Wikipedia talk:Article Rescue Squadron

Welcome to the talkpage of the Article Rescue Squadron. If you are looking for assistance to rescue an article, please follow these instructions.

Welcome to the talkpage of the Article Rescue Squadron. If you are looking for assistance to rescue an article, please follow these instructions.

Rescuing a Featured Article

Further information: [[:Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Plagiarism and copyright concerns on the main page]] and [[:Wikipedia:Featured article review/Grace Sherwood/archive1]]

• User:Uncle G/Grace Sherwood
• Grace Sherwood (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) ⇐ Beware! Here be copyright dragons!

Such an opportunity doesn't come along too often. In fact this is probably the first time ever. But you have an opportunity to rescue an article that was, a mere couple of days ago, the featured article on the main page. I've rapidly whipped together a draft in a user sub-page, going back to what we think to be the last non-infringing version of the article and working forwards again. If the FA people are happy with that re-start (the FA Review discussion page is hyperlinked above) then we can rescue it further and bring it up to something that Secret (talk · contribs) (who appears to have volunteered) can take and carry the rest of the way through the FA Review process. Uncle G (talk) 17:36, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

• There are hundreds of former featured articles. Trying to keep articles at this level seems like the torment of Sisyphus. Colonel Warden (talk) 18:01, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Consider it a PR effort for the ARS then. Most deletionists see nothing more than the ARS moving stuff from "deletable crap" to "crap that barely meets inclusion guidelines"; right or wrong, that's the perception. So, an opportunity to help KEEP an FA a FA is certainly far more effort, but may attract other editors to the project, thus providing a good return on the investment. Jclemens (talk) 18:03, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
    • Note that I was the editor who drew the attention of the community to the plagiarism in this case. I didn't notice any deletionists thanking me for my observation nor anyone else for that matter. The FA process generally seems to be dominated by prima donnas who seem quite jealous of intruders and each other. It might be more productive to assist the DYK process which seems better aligned to our goals and activity. When we rescue a stub at AFD, it is often quite feasible to go a bit further and get it up to DYK level. See Kilburn Priory or Ace in the Hole (Cole Porter song) for current examples of potential DYKs arising from AFD. Colonel Warden (talk) 18:28, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
      • I'm pretty sure that "Colonel Warden has a good point." is not an expression of jealousy. ☺ 205.175.113.16 was ahead even of you. Uncle G (talk) 18:49, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
        • The case of 205.175.113.16 is quite mysterious. Their comment was quite accurate but was suppressed within minutes and the IP address was blocked. The blocker won't say who it was and, as the IP address is registered to the University of Washington, it's not clear how their identity can be so certain. Treating a good faith contributor as an unperson seems quite typical of the intense politics which is found at FA. If one enters this snake pit, you should be glad to escape alive and, if you go into it expecting plaudits, you are likely to be disappointed. DYK is generally more rewarding and that seems to be why it is now under attack. Colonel Warden (talk) 07:14, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
          • We have a number of banned former accounts who often edit anonymously and are reverted on sight by checkusers, without disclosing their identity on-wiki but generally providing it, together with the reason for the secrecy, to anyone who asks by email. This has nothing to do with FAs. In this case Risker's attention was probably drawn to the IP because she was watching the article. I am slightly concerned because Risker had previously encouraged Rlevse to work on that FA and so has subjective reason to feel guilty about the events. But I am not even concerned enough to have asked her for the information. I am inclined to assume good faith, i.e. that Risker had specific information making this block a routine thing, and that it just didn't occur to her that this might be a justified attack on Rlevse.

            PS: It think I have found out independently who it is: a Washington-based user who has been banned for 5 years for a systematic outing campaign. I guess you know who I mean. The user has a good knowledge of Wikipedia and often makes good contributions to discussions, but with his insistence on outing anonymous users just for the sake of it he is putting himself firmly outside our norms. Hans Adler 08:35, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

          • DYK is under attack because it's the easiest way to get things prominently on the main page and some things that go through DYK really shouldn't. The format has been diluted, with totally boring hooks pointing to borderline notable articles being the rule nowadays. Boring hook or boring, non-notable article is fine, but not both together. As a result there are so many successful DYK nominations that they have to be rotated several times a day. This greatly annoyed me when I put Karlsruhe pyramid there, because given the appearance of "pyramid in the center" and "vault of the city founder" in an article on a major German city I would have liked to see some reactions both from Europeans and from non-Europeans, which is a bit hard when an article is up only for 6 hours and most readers have given up on reading DYK anyway. Hans Adler 08:14, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
            • • • • I know who the banned user is, not the user you thinking about. Secret ^account 17:36, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
  • In defence of FA. Standards have risen over the last few years as they have in the project generally. No-one is concerned about maintaining former DYK links, but FA status involves that bronze star on the article and being on lists of Featured Articles. There has been a certain amount of angst over the delisting of some FAs that have degraded over time or simply not kept up with these rising standards, but I for one would be uncomfortable if we had adopted a policy of once an FA always an FA. I don't know if we still have any FAs unimproved since before the change to inline cites, but if we didn't have a policy of demoting articles that don't meet current standards then we would now have many featured articles that were not as good as some of our good articles and many of our unsuccessful FA submissions. There is a broader issue here as to whether the standard at FA is one that we should be aiming to raise every article to, or whether a uniform standard of quality is incompatible with an encyclopaedia written by volunteers. I incline to the latter view, not least because I don't want our best articles to be constrained by or limited to a uniform quality standard. As for the relevance to the article rescue squadron, I see our role as rescuing articles that fail or are alleged to fail the minimum standards of this site. Rescue involves getting those that can or should be rescued to a point above that minimum standard, so if the minimum standard was altered it would have a large impact on the work of the article rescue squadron. Providing we don't decide to implement a uniform standard of quality, and change rescue to require every article we rescue to become an FA, then I don't see the relevance to the ARS of the minimum standards for an FA. Ϣere SpielChequers 07:59, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
    • I doubt there are many (if any) articles that were previously rescued that are now FA's. Most articles that are rescued are on the edge of notability, meaning there aren't a lot of sources or significant coverage on which to base the article. It's a lot easier to get Jupiter to FA than Smelly socks. I fail to see the connection between FA and ARS as well. SnottyWong ^spout 14:22, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree that few articles go from rescued to FA, as very few articles make it to FA as a percentage, or even should. Some articles that are rescued are on "the edge of notability" but very many are not, its just that the article is in bad shape and the nominator assumes its not notable, e.g., my recent experiences with Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Eataly and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/LaFayette Center. Its mind-boggling to me how often notable subjects get deleted, but its been this way since early 2006.--Milowent • ^talkblp-r 14:27, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

What is more boggling is how many articles get created without any references. If folks want to get better PR for ARS, I'd suggest a concerted effort to source unreferenced BLPs, there's a huge backlog there. --Nuujinn (talk) 15:09, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

The ARS has an excellent reputation outside wikipedia, all reliable sources praise it. --Milowent • ^talkblp-r 20:54, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

There has been a huge drop in the backlog of unreferenced BLPs this year and a number of ARS members have been involved in the big concerted effort to make that happen. For example Wikipedia:Unreferenced BLP Rescue started as a spinoff from the Article Rescue squadron to reference particular months of the backlog, and the memberships of the two groups still have a high degree of overlap. Ϣere SpielChequers 09:57, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Pro-Inclusionist Piece in New York Times

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

---

This piece in yesterday's new york times[1] praises an article (Angry Birds) that was slated for speedy deletion and then rescued by an editor. The focus of the piece is on the quality of the article and how editors respect and apply WP:OWN. Interestingly, the author says "as a companion to the stuff that was born on the Internet, Wikipedia — itself an Internet artifact — will never be surpassed." Internet content, it seems to me, (memes, software, viral vids, etc.) is the very type of detailed content that is often targeted for deletion. Outside wikipedia, you find people very appreciative of wikipedia's coverage of such things.--Milowent • ^talkblp-r 14:06, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Interesting article on an outsider's perspective of WP. Not really seeing any inclusionist/deletionist slant though. SnottyWong ^verbalize 14:52, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

There's stacks of pro-Inclusion journalism on offer over at Wikipedia:Notability/RFC:Reevaluation#Journalists . FeydHuxtable (talk) 20:10, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

If I were to be a very mean and cynical deletionist I would say that it's a journalist's way of life to know and disseminate information inappropriately so one would have to expect them to be inclusionists.--Mkativerata (talk) 20:19, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for that link, Feyd, I sensed that was the case but hadn't seen that compilation.--Milowent • ^talkblp-r 20:58, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

ha. thanks for quoting my post feyd. I have several more that I found since then. Maybe you can all create a subpage somewhere?

Telegraph

Wikipedia should delete the deletionists Shane Richmond July 7, 2009 Telegraph.

Los Angelese Times

"Wikipedia's community has become so rushed, so immediatist, that it is not willing to allow embryonic articles even a tiny modicum of time to incubate" - Los Angeles Times: Wikipedia wars erupt

Powerhouse Museum

Seb Chan of the Powerhouse Museum about why his institution decided to collaborate with Flickr instead of Wikimedia Commons:

"Whilst Wikipedia and Wikimedia are, in themselves, exciting projects, their structure, design and combative social norms do not currently make them the friendly or the protected space that museums tend to be comfortable operating in."[2]

Guardian

"The two groups [deletionists and inclusionists] had been vying for control from early on in the site's life, but the numbers suggest that the deletionists may have won. The increasing difficulty of making a successful edit; the exclusion of casual users; slower growth – all are hallmarks of the deletionist approach." --Wikipedia approaches its limits Bobbie Johnson guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 12 August 2009.

Academic studies

My favorite is the academic studies though, (although granted, they are not about deletion) I have about two dozen of those:

EQUALITY

As anyone who has edited any amount of time here, knows, there is no WP:EQUALITY:

"There are contributors who consistently and successfully violate policy without sanction"

Academic studies about Wikipedia Explicit vie for ownership

Harvard Independent

""After eliminating other candidates, the form that fits best [wikipedia] is that of bureaucracy." [3]

Infoworld

Wikipedia topics are selected for inclusion on the basis of their notability, which is subjective and fosters discrimination and elitism, "the very things the Wikipedia is against." "Unlike academic journals and other legitimate reference sources, the Wikipedia has created new and anonymous elite 'editors' and administrators"InfoWorld: Wikipedia breeds 'unwitting trust' says IT professor

CARTOON

Cartoon about deletion.[4] Okip 05:55, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Wow. Ever seen WP:BATTLE? SnottyWong ^spout 06:01, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

He has certainly been directed there, once or twice, I believe.
Ikip, when you next swing by, that 'vie for ownership' thing focuses on a debate in 2006, none of the editors in question are very active now. It'd be good if you could find something more recent/relevant, if you want to keep making whatever point it is you're driving at there. pablo 12:50, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Its possibly those editors who have been aggressively chipping away at our people friendly, pro knowledge sharing values that need to see advice in WP:Battle, not heroes like Okip who have been resolute enough to stand in their way. FeydHuxtable (talk) 13:38, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Unhelpful. Hipocrite (talk) 13:44, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes Feyd, that's right; he's a "hero" because he "fights" on the same "side" as you in your "battle".  pablo 14:57, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

• There's nothing to get heated about. Its not a battle to cite and quote sources in the media that criticize wikipedia policies and actions which favor deletion of some content. This is important feedback that arguably is the most accurate reflection of views of wikipedia's reason for existing - its readers. If Snotty wants to cite sources which show otherwise for purposes of continuing the discussion, fine. But citing WP:BATTLE only encourages needless drama.--Milowent • ^talkblp-r 14:48, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

• The point is that I don't have a huge list of evidence or sources at the ready with which to start such an argument at the drop of a hat, because that kind of battle would be at the bottom of the list of arguments in which I'd be interested in participating. SnottyWong ^express 15:07, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Snotty - If you strip out the "us v. them" kind of ideology that has grown up over these issues, you'll see its not really a battle, but a debate over whether the way articles get deleted now is optimal for the project. These are the kind of discussions/battles you are participating in every day at a micro level by nominating articles for deletion or voting !delete in AfDs.--Milowent • ^talkblp-r 15:14, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

That's true, and the escalation of the simple discussions and actions necessary to edit an encyclopaedia into "fights" and "battles" has largely been manufactured by those with a vested interest in prolonging those conflicts.  pablo 15:28, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Snotty:

Wikipedia:No angry mastodons:

"Sometimes editors perceive a personal attack where none actually exists. Usually this confusion happens when an editor misreads a personality conflict into a detailed post about a content disagreement...When people are involved in disputes there is a tendency to take offense, sometimes called "mock outrage," at statements that are either not intended as slights — or that transgress the norms of discussion only in a technical sense — but are not in fact hurtful to the target of the comment."

Snotty, you seem intent on widing this dispute you originally started on ANI regarding Colonel. The ANI is closed, but that does not stop you continuing the argument first on my talk page, and now here.

Confusing stances

On the ANI you complain that my criticisms of your behavior have nothing to do with the matter at hand.

Yet here you launch into a "battle" argument which has nothing to do with this posting here. I was adding media and scholarly accounts about wikipedia. My comments were not addressed to you at all.

On my talk page, you template me, accusing me of personal attacks on ANI, yet you call me a "troll" in the very next response.[5]

Please hat this discussion

This whole argument that you continue to escalate has brought up a lot of user names I would just as soon never see again. Life is to short to have to regularly deal with these "bullies, who take pleasure in wrecking and mocking peoples' work"[6], especially since Jimbo himself encourages and fosters such behavior.

I have removed your posting on my talk page. I suggest Snotty gets the WP:LASTWORD here, and then someone who has not been involved in this discussion hat this discussion. I am logging out now, and I won't be coming back for a very long time, if at all. Okip

That will be a huge loss to the squad and Wikipedia as a whole if you dont return, and a lucky gain for whatever other good causes you turn your attention to. Thanks for all you've done for us. FeydHuxtable (talk) 16:15, 10 November 2010 (UTC)15:40, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Ok, bye. (← last word). SnottyWong ^converse 16:55, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

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

help with Nicky Diaz

I added the tag to Nicky Diaz before i saw that I should ask here if I'm the main editor. Sorry! I added a long list of new articles on the deletion page. Can it still be a part of the rescue project? Munijym (talk) 12:13, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

There's no requirement that you ask here first; anyone can tag any article for rescue. You are, however, strongly encouraged to notify the AfD discussion that you have tagged the article for rescue. Milowent has apparently already done this for you. SnottyWong ^converse 15:02, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

DYK eligibility for sourcing BLPs discussion

Cross posted from Wikipedia talk:Unreferenced BLP Rescue#DYK eligibility for sourcing BLPs discussion, please comment there if of interest to you: Via this notice at WT:URBLP, I was led to Wikipedia talk:Did you know#unsourced BLP Drive, where there is a discussion of making unreferenced BLPs which are fully referenced eligible for Did You Know? nomination, perhaps with a relaxed expansion requirement. (Current rules are that an old article must be expanded 5x to be eligible for DYK). This sounds like a great idea.--Milowent • ^talkblp-r 14:23, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Invitation to participate!

Hello! As you may be aware, the Wikimedia Foundation is gearing up for our annual fundraiser. We want to hit our goal, and hit it as soon as possible, so that we can focus on Wikipedia's tenth anniversary (January 15) and on our new project, the Contribution Team.

I'm posting across WikiProjects to engage you, the community, in working to build Wikipedia not only through financial donations, but also through collaboration in building content. You can find more information in Philippe Beaudette's memo to the communities here.

Please visit the Contribution Team page and the Fundraising page to find out how you can help us support and spread free knowledge. ⇒ DanRosenthal ^{Wikipedia Contribution Team} 18:38, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

YOtel is on prod death row

I was just passing through the YOtel article since its coordinates were wrong, and I see there's been a bit of a dustup on the talk page. It looks like a former article at Yotel was A7 speedied back in Sept 2008, YOtel was prodded in July by User:Beeshoney on the grounds of being badly written and when that prod was removed Beeshoney gave a deadline of 48 hours for the article to be improved before (s)he prodded it again. That hasn't happened, but I think the article can be considered "vulnerable" even though there's clear notability with lots of sources. It's not that bad, it just needs a bit of a copyedit from someone with more experience than me of articles that could be considered WP:ADVERTy - anyone fancy it? Le Deluge (talk) 12:02, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

For future ref, PROD is a once-only deal, not for repeated use.  pablo 12:21, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

You should make sure to inform the user that they are not allowed to PROD the article again after it has only been PRODed once. If, after you telling them this, they still do it anyway, then you should immediately take them to ANI. The lack of understanding about what notability is by this user on the talk page is rather concerning and I hope they do end up reading the guideline pages you linked. Silverseren^C 16:30, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, ANI is probably not called for the first time. A nice note from an administrator confirming that PROD means what it says, and instructing them on how to use AfD, should suffice. Always solve problems in the least dramatic reasonable way, please. :-) Jclemens (talk) 16:54, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Not defending Beeshoney's posts, but the posts and PROD occurred in July. Surely no action directed at a specific user is warranted based on these two posts alone!? VQuakr (talk) 17:07, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

What I said was that the user should be informed that PRODs cannot be used again after being used once. And if they do it again after being told such, then I think some action needs to be taken. Maybe not ANI, but if they clearly go against policy after being informed of said policy, that really shouldn't be overlooked. It shouldn't be an issue anymore though, hopefully, since I went ahead and improved the article with some more references. Silverseren^C 17:16, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Got another job for you folks ...

Heaven knows I've had clashes with some ARS folks, some of whom I believe will distort or ignore any guideline or policy which stands in the way of a Keep result at AfD, but here I've got a quandry. This article came to my attention just now. I've tagged it to hell and gone, could have tagged a great deal more, and have suggested taking it to AfD. I really would prefer not to do that; it strikes me as a notable subject. That being said, I'm not an expert on the Sri Lankan civil war and hesitate to dive into the snake pit that's the Sinhalese-Tamil tong war on Wikipedia. I see that planting a rescue tag is inappropriate prior to AfD - although that confuses me; shouldn't efforts be made to rescue articles prior to the deletion gun being loaded? - and so I hope that people here with more time, energy and/or inclination to do so will take a shot at it. Good fortune to those who do; it's likely a thankless task.  RGTraynor  03:56, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Ideally, placing any tag on an article will prompt the hordes of editors monitoring our cleanup categories (yeah, right) to descend on it. In reality, of course, such go generally unnoticed and unheeded, and many (most?) articles tagged for rescue likewise remain untouched by anyone. I don't have any personal expertise sourcing military and/or Sri Lankan articles, so I'm afraid I'll be unable to help personally. But who knows--someone else might, and it never hurts to ask here. Jclemens (talk) 05:14, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

While I know practically nothing about the Sri Lankan civil war, that doesn't mean I can't search for references to add. I'm pretty sure that I will be able to address the issue of notability, as I would for any article, even while knowing little about it. The actual improvement of the article in terms of prose will have to be left up to experts however. I have a test coming up on Tuesday. If you wait until after that, i'll have more time to give it a look over and a dive into Google News and places, to see what I can find. Silverseren^C 21:59, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

• Re this, "I see that planting a rescue tag is inappropriate prior to AfD - although that confuses me; shouldn't efforts be made to rescue articles prior to the deletion gun being loaded?" Of course!!! Hopefully everyone who edits wikipedia improves articles here and there. Out of 3.5 million articles, how many are horrible? Probably 3 million? But the ARS is like an ambulance that is called to the aid of someone having a heart attack. The victim should have eaten healthy and had regular checkups all along, but the EMTs are only called in when the person is near death. That being said, there's no harm in putting a notice here about an article not currently nominated for deletion, as maybe one of the watchers of this page (and not necessarily an ARS member) may jump in. Heaven knows I've placed notices on wikiproject talk pages many times looking for help with articles nominated for deletion and it rarely results in any help, but sometimes it might.--Milowent • ^talkblp-r 02:47, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
  • "the EMTs are only called in when the person is near death" As an EMT, I can attest firsthand that this is not remotely true. :-) Jclemens (talk) 03:21, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
    • Oh, just steal my thunder then, huh?!?!?! :-) OK, its an imperfect analogy, but they don't get called in when we eat an extra slice of bacon.--Milowent • ^talkblp-r 03:51, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

• That topic looks to be major boring sh*t and, as it is not at AFD, is out of scope. I have a better topic for the jaded editors who languish here waiting for work. This will put hair on your chest... Foxy boxing! Colonel Warden (talk) 07:35, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

After my test tomorrow, i'll work on both of them. Geez, none of you have any patience. :P Silverseren^C 22:30, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, I found a source, but the problem is that the article is a copyvio, see this. I think the source is reliable, and I can put in some time in a day or so, but we should start from scratch with the material that is copied. --Nuujinn (talk) 01:08, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

There are plenty of books covering this, although they present a slightly different history to what's in this article. Here's one.

• Dissanayake, T. D. S. A. (2005). "The Protracted War". War Or Peace in Sri Lanka. Popular Prakashan. ISBN 9788179911990. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |isbn10= ignored (help)

Note also the existence of Second Battle of Elephant Pass. Uncle G (talk) 03:03, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

• Well, i've dealt with the Foxy boxing article. Now, for this Operation Unceasing Waves III one. I don't really want to wade into the waters of copyright issues right now. What would be the best way to deal with this? Silverseren^C 17:57, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Maybe just stub it out and add a source or two, then see if you can add back anything from history that is supported by the sources by rephrasing it. A shorter article that makes sense is a better start.--Milowent • ^talkblp-r 02:37, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
    • I think the normal procedure at this point is to wait a bit until the copyvio admins decide what to do with it. It was tagged on the 23rd, and I think they give the original author a week to clean it up, and then remove the article or parts of that are still a violation. The incident is clearly notable, so once that's done, we could work it back up. --Nuujinn (talk) 20:42, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
      • Speaking with my "copyvio administrator" hat on, I'd say that since it is evident from comparing this edit with this article ("Copyright © 1997-2009 TamilNet") that Ellaalan (talk · contribs) was just copying and pasting wholesale, and that the last non-infringing revision of the article is this one (q.v.).

        The copyright violation is foundational, and you'll have to rewrite from scratch. Uncle G (talk) 03:01, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

        • Prolly easier that way anyhow, recasting prose always takes a long time.--Nuujinn (talk) 23:37, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Article Rescue Squadron is based on delusional optimism

Hello all. For those who don't know me, my name is Okip/Ikip.

Indefinitely blocked three times

I edited here for 5 years with over 50,000 plus edits.

I got in the middle of the Biography of Living Person debate were a small group of editors who have little respect for other editors contributions were attempting to delete tens of thousands of other editors contributions. This debate started when User:Scott MacDonald, User:Lar and a couple of other administrators who have little respect for other editors contributions deleted hundreds of articles, including Olympic athletes, etc. When Wikipedia founder Jim Wales personally thanked Scott Macdonald for deleting these articles it showed that Mr Wales has no respect for Wikipedia's main asset, the editors.

On the heels of this, I was indefinitely blocked for a second and third time. Since I am typing today, both blocks were obviously reverted, but the damage was done and the message was clear: editors who get in the way of purging by the bullies will be swiftly dealt with, with Jim Wales full blessing and support. Through the years, Wales has handpicked a leadership and fostered a company culture which has no respect for editors contributions.

Colonel Warden's indefinite block

Since Jim Wales blessing, the attacks by editors who have little respect for other editors contributions has only intensified. Snotty Wang (a frequent editor here), has been dragging a moderate editor, Colonel Warden to WP:ANI repeatedly. Colonel Warden has now been indefinitely blocked. Of course, policy is quoted for this continued harassment, but the underlying tension lies in Colonel Warden attempting to preserve and respect other editors contributions.

Sometimes a pessimist is an informed optimist

This years long argument have never been about deletion and inclusionism, at its core, it has always been about about tolerance for fellow editors viewpoints and respect for their hard work and contributions. The underlying elephant in the room, which no one can seriously discuss here, is that Jim Wale's Wikipedia simply doesn't respect other editors contributions.

"[ Inclusionist and Deletionists ] had been vying for control from early on in the site's life, but the numbers suggest that the deletionists may have won. The increasing difficulty of making a successful edit; the exclusion of casual users; slower growth – all are hallmarks of the deletionist approach."[7]

Americans by their nature are optimists, but the problem with this optimism is sometimes it has no basis in reality, and when a person fails, as we have, we blame ourselves, instead of accepting that we had no chance anyway. You simply cannot change somethings in life.

"No man can struggle with advantage against the spirit of his age and country, and however powerful a man may be, it is hard for him to make his contemporaries share feelings and ideas which run counter to the general run of their hopes and desires."

We cannot dethrown Jimbo and throw out all of his hand picked leadership, both paid and volunteer to start anew. We cannot change 8 years of company culture. Make no mistake, the root problem is Jim Wales. When Jim Wales personally thanks a bully like Scott MacDonald for deleting 100 articles, you know that Wikipedia has no real respect for the individual editor.

Article Rescue Squadron will be deleted, it is only a matter of time

Its not very hard to see the larger trend. ARS has been put up for deletion many times, every time it gets closer to being deleted. As editors who support this project continue to be silenced, eventually this project will be deleted (or diluted). It is not a matter of if, it has always been a matter of when.

Wikipedia:WikiSpeak

The editors who have little respect for other editors contributions and who regularly post here will attempt to character assassinate me. The more cunningly deceitful who have learned wikispeak, whose "...words are polite...but [whose] actions are obscene"[8] will say they support this project but they don't support the direction this project is going and the actions of the more "extreme" members. This ignores the underlying real shift, today's wikipedia is "extreme": it has evolved into a site which does not respect editors contributions.

The most effective wikipedia editors are those editors who bury their views in passive aggressive neutral sounding wikispeak, using such relaxing terms as "for the good of the project" "cooperation" and "working together". (Here is the absolute best example) Many will even call themselves "inclusionists". But ARS members, don't be fooled, look at the underlying actions of these editors: Do they little respect for other editors contributions? Examine the previous Article for Deletions for this project and how they supported the deletion of this project. Study how these editors treat new editor contributions and work together to build articles on a day to day basis.

Edit where your contributions are respected

I post here because I do not want any of my dear friends here to have to go through the emotional turmoil that many of us veteran editors already have. When you are inevitably targeted for your tolerance and respect for others contributions, please, for your own happiness, step back for one minute and reassess the big picture. For those of you who love the concept of wiki, but hate the way editors and your contributions are treated here, there are other non-Jim Wales wiki projects out there which respect editors hard work and contributions.

Please don't message me or email me. Thank you. Okip 20:59, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Missed you, man; an interesting a take as ever. But Wikia, where you spend your time these days, is hardly a non-Jim Wales project. And Colonel Warden is not blocked. See you soon. pablo 22:57, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

• We miss you Okip, I probably wouldn't be around without your early guidance. Come on back now, the battles are half the fun, at least! The inclusionist philosphy may be subject to frequent broadsides, but in fact it is winning every day. Over 1,000 new articles every day, deleted articles getting recreated all the time, deleted (verifiable) content being placed in other appropriate places. I won't post examples here, but I watch these things happen all the time. Its impossible for any cadre of editors to stop because the great mass of editors on wikipedia do not participate in AfD but are essentially inclusionist. The deletions of good content which are unfortunate and raise our ire are actually just drops in a bucket. So, come and edit here because people actually read wikipedia.--Milowent • ^talkblp-r 04:35, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

P.S. and if you say i'm delusional i'm gonna kick your ass. :-)--Milowent • ^talkblp-r 04:35, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

• WP:TLDR. I thought you were retired. I apologize for dragging Colonel Warden repeatedly to ANI for minor annoyances like repeatedly making edits that are unambiguously counter to various policies, guidelines, and long-established consensus. And I apologize for the near unanimous agreement that editors voiced regarding my concerns. I will strive in the future to end my harassment of editors who are only trying to preserve and respect other editors' contributions. SnottyWong ^{spill the beans} 20:46, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

You don't know when to be quiet, do you?--Milowent • ^talkblp-r 21:17, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Ikip felt the need to present his very one-sided view of what SnottyWong did here, and you feel it is somehow inappropriate for SnottyWong to reply and give his side of things? If that's how you want to have things, then please take this to IRC or another website, but don't expect that you can mention people's actions here without them replying. Fram (talk) 22:02, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Not in his case, no.--Milowent • ^talkblp-r 12:26, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

• It does seem rather pointless at times. As all the interesting stuff is taken out of Wikipedia, less reason to bother coming here at all. I started over four years ago, and we made so much progress in those early days, but alas, things went sour, and we keep loosing more ground, and more great editors are driven away, and no matter how many articles we save far more are destroyed. Since Jul 18, 2006 I have made 11,038 edits and have 28 articles I created not yet deleted. [9] Dream Focus 21:39, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

This^{↑Dream Focus, not Ikip↑} makes, as usual, little sense. The number of visitors to the encyclopaedia suggests that "all the interesting stuff" is not being removed. The number of articles is increasing. Milowent's comments above, "The deletions of good content ... are actually just drops in a bucket ... people actually read wikipedia." are a more accurate reflection of reality. pablo 12:56, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

• Actually Ikip, next time you unretire, you may want to consider that the entire Wikipedia project is based on optimism ... and works surprisingly well most of the time. pablo 14:51, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

• Here's a relevant quotation. Colonel Warden (talk) 18:29, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.

— James Branch Cabell

• No matter how cynical you get, it's impossible to keep up. --Nuujinn (talk) 18:44, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
• ARS isn't delusional. We improve and rescue articles every day... the only way ARS would ever get deleted is if we turn it into a home base to organize attacks... don't promote a battleground... most people can agree on improving articles so lets keep doing that where possible. keep the squadron going! Arskwad (talk) 23:52, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, we have no ...

• Banana powder (AfD discussion)
  • Jenkins, Virginia S. (1999). "Bananas". In David Scofield Wilson and Angus K. Gillespie (ed.). Rooted in America: foodlore of popular fruits and vegetables. University of Tennessee Press. pp. 27–31. ISBN 9781572330535. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |isbn10= ignored (help)
  • Guiné, Raquel Pinho Ferreira; Dias, Maria João Barroca (2007). "Dried Banana". In Yiu H. Hui and Stephanie Clark (ed.). Handbook of Food Products Manufacturing. Vol. 1 Principles, Bakery, Beverages, Cereals, Cheese, Confectionary, Fats, Fruits, and Functional Foods. Wiley-Interscience. pp. 872–873. ISBN 9780470125243. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |isnb10= ignored (help)
  • Food and Agriculture Organization. Utilization of Tropical Foods: Trees. Food and Agriculture Organization. pp. 33–34. ISBN 9789251027769. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |isbn10= ignored (help)
  • "Banana Powder Good To Eat". Popular Mechanics. Vol. 62, no. 1. Hearst Magazines. 1934. p. 134. ISSN 0032-4558. {{cite magazine}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  • Kugelmass, Isaac Newton (1940). "Banana Powder". The newer nutrition in pediatric practice. J.B. Lippincott company. p. 336. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • Kay, Daisy E. (1967). "G32: Banana products". Tropical Products Institute reports 30–40. London: Tropical Products Institute (Great Britain).: 169–173. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  • Crowther, P. C. (1979). "The processing of banana products for food use". London: Tropical Products Institute. ISBN 0859540987. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Jenkins 1999 and Guiné & Dias 2007 indicate that there's possibly scope for refactoring into a general (sub-)article on banana#The fruit food products, covering banana figs, banana powder, banana chips (a fairly bad article), banana slices, banana jam, and banana flour altogether, as they (and indeed Kay 1967) all seem to do. Certainly there's scope for in-place expansion on the subject at hand, here. Uncle G (talk) 17:57, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

• Well, i've done my part. Feel free to let me know if there's any other articles that need to be worked on. Silverseren^C 20:28, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Since you asked. ... Here's another one:

• Urban Figure Ground Debate (AfD discussion)

I've worked out the (redlinked) name of the actual subject, and found some sources that can be used to add a proper encyclopaedic definition and introduction. Uncle G (talk) 23:34, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Article Rescue Squadron keeps getting slandered

• A recent RFC about an active member of the ARS, has caused a lot of people to go there just to bash the ARS itself, both on the RFC page itself Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Colonel Warden and its talk page. People seem to be attacking the ARS more than the particular editor. The nominating editor is also drafting a proposal to dramatically limit the ARS User:Snottywong/ARS proposal. Seems like something that the ARS members might want to be involved in. Dream Focus 22:19, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Dream Focus, this has nothing to do with the core work of the ARS, which is (in case it had slipped your mind) improving articles which are nominated for deletion. Your posting here is akin to adding a {{rescue}} tag to the RFC itself, solely in order increase the chances of more people who agree with you turning up there. pablo 22:26, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

It has everything to do with the ARS since that is the only reason some of them are going after one of its active members, as evident by their comments. Dream Focus 22:48, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Which articles are you hoping to "save" by posting these allegations here exactly? pablo 22:51, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

• I'd say a fair number of us are following CW's tar-and-feathering, and its fair to place a note here noting that ARS-slagging there is in full force like a baptist preacher at a tent revival talking about methodists. That being said, I agree with pablo that the RfC is not about the ARS, so I've chosen to ignore that and I encourage others to do the same. I've only skimmed Snotty's proposal, but most of the ideas seem quite bureaucratic and absolutely unworkable, but I'll comment on the talk page of the draft if I decide to explain in detail. Some vocal editors have complained about the ARS since its inception, despite positive coverage in the media, its all the same rehash.--Milowent • ^talkblp-r 23:00, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

It's the same rehash; it's the same issues, Milo; always has been. The thing is that they are pretty much all editor issues rather than project issues. pablo 23:05, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

• I'm not a psychologist, but what's that phenomenon that causes people to blame groups instead of individuals, because it's easier to do so. Anyone know? So instead of someone saying the Colonel or Dream or me or whoever are their problem, they say "THE ARS". If there was a formal deletionist squad, perhaps we'd do the same thing. I can get irritated at The Wordsmith for his recent spate for AfDs noms which had a number of bad noms, but I'm not inclined to just slag the kid as if he's not a human being but some evil force.--Milowent • ^talkblp-r 23:22, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't know offhand, but part of the reason in this case, and one of the valid project issues, was the worry that the ARS would act as a (and I am quoting from memory) "general inclusionist noticeboard". That was not unfounded given Ikip's attempt to merge various projects (and worse, their 'membership') into here, and that same issue is evident with Dream Focus' post above. pablo 23:29, 8 December 2010 (UTC) just for the record Heh … seems I was quoting myself^diff and the quotation I was looking for was "general-purpose deletion noticeboard" pablo 00:14, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely. If all people used the ARS for was to increase sourcing, there would be no issue. By picking AfDs carefully, getting good sources, engaging collegialy with those who disagree, and not contesting existing consensus on inclusion standards, I rescue articles consistently. Occasionally, people still try to tar me (despite my vocal rejection of "ARS membership") with that brush, but then I trot out an article or two that I've rescued and substantially improved and the objections seem to dry up. Jclemens (talk) 23:33, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree. I would also suggest that the best way to improve the reputation of ARS in the general community is to rise above the petty arguments and just do the work. The vast majority of WP editors are neither deletionists nor inclusionists. Being at either end of that spectrum is fine, and I think, having the extremes helps, so long as we remain civil. But if you are an extreme inclusionist, attacking deletionists, your arguments will be dismissed by the vast majority of editors. I would point to Uncle G as an good example we should follow. --Nuujinn (talk) 23:51, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree with pablo's comment that there isn't a problem with the way ARS is set up, but there is a problem with some (or perhaps many) of the editors who are members. The aforementioned proposal that I threw together was a collection of thoughts I'd had (some of which were inspired by ideas that Jclemens had expressed previously) for ways to reform the ARS such that the editors who give it a bad name would no longer be able to do so. This is likely why Dream would immediately view it as "limiting", because it closes all the loopholes that are frequently abused to push along the radical inclusionist battle plan (like legal canvassing, votestacking, etc). I don't have any delusions that my proposal will be taken seriously by very many ARS members, but I think it is a useful starting point for a discussion on how to fix the obvious problems with this organization, as perceived by the Wikipedia community in general. And you can't deny that there is a strong perception that this organization suffers from some major problems. SnottyWong ^spout 23:58, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Vote stacking and canvassing? Indeed. If the article isn't improved, then the number of people turning out isn't relevant. And many people such as yourself actively participate in articles tagged, and almost always say delete. So tagging something for rescue isn't just attracting people who vote one way or another. Your mention of a "radical inclusionist battle plan" is absolutely absurd. Dream Focus 02:27, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I leave my name here as a member because I still feel that the work of rescuing articles is valid. I don't usually bother to tag articles anymore, and instead just go ahead and work on the articles I find at AfD that I believe I can rescue. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. I also check the ARS category regularly, but often find things there I am not willing to spend my time on. I read the comments of those who say the ARS is just a vote-stacking mechanism, but just like in every previous MfD, there has never been any proof of this. I don't comment on a tagged AfD unless I have added something to the article, the work has already been done by someone else, or there is a glaring violation of WP:BEFORE. If another MfD is started, or an actual proposal is made at VP, I will certainly comment, but there are probaly a lot of other editors like me who don't get into the drama of it all, and just like to rescue articles. I won't waste any of my time on a proposal until it leaves user space and is actually put before the community. Jim Miller ^{See me | Touch me} 00:03, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Fair play Jim (and JClemens, and Uncle G, and many others). There are "article rescuers" and there are people who identify as "members" of ARS– and they are not necessarily the same thing. pablo 00:17, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Are you implying that since I consider myself a member of the ARS, i'm one of the bad guys? :P Silverseren^C 00:29, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Hellz noe. I suppose you could break down "There are "article rescuers" and there are people who identify as "members" of ARS– and they are not necessarily the same thing" as "article rescuing" does necessarily require membership of the ARS, and membership of the ARS does not necessarily mean that one is an "article rescuer". pablo 00:36, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Fedex Express Flight 647

Fedex Express Flight 647 is currently at AFD. Is this one worthy of rescue? Sources available include Aviation Safety Network and the NTSB report of the investigation into the accident. Mjroots (talk) 08:44, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Rescuing a Featured Article

Further information: [[:Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Plagiarism and copyright concerns on the main page]] and [[:Wikipedia:Featured article review/Grace Sherwood/archive1]]

• User:Uncle G/Grace Sherwood
• Grace Sherwood (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) ⇐ Beware! Here be copyright dragons!

Such an opportunity doesn't come along too often. In fact this is probably the first time ever. But you have an opportunity to rescue an article that was, a mere couple of days ago, the featured article on the main page. I've rapidly whipped together a draft in a user sub-page, going back to what we think to be the last non-infringing version of the article and working forwards again. If the FA people are happy with that re-start (the FA Review discussion page is hyperlinked above) then we can rescue it further and bring it up to something that Secret (talk · contribs) (who appears to have volunteered) can take and carry the rest of the way through the FA Review process. Uncle G (talk) 17:36, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

• There are hundreds of former featured articles. Trying to keep articles at this level seems like the torment of Sisyphus. Colonel Warden (talk) 18:01, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Consider it a PR effort for the ARS then. Most deletionists see nothing more than the ARS moving stuff from "deletable crap" to "crap that barely meets inclusion guidelines"; right or wrong, that's the perception. So, an opportunity to help KEEP an FA a FA is certainly far more effort, but may attract other editors to the project, thus providing a good return on the investment. Jclemens (talk) 18:03, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
    • Note that I was the editor who drew the attention of the community to the plagiarism in this case. I didn't notice any deletionists thanking me for my observation nor anyone else for that matter. The FA process generally seems to be dominated by prima donnas who seem quite jealous of intruders and each other. It might be more productive to assist the DYK process which seems better aligned to our goals and activity. When we rescue a stub at AFD, it is often quite feasible to go a bit further and get it up to DYK level. See Kilburn Priory or Ace in the Hole (Cole Porter song) for current examples of potential DYKs arising from AFD. Colonel Warden (talk) 18:28, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
      • I'm pretty sure that "Colonel Warden has a good point." is not an expression of jealousy. ☺ 205.175.113.16 was ahead even of you. Uncle G (talk) 18:49, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
        • The case of 205.175.113.16 is quite mysterious. Their comment was quite accurate but was suppressed within minutes and the IP address was blocked. The blocker won't say who it was and, as the IP address is registered to the University of Washington, it's not clear how their identity can be so certain. Treating a good faith contributor as an unperson seems quite typical of the intense politics which is found at FA. If one enters this snake pit, you should be glad to escape alive and, if you go into it expecting plaudits, you are likely to be disappointed. DYK is generally more rewarding and that seems to be why it is now under attack. Colonel Warden (talk) 07:14, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
          • We have a number of banned former accounts who often edit anonymously and are reverted on sight by checkusers, without disclosing their identity on-wiki but generally providing it, together with the reason for the secrecy, to anyone who asks by email. This has nothing to do with FAs. In this case Risker's attention was probably drawn to the IP because she was watching the article. I am slightly concerned because Risker had previously encouraged Rlevse to work on that FA and so has subjective reason to feel guilty about the events. But I am not even concerned enough to have asked her for the information. I am inclined to assume good faith, i.e. that Risker had specific information making this block a routine thing, and that it just didn't occur to her that this might be a justified attack on Rlevse.

            PS: It think I have found out independently who it is: a Washington-based user who has been banned for 5 years for a systematic outing campaign. I guess you know who I mean. The user has a good knowledge of Wikipedia and often makes good contributions to discussions, but with his insistence on outing anonymous users just for the sake of it he is putting himself firmly outside our norms. Hans Adler 08:35, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

          • DYK is under attack because it's the easiest way to get things prominently on the main page and some things that go through DYK really shouldn't. The format has been diluted, with totally boring hooks pointing to borderline notable articles being the rule nowadays. Boring hook or boring, non-notable article is fine, but not both together. As a result there are so many successful DYK nominations that they have to be rotated several times a day. This greatly annoyed me when I put Karlsruhe pyramid there, because given the appearance of "pyramid in the center" and "vault of the city founder" in an article on a major German city I would have liked to see some reactions both from Europeans and from non-Europeans, which is a bit hard when an article is up only for 6 hours and most readers have given up on reading DYK anyway. Hans Adler 08:14, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
            • • • • I know who the banned user is, not the user you thinking about. Secret ^account 17:36, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
  • In defence of FA. Standards have risen over the last few years as they have in the project generally. No-one is concerned about maintaining former DYK links, but FA status involves that bronze star on the article and being on lists of Featured Articles. There has been a certain amount of angst over the delisting of some FAs that have degraded over time or simply not kept up with these rising standards, but I for one would be uncomfortable if we had adopted a policy of once an FA always an FA. I don't know if we still have any FAs unimproved since before the change to inline cites, but if we didn't have a policy of demoting articles that don't meet current standards then we would now have many featured articles that were not as good as some of our good articles and many of our unsuccessful FA submissions. There is a broader issue here as to whether the standard at FA is one that we should be aiming to raise every article to, or whether a uniform standard of quality is incompatible with an encyclopaedia written by volunteers. I incline to the latter view, not least because I don't want our best articles to be constrained by or limited to a uniform quality standard. As for the relevance to the article rescue squadron, I see our role as rescuing articles that fail or are alleged to fail the minimum standards of this site. Rescue involves getting those that can or should be rescued to a point above that minimum standard, so if the minimum standard was altered it would have a large impact on the work of the article rescue squadron. Providing we don't decide to implement a uniform standard of quality, and change rescue to require every article we rescue to become an FA, then I don't see the relevance to the ARS of the minimum standards for an FA. Ϣere SpielChequers 07:59, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
    • I doubt there are many (if any) articles that were previously rescued that are now FA's. Most articles that are rescued are on the edge of notability, meaning there aren't a lot of sources or significant coverage on which to base the article. It's a lot easier to get Jupiter to FA than Smelly socks. I fail to see the connection between FA and ARS as well. SnottyWong ^spout 14:22, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree that few articles go from rescued to FA, as very few articles make it to FA as a percentage, or even should. Some articles that are rescued are on "the edge of notability" but very many are not, its just that the article is in bad shape and the nominator assumes its not notable, e.g., my recent experiences with Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Eataly and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/LaFayette Center. Its mind-boggling to me how often notable subjects get deleted, but its been this way since early 2006.--Milowent • ^talkblp-r 14:27, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

What is more boggling is how many articles get created without any references. If folks want to get better PR for ARS, I'd suggest a concerted effort to source unreferenced BLPs, there's a huge backlog there. --Nuujinn (talk) 15:09, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

The ARS has an excellent reputation outside wikipedia, all reliable sources praise it. --Milowent • ^talkblp-r 20:54, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

There has been a huge drop in the backlog of unreferenced BLPs this year and a number of ARS members have been involved in the big concerted effort to make that happen. For example Wikipedia:Unreferenced BLP Rescue started as a spinoff from the Article Rescue squadron to reference particular months of the backlog, and the memberships of the two groups still have a high degree of overlap. Ϣere SpielChequers 09:57, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Pro-Inclusionist Piece in New York Times

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

---

This piece in yesterday's new york times[10] praises an article (Angry Birds) that was slated for speedy deletion and then rescued by an editor. The focus of the piece is on the quality of the article and how editors respect and apply WP:OWN. Interestingly, the author says "as a companion to the stuff that was born on the Internet, Wikipedia — itself an Internet artifact — will never be surpassed." Internet content, it seems to me, (memes, software, viral vids, etc.) is the very type of detailed content that is often targeted for deletion. Outside wikipedia, you find people very appreciative of wikipedia's coverage of such things.--Milowent • ^talkblp-r 14:06, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Interesting article on an outsider's perspective of WP. Not really seeing any inclusionist/deletionist slant though. SnottyWong ^verbalize 14:52, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

There's stacks of pro-Inclusion journalism on offer over at Wikipedia:Notability/RFC:Reevaluation#Journalists . FeydHuxtable (talk) 20:10, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

If I were to be a very mean and cynical deletionist I would say that it's a journalist's way of life to know and disseminate information inappropriately so one would have to expect them to be inclusionists.--Mkativerata (talk) 20:19, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for that link, Feyd, I sensed that was the case but hadn't seen that compilation.--Milowent • ^talkblp-r 20:58, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

ha. thanks for quoting my post feyd. I have several more that I found since then. Maybe you can all create a subpage somewhere?

Telegraph

Wikipedia should delete the deletionists Shane Richmond July 7, 2009 Telegraph.

Los Angelese Times

"Wikipedia's community has become so rushed, so immediatist, that it is not willing to allow embryonic articles even a tiny modicum of time to incubate" - Los Angeles Times: Wikipedia wars erupt

Powerhouse Museum

Seb Chan of the Powerhouse Museum about why his institution decided to collaborate with Flickr instead of Wikimedia Commons:

"Whilst Wikipedia and Wikimedia are, in themselves, exciting projects, their structure, design and combative social norms do not currently make them the friendly or the protected space that museums tend to be comfortable operating in."[11]

Guardian

"The two groups [deletionists and inclusionists] had been vying for control from early on in the site's life, but the numbers suggest that the deletionists may have won. The increasing difficulty of making a successful edit; the exclusion of casual users; slower growth – all are hallmarks of the deletionist approach." --Wikipedia approaches its limits Bobbie Johnson guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 12 August 2009.

Academic studies

My favorite is the academic studies though, (although granted, they are not about deletion) I have about two dozen of those:

EQUALITY

As anyone who has edited any amount of time here, knows, there is no WP:EQUALITY:

"There are contributors who consistently and successfully violate policy without sanction"

Academic studies about Wikipedia Explicit vie for ownership

Harvard Independent

""After eliminating other candidates, the form that fits best [wikipedia] is that of bureaucracy." [12]

Infoworld

Wikipedia topics are selected for inclusion on the basis of their notability, which is subjective and fosters discrimination and elitism, "the very things the Wikipedia is against." "Unlike academic journals and other legitimate reference sources, the Wikipedia has created new and anonymous elite 'editors' and administrators"InfoWorld: Wikipedia breeds 'unwitting trust' says IT professor

CARTOON

Cartoon about deletion.[13] Okip 05:55, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Wow. Ever seen WP:BATTLE? SnottyWong ^spout 06:01, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

He has certainly been directed there, once or twice, I believe.
Ikip, when you next swing by, that 'vie for ownership' thing focuses on a debate in 2006, none of the editors in question are very active now. It'd be good if you could find something more recent/relevant, if you want to keep making whatever point it is you're driving at there. pablo 12:50, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Its possibly those editors who have been aggressively chipping away at our people friendly, pro knowledge sharing values that need to see advice in WP:Battle, not heroes like Okip who have been resolute enough to stand in their way. FeydHuxtable (talk) 13:38, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Unhelpful. Hipocrite (talk) 13:44, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes Feyd, that's right; he's a "hero" because he "fights" on the same "side" as you in your "battle".  pablo 14:57, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

• There's nothing to get heated about. Its not a battle to cite and quote sources in the media that criticize wikipedia policies and actions which favor deletion of some content. This is important feedback that arguably is the most accurate reflection of views of wikipedia's reason for existing - its readers. If Snotty wants to cite sources which show otherwise for purposes of continuing the discussion, fine. But citing WP:BATTLE only encourages needless drama.--Milowent • ^talkblp-r 14:48, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

• The point is that I don't have a huge list of evidence or sources at the ready with which to start such an argument at the drop of a hat, because that kind of battle would be at the bottom of the list of arguments in which I'd be interested in participating. SnottyWong ^express 15:07, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Snotty - If you strip out the "us v. them" kind of ideology that has grown up over these issues, you'll see its not really a battle, but a debate over whether the way articles get deleted now is optimal for the project. These are the kind of discussions/battles you are participating in every day at a micro level by nominating articles for deletion or voting !delete in AfDs.--Milowent • ^talkblp-r 15:14, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

That's true, and the escalation of the simple discussions and actions necessary to edit an encyclopaedia into "fights" and "battles" has largely been manufactured by those with a vested interest in prolonging those conflicts.  pablo 15:28, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Snotty:

Wikipedia:No angry mastodons:

"Sometimes editors perceive a personal attack where none actually exists. Usually this confusion happens when an editor misreads a personality conflict into a detailed post about a content disagreement...When people are involved in disputes there is a tendency to take offense, sometimes called "mock outrage," at statements that are either not intended as slights — or that transgress the norms of discussion only in a technical sense — but are not in fact hurtful to the target of the comment."

Snotty, you seem intent on widing this dispute you originally started on ANI regarding Colonel. The ANI is closed, but that does not stop you continuing the argument first on my talk page, and now here.

Confusing stances

On the ANI you complain that my criticisms of your behavior have nothing to do with the matter at hand.

Yet here you launch into a "battle" argument which has nothing to do with this posting here. I was adding media and scholarly accounts about wikipedia. My comments were not addressed to you at all.

On my talk page, you template me, accusing me of personal attacks on ANI, yet you call me a "troll" in the very next response.[14]

Please hat this discussion

This whole argument that you continue to escalate has brought up a lot of user names I would just as soon never see again. Life is to short to have to regularly deal with these "bullies, who take pleasure in wrecking and mocking peoples' work"[15], especially since Jimbo himself encourages and fosters such behavior.

I have removed your posting on my talk page. I suggest Snotty gets the WP:LASTWORD here, and then someone who has not been involved in this discussion hat this discussion. I am logging out now, and I won't be coming back for a very long time, if at all. Okip

That will be a huge loss to the squad and Wikipedia as a whole if you dont return, and a lucky gain for whatever other good causes you turn your attention to. Thanks for all you've done for us. FeydHuxtable (talk) 16:15, 10 November 2010 (UTC)15:40, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Ok, bye. (← last word). SnottyWong ^converse 16:55, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

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

help with Nicky Diaz

I added the tag to Nicky Diaz before i saw that I should ask here if I'm the main editor. Sorry! I added a long list of new articles on the deletion page. Can it still be a part of the rescue project? Munijym (talk) 12:13, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

There's no requirement that you ask here first; anyone can tag any article for rescue. You are, however, strongly encouraged to notify the AfD discussion that you have tagged the article for rescue. Milowent has apparently already done this for you. SnottyWong ^converse 15:02, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

DYK eligibility for sourcing BLPs discussion

Cross posted from Wikipedia talk:Unreferenced BLP Rescue#DYK eligibility for sourcing BLPs discussion, please comment there if of interest to you: Via this notice at WT:URBLP, I was led to Wikipedia talk:Did you know#unsourced BLP Drive, where there is a discussion of making unreferenced BLPs which are fully referenced eligible for Did You Know? nomination, perhaps with a relaxed expansion requirement. (Current rules are that an old article must be expanded 5x to be eligible for DYK). This sounds like a great idea.--Milowent • ^talkblp-r 14:23, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Invitation to participate!

Hello! As you may be aware, the Wikimedia Foundation is gearing up for our annual fundraiser. We want to hit our goal, and hit it as soon as possible, so that we can focus on Wikipedia's tenth anniversary (January 15) and on our new project, the Contribution Team.

I'm posting across WikiProjects to engage you, the community, in working to build Wikipedia not only through financial donations, but also through collaboration in building content. You can find more information in Philippe Beaudette's memo to the communities here.

Please visit the Contribution Team page and the Fundraising page to find out how you can help us support and spread free knowledge. ⇒ DanRosenthal ^{Wikipedia Contribution Team} 18:38, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

YOtel is on prod death row

I was just passing through the YOtel article since its coordinates were wrong, and I see there's been a bit of a dustup on the talk page. It looks like a former article at Yotel was A7 speedied back in Sept 2008, YOtel was prodded in July by User:Beeshoney on the grounds of being badly written and when that prod was removed Beeshoney gave a deadline of 48 hours for the article to be improved before (s)he prodded it again. That hasn't happened, but I think the article can be considered "vulnerable" even though there's clear notability with lots of sources. It's not that bad, it just needs a bit of a copyedit from someone with more experience than me of articles that could be considered WP:ADVERTy - anyone fancy it? Le Deluge (talk) 12:02, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

For future ref, PROD is a once-only deal, not for repeated use.  pablo 12:21, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

You should make sure to inform the user that they are not allowed to PROD the article again after it has only been PRODed once. If, after you telling them this, they still do it anyway, then you should immediately take them to ANI. The lack of understanding about what notability is by this user on the talk page is rather concerning and I hope they do end up reading the guideline pages you linked. Silverseren^C 16:30, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, ANI is probably not called for the first time. A nice note from an administrator confirming that PROD means what it says, and instructing them on how to use AfD, should suffice. Always solve problems in the least dramatic reasonable way, please. :-) Jclemens (talk) 16:54, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Not defending Beeshoney's posts, but the posts and PROD occurred in July. Surely no action directed at a specific user is warranted based on these two posts alone!? VQuakr (talk) 17:07, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

What I said was that the user should be informed that PRODs cannot be used again after being used once. And if they do it again after being told such, then I think some action needs to be taken. Maybe not ANI, but if they clearly go against policy after being informed of said policy, that really shouldn't be overlooked. It shouldn't be an issue anymore though, hopefully, since I went ahead and improved the article with some more references. Silverseren^C 17:16, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Got another job for you folks ...

Heaven knows I've had clashes with some ARS folks, some of whom I believe will distort or ignore any guideline or policy which stands in the way of a Keep result at AfD, but here I've got a quandry. This article came to my attention just now. I've tagged it to hell and gone, could have tagged a great deal more, and have suggested taking it to AfD. I really would prefer not to do that; it strikes me as a notable subject. That being said, I'm not an expert on the Sri Lankan civil war and hesitate to dive into the snake pit that's the Sinhalese-Tamil tong war on Wikipedia. I see that planting a rescue tag is inappropriate prior to AfD - although that confuses me; shouldn't efforts be made to rescue articles prior to the deletion gun being loaded? - and so I hope that people here with more time, energy and/or inclination to do so will take a shot at it. Good fortune to those who do; it's likely a thankless task.  RGTraynor  03:56, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Ideally, placing any tag on an article will prompt the hordes of editors monitoring our cleanup categories (yeah, right) to descend on it. In reality, of course, such go generally unnoticed and unheeded, and many (most?) articles tagged for rescue likewise remain untouched by anyone. I don't have any personal expertise sourcing military and/or Sri Lankan articles, so I'm afraid I'll be unable to help personally. But who knows--someone else might, and it never hurts to ask here. Jclemens (talk) 05:14, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

While I know practically nothing about the Sri Lankan civil war, that doesn't mean I can't search for references to add. I'm pretty sure that I will be able to address the issue of notability, as I would for any article, even while knowing little about it. The actual improvement of the article in terms of prose will have to be left up to experts however. I have a test coming up on Tuesday. If you wait until after that, i'll have more time to give it a look over and a dive into Google News and places, to see what I can find. Silverseren^C 21:59, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

• Re this, "I see that planting a rescue tag is inappropriate prior to AfD - although that confuses me; shouldn't efforts be made to rescue articles prior to the deletion gun being loaded?" Of course!!! Hopefully everyone who edits wikipedia improves articles here and there. Out of 3.5 million articles, how many are horrible? Probably 3 million? But the ARS is like an ambulance that is called to the aid of someone having a heart attack. The victim should have eaten healthy and had regular checkups all along, but the EMTs are only called in when the person is near death. That being said, there's no harm in putting a notice here about an article not currently nominated for deletion, as maybe one of the watchers of this page (and not necessarily an ARS member) may jump in. Heaven knows I've placed notices on wikiproject talk pages many times looking for help with articles nominated for deletion and it rarely results in any help, but sometimes it might.--Milowent • ^talkblp-r 02:47, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
  • "the EMTs are only called in when the person is near death" As an EMT, I can attest firsthand that this is not remotely true. :-) Jclemens (talk) 03:21, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
    • Oh, just steal my thunder then, huh?!?!?! :-) OK, its an imperfect analogy, but they don't get called in when we eat an extra slice of bacon.--Milowent • ^talkblp-r 03:51, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

• That topic looks to be major boring sh*t and, as it is not at AFD, is out of scope. I have a better topic for the jaded editors who languish here waiting for work. This will put hair on your chest... Foxy boxing! Colonel Warden (talk) 07:35, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

After my test tomorrow, i'll work on both of them. Geez, none of you have any patience. :P Silverseren^C 22:30, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, I found a source, but the problem is that the article is a copyvio, see this. I think the source is reliable, and I can put in some time in a day or so, but we should start from scratch with the material that is copied. --Nuujinn (talk) 01:08, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

There are plenty of books covering this, although they present a slightly different history to what's in this article. Here's one.

• Dissanayake, T. D. S. A. (2005). "The Protracted War". War Or Peace in Sri Lanka. Popular Prakashan. ISBN 9788179911990. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |isbn10= ignored (help)

Note also the existence of Second Battle of Elephant Pass. Uncle G (talk) 03:03, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

• Well, i've dealt with the Foxy boxing article. Now, for this Operation Unceasing Waves III one. I don't really want to wade into the waters of copyright issues right now. What would be the best way to deal with this? Silverseren^C 17:57, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Maybe just stub it out and add a source or two, then see if you can add back anything from history that is supported by the sources by rephrasing it. A shorter article that makes sense is a better start.--Milowent • ^talkblp-r 02:37, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
    • I think the normal procedure at this point is to wait a bit until the copyvio admins decide what to do with it. It was tagged on the 23rd, and I think they give the original author a week to clean it up, and then remove the article or parts of that are still a violation. The incident is clearly notable, so once that's done, we could work it back up. --Nuujinn (talk) 20:42, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
      • Speaking with my "copyvio administrator" hat on, I'd say that since it is evident from comparing this edit with this article ("Copyright © 1997-2009 TamilNet") that Ellaalan (talk · contribs) was just copying and pasting wholesale, and that the last non-infringing revision of the article is this one (q.v.).

        The copyright violation is foundational, and you'll have to rewrite from scratch. Uncle G (talk) 03:01, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

        • Prolly easier that way anyhow, recasting prose always takes a long time.--Nuujinn (talk) 23:37, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Article Rescue Squadron is based on delusional optimism

Hello all. For those who don't know me, my name is Okip/Ikip.

Indefinitely blocked three times

I edited here for 5 years with over 50,000 plus edits.

I got in the middle of the Biography of Living Person debate were a small group of editors who have little respect for other editors contributions were attempting to delete tens of thousands of other editors contributions. This debate started when User:Scott MacDonald, User:Lar and a couple of other administrators who have little respect for other editors contributions deleted hundreds of articles, including Olympic athletes, etc. When Wikipedia founder Jim Wales personally thanked Scott Macdonald for deleting these articles it showed that Mr Wales has no respect for Wikipedia's main asset, the editors.

On the heels of this, I was indefinitely blocked for a second and third time. Since I am typing today, both blocks were obviously reverted, but the damage was done and the message was clear: editors who get in the way of purging by the bullies will be swiftly dealt with, with Jim Wales full blessing and support. Through the years, Wales has handpicked a leadership and fostered a company culture which has no respect for editors contributions.

Colonel Warden's indefinite block

Since Jim Wales blessing, the attacks by editors who have little respect for other editors contributions has only intensified. Snotty Wang (a frequent editor here), has been dragging a moderate editor, Colonel Warden to WP:ANI repeatedly. Colonel Warden has now been indefinitely blocked. Of course, policy is quoted for this continued harassment, but the underlying tension lies in Colonel Warden attempting to preserve and respect other editors contributions.

Sometimes a pessimist is an informed optimist

This years long argument have never been about deletion and inclusionism, at its core, it has always been about about tolerance for fellow editors viewpoints and respect for their hard work and contributions. The underlying elephant in the room, which no one can seriously discuss here, is that Jim Wale's Wikipedia simply doesn't respect other editors contributions.

"[ Inclusionist and Deletionists ] had been vying for control from early on in the site's life, but the numbers suggest that the deletionists may have won. The increasing difficulty of making a successful edit; the exclusion of casual users; slower growth – all are hallmarks of the deletionist approach."[16]

Americans by their nature are optimists, but the problem with this optimism is sometimes it has no basis in reality, and when a person fails, as we have, we blame ourselves, instead of accepting that we had no chance anyway. You simply cannot change somethings in life.

"No man can struggle with advantage against the spirit of his age and country, and however powerful a man may be, it is hard for him to make his contemporaries share feelings and ideas which run counter to the general run of their hopes and desires."

We cannot dethrown Jimbo and throw out all of his hand picked leadership, both paid and volunteer to start anew. We cannot change 8 years of company culture. Make no mistake, the root problem is Jim Wales. When Jim Wales personally thanks a bully like Scott MacDonald for deleting 100 articles, you know that Wikipedia has no real respect for the individual editor.

Article Rescue Squadron will be deleted, it is only a matter of time

Its not very hard to see the larger trend. ARS has been put up for deletion many times, every time it gets closer to being deleted. As editors who support this project continue to be silenced, eventually this project will be deleted (or diluted). It is not a matter of if, it has always been a matter of when.

Wikipedia:WikiSpeak

The editors who have little respect for other editors contributions and who regularly post here will attempt to character assassinate me. The more cunningly deceitful who have learned wikispeak, whose "...words are polite...but [whose] actions are obscene"[17] will say they support this project but they don't support the direction this project is going and the actions of the more "extreme" members. This ignores the underlying real shift, today's wikipedia is "extreme": it has evolved into a site which does not respect editors contributions.

The most effective wikipedia editors are those editors who bury their views in passive aggressive neutral sounding wikispeak, using such relaxing terms as "for the good of the project" "cooperation" and "working together". (Here is the absolute best example) Many will even call themselves "inclusionists". But ARS members, don't be fooled, look at the underlying actions of these editors: Do they little respect for other editors contributions? Examine the previous Article for Deletions for this project and how they supported the deletion of this project. Study how these editors treat new editor contributions and work together to build articles on a day to day basis.

Edit where your contributions are respected

I post here because I do not want any of my dear friends here to have to go through the emotional turmoil that many of us veteran editors already have. When you are inevitably targeted for your tolerance and respect for others contributions, please, for your own happiness, step back for one minute and reassess the big picture. For those of you who love the concept of wiki, but hate the way editors and your contributions are treated here, there are other non-Jim Wales wiki projects out there which respect editors hard work and contributions.

Please don't message me or email me. Thank you. Okip 20:59, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Missed you, man; an interesting a take as ever. But Wikia, where you spend your time these days, is hardly a non-Jim Wales project. And Colonel Warden is not blocked. See you soon. pablo 22:57, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

• We miss you Okip, I probably wouldn't be around without your early guidance. Come on back now, the battles are half the fun, at least! The inclusionist philosphy may be subject to frequent broadsides, but in fact it is winning every day. Over 1,000 new articles every day, deleted articles getting recreated all the time, deleted (verifiable) content being placed in other appropriate places. I won't post examples here, but I watch these things happen all the time. Its impossible for any cadre of editors to stop because the great mass of editors on wikipedia do not participate in AfD but are essentially inclusionist. The deletions of good content which are unfortunate and raise our ire are actually just drops in a bucket. So, come and edit here because people actually read wikipedia.--Milowent • ^talkblp-r 04:35, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

P.S. and if you say i'm delusional i'm gonna kick your ass. :-)--Milowent • ^talkblp-r 04:35, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

• WP:TLDR. I thought you were retired. I apologize for dragging Colonel Warden repeatedly to ANI for minor annoyances like repeatedly making edits that are unambiguously counter to various policies, guidelines, and long-established consensus. And I apologize for the near unanimous agreement that editors voiced regarding my concerns. I will strive in the future to end my harassment of editors who are only trying to preserve and respect other editors' contributions. SnottyWong ^{spill the beans} 20:46, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

You don't know when to be quiet, do you?--Milowent • ^talkblp-r 21:17, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Ikip felt the need to present his very one-sided view of what SnottyWong did here, and you feel it is somehow inappropriate for SnottyWong to reply and give his side of things? If that's how you want to have things, then please take this to IRC or another website, but don't expect that you can mention people's actions here without them replying. Fram (talk) 22:02, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Not in his case, no.--Milowent • ^talkblp-r 12:26, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

• It does seem rather pointless at times. As all the interesting stuff is taken out of Wikipedia, less reason to bother coming here at all. I started over four years ago, and we made so much progress in those early days, but alas, things went sour, and we keep loosing more ground, and more great editors are driven away, and no matter how many articles we save far more are destroyed. Since Jul 18, 2006 I have made 11,038 edits and have 28 articles I created not yet deleted. [18] Dream Focus 21:39, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

This^{↑Dream Focus, not Ikip↑} makes, as usual, little sense. The number of visitors to the encyclopaedia suggests that "all the interesting stuff" is not being removed. The number of articles is increasing. Milowent's comments above, "The deletions of good content ... are actually just drops in a bucket ... people actually read wikipedia." are a more accurate reflection of reality. pablo 12:56, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

• Actually Ikip, next time you unretire, you may want to consider that the entire Wikipedia project is based on optimism ... and works surprisingly well most of the time. pablo 14:51, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

• Here's a relevant quotation. Colonel Warden (talk) 18:29, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.

— James Branch Cabell

• No matter how cynical you get, it's impossible to keep up. --Nuujinn (talk) 18:44, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
• ARS isn't delusional. We improve and rescue articles every day... the only way ARS would ever get deleted is if we turn it into a home base to organize attacks... don't promote a battleground... most people can agree on improving articles so lets keep doing that where possible. keep the squadron going! Arskwad (talk) 23:52, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, we have no ...

• Banana powder (AfD discussion)
  • Jenkins, Virginia S. (1999). "Bananas". In David Scofield Wilson and Angus K. Gillespie (ed.). Rooted in America: foodlore of popular fruits and vegetables. University of Tennessee Press. pp. 27–31. ISBN 9781572330535. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |isbn10= ignored (help)
  • Guiné, Raquel Pinho Ferreira; Dias, Maria João Barroca (2007). "Dried Banana". In Yiu H. Hui and Stephanie Clark (ed.). Handbook of Food Products Manufacturing. Vol. 1 Principles, Bakery, Beverages, Cereals, Cheese, Confectionary, Fats, Fruits, and Functional Foods. Wiley-Interscience. pp. 872–873. ISBN 9780470125243. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |isnb10= ignored (help)
  • Food and Agriculture Organization. Utilization of Tropical Foods: Trees. Food and Agriculture Organization. pp. 33–34. ISBN 9789251027769. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |isbn10= ignored (help)
  • "Banana Powder Good To Eat". Popular Mechanics. Vol. 62, no. 1. Hearst Magazines. 1934. p. 134. ISSN 0032-4558. {{cite magazine}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  • Kugelmass, Isaac Newton (1940). "Banana Powder". The newer nutrition in pediatric practice. J.B. Lippincott company. p. 336. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • Kay, Daisy E. (1967). "G32: Banana products". Tropical Products Institute reports 30–40. London: Tropical Products Institute (Great Britain).: 169–173. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  • Crowther, P. C. (1979). "The processing of banana products for food use". London: Tropical Products Institute. ISBN 0859540987. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Jenkins 1999 and Guiné & Dias 2007 indicate that there's possibly scope for refactoring into a general (sub-)article on banana#The fruit food products, covering banana figs, banana powder, banana chips (a fairly bad article), banana slices, banana jam, and banana flour altogether, as they (and indeed Kay 1967) all seem to do. Certainly there's scope for in-place expansion on the subject at hand, here. Uncle G (talk) 17:57, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

• Well, i've done my part. Feel free to let me know if there's any other articles that need to be worked on. Silverseren^C 20:28, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Since you asked. ... Here's another one:

• Urban Figure Ground Debate (AfD discussion)

I've worked out the (redlinked) name of the actual subject, and found some sources that can be used to add a proper encyclopaedic definition and introduction. Uncle G (talk) 23:34, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Article Rescue Squadron keeps getting slandered

• A recent RFC about an active member of the ARS, has caused a lot of people to go there just to bash the ARS itself, both on the RFC page itself Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Colonel Warden and its talk page. People seem to be attacking the ARS more than the particular editor. The nominating editor is also drafting a proposal to dramatically limit the ARS User:Snottywong/ARS proposal. Seems like something that the ARS members might want to be involved in. Dream Focus 22:19, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Dream Focus, this has nothing to do with the core work of the ARS, which is (in case it had slipped your mind) improving articles which are nominated for deletion. Your posting here is akin to adding a {{rescue}} tag to the RFC itself, solely in order increase the chances of more people who agree with you turning up there. pablo 22:26, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

It has everything to do with the ARS since that is the only reason some of them are going after one of its active members, as evident by their comments. Dream Focus 22:48, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Which articles are you hoping to "save" by posting these allegations here exactly? pablo 22:51, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

• I'd say a fair number of us are following CW's tar-and-feathering, and its fair to place a note here noting that ARS-slagging there is in full force like a baptist preacher at a tent revival talking about methodists. That being said, I agree with pablo that the RfC is not about the ARS, so I've chosen to ignore that and I encourage others to do the same. I've only skimmed Snotty's proposal, but most of the ideas seem quite bureaucratic and absolutely unworkable, but I'll comment on the talk page of the draft if I decide to explain in detail. Some vocal editors have complained about the ARS since its inception, despite positive coverage in the media, its all the same rehash.--Milowent • ^talkblp-r 23:00, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

It's the same rehash; it's the same issues, Milo; always has been. The thing is that they are pretty much all editor issues rather than project issues. pablo 23:05, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

• I'm not a psychologist, but what's that phenomenon that causes people to blame groups instead of individuals, because it's easier to do so. Anyone know? So instead of someone saying the Colonel or Dream or me or whoever are their problem, they say "THE ARS". If there was a formal deletionist squad, perhaps we'd do the same thing. I can get irritated at The Wordsmith for his recent spate for AfDs noms which had a number of bad noms, but I'm not inclined to just slag the kid as if he's not a human being but some evil force.--Milowent • ^talkblp-r 23:22, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't know offhand, but part of the reason in this case, and one of the valid project issues, was the worry that the ARS would act as a (and I am quoting from memory) "general inclusionist noticeboard". That was not unfounded given Ikip's attempt to merge various projects (and worse, their 'membership') into here, and that same issue is evident with Dream Focus' post above. pablo 23:29, 8 December 2010 (UTC) just for the record Heh … seems I was quoting myself^diff and the quotation I was looking for was "general-purpose deletion noticeboard" pablo 00:14, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely. If all people used the ARS for was to increase sourcing, there would be no issue. By picking AfDs carefully, getting good sources, engaging collegialy with those who disagree, and not contesting existing consensus on inclusion standards, I rescue articles consistently. Occasionally, people still try to tar me (despite my vocal rejection of "ARS membership") with that brush, but then I trot out an article or two that I've rescued and substantially improved and the objections seem to dry up. Jclemens (talk) 23:33, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree. I would also suggest that the best way to improve the reputation of ARS in the general community is to rise above the petty arguments and just do the work. The vast majority of WP editors are neither deletionists nor inclusionists. Being at either end of that spectrum is fine, and I think, having the extremes helps, so long as we remain civil. But if you are an extreme inclusionist, attacking deletionists, your arguments will be dismissed by the vast majority of editors. I would point to Uncle G as an good example we should follow. --Nuujinn (talk) 23:51, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree with pablo's comment that there isn't a problem with the way ARS is set up, but there is a problem with some (or perhaps many) of the editors who are members. The aforementioned proposal that I threw together was a collection of thoughts I'd had (some of which were inspired by ideas that Jclemens had expressed previously) for ways to reform the ARS such that the editors who give it a bad name would no longer be able to do so. This is likely why Dream would immediately view it as "limiting", because it closes all the loopholes that are frequently abused to push along the radical inclusionist battle plan (like legal canvassing, votestacking, etc). I don't have any delusions that my proposal will be taken seriously by very many ARS members, but I think it is a useful starting point for a discussion on how to fix the obvious problems with this organization, as perceived by the Wikipedia community in general. And you can't deny that there is a strong perception that this organization suffers from some major problems. SnottyWong ^spout 23:58, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Vote stacking and canvassing? Indeed. If the article isn't improved, then the number of people turning out isn't relevant. And many people such as yourself actively participate in articles tagged, and almost always say delete. So tagging something for rescue isn't just attracting people who vote one way or another. Your mention of a "radical inclusionist battle plan" is absolutely absurd. Dream Focus 02:27, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I leave my name here as a member because I still feel that the work of rescuing articles is valid. I don't usually bother to tag articles anymore, and instead just go ahead and work on the articles I find at AfD that I believe I can rescue. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. I also check the ARS category regularly, but often find things there I am not willing to spend my time on. I read the comments of those who say the ARS is just a vote-stacking mechanism, but just like in every previous MfD, there has never been any proof of this. I don't comment on a tagged AfD unless I have added something to the article, the work has already been done by someone else, or there is a glaring violation of WP:BEFORE. If another MfD is started, or an actual proposal is made at VP, I will certainly comment, but there are probaly a lot of other editors like me who don't get into the drama of it all, and just like to rescue articles. I won't waste any of my time on a proposal until it leaves user space and is actually put before the community. Jim Miller ^{See me | Touch me} 00:03, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Fair play Jim (and JClemens, and Uncle G, and many others). There are "article rescuers" and there are people who identify as "members" of ARS– and they are not necessarily the same thing. pablo 00:17, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Are you implying that since I consider myself a member of the ARS, i'm one of the bad guys? :P Silverseren^C 00:29, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Hellz noe. I suppose you could break down "There are "article rescuers" and there are people who identify as "members" of ARS– and they are not necessarily the same thing" as "article rescuing" does necessarily require membership of the ARS, and membership of the ARS does not necessarily mean that one is an "article rescuer". pablo 00:36, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Fedex Express Flight 647

Fedex Express Flight 647 is currently at AFD. Is this one worthy of rescue? Sources available include Aviation Safety Network and the NTSB report of the investigation into the accident. Mjroots (talk) 08:44, 9 December 2010 (UTC)