User talk:Iridescent

Jimmy and Lila, discussing the terms of her resignation.

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Not guilty

It wasn't me with the book, I would not ask Jimbo and the other anti-content people on the board for anything. Best,--Wehwalt (talk) 11:12, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

I know it was one of the FAC regulars—not sure who it was if it wasn't you (I know they gave Cas a load of Amazon vouchers to use as competition prizes at some point as well.) It's clear that both WMF and WMUK give out book-buying grants, but if there's a public record of who they've actually given them to, they're certainly keeping it well hidden. ‑ iridescent 11:24, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Unlike the T-shirts!--Wehwalt (talk) 11:45, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

I was never sure whether to feel pride or annoyance that I never got one of those T-shirts. (Not that I can think of much I'd be less likely to wear than a Wikipedia T-shirt, but that's missing the point.) ‑ iridescent 11:54, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

I did get one, though it took multiple people nominating me. Can't remember what happened to it. Probably fell crumpled in the bottom corner of the closet. I don't think I ever wore it other than as a workout shirt, often inside out. People aren't impressed.--Wehwalt (talk) 12:12, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Don't know what this is all about, but WMUK have several times given Amazon vouchers as prizes for Cas's Wikipedia:The Core Contest, which are all recorded on those pages. WMUK have also paid for a few books (total >£200?) for editing. There are lists somewhere on their site. Strictly they are WMUK property, and the full WMUK library is set out here, but many/most of these are donations, mainly by institutions, that cost WMUK nothing - all but one of those I hold for example. I don't think the WMF Individual Engagement Grants will cover many books. Johnbod (talk) 15:17, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

It's a discussion at WT:ADMIN, more proposals seeking The Fall of the House of Admin. It would be nice to have a fund that could pay for books with little paperwork, possibly run openly on wiki (let's say, $500 a month to start. That is, total for everyone). I'm fortunate to be the Wikipedia affiliate of my local university, which includes library privileges, but I still grumble about the traffic between here and there, and the parking. But there's always books where WorldCat says the nearest is 1,706 miles away ...--Wehwalt (talk) 15:40, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

It's been done, although the experience would be more streamlined in the US. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:15, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

It would have to be streamlined; you can't wait weeks on a book you need.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:36, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

WMUK require no "paperwork" at all, you just put up a case online, but only cover UK residents, & you'd need a wiki track record. Johnbod (talk) 16:42, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

I shall report to Calais and see about the residency. As for the track record, I've heard they have some there.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:34, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

I do like the "open fund" idea, although given the way things usually go on Wikipedia, I suspect if the discussions were held on-wiki it would quickly turn into a shouting match between supporters and opponents of the various editors tendering for the funds, and also create an unhealthy pressure on the recipients of the books to come up with the goods—sometimes, one starts to write something and soon after realises either that there's not enough to make a full-fledged and balanced article out of it (particularly if the book in question is the only significant work on the topic, but turns out to be heavily biased), or that the end product isn't going to justify the effort it will take.

One day, someone will explain to me just why "conflict of interest" and "paid editing" are such terrible things. Many years ago during the MyWikiBiz wars I asked why User:NumberOneBritneySpearsFan making a series of gushingly one-sided edits to Britney Spears is "community engagement" but User:Dave from RCA Records Press Department making strictly factual and non-contentious edits regarding sales figures or release dates on the same article is a heinous offense that justifies immediate banning. I've yet to see a convincing reply. ‑ iridescent 23:15, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

I think it has to do with the millennials being taught that profit is a bad thing. Very strange. The whole thing has inspired me to go on and improve an article on a fake disease, which I've just left at PR. That will show them. Now to find someone to pay me for it...--Wehwalt (talk) 03:02, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Blaming millenials... heh. I don't claim to speak for everyone who's concerned with paid editing/COI, but my perspective is informed by my experience as both a contributor to and a user of the peer-reviewed scholarly literature in my field. Right now, Wikipedia is where the biomedical literature was 10 or 20 years ago in terms of having our collective heads in the sand about COI issues. (At this point, one could generate a Wikipedia-specific version of COI bingo).

Unpaid tendentious editing is a problem and paid/COI editing is a problem - I don't think they're mutually exclusive concerns. At least there's general agreement that tendentious editing is problematic—making it marginally easier to deal with. In contrast, there's a lot of resistance and contrarianism when it comes to acknowledging the threat that paid/COI editing poses. Every serious reference or scholarly work has had to deal with the issue of COI, and we're uniquely vulnerable because of the pseudonymous open-editing model—but we're not willing to think seriously about it. The first step in dealing with a problem is admitting that it exists, and right now we're stuck on step zero. MastCell ^Talk 04:42, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

I think my ultimate objection is that it is being used to try to cut off all possibilities of making money by editing, or to make them so unattractive that they will not bear any fruit worth the eating. Should there be possibilities of compensation for creating significant quality content for one of the most-visited websites in the world? Can it be done in a way that will satisfy an uninvolved outside person's ethical scruples? I think it can. Would I take money say as a stipend and for expenses towards editing articles in a certain field? Possibly, but I doubt I'd go down that way until it was a well-worn path, with the rules and expectations clear. Money may be a bad idea for reasons having nothing to do with the POV issue being discussed ad nauseum, but I'm really discussing the general principle. As for the corporate COI bit, I suspect we are not heavily relied on for our corporate information, as there are better places people can go to find out more relevant details about a company. Like if they're open on Saturday, or if their service is good. I don't think it diminishes people's confidence in the articles on history, or video games, or battleships. Call it denial if you want.--Wehwalt (talk) 05:32, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

I agree with the above from Wehwalt, with the one exception of medical articles which is a place a paid bad actor could actually do some damage. It's been quite well documented that, many people take Wikipedia's medical coverage far more seriously than it deserves; inserting "xxxx is known to cure yyyy" and getting it to stay on the page would potentially have enough impact to distort the market in the US. (Specifically the US; it wouldn't have anywhere near the same impact in countries where medical purchasing decisions go via NICE or equivalent rather than the patient.) It would be an interesting, albeit grossly unethical, experiment to insert misinformation into a medical article along the lines of "the use of Vosene shampoo has been demonstrated to prevent hay fever" and see if it actually had an effect on sales.

@Mastcell, I have a feeling your view is slightly distorted by working in one of the few fields where COI does have the potential to have an impact—for most of Wikipedia, the motivation for something being written isn't really an issue except when third parties choose to make it so. For the vast majority of Wikipedia, the primary motivation for inserting distortions in articles is "I like it" or "I dislike it", and that has a far more corrosive effect.

To take a completely non-random example, when the British Museum was offering payments to anyone who took an article on one of their exhibits to FA, it would clearly breach either of the proposed new rules (admins are not allowed to accept payment for any services on Wikipedia. Do not believe those who claim to be admins and ask for money. or No administrator may accept payment to edit articles or to perform any administrative function on Wikipedia.) but I fail to see any actual problem caused by it—yes, it possibly caused some editors who would ordinarily have worked on something else to choose to work on BM material instead, and thus caused a notional detriment to those other subjects, but you'd be hard-pressed to demonstrate it. I'm not sure the "no payments" hardliners really understand just how much Wikipedia relies on paid editing, and just how difficult it is to separate paid editing from paid advocacy—Sue Gardner did try at one point, but was overtaken by events.

(My Cassandra/Jeremiah combo a few threads up looks less paranoid in the wake of this latest crusade, doesn't it? If anyone wants a vision of what Wikipedia 2016 would look and feel like were this proposal to be accepted, just imagine a world in which any talkpage disagreement which happened to involve an admin triggered a process that looked like Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Tree shaping and lasted just as long.) ‑ iridescent 11:14, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

I'd be willing to grant special status for medical articles, or even the need for special scrutiny. However, the practical effect of tagging pursuant to the terms of use amendments is not special scrutiny, but a scarlet letter. Since FAC is a consensus process, I can't afford to bring in articles that will attract hostility for reasons having nothing to do with their content. But when I see the sums of money being thrown around, and being accepted by some ... well, all I can say is that Avery Brundage was not a hypocrite on amateurism because he wouldn't even take his expense. There are some who make large sums by trading off their connection with Wikipedia, and oddly they are among those most active in seeking to cut off opportunities of members of the community. Well not some, a few. Well, not a few, one.--Wehwalt (talk) 12:40, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

I guess as a doctor I see Mastcell's and Doc James POV...some of the stuff I see is terrible. However, I am also aligned with Wehwalt's and iri's POV. I spent alot of my youth being shit-broke and it enrages me when we can sti and watch lots of famous people and business leaders get huge bonuses and then begrudge a few pennies to others...part of the new monetocracy where the rich and famous get to shit on the poor more overtly than at any time since the early 20th century. I do think we need some structure but not sure of best wording as yet. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:43, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Is the terrible stuff you see in the medical articles really the result of paid editing, though? It's not an area in which I've spent a lot of time, but in my experience the main problems in medical articles are that "eating raw coffee beans cures cancer" Daily Mail-type folk remedies find their way into articles as fact, and that there's a pervasive Teach the Controversy mentality among a clique of very vocal editors which means new-age woo gets given equal billing with experimentally proven treatments and those who try to remove it get ganged up on.

Per a comment I made somewhere else once, an intelligent paid editor from a drug company wanting to slant a medical article could work entirely within NPOV; expand the MiracleDrug article until it's so big it needs to be split, create separate Benefits of MiracleDrug and Drawbacks of MiracleDrug articles with equal weight and prominence; then, get the former up to GA followed by FA, giving it two slots on the mainpage while encouraging other people to link to it. (FAs always have more incoming links than non-FAs on equivalent topics, just because more people know they exist to link to.) At no point in this process has the editor breached any policy, and likewise at no point has admin status been an issue. ‑ iridescent 08:51, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Actually the Daily Mail's cancer coverage is not that bad these days, for a tabloid - latest example. When I was at Cancer Research UK there was a lot of talk between them & CRUK people checking stories. Sites like The (New) Daily Mail Oncological Ontology Project, a Reddit joke page ("an ongoing quest to track the Daily Mail's classification of inanimate objects into two types: those that cause cancer, and those that cure it." - last entry 2010) seem to have petered out. Fiona Macrae has a degree in medical microbiology apparently. A scientist analyses one of her stories here. My impression was that the big UK charities have most of the UK media pretty well trained to check the significance of stories with them. Johnbod (talk) 12:39, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

The Mail may have finally dropped that particular ball, but never fear, 'the Express is here to pick it up. ‑ iridescent 21:03, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Even those aren't so bad by American standards. Even "Death diet: Now chips, toast, crisps, biscuits and coffee give you cancer" reflects pretty faithfully what the European Food Safety Agency or whoever said. It's the university & agency press departments who are to blame if you ask me, pushing this stuff down the throats of journalists. My favourite "how accurate is Wikipedia?" study, some years ago, was a large survey of the members of the American Society of Toxicologists (or similar) who rated WP 2nd to a Medscape type site, a bit ahead of the Food and Drug Administration and way ahead of the New York Times etc. Journalists can't resist story. Johnbod (talk) 22:21, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

If the matter was being approached from the standpoint of "We must make necessary exceptions to the general rule that what an editor does with his time, whether he chooses to sell it if he can, is his own business," I'd be OK with it. But it's being approached from the opposite standpoint, the Avery Brundage perspective that amateurism is good and necessary, and must be enforced, and maybe we'll let you have a cheap T-shirt if you're good and don't get out of line. Oh, and possibly you can get compensation, if they give Jimbo a few hundred thousand in prize money if they share Wikipedia's mission. Good luck to any group conservative enough to provoke a social media howl there, given the present makeup of the board. They'd fold like a lawn chair.--Wehwalt (talk) 09:50, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Indeed. If those cheerleading for amateurism were genuine believers in the "Wikipedia is an artefact of pure knowledge and shouldn't be tainted by any external influence" concept, I still wouldn't agree with them but I'd at least have some sympathy with their position. However, given how many people at high levels have their snouts in the trough, I find it very hard to get excited. One of the many great low points of Wikipedia was Sarah Stierch being fired for taking a $300 payment, by a man who pimps himself out as a "brand ambassador". ‑ iridescent 10:03, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Well, now Jimbo owes me for a keyboard. That advertisement made me physically ill. It actually struck me as a fair policy if you said no one with admin or "higher" permissions, and no board members, could make money off their connection with Wikipedia, including a) allowing their name to be advertised in connection with it, b) mentioning Wikipedia in speeches, and c) accept any prizes or compensation with a retail value of more than 99p. They are of course free to resign board membership and permissions at any time and go in with both front trotters. Their business. Seriously, I think a fair policy for paid editing would be disclosure to the Arbitration Committee, in confidence, with a defined procedure as to what would happen if they thought there was a problem.--Wehwalt (talk) 10:24, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

But these are two very different situations, which you're conflating. In Jimbo's case, his prominence enables him to make money by endorsing products in advertisements. I understand that these transactions occasion distaste (and envy) among some volunteer contributors. But that's very different from taking money in exchange for editing article content, without disclosing the arrangement. It's beyond apples and oranges, and I'm worried that there's a fundamental disconnect between how I view the COI issue and how you guys view it. I don't have a problem with people making money off Wikipedia per se, and I can't even begin to understand why you'd propose to prohibit people from mentioning Wikipedia in speeches or appearing in advertisements. I have a problem with people accepting money in exchange for editing articles. It's not about "amatuerism"; it's about the integrity of our content, and whether we care enough about it to think more seriously about COIs. We'd need to start by distinguishing COI editing from appearing in a watch advertisement. MastCell ^Talk 05:18, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

I was thinking about a reply, but after I hit the the word "envy", I will not bother. Agree that we see things differently and leave it at that.--Wehwalt (talk) 07:46, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Ditto, if you seriously think this dispute is motivated by envy of Jimbo. If you don't think Jimmy Wales accepting cash to appear in an advert is relevant to this then you've misunderstood what's under discussion, as under the proposed new COI policy that would be grounds to summarily ban him from Wikipedia.

In a nutshell, I think "Conflict of interest" occurs when an editor has an external incentive to slant coverage of a topic in a particular direction, and that external incentive can be anything from an outright financial inducement, to a fan wanting to airbrush mention of their team losing badly, to someone who disapproves of something trying to remove mention of it; and that whether a COI exists is not particularly affected either by whether cash has actually changed hands, or by the user rights of the editor. To the proposers of this amendment, "Conflict of interest" exists when an admin (specifically only an admin, not a vanilla editor) accepts a material reward of any kind in connection with anything done on Wikipedia ("admins are *not* allowed to accept payment for any services on Wikipedia" is the exact wording proposed, complete with asterisks), which would most certainly cover Jimmy Wales's adventures on stage and screen (unless you think that whenever he turns up on TV the producers have no interest in Wikipedia, but are seeking his experience as proprietor of a porn site guy-oriented website). ‑ iridescent 09:00, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

I do not envy Jimbo; I have no interest in having his life or being him, nor do I particularly mind him making money. Except that it is us that is making Jimbo someone who a company can profitably dub a "brand ambassador". Jimbo is known, I believe, to carp that he has not been compensated a la Zuckerberg. Possibly, but Zuckerberg at least has the good grace not to slam the door in the face of the opportunities of the people who made him wealthy. We do work that not all can do, that is the face of one of the top ten websites in the world that has gained a dominance that should keep it in place for the foreseeable future. And I'm out of pocket for the book I bought for my last article because I couldn't get it from a local library. What sort of a penny-ante operation does that?--Wehwalt (talk) 10:27, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Yes, that. The WMF's attempts simultaneously to ride the horses of the cult of professionalism and the cult of amateurism was just about credible when Wikipedia was smaller. Now it's a powerful and wealthy global brand with well over a hundred highly paid staff, attempts by a group of people who are extremely well paid for their own work to demand that other people working in exactly the same area be not only censured, but actively punished, if someone so much as pays for their lunch as a thank you,* is going to work about as well as it did in sport. I don't begrudge donating time to Wikipedia—nobody forces anyone to be here—but I do begrudge a bunch of people who make a living off Wikipedia, demanding the right to decide who is permitted join the ranks of those who profit from other people's work.
*No, this isn't hyperbole; "If you could afford to, I would expect you to disgorge yourself of the entire cost of the meal." is a direct quote from one of the proponents of this change when asked the "what if someone buys me lunch as a thank-you?" question.

Incidentally, does I do accept travel costs for speaking events by organizations that can afford them—a direct quote from the userpage of the admin who actually started this whole idea—constitute "accepting payment"? As NE Ent has pointed out, he already appears on the T-shirt list, and since the T-shirt in question costs $15 or £14 (interesting mark-up there, WMF, since the current exchange rate is $1.54=£1) that's certainly going to be well over the de minimis line being proposed.

(In researching the cost of those shirts, I have just discovered for the first time that The Wikipedia Store is a thing. Even the people modelling the shirts look embarrassed to be associated with them. It does fill one with confidence to know that the WMF is dealing with a reputable-sounding organization like "our fulfillment partner, SWAGBOT", though.) ‑ iridescent 17:08, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

wow, the wikipedia jacket comes with a free cat Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 01:13, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

I just looked at it. We sell Wikipedia pencils, Wikipedia notebooks. We do not sell Wikipedia tablet cases, or anything else that smacks of the 21st century. The irony.--Wehwalt (talk) 01:49, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

That did occur to me; there are so many little touches like "make the stickers the right size and shape for the reverse of commonly used phones" that could be done, but aren't; there is literally not a single thing for sale there that would look out of place in 1970. I get that they want to keep costs low (and have a sneaking suspicion that the "accessories" section is whatever tchotchke freebies were left behind on the Wikipedia stall at whatever was the last trade show Jimbo attended), but what kind of signal does it send out when (1) the most high-tech thing being sold by an organization which sells itself as being on the cutting edge of technology is a "plantable pencil" (is that even legal? AFAIK most countries take a very dim view of anyone importing seeds from overseas without a permit), and (2) that an organization which is forever promoting itself as the greatest repository of high quality images in history sells clothing which is so damn ugly—"You could look like one of these people" is surely not a sales pitch that is going to appeal to many of our readers.* (@Cas, you're the medic but it looks to me like that cat is either seriously obese, or has swallowed an ostrich egg.) ‑ iridescent 16:27, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
*No disrespect intended to the four people in the photo, whom I'm sure look perfectly normal the rest of the time and are just hapless WMF interns who've been press-ganged into trying to fake enthusiasm for the copy of How Wikipedia Works being held by the woman in the middle. (If How Wikipedia Works really meets WP:Notability (books) I'm a cabbage, incidentally.)

Ho ho - the $15 teeshirt is now £9.72. Never say the WMF don't listen to what you say. Johnbod (talk) 03:36, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

I suspect I accidentally looked at the Euro or Kroner pricing. I may have an overinflated opinion of myself, but I greatly doubt the WMF are going to change their pricing policy based on my say-so. ‑ iridescent 16:27, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

• I would also tack on a business editor's community service, requiring them to make meaningful contributions in other topic areas. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 10:41, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Goya

It seems I made a mess at TFA. And was short with you. Ahem. I dont really care about the scheduling, fwiw, and Brian had a point. Ceoil (talk) 07:23, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Don't worry about it. 31 Oct and 1 Apr have always made tempers fray for as long as I can remember, since there are legitimate arguments both ways. ‑ iridescent 08:37, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Happy Adminship Anniversary

	Happy Adminship	from the Birthday Committee
	Wishing User:Iridescent a very happy adminship anniversary on behalf of the Wikipedia Birthday Committee! -- Vatsan34 (talk) 04:43, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Eight years, how depressing. ‑ iridescent 18:50, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Help us improve wikimeets by filling in the UK Wikimeet survey!

Hello! I'm running a survey to identify the best way to notify Wikimedians about upcoming UK wikimeets (informal, in-person social meetings of Wikimedians), and to see if we can improve UK wikimeets to make them accessible and attractive to more editors and readers. All questions are optional, and it will take about 10 minutes to complete. Please fill it in at:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/JJMNVVD

Thanks! Mike Peel (talk) 17:51, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Replied, will leave this notification here in case anyone else wants to fill it in. ‑ iridescent 18:49, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Thank you! Mike Peel (talk) 18:50, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Ref desks, main space

Hi, I saw you pinged me at ANI, but I thought I should place this comment here:

That's a cool tool at WMF labs, thanks I was not aware of it. But let me be very clear - edits to mainspace mean nothing about the value of a user to the ref desks. Let me use myself as an example.

1. I'm very active on the ref desks
2. I provide more refs in total and more per response than most users
3. I give more scholarly refs per week than anyone I can think of
4. I have tons of thanks in threads and on talk pages
5. I am almost always AGF and CIVIL
6. I rarely run my mouth about things that I don't know. When I do, I clearly flag it, and I welcome sourced correction

Essentially, I do it right, and I make the ref desk a better place. And yet I almost never edit mainspace [1], but that doesn't mean I'm not an excellent ref desk respondent. Do you think I'm a bad influence on the ref desk? Do you think I should be topic banned? I hope not. So please don't imply that not editing mainspace much makes someone a poor ref desk respondent :) SemanticMantis (talk) 16:14, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Apples and oranges. Your edits are answers to people's questions; his edits are semicoherent ravings like this. I don't think anyone except SMW himself is claiming that his refdesk edits aren't at best extreme stupidity, and at worst intentional trolling, so the issue at hand is whether there's anything worthwhile in his history that makes it worth the effort of topic banning him (which means monitoring and enforcement) rather than just indeffing him and sending him off to Wikipedia Review to play with the other cranks. ‑ iridescent 16:56, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Fair enough. I guess I misinterpreted your original comment a bit, thanks for clarifying. SemanticMantis (talk) 18:32, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

What on earth are you talking about

I seriously have no idea what you are talking about. --S Philbrick(Talk) 22:32, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

I guess I was supposed to notice that the but owner was blocked. I didn't.

I saw an edit which didn't make sense to me. I spent more time than it deserved trying to track down what the edit was intended to accomplish. Then I realize the edit remove some important information and that irritated me. I was pretty unhappy but I thought I'd left a reasonably worded request to explain the edit. Yes I missed that the editor was blocked. Your lack of AGF is showing. To the best of my knowledge I've never interacted with this editor before so I wasn't trying to get in a "kick". I simply wanted to know why someone was running a bot that was making inappropriate edits. It is highly likely that it wasn't an intentional error, but I wanted to let the bot owner know that they were potentially creating problems. Have we interacted in a negative way before? If so, I don't recall it, so I don't understand your ABF attitude.--S Philbrick(Talk) 22:46, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

You failed to notice the blanked talkpage, failed to notice the  WARNING: This page has been protected so that only users with administrative rights can make edits. Admins are advised to check the current version of the protection policy before making an edit , failed to notice the bright red edit window that appears when you try to edit an full-protected page, and edited through full-protection to berate a retired and indefblocked editor about a six-week old edit which had no effect other than the specific purpose for which the bot was approved at BRFA—and where the edit summary for the edit in question even linked to the relevant BRFA so anyone with any queries would know where to find it (and without even bothering to tell him what the edit in question was, presumably assuming that in the event he did come back and read his talkpage he'd guess what you were talking about)? You're right, my AGF is not high. I have a low opinion of the editor in question and feel Wikipedia is better off without his constant sniping and arguing, but that doesn't mean I feel policy—let alone basic courtesy—no longer applies to him just because he's blocked. ‑ iridescent 23:03, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

I was reviewing my watchlist which by definition are recent edits. I realize now it was an older edit – I haven't reconstructed how I got from my watchlist to that page but my mindset was recent edits. It was the most recent edit on that article, so it didn't jump out at me that it was not a recent edit. The edit itself was very hard to parse, in theory that's the whole point of a death is to let you know what's changed but so many things are moved around I couldn't figure it out easily and didn't want to take the time to lay them the down side by side and figure out what was going on. It looked a lot like an edit from an editor interested in bulking up edit counts – and edit that looks like there's a lot of activity but nothing much actually happens. The edit message "split team/years in infobox..." Wasn't very informative. I wanted to know what was going on. So I decided to ask.

The talk page was blank but that simply reminded me of an interaction with a editor I had a few days before where I left copyright notices on their talk page and they blanked them out. Acceptable but annoying. It seemed like I had run into yet another editor who seem to think that a blank talk page was a positive. I saw some red but didn't read the notice – I knew I was trying to contact the editor associated with the bot and in the past, but operators often have prominent notices on the bot page to make sure you contact the editor rather than the bot. I just assumed it was something along that line.

I disagree that I was berating the editor. I was pointing out that they made an edit that they may not have intended and wanted to alert them to this, as well is wanted to know what the edit was intended to achieve. I have no opinion of the editor – to my knowledge I've never interacted with him or her before. I was following policy – when you don't know something ask.

Yes I miss that it was protected. That was my bad. A reversion, along with a polite note did you miss that you are editing a protected page, and I'd be apologizing to you for missing it. Instead I'm in a pisspoor mood because I got a lot of crap to do and now I've got several hundred more edits to review because they may be problematic and I'm being dumped on for trying to look into a possible problem. Have a nice day.--S Philbrick(Talk) 01:11, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) You missed a whole bunch of very frustrating context, and that sounds like a whole string of unnecessarily, well, ABF suspicions. But anyway, if I can be useful for once, the point of the edit was to split up pseudo-lists in infoboxes in order to fix markup that is not accessible to screen-readers. It looks like in this case the parameter names were corrected (and others reordered) but there were no pseudo-lists in the teams or years parameters to fix. (Also looks like they didn't get to the tournaments and awards, which have the same issue.) I imagine the removal of hidden comments was unintentional. Opabinia regalis (talk) 03:33, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Thank You

For this. I had just spent over an hour reading her talk page, and looking through contribs. looking for that. Sad; especially to see an admin. perpetuating that. Thank you for asking outright where it should be asked. With respect, — Ched :  ?  19:07, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

It confused me when I saw it, as it just didn't sound like the kind of thing she'd say—I've certainly seen her flare out and snap at people, but in my experience she always insults people's abilities ("you're an idiot") rather than just being generically rude. This RFA appears to have reached the point in which those who want it to fail are throwing whatever mud they can find, in the hope something sticks. It certainly hasn't escaped my notice that, in the last RFA in which the opposers were accused of using that tactic, the 'crats used a supervote to disregard (sorry, "seriously downgrade") the oppose section and claim that despite the numbers the RFA had passed. ‑ iridescent 19:19, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

I don't think that's very likely in this case. I was rather surprised to see how many times I was mentioned in her RfA though. Where is my cult when I need them? Eric Corbett 19:44, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

I feel like I am mentioned even more, if not by name then as "friend", "mate" etc. Wish I had not touched Joseph. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:25, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

(ec) The same myth appears in the first line of oppose #1, much more visible than #80. How about questioning there? With a "diff" (diffs are holy, they prove everything) which proves nothing. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:25, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I agree with both points. In fact I had, moments before your post, emailed Montanabw asking for the diff. (regardless of the RfA merits, I've never known her to be dishonest.) As to your second observation, I also had questions. (Having not been particularly active at that point, my thoughts were posted in the neutral section). — Ched :  ?  19:29, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

@Gerda, Oppose #1 is misleading but technically accurate (it doesn't say she used the term itself, but that she expressed agreement). Plus, #1 includes other grounds for opposing, with which I don't necessarily agree but which at least sets out an argument why he thinks MBW shouldn't be an admin. (There is a certain "the biter bit" irony, in light of incidents with which I know the two of you are familiar, about MBW being harassed by a disruptive "new account" about whom the admins/arbs are unable to take any action owing to WP:AGF.) @Ched, the only way this one is ever going to pass is if the support percentage is so high nobody can dispute it; the 'crats are human too, and the lack of recent turnover among their number means that whoever closes this will be someone with a memory long enough to remember WP:QAI's harassment campaign (and no, that's not too strong a term) against Raul654. ‑ iridescent 19:38, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Raul645, I thought he left a happy man, "I have better things to do with my time ..." (19 August), just married, fond of cats. If there was a campaign, I didn't notice. I took a look at his last archive, searching for my name: all amicable talk. I was member #5. - Actually, I came to the same conclusion, not leaving, but having also better things to do with my time. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:13, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Yes, at the least most, and perhaps all of the campaign (can't remember) was after he'd ceased to edit anything to do with FAs, and was very largely prompted by that fact. Johnbod (talk) 15:16, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

I remember article collaboration on Horst von der Goltz, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:38, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

By the way - I think I do want to respond to this; however, I may choose email over on-wiki for obvious reasons. — Ched :  ?  01:11, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks

Good job on Dblack wiki Pepdonald (talk) 05:53, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

You're very welcome, although I'll warn you that its tone is quite promotional and it probably needs to be cleaned up. D-Black if any talk page watcher fancies having a go. ‑ iridescent 21:20, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Today's featured article/October 12, 2015

A summary of yet another Featured Article you nominated at WP:FAC will appear on the Main Page soon. It mostly follows the lead section; how does it look? - Dank (push to talk) 15:57, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

@Dank, I've made one minor change to the wording, changing "Polish-born" to "Polish"—to me, "Polish-born" implies that he was a Polish citizen, but Poland in this period wasn't a country but an ethnic group spread across an ever-changing mix of nations.

Yes, and that was the one edit that wasn't mine :) - Dank (push to talk) 20:26, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Needless, to say, this one is a dead cert to be vandalised to hell and back if it goes on the main page, as well as probably attracting assorted complaints that I've made the story up. (When its sister article Tarrare was at DYK, it prompted this.) I'm unlikely to be available on the day, so would appreciate it if any talk page watchers could watchlist this (and its sister articles Tarrare and Daniel Lambert) and admin TPWs be prepared to semiprotect it. Given the potential offensiveness of the topic (the story is well-documented, including by a then-obscure journalist called Charles Dickens, and the article sticks scrupulously to the sources, but some readers are certain to assume it's meant as an anti-Polish propaganda piece, while others will likely see it as an attempt to belittle those with eating disorders), also pinging the long-suffering User:Mdennis (WMF) for info, as she'll presumably be the one who has to deal with the complaints. ‑ iridescent 20:15, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Hey, your work made it into Dinosaur Comics, you're famous! I'll post this request at ERRORS the day before, we'll have lots of help if needed. - Dank (push to talk) 20:30, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, that article completed the double of being pilloried by Dinosaur Comics and being plagiarised very closely paraphrased by Stephen Fry. I give it 3 minutes 45 seconds between going on the main page and appearing at TIL. Bizarrely, Charles Domery is a FA on a respectable number of different language Wikipedias, despite being about the niche-est topic imaginable. ‑ iridescent 21:46, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Given that a great proportion of vandalism is probably perpetrated by bored schoolchildren, has anyone considered adopting a practice of running the more "interesting" mainpage FAs on weekends? Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:58, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Hi NYB. I'm just a copyeditor. Pinging Chris. - Dank (push to talk) 22:21, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

• My experience has been that the community is generally good at keeping the worst of the vandalism away. The last article we were concerned would have a rough time on the MP, JC's Girls, ended up having a fairly normal TFA day. Is this a sign that Wikipedia's changed since 2010 (when Tarrare ran in DYK)? Quite probably. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 23:09, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

• It's hard to predict vandalism patterns, as it depends to a large extent on pageviews which in turn depend on what other websites happen to pick up on. Sometimes things which look like pure vandal-bait go through untouched, while things that one would assume are routine happen to draw the ire of Reddit or 4chan. With all due respect to Ealdgyth, unless one is already interested in 1950s horse racing Miss Meyers makes Wood Siding railway station look thrilling, but she came under the kind of dusk-to-dawn IP attack on would expect from running a pop star or unpopular politician, while Aylesbury duck, which I was expecting to attract quite a bit of both vandalism and good-faith errors, sailed through virtually untouched.

  I think the vandalism problem is certainly less bad than it was in my day, both because the novelty of "anyone can edit" has worn off, and because IPs being locked out of templates has made many of the types of vandalism Cluebot couldn't handle a lot more difficult. Plus, the "nothing on the main page can ever be protected" mentality seems a lot less prevalent than it was.

  @NYB, I know that on at least one occasion Bencherlite intentionally scheduled an article (Fuck) for when the schools were closed, although that was less a matter of avoiding vandalism and more of trying to prevent a repeat of the Virgin Killer incident, given how hair-trigger the site-blocking software used by schools is and how much hay certain people would have made from "Wikipedia banned from use in schools owing to obscenity". ‑ iridescent 09:36, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

71th

Not really an error because it didn't make things worse, but this edit ideally would have been caught to change "71th" to "71st". Cheers, Jenks24 (talk) 13:36, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

(TPS) A bot or script that is set up to fix one particular typo, by definition, won't catch anything else.... Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:34, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

All AWB edits should be manually reviewed before hitting save page. Now that sounds kind of critical and it's not what I was going for here. The intention of my message was really to say "you missed this, something that can happen to anyone, especially when doing fast-paced semi-automatic edits, and I thought you'd like to know so you can keep an eye out for it in the future". Jenks24 (talk) 14:47, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

What NYB said—regex scripts can only go so far, and the GIGO principle applies. Possibly with General fixes enabled it would catch these, but I intentionally keep genfixes turned off when running MOS-standardisation scripts as it triggers too many false positives and annoying pointless "fixes". I always check the preview to ensure it's not correcting an intentional misspelling, quotation, proper name etc, and to ensure I'm not unintentionally correcting the formatting of a piece of vandalism, but for a run like this—which is specifically about making the hyphenation MOS compliant and any other changes are just a by-product—I'm not looking closely at the context. ‑ iridescent 22:48, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Yemen-Iran

Consider the source: ... an unsourced report from state-owned Aden television. Sca (talk) 21:44, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

"State owned" is certainly not a synonym for "accurate"—by that logic, E4 would be a reliable news source. That something is state-owned says nothing about its quality—try watching Italian TV some time. ‑ iridescent 21:53, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Understand, my point was that "state-owned" makes a medium prima facie suspect. Sca (talk) 14:44, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

Not necessarily—I think that may be a product of your being in the US, where state-run media is minimal. In most countries, much if not most of the media is state-owned; in the UK for instance, which is hardly a hotbed of corporatism, of the 14 TV channels with an audience share above 1% (see right) seven and a half are state-owned including three of the top four (the "half" is Dave, which is 50% state-owned and 50% private). "State owned" doesn't mean "state controlled"; all it reflects is that in most countries, there's a general feeling that private control potentially compromises editorial independence. ‑ iridescent 16:01, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

Understood. Sca (talk) 16:27, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

smiles

I saw your conversation on Eric's page, and thought you might enjoy this. — Ched :  ?  19:11, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

It took me an embarrassingly long time to realise that that was the watermelon guy. ‑ iridescent 04:07, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

The motivation/interest (or lack thereof) of editors

Enough. The original thread is thataway, in the unlikely event that anyone other than the OP believes this is a discussion that warrants continuing.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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While I appreciate the sentiment of your comment, there was no need to misrepresent what I'd said for added effect - at no point did I suggest what I was asking was going to be easy, or should be the product of someone just making up a new article. I've left a more detailed comment at the project page. Kristian Jenn (talk) 14:55, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) For the benefit of Iridescent's other TPSs, that's Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Railways#Privatisation of British Rail. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:02, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

Your exact words were My best suggestion is to not even start with what's in the current article, it's that bad - just write a new one from scratch, with a clear structure in mind, and only when that's done, see if there's anything in the current article that warrants keeping. I really don't want to check back in a year's time and see this frankly horrific article in largely the same state., in the context of explaining that while you personally weren't going to do any work on it yourself, you insisted that someone else do a complete rewrite of an 7500-word article on a politically sensitive current event, and without even bothering to say what you thought was wrong with the existing article or where you expect the person doing said rewrite to find sources. Writing Wikipedia articles isn't just a case of Googling the topic and cut-&-pasting what you find, and this is a topic on which no significant book has been published (other than Wolmar, but as a high-ranking Labour activist he can't be considered NPOV on the topic).

Just writing the introductory background section alone would mean trawling through and summarising 15 years worth of specialist magazines from 1979–94, since one doesn't just need to explain why Major pulled the trigger but also why Thatcher didn't; one would also need to write something about Sealink, Seaspeed and Eurotunnel which would need a completely different set of specialist knowledge. Then, of course, one would at least have to mention the ancillary disposals, ranging from BREL to Travellers Fare to Red Star.

That would be the first section; one would then need to do the same level of research with regard to the actual process in the 1990s, with the additional issue of having to wade through the British Newspaper Archive to summarise contemporary commentary; after that, one would then have to summarise 20 years worth both of specialist financial reporting and of political reports on internal debates within three separate political parties (four if you include the SNP), regarding refranchising, the renationalisation of Railtrack, the chain of decisions that led Blair and Brown to keep the railways in private hands despite ideological opposition, and the complex and troubled relationships between DfT on the one hand and the Mayor of London, the Scottish Government, and the big northern Passenger Transport Executives on the other. (This would, inter alia, mean trying to summarise Brian Souter's impact on transport policy, and good luck finding neutral sources for that.)

After that, one would be left with writing a legacy section; this would mean not only trying to create a coherent and unbiased explanation of both the pro and anti views, for a topic on which there has been much verbiage spouted by politicians but very little academic research, but also having to research the impact on other rail privatisations and restructurings, which in turn would mean researching specialist financial and industrial journals, many in foreign languages.

Starting from a WP:TNT tabula rasa as you propose, I'd estimate that just writing a minimal summary of the topic would take an specialist editor who already had a good knowledge of both the industry and the politics involved at least a month. To get a topic like this up to GA/FA level, I'd conservatively estimate six months to a year, and I'm not convinced it would even be possible as it's a topic for which unbiased sources are difficult to find (as with many topics of the Thatcher–Major era, people writing about it tend either to be passionate supporters, or fanatical opponents).

TLDR summary: if anything, my reply to you was overly polite. If you seriously think a single purpose account turning up out of the blue, insulting the work of other people (I believe you called the authors of the existing article "borderline criminal") and demanding it be rewritten without even bothering to make any suggestions as to what you think should be changed, is appropriate behaviour, then Wikipedia is probably not the place for you.

Just to put this in perspective, this discussion is about an article whose average readership is roughly half that of the biography of Barack Obama's dog. ‑ iridescent 15:55, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

Well, I'll keep this brief as I think you're just intentionally trying to piss me off. I'll say it again, because you're apparently not listening - I didn't say it wouldn't be hard, and I didn't say it wouldn't take time. Selectively quoting me won't change that basic fact. I also didn't call anyone a criminal, WTF is that nonsense? I said the state the article is in is borderline criminal, and I don't really think I need to expand on that given you've illustrated pretty well above what a good article on this topic would contain. I have no idea why you think no significant books or research have been published on this topic, I find that an amazing claim on the face of it. Unbelievable even. I will put your assumption that I would be happy for people to just dump whatever they can find in Google into the article down to the fact you obviously think I'm some kind of moron. The fact is, I'm really not stupid (I've got the Masters degree and £40k salary to prove it). As for bias, you just have to be sure to clearly identify what's an undisputed fact, what's a disputed fact, and what's just opinion. It's not exactly rocket science. As an aside, arguing that the relative popularity of Obama's dog means this topic is unimportant, has to be the stupidest thing I've read in a long time. Kristian Jenn (talk) 17:22, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

So where are these supposed significant books and research? You seem very good at claiming something is do-able, and not so good at suggesting how to do it; other than Wolmar's Broken Rails and On the Wrong Line (which he openly admits were written with an agenda in mind), the only potential books I can think of are All Change and The Privatisation of British Rail which are 15 and 18 years out of date respectively, Railpolitik, British Rail: The Nation's Railway and Work Identity at the End of the Line, all three of which are are expressly written from a hardline anti viewpoint, a few dry-as-dust papers from think tanks, and the Ian Allan "Story" trilogy which does meet WP:RS, but all three of which are written by ex-BR officials and have NPOV issues of their own. (And no, neutrality does not mean you just have to be sure to clearly identify what's an undisputed fact, what's a disputed fact, and what's just opinion, it means you have to fairly and proportionately represent the different views on the topic, which on a topic like transit privatisation is easier said than done since most people writing about it are either strongly in favour or strongly opposed.)

To reiterate, this is a volunteer project and wandering around insulting people and issuing demands is not going to encourage people to want to help you; among Wikipedia's currently-active editors there are probably ten who understand both the political and the engineering/intrastructure management aspects of the issue, and the more arcane aspects of wiki editing, well enough to rewrite Privatisation of British Rail from scratch, and by my count in your 36-edit Wikipedia career you've so far alienated three of them with a fourth pointedly ignoring you. You could try asking at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains to see if anyone is willing to help you (WP:UKRAIL is fairly moribund), but unless you're actually able to explain what you think the problem is, how you think it should be addressed, why you feel it's important somebody devote this level of effort to such a low-traffic page, and why if it's so important you're not doing it yourself—none of which you've thus far done—you're unlikely to get a very polite reply. ‑ iridescent 08:52, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

PROMYS page

SandManMattSH 02:02, 9 October 2015 (UTC) You recently deleted a page for a HS program I am familiar with. If I were to write a well-cited page for this program, would you reinstate the page? If so, how can I use the existing (now deleted) page as a starting point? Please excuse me if it is poor protocol to edit a User talk page like this, but I was not sure what to do. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MattSH (talk • contribs)

MattSH, assuming you mean Program in Mathematics for Young Scientists, that was deleted under the proposed deletion process—as you've now contested the deletion, I've restored the original article for you to work on. Bear in mind that it's likely to be deleted again if the issues aren't addressed—it needs to demonstrate that the topic has received significant coverage in sources not connected to the subject, which it fails to do at the moment. ‑ iridescent 06:00, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Iridescent, this edit won't notify MattSH, however this edit will. You need to add the user link and a new signature in the same edit - overtyping an existing signature won't work. --Redrose64 (talk) 09:47, 9 October 2015 (UTC)