User talk:DGG

“ One person at a time, one article at a time ”

“ I am very gratified to have learned that so many people seem to like me, but even more gratified that they understand and like (or at least tolerate) the work I'm trying to do. ” —  at my RfA

/Archive 1 Sept-Dec. 2006 ,/Archive 2 Jan.-Feb. 2007, /Archive 3 Mar.-Apr. 2007, /Archive 4 May 2007 /Archive 5 June 2007; /Archive 6 July 2007; /Archive 7 Aug. 2007;/Archive 8 Sept. 2007;/Archive 9 Oct. 2007; /Archive 0.1 (Journal talk), /Archive 0.2 (Speedy talk), /Archive 0.3 (IPC talk),

(some still current material from these pages is below:) :

Please post messages at the bottom of the page

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Blood libel

Thanks for your note. I think mentioning his name violates WP:UNDUE, particularly as he himself has recanted his previous views. What do you think? Jayjg ^(talk) 01:52, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

columns

Use

 
 {{Col-begin}}
 {{Col-1-of-2}}
 Column 1 here
 {{Col-2-of-2}}
 Column 2 here
 {{Col-end}}

Or

 {{Multicol}}
 This text appears in the first column.
 {{Multicol-break}}
 This text appears in the second column.
 {{Multicol-break}}
 This text appears in the third column.
 {{Multicol-end}}

The latter's obviously more flexible. Hope that helps, --Steve _(Stephen) ^talk 02:49, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

SPARC

←I am a little confused by what happened to this page SPARC - Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Corporation you changed to a redirect yesterday --I see the speedy for the redirect but I did not notice the speedy or other deletion process for the original. In any case i want to recreate it as it is one of the things I know about & I'm sure i could do a proper article whatever may have been wrong with the first--If you're an admin could you restore it to my user space for the purpose? DGG 00:25, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

The SPARC mess was confusing, I'll give you that. :) Someone — I don't know who — moved the SPARC article to the silly title SPARC - Scalable Processor ARChitecture, and created the new silly-titled page SPARC - Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Corporation. Someone else sensibly requested that SPARC - Scalable Processor ARChitecture be moved back to SPARC. I'm not actually an admin, so my contribution to the mess was limited to moving SPARC - Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Corporation to Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Corporation, and proposing it for speedy deletion since its only content was a link to the organization's Web site. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log/delete&page=Scholarly_Publishing_and_Academic_Resources_Corporation for the entire text of the page.) Since then, somebody else has speedy-deleted Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Corporation (per my suggestion), and SPARC has been moved back to its rightful place.

If you would like to create an article about the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Corporation, then Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Corporation is the right place to do it. As long as you can find something encyclopedic to say about it, I wouldn't worry about the fact that a previous page on the topic has been deleted. --Quuxplusone 02:29, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Contextual information

I have noticed that essays, e.g. WP:LISTCRUFT, are often cited in deletion debates, such as the current Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Socialist Party of Great Britain debates. It might be worthwhile to jot down a concise essay on the value of contextual information, which one could cite so as not to repeat the contextual argument every time. One could argue that such an argument is a natural offspring of policies such as WP:NOT#PAPER and WP:SENSE. Then one could post it as WP:CONTEXT. I am interested in your opinion about this. Stammer 09:43, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Actual usage of the European Library by librarians?

Hello DGG. Please see my my question for you over on WP:COI/N, regarding the European Library. EdJohnston 21:07, 4 May 2007 (UTC). You asked me about it sometime back, and I've been noticing announcements that it is finally now becoming actually useful; union lists are not used until they have almost as much content as the national ones. It's like OSX, it was obviously going to be universal , but wise people didn't switch over for a while. I waited for 10.4. DGG 20:41, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations

I'm pleased to inform you that you are now an administrator. Please read all the material on the administrators' reading list before testing out your new privileges. For instructions, please see the administrators' how-to guide. Best of luck — Dan | talk 02:19, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Congrats. Well done. Do well with the mop :) -- Samir 02:20, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations. Your RfA reached WP:100 and is palindromic to boot. :) Cheers, Black Falcon ^(Talk) 03:35, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Wow congrats DGG! 111 supports, that's fantastic - if you ever need anything just give me a shout and I'll try my best to help. Good luck... Majorly (hot!) 09:32, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations. I'm glad I was one of those 11 extra to push you over the top at Wikipedia:Times that 100 Wikipedians supported something. You'll do a great job. Smee 11:58, 9 May 2007 (UTC).

Congratulations. Here are what pass for words of wisdom from the puppy:

Remember you will always protect the wrong version. Remember you must always follow the rules, except for when you ignore them. You will always pick the wrong one to do. (See #5) Remember to assume good faith and not bite. Remember that when you are applying these principles most diligently, you are probably dealing with a troll. Use the block ability sparingly. Enjoy the insults you receive when you do block. Remember when you make these errors, someone will be more than happy to point them out to you in dazzling clarity and descriptive terminology. and finally, Remember to contact me if you ever need assistance, and I will do what I am able. KillerChihuahua?!?

DISCLAIMER: This humor does not reflect the official humor of Wikipedia, the Wikimedia Foundation, or Jimbo Wales. All rights released under GFDL.

Notability of scientists vs their science

Hey DGG (first off, congratulations on adminship). In this AfD you write "I cannot imagine that a paper written by a scientist could possibly be notable more than the scientist himself" which seems diametrically opposed to my thinking, so I thought I'd invite you to try entertaining it. If a scientist is notable (in the sense of passing WP:PROF) I would assume it is because their work is notable. Surely then they must be at least a degree more trivial than their work. For example, the Hershey-Chase experiment is a very important piece of science, which definitely belongs in an encyclopedia, but I'm not sure that Alfred Hershey or even more so Martha Chase are of the same level of notability. Similarly, Milikan's Oil-drop experiment important in a way that I just don't think the details of Robert Andrews Millikan's life are. Ditto Stanley Milgram's Obedience to Authority Study and Philip Zimbardo's Stanford prison experiment. In all these cases, the experimenters are certainly notable, but I think they are all less encyclopedic than their work. I guess this is what bothers me about the majority of the stubby little wikipedia entries for assorted professors, that their inclusion makes WP look like a cheap Whos-who unless their work is also encyclopedic. The writers of these bios seem disinterested in writing encyclopedic articles about their research topic, the benefit to WP of these articles does not extend to dissemination of knowledge about science, just the vanity, or vanity by proxy, of a puff-biography. Anyway, best of luck with the mop pushing. I'm certain that you'll do fine. Regards, Pete.Hurd 05:54, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, & I went back & adjusted the AfD comment,because you are right that I overgeneralized. Fuller reply in the works. DGG 07:27, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

i'd appreciate your opinion on something

Have a look at Talk:Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society. Before I start an AFD, do you think this is below the cut? ··coelacan 07:50, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

That would be great; thanks. ··coelacan 00:19, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes please about citation count

Please yes a citation count would be good. I suspect the count will be high. Wenocur's major work includes the VC-paper, joint with Dudley which established values of VC-dimensions using hyperplanes and other techniques that were new. The paper with Salant is notable work. Her work on order statistics was new. in abstracting ideas of Einstein and Bose on gravitation as gravitation affecting numbers not particles. In other papers, the alternative proof techniques of identities were publically admired by H.S. Wilf. The indices of many books on neural nets contain references to her work with Dudley on VC-dimension. I personally have employed the order statitistic work and the VC work to analyze data and make predictions for clients. Currently, she is either self-employed or retired or semi-retired; she is not a young person, certainly over age 55. She corresponds with me, a humble consultant, but also with others who are noteable. I think she is tutoring now, also she mentioned, precocious children, and those who need to learn VC-theory for their work at universities or industry or consulting. I think she is also using mathematics for investment counseling in new ways. She won several awards from the U.S. Senate, the President of Temple University, New York City as a noteable woman of science and other awards. This is all I can think of, offhand, right now. Back to work now. Thank you. Alfred Legrand 16:08, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

AfDs/blogs

Hi, the assumption is that I'm "pro" the blogs I'm currently fighting to keep an entry for, but that is jumping to conclusions. I wrote many new entries on Muslims and Islam, and I would fight to keep them. They're there because I think it's important people have access to information about these issues. In any case, a pattern won't be seen since this user first did a "speedy delete" on several entries using an IP and only identified themselves when I argued that an anonymous user shouldn't be speedy deleteing (to point out that it's against wiki policy and an ip user shouldn't be discriminated). The reason I went out directly against him is because of his claim that he's being attacked for something he's only been doing for "two-three" days, and of course, looking at his "user contributions" that's what it looks like, so why accuse him? I am not accusing him that he's anti those blogs, I'm accusing him of abusing the system and I don't like it. As I wrote him directly, his only contributions are nitpicking those of others. I think that's anti-wikipedia behavior.

I think blogs are in a catch 22, since old style newspapers have no interest in writing about them, and at most they'll reach the editorial page. Most blogs are not worthy of an entry, but I just wonder how many entries are going to be deleted before the policy is changed.

About the Fjordman blogger, for example. When the original speedy delete came up I said that if you google, it comes up in amazing numbers. To which I was told by this user "it's a common name in Scandinavia". But then, why does the blogger get top billings on the first 3-4 pagse of Google (at which time I gave up looking). What do I need to do to prove that this guy is immensely popular? Misheu 06:11, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your suggestions and input. I do need somebody with some common sense to tell me this :-) I'm not so anti what you say as you think. When I told this user that I actually appreciated his speedy delete since it caused me to look up sources he thought I was joking and took it as an insult. I wouldn't be so "up in arms" this time if it wouldn't be posed as "look up all sources now for all entries or else" and come as a 'second wave'. There are so many other ways to approach articles you think need sources. Again, some of the entries he brought for deletion, i agree with, but most of them he's going against established, well known, influential blogs. Misheu 06:41, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

DGG, thanks for your help in this recent mess. I appreciate the good words helping move this process forward. --Edwin Herdman 21:02, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Gordon MacPherson

Not sure how you did your article search, but I got >120 peer-reviewed articles. Which still doesn't make him notable. What is needed is an independant secondary source specifically referring to 'Gordon MacPherson's important scientific contribution to x'. -Rustavo^{Talk/Contribs} 03:16, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

There are a number of people by that name, even in medicine. I was being very conservative--clearly over-conservative. I re-did it in Scopus to get a citation count, and found 58 peer-reviewed papers. I agree that I would in general not automatically consider an associate professor notable (that's the equiv. rank), but to my surprise, I found 427, 279, 250, 176, 146 citations for the five top papers. I think it covers the notability question. (I haven't put it all in the article quite yet. I find it much easier to cut spam down to size than to build up these over-modest articles.) Fiction writers get shown notable by reviews, athletes by competitions, scientists by citations. I can expand on this. DGG 03:49, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

That's not the point. I strongly suspect that he is notable, but that is not the same thing as 1) knowing what he is notable for, 2) having an independant reference that establishes his notability, and c) having content in the article that discusses the thing he is notable for. Deleting an article doesn't prevent anyone from writing an article about that same subject in the future, it simply says that there's nothing in the current article that justifies having it. -Rustavo^{Talk/Contribs} 05:08, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I recognize you know the academic world, probably very well, so I don't have to explain why people there are important to start with (smile) (The next paragraph is what I have evolved as my standard reply-- it's addressed to people who do not know how scientists work, and I do not mean to sound as if you didn't know about this stuff--but it is better worded than what I can do on the spot)

• "We don't judge the work, even in subjects where some of us could, because this is an egalitarian place--we just show how other people have judged it. Notability for academics is typically established by their publications. People become professors by writing notable research papers. That the papers are notable is established by their being published in peer-reviewed journals. The review by two or more specialists in such peer review establishes those papers as evidence of N. For appointment, for promotion to associate professor of senior lecturer, they pass stringent reviews by peers, including particularly peers from other institutions.

this establishes notability much more strictly and reliably than we could here. The profession establishes notability; WP just records the fact.

In general, nobody writes magazine articles on professors, and they dont get a biography until they retire or die. Therefore, since notability in each field is judged by the standard of the field, and notability in this field is established by publications and positions, their publications and positions are always considered suffficient, as is explained more fully in WP:PROF., and consistently maintained at AfD."

"The standard there is more notable than the average." To be noticed by 400 peers is much more important that to be noticed by two book reviewers. To be noticed by more than 200 peers for several different publications is more notable than by being noticed by two book reviewers for several different novels.

Answers to specific objections: What he is notable for, is the subject of the papers. The abstracts are on PubMed for a description. There is no need to discuss the plot of a prize-winning movie to show it's notable. The recognition is sufficient. WP articles have to show their subjects are notable, by the standards of the field. They do not have to explain why the field holds them as notable; its best to get in some sort of orientation, but not essential.

The independent references are the papers themselves, and the are reliable because they have been published in peer-reviewed reliable journals. (in this case, of the very highest quality, and that can be shown too from Science Citation Reports). As a compromise rule of thumb, it seems to have been accepted that Full professors at research university are almost always notable, assistant professors rarely, associate, it depends. In this case, that many citation and papers would be enough even for an assistant professor, not that I can recall an assistant professor article here where he had such a strong record.

There is never much need to re-create an article about a scientist, since by the time enough people show up, it has become clear whether or not it's notable. If I can't get it rewritten or explained in 5 days I go on to the next. I do not defend the non-notable ones. (I do have a list of a few slip-ups when nobody noticed; when people write inadequate article that happens.) The article as it stands is sufficient, and these standards have been shown in multiple prior AfDs --I am not being idiosyncratic (actually, I should probably go back myself and make a list of informal precedents--there are no formal precedents here). DGG 06:06, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Librarian stuff

Hi DGG, I recognize your username from around the wiki (recently at some Afds I'm watching). I see you're an admin and a librarian, and that you've contributed to similar discussions in the past, so I'd like to point out the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam#Unusual university spam. I think it's about time we developed a clear policy about this sort of thing. As an established wikipedian and wannabe librarian, I've taken a great interest in this debate. Thanks for considering it! Latr, Katr 02:02, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for your thoughtful reply. There seems to be a lot of hostility and misunderstanding around this issue, so I hope we can reach a satisfactory conclusion. If I go for my MLIS, I'll do the UW's distance-learning program, since I don't really want to move to Seattle. It sounds like a lot of fun, but I have to do my research and determine if the extra money I would be making would be worth the extra debt I'd be taking on! Latr, Katr 16:21, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

P.S. There is a similar thread that I moved just below the one in which you responded that you might want to check out. I'm taking everything related to that off my watchlist, as I seem to have unknowingly created some hostility between myself and one of the editors involved. If you would, please keep me posted if any new policies or guidelines are developed out of this. Thanks! Latr, Katr 17:02, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Plot summaries

I have in the last couple of days called for keeping a plot summary for Les Miserables, Angel (TV series) and Buffy (TV series) because the Hugo novel is important in popular culture, and one hears references to it or to situations and characters in it, but no one should have to plow through the endless turgid prose and meandering plot. The TV series are quite different. The plot article provides an overview of the plot arc for the season, which is an emergent property not found in the extremely short capsule summaries for each episode. I am opposed to having detailed, scene by scene plot summaries of every comedy, drama, and cartoon, but a well written overview of series with season-long plot arcs seems quite encyclopedic. These do not relate every event from every episode. I know there is a bias against keeping an article because it is "useful" (heaven forbid anyone should ever find something "useful" in Wikipedia), but if I've heard about a TV show like "Lost" with a complex plot line, knowing the history of the show helps make the next episode comprehensible and entertaining. Seeing one sentence about each episode of a show which has been on several years does not give the reader/viewer the "big picture" like the 2 TV plot guides do. I feel that WP:NOT strongly needs a revision to this effect, but I am all too aware that a cabal will smite down anyone who tries to change a policy without "consensus" when it only takes one or two doctrinaire editors to object and deny that consensus and revert the change. Consensus can also be shown by a set of AFD outcomes. Other TV shows like this might be "The Sopranos," "X-Files" or any other long running series wherein there are plot arcs beyond the individual episode. In contrast, many comedies, cop shows, westerns like "Gunsmoke", and even juvie sci-fi series like "Lost in Space" had pretty much stand alone episodes, with little or no carryover of plot elements from one episode to the next. The fallback position is to call for the season-arc episode guides to replace the existing series-long episode guides in articles about such shows as "Buffy" or "Angel." Shows like these two have been the subject of reviews and conferences with scholarly papers read, and there have been books written about each season, so one could add as many references as necessary to satisfy any requirement that the content be reference based and not OR. Edison 16:26, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

There are 100 references for the main Buffy the Vampire Slayer article. Major references for the plot arcs would be the series of books called "The Watcher's Guide". These are reliable, but arguably not independent, since they have ties to 20th Century Fox. But there are lots of fully reliable and independent sources about the larger plot arcs, also listed as refs at the Buffy main article, such as DVD reviews at Rotten Tomatos, many of which are from legitimate sources such as Salon, which has editorial supervision and identified reviewers (as opposed to fan reviews)., for instance [1]. There is the whole Buffy studies which lists academic works on the series, for those who are more into it than casual watchers such as me. Edison 17:14, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

RE: Past Presidents

A valid point about the references. They were already in the article (but rather hidden)and now I've given them their own spot at the bottom of the page. As having members with WP articles, the pickings are slim. But where you might see an AFD, I see a small project of sorts. Many of the people on that list are notable professors/teachers/scientists in their own right. So, I was planning to Start writing articles on a few past presidents of interest, and give them overdue praise for their contributions to education and science. I'd be happy to discuss this further, but probably not tonight--I'm off to sleep. Violadamore

sampling deletions

I've replied on my talk page. SamBC 06:04, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Episode review TfD

I posted this on the TfD as well, but I really wanted to make sure you saw my reply:

DGG, I can't stress this enough, these tags were never meant to be used like this. They were never meant to be added in mass without the tagger looking at the articles and doing some initial evaluation. Abuse of the tool should be addressed, deleting the tool because one user over did it is not a good thing, and just screws everyone else over. The discussions themselves are now being held on individual "list of episodes" articles, instead of a centralized area, and these tags are a way to help more people collaborate with the process. By deleting these templates you are only making that small group stay small. A new idea will always start small, but on Wikipedia things like that grow extremely fast. If you snipe the process before it has a change to get off the ground, then people won't be able to find it. The first template was nominated for deletion before a single episode article even got reviewed. -- Ned Scott 05:36, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I have come to oppose the entire project, because of the demonstrated effect it has already had on articles. I think the reasonably extended presentation of content of a primary source is appropriate--though I agree that it should be accompanied by analysis. I particularly dislike the method that is being applied-- that the correct policy that there should be both presentation and analysis is being addressed not by adding content discussing the material, but by removing material presenting it. I do agree however, that some of the existing discussions were over-detailed. I agree with merging individual episode articles. I do not agree with deleting their basic content, and such is the practical effect of the tag. DGG (talk) 17:47, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I respect that and all, think about things like WP:NOT#PLOT and WP:WAF. It's not that, it would be nice to have real world information, but rather, we require real world information. This "project" was started as a way to find potential in episodes, rather than taking them to AfD. You seem to be blaming to the process because no one can find the potential, or even something to hint towards the potential.

You said: "that the correct policy that there should be both presentation and analysis is being addressed not by adding content discussing the material, but by removing material presenting it. "

Did you stop to think, maybe there wasn't anything to add? -- Ned Scott 03:56, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

And as far as merging goes, I haven't been watching the closure themselves that much, but stuff should be merged that can be merged. I'm sorry if anyone is not doing this, and if you have any specific review in mind I'll volunteer to clean up the mess myself. -- Ned Scott 04:05, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

fair enough, and I've had these discussions end up in joint projects before. Even afds sometimes end that way. its the way things should go.

(and I was about to send:

for video shows and the like, the question of finding material is relative tricky for me, because I myself am neither willing nor qualified to find the material, and it's uncomfortable making bare assertions of the existence of material. (though i think the plot of these shows does tend to be discussed in both specialist publications and often newspapers, for at least the most prominent--certainly for shows like the Sopranos. And they also are increasingly discussed in academic writing on popular culture--but the discussion inevitably comes several years behind. But in this part of the field I'm a consumer, not a producer--I want to read the material, not write it. The only area of pop culture where there is good material of this sort in the articles is rock music, where many easily available publication do analyze it, and the followers know about them.

However, for something where I know the research methods a little better, and where it was challenged, I did find it--Les miserables. There were at least a hundred articles in Google Scholar that clearly discussed the plot, and I was able to select 5 or 6 where the titles made it really evident.

Had i done a serious job with professional indexes and non-english sources, I could have found many more. And from these the critical material could be written. But WPedians are not that great on academic writing, as you know, and it will be a while until the work gets done. I would not remove the articles in the meantime. i would keep, and add.

had those challenging spent the time on adding material to the articles where possible, instead challenging them and removing them, it would have been a start. Of course, had those defending them spent half their arguing time on adding, it would have been better as well. The tendency at AfDs in general on all topics of people to say there is material, and cite it at length at at the Afd, but put off adding it to the article doesn't help. Anyone can edit, and most are lazy about it. I'd love to have a rule that one could not place an afd without documenting where one had looked. I wont delete a speedy or expired prod until i've confirmed the absence for myself. (I'm talking generally here, not this project in particular, and certainly not you in particular.) DGG (talk) 04:24, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

academics

Thanks for your navigation. I added something from GGC’s old resume, which I found on the Internet and books from WorldCat and Amazon. I’ll be trying to add some more substantial info on both academics’ work from other sources.

I translated a few US textbooks on writing and related subjects. If you need any help with Russian, feel free to contact me. My e-mail is anstan@bk.ru.

Anstan07 10:01, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Episodes

I saw your comment on the Notability page. So I take it you'd rather see something like this for television show episodes, rather than something like this?  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 00:22, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Printing

No, I think it was an honest mistake - my edit summary was meant to be taken literally, not as minatory (perhaps not the best phrasing). He is on the warpath again at Four Great Inventions of ancient China but I don't worry too much about that. There's absolutely no chance of me going for admin. Keep up the good work at AfD etc, & I'm still waiting for the Master of the Playing Cards expansion. Johnbod 03:06, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Requests for verification

Response at Wikipedia talk:Requests for verification#How long before delete unreferenced article?. We both know that there is some unreferenced content in Wikipedia that is not appropriate. I am asking you to help me build a tool that will address that problem. There are a thousand what if's and a million more discussion, but lets start someplace. We can build a tool that is an appropriate compromise between M:Inclusionism and M:Exclusionism. Jeepday (talk) 14:26, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd be delighted to work with you, because first of all in individual cases good people generally agree on most subjects, and also because I think cooperation including people known for different views of things will be more readily accepted--as it should, because there will be less individualistic bias. Also agreed that inclusionism and inclusionism are not the right terms for most things and people (the only real inclusionists in a pejorative sense are those who want an article on every human, & the only exclusionists in that sense are those who would confine us to the limits of paper.

I'm not sure we could build an inclusive tool: there are too many problems why they might be inappropriate--and the basic problem isn't in my opinion unreferenced--the reason unreferenced picks up so many problems, is that unreferenced articles are often defective in other ways.

There are also areas where there is no agreement on inclusions, and if there is to be a general effort it probably should stay clear of these, which should be discussed separately until there is some real continuing consensus: crimes, plots, for example. If we go too fast on these we may end up doing the work over as consensus changes.

As policy, I am only willing to cooperate on a project aimed at deletion if there is a genuine commitment to improvement when possible, or if there is a high bar to limit consideration to the articles almost certainly unimprovable. For example, many business articles as they stand are not adequate, but could be improved in knowledgeable people used the right sources, and for this example there's a shortage. We can still work cooperatively, but in perhaps different ways.

The only tools I know of are good objective human beings. Only humans can integrate disparate factors. But there can be technical helps. Personally, in my own opinion I think them secondary--my preferred approach to weeding--and as a librarian I have certainly done a lot of it, though to storage, not disposal--is repeated systematic passes through even the largest set, looking for particular criteria each time. WP has 2 million articles. I've worked with collections that size--though not doing it all myself. But I haven't done them all myself. There was a philosophy common to all, agreed to and applied over 40 years by over a hundred very individualistic professionals--get the obvious, leave the others for a subsequent round. This is the way to go fast. Our consistency was pretty good--the rate of restoration from storage to main collection has been well under 1%. But we had commitment to one common principle: the goal was to help the users, & anything the users had found useful in recent years was to be kept.

Since you started here, lets keep the general discussion here. I'll do a separate archive if appropriate. DGG (talk) 17:53, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

• Agreed, As you know I work towards inclusion and improvement. on questionable content I am more likely to suggest delete then you are, but I readily accept keeping with a less stringent verification requirement then you. Improvement is the primary goal. "high bar to limit consideration to the articles almost certainly unimprovable" I am not sure that you can dictate this in usage, I understand what you are saying, and I think I have addressed it by placing a very low threshold for removal (or nonplacement) of the template. Like anything there will be room to misuse it but, as proposed placing the template is only a suggestion for deletion. Even if absolutely no references are added to the article, before it can be deleted an adim has to come along and agree to remove the article by actually deleting it. Additionally it places articles in a category, that will be monitored (the same as Category:All articles proposed for deletion for much longer then a prods 5 days. I made some changes (earlier today) to Wikipedia:Requests for verification take a look and see what we need to address. Jeepday (talk) 18:13, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

the problem is that one person can place templates in one day that will take ten people a year to address. Thus the end result of such a process, however, well intended, will be destructive. I care for WP, and do not wish to sacrifice half of the potentially good articles.

You trust the accuracy of admins more than I do; I am one of them, and from doing the work, know how easy it is to make mistakes. DGG (talk) 19:23, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I think putting source tags on uncontroversial statements it diverts energy from challenging and sourcing the controversial ones, and is not a constructive way of improving the encyclopedia. DGG (talk) 21:48, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree that there is potential for worthwhile articles to be deleted with {{RfV}}. Keep in mind there is no original work in Wikipedia so no knowledge will be lost, articles may be temporarily not on Wikipedia, but someone will add them back. I try to focus more on the future, think of the benefits in 3 to 5 years, every article will be verified. Thanks for joining the team at Wikipedia talk:Unreferenced articles Jeepday (talk) 13:00, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

I am glad we agree on where we are going.But WP is also for today, and removing articles in the hope that someone will add back the notable ones is not in my opinion a reasonable approach.

Incidentally, I maintain some degree of sanity here by not getting over-involved in the fate of individual articles. I know I can't save them all, or, for that matter, delete them all. And certainly not get them all written right. DGG (talk) 16:44, 17

Blogs etc as references

I am wondering about when blogs become useful as references. Some blogs are written by known figures who are notable already from their other writing, or from their qualifications or expertise. Some are associated with people who give their real names and professional positions and credentials. Some science blogs have been highly rated. For example, Nature magazine placed a "review of some of the best blogs written by working scientists" on its website in July 2006.[2][3].

Some examples:

• Pharyngula (weblog) by PZ Myers, a biologist from the University of Minnesota, science category winner in the 2006 Weblogs Awards
• Panda's Thumb (weblog), with many professional scientist posters, also highly rated (second place winner?). Almost every poster I have seen on there already has a WP article, and is noted for other writing already. Usually with good sources.
• talkorigins not a blog exactly, but with many articles written by well-known professional scientists and well-sourced
• RealClimate, a blog produced by "real climate scientists at the American Geophysical Union"
• Aetiology, found at [4], written by Tara C. Smith, Assistant Professor of Epidemiology in Iowa
• scienceblogs, a provider of science blogs includes many interesting and useful blogs [5]. Note that they are selective in who gets to blog, in fact.
• Nature itself hosts assorted science-related blogs [6]

Comments? Ideas? Suggestions?--Filll 04:20, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

essentially, i think a review like that of Nature gives authority to the blog. The best way of establishing the authority is to write an article about the blog for Wikipedia. I think this is true in general for any type of sources which not everyone will recognize as notable without an explanation, and I have done so for a few reference sources, and have always intending to do more, including some blogs. Blogs run by magazines are like letters to the editor. Some places screen them very very carefully, some don't. (remembering again to distinguish from the letter to the editor type of short article, as in Nature). Something published in a blog by a recognized authority is an easy case--regardless of where she publishes it, she gives it authority. But remember to be fair about this--some blogs by those with whom we do not agree are also responsible.

so I encourage you to write some articles about blogs. Let me know & I'll look at them. DGG (talk) 04:59, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

For your consideration: A description of a science blog

Please take a look at my draft of an article on the science blog Aetiology, which appears here. Thank you.--Filll 16:49, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I have slowly improved this draft a bit and also, at your suggestion, started a draft on the author of this blog at User talk:Filll/Tara C. Smith. I think I am getting close to showing she is notable, but you tell me what you think.--Filll 23:14, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Smith has published 3 books, and taught at 4 different Universities, and has several journal publications as well. Smith organized the Iowa Citizens for Science (with a few dozen members), and been engaged in lobbying and organizing public Darwn events (1 so far, another upcoming in 2008), and an article about her activities in this area has been in the Des Moines Register. I think she is well on her way to notability, if she is not there already.

Her blog is rated number 7 in science from Nature, out of 46 million blogs evaluated. I count 4 print mentions (including in Cell (journal) and 5 cyberspace media articles about Aetiology (in addition to just 1000s of general blogosphere discussions on other blogs). Notable?--Filll 16:09, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

An essay I've written

Hello. Though we are often on the opposite side of deletion debates, I thought you might want to read an essay I've written, found at User:Eyrian/IPC. I'd be interested to hear any feedback on its talk page. --Eyrian 15:15, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Primary source only articles

I would tend to agree that a teacher would and should insist on the student looking at the book itself. That's because any self-respecting teacher would have the student writing a secondary source—a research paper or the like.

On the other hand, this is intended to be a tertiary source. It's intended to be a collection of the reliable and verified research of others from looking at primary sources, not our own work in that vein. Sometimes, primary sources can be used for some supplemental material with secondary ones being used for the main bulk, if purely descriptive claims are made. But in everything, we should be mirroring secondary sources, not second-guessing them. If a reliable source says something I believe to be wrong, we go with the source, not me. By the same token, if secondary sources don't write about a given subject at all, or a given aspect of that subject, we should mirror that—by not writing about it at all. Students in class are intended to be the original author and first publisher of their work. (If they're not, they'd better hope to have a dumb teacher!) That's not the idea here at all. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 19:07, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not so sure there. I think it's good we tend to require secondary sources, just because of our nature as a tertiary source. I guess I just don't see "List of times X got mentioned somewhere" as of particular relevance to that, it seems to fail indiscriminate information collection. (I'm aware that's significantly overused, but here it really does seem to apply.) I think the cultural influences of works are better done by citing works that actually speak to how the work has influenced culture, rather than just saying "X seems to have been influenced by Y" with nothing to back that up. In some cases that is a purely descriptive statement which doesn't need secondary sourcing (for example, to state that Weird Al's "Like a Surgeon" is a parody of Madonna's "Like a Virgin"), but in a lot of cases it steps over the line into original synthesis if no one's actually studied it and come to that conclusion. I think what TV Guide or other secondary sources do there is allow more elaborate conclusions to be placed in and sourced, where it would be original research to draw them ourself. If that can't be done, and it's basically just a list of "Family Guy spoofed X one time, and so did The Simpsons", I guess I fail to see the value. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 00:43, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh no, I'm certainly not saying "never notable". (WP:IDONTLIKEIT is just as invalid as WP:ILIKEIT, and mirroring, not second-guessing, sources applies just as much in the other direction). There's tons of material, for instance, on the cultural impact of shows like The Simpsons, South Park, and even some soap operas. I'm sure articles could be written on those subjects and sourced perfectly well. But a good article on that subject would go far beyond "A was mentioned in X, Y, and Z." Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 01:10, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Use of blog as source

At your suggestion, I have now built up Tara C. Smith's article to hopefully reach notability, as well as the article about her blog, Aetiology. Do you think these are now reasonable? Do they demonstrate notability? Can I now use them as sources at [7] ? If you think that this is a good source now, would you help me reinstate the citations on the article Physicians and Surgeons who Dissent from Darwinism for me? I have not found other sources, at least yet, because it is pretty obscure so far. If you know of other sources, I would welcome those as well. Thank you. --Filll 20:38, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Another editor has disagreed that the general audience, popular nature of the 3 books should be mentioned. They also disagree that the book reviews should be included. They also want to put personal information in the article, such as material about her d.o.b, ethnicity (???), family life, etc. I disagree with this, even though I can put it in there. Possibly the year she was born can be included, but I think the rest is sort of irrelevant. I want to concentrate on her professional career. Comments?--Filll 14:29, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Relevance proposal

Hi. Can I ask you to offer your thoughts on WP:RELEVANCE? It's a careful and ongoing attempt to cut a middle path on the subject of "trivia", among other things. Much obliged.--Father Goose 09:02, 11 August 2007 (UTC))

AfD notification proposal

Hi DGG. You do not need to change policy to have people notified about AfD. You might want to contact the developer of User:Android Mouse Bot 2 to see if s/he can create an Android Mouse Bot 3 to post the AfD notifications using stats from Wikipedia Page History Statistics. If you check out my contributions, you'll see that I am in the process of manually using Wikipedia Page History Statistics to add AfD warnings to those AfDs listed at the bottom of the August 13th AfD list. I also add {{Welcome!|-- [[User_talk:Jreferee|Jreferee]]}} to their talk page if they are new. I utilize Microsoft Word to assist me in all this. -- Jreferee ^(Talk) 16:25, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Another thing that happens is the article itself sometimes is not tag for deletion even though the article is listed at AfD. See this, for example. -- Jreferee ^(Talk) 17:48, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Schools Proposal

DGG by David Shankbone

Notification of proposal: Guideline/policy governing lists

Given your participation in recent AfDs involving lists, and given your track record for neutrality and diplomacy, I'd appreciate your input on the following:

Wikipedia: Village pump (policy)#Proposal to make a policy or guideline for lists

Thank you in advance for any thoughts you may have on the topic. Sidatio 16:18, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

FYI, this conversation has moved to User:Sidatio/Conversations/On list guidelines. I look forward to your continued input in order to reach a consensus on the issue! Sidatio 00:43, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Hello colleague

Hello there ! I was away sorry for the delay in responding. Thanx for the welcoming message and information, glad to find another "filing sufferer" around . I have been around a bit and is fully comprehensible (the wiki environment I mean) You see many incidents though. But I think I manage myself. Tell me something, how I make a nice signature ? I mean nice but keeping the level, not toons kind , just code it up or ? Let me know if I can be of assistance at any time, I have some acces to real antiques (books not people) See ya around Librarian2 16:00, 20 August 2007 (UTC) See WP:User. (but you need to know some elementary html markup). or tell me what you want to do--I'm not an expert, but I can do simple things. Incidentally, I am really a filing sufferer--I am the last certified instructor at Princeton for the filing rules in the old AACR1 card catalog. DGG (talk) 16:45, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Gosh! You are really a filing-sufferer. (even if I love that feeling of paper more than the screens) (for the first 5 minutes that is). About the signature, whatever makes me find my postings fast in a chain, any ideas ? (Yeah, ctrl-f right ?) Librarian2 19:42, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, forgot you told me about the username similarity right? I have no problems with that but if you prefer I change it (I am the new one here I yield for the experienced elders) Just let me know how I do that Librarian2 20:25, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

CSA Trust and "2 users"

The "two users" remark was in response to the entry by User:Steinbeck, who said, "If only two people in the world want to learn about either the village festival or the CSA Trust through looking at their Wikipedia article, the existence of these articles is justified." Obviously, I don't agree. Realkyhick 17:36, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Hello colleague

Do you feel like a Librarian today? If you do, give a look at WP:KIS and let me know if you have someone in mind who could have the time to code the most used labels (languages and most known projects). Also I have a problem with the box for the labels, I don't know what code to enter for the labels display horizontally inside the box instead of vertically. If you don't feel like a librarian today, that is fine also, we file it for another time ℒibrarian2 20:02, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

The box problem is solved, I made instead a rail kind of thing where the labels go (makes you remember something?) I like it better anyway. But the need of someone as I said above is still actual ℒibrarian2 21:16, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Content policy analysis

Wikipedia:Relevance of content/Content policy analysis: let's try to synchronize our views on this subject so that our continuing work on it can be more effective.--Father Goose 23:26, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

For you

[8] Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate list of all journals related to a subject--I'm on break. KP Botany 06:16, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually, it's about 1% of the total and 10% of the ones in JCR. things could get a good deal worse. We normally do this as a separate list when possible , e.g. List of scientific journals in chemistry, or List of botany journals but we sometimes have included such a short section in a subject article. I do not think the number is excessive. The logical first step is to try to write articles for the journals. I will advise accordingly. DGG (talk) 08:46, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

No, the first step is for the editors of the article to decide which journals and sources are the most important that should be named in the article. This user is only adding Elsevier and Springer links, to at least one article where the leading journal, unmentioned, is a Wiley publication. The logical first step is to delete the spam, explain again that this requires talk page discussion, and expect that this be done. KP Botany 17:43, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

The journals that were added in the first instance were only about 20 titles in a number of fields, from a range of publishers including the leading scientific society in the subject, and not unreasonable. I advised the person adding them, reminding him he had to show notability for the journals, and how to go about it. I see he is continuing in a less useful manner and i will deal with it a little differently now. DGG (talk) 03:33, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Here's another one

[9] KP Botany 18:43, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

The spammer

He's not a publisher, but he works for a company that somehow represents both publishers commercially. I don't have time to refind it. He somehow represents more than one journal, and it's the company he works for that represents more than one journal in some way or another, or more than one publisher, and I saw it somewhere, it was a PR firm or a marketing firm or something, in Chicago, maybe, and I had come across it a couple of times in some of the earlier ones. They have a very small Wikipedia article, and I twice cross referenced same day accounts with minimal contributions to adding journals, but who were editing in between the journal socks, and made single edits to this company. I'm sorry, let me see if I can retrace my steps. No, I'm not having any more luck. But you realize there appear to be hundreds of these one day sock puppets for the publishers? This appears to be industry wide. [10] I don't think this is one, though:[11] KP Botany 04:09, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I really can't think of it. But when I saw the first edit, I looked it up, then when I saw the second one, it vaguely dawned, and then it hit me what he was doing and why he's posting more than one publisher, and why an earlier one I dismissed for the same reason was doing the same, it's was a US firm, but they were all European publishers represented. There was an additional international connection with an ASEAN publisher, maybe Singapore? Sorry. I'll be off for a few weeks, in the mountains. It will probably hit me, or maybe you'll find it. KP Botany 04:21, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking along those lines also. In this particular case, I think I can find out the names through another channel. I also know just how to spread the word more generally & will do so quietly & without names on the appropriate list. Personally, I regard the inclusion of one ACS journal probably just a clever attempt to look impartial. On the longer run, the way to prevent this is to add the major journals ourselves, or with carefully controlled assistance. But most of the ones added in this batch do deserve to be in WP eventually, but of course not preferentially. The scientific societies remain the priority.

i do not like to block without really strong reason. But I will do it to get attention when needed.

technical details I like to do: In some cases, I like to comment out sections than to revert the addition--it's easer to re-add the key ones. I do not think it wise to insist upon the use of "cite" templates, especially as there is no actual requirement--I rarely use them myself except if an article has them already or if things are complicated. I think they make the code hard to read and edit. -- I use <ref> </ref> .

But have a good time--I assume you will be coming back with some more pictures. DGG (talk) 04:28, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Example clean-up for WikiProject?

Current Opinion in Immunology got kept. At the moment, the article has no more information than is found in Current Opinion. Do you want to perform a clean-up that can be used as an example at the WikiProject of how to do this sort of thing? Carcharoth 11:59, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

you mean, do I want to fill in as extensive an article as possible. I will improve the article, but its would not be the best model for others, because of the complications of being part of a series of which only some is shown, a situation I hope we will soon change. But we already have a number of other good examples. For instance, though I cannot think of any that are ideal. But look at Journal of Chemical Physics, which I did a little while back to save it from deletion, or Annals of Mathematics, for a different type of article.DGG (talk) 17:34, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the links. How did J. Chem. Phys. ever get put up for deletion?? Carcharoth 23:43, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Academic conferences

I'm not going to mention it on the Journals WikiProject (unless you think it is relevant), but I thought you might be interested in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/International Conference on the Gulen Movement as a way to gauge feelings for notability of conferences. I'd be particularly interested in a reaction to my comment "The question seems to be which academic conferences are notable? It is rare for academic conferences to get coverage outside of their specialised areas. Does this mean Wikipedia shouldn't cover them?" Thanks. Carcharoth 15:21, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Of course, picking a conference that hasn't even taken place yet might not have been the best idea... :-) Carcharoth 15:22, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

In my view, almost no individual conference is notable--the bar is very high. I can thing of a few exceptions--none of which presently have articles, nor would I at this time try to introduce them. The few that have made it as far as AfD, I've usually said delete. Series can be; in some cases their proceedings are major information resource. We need articles on most of the major ones--there are probably at least 50 in the sciences--though not 5,000. The current practice is usually to put them under the names of the sponsoring organisation. I may mention it at the project, because there is a related question of how to handle book series in general--but again, I'd want to get journals more throughly established first. 16:00, 5 September 2007 (UTC)== TfD nomination of Template:Trivia==

Template:Trivia has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. — Pixelface 20:45, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Orangemike again

Orangemike re-deleted an section in Corset article without/against consensus again. What to do? --78.0.18.147 11:48, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Masterfully done! --83.131.80.42 23:07, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

DGG's edit made sense, unlike the original section (which I feel was deleted in accordance with consensus, thank you!). I still feel it's Undue Emphasis (especially on catsuits), but it's not the silly spot-the-corset game which the original list would lend itself to. --Orange Mike 15:16, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

agreed that the catsuit part needs further expansion--so does the rest of the material--it doesnt even mention what I think the most notable use: Gone With the Wind. DGG (talk) 15:51, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

"agreed"? I'm saying it should go out, not get expanded. None of this stuff is very notable; it might be relevant for a Corsetry wiki or fetishist forum, but I really don't see why you think it belongs here at all, much less at greater length!? --Orange Mike 18:26, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

we obviously disagree on the importance of this material--I've given my reasons at length at multiple AfDs. The use by notable artists of a particular theme is notable, and goes under the theme as well as the artist. As a general field, it forms one of the parts of the academic study of cinema etc and popular interest as well. (In art history in fact it's the basis of dating and provenance). When editing this sort of material I remove references from non-notable artists, judging in fields I do not know by the WP entries, as for a list. I'll do the GWTW tonight--it's one of the most famous scenes in the movie. I notice you use the term "very notable"--but it doesnt have to be very notable or even notable to be acceptable content, that standard applies only to articles. And even for article notable, not very notable is the standard. One could indeed make an encyclopedia of only the very notable, but it wouldn't be WP--there are other projects with that goal. I replied hoping your comment was an attempt to find some common ground. (My current suggestion is to abandon video game uses as in practice unsourcable, to accept other cultural refs, and to integrate bio into the bio. and adaptations into the main section on versions.) DGG (talk) 18:45, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Columbia University's School of Continuing Education

Following up, please note - this paragraph is a word-for-word copy of page four from the school's 2006 Dean's Report.[12]

(details refactored)

I hope that's enough to demonstrate the problem: most of the page is copyvio from university publications, posted by single purpose IPs or accounts that either resolve to the university or are obviously related to it. The abuse is so blatant that bulleted lists aren't even reformatted in wikimarkup. Please speedy. Durova^Charge! 22:07, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

indeed yes--I perfectly well realised that it would all have been copied from various places. I left that edit summary just to prevent deletion while I reworked it quickly. I have now removed all the detailed sections and stubbified the basics. I think a stubbified article can serve a useful lesson--more on your page--our postings seem to have crossed. DGG (talk) 22:11, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Small-world Experiment page

I recently learned that the Small-world Experiment page is scheduled to be reverted over possible copyright violation issues. As the person responsible for the suspected copyright infringement, I have posted a clarification on the talk page. Hopefully this clears up the issue. For further clarification, you are welcome to contact me. --Jerfgoke 20:22, 9 September 2007 (UTC) I've replied at length to your question about this on the article talk page Talk:Small world experiment. Please also see [13] for how I proposed to deal with this. DGG (talk) 20:56, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Journals added

I added another article to the sandbox page, User talk:Journals88/sandbox, using your advice from the previous article. Would you be able to critique and make sure it is not a COI? Thank you for your help and sorry I have been taking so long to get back to you.Journals88 17:18, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

try them now. DGG (talk) 18:53, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Another one.

These users should have been blocked and severely warned, as I'm tired of this. I don't have time for this one, as I'm writing a report right now. [14] KP Botany 00:56, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Same user, back again. Has been blocked & I will clean up. I too have now lost whatever patience I have. If you see any additional ip addresses , let me know. DGG (talk) 02:14, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I got inspired to track things down further, found several additional ip addresses going back to Sept 1, blocked them all, removed links (& a good deal of misc. spam from others), & figured out some other ways to find them. Will follow up on COI page. Yes, you are right that my initial AGF was not correct. Kept going till my mouse stopped working from overuse. Literally. DGG (talk) 14:32, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Yup, pretty bad. Thanks. KP Botany 01:09, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Technical book categories, any input?

Any insight on technical book categories would be appreciated.[15] KP Botany 01:14, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

WP:TIMETRACE

Hello, I wonder if you could, while editing diverse articles, check if they have sources in their history or chronology (or when they mention any important date. If they don't, could you please place inline {{Timefact}} calls where those citations to sources are missing, this will display . If you find an article with too many inline calls to place or totally lacking needed history of the subject, you can instead place {{histrefm}} at the footnotes of the article's main page, just before Categories. If you could add this to your routines, it will most certainly help WP:TIMETRACE. Thank you for your help. Daoken 06:41, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

== In-popular-culture notability guideline proposal ==

Hey, I've been told you would have a lot to say about Wikipedia:Notability (in popular culture). Please take a look at that page and give us your thoughts. MessedRocker (talk) 14:28, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

New proposal: Wikipedia is not a trivia collection

This proposed guideline is so that WP:NOT#TRIVIA can be returned to Wikipedia. It is distinct from Wikipedia:Trivia sections in that it is a content policy, not a style policy. This guideline states that trivia may be removed.

I know in advance this is not your point of view, and this proposal may be seen as in competition with the Wikipedia:Relevance of content guideline, which I think is mostly your work. However, I'm hoping you can find elements of my proposal that might help your proposal, and I'm hoping I can receive some feedback from you about what is needed to make my proposal better.

As I've stated at WP:VPP, it doesn't help my proposal for contradictory philosophies to be introduced — this is, after all, a proposed guideline and does not need to contradict itself. However, I would also be interested in feedback from people have problems with excluding trivia, and you are an experienced editor who I trust can collaborate in good faith. I'm hoping you might have a few specific suggestions on how this guideline can be made better, preferably on a relevant Talk page, either mine or Wikipedia talk:Avoid trivia.

If you are not interested in supporting this proposal in any way, I won't hold it against you, but I think I can only benefit from your suggestions. / edg ☺ ★ 14:37, 23 September 2007 (UTC).

I have replied at the VP discussion--I do have some suggestions. I do think we need a guideline--I don't wantto be aguing this in 10 different places forwver. But it should reflect the factors that do seem to matter and still be flexible enough so people of all tendencies can support it. The Relevance of content section is, however, not my work. It was written almost entirely by User:Father Goose, and the history will show I made one single edit only. [16]. Even on the talk page I only made two comments-- [17] and then [18] Maybe they have influenced the subsequent discussion. But my interest in that guideline page is about something else: balance and proportion in general. DGG (talk) 18:03, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

But where do you want to centralize the discussion--I'll copy it there. DGG (talk) 20:01, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

No one seems to think Wikipedia:Avoid trivia was useful in its current form, so I'm retiring it as an unneeded distraction. At least now I know.

As to where this discussion should continue, I dunno. I'll follow it wherever, but it seems deadlocked in 2 or 3 places. And "deadlocked" is optimistic on my part; really it's moving toward abandoning trivia exclusion of any kind. / edg ☺ ★ 01:02, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

There is an immense amount of article content labeled trivia ( or not labeled trivia) which is inconsequential or infantile and should be removed. How to do it fairly I do not know--see my long comment above to Becksguy. But it's interesting we see the trend differently--I think I am fighting against all odds to try to retain notable content. T reason this problem is so difficult is, in my view,the over-zealous actions of those who tried and are still trying to delete everything resembling popular culture. If there had been a reasonable effort at removing clearly inappropriate content, it would have gone much more smoothly. But anything that appears to be a concerted effort to remove wholesale any sort of article or content that is not liked, tends not surprisingly, to arouse opposition. DGG (talk) 01:52, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

article content labeled trivia (or not labeled trivia) which is inconsequential or infantile ... should be removed.

I don't see how a consensus can form around any means of doing this. The current environment is hostile to content restrictions of this sort, and there is considerable momentum for removing what already exists. At a later time when things have cooled down, there will be considerable precedent for retaining such content. Already plenty of editors think In popular culture and Trivia sections are standard features. / edg ☺ ★ 03:07, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

as for popular culture, I do think it should be a standard feature whenever there is enough material. As for the content of trivia sections, I think the consensus is that the usable material should be distributed in the article in a more appropriate way. I don't support inadequate articles or weak content & I think we can find a way by which reasonable people can work together for a reasonable compromise goal. One in which there may be articles that perhaps not everyone agrees are justified, but where the content is as good as possible. That's my goal in general on a number of topics--to stop disputing borderline cases of notability and work on content. And in getting the real junk out and keeping it out. DGG (talk) 04:57, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

• Sorry to badger you with attention requests, but you may want to take a look at Wikipedia:Notability (in popular culture) which started yesterday. Not sure if discussion there would be redundant with other forums; your input is welcome. Best, — xDanielx ^T/_C 05:49, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Re: criteria for academics

Hi DGG -- I assume you're referring to Dlawer Ala'Aldeen? The way I work on AfD with academics tends to be to list all the information that I've found that I feel has a bearing on the notability of the subject, whether positive, negative or neutral, and then to see whether on balance I believe that s/he appears to have attained sufficient notice by his/her peers to meet WP:PROF.

I agree that citations are more important than raw numbers of papers, but unfortunately have access only to Google Scholar, which is partial at best. As to the professor vs other titles divide, that doesn't really make much sense in the UK at the moment, as we're currently transitioning from a system in which only heads of departments are given the title of professor to something more akin to the US system. In the meantime, what 'professor', 'senior lecturer', 'reader' &c&c means is entirely university and indeed department dependent.

My standards for keeping an existing article (that was created in good faith and without obvious conflict of interest) are significantly lower than my standards for creating a new article myself. Regards, Espresso Addict 21:50, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

creation of journal pages

Hello DGG. Thank you for the messages regarding the pages I have created for a number of UC Press-published journals. I am an employee of the Press, and was asked to create these pages. I was not aware that doing so was in violation of WP standards (let alone copyright standards), and it was not my intent to add content that does not warrant inclusion. Nor was it my intent to create additional work for WP to clean up the pages I created. I will do my best to bring the pages up to snuff, and I apologize for any inconvenience. Thanks. -Joe. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Joseph.tobin (talk • contribs) 18:20, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Fan fiction article

Hello, I recently returned from an editing hiatus of sorts, and decided to go back to work on some of the articles I had been working on previously. I was just looking through your profile and thought that you might like to contribute to the Fan fiction article, one of my prior favorite frustrations (heh) which could probably use someone of your experience and interests looking at it. I'm especially keen on seeing the early history of printed derivitive works improved, which seeing as it goes back to at least the 18th century, I thought sounded like it might be right up your alley. I also think we still have a bit of a dearth of academic references and mentions in modern times, despite the increasing interest in fan fiction in academic circles in recent years. You sound like you are a LOT better at digging this stuff up than I am, and the history really does seem to be rather interesting. Just thought I'd bring it up, in case you were interested. :) Any extra set of eyes looking at the article would be much appreciated! Runa27 21:42, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

h-index and CiteULike

Hi DGG,

Thanks for the kind words regarding my work on h-index. Once I have some spare time on my hand, I'll try to work in some recent research on the topic. V interesting stuff showing that women in evo/eco have generally lower h-index even though other attempts to show impact of research show them level with men.

Regarding the CiteULike article, please tell me where you see a conflict of interest. I attempted to remove the direct quotes from the website that were previously in the article. And rewrote most of it. Also emailed the authors regarding the free status of the service (see talk page) for a justification why there's no statement referring to that on their website. They were responsive and said that there are currently exploring ways to support the site, possibly via contributions from companies, institutions, etc. Since this is in the making, they said, it might cause legal complication to place such a statement on their website.

Please let me know where you see a conflict of interest, so I can rework that part and remove the tag.

Best, Jakob Suckale 11:37, 4 October 2007 (UTC) -

replied on your page, and fixed it a little more and removed the tag. 18:09, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

will contact you by email to discuss. best, Jakob Suckale 10:27, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Compersion

I don't understand your rationale for removing the afd tag about this article, but would like to. The article itself is a full wiktionary entry with a usage note. Is your rationale that it should stay because there is discussion and that might lead to an article? Why wouldn't we keep the afd tag and let that emerge from the discussion? If the afd led to some non-dictionary content in the article, that would be OK with me. DCDuring 10:20, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I saw your talk entry. That ought to do it. Afd has a too short a fuse for an off-the-beaten track article, I suppose. DCDuring 10:39, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Right--there are many attempts to try to find some intermediate or different way to get people to work intensively on articles. I support them as experiments, if they are not too dogmatic of bureaucratic about it, or want to add yet additional complicated rules or machinery; I can't think of a good way myself, but perhaps someone will be more ingenious. By the way, I removed a Prod not an AfD--See WP:Deletion policy for the difference. DGG (talk) 11:08, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Charon in popular culture discussion mentioned in Los Angeles Times article

Dear DGG, I don't know if you saw this, but it may interest you. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 01:58, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks and a query (magazines)

Thank you for the 'excellent work' message on my talk page. Did you mean extending that particular list and changing its name to reflect the greater coverage, or creating/working on a series of lists for diferent countries/periods?? I am game for either, on the understanding that my time for Wikipedia is limited, so I tend to have 'bursts' when nothing more demanding is happening in the 'real' world - like earning a living... ;~) --Abbeybufo (talk • contribs) 11:51, 7 October 2007 (UTC).

either way--Unless considerably more information can be added about the individual childrens' magazines themselves, I think a wider coverage would be better, either geographically or chronologically. The article will be strong if more extensive in any direction DGG (talk) 19:29, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

OK. I did a {{main| }} link to the History of British Comics, so my first thoughts are to keep this list as a British one, even if it gets extended beyond the early C20 period...happy to do some work on that. But my knowledge of other countries' magazine lit is limited - though as an ex-librarian myself (can one ever be an ex-librarian, I wonder?) I could probably find out quite a bit. Whether that would be enough to be more than a stub for each country, though?? - Maybe we should try and keep them all on the same page after all and have headings for different countries within the list, which could be extended by people with greater knowledge (one would hope) - what d'you reckon? --Abbeybufo (talk • contribs) 20:09, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I consider most of what I do here to be working as a librarian, if that's an answer. Advising people about information (& for that matter, about navigating bureaucracies. ) As for these magazines, did you see them as comics primarily? --I'm thinking of the nearest thing I know well, which is Wodehouse's school stories. and in an earlier period--Edgeworth--you might want to make the acquaintance of User:Awadewit. DGG (talk) 07:56, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

No I dont see them as primarily comics, but the History of British Comics page does include Boy's (& Girl's) Own Paper fairly early within the article, so I think that article does reckon to cover the magazines. This is why I added in some that are shown on that page (on which, BTW, there is quite a long list) and added the 'main article' link. Are we agreed that the page should be extended as far as poss to include all countries and periods, with country or area subheads [the link for History of British Comics can then go under the UK heading] and hope this will encourage others to contribute about the mags for countries they know about?? If so at what stage should the page title be changed and the 'move' [if that's what it is] get done? And does a move take links already made with it, or act as a redirect for them...or does that have to be done by fixing them separately via 'what links here'? - I'm new enough not to have got involved in too much of that sort of rearrangement yet. :)

I don't think one ever really stops being a librarian; once you've worked on an enquiry desk for 20+ years it is second [or possibly first!] nature to try to guide people to the right place for the information they're looking for - which I suppose is why I've felt compelled to keep coming back to WP and tweak here and there as my own expertise/interest allows. I will look at User:Awadewit's pages and maybe leave a message, thanks for the suggestion. Abbeybufo (talk • contribs) 13:46, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I'll answer the easy part--if you want to make it more general, now is the time. List of childrens magazines and annuals is presumably what you're after. in that case. A move takes care of the links if it's a straight move. A merge is harder, but I can do both for you as needed. what would mainly need cleaning up is categories, and you should think about that as well. But here is the real problem: in general, lists are supposed to include only notable things, normally defined as those with a Wikipedia article. So the "red links' will be a problem. How much of an article will be needed to support notability is not clear. There's a project Wikipedia:WikiProject Academic Journals‎ which can probably be of some help, though the orientation is a little different. DGG (talk) 23:14, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Compersion

Compersion is a neologism. It appears to have been invented in the subculture of polyamory. They need to a better job of providing hooks to existing words (See meme for a clever coinage) for their own cause. In the same link cruise, I came across the terminology within polyamory page, which illustrates their concern for novel terminology, confirmed by visiting the external links. The article is a glossary. Doesn't the article name alone indicate a problem with WP:NOT a dictionary?

As to Compersion, my WP objection is not to the word, not to the concept, but to the mere dictionariness of the entry. There is a main entry, polyamory, that is a nurturing home for the concept. If compersion were a redirect to that page, it would be fine. Many smaller articles that don't represent potential forks to different articles from a user's point of view ought to be merged or converted to redirects to accelerate the user getting to a meaty article on the concept of interest, in context. I proposed the deletion (sloppily, trying to follow the instructions given in the prod template), because I was thinking in terms of deleting the text content, not so much the page itself. Maybe my goal could be viewed as a merge back into the polyandry article. But only deletion discussions seem to generate debate and significant editorial improvement for less attended-to articles. The source tags especially seem to be ignored. DCDuring 12:51, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

There is an overlap between dictionaries and encyclopedia. Articles giving merely the definition and etymology of the word, and examples of usage, go in Wiktionary. Articles that discuss the usage--or the etymology--in a substantial way go here--such discussions are not generally allowed in Wiktionary--they consider that information encyclopedic. . Obviously there will be many articles that can be seen from either perspective. The way I look on it is that if the information seems readily capable of development from a subject perspective, then it probably belongs in WP, on the same principle as we have stubs. If it seems unlikely that a subject article could be written, then it doesnt. In this case, there seems to be potential for discussion the concept as well as the word formation. Thanks for the link--I find the invention of these words a very curious phenomenon. On the one hand, the concepts seem to be real--or at least they seem to match what some people perceive in their own feelings and for which there is no standard word. Personally, I dont like this word--I keep spelling it comperson, as a sort of portmanteau between compassion and person.

as for the subject, yes, i did think that might have been part of the reason, and in general I try to support the expansion, not condensation of articles of sexuality. In this case its not really part of polyandry, which is much more limited. The feeling of friendship and love between multiple wives is as much a part of it, for which there is an immense historical record. There's much less literature on the reciprocal, primate males being as they are. There's also of course other possibilities, such as the relationship between a bisexual person's gay and straight lovers. There might be place for a general article, but we'd need a word for it--and here we are back again. DGG (talk) 01:03, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Barnstar award

		The Barnstar of Diligence
		I hereby award you this Barnstar of Diligence for your extraordinary contributions to the AfD process, whither the D be speedy or slow! Dreadstar † 06:47, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Re: welcome colleague

I'm taking a whole bunch of courses, no specialty yet:

• filosophy/theory of information science
• history of book and library
• statistics in the information sector
• technology for automated document information systems
• structure in document information systems
• retrieval in document information systems
• social aspects of information
• law and information
• management strategy in the information sector
• data processing in information
• present issues in publishing and booktrade

And I'm probably doing an internship transforming 18th/19th century etches into electronic form. For now, I'm pretty new to all of it. Still need to look around and try things out to see in what way I'll be helping the Librarians project though. Also depends on the area of information science that will get my preference in the future. Key to the city 09:27, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

IPC

Just wanted to let you know about Wikipedia:Notability (in popular culture), in case you didn't know about it. Someone created it recently as a proposal.

Equazcion • argue/improves • 15:14, 10/9/2007

Fallout from Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Boitumelo McCallum

As the current Emperor of the Inclusionists, would you be able to take a look at this can of worms and see if you can suggest a solution? I confess to being at a loss - I really don't want to nominate roughly 50% of an editors work for deletion, but even at my most inclusionist I can't really make a valid case not to do so. Can you think of any way we could at least save some of them? (My normal instinct would be to merge them, but I can't think of anything legitimate to merge them to; List of murder victims in New York City would be unmanageably large, to say the least.) Any thoughts? — iridescent (talk to me!) 18:47, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that... My gut feeling is to leave them until other people stumble across them and they're nominated one-by-one — a bulk nomination is likely to lead to a huge amount of arguing & bad faith — but I see real problems with any attempt to rewrite them. My gut instinct (assuming there's nothing to merge them to) is to cut them down to stub length (Wikipedia is not a true-crime magazine, and I see no reason at all for the precise details unless they're directly relevant to the case), but I've no doubt at all that that would spark a permanent revert war. There are 500+ murders in NYC alone every year, and I really can't see anything more noteworthy/notable about these than any others. (Sooner or later, someone's going to need to turn their attention to Billy again as well; he's still cut-and-pasting as fast as ever.) Ho hum. — iridescent (talk to me!) 21:49, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Trivia

Totally appropriate, dude. I completely agree with you. I'm watching the conversation to see how it goes...but I can't imagine wholesale removal of Triva or Pop Culture sections without an attempt to incorporate the content into the aricle makes any sense at all...unless it's a new rule come down the pike... Dreadstar † 20:46, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

There's an ANI thread about the whole situation here with some consensus slowly building in a subsection.--chaser - t 22:20, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Interesting. They may need to better deliniate the WP:V issues from the WP:TRIVIA issues, they're separate, imho. Removal of unsourced content from the trivia sections is fine, but is the baby being thrown out with the bathwater when the entire trivia section is deleted - as in reliably sourced trivia? "Reliably sourced trivia" - is there such a thing? It almost sounds like an oxymoron....heh. I'm not sure if I like trivia sections or not, but we don't currently prohibit them. Thanks for pointing it out, Chaser! Dreadstar † 03:01, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

trivia can in practice mean relatively trivial, or utterly trivial. But unfortunately it has been widely used outside WP to mean "collection of miscellaneous curious facts about a person or thing, some of which may actually be important but some are just amusing" and the use of our trivia sections copies this. We're stuck with the word, because the rest of the world uses it, and because of the intrinsic meaning it has a negative connotation to many sensible people, which is not always reflected in the material.

in popular culture,however, is a respected academic term for a way of studying literature and society, and is to some extent the currently popular specialty, both in writing and in courses for students. There are some old-fashioned people who think it a diversion from serious analysis, but they are a small minority. Some seem to have gotten involved with Wikipedia and are trying to restrict us to their preferred limitations. DGG (talk) 03:31, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Excellent analysis of the situation, DGG. I guess we'll have to convince those old-fashioned minds so we can serve our readers properly by keeping up with everyone's trivial pursuits..;) Dreadstar † 03:55, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

In fact, I came to my position by realising that my idea of serious topics was seen by others as a prime example of the pursuit of the trivial--that the academic world I have spent my career assisting was regarded by many here as not worth the attention. I have always myself been rather poor at the literal game of Trivial Pursuit--I would not make a good editor of such materials. The only way of preserving minority interests is live and let live. Some call it intellectual freedom and the promotion of diversity. DGG (talk) 04:02, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Well said. From reading your userpage bio, I knew you came from an academic background of the world of scholarly information, and your experience there is very helpful to our project. I'm very glad to have you contributing and I'm glad to have run across you here. Me? Well, I never liked the game of trivial pursuit...it always seemed...oh, I don't know...trivial? :D My head is so full of trivia in certain areas it's almost scary sometimes...and I use these bits of trivia to try and inject humor or interesting bits of info when I'm communicating with other editors here...heck, I've done it on this page... Trivia can be a effective tool..but beware of the power of dark side of the triv...oh, wait, never mind...another trivial leap 'o the braincells...;) Dreadstar † 05:29, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I think you're correct on your analysis of "Trivia" vs. "In popular culture", I think some analysis of some things in current mainstream culture is entirely appropriate. I tend to draw the line at "Is the in popular culture article or section prose based on sourced and verifiable analysis of the subject's impact on popular culture, or is it just a list of when it's appeared in this that or something else?" The first case is acceptable and appropriate, the second has to go. This being said, what would you say to working together on a project? I think it would be easy enough to find sourced analysis of a major subject's impact on modern culture, and we could set up an article to "show how it's done", as it were. Let me know if you'd be interested. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 05:45, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

As mentioned, I'm not the ideal person for most of these topics, as I do not know the sources for popular music or television, nor can I really judge importance. In those fields I use WP to learn, not to write. And so I think that perhaps smaller more focused articles -- or perhaps sections-- are clearer: "Dragons in computer games", for example. But I agree that everyone involved in this question ought to contribute to the writing as well as the discussion. Let me look for one that might interest both of us.

the question of the validity and appropriateness of list articles affects more than this topic, though the discussion is often inter-twined. In general, to be frank, I like lists and tables wherever they are appropriate. I think WPedians often write these clearer than they write prose. The sort of long turgid paragraphs used for many articles contributes to vague thinking and vague sourcing. It takes real skill to make descriptive paragraphs interesting and clear, but anyone who understands the subject should be able to do a fair outline. Would people here could write better, but we must adapt our demands to our abilities. DGG (talk) 06:17, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

== Fortuitious post-suggestion ;-) ==

I noticed that you mentioned to an editor that the fictional debates are not one and the same. I had just finished applying the following to all 3 related AFD's.

Cheers! /Blaxthos 00:08, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

creative use of the template! i think the best solution is to rewrite in somewhat smaller pieces whether or not these are deleted now. And there are too much of IPC/trivia related problems for one day. 01:27, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

pick a journal ... any journal

I have spammed everyone else on the project so, ... could you pick an old journal in a field that you are familiar with for a future collaboration project; enter it under "Nominations for future CotW:" in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Academic_Journals#Planning_ahead. Thanks, John Vandenberg 02:36, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Also, the notability discussion is picking up again. Nurg has done a draft based on the books guideline. I think you had some developed ideas on this, so if you have time to contribute, that would be great. Discussion is spread between the WikiProject talk page and User talk:Nurg/Notability (periodicals). Carcharoth 12:45, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Search LOVE in Google

Hi, DGG: Just for my edification, could you point out the assertion of notability contained in the Search LOVE in Google article. Thanks. --Evb-wiki 22:34, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

I might perhaps have worded it better as the good faith willingness of the ed. to improve the article. He's got 5 days. Without the hangon, I probably would have deleted. DGG (talk) 23:19, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Okay. I can live with that. I thought I was missing something. Cheers. --Evb-wiki 00:01, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

ACM Multimedia

Where is the assertion of importance in this article? What are the notability guidelines for conferences and meetings? Robert K S 06:27, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

1. Speedy for non notability can only be used for the classes of material given as WP:CSD. Technical scientific, business meetings etc are not included among them. There has been very strong resistance to expansion of those criteria. 2. Further, according to WP:CSD A7 even for those things included any good faith indication of notability at all is sufficient to prevent speedy. If you doubt the notability, you may test it at AfD. 3. But since this is a major international conference of the major professional association in a field where professional conferences are the main avenue of communication, it will probably be held notable. There are no special rules for articles on these, just WP:N., but all major series of conferences proposed for AFD in the last 9 months have been held notable. Individual conferences have usually been held non-notable. In practice, the guidelines are determined by the decisions at AfD. But that's just my advice, and you have the right to test them. DGG (talk) 06:34, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your advice. I'm not sure you answered my questions. All articles have to assert notability, no? I do not doubt that ACM Multimedia is a professional conference, but it must point to some source showing that it is in order for the article to stand. You seem to be saying that, to the best of your knowledge, there are as yet no notability guidelines for meetings and conferences, and that each such article must be tested on a case-by-case basis through AfD. Robert K S 07:00, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

"Assert" is a very weak word. the subjects of all articles have to do much more than that, they have to actually be notable. For some types of articles, many of them give so little indication or assertion of any possible notability at all that it is appropriate to remove them quickly on the grounds that notability would not possibly be able to be shown. That's for speedy--it deals nicely with the real junk. I, like most admins, take a share in deleting a dozen of so each day. Everything else goes for AFD or PROD.

Most types of articles have no specific guidelines, in fact, just WP:N. It's the default, and the others are just specializations--and are every one of them not fixed policy but flexible guidelines subject to interpretation. All questioned notability for whatever reason gets tested at AfD, and any good faith registered user such as yourself has the right to bring an article there to test it. I am advising you it will probably stand, on the basis of my experience with the last year's worth of such article brought there, but that is just advice. I am not the person who gets to decide. The question will be argued, and the consensus of the people discussing it there will be followed. I will advise you that the article can in my opinion certainly be sourced, and you might want to try to look for some yourself--it takes less time than the afd nomination process. The rule is that articles are not deleted for being unsourced, only for being unsourcable. An appropriate intermediary step is to place a PROD tag on it, saying something like no sources given for notability -- see WP:PROD for the procedure -- and notify the person who wrote the article to give them a chance to source it. AfD s a blunt and cumbersome tool to get articles sourced and improved. DGG (talk) 07:59, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

You seem not to be getting my point.

It's not enough, in my understanding of Wikipedia, for a subject to actually be notable in order for its article to stand. The article must express this notability somehow. In other words, the article must indicate its own raison d'être. This can be done qualitatively or quantitatively; it can be as simple as a reference to an outside source. For the ACM Multimedia article, it can be something like "The conference was attended by 52,000 people in 2007": such would oppose it to articles that could only claim "I attended this event by myself, alone, in my basement last night". In your edit summary of your removal of my speedy tag, you said that the article asserts its notability. I do not see such an assertion. As it stands, I see an unsourced repository of external links. Robert K S 08:45, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

1. to say something is in some real way related to a major national organization is in any case an assertion or claim to notability. Anything at all that might make someone--not necessarily yourself--think something notable is an assertion of notability. Such a bare association about someone real, that he was for example president of such an association or chairman of such a conference, would be enough to prevent speedy A7, whether or not it was actually notable. There are two levels of notability, the minimal level to prevent A7--which does not require any sort of reference, by the way--and the higher level to stay in WP, which is actual notability per WP:N, and does require it to be referenceable. The place this policy is tested is at deletion review. Any very slight claim is cause for undeletion, if someone does delete it via speedy.
2. but it does not matter for this article, because a conference does not fit under speedy A7 as one of the limited number of classes, real people, groups of real people, bands, clubs, companies, and web content. Nothing else. Not conferences, meetings, conventions, schools, churches, pieces of music, buildings, computer programs, commercial products books, videos, religions, events, theories, essays--as examples of things people sometimes try to use A7 for, but they cannot be done that way. If one wants to challenge anything of these for notabiity, it has to be at WP:CSD or WP:PROD. Even if there were to be an article about a local conference of a city subsection of such a organization--which would almost certainly not be notable-- it would have to go via AfD or Prod.

The reason underlying this is that all of this are generally disputable or need more than 2 people to be reasonably sure. The place this policy is tested is also at deletion review. If some administrator does carelessly or deliberately delete such an article, if it is taken there, it is always undeleted. If an admin were to consistently insist of doing so, he would probably be de-adminned, as he would be for violating any other clear policy. --and there is in fact a proposal to make the procedure for doing so much easier. Even if i thought they were unimportant altogether, I still could not speedy it.

1. The place to urge an expansion of the types of things that fit under speedy or a change in the degree of notability is the talk page for WP:CSD or the WP:VP. there have been no expansions of the criteria the past year or longer. The trend there is, in fact, to restrict it further. You are anyone is welcome to try otherwise. I do not make the rules. DGG (talk) 12:50, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

New trivia/pop culture WikiProject

I presume this will be of interest to you: Wikipedia:WikiProject Trivia and Popular Culture.--Father Goose 23:50, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Re: UCfD

Re: User talk:Black Falcon#UCfD

There's absolutely no need to apologise, I assure you. It's simply that I'm almost certain that I've never posted to your talk page regarding UCFD (well, except now). Were you referring to someone else, perhaps? I initially assumed that it was in reference to me, but upon rereading your comment, I see that it's ambiguous on that point.

As for a means of increasing participation, I can't think of anything at the moment. UCFD is advertised about as much as any other deletion process. Participation there seems, for the most part, to fluctuate with the quantity of nominations: when many categories are nominated at the same time, raw participation increases. The quantity of nominations itself is quite variable: some days see a few dozen new nominations and other times numerous days pass with only a handful.

I don't think it's entirely feasible to combine most of the XfDs. The deletion/inclusion standards for categories, templates, project pages, and redirects are vastly different. If there is any move to consolidate them, I think it should be carried out in small steps, in order to allow the full consequences to be revealed.

To me, the most obvious target for consolidation is WP:STFD; since it deals both with templates and categories, its function could be split and allocated to WP:TFD and WP:CFD, respectively. I've also considered proposing combining WP:UCFD and WP:CFD (indeed, that's why I initially became active at UCFD in June), but I don't think that's viable at this point in time. Moreover, the standards for user categories are substantially different from those for regular categories. A 'year of birth' category for people would be kept at CFD but a similar user category was deleted at UCFD; an 'interest' or 'language' category for biographies would be deleted at CFD but those for users were kept at UCFD. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 17:08, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I have finally figured out who made the comment I referred, and it was certainly not you! I'll fix my implication. As for UCFDs, I notify the people individually with a bot. If none of them mind, we're done with it. I doubt many people watchlist their user categories (but how should I know really, since I don't use them myself). another way to notify would be through relevant project pages, in instances where it applies. Personally, I think very highly of WP Projects as a way for effective work in such a large overall setting as WP, , and we should continue to develop their usefulness. the real problem with UCFD is that some people dont want them except for strictly encyclopedia-related issues, and I think that is fundamentally wrong in principle, and we need some kind of a referendum. I really have doubts about anything that might suggest paternalism or telling other people how to organise themselves, unless there is actual abuse. That happens, of course, and when it does it should be dealt with. DGG (talk) 23:33, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the clarification. The diff of your response was also quite informative and helps shed light on the pattern of your participation. In response to your comment above, I would like to make two points.

First, I agree that WikiProjects are effective for bringing together and coordinating the efforts of various editors; that's one of the reasons that I consider the Category:Wikipedians by WikiProject category tree to be useful, and am generally hesitant to delete (or suggest deletion of) any page that is used by a WikiProject.

Second, I would be surprised if people watchlisted every user category that they appeared in; it's more likely that they just watchlist the ones they have created. Still, I don't view paternalism to be an issue with user category discussions, since appearing in a user category rarely involves an actual, conscious decision. In virtually all cases, users appear in a category because they transclude or have substed a certain userbox. Their appearance in the category is coincidental and they may even be completely unaware of the accompanying category. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 00:38, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Pop culture?

Any more input on User:Mangojuice/PC? Mangojuice^talk 19:01, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

as a start, change to /Cultural references. Second, are you aiming for user space or WP space. I would suggest WP space. Depending on which, I will look at details againDGG (talk) 19:13, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Aiming at a WP space essay, at Wikipedia:Popular culture. I don't like "cultural references" because people have the understanding that "cultural references" refers to sections such as the "references in" lists I talk about. BTW, I saw your point about "explaining humor" - obviously you're right, it's relevant and worthwhile to explain plot, but there's a limit, so that bit could stand some rewriting. Mangojuice^talk 19:17, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

You may be right about "references" let's look around at what others have tried as page titles for this material.My point is, that much of the material may not in either direction be "popular" culture. Uses of Moby Dick or the Bible is not making use of popular culture. In the other directions, a theme used by, say, Rushdie, does not quite fit either. Not even all of film fits into this category. I have sometimes thought some of the sections should be dealt with separately (video games in particular, since there are still very few conventional secondary references.) as for location, do you mean as a replacement? or a subpage? The original is just an essay--subpages are generally discouraged except in user space. It might be interesting, though, to have a good way of doing a collection of different people's essays. DGG (talk) 22:37, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

CFD/AFD boomerang

Hi DGG - on a CFD discussion you noted * Keep Many of the AfD discussions on such lists close as calling for the exactly opposite treatment--to use the category. doing this is at cross purposes. There are several ongoing discussions on how to deal with such articles, and this change is at the least premature.DGG (talk) 17:02, 24 October 2007 (UTC). Do you have links for the "several ongoing discussions" on this topic? It's of great concern to me, as well. --lquilter 18:50, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

starting point: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trivia and Popular Culture, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trivia Cleanup, Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Trivia is what Wikipedia does best, Wikipedia talk:Relevance of content , and see Wikipedia:"In popular culture" articles , Wikipedia talk :Trivia sections.

Lots of interesting stuff on the trivia/IPC debate, but I haven't found much on the AFD/CFD boomerang problem in which a list goes up for AFD and people say "let's make it a category" and the same category goes up for CFD and people say "not appropriate for a category; listify". Or am I missing something? --lquilter 15:47, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

That particular line was used more a few months back, where one or two editors were consistently following a pattern of first splitting off content from a main article as too long to keep together, then nominating the split one for deletion as non notable. But it wasnt back-and-forth, it was just nominated as better in a category. I'll find some afds where this was used. The general question of list vs category is a tricky one, because it also concerns the question of whether redlinks should be removed from lists--whether they can and should include content not sufficiently notable for a WP article. What's going on there is an overlapping movement of general opposition to lists. A great many major lists are being nominated as indiscriminate because they contain a large number of items. I want to look for some AfDs where the list was kept , so it will still be visible. I think the answer is to always have both if there are enough to justify a category. I dont see how we can decide a priori which way or organization is better. DGG (talk) 16:08, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I think there are lots of good reasons to like one or the other, depending on the situation. But then I am fairly inclusive on lists and on redlinks, too. (The redlink think actually annoys me quite a bit, because of course there are lots of systemic bias issues involved in it.) I really think there should be some sort of list for monitoring AFD/CFDs that center on the category/list question, to ensure some consistency of approach across the two discussions. I guess I'll propose that at the cat/list/infobox page. --lquilter 17:12, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

HarvardScience

Ok, I re-read the article, and didn't realize it was an official site. The wording made it sound like it was an unofficial one. But anyway, I found a source for notability (though it's not much) and added it in, though to be honest, there's little else about it online if you do a search for it (and rule out sites with harvard.edu in it). Kwsn (Ni!) 16:47, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm glad you found something--now it can probably survive Afd. DGG (talk) 17:31, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm sure more sources will come out eventually, the site is pretty new. Kwsn (Ni!) 17:48, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

other schools may have similar. I think Berkeley does--I will take a look for it. DGG (talk) 18:13, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Sylvin Rubinstein

Could you take a look again at Sylvin Rubinstein? Much, of not most, of it is directly from the webpage [19]. For example, the "Nazi Occupation" section - both of those sentences are directly lifted from the news article. In the "Resistance" section, the paragraphs/sentences that start "It turned out..." and "Werner arranged..." are directly lifted, and that's most of the section that isn't direct quotes from Rubinstein. And before Apeloverage's edit it was even worse. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 06:12, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

I am in fact quite unhappy with this article, and said so on the article talk page. I have now looked further, and commented in some detail there based upon both the English and the German material. The author of the article is a well-establish and reliable editor who has worked on a number of different topics, primarily films. Had it been a newcomer, i would probably have deleted the article immediately. Perhaps he can fix it, based on your & my information. If not, i will stubbify it. DGG (talk) 17:28, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Kewl. Thanks for your attention and participation :) -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 01:35, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Wrong Assumption

Although I know wiki pages have been created for some penn state faculty members during these weeks, I have to say I only created the page for James Wang in fact (I trided to create the page for another faculty member I also really admire once, but I gave up at last due to not enough notability.) Please do not make ungrounded assumption. I do not think creating wiki pages for interested people is a problem. But I agree that WP:PROF and WP:RS should be measured. This is my first time to make effort to create and maintain a wiki page, so it might be not enough good in these two aspects due to my unfamiliarity to wiki editing rather than James Wang's contribution. That is why I am keeping remedying these two aspects. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wendy xxy (talk • contribs) 04:23, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I apologize if I have overgeneralized. it does however appear to me --and to other wikipedians-- that the pages seem to have been created in some sort of an organized drive, as judged by the extensive similarities between the information presented , the formatting, and the style of writing. The rest of us here do think that creating pages for people where a COI exists is in fact a problem, because it leads to uncritical presentation as in these articles. People usually do better writing from a little distance. the net effect of this apparent campaign is going to greatly decrease the likelihood of articles being kept at Wikipedia. You may be able to tell from my user page here that i work very hard to keep the articles on significant faculty, but I can only do it for truly significant faculty and well-written moderate articles. In general articles on faculty run into some difficulty from those who do not understand that the publication of notable papers is what demonstrates notability. It is therefore necessary to be careful. You might want to follow the following guidelines: 1/avoid adjectives saying how important the work is 2/ only include the 2 or 3 most cited papers--in peer reviewed journals, as determined by an objective source, preferably Scopus or Science Citation Index, and give the exact number of citations from there. 3/List only significant prizes--not faculty teaching awards and the like. Outside major research grants do very nicely. 4/include full publication details of all the books, including the ISBN, and exact references to reviews of them in published sources. Publishers blurbs are not acceptable sources, no matter how important the guy who wrote them. I will be glad to offer further help, and i could do so particularly well if you could put me in touch with whoever is coordinating this project. DGG (talk) 04:43, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Hello badge

Hi. I made a Wiki Hello badge in case anyone's interested in using it for the Meetup. It's on the Meetup page. Nightscream 16:40, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Academic articles, what I think is important

In answer to a question from User:Dgandco about what constitutes the important requirements--as I personally see them

1. . Do not ever copy anything from a website, unless you fulfill the requirements of WP:COPYRIGHT. even then, it must be suitable.
2. . Read WP:BFAQ for information about conflict of interest and the necessary precautions.
3. . Read WP:PROFTEST from information about what counts as notability for faculty and researchers
4. . Remember the difference from an academic CV, which lists everything pertinent, and an encyclopedia article, which contains only information about the most important accomplishments.
   1. . List only major works: Books, the most important peer-reviewed journal articles, major awards, chairmanships, and so on.
   2. .Books are shown to be important by first, the nature of the publisher, and second, reviews in peer-reviewed journals. Include exact citations to such reviews, and third, being cited elsewhere.
   3. It is appropriate to list all the published books. Works in progress don't count for much.
   4. .Journal articles are shown important by fisrst, being published in excellent journals, and second, being widely cited. In the humanities, Scopus and Web of Science unfortunately dont work for citation counts--do the best you can with google Scholar.
   5. Overall number of peer reviewed articles is important, but do not actually list them all. Only the most highly cited or most recent or most significant. Usually, 5 is sufficient.
   6. Internal university committees are not usually of encyclopedic importance, nor is service as a reviewer. Editorships are. Positions as the head of major projects are.
   7. Teaching is only of encyclopedic importance if documented by major awards, notable students, or widely used textbooks .
   8. University administration below the Chair level is not usually important.
   9. Details of undergraduate work is not usually important, nor is any graduate work except the doctoral thesis research.
   10. work done independently after establishment as a full member of the profession in one's own right is what is important.
5. Remember the difference between public relations and an encyclopedia article
   1. Avoid adjectives of praise or importance
   2. Mention things once only.
   3. Mention the full name , & name of the university and department, only once or twice.
   4. Avoid needless words. Write concisely.
   5. Avoid non-descriptive jargon, and discussions of how important the overall subject is to society.
   6. Important public activities need to be documented by exact references to reliable 3rd party public sources/. don't use vague phrases about importance to the community and the like--list specific activities.
   7. .Do describe the research in specific terms, but briefly. Link to a few very specifically appropriate WP articles.
6. . follow WP style
   1. . Differentiate between External links, and references.
   2. . Link only the first appearance of a name of an institution or subject, but link all institutions and places
   3. . Give birthdate and place if possible
   4. . Use italics for book titles and journal titles, never bold face.

AND

• Be prepared to meet the common objection, "all professors publish. What are the third party sources saying this one is important"

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Steve Hoffman (businessman)

I voted to delete, a rarity that I disagree with you. Can you rescue this one? I'm going home to give out candy to little goblins. Bearian 17:58, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Hey, thanks for coming to my defense. Bearian 16:36, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

AFD

Just wanted your opinion on this AFD. Jauerback 14:30, 1 November 2007 (UTC) (Childrens series novels--interesting question-- DGG

Ping

I'm sorry to bother you, but I expected a response on User talk:Pepve and Talk:Iavardi River (they are separate discussions of course). -- Pepve 18:34, 1 November 2007 (UTC) Answered again there, though I think I had already done so adequately. DGG.

Category for deletion: supercentenarian trackers

I thought the person of a 'category' was to categorize and link similar articles. Guess I was wrong.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_November_1#Category:Supercentenarian_trackers

Ryoung122 02:13, 2 November 2007 (UTC)