User talk:Taxman

Note: I strongly prefer to keep conversations intact. I'll usually respond only here to comments made here unless you request me to do otherwise. Likewise I will respond on your talk page to any comments made there, and I'd request doing the same. Thank you, and happy wikiing.

For older discussion see: Archive1, Archive2

Request

To anyone reading here, please peer review an article to help it reach a higher quality level. Keep in mind the featured article criteria and consider my featured article advice, both of which should help give you ideas of where an article needs improvement. Thanks - Taxman ^Talk 15:58, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikicite

Just wanted to update you on the status of the Wikicite project- parts of the software are already functional, and I have modified the Cite extension to pull bilbiographic data from open catalog servers (e.g. Library of Congress) based upon unique keys like ISBN number. Technically this component is the data import function of the bibliographic catalog sub-project Wikicat. Here is a live screenshot of the software. There is actually not too much to be done, software-wise, before this can be rolled-out on Wikipedia. The real effort is making sure that the bibliographic catalog is designed correctly, which requires researching the professional cataloging standards out there.

I announced the first phase of the project- the bibliographic catalog- on the foundation list about a week ago and though the response was fairly positive, I would appreciate it if you could help drum up support to help push this through (it seems like there's an official non-offical policy of rejecting any new project proposals at this point). The endoresement of a Wikiproject group would be especially valuable. BTW- an essential component of Wikipedia 1.0- stable version designation- is ready to be rolled-out so there's something else to lobby for.

Jleybov 23:37, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the update, it's great to hear the code is ready. I'm a little confused why it would need a separate foundation level project. I didn't have a chance to check yet, but did you post to the Wikipedia:Wikiproject fact and reference check, and the WP:V talk page? Those would be the places to gather like minded people. - Taxman ^Talk 13:50, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I posted a while ago to Wikiproject Fact and Reference Check, both the main page and the talk page; I also posted to Wikiproject Forum for Encyclopedic Standards- again, both main page and talk page. Very little response from either. I am not really an active member of either project, though, so perhaps if someone who was drew attention to Wikicite again there would be more interest expressed.

The reason for having a stand-alone project is that one component of Wikicite- the bibliographic catalog, Wikicat- is logically a separate resource that should be cultivated in its own right. For example, in the long-run I envision the ability to follow an in-article citation from Wikipedia to Wikicat, and then use Wikicat to see which sources that source itself cites. This could be used for the purposes of strengthening an article, or a user could come to Wikicat directly when in the process of performing independent research. In addition, the technical changes to support all this are major enough that a separate project is pretty much required anyway- we are adding a bibliographic catalog database that is much more complex in its structure than Wikipedia, and which will eventually require its own UIs to enter and change data, plus cataloging rules documentation to ensure the data users enter is consistent, etc. ....

So anyway, if you could help raise awareness of the project and build support for it that would be very very useful. Even adding names to the "People interested in joining" list on the project proposals page would be a big help.

Jleybov 18:03, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I'll see what I can do to publicize Wikicite. I think it's a clearly good solution to our reliability problem, and I think once more people are aware of it it will pick up momentum. If you're confident that Wikicat is the way to go to support wikicite, then that should also be eventually evident. But as a pragmatical solution partial steps are often much easier to implement. Try to figure out a way to decouple Wikicite from anything that needs a separate project, at least enough to get it lanched and working. Then once that change has been sent through, if Wikicat is truly needed then the need for it will become obvious to everyone. But trying to change to much can be a problem and stall the whole process. Have you talked to some of the mediawiki developers to see if your code for Wikicite can be smoothly merged in? Most patches supplied are rejected because they don't fit in with the current codebase in a smooth way. - Taxman ^Talk 18:40, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Luckily all of my changes should fit within the existing Mediawiki architecture and in fact are being implemented as extensions. Wikicat and Wikicite are separate but very inter-related, with Wikicite in fact being dependent on the former (though not vise-versa)- to cite you need someplace to store bibliographic data, after all. I have tried to roll things out in stages, though, such that useful functionality becomes available as soon as possible. For example, Wikicat would be rolled-out as initially "import-only": no UIs would be provided to manually enter data, but data would still come in from open catalog servers in response to users citing particular works. In fact, I think most of the features of Wikicite could be enabled on top of this initial release of Wikicat.

In any case, please let me know what additional features you would like to see in Wikicat. I have already followed, for example, your suggestion to extend the Cite.php extension citation mark-up rather than introduce a new one.

And again, just let me reiterate the importance of having community support for rolling out new features. The stable version feature has been code-complete since last year, but no move seems to have been made to take it live on Wikipedia yet- this despite the fact that its author, Magnus Manske, is one of the main developers of Mediawiki!

Jleybov 21:39, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

San Francisco, California Article

Hi, another editor and I have put in some mega-hours over the last two weeks trying to knock the SF article into shape for a Feature Article nomination. Since you have been active in other Geographic articles nomiated for FA, I was hoping you might be intersted in looking at the SF article? Also, the current editors are a bit cross-eyed and could use some recommendations for other Wikisouls who might be willing to proofread or copyedit the article. Thanks for any help!--Paul 02:41, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Sure, I'll see what I can do. - Taxman ^Talk 12:59, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Thank you! I appreciate any help.--Paul 16:40, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

We have completed all of the suggested changes and have re-submitted the article as a FAC. Thanks for your help.--Paul 05:48, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

My adminship

Thanks for the welcome, and I'll be sure to watch where I step! Larry V (talk | contribs) 05:00, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Carnildo

Hi Taxman. You wrote "We therefore reinstate Carnildo's adminship, on a probationary basis, for a period of two months, after which his activities will be reviewed by the arbcom" [1] Have the arbcom agreed to that? Regards, Ben Aveling 10:02, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, enough of them. :) - Taxman ^Talk 13:00, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

JPD's RfA

Thanks, Taxman, for giving me the sysop rights and the good advice! JPD (talk) 16:48, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Wondering if you could...

Use your oversight powers to delete my user page history? There is sensitive personal information on there that I would like removed. Everything up to the most recent edit? Magic Window 14:54, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

All revisions with personal information have been removed. The rest are simply deleted. Just FYI and FOI, in the future these types of requests may be denied since you chose to put your personal info out there. - Taxman ^Talk 15:33, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Politely registering protest

Hi Taxman,

I support Carnildo, and am very happy he got his adminship back, something I just became aware of after reading the Signpost. However, I write to you to express my shock at the closing of his RfA.

I appreciate the arguments have all been aired, and that being a bureaucrat is a very hard thing to do. I respect you, and don't wish to belabor my point, so I'm going to put this very simply. Objectively, Carnildo's RfA closed as "consensus not reached." To say anything else is sophistry of a very low order, equivalent to saying that the sky of the planet Earth is "Pink with Purple polka-dots." Despite his RfA, he was promoted. I understand why, I even agree with the reason why (forgiveness), but I am nevertheless distressed at the apparent effort of the b'crats to make "2+2" equal "5".

B'crats have the authority to promote, you did so, and it was the right thing to do. B'crats do not have the authority at assert that the "sky is polka-dotted," and they shouldn't embarass themselves by trying to do so. Twisting plain facts only harms the integrity of the bureaucratship.

I hope you see my point, and I hope the bureaucrat corps in general is wise enough not to repeat this error. Re-promotion of Carnildo should ideally have happened through ArbCom or Jimbo; absent that, if the bureaucrats agreed promotion was right, they should done have so, clearly and plainly despite the RfA.

As I say, I supported Carnildo, and yet even my "common sense" is a little bit offended by the notion that 61% is an RfA consensus. Such a suggestion is so far from reasonable that I feel justified in applying analogies from the schoolyard to it.

In short, good job in promoting; not so good in explaining the promotion. If (Jimbo forbid) there ever is a "next time" like this, I'm sure you b'crats will do better. Good luck :) and best wishes, Xoloz 16:57, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate the polite effort to register your disagreement, and your points are duly noted. - Taxman ^Talk 19:11, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Script

Per your IRC request, I wrote it up today. Clear your browser's cache, then go to the history page of any RFA candidate page. There should be a "data" tab.Voice-of-All 23:07, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Here's to Looking!

Abbie is looking at you. Teke ^(talk) 03:46, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

RfB

I "closed" it because the ending date had long passed, notice ram-man's comment "is anyone going to close this?" in an edit summary. I did not finalize the tally, make the promotion decision, or archive anything, I left that for a bcrat. Voice-of-All 16:37, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I know that's what you did it's just that people's comments are valid as part of the consensus gathering up until the point a bureaucrat closes it. He apparently didn't reallize that either and should be patient too. Like I said it was one of the few grey area RfBs in years, so it shouldn't be surprising it would take more time to decide on. - Taxman ^Talk 19:10, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I always though of the closing date as a hard number. People could added something just a few minutes after the time is up maybe but not hours after, which is why I closed it. If the ending date doesn't really matter (so its not really an "ending date" but more of a "ending around this time most likely" date), then I am fine with that, as long bcrats pass it only when they deem it necessary. I just wan't aware that that was current policy. There seems to be a lot of confusion and lack of clarity about how RfA really works, perhaps this could be clarified.Voice-of-All 20:56, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

That's why we have bureaucrats for it, it's fairly clear for us. :) And when you say tally, I'm assuming you mean closing date. But it's never been a hard time limit and especially not in close cases. We've mentioned a few times on WT:RFA that comments up until a bcrat closes the nom are valid even if after the listed closing time. - Taxman ^Talk 21:00, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Roni Lynn Deutch

Dear Taxman: Your input could be valuable regarding the article Roni Lynn Deutch at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Roni_Lynn_Deutch

My personal view is that the article is pretty much an advertisement, even if the article wasn't put there by Ms. Deutch herself -- but you may have a different perspective. Yours, Famspear 19:52, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

template cite book

Hi. May I ask you: what was your intention of this edit on template:cite book? (which you reverted afterwards). We normally discuss changes on the talk page. Also, experiments should be conducted in a sandbox (especially for such high use templates, as these two edits invalidated the cache of 19,207 pages twice). Cite book applies the template doc page pattern. --Ligulem 17:40, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Hence why I reverted it. It was an accidental edit that I reverted as soon as I could, so I'm confused why you are asking. I was copying that template over to the Hindi Wikipedia and initially didn't see that I was about to hit save on the wrong project first. If your intent was just to say be more careful, that is surely noted and perfectly reasonable. - Taxman ^Talk 17:46, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

This is in no way meant as bold critique. But sometimes someone is trying to achieve something and it might help to understand what that was. I also didn't find a notice on the talk about your accidental edit. The doc page pattern is relatively new (I wrote it). So I am interested in any problems this might cause. Also for me as a poor (or should I say lucky? :-) soul who can no longer edit cite book since its protection (which was a bit a frustration for me first), I'm a bit sensitive to admins dropping by without a notice on the talk. But no harm done. Everything is fine and thanks for your explanation. Cheers, --Ligulem 17:57, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Jharkhand

Hi Taxman. Please see: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Jharkhand&diff=prev&oldid=75345964 Thanks. --Bhadani 19:23, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Taxwoman. Thanks for the information. You have good knowledge of Hindi, as also of suitable wikipedians for making matches. All the best! --Bhadani 16:07, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Wiktionary request

नमस्ते Taxman, कैसे हो आप? Sorry for the delay in replying, was caught up with my college stuff. Anyway I reviewed the list you gave me & have found that a majority of the listings are correct. I have found a few errors in the list but instead of plunging in & correcting them, I'd prefer a second opinion from some other editor who is a bit familiar with the language. Despite being able to speak Hindi fluently, my knowledge of pure Hindi is rather limited. So I'll discuss some of the stuff with people like Aksi_great on IRC before I make any concrete changes. Anyway this list seems a good place to start with the pronunciations. What d'you think? Hope to see you on IRC sometime. Cheers --Srikeit ^{(Talk | Email)} 18:41, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

कोई बात नहीं, that sounds like a good plan. I forgot you may or may not read and write in Devanagari so much either. But thanks for looking into it, and yes those would be a perfect place to start with the pronunciations. Though some on that list are certainly not the most common words. Start with the ones that are the most common I guess. Thanks again - Taxman ^Talk 19:54, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Carnildo's RFA

Hi Taxman

I have not been here before, in fact I have deliberately waited a while as I did not want to leave a message here in anger I would later regret. I have always respected you, especially your work on the FAC page, in fact I always thought a support from you was worth three supports from some other people. However, following your advocacy and support of Carnildo's promotion to admin status, I feel I can no longer trust or have confidence in the arbcom to do what is right and best for Wikipedia. In my opinion you and your colleagues have seriously let down the factory floor of the encyclopedia and made a huge error of judgement. It no longer seems worthwhile expressing an opinion towards consensus on any Wikipedia matter because ultimately one knows the result will be decided behind closed doors regardless of (what one of your colleagues calls) the "fickle and ill-informed populace." [2]. Well I am not fickle or ill-informed, I am very consistent and very well informed. I don't call for your resignation, but in all honesty I can no longer respect your judgement. Sorry. Giano | talk 22:08, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Sorry what I did made you feel that way. I did what I did because I felt it was the right thing to do, and I would like to think that even though you disagree with me, you could at least respect that I did what I did because I felt it was good for the project. Not that I agree with what Carnildo did, which was certainly wrong. Funny thing is if I had gone with what people referred to as a chummy decision I would have sided with you and Bishonen and ALoan, three people I have a lot of respect for, but doing that would actually have been the real thing that would have let people down because it would have meant compromising what I thought was right for the sake of people I like. - Taxman ^Talk 22:49, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Taxman -

Sorry for the screed below (not my first in recent weeks) but I wanted to reply to the above.

You may have noted, by the way, that I did not vote on this RFA - I can remember supporting an RFA on only a handful of times, and as far as I am aware I have never opposed anyone; neither was I involved in the pedo-userbox debacle as far as I remember - so you would not have been "chummy" with me by deciding the other way. I respect that you made a decision that you thought was right, but I am also very disappointed by it.

I deeply respect your contributions too; indeed, I have great respect for all of our bureaucrats (look, I still think you are "our" bureaucrats). While the position "only" denotes the ability to do a few extra administrative actions, any person who get the job has to have demonstrated a whole range of virtues to which I can only aspire, and understandably the entire community looks to you as a group for a lead.

I think you are agreeing above that there was no "consensus" for the promotion (I just fail to see how 39% of people objecting to any proposition can amount to consensus in favour of it - if you think it does, please let me know how) but that you wanted promote User:Carnildo anyway because he would make good use of admin powers for the benefit of the project. Well, I have no doubt that the majority of people who fail RFA would make good use of the admin functions (limited as they are), and I would support making many more people admins, but I don't get to make the decisions: the community does, through the agency of the bureaucrats. The community appointed bureaucrats to decide whether someone should be an admin, on the basis of community consensus. If the position has changed, and bureaucrats have now taken the discretion to appoint anyone they please as an admin (without, as far as I am aware, the community having any say in the matter) then we should just wipe RFA and its noxious fumes away and have a system where editors can ask bureaucrats for adminship on an ad hoc basis, and either get it or not.

What worries me more is that this whole debacle has exploded over a slew of Wikipedia:... pages, with collateral damage in all sorts of places, with hardly a peep from the bureaucrats. You have replied a few times to explain the position ("unfortunate argument ... temporary measure ... special consideration ... extenuating circumstances ... forgiveness and reconcilliation", "sometimes you just have to do the right thing", "Give us some credit that we didn't throw consensus out the window...", "there are not likely to be many if any future RfA's with such extraordinary circumstances") and User:Nichalp has added a few comments, but nothing strictly on point, and a stony slience from User:Angela, User:Essjay, User:Linuxbeak, User:Pakaran, User:Raul654 and the others - ignoring User:UninvitedCompany, who was the nominator - but a lot of comment from User:Tony Sidaway, User:Kelly Martin and others). Perhaps a tactical bureaucratic silence is intended to let the flames die out, although the fires are still smouldering as I write; perhaps the bureaucrats have no intention of displaying public disagreement with each other; but it would be very helpful to have an authoritative statement from the bureaucrats on their support of this decision, its basis (in terms of consensus or discretion), and if / how it affects future decisions. Is this just an exceptional case? What does RFA mean now?

But the worse thing is that you appear to be saying that an editor can make the most gross and unfounded allegationsm, indulge in heinous abuse of admin powers, display no remose, not apologise, and then expect everything to be all right and become an admin again. Well, there is a very strong component of opinion that it is not all right (more than enough, I would say, to prove that there is no consensus). I have great respect for the work that User:Carnildo does in straightening out our images, but he does not seem to know right from wrong. As the same time, I find that other people who I admire just as much are not given anywhere near as much slack in situations where their "crimes" are not nearly so culpable.

The general atmosphere here has gone to hell in a handbasket, and I have no idea how to stop it. -- ALoan (Talk) 00:08, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

I find the more I focus on the problems the more I think the place is imploding. When I let go of that and focus on the good things and how to move articles forward faster, it's still all pretty amazing. I'm particularly excited about the stable versioning experiments on the German wiki as I think that really has the potential to take the project to the next level if done right. Another of my favourite (spelled just for you) things to look at is the graphs from here, which in the end shows that after all the problems, we're still doing a lot right.

It's not hard to see why other bureaucrats are not commenting based on the degree of twisting words around, unfounded accusations, personal attacks, etc that have been going on. And I doubt you could find a case were someone made a non-repeated mistake (beyond all that happened in the incident that led to the rfarb) and then went on to produce such good work with no other serious mistakes that over a 100 people were willing to support them after making such a big mistake (or set of). You say you could, but I'd be surprised. - Taxman ^Talk 16:03, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

• What disturbs me most about this whole affair now is that were I advising an arbcommer how to survive this on a personal basis my advice would be to sit tight and say nothing, if the common herd don't like it they can leave, they will be replaced by some other short term editor who will write a few pages and then move on when disillusioned. The individual power of each individual arbcom member can only be maintained if the common herd is constantly turning over and changing, divide and rule and the "mob" will never become strong enough to drag the arbcom in a tumbril to explain their actions. Giano | talk 18:32, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for taking the time to respond. As I have said a couple of times, this is not a witchhunt, at least as far as I am concerned, and I also regret any personal attacks. I just want to understand what happpened, and why, and its implications.

I am sorry that words have been twisted and unfounded allegations made, but the rampant speculation is surely only a result of decisions being taken behind closed doors, with little or no transparency and so little subsequent comment from the people making the decisions. One of the most informative comments on WP:BN came from User:Kelly Martin, for goodness sake, who has no position, as far as I am aware, as a bureaucrat or on ArbCom: I have no idea why she should be involved in the discussion.

If you had simply said, "the level of support in this case is significantly below the level typically taken as a rough consensus for passing an RFA, but in this case we are using our discretion to make a one-off exception because there are so many exceptional circumstances, and we won't be doing it again unless equally exceptional cirucmstances arise" (which is what I think you are saying above) then so be it. But I really don't see how you claim that there was consensus in this case. By all means be bold and ignore all rules in the effort to improve the encyclopedia, but at least be open that that what you are doing.

On the wider question: I see an awful lot of pettiness and pettifogging bureaucracy emerging recently which is really depressing, not to mention agressiveness little short of edit warring from some quarters to have the last word or to get one's own way. Quite how someone who blocks others for incivility and personal attacks can give the impression of having so little self-knowledge (indeed, rank hypocrisy; not to mention a bullet-proof arrogance and flatly dismissive attitide to any criticism) frankly amazes me. WP:BULL all over . I will not name names, but you may be able to guess who I am talking about (and if I am blocked for a personal attack, well, gnothi seauton, as they say).

But, yes, there are lots of good things, and the WP:100K project is exactly the sort of thing to get people thinking about positive contributions. I can't help thinking that this massive eruption of discontentment will end in tears, one way or the other. But I suppose I am here for the duration. End of sermon. [please feel free to have a right of reply; otherwise, this correspondence is closed] -- ALoan (Talk) 20:16, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

• ALoan, dear boy, friend, I love you, but please wake up. "words have been twisted and unfounded allegations made" They knew all this was going to happen, a first year law student could have told them that, and probably did. The decision was not made lightly, all options were carefully considered (weren't they Taxman?). The arbcom, (all of them I suspect were in on this - even Angela - there are no innocents here) calculated and estimated the response from the "fickle and ill-informed populace." [3] . (note: no one has censored Kelly Martin for such a stupid error) How far dare they go? They have now taken a vow of silence, so must be judged or damned together. They will survive because as I have said they divide and rule, poor old Sidaway though they use him as their barometer. Even I am never that cruel - but he is getting away with blue murder - so they assess and calculate. Sinister isn't it? Doubtless the next comment will be Giano is paranoid! Well I am not, I smell a rat, I see a rat, and I don't like it one little bit. Giano | talk 20:53, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Rationale location

Hi, Taxman I was pleasantly surprised at Carnildo's promotion. I have my own ideas about why that was the right decision. With all the words flying around, I imagine your rationale must be here somewhere. I just haven't found it yet. Could you show me the dif so I can read it? Thanks, cheers, and happy editing. :) Dlohcierekim 14:19, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

It's all on WT:RFA though you have to pick through the volumes of discussion to find the comments from myself, Dan and Danny. - Taxman ^Talk 15:35, 14 September 2006 (UTC)