicine-related articles? WP:MED is a great group of friendly, helpful people, and we've got nearly the whole of Gray's Anatomy online due to the effort of a few med school students a few years back. Besides, all her future patients are going to be reading Wikipedia, so fixing articles should count as "preventive medicine". WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:27, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

She's getting ready for the Step1. In other words, in her second year of med school Yeah, I encourage her to edit, though she rarely has done so (six edits in her user account, plus a few dozen on IPs, usually working on bacteria, antibiotics, medication). Every time the signpost talked about medicine I forward it to her . Obviously the first two years are very wide-ranging, but the current system is pulm, next is endocrine. tedder (talk) 19:43, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Positioning

Factors

The book talks about pressure put on the patient's body including from the surgury itself but also from instruments, drills, the bed and attachments, bandages, ect. It describes factors such as duration and intensity and the limit of how much pressure the tissue can withstand (32mm Hg). Then it describes intrinsic factors such as the length of the procedure, position of the devices, and physiological changes.

If this section of the book could be summarized in a one- or two-paragraph section titled something like "Factors influencing the choice of position", then I think that would be adequate. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:46, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree completely. All factors need to be sourced, and I think one or two sources will be able to give us all the info that we need. The Haz _talk 19:13, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Forces

The book discusses three forces: shear, friction, and maceration. Shear forces are the folding of tissue then the skeleton moves. Friction is the tissue rubbing against each other. Maceration is when moisture on the skin causes it to be more vulnerable to pressure, friction, and shear.

I can see the importance to the surgeon, but I'm not sure that it matters to us mere mortals. Unless Hazmat disagrees, I'd skip this. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:48, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

I partially agree. I think that forces can be summed up into one sentence and placed in the factors paragraph(s) with wikilinks to the appropriate articles on those forces. The Haz _talk 19:16, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Stress

The book then discusses stress on the musculoskeletal system and nervous system. Then it gets into something called Peripheral Neuropathies (?) and Upper Extremity Neuropathies (?) and Lower Extremity Neuropathies. I dont really get this part but I think it has something to do with the position of nerves in the body in relation to placement of the legs and arms.

It then discusses how anesthesia changes the body's vascular system and how vessels dilate causing a drop in blood pressure. It discusses the pooling of blood and compression in the vessels (?).

It discusses how in all types of positions (except Fowler, sitting, and reverse Trendelenburg), the abdominal viscera (?) are pushed toward the diaphragm putting stress on the respiratory system.

I think I'd turn this into a paragraph or two. I'm not sure whether it should be part of the "Factors" section. I'd say that staying in the same position for a long time causes problems with blood flow and can put stress on muscles and joints, and then what you said here about the effects of anesthesia. Proper positioning (and padding, as noted below) is supposed to improve those problems.
(You know that tingling when your arm or leg goes to sleep? That's neuropathy. It's a sign that you aren't getting proper blood flow to the area, which freaks out the nerves. In the surgical context, poor blood flow increases the risk of blood clots and other Bad Things.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:53, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

This might make for a good sub-section of factors, or just a few sentences. As for the neuropathy comment, it's funny you say that because I was just reviewing the topic last week. The pins and needles feeling is actually called paresthesia, which can be due to a neuropathy (to be specific). Typically it's just caused by a compression of nerves such as in Saturday night palsy. I'm not so sure about the blood supply being a common reason. Though it is possible considering nerves need nutrients supplied by blood. Improper blood supply can lead to muscle weakness as well for the same reason. The Haz _talk 19:31, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Preoperative Nursing

It then discusses nursing considerations such as planning, implementation, and evaluation. This part discusses beds, matresses, and gel packs (pressure-reduction considerations).

At a first glance, I think I'd skip this, since it's likely to be more how-to than encyclopedic information. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:54, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Skip!!! There are articles where procedure is important, such as in staining methods, but not this one. The Haz _talk 19:33, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Positions

Then it gets into the actual positions. All of these also discuss transferring the patient and anesthesia.

Supine

The most common. Patient lies with back flat on OR bed.

Trendelenburg

Same as supine but upper torso is lowered.

Reverse Trendelenburg

Same as supine but upper torso is raised and legs are lowered.

Fracture Table Position

For hip fracture surgery. Discusses transfer of patient to the bed. Upper torso in supine position with unaffected leg raised. Affected leg is extended with no lower support. Strapped at ankle with padding in groin area to keep pressure on the leg and hip.

Lithotomy

Used for gynocological (sp?), anal, and urological procedures. Upper torso in supine position, legs raised and secured, arms extended.

Semi-fowler

Like a lawn chair. Lower torso in supine position. Upper torso bent at a nearly 85 degree position. Head secured by u-shaped restraint.

Fowler

Begins with patient in supine position. Upper torso is slowly raised to a 90 degree position.

Prone

Patient is lying with stomach on the bed. It seems like the abdomen could be raised but if I understand it correctly it doesnt have to be.

Jacknife

Patient's belly faces the bed. The bed is kind of scissored so the hib is high and the legs and head are low.

Knee-chest

Kind of like the jackknife except the legs are bed at the knee at a 90 degree angle.

Lateral

Also like the jackknife except the patient is on their side. Discusses lateral recumbent, lateral decubitus, and Sims. Other similar positions are Lateral chest and Lateral kidney. I don't understand the verbiage so I can't paraphrase.

Hope this helps.--v/r - TP 18:00, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

The problem with an article on positioning is that it needs to be very brief and only describing the position as well as when and why it may be used. The positions used are often just at the discretion of the surgeon, not by any established recommendation (even when there is one established). For instance, a central line may often be put in while the patient is in Trendelenburg, but a slightly taller surgeon may choose to use a supine position instead. The Haz _talk 18:17, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't know. I just have some books that are temporarily in my possession and I'm offering to look through them if someone wants something out of them. WhatamIdoing is the only person who has taken me up on the offer.--v/r - TP 18:25, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm not saying not not to! In fact I'm glad you're helping and thanks for the offer. What I'm saying is that the article needs to remain very factual as there are too many opinions regarding which surgical positions are best for which procedures. The Haz _talk 18:29, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

I generally agree with Hazmat's suggestions. In fact, I might even skip the "when and why" aspect in most of the cases. Right now, if we can just get a one-sentence "what it is", it would be a significant improvement.

I'll add comments above in {{green}} type. Hazmat, perhaps you'd add your thoughts in {{blue}}? (If you haven't looked at the target article, then please do. It's barely a couple of sentences.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:39, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Alrighty. I'll see if I can give it a go. I'll spend a day or so reading the chapter so I understand the context and then I'll try to paraphrase it.--v/r - TP 19:59, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

That would be fantastic. Thanks. The Haz _talk 20:33, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Office hours

Hey; once again, office hours for the article feedback tool! These will be held at 22:00 UTC this evening; logs from the last session can be found here. Hope to see you there :). Do drop me a note if you're not familiar with IRC and would like the cliff's notes, or if you can't attend but would like the logs/have some questions for me to pass on to the devs :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 05:28, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Filter

Hi. Can you please point me to some pages that will give me the full back story on the image filter? So far I've got the Harris report and Meta:Controversial content/Brainstorming Will that do it? --Anthonyhcole (talk) 19:18, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

What do you mean by "the full back story"?

The Harris report will tell you at least most of the story from the perspective of the Foundation and the Board. meta:Image filter referendum/en and especially its endless talk page archives will tell you about the referendum, and a good deal about the complaints from the German-speaking community about the idea that their readers might be given control over what appears on their readers' computer screens. The strong support from Asia, Africa, South America, and Middle East cannot be found there, but is suggested by an analysis of the broad range of results split by project language (and is also indicated by the Harris report, if memory serves).

None of the community discussions are remotely edifying. Basically, it's the usual situation: white people from northern Europe get attention for declaring that the prudish Americans are trying to censor them, and the rest of the world gets completely ignored or even insulted when they say that the libertine Americans are filling their computer screens with smut and they want some tools for self-defense. There's a good deal of fearmongering (good old Uncle FUD) among the opponents, some signs of ego-driven panic among a few divas who are re-discovering that they don't own Wikipedia, and some rather tedious "won't somebody think about the children!" from supporters who misunderstand the proposal (it will not allow parents to lock down settings).

What you won't find is much recognition by regular community members that they can't actually prevent the Board from ordering the staff to create a filter, which the Board did months ago. It's going to happen, whether we like it or not. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:39, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I haven't been following this at all. Didn't even notice the referendum. I'll do some reading. I was pretty gobsmacked by Jayen's description of how it's going to work (if "work" is the right term). --Anthonyhcole (talk) 20:04, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

At this point, I don't think that anyone can even guess how it will be implemented. The previous proposal (a handful of master lists based on content categories), although IMO neither a great solution nor a truly horrible one, produced noisy complaints from some users. The alternatives proposed since then seem IMO less effective (most of them require the user to see the images that they do not want to see), but the whole thing is still in the early design stages, and it's possible that whatever today's favorite idea is (it changes approximately every week) will be rejected by the devs (insert your favorite technical excuses here) and something else entirely will happen.

I ultimately expect this to follow the normal website change path, i.e., noisy complaints for a few weeks after implementation, then a few months of occasional grumbles, and finally "it's always been that way and we love it". WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:37, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Request assistance

Hi, I am trying to post something on the project medicine forum [2], but for some reason the second half of my text is not appearing. It is visible if I go into edit mode, but not showing in the preview or in the published draft. Any suggestions? Puhlaa (talk) 23:04, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

I've fixed it for you.

You had an unpaired <ref> tag. Whenever you have just about anything at all that begins with the letters "<ref", there must be a closing tag (one that beings "</ref"; what you've seen as <ref name=Blah /> is just a shortcut for both opening and closing the tag within the same pair of angle brackets). WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:53, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks alot whatamIdoing! I didnt mean to have actual refs....so I should have removed the <>. Wont make that mistake again :)

Best regards!Puhlaa (talk) 01:55, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Dispute Resolution

You may be interested in this. Peter jackson (talk) 17:53, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Thoughts?

Hi. If you think there's a problem with controversial image use on Wikipedia, would you mind telling me what you think it is here? --Anthonyhcole (talk) 09:39, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Let me think about it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:12, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

While you're thinking about that, what are your thoughts on the upcoming ArbCom election? --Anthonyhcole (talk) 11:27, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

That if I close my eyes and wish very hard, it will eventually go away.

Serving on ArbCom is a difficult, time-consuming, pain-inducing, thankless task. I can't imagine why any basically rational person would volunteer for it. I haven't yet been able to bring myself to find out which of the people I like and respect might have volunteered for it this round.

Normally, though, there are a handful of people who are unhappy with "the system" (usually as exemplified by a single case) and stand for election on the rather naïve notion that (1) while working in the same system and with the same people, they would produce radically different results, and (2) the presence of one or two gadflies will somehow revolutionize the process, resulting in peace and liberty and personal maturity for all. These people tend not to get elected and are generally ineffective when they are.

Among the rest, some will have the "wrong" personality (e.g., tend to assume that personal insults directed at individual ArbCom members are meant to be taken personally, rather than as an interesting clinical signal about how threatened the insulter feels at the moment), which means that they are likely to find participation exceptionally painful, and any of the rest would likely be fine. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:46, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughts. I've voted, fairly conservatively I think. Coincidentally my + votes matched Wizardman's. If I've made a dreadful mistake, let me know. I've believed for a while that you'd make a good candidate but, given your comments, I'll stop wishing that on you, for now. :) --Anthonyhcole (talk) 06:13, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Disruptive comments and false accusations on RFC

You have made disruptive personal comments and several false accusations here[3]. Please retract and address the subject or further action will be taken thx ... talknic (talk) 10:48, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

My my, sweetie pie - I had a myself a look at your "disruptive personal comments and several false accusations" heretofore referenced. You're SUCH a bad girl!

My bet is you are just gonna hafta decloak the Warbird Sarcasm a little more or she ain't gonna be noticed ... of course that's just my biased opinion *smooch*

Cliff (a/k/a "Uploadvirus") (talk) 13:17, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

more on reliable sources

Ive done some research and found that hrafn has been raving against sources contrary to his personal beliefs for some time. And has been twisting WP policy to force his view. See this small sample of discussions (if you can call them that):

• Talk:Scriptural_geologist#Mortenson.27s_PhD_thesis
• Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_42#Suspect_PhD_thesis
• Talk:John_Murray_(science_lecturer)

--- SmittysmithIII (talk) 22:54, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

hey

I just realized that I overlooked somehow a perfectly lovely note from you. I hope you remember what I'm talking about. Anyway, just wanted to let you know it was appreciated, if belatedly! I know I'm not always the most cuddly editor around, but I do think it's important to recognize the good-faith efforts of new editors. Best, Cynwolfe (talk) 15:20, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

I do remember, and thinking about the friendly welcome you all gave to the new editor makes me happy all over again. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:20, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Mount Sinai

There has been a bunch of editors adding external links to Mount Sinai web site. User:Cardioeditor is only one. I assume that they are linked.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:58, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I see that he's adding ==External links==, and they weren't all the best possible choices for links, but he's trying to improve things in good faith. ELNO #1 is frankly hard for people to grok, and it's probably not the best explanation of the real problem. For example, the "Only look, this hospital has a clinical program on this subject" link was pretty weak, and the problem is that nobody cares whether some individual hospital has a program, not that it didn't contain information that belonged in the ideal article. That information didn't belong in the article, but there wasn't any really clear description in any of the guidelines about that particular pitfall. For the press release, it would be better to have found a great source and added it to the article, but simply reverting it isn't going to help him figure out how to do that (and it's complicated: remember how much you got hassled about mistakes during your first few months?).

Now he's upset and thinks you're the primary source of his difficulties, which isn't going to help Wikipedia—and we desperately need some cardio-savvy people. Those are some of our most important and most neglected articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:06, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Student analysis

I would be interested to know what you make of this: User:Colin/Introduction to Psychology, Part I. Colin°^Talk 23:00, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

At a sixty-second glance, I'd say that you need to define your scale, and that you probably shouldn't assign any score to no-content editors. (It's not reasonable to say that someone who has done nothing at all did a better job that someone who tried, but screwed up.)

Also, I'd say that you've done a huge amount of work, and that it's not easy to spot patterns in a narrative review of someone's work. (Must run for now,) WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:43, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

The scoring is defined at the bottom, but not meant to be a scale. Essentially it is

• Did something useful (two levels)
• Did nothing
• Did something bad (two levels)

The narrative is mostly an aid to memory but also some examples to look at. Peter.C has done one group but used a different score to me. Colin°^Talk 07:14, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Notabilty

You may be interested in this. I can't remember where the last debate was. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:54, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't have time to comment there right now, but the last discussion was probably at Wikipedia:Notability (high schools). It would be good if someone explained the "no inherent notability" concept to Night. "Being 100 years old" does not make it possible to write a decent or policy-compliant article. We absolutely must have independent sources, no matter how old the school is, or what age students it enrolls, or anything else. Perhaps pointing him at WP:WHYN would be helpful. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:13, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Reply to You..

whatamIdoing- thanks for the message. I'm a new user, would be grateful for any tips on best practice for the link added. OncologyMD9 (talk) 20:09, 12 December 2011 (UTC)OncologyMD9

Welcome to Wikipedia. I know it can be incredibly confusing and complicated when you're just getting started. I hope that you'll hang in there during the learning curve.

As a general rule, I wouldn't link to webpages like that. We get readers from all over the world, and most of them aren't looking for a place to get treatment for any disease at all. So the information that such a link provides to our typical is pretty much worthless: "Oh, look, some hospital treats breast cancer!" Well, that's not very informative, and literally thousands of hospitals can make the same claim. So why would we want a link to any hospital's "look, we treat this kind of cancer" department page?

The usual goal for links is to provide detailed information about the subject, not about people "selling" something related. (Not that a hospital is necessarily trying to "sell" cancer treatments, but I think you'll understand what I mean.) So a good link is something interesting and informative that we can't put into the article (like the survival calculator) or that contains information that has more details than what ought to be in the article. Ideally links would be just as useful or interesting for a high school student who has to write a paper for school or for someone who was just randomly clicking around Wikipedia as it would be for a patient. What I mean by that is that the links are supposed to be primarily "educational" (like a bunch of detailed information on some aspect of breast cancer) rather than "practical" (like where to get treatment for breast cancer if you happen to be willing to travel to New York).

Let me also suggest that articles about women's health are, on average, pretty weak. The cancer-related articles also tend to attract strange viewpoints or good-faith errors by people who just didn't realize that their personal experience was different from average. Our goal isn't to suppress alternative viewpoints, but we do want mainstream medicine to be presented as the mainstream viewpoint. So if you see problems in the main body of any of these articles, especially if it's a dubious factual claim that is not supported by an WP:Inline citation to a decent medicine-related reliable source (like a med school textbook or a good review article), then please feel free to WP:BOLDly fix it. You can always leave a note for me if you run into problems with formatting or anything like that. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:09, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

I am not sure why all the links are to Mount Sinia. I have seen probably 8 new editors adding these links. I am wondering if they are all the same person. But none of them communicate enough to determine this.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:43, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Admin tools

I noticed this: Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Lists#Page_name. I looked back at your talkpage and note that you haven't been keen to become an admin. Being an admin doesn't mean that you have to do anything. It means you are trusted with extra tools so that you can do things like page moves yourself as and when you need to. It was the page move tool that I wanted. I got fed up with asking other people to make what were obvious moves, but were protected because of some prior move. You have plenty of experience, are widely trusted and respected, and are level headed, so there shouldn't be a problem with an RfA. I'd be happy to nominate you if you'd allow me. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 10:04, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Richard Arthur Norton: Revisiting topic ban; Should it be removed or made indefinite?

Hi WhatamIdoing. You participated in Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive228#Richard Arthur Norton copyright violations, in which a one-month topic ban on creating new articles and making page moves was imposed on Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk · contribs). The closing admin has asked for community input about whether to remove the topic ban or make it indefinite at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Richard Arthur Norton: Revisiting topic ban; Should it be removed or made indefinite?. Cunard (talk) 08:58, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Recent Update of Aortic Valve Stenosis

Hi WhatamIdoing-

Thanks for your recent Helpful tips, I added some information under the Percutaneous Aortic Valve Replacement section of this page as you suggested. When you have a chance, please let me know if a link to the page should be provided in this section as well. THANKSCardioeditor (talk) 16:47, 16 December 2011 (UTC)Cardioeditor

It's a good start, but it needs some work. Here are my quick ideas for improvements:

• Wikipedia never highlights trademarks with either ™ or ®. (See WP:® if you want more details.)
• It just doesn't matter who the people involved were. We're not trying to make them famous, and no matter how integral they were to the procedure, it's pretty much irrelevant for the purpose of this section, which is more like "There's a treatment that works like this" rather than "There are these important researchers and clinicians."
• Yes, you'll want a link to a decent reliable source. That article seems to use the most common system for formatting WP:Inline citations, which is usually called "ref tags" (because you type <ref> just before starting the bibliographic citations and then </ref> (with a slash) at the end of it). WP:REFB is supposed to have simplified instructions, but I think if you type something that seems like it should be useful and appropriate between those two codes, you'll get something that's good enough for now. Alternatively, if you can find a good peer-reviewed paper about it on PubMed, then you can paste the PubMed ID number into this website, and it will spit out perfectly formatted citation template gobbledygook just like what is being used by the citation earlier in that section (and save you a lot of typing). Then all you have to do is paste it in between the ref tags and you're done. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:23, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

This was a copy violation of the content found here [4] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:06, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Oh, dear. That's a serious problem. Fortunately, it can be fixed by doing exactly the kind of editing work that needs to be done anyway. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:32, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

HOW Can this be modified/edited to include this information about such a first-time historic implantation event? Can you please advise or add this to the article in the best manner-Maybe a link would work best.Thanks in advance for your helpCardioeditor (talk) 14:29, 19 December 2011 (UTC)Cardioeditor

First, you remember that nobody except the people directly affected by the "first-time historic implantation event" actually cares much about it. There are similar "first-time historic events" every day of the week. So if you're a typical reader, rather than someone who expects to be made either famous or wealthy as a result of this (or the patient and the patient's immediate family), then this one just isn't that important. It's just as unimportant to the reader as all of the other hundreds of similar "first-time historic events" that happened this year.

Try this thought experiment: every single treatment in that article, and all of the treatments not mentioned yet, have an equivalent "first-time historic event". But you're not really excited about any of those enough to bother naming the people who did each of those, are you? And if you think back to the medical encyclopedias you've encountered in the past, you wouldn't normally expect them to bother listing the names of all the clinicians and researchers that happened to be the first to do something in a particular country, would you? So that kind of detail doesn't belong in Wikipedia, either.

As for how to modify the text, you basically need to say two things about this device:

1. What it is: There's a new type of aortic valve prosthesis made by Medtronic.
2. How it is different: Rather than requiring open heart surgery, it can be inserted through an artery.

You probably know more things that could be said about this particular device, but those are the two basic concepts that the reader wants to hear about: what is this thing, and what makes it different from all the other things. Explain those two points in your own words, using the same kind of jargon-free language that a good surgeon uses when talking to a patient. Then cite the strongest source you can (which is probably something similar to PMID 20671369 rather than a press release from a hospital). WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:12, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Bed blocking listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Bed blocking. Since you had some involvement with the Bed blocking redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion (if you have not already done so). Beeblebrox (talk) 21:41, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

just an observation

err… I don't want to bring this up in article talk, but it would probably be wise to quietly edit out the with the trait in question bit of this post. I'm assuming it was unintentional (because you're the last person I would expect to indulge in that kind of thing) but implying that someone has a paraphilia of this sort is really dicey. best it just fades away… --Ludwigs2 23:18, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

BitterGrey is quite open about having paraphilic infantilism; a link to his website, which contains (or did, last I looked) stories about his personal experiences, is on his user page. I don't see any reason to treat his open declaration of having this paraphilia as being any more shameful than other editors' equally open declarations that they are gay or transgendered. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:46, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Ah, my mistake. I hadn't realized it was an open declaration. Too much text… never mind. --Ludwigs2 00:30, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

We can't know everything, especially on Wikipedia. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:24, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

TOS - Logos

Thanks for your comprehensive responses at my questions regarding the new TOS. It didn't occur to me that trademarks can sometimes be "organically produced" and can become used more widely than initially intended-- my presumption was that, as you said, some group is designated to create official logos and so, it would be easy to create an exhaustive list and add to it as needed. I can see why The Foundation would want to cover these cases as well, and so I now understand why the TOS is worded as it is. Thanks again for your clarification-- hopefully you haven't given Geoff too much more work to do. I'm sure he's busy enough as it is.  :) I, Jethrobot ^{drop me a line} (note: not a bot!) 20:36, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

You're welcome. I can be a fountain of trivial knowledge sometimes, so I'm glad that it was helpful to you.

(Geoff is probably used to being overworked. A sensible person probably would have run screaming from his job shortly after starting. I'm just amazed when I read that he's actually enjoying the endless discussions. The WMF did a good job when they chose him.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:58, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Your messages to Wikipedia projects

Your concern for policy is commendable but please guard your comments and do more research before unilaterally sending out critical blanket comments. Thanks. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:33, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

"Critical"? In what way is telling a few groups that some other groups have been voluntarily choosing to move their pages a "criticism"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:29, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

You can perhaps ask people '..to consider -ing...' but 'telling' people what to do and telling them that their projects are nailed to their perches when they are extremely active is just out of line. You message was a authoritarian lambast. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:07, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Okay, here's what I said (at one WikiProject; I changed the wording slightly over time):

...some of the WikiProjects are renaming their pages to something like "Article advice", "Recommendations", or "Style advice". This is just a friendly suggestion (by no means a requirement) that your group consider doing the same.

Now can you tell me what about this is lambasting anyone? Does anything about the phrasing "just a friendly suggestion (by no means a requirement) that your group consider doing the same" sound authoritarian to you? WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:12, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm talking about the speech you made at WT:WPSCH - there was nothing friendly in that by any stretch of the imagination, even taking cross cultural communication in English into consideration. It's an extremely busy project but you never bothered to check. I left an answer there just after you posted, but I didn't expect you to follow up. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:21, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm just not seeing it. That message, too, says, "some of the WikiProjects are renaming their pages to something like "Article advice", "Recommendations", or "Style advice". This is just a friendly suggestion that your group consider doing the same".

Do you want to take another try at explaining how the words "suggestion" and "consider" is ordering that group to do anything at all? Or perhaps you might want to re-read the message and consider whether your initial reaction might have been misplaced? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:33, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I was taken aback by this comment: While you're at it, if it's been a long time since anyone overhauled those pages, this might be a good time to do that, too. I don't know what the history is for your group, but it's pretty typical for a page to get written and then neglected for a long time. If you happen to find anything that no longer matches up with the community-wide Manual of Style or other general guidelines, then perhaps it would be good to fix it, which would appear to suggest that you are not aware that some projects are actually doing quite well without your policing, and are regularly maintained by experienced editors. We have hundreds of projects at Wikipedia (maybe thousands), perhaps it would be more constructive to single out the really dormant ones and send them to MfD. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:17, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

There's a wide variation in WikiProjects, and MFD is not considered an acceptable response to a formerly active project. That's why my suggestion said "if it has been a long time since anyone overhauled those pages...", not "since". Some WikiProjects have extremely well-maintained advice pages. Others have completely neglected pages that no one has paid the least attention to for literally years (and the community-wide guidelines have changed dramatically in the last several years) or that one member started writing and nobody else ever paid attention to. They, not I, are best positioned to figure out whether their advice is what they want it to be, and my suggestion that they look over the content while they've got the page on screen anyway is nothing more than a suggestion: it might be a good time to look it over, and perhaps they will find something that they want to improve. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:26, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Some WikiProjects have extremely well-maintained advice pages - exactly, and this is one of them. If you're on a mission to police Wikipedia in all it's meta areas, please consider doing some basic research (I don't know what the history is for your group) before issuing such blanket messages, otherwise all you will achieve is discussions such as this that really only disrupt peoples' workflow. Do bear in mind that projects that may be worthy of your good faith efforts are probably dead or dormant and won't be watched or produce any reaction anyway. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:00, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

I generally expect an experienced user like you to be able to evaluate an if...then clause, and to ignore the "then" whenever it doesn't, without disrupting his workflow. Perhaps my assumption is invalid in your case.

I have little interest in "policing". I have a good deal of interest in informing people of discussions and decisions that might affect them significantly and which I can be reasonably confident they are unaware of. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:22, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

You have not addressed what I have said above nor apparently followed the link - I'm not here (as a professional linguist) to discuss your use of grammar, I just think that there are more constructive ways of 'policing' the project, so let's just leave it at that for now. I'll get back to improving NPP, schools, and RfA, and you can continue your excellent work on the AfT. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:52, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Refs

Are there refs to support this?

Palliative care is often confused with hospice and therefore only involved when people approach end of life. Like hospice care, palliative care attempts to help the person cope with the immediate needs and to increase the person's comfort. Unlike hospice care, palliative care does not require people to stop treatment aimed at prolonging their lives or curing the cancer.

Specifically the "often confused" part Thanks Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:22, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

The confusion is substantial enough that every single palliative care organization I've seen makes a point of explaining it. Sources are trivially available, e.g., [5][6][7], etc: a short trip to your favorite web search engine will show you what I mean.

I'm not convinced that this sort of simple definition truly requires a source, but if you want one, you might consider ISBN 9780824210137 p 127, which says, "Palliative care is not hospice care, though the two can be confused easily", or ISBN 9780415950671 p 45, which says, "The concept of palliative care is often confused with hospice service." WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:50, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Aside from Talk:Ariel A. Roth

I saw this and knew I had to respond somewhere. I chose your talk page. Feel free to move it:

Thank you WhatamIdoing for that myopic and unhelpful piece of WP:WIKILAWYERING (which ignores the fact that WP:N clearly leaves open that it may indirectly "limit the content of an article"). Does your comment add any useful insight whatsoever? "Nope".

Someone else already called WP:UNCIVIL on this so I don't need too. What's remarkable is the charge of WP:WIKILAWYERING to your common-sense distinction between WP:WEIGHT (or WP:UNDUE) and WP:N. Compounding that error is the bizarre creative twist that all the tests of WP:N and its children spill into article content because of the "do not directly limit the content" phrase in the text of the guideline.

The reason for that phrase is that the content is limited because editors cannot omit the stuff that allows other editors to evaluate its notability. That is the total extent of the indirect limitation of content. Does this need to be brought up in WT:N? patsw (talk) 16:24, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. I'm completely failing to keep up with my watchlist.

Given that editors can (and regularly do, e.g., in a quarter-million completely unsourced articles) "omit the stuff that allows other editors to evaluate its notability" without actually affecting the notability of the subject, I think we might benefit from dropping the word "directly" entirely. It might also be clearer to rephrase the second sentence there as something like "Many other policies, however, do limit the content of the article, including NPOV (especially its UNDUE section), WP:V, NOR, NOT, and BLP". WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:15, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Season's tidings!

FWiW Bzuk (talk) 03:48, 25 December 2011 (UTC).

Some bubble tea for you!

Thanks for dropping a thank you note to one of my students. It is unlikely they'll return to editing, but such messages make it more likely :) Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me 18:09, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	Thanks for your great comments on the Terms of Use draft--you've been nearly tireless at explaining points that people have questioned, with clarity and admirable patience! Kat Walsh (spill your mind?) 03:39, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Help Please

Hi –

Can someone please help me. I am trying to figure out why Ameya Pawar has not gone live yet. Please advise. Thank you.

rideittowin 17:09, 28 December 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rideittowin (talk • contribs)

Offhand, I'd guess that it's because you didn't formally "submit" it to the WP:Articles for creation (AFC) process for review. But you don't actually need to do that; AFC is mostly for people who don't have user accounts. You can WP:MOVE the page to the proper name and make it "live" yourself.

If you'd like some advice, articles about people often benefit from having as many WP:Inline citations as possible to as wide a variety of WP:Reliable sources. If you changed things so that there were more references than WP:External links, I think it would improve the article. (The way you link to a newspaper story online is the same, only you put the link at the end of a sentence or paragraph that it relates to, and put the "<ref>" and "</ref>" tags on either side of the link.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:59, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Surgical positions

Hi. I've gone ahead and expanding this article. Would you mind giving it a copyedit? I might like to send this to DYK.--v/r - TP 17:51, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

I've copyedited the lead, and looked briefly over the rest. It looks pretty good. I think you should submit it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:15, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Is it what you were looking for or do you think it's weak in any area? GorillaWarfare suggested I make sure that the changing positions section isn't "How to".--v/r - TP 02:46, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

I think it's a solid improvement and addresses more than what I'd initially hoped for. Also, ==Changing positions== doesn't strike me as how-to; it's more like why-to. (If you don't, you'll get this complication; if you do it this bad way, you'll get this other complication; etc.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:01, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Re: Personal wedding website

Hi, thanks for reviewing the article! I think that it greatly benefited from the GA review as we were able to iron out some kinks. I agree that the article hasn't yet meet GA criteria. When I have the time, I might do additional work on it (I still think the chart is an eyesore). Bejinhan talks 13:56, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

I was really happy with having you involved. It'd be great if you (or anyone else) decided to improve the article further (or any of the other nearly four million articles, of course), but I'm actually pretty satisfied with it having gotten just this far. It is such a dramatic improvement compared to what they started with. Thanks again. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:24, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

A tool for you!

Hi WhatamIdoing! I've just come across one of your edits (or that you have been patrolling new pages), and noticed that you might appreciate some help with references.

I case you're not aware, you might consider using this tool – it makes your life a whole heap easier, by filling in complete citation templates for your links. All you do is install the script:

// Add [[WP:Reflinks]] launcher in the toolbox on left
addOnloadHook(function () {
 addPortletLink(
  "p-tb",     // toolbox portlet
  "http://toolserver.org/~dispenser/cgi-bin/webreflinks.py/" + wgPageName 
   + "?client=script&citeweb=on&overwrite=&limit=30&lang=" + wgContentLanguage,
  "Reflinks"  // link label
)});

onto Special:MyPage/skin.js, then paste the bare URL between your <ref></ref> tabs, and you'll find a clickable link called Reflinks in your toolbox section of the page (probably in the left hand column). Then click that tool. It does all the rest of the work (provided that you remember to save the page! It doesn't work for everything (particularly often not for PDF documents), but for pretty much anything ending in "htm" or "html" (and with a title) it will do really, really well. You may consider taking on Category:Articles needing link rot cleanup. So long! --Sp33dyphil ©^hat_ontributions 03:04, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification

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Don't understand a thing about the Village pump

I have been trying to discuss ["Change of policy towards Dutch ..."] and wonder how this "village pump"-thing is supposed to work. Is there anybody of notice who decides to close a discussion, promote it to a serious policy- proposal, flush it down the history (as has happened here). Someone is allowed to tilt the discussion out of scope by adding a "subheading" to discuss the quality of a specific article. I see some things are done by bots. Guess someone operates them.

Isn't it time someone starts a villagepump policy policy discussion which stays on top until resolved? I think it's not in my way, being far to unnoticeable.

Sorry to bother you with this but saw no better chance. Victor50 (talk) 22:41, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

The Village Pumps work like a regular, face-to-face conversation with other people. Imagine that you're talking the people standing next to the coffee pot in an office. The conversation might start by talking about sports and end up talking about politics: that's okay. The conversation might start with an important idea and end with something trivial: that's okay. The conversation might result in a firm decision, or people might just walk away and forget about it: that's okay.

If you believe that people understand and support your ideas (and I am not convinced that either is true), then you should probably read about how to make a serious policy WP:PROPOSAL. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:02, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Tx for your answer. As you observed: although there is some understanding and support for the idea the tone is set by some Dutch contributors who feel it as a personal attack. I am disappointed at the fact that the pump is not systematically watched by some committee of notice. Anyway, no one was there who was prepared to help and take the idea one step further. Unfortunately I am not in a position to follow the lines in WP:PROPOSAL by sheer lack of time to absorb a lot of present policies, become 'noticeable' and then advertise and campaign for my proposal. Still I am very frustrated at the poor level of the Dutch Wikipedia. Probably other languages with a small user base are as bad, but I have a hunch they leave more non-local subjects alone, so when you Google "Bob Dylan" you won't get any references. I sketch here an alternative and much easier to implement pre-proposal, hope you know of someone who can and will take it further and leave it at that.Victor50 (talk) 10:01, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Hepatitis

From what I can understand from your comment on the causes of hepatitis you appear to think that the list of causes I provided were not cited from reviews or similar secondary sources. This is incorrect: this can be confirmed from the references themselves.

It appears that you would prefer to see a single source for all the causes rather than the multiple sources I provided. Most textbooks of general medicine will list for example parasites as a cause at least in part because of their association with cirrhosis and liver cancer. They may be slightly less informative on the replication sites for (say) the Ebola fever virus which has the liver as its primary replication site but these can be found in infectious diseases/virology/microbiology textbooks. When I pointed this out I simply ended up in a row. For this reason it seemed sensible to provided multiple sources. There may perhaps be some diversity of opinion on this point.

As the record shows provision of suitable references by itself was not sufficient to prevent a minor edit war when these were then deleted without even being read - which seems (to me anyway) at least a little rude.

As to the importance of the infectious causes I think it is clear to say that virtually all if not all of the categories listed could be regarded as important. In medicine a cause is regarded - generally - as important if it is treatable. If a disease is untreatable the precise cause of the problem is usually not regarded as a priority: there are exceptions. Most of the infectious causes listed are thankfully treatable.

A secondary consideration in importance is the transmissibility of a disease. Tuberculosis is regarded as an important disease partly because of the difficulty treating it but also because of its transmissibility. Ebola is not very treatable but is an important cause because it is very easily spread to the health care staff treating the patient.

Other considerations in the importance of a disease include their likelihood of being confused with another disease. The causes of granulomatous hepatitis are among these. An inexperienced clinician may think of these as only being caused by tuberculosis when the actual list is much longer. Red faces soon follow when this is pointed out. Before dismissing this as nonsense I have seen this very error with my own eyes. I am sure I am not unique there.

Another consideration is the age profile of the patient. A number of conditions occur only in children. These are uncommon or rare in the population as a whole but worthy of serious consideration to those treating children. Parvovirus as a cause of hepatitis springs to mind here. Parvovirus and its relations infect only dividing cells. Children particularly smaller ones tend to have more dividing cells in their organs than do adults. For this reason it is thought parvovirus tends to be a cause of hepatitis in children rather than adults. There may well be other reasons but if there are I have not yet come across them. Numerically parvovirus as a cause of hepatitis in the population as a whole is a miniscule quantity. However in children with hepatitis without an obvious cause parvovirus is high on the list of differentitial diagnoses.

Importance is not even a matter of being listed in textbook as textbooks take different slants. A textbook of paediatrics will list different causes for many things than an adult textbook. A textbook on infectious diseases normally will give a much more extensive listing of infectious causes than a textbook on general medicine. Larger textbooks tend to give more causes than smaller ones.

For these reasons and others, while your comment on importance is of note, importance is not a simple issue.

You mentioned a list of drugs that can cause hepatitis. This is an extensive list. Your point as regards importance of the agents is again interesting. I do not pretend to any expertise in deciding which should or should not be included in such a list. Perhaps an appeal for an expert opinion on these matters is indicated. The current listing gives no indication which if any of these drugs are important causes of hepatitis. Suggestions as to its revision seem desirable for this reason.

I agree with you over the causes of fatigue - a veritable nightmare list of causes. I would argue that where there is a defined clinicopathological entity such as hepatitis the causes thereof listed may need to be/can be justified as being more extensive than in cases where there is no defined pathology such as fatigue. Perhaps you may have an opinion on this?

Finally a minor note not directly related to your comment. JWD has stated that cardiac failure does not cause hepatitis. This - as I have pointed out to him - is incorrect. That this condition does cause hepatitis is stated in the usual undergraduate textbooks of pathology as well as the references cited. The pathology cardiac failure induces is very similar to that produced by ischemic hepatitis which is a cause that was earlier included. DrMicro (talk) 10:37, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

It appears that we have three separate things to discuss:

Importance

I agree that it's not always simple to determine how much weight (from "any mention at all" to "entire section entirely dedicated to") should be given to any particular cause. Unlike your model of determining importance from real-world effects (commonness, transmissibility, threats to particular populations), we determine importance based on what our best sources consider important. We know what they consider important because they talk about the important stuff more than they talk about the unimportant stuff. "Follow the sources" is our method for getting an "expert opinion" on what is important enough to mention and how much attention to give it: we mention what our best secondary sources (like a good textbook) tend to mention, and we don't mention what our best secondary sources don't mention.

So if you look at a handful of textbooks and see that most of them write (for example) a whole chapter about Hep B, multiple paragraphs about parasites, and merely mention Ebola in passing or as part of a list, then we (because we summarize, i.e., write less than a textbook) should probably discuss Hep B in a few paragraphs, maybe dedicate a sentence or two to parasites, and probably omit Ebola. Because we're writing a summary, we also try to write at a more general level. For example, we would normally write about "liver flukes" as a class, rather than specific, named, individual families or species of liver flukes.

Secondary sources

You assert above that you're using secondary sources, but PMID 19478873 (Lujo virus) is a primary source. PMID 7991040 (Hantaan virus) is a case study. PMID 21474206 (Dengue) is a primary source. PMID 21322282 (Cytomegalovirus) is a randomized controlled trial—another primary source. PMID 21951624 (Influenza) is a primary source. And so forth. Please don't expect me to believe that you are using "reviews or similar secondary sources" when your list still names so many primary sources.

Purpose

I'd like to understand better why you're interested in creating a list of causes. It seems to me that your goal may be to create a reasonable comprehensive list as a practical aid to differential diagnosis, i.e., for the laudable purpose of saving lives in the real world. But perhaps I have misunderstood you. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:27, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Maybe these might suit you better

CMV: http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/215702-overview

Dengue: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15361994. Admittedly this is an analysis of <1500 cases of whom over 40% had raised liver enzymes. The sheer number of cases in this paper argues for dengue's inclusion in such a listing. Raised liver enzymes are also highly characteristic of dengue fever.

Influenza: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16565492

Hantaan virus: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2895603

Lujo virus which causes haemorrhagic fever is a notifible disease. Part of its clinical presentation is a form of hepatitis. It is thankfully rare but because of its causative role in haemorrhagic fever it probably justifies inclusion on that ground alone.

Concerning your comments on (say) liver flukes chapters in in textbooks on parasitology are devoted to each of these individually. They are listed like cigarettes and Helicobacter as class 1 carcinogens. One of the primary cells for the replication of Ebola is the liver something that has been known for several decades now. One of the major problems with Ebola and similar viruses is the effect it has on the coagulation system - proteins produced by the liver. Post mortums in fatal cases show extensive hepatic changes. It is a notifable disease which means it has separate legal status in most countries. It is well known to the general public in part because of books such as the Hot Zone

http://www.amazon.com/Hot-Zone-Terrifying-True-Story/dp/0385479565

The Centres for Disease Control have a section on Ebola in their handbook (somewhat less dramatic in their account)

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/spb/mnpages/dispages/ebola.htm

In passing it may be worth noting that almost all the infectious causes already have pages on Wikipedia which argues for their individual importance.

Since we are on this topic the lack of references for the remainder of the page might also be worth discussing. For example while it is a commonly known fact that alcohol is a cause of hepatitis there are not supporting refs on the page. For ensure consistency perhaps this should be deleted as cause until suitably referenced? If some causes may be included without providing refs being provided what criteria are to be used? DrMicro (talk) 22:09, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

• Your new Dengue and Influenza citations are still primary sources. Is there some reason why you aren't using textbooks or other guaranteed-to-be-non-primary sources?
• It doesn't matter if a page exists. That a subject is notable (=gets its own article) does not mean that the subject must be mentioned in every other possible article. IMO an article should (eventually) be written for every single virus that's had more than two publications about it. That doesn't mean that every single virus should be mentioned in every single other article—or in any other article. WP:DUE weight is determined by the context of the specific article in question. For example, a cause that is really not important enough to even mention in Hepatitis might well deserve inclusion in the more specific article on Viral hepatitis.
• See WP:MINREF for the list of what must be provided with an inline citation. "Commonly known facts" isn't on the list. Furthermore, trying to destroy the rest of the article as retaliation for being (correctly) told that you're using primary sources when secondary sources are strongly preferred is not going to help improve either the article or your relationships with other editors. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:11, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

I provide here new refs for your opinion

Dengue: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-3156.2006.01678.x/full

Influenza: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1606546/

I agree with you over the viruses. I have been moderately active in that given area: the DNA virus families and most of their genera now have pages devoted to them: all are consistent with the ICTV. I hope to try to improve the situation of the RNA viruses in the not too distant future.

Due weight seems a topic worthy of discussion. Consider Egypt a country whose population of ~80 million are mostly fairly observant Muslims. Alcohol related disease is rare there at least in part because of the prohibition on the use of alcohol by Muslims. Until relatively recently virtually the entire population were have been infected with schistosoma. Public health efforts made significant inroads into this problem. There are 300-500 million cases of malaria each year. While all of these develop a mild hepatitis ~1% develop clinical hepatitis making a total of 3-5 million cases each year. The drug methyldopa is now only rarely used as better alternatives have been available for years. I would have to check to be certain but I think the incidence of this side effect is <1% of people who take the drug on a long term basis and that the total number of cases reported is <10,000. Since this agent lacks an inline citation presumably this is because this drug may cause hepatitis is a 'commonly known fact'. Perhaps there may be some other reason that I am not familiar with. If this is the case I would be grateful if you could enlighten me.

My understanding of the term 'encyclopedic' agrees with that in this dictonary

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/encyclopedic

An encyclopedic article IMHO should tend to be complete - something that this definition seems to agree with. The causes I have listed in the Hepatitis article I believe can be justified on the grounds that they are treatable and/or are significant public hazards. I have not - and do not intend to try - to list the entire litany of causes - principally because I lack the expertise to do so.

I do not disagree with you that because the list of causes is of some length - and currently is only partly complete - that the lay out of this article cannot be improved. This is not a problem unique to Hepatitis. The liver is a body organ. Inflammation is universal response in body organs to injury. The list of unique causes of injury to the body is not short for any organ. A useful solution in the case could and probably should be used elsewhere. I recall that both I and Doc James requested opinions/suggestions on method of improving it. Perhaps these were deleted?

I think it is safe to say that Doc James and I agreed that there should be discussion in the article on the relative importance of these causes. This is not IMHO a simple matter. The prevalence and incidence of causes differs considerably between countries and over periods of time. Halothane for example is rarely used if at all because of its association with hepatitis. Whether such agents should be included in such a list since they are now rarely used but are mentioned in virtually every review on drug induced hepatitis because they spawned a number of law cases I do not know. Perhaps you may have an opinion?

Finally I have misunderstood you here but I would tend to regard 'destroy', 'retaliation' as having some difficulties complying with the instructions on this page - Wikipedia:No personal attacks. I also fail to see how your choice of words on this occasion helps your relationship with other editors. Perhaps it may be useful if you could how the choice of words here is (1) compliant and (2) helpful DrMicro (talk) 23:43, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

• The influenza ref is just commentary. Look: this is not difficult. High school students can manage this task. If you're absolutely determined not to use a sensible, reasonably comprehensive source like a medical textbook, then go to PubMed, put in a relevant search term, and click the button under "Filter your results" that says "Review".
• Use the secondary sources to figure out due weight. Due weight is not determined by how many people in the world die from something. It's determined solely by how much good sources have written about it. If good sources go nattering on about something incredibly rare, and gloss over something incredibly common, then we follow their lead. We do not actually care what the prevalence of a given cause is: we care how much ink has been used to talk about the cause.
• NPA is generally interpreted quite strictly, and my comments do not transgress it. If you'd like to learn more about behavioral advice, you might want to read WP:Tendentious editing, which (among other problematic behaviors) embraces your idea of deleting obviously accurate and verifiable information (e.g., alcohol as a cause of hepatitis) merely because it isn't being presented perfectly, especially in the context of people wanting good sources for the less obvious and quite possibly UNDUE causes you've been adding.

Basically, I don't think that you understand the job of an encyclopedia article. The whole encyclopedia—all of the nearly four million articles taken together—is supposed to be "Embracing many subjects; comprehensive". Individual articles are not. Individual articles are supposed to provide summaries. They are not supposed to include every detail. WP:NOTEVERYTHING actually prohibits this: individual articles are not permitted to be "a complete exposition of all possible details". And if you go look at any other encyclopedia ever published, you will discover that the individual articles are normally quite brief, and that absolutely none of them provide complete lists like you're looking for. Encyclopedias are a mile wide, but only an inch deep. If you really want to make a complete exposition of all possible causes, then you need to be writing at Wikibooks or Wikiversity, not at Wikipedia. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:53, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

WP:NOTEVERYTHING - 'The purpose of Wikipedia is to present facts...' That seems compatible with a list of causes.

'The influenza ref is just commentary.' This paper is an editorial review of a number of papers on viruses and hepatitis.

As I have stated before I have not and would not try to list all the possible causes. Please do not suggest that I have attempted to advance such a idea. My apologies if I have misunderstood your comments on this point.

The record shows that alcohol as a cause was not deleted. To be consistent with your policy of requiring references this would seem to suggest that alcohol might also might also require a reference. Wikipedia does not require and indeed advises against providing citations for everything.

I think it is probably safe to say that there are more articles written on jaundice in malaria (where it is regarded as a poor prognostic sign) that there are on methyldopa as a cause of hepatitis. Malaria is referenced: methydopa is not. Your policy appears to be inconsistent. An explanation of the reason for this inconsistency would be nice.

'NPA is generally interpreted quite strictly, and my comments do not transgress it.' That I think is a matter of opinion. Nemo iudex in causa sua. Even if your comments do not violate the NPA they do seem (IMHO) to transgress one of the five pillars of Wikipedia: Wikipedia:Civility. Your milage may differ. DrMicro (talk) 12:00, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Why isn't alcohol followed by an inline citation? Because nobody's gotten around to adding one yet. Someday, somebody eventually will.

Why are people fussing at you about the inline citations you've added? Because you've been adding weak sources—sources so weak that they don't demonstrate that we should even be mentioning some of these causes at all.

There is no point of policy here, unless you consider the fact that Wikipedia is a work in progress to be a "policy". This is just reality: the article is not finished.

Let me give you an analogy: Imagine a pile of dirty dishes. You get one dish half-clean, and people say "That's not good enough." Your response is "Well, nobody's ever attempted to wash this other dirty dish, so you should be perfectly happy to eat off of this half-dirty one!"

As for your concerns about civility, you may want to reflect on the substantial gulf between civility and friendliness. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:29, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Separate funding of Wikipedia's

Open the possibility to earmark donations to Wikipedia to specific languages.

Alternative: Have all (localized) Wikipedia's campaign for themselves.

(Arguments are given above and in my villagepump-proposal)

Victor50 (talk) 10:01, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

This isn't practical. Most of the money isn't spent on a single language's Wikipedia. When the developer spends a month creating a new feature, that work benefits all of the languages and all of the projects equally.

Also, we depend on other projects. Most of the money comes from readers of the English Wikipedia. Would you like to have Commons, without which the English Wikipedia would be seriously limited, starved of resources merely because the readers didn't know that's where we keep most of the images they like? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:31, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Quote Parameter in citations

You contributed to a discussion either here or here. I'm attempting to summarize and move the discussion forward here. You may well have this page watchlisted, but as I am trying to carny on in a slightly different place, I'm letting everyone know who contributed.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 17:04, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Help setting up translation task force

Hey WAID wondering if you know how to format some of this stuff for the translation task force [8] It has been a few days and no bot has come along to fill in the assessment data.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:06, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Did you follow all the set-up directions? I don't see any evidence of the relevant categories there. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:47, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

No, thanks for the advice. Will see if I can figure it out.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:35, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Hum, looks rather complicated. Who at Wikipedia medicine has set up one of these projects before? I may need some help. Have posted here [9]--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:44, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

It looks more complicated than it is. I think the list of instructions at WP:MEDTF is easier to follow. If you can't figure it out, then ping me tomorrow. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:07, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes that is definitely easier. I have tried to follow the instructions. Not sure if it will work though.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:05, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Seems like it works a little but not completely.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:29, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Following the steps exactly as indicated at WP:MEDTF#Task force creation guidelines will do the trick (you did not create any of the necessary categories), but I wonder if there is a better way to create this project. I just posed a bunch of questions at WT:MEDTF#Translation. I can lend a hand, but need to know more about your goals. Creating all of the categories is extremely tedious, and they might not even be necessary to accomplish your objective. --Scott Alter (talk) 04:17, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

It looks like you created the cats for WP:WikiProject Translation. I believe that the cats need to be named Category:Translation task force articles by quality for it to work. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:36, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Scanning speech

Thanks for reviewing this article. It's the first article I've created, and as I'm new to this I was just wondering if you had any pointers? Good stuff and stuff I can do better next time? Thanks Basalisk ^{inspect damage}⁄_berate 23:24, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

For a first article, I think it was really pretty good, and you should be pleased with your success.

Are you familiar with WP:MEDRS and WP:MEDMOS? The first is about identifying the best sources for medicine-related information, and the second sometimes has useful suggestions about what to include or how to say things.

Also, if you haven't met the folks at WP:MED yet, they're a great bunch, and I recommend keeping an eye on the talk page. It's a good place to get help and to find out what's going on. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:52, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Wiki problems

You've received a reply on user tabby talk page. Tabby (talk) 13:20, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Terms of Use

Just a note to say I liked 2 of your changes for s.10, and incorporated them into mine. The effect is both of us have suggested almost identical versions to Geoff.

I also proposed the remaining edits to s.12 which you said would be needed but hadn't written up. If you want to, go take a look and see what you think.

(The IP editor in that section appears to be listed on the SPI page for this banned user.)

FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 15:09, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

It may take me a while to get over there today. I was partly building on your earlier comments in that draft, which explains the similarities.

One thing I've been particularly happy about in this discussion is knowing that Geoff will ignore or improve my suggestions if they're not good enough. It's a delight to deal with an intelligent, committed, well-informed professional.

It's amazing how certain people just can't believe that they've been banned, isn't it? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:59, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

U must be a snake (chinese horoscope). Always looking for mischief. I was delighted to talk to an intelligent, commited and well-informed professional at the above mentioned discussion site too.--Angel54 5 (talk) 03:01, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Reminder — What the phrase means

Hi. Just a reminder re my last question[10] in our discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability#What_the_phrase_means. --Bob K31416 (talk) 15:28, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the reminder. I have replied there. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:40, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, WhatamIdoing. You have new messages at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(idea_lab).
Message added 18:52, 9 January 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

causa sui (talk) 18:52, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

One more, at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical) :-) causa sui (talk) 21:49, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Brain picking

I think I recall you mentioning a year or two ago that, when a policy and a guideline are found to conflict, the policy doesn't automatically trump the guideline, but the correct response is for a wide community discussion to reconcile the two. (Maybe it was SlimVirgin or SandyGeorgia; it wasn't a bloke.) If I'm right, is there anywhere I could go on project to confirm that that is the usual practice? --Anthonyhcole (talk) 15:04, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines#Conflicts_between_advice_pages. NB that WP:V explicitly states that it trumps all sourcing guidelines; I have the (possibly erroneous) belief that this unusual provision is SlimVirgin's work. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:31, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. Never die. Never leave. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 17:44, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Help with Edits to Internationals Schools Services

OpenMinds2010 (talk) 19:55, 13 January 2012 (UTC)I wonder if you could help again with this article. You helped when I first wrote it. Someone has targeted it for deletion. I am not an advanced wiki writer but would like to keep my article and eventually make it better. The person who marked it for deletion looks a little sketchy but may still have the power to delete. Thanks for any help you can offer.

I have removed the tag. The user in question does not have the "power" to delete articles; that's why he tagged it rather than deleting it. Deleting it would have required an admin [the only users with a 'delete article' button on their screens] to decide whether deletion under WP:CSD#G11 was appropriate.

It appears that the user who tagged the article had a rather expansive understanding of "spam". However, it could still be deleted through the normal WP:AFD process. The best thing you can do to prevent that is to WP:CITE as many WP:Independent sources about the school as possible. It is rare for an article about a school to end up deleted if it cites a dozen sources (not counting the school's website or other sources with a close connection to the school). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:12, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Spam G11

G11 spam doesn't have to be "try my product" written inside the article type of nature. Db-spam does include articles that is promotional in nature, such as nothing but highly postive reviews, what features it does and such, mainly written by a COI. I'm very conservative when it comes with CSD, usually following the example of other administrators, and being a former administrator for over four years myself. What I tag is with accordance with that. Thanks Secret ^account 21:03, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

To qualify for G11, the articles must be exclusively promotional in nature, not just partly promotional, and a list of major features isn't "promotional": it's descriptive. (Think about it: how the heck would you describe (a very encyclopedic activity) a piece of software without listing its features?) I'm sensitive to spam problems, since I've been the most active editor at the External links guideline and noticeboard for years; I know what it looks like.

Additionally, I know a good deal about notability requirements for organizations, since I've written most of WP:ORG. Both Wikipedia:Deletion_policy#Speedy_deletion and WP:CSD plainly state that no page, no matter what, should be sent for speedy deletion unless it has "no chance of surviving discussion" at AFD. Notable organizations always have a practical "chance of surviving discussion", by definition.

Don't confuse "positive content" for "promotional". The fact is that "nothing but positive" is pretty typical of the reliable sources for some smaller organizations (just like "nothing but negative" is what you get for certain scandal-prone organizations). A 100% positive article may accurately reflect the reliable sources, and in those cases, only a 100% positive article complies with NPOV. Even if you think the balance is off, deletion is not a form of clean up. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:59, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I replied back on my talk page. I know your work (I personally don't understand why you never did an RFA). I fully agree with you, except for the PHPmotion article. I just had my health issue right before I said my comment above so I didn't made sense here. Sorry about that. Now wikibreak. Thanks 184.33.223.182 (talk) 22:52, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Mistakes happen; don't worry about it. I hope you feel better soon. I'll go take a closer look at the PHPMotion article. In fact, since it's been tagged for notability for a while, perhaps it should just go to PROD or AFD if I can't find any independent sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:18, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Good article help?

Hi. If you have time I would like your opinion on an idea I had for helping new good article reviewers. A first draft can be found here. It started off as an upgrade to the mentor page, but has now turned more into a help desk/noticeboard. I decided to get the advice of some GA regulars before announcing it at GAN. As you wrote much of the "what is not a good article essay" and answer questions regularly at the talk pages I thought you might have some ideas on the validity of this GA subpage and hopefully ways to improve it (plus would be willing to watch it if it is used). I would appreciate any comments you, or any of your interested talk page watchers, might have towards it either here or on the talk page. AIRcorn (talk) 10:31, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Boldly substituting a dictionary equivalency

Hi. Just to let you know that I responded[11] to a message of yours at Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability#Boldly_substituting_a_dictionary_equivalency. Regards, --Bob K31416 (talk) 01:06, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

I apologize for the delay in answering; I've been mostly off wiki for a couple of days. I do appreciate your note here to make sure I saw your good suggestion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:02, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Second paragraph of lead

Hi. Just to let you know that I responded[12] to a message of yours at Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability#Second_paragraph_of_lead. Regards, --Bob K31416 (talk) 13:33, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

FWIW, overall I recognize that your comments have been useful in developing the possible version. Regards, --Bob K31416 (talk) 17:31, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Templatify

Can you please add the 2.0s into the respective templates, please, per the discussions here. --Extra 999 (Contact ^me) 03:04, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't really understand what you want. The alternative images to be added to the templates? The alternatives to be listed at Wikipedia:Barnstars 2.0? (You could do either of these things just as easily as I could. They do not require special privileges.) Something else? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:30, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Really, I am struggling to add the alt parameters in these templates, help. --Extra 999 (Contact ^me) 18:00, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

It looks to me like you made one single effort a week ago, and then gave up—which is too bad, because what you did actually worked.

The only thing you got wrong was the documentation, which requires |alt=yes, not just |alt=. If you'll go look at Template:The Press Barnstar, you'll see what I did to fix the documentation. Also (unfortunately), you have to purge the cache to see the correct results. The easiest way to do this is to go to Special:Preferences, then to Gadgets, and tick the second item under "Appearance", which is "Add a clock in the personal toolbar that displays the current time in UTC (which also provides a link to purge the current page)." Whenever you need to purge a page, you just click the clock and wait a few seconds.

So your process is to do what you did originally for each of the files, except to add the =yes, save the page (which will definitely display wrong), and then click the clock to purge the page (and maybe reload the page a time or two). WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:24, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

DID Page

It's nice to see you there in the talk section. :) I hope you take some time and work on the article as well. We do need more people there and you seem more than capable.~ty (talk) 06:24, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

You've got mail!

Hello, WhatamIdoing. Check your email—you've got mail!
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{YGM}} template.

SarahStierch (talk) 19:22, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Abortion exceptionalism

The article Abortion exceptionalism has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Not seeing this concept described by reliable sources; seems like original research.

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 06:53, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Accounts

Is it possible that SlimVirgin has been using Dreadstar's account at WT:V? --Bob K31416 (talk) 19:51, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

I seriously doubt it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:04, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Formal mediation has been requested

The Mediation Committee has received a request for formal mediation of the dispute relating to "Slide-rule". As an editor concerned in this dispute, you are invited to participate in the mediation. Mediation is a voluntary process which resolves a dispute over article content by facilitation, consensus-building, and compromise among the involved editors. After reviewing the request page, the formal mediation policy, and the guide to formal mediation, please indicate in the "party agreement" section whether you agree to participate. Because requests must be responded to by the Mediation Committee within seven days, please respond to the request by 6 February 2012. Discussion relating to the mediation request is welcome at the case talk page. Thank you. Message delivered by MediationBot (talk) on behalf of the Mediation Committee. 23:47, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Request for mediation rejected

The request for formal mediation concerning Slide-rule, to which you were listed as a party, has been declined. To read an explanation by the Mediation Committee for the rejection of this request, see the mediation request page, which will be deleted by an administrator after a reasonable time. Please direct questions relating to this request to the Chairman of the Committee, or to the mailing list. For more information on forms of dispute resolution, other than formal mediation, that are available, see Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. For the Mediation Committee, WGFinley (talk) 23:22, 31 January 2012 (UTC) (Delivered by MediationBot, on behalf of the Mediation Committee.)