User talk:Alan Liefting

This page was last edited by Willbennett2007 (talk | contribs) 13 years ago. (Update timer)

Template:FixBunching

If you leave a new message on this page, I will reply on this page unless you ask me to reply elsewhere.

Thanks

Thanks for creating Waste management (disambiguation)! --mboverload@ 06:07, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

No sweat. Cheers. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 06:10, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Hi, unsure about your edit to this, but no problem. I'd forgotten about that page, and I'm still unsure what it is! Will investigate. Tony (talk) 09:05, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Wilderness hut merge

Hi, thanks for voting in the merge discussion, I have made a request there which you might like to comment on regarding which article should receive information about countries not currently covered (e.g. Australia, Canada, Norway, Chile, Argentina, Ecuador, etc). Thanks, --Ozhiker (talk) 15:12, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

AfD nomination of International Sustainable Energy Agency

An article that you have been involved in editing, International Sustainable Energy Agency, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/International Sustainable Energy Agency. Thank you.

Please contact me if you're unsure why you received this message. Beagel (talk) 10:37, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

AWB bug

There is a bug with AWB that causes it to mess up set notation. For example, in this edit [1], it changed "{[0],[1],[2]}" to "{[0],[1],[2]]". I filed a bug report, but in the meantime please take special care to check AWB edits to articles that use that sort of notation. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:14, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Bridges in New Zealand

I note that the above article (which you created) has been moved and un-moved to/from List of bridges in New Zealand, but do you think that it would be appropriate to create a list? Adabow (talk) 11:41, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Some WP editors have a love affair with lists. I am ok with lists up to a point. If a list is created, and for me I don't care whether or not one is created, it should be an annotated list - or better still a table with type of structure, location, statistics etc. Actually now that I think/type about it there are sufficient NZ bridge articles to warrant a (sortable) list. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 20:55, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

I've made a small start. Feel free to chop and change it any way you think it needs. Adabow(complain) 02:24, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Looks good. I have made a few tweaks. Should we split it into individual tables based on geographic location or type (eg. road, rail, pedestrian)? -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 02:36, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

You edit my user page?

Why did you remove some of my WikiProjects [2]?

Userpages don't belong in the WikiProjects that I removed. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 12:22, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

OK. But in the other WikiProjects, user pages belong there? Tomeasy _{T C} 12:43, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, because they are for Wikipedians who participate rather than being for the project itself. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 12:46, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Right, they all end with members or participants. Thanks. Tomeasy _{T C} 14:53, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Coal in New Zealand

This is an automated message from CorenSearchBot. I have performed a web search with the contents of Coal in New Zealand, and it appears to include a substantial copy of http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=New_Zealand_and_coal. For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material; such additions will be deleted. You may use external websites as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences. See our copyright policy for further details. (If you own the copyright to the previously published content and wish to donate it, see Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials for the procedure.)

This message was placed automatically, and it is possible that the bot is confused and found similarity where none actually exists. If that is the case, you can remove the tag from the article and it would be appreciated if you could drop a note on the maintainer's talk page. CorenSearchBot (talk) 00:40, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

UK Customs rank insignia

Hi. You recently made an edit to this template, but you left no edit summary by way of explanation. The category which you removed was a valid one, so I am a little confused by your action. Could you explain your thinking? Many thanks. Timothy Titus ^{Talk To TT} 09:27, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Templates don't belong in content categories although not all editors agree with this and it is not clearly spelt out as a guideline. The general convention is to have templates in subcats of Category:Wikipedia templates. Templates are used by readers when they are in an article and do not need to be in a content category. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 09:42, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Copyright problem: Coal in New Zealand

Hi Alan. I have tagged your article, Coal in New Zealand, as a copyvio because it contains text that is licensed under the GFDL, a license which is now longer allowed on Wikipedia since the switch to dual licensing in July 2009 (see Wikipedia:Licensing update). Feel free to rewrite the text in your own words. If you choose not to, the article will be deleted after seven days. If you have copied GFDL-text into other articles as well, please let me know. Thanks, Theleftorium ^(talk) 17:43, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

That is the only one I did a copy n paste. I will rewrite it. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 19:22, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

United States an invasive species

Hi Alan Liefting, You have a good point on cluttered "Parent Page - Category:Invasive plant species in the United States" being less navigable now. There is a need for a "Child Page" - [Category:---?--in U.S.---?--] to collect the individual invasive plant species articles however, to be reached through the "Parent." Do you have any ideas how to title it, both for clarity and wiki category naming conformity ? It would be for invasive plants from anywhere that are a documented problem in the U.S. - not plants from here invasive elsewhere (such as "my" California Monterey pine in New Zealand I've heard). Thank You !--Cheers----Look2See1 t a l k → 02:21, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Rather than using the categories for the individual species it is better to use lists. They can be annotated and sortable. Of course that pages of the type "Invasive plant species in Country" should be in the appropriate country category. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 02:35, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Coal in New Zealand

The article Coal in New Zealand has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

At its current stage the article is actually speedy deletion candidate. However, I understand that this is a result of removing disputed text from the article. I believe that this is only temporary and during PROD period more substantial information will be added. If not, the article should be deleted.

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

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

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{dated prod}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. The speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Beagel (talk) 07:37, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Proposed move/rename of Medical cannabis

Hi! I wonder whether you'd be willing to revisit the move request discussion you initiated for the article currently named "Medical Cannabis"? Just a day or two ago I came across a naming policy statement that I imagine none of us who have participated in the discussion and !voting so far knew of previously. I certainly didn't know of it. The policy can be found at WP:UCN, and it appears to prohibit the proposal from being enacted. If you agree, I'd appreciate it if you'd consider withdrawing the proposal or, maybe better, just indicating it there if your opinion of whether it can be enacted changes after seeing the applicable policy. No hard feelings, of course, if you disagree that the policy applies or must be adhered to, for some reason. But I did want to let you know of it, and invite your further participation in the move request discussion. Please note, by the way, that this request to reconsider, in light of the policy, doesn't constitute improper canvassing since I'm sending it to everyone who has !voted on the proposal. Best,  – OhioStandard (talk) 12:45, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

List of works about Jiddu Krishnamurti redirection

Hello, I've noticed you redirected the above page into Bibliography of Jiddu Krishnamurti. I think this is wrong and should be reverted. The page in question is NOT a bibliography. A partial bibliography, together with listings of other media (a select videography and audiography) is at List of Jiddu Krishnamurti Works. The page you redirected lists works from a variety of media (not just books) created by others. Thanks, 65.88.88.208 (talk) 14:54, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

I reversed the redirection so now Bibliography of Jiddu Krishnamurti redirects to List of works about Jiddu Krishnamurti. However, this does not move the edit history. I wish there was a category to better convey these types of pages, because the "bibliography" categories are only partially accurate and so, inadequate. Thank you. 65.88.88.127 (talk) 16:33, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

I noticed another overexcited user reverted my reversal. I wonder if people actually take a look at the content before they go ahead and make these changes? Or because they see it as part of a category they automatically assume the content? To repeat, this page is not a bibliography. Further is not a page of works "of" or "by" Jiddu Krishnamurti, but about him. The article is more important than its classification. I originally assigned the category "Bibliographies by subject" because though inadequate, was also the closest I could find. 65.88.88.127 (talk) 16:50, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Slavery edits

Hi Alan -

I was looking at what you'd done with cannabis-related categories, and noticed you'd made some very rapid-fire changes using HotCat around categorization for slavery, and particularly for slavery in the United States. Some of those seemed beneficial, but many also seemed erroneous to me, and I've reverted or modified those as indicated, for the reasons given following their associated links, provided below.

(1) Herbert Aptheker. It appears from the article that this author wrote extensively about slavery in the U.S.A., and that it would be helpful rather than otherwise to include the article about him in the category, "Slavery in the United States" (SITUS). I reverted your deletion of that category from the article.

(2) James Osgood Andrew. It appears to me that prominent/notable slave holders ( the phrase "slave owners" is prima facie offensive ) in the United States are appropriately included in the SITUS category. ( Or perhaps you'd prefer to create an additional category under SITUS, something like "Prominent American slave holders", and add the subject to that? ) I reverted your deletion of the SITUS category.

(3) John K. Kane. This judge is notable, according to the article about him, for his actions in favor of slavery, and especialy for his 1855 pro-slavery verdict in which he "denied the escaped slave all legal rights and placed legal penalties on the actions of abolitionists." You removed the article about him from the SITUS category; I let that stand but, based on the contents of the article, added the category "American pro-slavery activists", which is included in the SITUS category. This one is a judgment call, admittedly, since the judge colluded with his son's anti-slavery activities, but he also jailed his son for contempt of court over the matter. On balance, his legacy is that of an activist promoting slavery, imo.

(4) Matthew Ashby. Here you removed the category SITUS from the article. In keeping with the example present in the article about former slave, Thomas Sims, I've added the category "American slaves" to the article, which is included in the SITUS category.

(5) Andrew Bryan. Here you removed the category SITUS from the article. The article's just a stub, but if you follow the links it contains you'll see that, as the article's creator rightly puts it, "Bryan has an interesting and dramatic biography", and a rightful place in the history of slavery in the United States. I restored the SITUS category to the article/stub for this reason, and also categorized it under "American slaves", which is included in SITUS, btw.

(6) John Crenshaw. You deleted the SITUS category, and added the "Slave traders" category. Based on the article's description of Crenshaw as "an American landowner and slave trader based out of Gallatin County, Illinois", and that he appears to have been involved in slavery only within the U.S.A., I deleted the "Slave traders" category and added the "American slave traders" category (which is, of course, subsumed under "Slave traders", and also under SITUS in a parallel fashion).

(7) Slave_Auction_Scene.jpg. Here you removed the SITUS category from an image, that was "Apparently taken at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, Springfield, Illinois", and thus seems appropriately categorized under SITUS. ( Although I admit I'm unsure as to the rules used to categorize images. ) I reverted your deletion of the category from the image.

(8) Runaway_slave.jpg. Since this image originated in a book about the Underground Railroad, it seems to me to have been appropriately included in the SITUS category. I reverted your deletion of the SITUS category from the image.

If you object to any of these changes, please provide your rationale below ( rather than inline, ie not within the flow of this post, please ) and we'll see if we can come to agreement or compromise as to the way the above can be categorized most beneficially. Best,  – OhioStandard (talk) 18:26, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Firstly you must realise that categories are a "in or out" status - you cannot be halfway. Therefore, to be added to a category the article must have a high degree of relevance to the categories in which it is included. A passing mention or indirect association with the topic of that category is insufficient for inclusion. See Help:Category, Help:Categories and WP:CAT for more info.

Replies in order:

1. Writing about "something" is not a reason to be included in "Category:Something"
2. Merely keeping slaves is not notable for the category.
3. How is the inclusion criteria for prominent/notable slave holders determined? It could be a separate category as you suggest or it could be a list. I removed it as a judgement call.
4. Category:American slaves is appropriate but not that one as well as Category:Slavery in the United States. I have removed Thomas Sims from Category:Slavery in the United States. Why include this particular slave in Category:Slavery in the United States? Note that there are about 200 articles in Category:American slaves
5. As per point 4
6. A better option which I had overlooked
7. Images are not included in article categories
8. As per point 7

Based on the reasons given please reconsider your edits. Any further discussion should take place at Category talk:Slavery in the United States-- Alan Liefting (talk) - 21:20, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Copy-pasting this post, and the two above, from [[User_talk:Alan_Liefting#Slavery_edits]] to Category talk:Slavery in the United States to continue this thread and preserve its continuity.  – OhioStandard (talk) 06:44, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Your agriculture & national economy reverts

Hi again, Alan -

On your "contributions" page, just above the slavery edits I posted about above, I also noticed that you reverted something like 50 edits made by NortyNort, doing so in around 13 minutes. Most of these edits appear to have been driven by an objection to any inclusion of a country's agriculture in the category for its economy. Perhaps there are considered reasons for that objection that I'm unaware of, but your reverts seem hard to understand in view of (for example) statements like this one

Today agriculture represents 2.5% of total GDP and 3.6% of exports.[2] While agricultural workers make up only 3.7% of the work force, Israel produces 95% of its own food requirements, supplementing this with imports of ...

from the lead of the article Agriculture in Israel. Similarly, I wonder whether you really intended to exclude the article Agriculture in Mauritania from the eponymous category, as you did here? I don't work with categorization as my preferred area of contribution, as you appear to, so perhaps I don't know what's considered the norm in such circumstances. But it occurs to me that it would be a courtesy to inform NortyNort that you reverted all his edits, and to explain to him why you did that. I expect you just forgot let him know? If so, will you please do so now, i.e. please inform him on his talk page of your reversions, and briefly explain your reason for making that broad-swath group of reversions? It's hard for the "Bold, Revert, Discuss" thing to work when the person whose edits are reverted isn't informed of the process, and when it seems unlikely (?) that so many original edits would have been placed on his watchlist. Or if I'm mistaken, and the accepted protocol re category edit reversions differs from the usual procedure of informing another user when large-scale reversions are made, I'd be pleased to learn of that, too, of course. Thanks,  – OhioStandard (talk) 18:29, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

No, my edits were not "driven by an objection to any inclusion of a country's agriculture in the category for its economy." That is an assumption on your part. You will note that the agriculture by country categories are included in economy by country. To include the actual agriculture article in a countries economy category is redundant and adds unneeded clutter to the categories. The edit on Mauritania was a glitch due to the state prior to NortyNorts edit. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 20:23, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

I see; my mistake. That possibility hadn't occurred to me, so thanks for explaining; I'm glad to learn this, and I appreciate your informing me of it. It's up to you, but I still think it'd be helpful if you'd explain this to NortyNort on his talk page, i.e. explain both the specific occasion for your multiple reverts, and more generally, would explain that it'd be a good idea in the future if he'd check for a supraordinate category before adding a new category entry to an article. Norty obviously meant well, but it would be useful information for him to have, so as not to repeat the mistake. He's been around less than a year, so perhaps he's not come across this necessity before. I expect that if he were informed of it politely he'd probably be genuinely grateful for the suggestion, since it would increase his level of skill and make him a more productive editor. Best,  – OhioStandard (talk) 05:34, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

I did consider notifying NortyNort but I looked at the users edits and then thought I would let it slide. It was a balance of all sorts of reasons, including the quality of NortyNorts edits, my WP time and human nature. A good editor will review their edits as well as learning the nuances of policy, guidelines and conventions, and my hope is that the editor will learn without any intervention from me. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 06:00, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Suzanne Prentice

The article Suzanne Prentice has been proposed for deletion because under Wikipedia policy, all biographies of living persons created after March 18, 2010, must have at least one source that directly supports material in the article.

If you created the article, please don't take offense. Instead, consider improving the article. For help on inserting references, see Wikipedia:Referencing for beginners or ask at Wikipedia:Help desk. Once you have provided at least one reliable source, you may remove the {{prod blp}} tag. Please do not remove the tag unless the article is sourced. If you cannot provide such a source within ten days, the article may be deleted, but you can request that it be undeleted when you are ready to add one. Adabow (talk · contribs) 04:32, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

PROD removed and ref added. I was hoping another editor would run with it. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 04:40, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

While on this subject, could you please clarify why you have added the Suzanne Prentice Article to WikiProject United States? I've never thought of her as being particularly American. Thanks. Daveosaurus (talk) 06:26, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Oops. A mistake. A typo. I add a lot of talk pages to the WikiProjects and I use the shortcuts of WPNZ and WPUS. They are sort of the same. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 09:10, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Accuracy of Şirince

In this edit you slapped an {{accuracy}} tag on Şirince, so apparently you identified some specific questionable statements in the article. Unfortunately, neither in the edit summary nor on the talk page did you leave a hint as to which statements you dispute the accuracy of. Lacking such identification of the issues, it is effectively impossible for other editors to apply improvements and determine that the issues are resolved and the tag may be removed. Could you indicate the problems on the article's talk page? Thank you.  --Lambiam 15:30, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Quock Walker category

You removed Quock Walker from the Category:United States slavery case law without an explanation. The article describes three trials at least one of which set precedent for abolishing slavery in Massachusetts in 1781. I don't see a description of the category that would exclude this article. Why did you delete it? Jojalozzo 14:28, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

The question I ask would be "Is Quock Walker United States slavery case law?" The answer is no - he is a person. He was involved is a notable court case but he is not case law. That said the article contains information about case law which may be better off in a separate article. Have a read of my essay User:Alan Liefting/Essays/On categorisation as well. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 23:23, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Splitting out the trials would create three stubs of case law and a stub biography and all would probably be proposed for merging back again. Breaking it up just for ease of categorization doesn't make sense to me. The trials and their effects comprise significant content of the article. Basing categorization on titles rather than content seems unnecessarily rigid. "How do we get from the category of United States slavery case law to the trials related to Qouck Walker?" To my mind, the most straight forward way is to add the article to that category. What do you think of creating redirects from each trial to Quock Walker and categorizing the redirect pages? Jojalozzo 03:20, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Ah, but will they be short articles or stubs? Yes, I agree that splitting just for categorisation is not a good idea with the current level of content. Ideally, they should be split and the resulting articles expanded to a reasonable size. Categorised redirects are a good idea. Note the there is a American slave court cases which needs to document the cases in the Quock Walker. I added some entries but no detail. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 04:54, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Economy cats

This sounds strange but thanks for reverting my edits last week. OhioStandard notified me about it and I responded to him here. I usually check parent cats but didn't this time. Problem is that there are still agriculture articles like Agriculture in Niger with both cats that I didn't categorize but based my assumption off of. I know most are related to Africa and plan to resolve the redundancy soon.--NortyNort (Holla) 11:16, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Since there is a Category:Agriculture in Niger it is the category rather than the Agriculture in Niger article that should be in Category:Economy of Niger. I will change it. Cheers. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 11:23, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Ok. I remember when I scanned through the agriculture articles there was a few more, particularly in Africa related articles. I will look em' over again tomorrow and apply changes where necessary. --NortyNort (Holla) 13:06, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

What is going on?

I just got a message from you today saying my article was marked for speedy deletion, but it is already gone before I have a chance to respond? And NO my article is NOT a repost of the previously deleted article. Yes there was an article on this subject about a year ago that got deleted. I had nothing to do with that. MY article was VERY well sourced and meets the criteria for notabilty and inclusion. Having it deleted before I can even respond is outrageous.Willbennett2007 (talk) 04:29, 15 August 2010 (UTC)