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• Welcome to my talk page. If you just want to make a short comment why not put it in my guestbook. If you want to add something to one of the existing topics go ahead, Or click here to start a new topic.

David J Marcou

Thanks for your comment on the David J. Marcou article. I wrote the article myself and posted it on my contributions page. It clearly states the nomination for the Pulitzer. Happy Holidays to you. Sincerely, Dacorbandit (talk) 03:23, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

New pages

Hi WSC. With my concerns for BLP, I've been working a lot from the bottom of the backlog of new pages. I suppose I'm right in thinking that any pages over 30 days old just get kept as de facto unproblematic. It takes me a whole day to clear just one whole day's backlog, even when working quickly, and bordering on drive-by, and rescuing whatever I can. The backlog contains thousands of articles, and they are of course the ones that most new page patrollers probably did not know what to do with. Most of these pages appear to be BLP, - mainly minor film starts, Indian academics, and footballers, and then there is the sundry assortment of non notable firms. Is there, or has there been any incentive to get more, more experienced patrollers to work on this backlog? --Kudpung (talk) 07:37, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi Kudpung, welcome to one of my favourite places on Wikipedia, though I've not been active there much myself of late, and I suspect some of the regulars have moved on. Yes if an article isn't marked as patrolled within 30 days it is automatically marked as such. Normally the length of the queue hovers between three and four weeks, and if it reaches 30 days, by the time it does so the vast majority of new articles have been deleted or marked as patrolled - with perhaps a hundred a day for the end of the queue. Looking at the current end of the queue I'd say that we have more like 200 a day and I believe this is unusually high, I've had a bit of a trawl and I think it is the usual end of the queue mix of the obscure and the abstruse, with few that clearly don't belong here though many might be of marginal notability. One possible response is to focus on the stuff that interests you - if you see someone whose articles are clearly worth patrolling, or clearly worth prodding it is possible to filter by username and look at their other new articles. If you see someone who has clearly mastered the art of writing new articles that belong here then it is possible to nominate them at Wikipedia:Requests for permissions/Autopatrolled - that takes a little longer tan just patrolling their latest articles, but all their subsequent articles will be automatically marked as patrolled. The other possibility is to raise your concern at at the village pump, as I have just done . ϢereSpielChequers 14:51, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

It seems to have met with some rapid replies - perhaps the next step is to get a consensus on an RfC. One editor has suggested making a automated log of all the pages that slip unchecked through the 30 day deadline. Not a bad idea either.--Kudpung (talk) 20:05, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

New pages

Hi. Surely breeding cats is even more boring than NPP ;) I've whacked off a couple of thousand from the bottom of the list (phew!) over the last three days, so by today by my time zone (GMT+7) we now have nothing older than 16 Oct. If that two/three days gets filled up again quite quickly, then I most certainly press for the notion of an extension, but perhaps also to mass canvas all the members of the NPP project to rally together, although of course nobody likes working with the hard stuff in the bottom of the barrel when the low hanging fruit comes in every 5 seconds. --Kudpung (talk) 08:10, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

If in your timezone the oldest is the 16th Oct then we are I suspect rather more than 7 hours apart :). But seriously congrats on gaining us that safety margin, I think the end of the queue is a more challenging place to be than the front, very few articles there are going to be obvious candidates either for deletion or patrolling. So for those who specialise in it it is a more interesting place. Though personally I haven't had the heart to go there since I realised that developers regard extending the queue as easy but undesirable as the deadline encourages us to work harder.

I think that it would be a mistake to only argue for an extension when the backlog is currently at 30 days, better to say the queue length is known to oscillate and has frequently been at over 30 days in the past. Extending it by putting a hidden category on articles that are still unpatrolled at 30 days is simply closing a loophole. ϢereSpielChequers 08:27, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

It's been an interesting empirical exercise; First for me personally because judging by the feedback, my error rate is well below 1% - and I think you caught most of those ;) - but it has also shown that they fall mainly into 3 categories: newbies in GF who don't know any better; SUA who are trying to promote their book or their band; and hard nosed paid corporate spammers who know all the tricks in the trade. I feel sorry for the occasional school teachers who have done a lot of hard work on a kindergarten in Upper Knowwhere, and the kids who's spent hours on the graphics for their favourite comics, but that's the way it goes. If you look at this, you'll see that I've been working through several different times zones (you are the only other editor I now who never seems to sleep), and because I've had only two or three edit conflicts in all that time , I'm not sure that there are very many people working at the bottom of the deep end. What I am now convinced of is that we need far stronger (but friendly) messages on the edit page reminding newcomers of a few basic rules before they press the save button, and to suggest even more loudly that they prepare stuff in their sandbox first. We also need to come up with a solution soon for revising the sticky prod - I've only been able to use it about four times, which makes it all but useless. We have to box for your (our) earlier ideas for a catalogue of links that should be forbidden. We also need to shorten that 10 days to 7. It's 10 days at the moment because that's how I closed the consensus at the RfC. There was no real consensus, so I took the average of all the different suggestions and used that. No one complained objected. --Kudpung (talk) 09:20, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Remember certain types of articles won't make it to the back of the queue, as they will have been deleted or patrolled. I really wouldn't expect to see many attack pages or legitimate sticky prod candidates for example. Perhaps occasionally there will be an hour when the front of the queue is unattended and some crap gets to sit until it gets to the end of the queue, but I suspect that is rare, did you notice any such batches? As for the ten days for the sticky prod, why change something people seem prepared to live with? I suspect that a high proportion of the ones that are worth salvaging get rescued, but shortening the queue would be needlessly aggravating to some rescuers who are doing good work. I probably don't come across the spammers as much as you do because I rarely look at articles on companies, but I largely agree with you as to the provenance of many of our borderline articles. I think we do have several difficult areas re sticky prods:

1. I've deflagged three Autopatrolled editors who were creating uBLPs, but we need to watch out for this as they bypass NPP (I've requested a report, but it is a tricky area and it really needs a database report to spot these).
2. I suspect some patrollers are marking uBLPs as patrolled without even tagging them as uBLPs let alone sticky prodding them. This part of a broader issue that people are inconsistent as to what it means to mark a new article as patrolled. In the past I've suggested a two option process - a "not vandalism" tag and a "ready for mainspace" tag. Currently I believe we have some patrollers marking articles as patrolled because the subject is worthy of a article even if the current stub is a good faith but unsourced effort.
3. I also think we need to stop marking articles as patrolled when they've been tagged for deletion, but instead have a separate colour for articles that have been tagged for deletion. That way when a newbie removes a deletion tag the article would revert to unpatrolled, and patrollers could choose to ignore articles that were currently tagged for deletion (It would also save patrollers the click needed to mark such articles as patrolled).
4. Currently the handling of Myspace and similar sourced articles is wildly inconsistent, and a lot of the articles tagged as unreferenced BLPs would be better tagged as selfpublished and refimproveBLP. If that was done then I suspect that a lot of the remaining newly tagged unreferenced BLPs would get sticky prodded, but at the moment they are buried in the category unreferenced BLPs. I think we should re-open this in say January as by then there will have been a decent interval since the last RFC. I think the main concerns people had were in keeping the test a clear one and not suddenly creating a backlog with a thousand articles all being BLP prodded at the same time. I'm fairly confident that if we can address the backlog issue we can get consensus to broaden sticky prod, but my instinct is to do this incrementally - identify how many articles are affected, attempt to clear or make manageable the backlog in each case and then ask for the sticky prod to be extended. For example I think Linkedin is quite rare as a self published source, and MySpace rather less so, but getting a listing of these two, Utube and facebook would be the logical next step. ϢereSpielChequers 15:58, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Bureaucrat-ship?

My personal interactions with you and my analysis of your presence on our project makes me believe you might be an appropriate choice for becoming a bureaucrat. Ergo, leaving this note... Sincere regards. Wifione _....... ^{Leave a message} 11:41, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Wifione, that is very flattering. But I doubt that >85% of the community would hold the same view as you. I've seen two very well qualified candidates be rejected at RFB in the last year, and I can think of many reasons why some people would oppose me.

1. There are people who opposed my RFA because of my lack of audited content, and I think that the vandalfighting and gnomish work such as typo fixing that dominates my contributions is even less valued now than it was in the past.
2. I've expressed views in several contentious subjects over the years and it would only take one or two of those who held the opposite opinion to me over each of those to torpedo an RFB.
3. I've argued on more than one occasion that a possible reform to RFA would either be to reduce the status of admins by upbundling the most important part of their role to the crats; Or to empower the crats to appoint probationary admins. I suspect that some people would consider it inappropriate for me to argue for an increase in crats power immediately before running as a crat myself.
4. My !voting pattern at RFA doesn't always follow consensus, there are things that I'm more tolerant of than some, as evidenced by my supports for many candidates who've failed to achieve consensus, and there have been opposes I've made to successful candidates because I'm more cautious than most !voters about appointing admins who might be over enthusiastic with the deletion button. I believe that I understand the difference between my views on an RFA and the consensus of the discussion, but some RFA regulars might take some convincing.
5. I've been saying for years that RFA is broken, and collating evidence of that. I suspect this would count for me if I ran for crat after it was fixed or when the number of active admins finally drops to a point where everyone accepts we have a problem. But if I ran now then some people would be concerned that as a crat I might be tempted to address the problem I perceive there to be at RFA by being overly lenient with marginal candidates.
6. RFBs can easily get mired into arguments about whether we need another crat and if so whether this candidate is the best candidate available as opposed to the best candidate running. Since even I would concede that there are better potential candidates out there I can pretty much guarantee opposes on those grounds.

ϢereSpielChequers 15:27, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

You discredit yourself too much. Believe in the value that even opposing editors would put in your contributions. Irrespective, it is better to have tried and lost than not to have tried at all. Apply once... let's see what gives. Wifione _....... ^{Leave a message} 17:06, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

I'll give it some thought, I have a suspicion that it wouldn't last the whole 7 days, but in case it did I'd need a week when I could be sure of a lot of time online, and that may not come up for a little while. ϢereSpielChequers 00:08, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

I'd be surprised to see a successful RfB in the foreseeable future. I think your last point is especially valid. I think if anybody stood at RfB right now, the "we don't need any more 'crats" camp is easily large enough to produce 15% opposition even before anybody opposed because "that WSC guy looks shifty, we don't want him as a 'crat". ;) I expect that either the workload of 'crats will greatly increase or the number of active 'crats will plummet before we get another successful RfB unless the candidate is a bot expert. Now, if we can get people to realise that having only a few hundred active admins really is a problem, my faith in the !voting community might be restored. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:16, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

I've currently got several spinning plates in real life and on other wikimedia projects and I definitely won't be running this month or probably this year. But I am considering it for some time in the future. ϢereSpielChequers 00:29, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

30-day unpatrolled New Pages

Hi WSC. Remember the earlier discussions we had about this? Well, I keep having a stab at these but I'm fighting a losing battle, I was about to attack yesterday's 93 pages, fetched a coffee, and when I sat down at my desk they had all suddenly fallen off the cliff already. The very fact that they haven't been patrolled, is because the front-end NP patrollers find them either too difficult or that they take to much time to resolve. The fact that these articles are allowed to escape does not mean they are any less dangerous than the spams, scams, hoaxes, and attacks that are speedily deleted within minutes. They nearly all have something seriously wrong with them. I know you've got a lot of plates spinning at the moment, but what can I do to sort this mess out without spending hours every day doing a drop in the ocean on the list? I fully understood when you suggested that extending the time limit might just make people even more complacent. Do they get at least an automatic 'unpatrolled' cat added to them so that we can track them? Perhaps they should go automatically into some kind of incubator, and there should be a project created similar to a uBLP backlog project that can deal with them If you think it's a good idea, I'd go ahead and create it. My personal motivation is due to all the BLPs bunkered in there. --Kudpung (talk) 08:44, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi Kudpung. I gave up on the back of the patrol queue when my suggestion was declined, I'm a volunteer and I really don't appreciate it when people think it isn't worth automating things because volunteers should work harder instead. I suppose we could simply create a hidden category for them and manually add it, but unless it was automated it would it be worthwhile? Alternatively there is the new unreviewed article template and the needs expert attention template. You could add these to some you are unsure of. ϢereSpielChequers 08:56, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick reply. Thing is, the way I work, it would take just as long to manually add one of those tags as any of the other maintenance or AfD tags I add, so that also defeats the effort I’m personally prepared to put in on the list itself. (Like you, I have a couple of other plates spinning, as well as having practically taken over the schools project for the time being). I really think the answer is to have a bot add an invisible cat '30-days unpatroled' to any that fall off the cliff (some days it's not 93, it's as many as 250). Best would be simply to send them to an incubator, with a bot applied message to the authors - a kind of long term PROD, if you like. Then I would be happy to get a project up and running to take care of them, much in the same way as the uBLP people are doing, - and being very good at it. Please don't think I'm trying to involve you in yet another project, just using you as a sounding board really, so if you think I'm barking up the wrong tree, be brutal, but there’s little point in us insisting on all the strictness of BLP, for example, if 30 or 40 are allowed to get away with murder every day! BTW, did you get the mail I sent a couple of days ago?--Kudpung (talk) 09:53, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Got the mail thanks, but have some real life stuff on and probably won't reply for days. I think there are several possible solutions to the 30 day problem:

1. Lower our guard and mark stuff as patrolled if it is probably OK
2. Enlist more help such as by getting this into the backlog drive
3. Get a bot to add a hidden cat

My preference is for number 3, but we need a bot writer. I agree that manual tagging/hidden category adding only works where you are reasonably confident that someone sensible will be interested in the tag. For example uBLPs of Heavy metal musicians I just put {{HMM}} on the talkpage and know I can forget them. ϢereSpielChequers 10:49, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

OK. I've taken this a stage further. Let's see what he comes up with. He worked on the BLPPROD template. Kudpung (talk) 03:29, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

I still can't work out why Rd232's proposal to automatically tag them all as {{new unreviewed article}} received so little support. It would have sorted them into a category that identifies the problem and already exists. Alzarian16 (talk) 16:49, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

It has the disadvantage of being yet another template, I'd much prefer that we replace templates with hidden categories, especially ones like this that are meant for regulars to remove. But yes I'd agree, better this than nothing. ϢereSpielChequers 16:54, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

There is no need for the template to display anything, if it's a "regulars only" cat it is adding. Rich Farmbrough, 19:35, 14 December 2010 (UTC).

(this talk of hidden categories > templates reminds me of Erik9bot, which of course added a Erik9bot-specific hidden category to pages, which then got converted to a more generic category after Erik9 was blocked, which then got converted to the normal templates (if I'm correct)) - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 19:39, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

It would be interesting to do a survey as to which "cleanup" tags are most frequently removed or the reason for them dealt with by newbies and IPs. My suspicion is that orphan and deadend would both be better done as bot reports or hidden categories. ϢereSpielChequers 23:19, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

I think this needs to be one of the major clean up campaigns for 2011. The first and most important move is to start tagging them in an invisible category. This needs no great discussion and can be done quickly. At least we will have them on our radar and we can look at them to see what kind of general condition they represent.

What we actually do with them is probably likely to be the result of long discussion.

Now that we've been able to get input from more people, I suggest that in deference to WSC it might possibly be a good idea now to copy and continue this thread to the WP:NPP talk page, or make sub page for it there. Kudpung (talk) 00:32, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Musical Group BLPs

I've tried and failed to count the Musical group UBLPs, as the Category:Musical groups tree also includes "members of musical groups", so it's very hard to split them out without either changing the cat tree, or manually adding individual cats to AWB or similar. From a scan of the list, it doesn't seem like it is that significant though, maybe 100 at most. Cheers, The-Pope (talk) 16:40, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

OK thanks for looking, 100 = 0.5% which makes sense to me, and I agree it is only worth doing if there is an easy way to identify them. ϢereSpielChequers 16:57, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Fadhila El Farouk

I hadn't changed the caps because there are at least two other spellings I found--without the "El", and without the "h". Oh, also "Al." Difficult. I don't want the article to be thrown away, but it's very difficult to find sources in English, and the creator/subject is not being very constructive. Your help is appreciated. Drmies (talk) 00:41, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

• I give up. I tried every permutation, every spelling, in Google Books and Google News and Google Web. I can't find anything besides a couple of blogs and one newspaper article of doubtful notability. Do you have any Arab-speaking wiki partners? Drmies (talk) 01:02, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
  • I'm afraid I don't. But I project tagged it to both feminism and Algeria so if we do have someone this might attract them. The awkward thing now is that with two reliable sources someone is almost certain to decline the BLPprod, but I'm still uncomfortable about the article. ϢereSpielChequers 01:13, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
    • Yup, I agree. And I saw the tag, thanks. Any Arab speakers in the ARS? I would feel much more comfortable if I could even verify the publication of those books, but the English titles deliver nothing, and I don't know what the Arab, French, or Spanish titles are. I hope the creator stops messing around with tags and provides some of that information. BTW, the author's website is not yet up--and its placeholding message does not give me much hope. Also, it appears that the first novel was self-published--don't remember where I read that. Maybe in that interview. Thanks for trying, Drmies (talk) 01:22, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Talkback

{{talkback}}

Notability of Lynn Gilderdale

I wrote most of the Lynn Gilderdale Wikipedia page.

Lynn may not have been particularly notable personally, but she was the focus of a major news story in the UK in Jan 2010 (which had been ongoing since 2008 [corrected]) in which her mother (Kay Gilderdale) was tried for assisting her suicide. This came after Lynn had been suffering from one of the all-time worst cases of ME (known as CFS in the USA) for 17 years. Besides being a major story in itself, it was a major contributor to the assisted suicide debate in the UK in 2010.

Perhaps this could be made clearer in a section at the bottom of the article; however, there are lots of Wikipedia entries about news stories involving people who were not otherwise notable. IndigoJo (talk) 22:06, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Hi IndigJo, I'm not particularly hardline on this, but you might want to read WP:BIO1E. Sometimes it is better to write an article on a notable event rather than on a person who is only known for that event. ϢereSpielChequers 14:08, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

NPP backlog

Hi WSP. Please do consider continuing to chime in here occasionally. At the moment there seems to be only me and SnottyWong running the show. Although we are making very good progress, you know how much I value your opinions. Cheers, --Kudpung (talk) 05:05, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Hi Kudpung, I may not be around much for the next ten days, but the topic is still dear to me. ϢereSpielChequers 20:40, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Southern Cherokee Nation of kentucky

Hi - a question if I may. The article of this title is up for discussion Here. I voted to keep, and so did a second person who is not registered. A third person who voted to delete says unregistered users can't vote, (see FYI at end of that page). Is that true? If unregistered users do in fact have a vote I would majorly appreciate it if you could say so on that page. Thanks whichever way. Mark^Dask 21:57, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Not true, thanks for raising this. I've replied in the AFD. ϢereSpielChequers 17:02, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

NPP

Just a quick update for you. We obtained temporary approval for the bot for a trial run for 50 unpatrolled pages. Everything we planned seems to have gone well, pages are tagged, cats are created and maintained, the special log page is working. All we need now is final approval for the bot, then I'll let the folks at the BLP task force know, so that they can pick out the uBLP from the list, and work on them. The pages are not all BLP, so I'll be needing some suggestions on how to broadcast this new Wikipedia feature - perhaps a template message delivered by a bot to all projects? Signpost ? - I could do a short article for that. --Kudpung (talk) 05:34, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

BTW:On the first couple of bot runs, even on a conservative estimate, a massive 18,000 pages per year are slipping unpatrolled into the encyclopedia.--Kudpung (talk) 07:08, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Just another update: The full approval for the bot has been accorded, and the cat and report page are being added to daily. At a conservative guess, I think it will have listed a minimum of 18,000 pages by the end of the year. There is strangely however, a lot of resistance to the project I have boxed through with SnottyWong's help for all the bot design and programming. I am positively amazed that there are so many editors, including sysops and crats, who think this is not an issue for concern. There are even people who think that new page patrolling is not strictly necessary. I think it's one of the most fundamental functions - probably even more important than RCP. For example, It's one of the first barriers against attack pages. --Kudpung (talk) 06:16, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Not an attack

Perhaps this is indeed not an attack, but the page appeared to be saying "hey, look at the censorship in Egypt!" (attacking Egypt's actions), based on the premise of a single site (twitter) being blocked. I've not used G10 in this manner before. I took the page to AfD. — Timneu22 · talk 17:20, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

By all means take this sort of thing to AFD, but please don't use such bitey templates on goodfaith contributors. I've deleted unsourced articles on alleged mafiosi and pornstars with a tailored far more friendly message than you gave that editor. ϢereSpielChequers 17:35, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

AFDs and redactions

I rather got on my high-horse at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Friends of the Five Creeks. Perhaps you can take a peek and tell me if my intuition has gone astray in this case of interpretation of WP:REDACT? Fæ (talk) 15:01, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

I think you were right about redact, but a little too confrontational about the way you handled it. Sometimes a note to somebodies talkpage can achieve things less contentiously - after all the person who you disagreed with may not have been aware of redact, and also redact is phrased as guidance. In this case once they were aware of the issue they seem happy to follow redact guidelines. ϢereSpielChequers 13:13, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

As it happens, I did write on the nominator's talk page diff as you suggest, they even thanked me for being so civil. Unfortunately they continued to refuse to follow the guidelines until three days after I resorted to taking the passive approach of striking my opinion from the AfD. The discussion at WT:AFD has been quite encouraging in supporting my interpretation of the guidelines. I agree that my tone should have been friendlier in the AfD thread and I'll try harder on that score. To be honest I'm still quite taken aback by having two admins insisting that WP:TALK does not apply to AfDs. Fæ (talk) 13:45, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Please, do consider the deletion of Bato of Dalmatia

I understand such requests can be barely a routine for you but do read the discussion section of the page I requested for speedy deletion. Maybe at first glance you saw word differences between the article and you stepped back; yes they aren't physically the same at least, but they bear the same content for a singular historical figure I have worked on. This is Bato of Dardania, son of Longarus and the sources tell about only one figure which is misnamed. Even Longarus is doubled !!!

do read this [[1]] and probably you will understand! With all due respect, Empathictrust (talk) 19:42, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

OK I saw Longarus of the Delmatae and also that the article had been changed to become more of a duplicate. Is this a case of one person having two spellings of their name or just a modern typo? ϢereSpielChequers 20:45, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

New York lawyers

Hi WSC. I'm in a bit of a quandry. User talk:Processadmirer has been creating dozens of short articles in Good Faith on New York lawyers, for which often the only ref appears to be an extract from the US equivalent of a bar register. My first thought is that being a lawyer and/or a judge does not automatically confer notability. Do we have a guideline on this? Perhaps you could have a look at these articles and give me your personal opinion. thanks. Kudpung (talk) 07:42, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Hi Kudpung. processadmirer seems to be on judges now, WP:JUDGE failed to get consensus, so I'd suggest raising this on WT:notability. I'm aware that plenty of lawyers are notable and I suspect that many judges aren't. So I would take being a judge as an assertion of importance but not simply being a lawyer. ϢereSpielChequers 10:05, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

(2p worth) I have had a few tussles on interpreting notability for some lawyer articles. They tend to be easy to cite as every case has public documents associated with it and many cases will be reported in the press. The confusion is that the lawyer may be mentioned in these documents rather tangentially, unless the case is top-notch notable lawyers involved are not automatically notable (note, in cases such as Enron there may be vast arrays of lawyers, they may not all be notable). American lawyers tend to advertise themselves in a way that the UK tends not to, consequently filtering out press releases and pseudo-news items might also be an issue. I have also noticed definite COI on some of these articles and boiling the sources down to decide if any of them are more than tangential fluff is awfully time consuming. Fæ (talk) 10:16, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks...

For having written User:WereSpielChequers/Newbie treatment at NPP - I wonder why you never pointed me to it before ;) Kudpung (talk) 08:06, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for reminding me of that, NEWT wound up so contentious that I never finished it. But I've made a few changes now, and may finish it sometime. ϢereSpielChequers 13:06, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

RevDel request

Hey there, I got you from Category:Wikipedia administrators willing to handle RevisionDelete requests and it looks like you are active. Anyway, I just removed a copyvio from The Emperor of Nihon-Ja (this edit) and I'm under the impression that the old revisions of the article need to be RevDel'd to remove the copyvio from the article history. Just as an FYI, the copyvio was added in this edit by an IP whom I've now warned (though I doubt it will do any good, they haven't edited in months). Cheers, Jenks24 16:40, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Hi Jenks24, indeed I am an admin who will act on revdel requests, though to be honest thus far I've only actioned ones involving personal data or attacks, this is the first copyvio one I've got involved in. I've had a look but I think this falls foul of "Blatant copyright violations that can be redacted without removing attribution to non-infringing contributors. If redacting a revision would remove any contributor's attribution, this criterion can not be used." In order to revdel all the copyvio versions I would have to remove text from a dozen intervening contributors. ϢereSpielChequers 20:12, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm ok that seems to make sense, but it has left me genuinely confused. See this archived request of User:Courcelles where he RevDel'd the article's history, even though there was more than one editor. Could you please explain to me what is different about these two situations? Cheers, Jenks24 (talk) 07:02, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Well comparing the two edit histories the other example had only four contributors other than the editor who did the copyvio, and judging from the edit summaries one could argue that they weren't really contributing content - just tagging or using AWB. For example I do a lot of categorisation using hotcat and I wouldn't be fussed if one of those edits disappeared that way. But the Emperor had a dozen contributors. ϢereSpielChequers 11:46, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Ah ok then. Thanks for clearing that up for me. Much appreciated. Jenks24 (talk) 12:34, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Boy in the Oak

Hi WSC. I'm between a rock and a hard place: This was closed as keep, mainly because only 2 people !voted, and they both !voted 'keep'. I seem to recall that putting a CSD on an article that has been kept previously at AfD is not possible - but I can't find the policy. What are the other options? WP:DRV, or another AfD? I don't really want to hurt anyone's feelings by slapping a {{Delrev}} template on it. --Kudpung (talk) 04:57, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Hi Kudpung, I think this is a great example of what can happen when the nominator fails to follow wp:Before. The article does indeed have a "Complete lack of any reliable sources", but that doesn't tell us whether such are available or not. If somebody now attempts to source it then four possibilities arise:

1. This may for all I know be a highly notable book that definitely deserves an article and a sentenced reference to its commercial success or prizes won leaves the article improved and sourced.
2. You could draw a blank and quite legitimately start a new AFD "The previous AFD closed as Keep but no attempt had been made to source it. I have now attempted to source it using x, y and z. I can now confirm that the book existed but notability would appear to be lacking."
3. Of course it is possible that sufficient sources exist to establish it as a book of borderline notability......
4. And searching for sources could expose it as a complete hoax worthy of {{db-hoax}}.

Hope that helps, and I have to say that I agree with the close. ϢereSpielChequers 08:57, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for that explanation. You didn't mention if there is a policy that strictly dissalows a later CSD of a article that has been kept at AfD. I think there is not, but it will help my projects for work on the Wikipedia to know. Cheers, and thanks again for your patience with my questions. Kudpung (talk) 01:49, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Well you can't speedy per A7, or anything that would have been covered by the deletion debate. Technically If a page has survived a prior deletion discussion, it should not be speedy deleted except for newly discovered copyright violations (my emphasis). Should not is not the same as may not, and in the case of an article that had only a limited discussion and only one editor I would probably delete per {{G7}} if the author requested, and I would certainly delete a blatant hoax or attack page if that was revealed by an attempt to source it. ϢereSpielChequers 08:25, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, the article in question, which was a totally unreferenced one-liner, has now been deleted - partly, I believe, due to a (perfectly civil and friendly) comment I made to the closing sysop. I'll bravely carry the can if there's any fallout, but there probably won't be. Thanks again for your opinion. Kudpung (talk) 10:22, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Unreferenced is not a good reason to delete, nor is brevity. I'd support changing policy to make unreferenced a deletion reason, but only if we made it clear in the article creation process that new articles required a third party reference. ϢereSpielChequers 11:15, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I fully realise that. The irony is, that if it had been PRODed, it would have been gone by now with nary a ripple. Kudpung (talk) 13:01, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

G10 G12

Yes i did mean G12, I must have click attack page by mistake. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gabriele449 (talk • contribs) 22:31, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Hi Gabriele, I was rather thinking it was that sort of accident, I mean it was a violent film but clearly fictional. Easily done but rather unfortunate as a newby was involved. May I suggest remedying it by striking your comment on the authors page. If you put <s> in front of your comment and </s> afterwards that will strike it out. PS I know this sounds like a silly lo-tech workaround, but would you mind signing your comments on talkpages with ~~~~ Thanks, and welcome to Wikipedia! ϢereSpielChequers 22:55, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Talkback

{{talkback}} Curiouser and curiouser. Kudpung (talk) 08:48, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Somalian Chubby, etc.

I too want to dismiss the stuff submitted by Amarenna123 (talk · contribs) and Abdirrashid (talk · contribs) as hoax but, irritatingly, this video and several others from the same source exist. Are they also hoax? But until the guy can actually submit coherent, referenced articles, then block is definitely the best action. — [[::User:RHaworth|RHaworth]] (talk · contribs) 01:13, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

It was the chubby tribe who accounted for 98 million of the population of Somalia, 1 million of Bulgaria and nearly as many Hungarians that did it for me. I won't be as rude as the guy who commented on the youtube link, but for my money that is as blatant a hoax as the WWII bomber "found" on the moon. ϢereSpielChequers 01:22, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

BPLPROD

Hi, My RfA, as I guessed it would, has sparked of some minor comments in various quarters about BLPROD. Do you think the time is ripe now to start a review of its performance? A review would need to come first before trying to get anything changed. If you think it's time, we would need to get some stats (I have a shopping list) - who is good at extrapolating such data? --Kudpung (talk) 06:49, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Sorry but the sun is shining outside and I have some real life commitments for the next few days. I will try to make time but may not be able to for a week or more. ϢereSpielChequers 14:29, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Question - re Gnomish

I gnome unreferenced BLPs and provide a minimum of 2 sources before deleting the Unreferenced tag. In some cases I can provide 1 good ref - is one sound ref enuf to delete an article from the Unsourced category? Are 2 refs strictly necessary - or am I just being lazy? Mark^Dask 14:57, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I think it depends on the amount of information you are referencing, or rather how much you are leaving unreferenced. {{RefimproveBLP}} is always an option here. I take the view that if the subject doesn't interest me and I've verified enough to reclassify the article from unreferencedBLP to refimproveBLP then I've done a worthwhile improvement to the article. If the article came from one author then in my view if part of what they wrote stacks up it is rather less likely that the rest is a malicious hoax. Remember there is a big difference between improving a faulty article that someone else has contributed and creating an article yourself. ϢereSpielChequers 15:12, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Mark^Dask 04:11, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Talkback

{{talkback}}

CSD school

Hi,

Picking up on Epeefleche's recent comments, the original discussion in February (here) and knowing that you have strong opinions on this topic, I was wondering what the best practice was to help someone improve their practical interpretation of the CSD guidelines. I could, say, easily forswear any use of A1/A3 for six months while I think about it, however it can also be argued that if I am to improve my practical interpretation then it would be a good idea to show my use of these CSD categories appropriately. Is there an existing consensus about the best approach to improvement? Thanks Fæ (talk) 13:34, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi Fæ,I don't think it would be a good idea to forswear use of a particular CSD category as they all have their value. But a promise never to tag A1 or A3 in the first ten minutes might be helpful. I'm very cautious both with CSD tagging and deletion, I suspect I'm rather more cautious than the majority of the community. Mostly I use CSD to deal with bad faith edits, author requests for deletion and articles that effectively assert non-notability. I decline a sizable minority of tags that are incorrect, and there are loads of quite legitimate A7 tags that I leave because in my view speedy shouldn't mean instant when it comes to goodfaith articles. There are a whole set of essays and at least one survey on my userpage. You might also look at wp:NEWT when a bunch of us created alt accounts that then submitted articles, we had enough not deleted to rebut the original press criticism that any new article was guaranteed to be deleted. But a lot were tagged, so it did yield an interesting list of incorrect tags. ϢereSpielChequers 15:30, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, when things are quieter I'll take time to ponder the essays and absorb them properly. In the meantime I'll think about adding a commitment about it to my talk page (though I don't plan say anything about commitments in my RFA as I probably should be judged on my edit history rather than promises about the future). Cheers Fæ (talk) 15:35, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

I think that commitments can play a part in RFA. In my first RFA I shifted my settings from a default to minor edits to the reverse, other people have amended signatures and created alt accounts. A promise not to tag A1 and A3 articles in their first ten minutes is in my mind a credible RFA commitment - we had another candidate recently who had been tagging G10s as A7s and that wasn't something you could fix that quickly - they'd have needed a b period of editing where they'd demonstrated better tagging. ϢereSpielChequers 15:49, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

I have made a commitment on my talk page, let me know if you spot any wording improvements that could be made. If asked another question I'll bring it up but otherwise I'll just point to it in discussion away from RFA. I would hope that if this is considered a good thing, then it will be mentioned by someone else spontaneously anyway. Cheers Fæ (talk) 16:05, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

New Pages and New Users

I've recently been doing some thinking (and a great deal of consultation with Philippe and James at the WMF's community department) on how to keep new users around and participating, particularly in light of Sue's March update. One of the things we'd like to test is whether the reception they get when they make their first article is key. In a lot of cases, people don't stay around; their article is deleted and that's that. By the time any contact is made, in other words, it's often too late.

What we're thinking of doing is running a project to gather data on if this occurs, how often it occurs, and so on, and in the mean time try to save as many pages (and new contributors) as possible. Basically, involved users would go through the deletion logs and through Special:NewPages looking for new articles which are at risk of being deleted, but could have something made of them - in other words, non-notable pages that are potentially notable, or spammy pages that could be rewritten in more neutral language. This would be entirely based on the judgment of the user reviewing pages - no finnicky CSD standards. These pages would be incubated instead of deleted, and the creator contacted and shepherded through how to turn the article into something useful. If they respond and it goes well, we have a decent article and maybe a new long-term editor. If they don't respond, the draft can be deleted after a certain period of time.

I know this isn't necessarily your standard fare, but with your involvement in WP:NEWT I thought it might be up your alley. If you're interested, read Wikipedia:Wiki Guides/New pages, sign up and get involved; questions can be dropped on the talkpage or directed at me. Ironholds (talk) 01:38, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi Ironholds, this is worthy and useful, but you are probably looking in the wrong place. I'd start at Cat:speedy looking through the articles tagged for speedy deletion. I visit there quite frequently and almost always find incorrect tags to decline. I'm not keen on incubation as I believe the best place to develop articles is in mainspace. Also the main benefit is probably not the newbie you save from biting - you have to be very quick to do that. I think the main benefit is in retraining the tagger before they bite another hundred newbies because they think that "Professors aren't notable" or some similar misconception. ϢereSpielChequers 17:26, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Radiation levels

In my edit I challenged the source of the radiation level data, as I was not able to find the pages that would confirm it. The only reference does not specify any pages at all. Should one read the whole book just to discover that the data aren't there?

Can you explain why my edit was not accepted? C1010 (talk) 07:48, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

question about CSD F8

Hey, I hope you don't mind, but I picked you at random from active editors who discuss CSD policy.

I was wondering about this one: File:VolkerkartevonMittel-undSudosteuropa.jpg. It's marked as an F8 speedy, but the EN wiki upload history is not present in its Commons doppelganger. Per the upload history is not necessary if the file's license does not require it, although it is still recommended, I'm thinking it's acceptable to go ahead and delete it. Do you agree, or do you think there's a better way to handle this?

Thanks much, --JaGa^talk 01:48, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi JaGa, to be honest I haven't a clue. Though I'm active in speedy deletion I have never got involved in File work, I'm vaguely aware that files here get deleted after moving to Commons, as that's how I first discovered Commons years ago. Perhaps one of my Talkpage Stalkers can help us out, if not I'd suggest a post at wt:speedy. As a guess I'd hope the answer was something along the lines of it depends on the copyright, so if the photographer had loaded it to wikipedia but the commons upload was from Flikr we should in my view prefer the direct release info from the original creator - but please don't treat me as an admin when it comes to file work. ϢereSpielChequers 08:38, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Lt. Governor of the Isle of Man

Adam Wood has already been officially appointed as the next Lieutenant Governor of the Isle of Man: here a reliable source. This is a piece of news Wikipedia should follow: even if his term has not started yet, the appointment is official, so the Wikipedia article should mention this fact, just as it is. There is no "anticipating news" in recording the name of an official-elect (but enlisting him among people who actually served in that position is not the better way to do it, I agree). ---- 82.48.233.114 (talk) 12:13, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, yes that would be a good addition to the article. We just need to avoid updating succession boxes until he is in post, otherwise New Scientist will be making snide comments again. ϢereSpielChequers 12:21, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi, I tried to add that information to the article, just after the list. By the way, I'm not a native English-speaking person, so I'd like to have my edit checked by any expert user... :) ---- 82.48.233.114 (talk) 15:36, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Big Red Button

May I suggest:

per the IRC discussion re: A button to help new editors get help. In green, tho. Red=STOP! Green=GO! Buster Seven Talk 19:42, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, that's cool, but maybe a tad disproportionate. I'd suggest a modified version of the vector script that newbies default to for their first 100 edits and which makes help prominent, but not a first or only resort. BTW if you fancy designing something, there was discussion on the Foundation mailing list that we don't currently celebrate people's 100,000th edit. A special Service Award thingy would be useful, especially if maybe someone on IRC would volunteer to dish them out? I could show you how to find the editors involved. ϢereSpielChequers 08:32, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the offer but my computer capacity/ability to design an award of the caliber required is very limited. Having said that, please DO show me how to find the editors involved and I can let my creative mind flow. Maybe something will evolve. Buster Seven Talk 12:50, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

OK. There are a couple of editors a month breaking the 100k barrier, and a list updated every Wednesday here. I would have thought {{subst:The Tireless Contributor Barnstar|congratulations on your 100,000th edit!~~~~}} would be a good one to use. ϢereSpielChequers 23:37, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

 Done...Viriditas, Beetstra, and Sardanaphalus. Will wait for User:Will Beback who is at 99657. I'll look again on Wednesday to check status. Should I check UPwards on the list to see if the editors were acknowledged when they reached 100K?? Buster Seven Talk 00:29, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Did I just volunteer to distribute these every week or so????Buster Seven Talk 00:32, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

I hope so. It would be really cool if you did. As for the ones who made the list some time ago, I know I popped a note on TonytheTiger's page, about half of the 11 passed the 100k barrier in the last twelve months , so if you fancy working backwards I'd suggest going chronologically and using earlier versions of that list to see when they joined it. Going backwards you could watchlist the talkpages and see what sort of reaction you get, if you find that months or years late gets a "meh" response then I'd stop, but if you get a positive reaction then you could go back further, But I woulld expect that "I know it is a few months late, but you never got this for passing the 100,000 barrier" would probably go down well. ϢereSpielChequers 05:47, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

{{tl}} Qwyrxian (talk) 05:09, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

100K Awards

I've given about 8 of the Tireless Contributor Awards which we agree are rather mundane, to say the least. I was just about to begin backtracking previous 100Kers when I found this---

		100,000 Edits
		I, Bugboy52.4, award you for reaching 100,000 edits according to the List of Wikipedians by number of edits generated 11:45 pm, 24 February 2009. Keep up the good work!________________________________________________________________

on User:Cant sleep, clown will eat me's talk page. What a stunningly appropriate award. I have left the editor User:Bugboy52.40 a message asking that I could use his award for future recipiants. Maybe you could visit and increase the salepitch.216.80.88.177 (talk) 21:55, 6 April 2011 (UTC) AKABuster Seven Talk 22:04, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

=New Version

FYI, just so you know....

		100000 Edits
		Congratulations on reaching 100000 edits. You have achieved a milestone that very few editors have been able to accomplish. The Wikipedia Community thanks you for your continuing efforts. Keep up the good work! 06:01, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Buster Seven Talk 06:01, 7 April 2011 (UTC)This award design created by User:Bugboy52.40 ________________________________________________________________

Reviewing

I noticed you mentioned on WT:RFA that you are interested in reviewing deleted contributions/tagging. Would you mind taking a look at mine? (Not all, obviously, since there are at least 2000! ;) ) Thanks! Reaper Eternal (talk) 00:28, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes of course, it may not be for a couple of days though. ϢereSpielChequers 08:47, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

If you get a spare minute, would you mind having a quick look over mine as well. Like Reaper I've got quite a few, but I'd really appreciate it if you could take a quick look :) Acather96 (talk) 09:16, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) I don't think you guys need to feel too guilty about your previous patrolling. If you feel you'd like a review, it means however that you are still unsure of what to do in some cases. IMO, the best thing to do is to read these pages, preferably in this order: WP:NPP, WP:DELETION, WP:CSD, WP:10CSD, and WP:A7M. At the risk of introducing more instruction creep, we've recently updated and improved the page at WP:NPP - You may even wish to make your own suggestions for improvement, and you'll be in a position to help other patrollers. Keep up the good work! --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:15, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) @Acather96: Since WSC indicated that he is busy, I would offer to do it instead. Just drop me a note :-) Regards SoWhy 18:05, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks WereSpielChequers! I do not mind waiting. @Kudpung: I have read those and other essays on CSD. And yes, in some cases I am uncertain as to whether I truly got it right. One commonly confusing thing for me is a page consisting solely of "Jason is pure awesomeness!!!!!!!!!! :D" Thanks anyway! Reaper Eternal (talk) 18:09, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

'Awsome' is a very American expression. You'll have to ask a fellow countryperson on that - WSC and I are both Brits ;) Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:26, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

WikiConference UK 2011: will you be coming?

Hello. Thanks for expressing an interest in attending WikiConference UK 2011 in Bristol this coming Saturday (16 April). If you you will be coming, please could you register (if you haven't already) so that we can ensure we have enough catering, printed material and badges to go around? You can officially register at http://wikiconferenceuk2011.eventbrite.com/ . Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 15:23, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Example

I must have put 20 or so of these (or similar) custom messages over the last 24 hours. Perhaps we should modify the current template to something like it.

Hi WereSpielChequers. Thank you for patrolling new pages. Patrolling is an essential function at Wikipedia, not only to prevent the wrong kind of pages staying online, but also to do some basic research and tag them for attention. The article you tagged CSD-A7 at XXXXXX was clearly an attack page and should have been blanked and tagged CSD-G10 for very fast deletion - attack pages raise a red alert on administrator's control panels. There is currently a drive to improve the quality of patrolling - you can help! Please read these pages, preferably in this order: WP:NPP (recently updated), WP:DELETION, WP:CSD, WP:10CSD, WP:FIELD, and WP:A7M, and if there's anything that is not clear, don't hesitate to ask me on my talk page. You may even wish to make your own suggestions for improvement of the NPP page. Happy editing! --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:35, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) I occasionally see these too when I go to unpatrolled pages and have to immediately replace them with {{db-g10}}. A warning notice would be nice, since it indicates that the user is not reading the articles. Reaper Eternal (talk) 10:37, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

20 in 24 hours is a lot, was that 20 different patrollers?. I have come across quite a few over the years but nothing approaching that. As for the template I'd be cautious about as it gives a string of things to read for one simple message. Whether its a template or a personal note I prefer things clear and simple with one link to a list of things for further reading. Of course the difficult thing about being clear and simple re this message is that you can't say why it was an attack page unless you send an email. ϢereSpielChequers 11:56, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Let's not forget that most of the patrolling work I'm doing is patrolling the patrollers - not to scold them, but just to see how we can improve the system and educate the patrollers in the nicest possible way. I agree that it's a lot to read. perhaps just the link to the NPP page would suffice. Anyway, a certain VP poll seems to be heading for consensus so there may be some major changes on the way. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:29, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

RE: signature colors

I suppose, though I'm at a loss as to what kind of colors would make a better contrast. Could you suggest a few hex codes you think would work better? And, just courious, does this relate to color blindness (I have a hard time imagining what it would be like to see a limited range). bahamut0013^words_deeds 12:52, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) I remember when I was designing websites (a little while ago) I used this tool to help me ensure there was a sufficient contrast. For your sig, you've got a brightness difference which is supposedly sufficient, but not a colour difference. Worm^TT · (talk) 12:57, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks SW yes colour blindness is the thing I was worried about, I suspect my eyesight isn't perfect there and those colours struck me as overly close. I've been doing some work on this at User:WereSpielChequers/RFA by month my aim is to get a set of colours for a hotcold matrix that work regardless of the various forms of colour blindness (and to document/fix RFA). ϢereSpielChequers 14:37, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Howzat? bahamut0013^words_deeds 17:03, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Perfect, thanks. ϢereSpielChequers 19:02, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

If we're on the subject of colors, I've always found the chequers part of WSC's name hard to read... but I too am no longer a spring chicken. (And it really doesn't matter here, because I can still tell who it is.)---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 20:53, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

This better? ϢereSpielChequers 13:00, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Bristol

Did you get an e-mail from me? I'm having technical grief, so maybe not. Johnbod (talk) 13:59, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

And again. Johnbod (talk) 15:40, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Replied to the first, I'm now hoping to get down to Bristol on Saturday morning, but I've got to be in London Friday evening. ϢereSpielChequers 15:46, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

ok. Johnbod (talk) 15:57, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Email

Hello, WereSpielChequers. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

—HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:29, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

AFD check in the CSD template idea

I noticed your positive comments on my AFD check idea, and was wondering what you thought the next step should be; should it be proposed someplace with more traffic, should I give it more time there, or try to find someone skilled with templates who could put together some code for it? Any suggestions you could provide would be appreciated. Thanks, Monty₈₄₅ 02:51, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

I suggest putting a note at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) with a link to the discussion. ϢereSpielChequers 07:06, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

You've got mail...

Hello, WereSpielChequers. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

Catfish Jim & the soapdish 13:32, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, WereSpielChequers. You have new messages at Epipelagic's talk page.
Message added 10:09, 15 April 2011 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

FYI. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:09, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Edit count script

Mostly rewrote the edit count script. Finished now, as far as I'm aware. (This means User:MZMcBride/Sandbox 3 will no longer update.) --MZMcBride (talk) 17:32, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Great thanks MZM, that looks perfect. ϢereSpielChequers 18:06, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Happy Birthday

Wishing WereSpielChequers a very happy birthday on behalf of the Birthday Committee! Armbrust ^{Talk to me} _Contribs 11:23, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Re: Typo fixing

I would indeed be interested in taking a look, thanks! I'll take a look once I've finished studying for my midterm tomorrow. Sophus Bie ^(talk) 04:38, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

OK I've almost finished this week's report but I'll leave User:DeltaQuadBot/Page_Patrol/Results#Typo_Patrol_results_for_.22stared.22 for you. PS good luck with your midterm. ϢereSpielChequers 07:22, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

User:WereSpielChequers/RFA reform

The fourth para at Make it easier to remove the mop, is truncated. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:07, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Good spot, already fixed, I'm afraid I had to save some drafts or risk losing them. ϢereSpielChequers 12:52, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

YGM

Hello, WereSpielChequers. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

-- DQ (t) (e) 18:43, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Autopatrolled

Hi there WSC, I hope you're doing well :). I spotted your sig in a few VPP discussions, and thought you might be interested in this BRfA. Best, - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 20:12, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Mail

Hello, WereSpielChequers. Please check your email; you've got mail!
Message added 20:24, 14 May 2011 (UTC). It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

—mc10 (t/c) 20:24, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Feedback

Hi WSC. If you have a moment, I would appreciate your feedback on this. Thanks. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:28, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

London meetup 46

We've got a couple of requests to change this back to the 12th would this be doable for you?©Geni 00:26, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, yes it is. ϢereSpielChequers 08:21, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks

Cheers for catching this typo, how embarrassing! doomgaze (talk) 14:22, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

You're welcome, and in good company - I patrol solider every week or two and usually find a handful;) ϢereSpielChequers 14:33, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

WP:RFA2011

Task Force news: Recent updates include basic minor changes and condensing at the main page, additional comments on the main page talk page, a new project sub page and talk for Radical Alternatives, and messages at Task force talk. A current priority is to reach suggested criteria/tasks for clerks, and then to establish a local consensus vis-à-vis clerking. Please remember to keep all the project and its talk pages on your watchlist. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:21, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Driven to retirement

Hi WSC. Surely we can't allow good editors to be driven into retirement by this kind of thing. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:52, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi Kudpung. not a good situation. I think we should make some tweaks to RFA, also I'll email Tofu. ϢereSpielChequers 13:48, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

WP:RFA2011/VOTING

Hi WSC. We now have a whole new bunch of interesting stats at WP:RFA2011/VOTING. I know you're busy at the moment in RL, but any input on the project is welcome. This is the biggest RfA reform project ever, and although it's obviously going to be slow, it may just succeed in making some desperately needed changes. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:44, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Bring back the soapdish!

I've started a petition here: User talk:Catfish Jim/Petition, it's intended for humour, though I would definitely like to see the soapdish back. Who knows if we get 20 signatures he might consider it! —James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 5:48pm • 07:48, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Bremke (disambiguation)

Hello. I don't mean to sound a pest but some of the edits you made to the Bremke (disambiguation) page do not conform to WP:MOSDAB. Although you have added blue links, none of these items are mentioned in the article you have linked (apart from Bremke (Eslohe) and Oettern-Bremke which were just created). This rather defeats the point of the dab page which is to provide additional information about the item. Since additional articles have now been created the page no longer warrants deletion, however some cleanup is still required. I tend to find that many dab entries look valid, but in reality are not, careful checking is often required which is why I ran dabfix and removed entries where no associated links could be found. Thank you, France3470 (talk) 20:58, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Hi France370, as inhabited places are defacto notable and the creator of the dabpage seems to be working on them, I would be inclined to cut him some slack and give him a few days to finish what he started. Cheers ϢereSpielChequers 21:04, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Not a problem, I have no immediate intentions on removing them, as they are clearly, quickly, being created by a dedicated editor from pages that already exist on the German Wikipedia. I only wanted point attention to blue link requirement, on a whole is often abused. I have come across so many new, recently created, dab pages which on a quick look seem completely okay but turn out to actually contain no valid items. Much to my annoyance, quite a few of these new pages seems to end up being marked as 'patrolled' and slipping through the NPP radar. My only guess is that this is because format-wise they look right, ie contain an associated blue link, and most people assume that this automatically makes then valid for inclusion. Sorry for the semi-rant, France3470 (talk) 22:38, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

One of the problems of NPP is that patrolled means different things to different people. Some are just trying to use it to screen the really bad stuff out, and others are trying to use it to ensure hat any new articles are fully up to MOS. I think that needs a more complex and nuanced system than simply a patrolled/unpatrolled switch, but with Pending changes rejected I'm not hopeful of getting consensus for such a significant change to our systems. ϢereSpielChequers 06:41, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Our Emails

Hi. I just wanted to say thanks. I really enjoyed that 'project' you suggest for me with the unreferenced BLPs for MILHIST articles. Besides the tedious research to find sources, I actually enjoyed reading about some of those folks. I even had a challenge on a couple and it was gratifying to find hard to find refs. I've also become a lot more involved with MILHIST since then and I am getting to know some of the editors over there. Appreciate the help.--v/r - TP 01:46, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks TParis, I'm delighted to hear that, and to see how smoothly your RFA is running. I put a lot of time last year into Project tagging unreferenced BLPs, so it is quite possible that you dealt with some of the articles that I project tagged. The MILHIST crowd includes some of the nicest editors I've met on wiki - it isn't exactly an interest of mine but I've reviewed quite a few MILHIST articles at FAC and have to admit I'm warming to the subject. ϢereSpielChequers 12:09, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

<butting in> And let me say that this Milhister loves the reviews you've offered on his articles. :-) Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 07:41, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

de.Wiki

Hi. I've had a closer look at the German site this morning. I'm not sure about this because I can't go all the way to creating a new page just to test things, but it appears that they even allow IP to create pages, and as with en.Wiki ther appears to be no prevention in the software for the creation of articles without refs. Nevertheless, everything there seems to be far more user friendly, sort of a mini version of the Wizard, with short, quickly readable instructions, and the occasional graphic. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:39, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Kudpung, I've had a look and you are right they definitely allow IPs to create pages. But they do have some sort of flagged revisions or pending changes system protecting the whole wiki from vandalism, so I guess with that sort of technological advantage over EN wiki they can afford to lower their guard re IP editing. I took a testpage as far as preview without being prompted for a source and I didn't want to go further without having a DE article I'm prepared to save. But there are bound to be DE editors at Wikimania in a few weeks time so I'll get one of them to show me how this prompt for a reference process works (if that is it still is or ever was there). ϢereSpielChequers 08:09, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Invitation to the Bacon Challenge 2012

Hello! You have been invited to take part in the Bacon Challenge 2012. In case you don't know or need a refresher, the Bacon Challenge is an annual celebration of bacon on Wikipedia in which editors come together to help create, expand, and improve Wikipedia's coverage of bacon. The event lasts all the way through National Pig Day 2012, giving participants plenty of time to work at their pleasure. In addition to the Bacon Challenge is the Bacon WikiCup 2012, a side event to the Challenge in which all bacon-related contributions done by those participating in the Challenge are submitted and scored by the scorekeeper (me) based on the scoring chart. At the end of the Challenge, the user with the most points in the Bacon WikiCup will win a shiny trophy for their userpage. In addition, the users who score the highest in specific categories (not yet finalized, but the categories include most image uploads, most article creations, most DYK submissions, and more) will win barnstars. Finally, all participants will receive a medal. While the awards are nice, in the end, the important thing is to have fun and enjoy what we're all here for, which is improving Wikipedia.

If you decide to participate, great! You may add your name to the participants list at the main page of the Bacon Challenge 2012, and pick up the userbox for your userpage if you desire. Signing up for the Challenge will also automatically enter you into the Bacon WikiCup. If you don't wish to participate, that's fine too - maybe next year! In the meantime, if you know anyone who might also be interested in participating, feel free to invite them! The Challenge is open to anyone and accepts participants at any time, so feel free to let anyone who might be interested know.

Note that I, the scorekeeper of the Bacon WikiCup, will be on vacation starting on the 18th of June all the way up until the 5th of July. I will have limited access to the internet, so I may or may not be able to score users' contributions during this time. Sorry for any delay in scoring (but since the Challenge lasts for more than half a year, there's no rush, right? (= ).

I'm looking forward to another fun, successful year. Thanks! ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 22:56, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

new admins

Nearly at the end of the second quarter 2011 and only 34 promotions so far. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:14, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Golly, it's almost a year ago already since you did this. I know you're frighfully busy but is there a chance you can update it? --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:15, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I'm aiming for a mid year update. As for there being only 34 so far, well two of those "promotions" were really high profile admin reviews, only 32 actually got us extra admins. But looking at User:WereSpielChequers/RFA by month it is not all bad news. Results are less stable then they were last year, but the trend had been of precipitous decline with each year having far fewer new admins than the year before (2008 less than 50% of 2007, 2009 about 60% of 2008 and 2010 about 60% of 2009). Last year we had 75, so 50 for the year would continue the trend, and that would mean 16 or 18 in the second half depending on how you count the reconfirmations. I'm not prepared yet to say that it is bottoming out, but if we can get 60 through this year I'll accept that it is showing signs of that, and there is still a chance that we could do better yet. The second best month of 2011 so far has produced more admins than the second highest month of 2010, that breaks a three year pattern of decline (the worst month of 2009 equalled the worst month of 2008, but the other 35 comparisons all showed a year on year decline).

If it does bottom out at 2010/2011 levels then I think we have a chance of stabilising with enough admins to keep on top of the urgent stuff that needs the mop. What I'm not sure about is how to avoid the corrosive effect on the community that is the by-product of adminship becoming scarce. I'm not trying to get back to the era of 1,000 edits and two months tenure, but a larger admin cadre is the only way I can see of diluting individual admin status, keeping the vast majority of admin time available for non-admin work and thereby preventing us admins degenerating into a bunch of prima donnas. ϢereSpielChequers 10:52, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Upcoming sports events

Hi, there seems to be a pattern for creating articles such as UFC Live: Hardy vs. Lytle in advance of such a competition or specific evidence of notability apart from the fact that a notable organization has scheduled the event. Do you have any opinion on whether we ought to try harder to comply with WP:CRYSTAL and WP:GNG in these cases? I have put 3 up for deletion with mixed comments so far. Fæ (talk) 11:59, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

If they are scheduled and sourceable and will be noteable after the event then I see no reason to delay writing about the article until it has happened. I'm not a sportsfan and have no intention of getting involved in it, but if we have a notable topic, interested readers and enthusiastic editors I see no reason to get in their way. ϢereSpielChequers 12:24, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Good approach, I'll back off unless there is a specific problem. Fæ (talk) 12:34, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

NOTNOW

Hi WSC. There are now some possible proposals at Wikipedia talk:RfA reform 2011/Possible proposals to reduce obvious non-starters. BTW: It's interesting to know that the de.Wiki has a 'One year and significant four-figure edit' threshold. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:44, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Task force WP:RFA2011 update

Hi. As of 20 June: More stats have been added on candidates and !voter participation. Details have been added about qualifications required on other Wikis for candidates and RfA !voters. Some items such as clerking, !voters, and candidates are nearing proposal stage. A quick page`link template has been added to each page of the project. Please visit those links to get up to speed with recent developments, and chime in with your comments. Thanks for your participation.

Delivered by MessageDeliveryBot on behalf of RfA reform 2011 at 07:55, 20 June 2011 (UTC).

Delyth Morgan

Hi Man I thought you would bring your experience to bear on the Delyth Morgan page because I cant - I'm her ex-brother in law. It reads like crap and has been drafted by SAdrienneM who is Delyth's elder sister. I have tagged the page but it needs an independant perspective. I hope you can spare the time. Mark^Dask 22:07, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Were the job's been done by no less than Jimbo himself.. Mark^Dask 11:33, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Glad to hear that, doubt Jimbo watchlists here but much thanks if he does, and sorry I wasn't on EN wiki at the time. ϢereSpielChequers 15:01, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Help templates

Hi,

WRT our chat yesterday, you can find related helpful templates (the the privacy one for younger editors in particular) at User:Fæ/help. Cheers Fæ (talk) 08:05, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanka Fae. ϢereSpielChequers 15:01, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Example bad faith deletion

Hi, you might want to take a glance at Thakur Dal Singh (a BDP) which has gone from PROD to AFD on the basis of sources being "thin". There seems to be a basic misunderstanding of WP:V and at what point articles are suitable for escalating to deletion rather than improvement and discussion. Cheers Fæ (talk) 08:16, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Nb, I have userfied User:Pkandhal/Raj Singh which was deleted on very similar grounds and created by the same new user. Fæ (talk) 12:15, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Notability

Hi WSC. I'm not sure what to do with this. Normally I would PROD it as a nn boutique hotel, with three entries in travel guides for references, but... --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:04, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

I've fixed a typo but think I see the issues. Institutional bias may be involved here, it is possible that as we speak the author is expanding the article with information sourced from the Island's newspaper archives. Prod is not much point in this case as the author would no doubt decline it. I would sugget you ask him what his selection criteria is for creating hotel articles (normally if he is creating one article he has some database and plans to create whole batches). If his intent is to make sure we have the most important hotel in each capital covered then personally I'd be inclined to leave him to it. If his criteria is >30 bedrooms then I'd suggest an AFD. ϢereSpielChequers 15:01, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Four now, and I'm just waiting for Fodor's, and the Lonely Planet. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:48, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Losing new editors

Hi WSC. I do hope the outreach initiative to modernise our instructional pages expands to do something about our other walls of text - looks like we've lost another editor - not that I'm blaming anyone on the admin team at all. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:15, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Hmm...I just saw this. It's very disappointing, and all too common. I hope this changes soon. Steven Zhang ^{The clock is ticking....} 07:30, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Biting newbies is common, but I'm not convinced this particular scenario is all that common. Leaning over backwards I can see how that could have been a goodfaith editor who just made too many mistakes. An edit summary of "removing this photo, will replace it with a better one" would I think have resulted in very different treatment (actually attempting to replace one image with another would of course have been treated quite differently). Much as I regret the decline in the number of editors I wouldn't prioritise those who make repeated and unexplained attempts to remove content then get snarky when they are stopped. I don't see that WYSIWYG editing would prevent this, but perhaps it would be helpful to have an edit filter that spotted newbies who repeat the same edit without an edit summary and prompted them with a phrase like "it seems that another editor disagrees with your actions and is reverting you, please could you give an edit summary explaining why you think your edit would improve Wikipedia" ϢereSpielChequers 07:45, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Or someone could have cropped Driscoll out so the WP picture focuses on the article subject (good for WP and I'd assume fine with Dcharris). :-) Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 07:52, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Excellent idea, still possible to do that and drop a note on the talkpage explaining what you've done. ϢereSpielChequers 09:42, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

advice

Removing sensitive information. I'm not quite sure how to handle personal information that I would delete from a user's tp if the text of it needs to be completely removed from the history. AFAICS, only oversighters can do this. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:48, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Revision delete is sometimes useful here, otherwise I'd email oversight or an oversighter. ϢereSpielChequers 09:39, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Your input is requested

Greetings!

As a member of the RfA improvement task force, your input is requested at the possible proposals page, which consists of ideas that have not yet been discussed or developed.

Please look though the ideas and leave a comment on the talk page on the proposal(s) you would most like to see go forward. Your feedback will help decide which proposals to put to the community. And, as always, feel free to add new suggestions. Thanks!

Swarm, coordinator, RfA reform 2011

Delivered by MessageDeliveryBot on behalf of RfA reform 2011 at 07:53, 28 June 2011 (UTC).

To clarify

I was not saying "Nobody listens to DGG"; you either did not read my comment, or did not understand what I was replying to - despite yourself saying that it was perfectly comprehensible. My comment that nobody was listening to DGG was in response to Slowking's comment that "i note DGG, that noone is listening to you". I'm glad that you normally listen to DGG; I'm sure you enjoy doing so. Perhaps if you could try listening to Slowking and I a bit more to avoid incorrectly characterising me as a "hardcore deletionist"? Ironholds (talk) 11:24, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Hi Ironholds, in my comment I was mainly concerned about your opening sentence. I think there is a bit more nuance to "It is in English, if you want an ambiguity in it clarified then I'd suggest a polite note to Slowking on his talkpage rather than such hyperbole." than simply interpreting that as me describing something as "perfectly comprehensible". As for whether in my eyes you are or were a hardcore deletionist, or whether I think in such simplistic terms, please remember that I consider myself a hardcore deletionist when it comes to unsourced articles about alleged pornstars, prostitutes and mafiosi. Assuming we are both going to be at the London meetup on sunday week, perhaps we should discuss these issues there over a beer? ϢereSpielChequers 10:04, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

What do assumptions make one out to be, again? I won't be going to the meetup no, which (from the attendees point of view) will at least make it quieter. There's absolutely no need to discuss it over a beer - you misrepresented what I was saying, presumably through not reading what I was replying to, I have come here to clarify, please either apologise or at least recognise that what you stated was inaccurate. Ironholds (talk) 13:40, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Template:AnonymousWelcome

Hi, WSC. I deeply regret opening this can of worms. I find the template very useful and wish someone had left something like it on my talk page back in 2004 or so. If you insist on starting a TfD (your prerogative, of course), I'd be grateful for a link on my talk page if it's not too much trouble. Rivertorch (talk) 09:04, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Hi Rivertorch, 2004 is impressive, you've been editing way longer than I have. Please remember I'm not trying to delete the templates that welcome IPs and gently encourage them to create accounts. Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion#Template:AnonymousWelcome is just an attempt to delete a welcome template that in my view is unwelcoming and that implies that IP editing is somehow deprecated. ϢereSpielChequers 09:39, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

The spell-checker song

Re: "I also look at easily confused words like Doe snot/Does not that cause errors that spellcheckers cannot pick up", I thought you might enjoy this song:

Owed to a Spell Chequer

I have a spelling chequer.
It came with my pea sea.
It plane lee marks four my Rhea view
Miss steaks aye Ken knot see.

Iran this Poe em threw it.
Your sure lee glad two no.
It is core wrecked in every weigh,
My chequer tolled me sew.

A check her is a bless sing.
It freeze yew lodes of thyme.
It helps me right stiles ewe can reed,
And aides me when aye rime.

Each frays come posed up on my screen
Is trussed two bee a Joule.
The check Ur pours o'er every word
To Czech sum spelling rule.

Bee fore a veiling cheque curs
Hour spelling mite decline,
If wee R. lacks oar have a laps,
We wood bee maid two wine.

Butt now bee cause my spelling
Is checked with such grate flare,
There are know faults with in my cite,
Of nun eye am a wear.

Now spelling does knot phase me,
It does knot bring a tier.
My pay purrs awl due glad den
With words sew fare too here.

To rite with care is quite a feet
Of witch won should bee proud,
And wee mussed dew the best wee can,
Sew flaws R knot aloud.

Sow ewe can sea why aye dew prays
Such soft wear four pea seas,
And why eye brake in 2 averse
With righting sure too please.

--Guy Macon (talk) 15:53, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Guy, much appreciated. ϢereSpielChequers 22:20, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

RfA reform

Hi WSC. I've now added a fully detailed comparison table and proper comments on how the English, French, German, and Italian, Wikipedias select their admins. This is far more in-depth than the earlier comments I made on it. Although those other Wikis are much smaller, they seem to have a far more pragmatic approach to AfD than we do. I feel that this is possibly due to those project being smaller and hence easier to reach consensus on anything. One thing I noticed is that they all publish RfAs on their VP and noticeboards. I wonder if we were to do/allow this, whether it would draw a broader electorate, or just attract more trolls to the party. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:55, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

I think a broader electorate - though we'd need to make it clear what the expectations were for voters. When I first saw RFA I could see that there was an unwritten rule as to minimum criteria for voters but becasue it was unwritten I didn't know that I exceeded it by orders of magnitude. RFAs are now so few that we could have a transclusion at the village pump, or just have Village pump requests for advanced userrights as a new subpage of the village pump. ϢereSpielChequers 05:37, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

My mistake - what I meant was that they make the RfAs known on their VP and noticeboards. This of course cuts out much of risk of canvassing - although there was a well meant attempt on my RfA by an IP user who canvassed people I often work with here. I asked those users to recuse from my RfA if they were considering voting - half a dozen fewer possible support votes, but, oh well. BTW, I forgot the link to the new table I made, it's : here. If you see any blatant nonsense in it, don't hesitate to let me know. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:14, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

NPP

Hi WSC. There are new messages at meta.wikimedia.org NPP. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:06, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

pass rate en.Wiki

Didn't Gorillawarfare RfA pass first time at an extraordinary low 61% accorded at a very controversial close call by Xeno? --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:16, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) GW's RFA passed at 70,7% (because neutrals are not counted when determining percentage) and it was closed by X!, not Xeno. Regards SoWhy 08:27, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, that's OK, I was going by my poor memory. The question wasn't about GW anyway. It was about this table I made. You might like to look at it and provide some feedback there if you have a moment. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:48, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

The only passes below 70% that I'm aware of have been of former admins, but consensus being what it is I can foresee situations where crats would uncontentiously go outside that. I think the most likely scenarios for that happening are if there are fresh revelations towards the end of the 7 days and the RFA is over 80% but dropping precipitously, if some of the !votes and arguments on one side or the other are of types that we can and should ignore at RFA, or if one side generally has less weight than the other - I don't see the point of "strong" votes but when my support or oppose is halfhearted I use "weak" and assume the crats take that into consideration. But generally I'm not that concerned about that side of RFA, there are a string of things that I'd like to change at RFA and see little reason to change one bit that seems to work. ϢereSpielChequers 14:45, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

The table I made was really only to to show what the other Wikis have for minimum qualifications for candidates and voters, but I threw in the rest of the data for good measure. I think our bar is perfectly alright where it is and generally the right people tend to pass. We seriously need to resolve our civility issues and do something about the electorate. Other Wikis have a similar turn out of voters in spite of their much lower numbers of registered users, and demanding minimum qualifications for voters. This may be due to the fact that they notify their VPs and other venues of current RfAs. Voting is generally a straight vote with very little commenting if any, and no set questions. All in all I was left with a sense of embarrassment at what a mess our RfA often are compared with the orderly fashion the others go about it. I've since added data for the Dutch and Swedish Wikipedias. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:44, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Kudpung, that's useful and reassuring that others don't share all our problems. I'd like to see the discussion be much more focussed on what people see in the cndidate's edits, my concern about about maiking it a straight vote is that we don't then know who has checked what, and whether anyone has found something truly serious. ϢereSpielChequers 22:20, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, indeed the first question that went through my mind was, 'How do they know which !votes are simply pile-ons?' There are pros and cons in both systems. I don't think we need to change the format of our system - it would be a solution to a problem we don't have. What we must do however, is educate the electorate, and be selective about who can !vote. IMO, in a landslide RfA, anyone who persists as a lone campaigner in the opposition or neutral sections might wish to revisit and possibly change their view; I know I would. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:36, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
	I award you WereSpielChequers with The Tireless Contributor Barnstar for all the hard work you do both on and off Wikipedia. Well done!! Marek.69 talk 16:46, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Marek, much appreciated ϢereSpielChequers 18:59, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Want to write an editorial?

Hey WSC, EyeSerene listed a few suggestions for a Milhist newsletter editorial here, and the second bullet point caught my eye. I know you and Kudpung (with others!) are working on RfA reform 2011, but would you be interested in writing on the current climate? You've got a few days to a week-ish to get everything together, so don't feel too hurried. Regards, Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 20:39, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

OK, provided you don't mind a certain lack of Milhist in the editorial. How long does it need to be, what is the deadline and where do you want the draft? ϢereSpielChequers 22:11, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

That's okay, thoughts on community processes like RfA or something like copyright (Aug/Sept 2010) apply to all Wikipedians, which in turn can mean every member of Milhist. It can be as long or as short as you want, and the deadline is very flexible (we've published the "monthly" newsletter anywhere between the 3rd and 28th of the month before). I'd prefer it to be done by the 10th, but if it takes a little longer that's fine. The draft can go here, which is also where it will stay when the newsletter is published. Thanks very much! Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 07:20, 3 July 2011 (UTC) P.S. if you need to glance at the formatting or anything, last month's editorial is here.

Thanks WSC! Just one more thing – could you add examples on how editors can help reverse the drought? Actually participating in the process is an obvious choice, but this will hopefully spur some Milhisters to do something about it. Thanks! Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 08:33, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

thanks yes, it may not be for a couple of days, but I'm conscious that I need to make this relevant to the audience. ϢereSpielChequers 14:29, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Just a quick poke on this, sorry. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 14:51, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Another poke. I don't want to run it incomplete! :-) Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 07:01, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Poked bottom of shoe --The Σ ^talk_contribs 07:07, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

WP:RFA2011: RfA on other Wikipedias

A detailed table and notes have now been created and posted. It compares how RfA is carried out on major Wikipedias (English, French, German, Italian, Spanish). If you feel that other important language Wikipedias should be added, please let us know. This may however depend on our/your language skills!

Delivered by MessageDeliveryBot on behalf of RfA reform 2011 at 22:46, 3 July 2011 (UTC).

Barnstar!

		The Original Barnstar
		I tried to find a barnstar to give to you that represented all the work you do all over Wikipedia—RFA reform, admin areas (especially CSD), and just general maintenace. However, I couldn't find any, so I just came back to the original barnstar, and here it is! ;-) Good luck with your work! Reaper Eternal (talk) 17:38, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks reaper, much appreciated. ϢereSpielChequers 09:30, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Regarding the deletion of Buysellads

I had tried talking to admin Panyd about the deletion of my article who instructed me to contact you and user "Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry". Hope you can help me. The following is the abstract of what i had sent to her.Please guide me.

Thank You.

Hi Panyd,

This is regarding the page that you deleted yesterday asking me to not publish the same article after it got deleted. With all respect i would like to ask you a few queries. Hope you don't mind :)

I had contested against the speedy deletion as follows

This page should not be speedy deleted because...Previously it was deleted only because of lack of notability. Which i have improved this time by adding references from new york times and yahoo finance. Last time the administrators did not have a problem with the article and was only the case of notability so i have improved on it. Now how fair is it to delete the article saying that it is the same as the previous where notability had been the only issue and which has been rectified. For proof please do see the discussion page of the article which was there previously over here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Buysellads.

The segment over there reads as follows

 * Weak delete for lack of sufficient independent coverage by reliable sources. The page does list one article from a Reliable Source, the Boston Herald, but notability requires more than one article. --MelanieN (talk) 01:28, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Have added linkages from other wiki articles to counter the status of orphan article even though it is not a criteria for deletion according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Orphan . Also have added two new links to improve the notability. Further feedback will be appreciated. Thank you Venomarv (talk) 19:08, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

 * You are trying very hard, I'll give you that. But there just may not be enough material out there to cite, no matter how hard you try. You are correct that the article will not be deleted for being an orphan; if it is deleted it will be for lack of substantial coverage by independent reliable sources, as required by Wikipedia's notability requirements. I noticed you have a second reference at the article from a Reliable Source, namely the Wall Street Journal Online, but the article doesn't even mention BuySellAds that I could find, so it doesn't help you. --MelanieN (talk) 21:53, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

So in order to rectify the problem of notability i had to bring in more references to hold the article well if i am not mistaken right? :) Hence i gathered authentic ones from Yahoo finance and also New york times report and included them in the article and corrected a few typos and published it again.

Could you please tell me where i have gone wrong? After working so hard i have built the content for this article and it was rejected the first time around because i needed to have stronger references. And once i got stronger references and put it along, it gets deleted. What am i expected to do here? Am i expected not to repeat the content? Because it was the references and not the content which had the problem last time isn't it? I am finding it very difficult.

Please Advice and Help. Thank you Venomarv (talk) 03:52, 7 July 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.192.226.7 (talk)

I have reviewed all the references that were supplied. I find that they are either primary sources, company listings, product reviews, or blog-style reports based on the company's press releases. There do not appear to be any in depth articles such as on mainstream media, newspapers or business magazines. If the creator wishes, they can review again our policies for notability, especially for companies and organisations, and on reliable sources. As a last recourse, they could consider opening a deletion revision discussion. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:39, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Kudpung, Hi Venomary, sometimes we have to just wait until a company wins awards or gets discussed in the business pages of newspapers etc, Clearly you have enough to prove they exist, but millions of companies exist without being sufficiently notable for us to want an article about them. ϢereSpielChequers 07:54, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Isnt the new york times, Yahoo finance, Alexa ranking good references to make this article notable.Please guide. I have worked hard on this article and want to make it happen.

Thank you. Venomarv (talk) 19:07, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi Venomarv, NY Times is definitely a good source, but are they discussing the company or merely confirming its existence in a list? If you can give me a link I'll go look at the NY Times article. I suspect Alexa ranking is more of a primary source, good for confirming that someone exists and the sort of that that journalists might comment on. But to be notable simply for having a high Alexa count I suspect it would need to be pretty high. Are they a top 100 site or just in the top 1000? ϢereSpielChequers 19:50, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Autopatrolled rights not registering?

This user's creations are still coming up on special:new pages. Is it a software glitch or have I missed something? --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:31, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Probably a software glitch. If you are talking about articles created before they got the Autopatrolled flag it is a known glitch at least to me, and I'd be uncomfortable changing it because sometimes an editors newest articles merit autopatrolled status whilst the ones they created 4 weeks ago still need to be categorised etc. If it relates to articles created more than a few minutes after you set the flag then I'd say we have a bug. ϢereSpielChequers 07:49, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

This editor was given AP rights on 23 June 2009. I came across several of his new creationswhle doing NPP over the last few days. They create a lot of stubs about moths and insects, but apart from being stubs, they are all correctly sourced and formatted. I think it's a glitch. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:55, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

That would be a glitch - http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:NewPages&hidepatrolled=1&username=sasata currently shows all patrolled ϢereSpielChequers 13:14, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

FYI

FYI Agathoclea (talk) 17:32, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Agathoclea, much obliged. ϢereSpielChequers 19:22, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Mandatory sources for all new articles

FYI in case you missed it. I have made a suggestion there that you might want to express your opinion on. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:58, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

It got me thinking. User:WereSpielChequers/Newpage proposal ϢereSpielChequers 15:17, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Re VPR proposal

As an aside, I tried, without success to review the discussion about the origin of the sticky prod. I went to Wikipedia talk:Proposed deletion of biographies of living people then to the Archive, saw multiple mentions that this page is about implementation, for policy go other there. but there is a link to here, so I gave up.

I can accept that unsourced BLP's create a legal risk. Arguably, that risk exceeds the risk associated with generation of crap. However, if it is truly the case we get so many unsourced new articles that it would overwhelm the resources to source them, then we should admit we have a problem requiring resolution, not a problem that should be ignored.--SPhilbrickT 20:50, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

The more I think about it, the more I'm troubled by your comment. I may post about this at the VPR page, but I'd like to get a better understanding of your rationale, so I can put my thoughts together coherently.

If we have a BLPProd team, presumably formed because unsourced BLP's are high risk, why would they stop working on BLP's and start working on something else? If they are mindless reviewing a category, is would be trivial to create a cat for BLP stickies and Other stickies.--SPhilbrickT 20:58, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

The BLPprod was a response to the deletion spree of early 2010 when some admins argued that unsourced BLPs were high risk and should be purged. The people rescuing BLPprods aren't mindlessly reviewing a category, they are referencing a large proportion of those BLPprods. But the tenday cycle means that the normal process of Wikiprojects and others referencing articles doesn't have time to kick in, and so a small group of editors take on the whole load. ϢereSpielChequers 21:43, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Was..

..nice to meet you (all) :-) Waithamai (talk) 21:00, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

And very nice to meet you too, I hope to see you at more of our London events. ϢereSpielChequers 10:50, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Snowed RfAs

FYI: SNOW/NOTNOW seem to be arriving now at the rate of one per day. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:25, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

We've had a cluster of three and the last such cluster was in mid-March, if it continues for the next day or two or we get much more than a dozen this month then I'll try and work out was has prompted it. ϢereSpielChequers 15:57, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't know if it would be possible to find out. I've now put new warning templates on the transclusion pages. If it persists we'll have to get a proposal drafted up for one of the suggestions ay WPRFA2011 to introduce some minima like the other Wikis do. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 21:27, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

My recall

Hello! I've been mulling over criteria for what I feel would be acceptable for recall and I'd like it to where only a select few editors I trust can ask for my recall. I'd like you to be one of those editors. I've outlined the process here. If there is any reason you would not like to be on this list, for example maybe you object to recall or perhaps you don't want to deal with the drama involved, could you please let me know?--v/r - TP 18:40, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi TParis, Thanks I'm honoured to be put on such a list, and provided you clarify one thing I'd be happy to accept. Sometimes admins are making decisions based on our judgement and the policy of the community, and sometimes we are evaluating consensus in community discussions. In the case of your recall criteria I'm assuming that you would want me to do the former, which is good because I'm not sure I'd want to be in the position of saying "I don't necessarily agree with the community, but the consensus is for a desysop". To be honest I'm not a big fan of admin recall and I think that those who support it often underestimate Arbcom. I suspect that if in a year or so you did something that merited a desysop you'd find Arbcom taking action before five of us could be summoned and had the time to review the evidence. I also like the way that Arbcom can be more nuanced than community recall which tends to be a binary process of whether not one should desysop - life is complex and many of the cases where admins have made mistakes merit something between desysop and reaffirmation. ϢereSpielChequers 10:49, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

How I picture it going is that the complaint about me must be based in policy. I don't feel I can be judged based on unwritten rules. If an unwritten rule has community consensus, then it wouldn't be unwritten. Once I'm committed to an RfA then I'd like the process to act exactly like the current RfAs. 80% or higher to retain the tools, 70-80% to 'crat discretion, below 70% support is a desysop. I would suspect that any issue requiring the urgency of immediate desysop would garner enough attention to get at least five folks from that list to ask for a recall. Any other issue could take a slower approach and require less editors. The idea behind this is that I don't want to be disruptive. I dont like the drama involved in ArbCom and I feel it brings out and brews a lot of bad emotions. I'd rather, in my last hour, be beneficial to the community by saving it the hassle of dealing with whatever trouble I've caused and voluntarily removing myself.--v/r - TP 16:44, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Keeping new editors

I've put a comment on your new essay. I hope it's not TLDR ;) Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:35, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

New messages

Hello, WereSpielChequers. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

Tyrol5 [Talk] 13:56, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Your reply is much appreciated; I will certainly heed your advice. Many thanks and regards, Tyrol5 [Talk] 13:29, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

The Teamwork Barnstar

		The Teamwork Barnstar
		To Kaldari, Ipigott, and WereSpielChequers: Thank you for helping make Wadsworth Jarrell a Good Article! I really appreciate the keen eye and contributions you made to improve the article. Much #wikilove to you all and I hope to work with you on another GA soon! SarahStierch (talk) 14:13, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Sarah, it was a pleasure. Happy to look at more like that, just drop me a note when they are ready. PS see you in Haifa! ϢereSpielChequers 15:48, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Thank you

	The Wiki-Researcher Award
	For all your help as a sounding board for the Wikimedia Summer of Research. Steven Walling 21:36, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Steven. ϢereSpielChequers 09:29, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Op-ed

Hey WSC, I moved your Milhist op-ed to July to give you a chance to finish it, so it's now located here. Thanks very much for writing it! Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 10:46, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Thank you!

Hi WSC, I wanted to thank you for all the clarifications and helpful information you gave me for my research sprint. Feel free to drop me a line in case you have any other comment on it! Junkie.dolphin (talk) 06:15, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, it was a pleasure. If you keep an eye on the meta talkpage I may get back there. Hope you enjoy the rest of the Summer of Research. ϢereSpielChequers 09:19, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

User:WereSpielChequers/Userboxes/Liverpool

User:Arparag created this userbox, and placed non-free image File:Liverpool City Council logo.gif on it in violation of NFCC #9. I've removed the image, and left a note on his talk page asking him why he created a user subpage in your userspace. --Hammersoft (talk) 20:59, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Thank you!

Thank you for taking the time to review my contributions to WP and your words of wisdom and encouragement prior to my RFA, which passed unanimously (65/0/0). Thanks and kind regards, Tyrol5 [Talk] 13:37, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Well done, 48 hours and the wiki isn't broken yet! Seriously if you haven't already done so have a peak at my monobook, the script that gives you a dropdown menu for blocking people is one I particularly recommend. ϢereSpielChequers 13:11, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Mobile survey

We are in the process of launching our mobile survey. I have set up a wiki for the survey http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Wikipedia_Mobile_Readers_Survey_2011 I would appreciate if you could provide feedback on the questionnaire. Manipande (talk) 17:34, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, that sounds like a worthwhile and important project. I've commented on meta. ϢereSpielChequers 13:08, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

RfA

Hello! I don't know if you remember me, but a few months ago you commented on my RfA, opposing it because of concerns about CSD policy knowledge and tagging. Since I'm preparing for another RfA soon, I wanted to get your input, since your rationale for opposing last time ended up being the basis of many other opposes and it was one of the ones that stood out the most in that RfA. I would really appreciate it if you could do a quick look over to see if I am ready for another RfA, although I'd understand if you're too busy or would rather not. --Slon02 (talk) 00:08, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi Slon02, nice to hear from you again. I'm afraid I'm not around much on wiki this Summer, but you could ask someone else on this list. However I must admit that Wikipedia_talk:Criteria for_speedy deletion#New_criterion_-_WP:NOT leaves me more than a little nervous. Remember one of the key roles of RFA is to prevent the deletion button falling into the hands of those who would replace our community consensus based deletion processes with a process of deletion according to each individual admin's opinion as to what should not be here. ϢereSpielChequers 02:05, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your response- I've asked someone else on that list for a review. Also, I had a feeling when I started that discussion that it would probably be brought up at a future RfA of mine, although my goal when starting it was to create a consensus for speedy deleting pages that often end up being speedy deleted under IAR without being grounded in CSD. --Slon02 (talk) 02:14, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Admins have no extra power to change policy, so in my view it shouldn't matter at RFA that an admin has taken a particular line on a policy reform discussion, providing they assure us they will wield the mop in accordance with policy. But not everyone agrees with me on this and I've seen one of my nominees rejected because they had a userbox advocating a policy change that I and others disagree with. In the case of "IAR" speedies it is somewhat more grey as we have had several problems with admins invoking IAR not for a new and unforeseen situation but for situations where longstanding consensus is against speedy deletion. ϢereSpielChequers 16:02, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

"Attack page"

Hi this may seem a strange request, but I was wondering if it's possible to change this deletion summary here: User:Betty_Logan. You identified my userpage as an "attack page" and deleted it. I'm pretty sure I never created a user page, so I have no idea what the deletion entailed. However, I was recently identified in a dispute as an "attack page", so some editors are clearly interpreting this as a warning about me. Is it possible to remove or amend the "attack page" edit summary, because it obviously reflects badly on me? Betty Logan (talk) 08:06, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Actually, anybody can create your userpage and this idiot did just that back in 2010. It was properly deleted as an attack on "you". --Ron Ritzman (talk) 15:25, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi Betty, Hi Ron, I've moved the page and hopefully clarified things. There have been suggestions in the past that userpgages (though not talk or subpages) be made editable only by admins and the editors whose page it is, we could resurrect the idea, but I suspect it is too rare an event to get much priority from the developers. ϢereSpielChequers 19:25, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

You are cordially invited to...

The Committee]. Rich Farmbrough, 09:38, 2 August 2011 (UTC).

Greeting from Japanese Wikipedian

Hi, we had a beer at "Mandarin" in Haifa. Wikimedia Japan is at an early stage of development, and I am pretty sure that we are going to need your help. We'll be in touch! Tomo_suzuki ( talk ) 22:10, 5 August 2011 (UTC)