User talk:DGG

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            DO NOT ENTER NEW ITEMS HERE--use User talk:DGG

About: your eloquent summary of what does and does not improves this project

Hi DGG, or if I may be so bold, David,
You wrote at WP:AN/I Archive691: <block quote>There is more than one valid way of working here. Some people prefer to create only high quality articles, even though they may do very few of them. Some prefer to create many verifiable articles of clear notability even though they may not be of initially high quality. As this is a communal project, I think every individual person is fully entitled to do whichever they prefer, and the thing to do about people who prefer otherwise than oneself is to let them work their way, while you work yours. The only choice which is not productive is to argue about how to do it, rather than going ahead in the way that one finds suitable.</block quote> Many editors include a statement about their attitudes to editing on their user pages. I am not one of them, that is until I came across what you wrote. I would really like to include this on my user page. While I can add anything at all I like to my user page subject to WP:USER PAGE, I nevertheless ask for your permission to add the quote. OK with you? I'm fine if you decline this.
--Shirt58 (talk) 12:37, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Of course. DGG ( talk ) 21:04, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

May I have your input, please?

It appears that a couple users are trying to implement the restriction of new articles to autoconfirmed users from the recent RfC (please refer to this bugzilla thread). I'm not certain that everything is in place to start that restriction. The closing admin specifically mentioned a few conditions. <block quote>the discussion also showed consensus for making (unspecified) improvements to the Article Wizard and giving more attention to the Articles for Creation process.</block quote> and

Almost everyone who commented on it seems to think that the Article Wizard can and should be improved. There were also repeated concerns about making sure that the Articles for Creation process gets more attention so it does not become clogged and proposed articles get the improvements they need. Participants on both sides of the discussion agreed on these points.

As you wrote the key dissenting view, would you mind looking in to this situation and then providing your input to this conversation with the WMF staff? Thank you for your consideration. Cogitating (talk) 07:51, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

I see your comment there and I agree with you, and will say as much, but I am also going to say that I do not think the WMF can or should prevent the community from doing something like this. I've consistently opposed their interference in our content beyond the minimum legal necessities, and I've opposed some of the policies resulting from it, such as the excessively stringent NFCC restrictions beyond the requirements of copyright law, and the adoption of a BLP policy that permits use to suppress unfavorable but well-sourced articles on significant subjects, and is potentially destructive of NPOV. I saw their attempt last year to impose a policy of restricting sexual images, which was only reduced to some degree of reason by a change in board membership. I see their willingness to encourage a mechanism within Wikipedia to facilitate outside censorship; again, the only thing which has kept this from being not just encouraged but required, was a change in board membership. This will be a recurrent issue. I oppose using them as a court of final appeal for issues within Wikipedia, and shall continue to do so. This far outweighs almost any individual issue. Even though we may decide wrong, at least letting the WP community decide gives freedom of action to the individual Wikipedias to have divergent policies, and thus allows experiment even in sensitive areas, which is the only way to prevent stagnation. IMO, this applies both to the board and to the programmers. I opposed the introduction by the programmers of a crude and unscientific system of article rating, and their willingness to expand it, without each time getting explicit consent of the community. It has nonetheless apparently been accepted by the community, and I am not sure it is worth the effort to involve myself in its improvement. I opposed their attempt to introduce a deficient version of vector as the default, similarly--at least then, so did much of the community, and we were at least able to get it improved significantly.

Yes, I consider the introduction of this feature a potential disaster. I expect to see the number of incoming editors fall precipitously even below its present unsatisfactory level, as soon as it is implemented, and possibly not recover even after the trial has stopped. The attraction of being able to make an article is one of the primary motivating factors for editing. It is however possible that I have misjudged, and the proven discouraging effect of the extremely negative comments that new editors encounter is even worse, and the decrease in this might counterbalance the negative effects of not being able to immediately start an article. The only effective thing I can do in this case is to try to persuade people to diminish the length of the trial, and try to find ways of working with new editors despite the constraints, and, perhaps, try to keep fewer promising articles from being rejected via the article creation process--at present, too many of the few people working there insist on a good quality, rather than just an acceptable article.

Sometimes a cause is lost. I opposed the use of BLP Prod, but it was adopted, and my experiences at prod patrol indicate it has had at most a trivial beneficial effect, as everything it properly deletes would and would have been deleted anyway. and a considerable negative one, as it leads to many deletions of articles on people who could have been sourced had anyone experienced here had the time & incentive to do it under a deadline--and it has not noticeably decreased the number of incoming unsourced BLP articles. I've given up on getting rid of it, even though it takes a good deal of my time to prevent whatever percentage of inappropriate deletions I manage, and thus has decreased my participation in other things, such as just this sort of policy discussion.

Sometimes opposition can be effective, as with patrolled changes. I certainly opposed it, and when it became clear it would be adopted supported those who successfully limited it to a trial and to a limited range of articles. The community , upon seeing among other things that those using it did not limit the trial to the intended purpose, ended up by rejecting it, at least in its present form. (The community asked the developers to improve it for another trial, and the developers, not unreasonably, were unwilling to do the amount of work involved if it was going to be to be rejected in the end, as they I think correctly foresaw it would be.) DGG ( talk ) 18:14, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

• Opinion needed: as you've been involved in the messy Avaya MfD's, do you think there's a better way to handle them? Like freezing the similar MfD's and link them to one general? I don't know. I'm just guessing, OR is the matter that each product needs to be viewed separately to see its individual notability? Thanks is advance... ~ AdvertAdam ^talk 20:04, 17 August 2011 (UTC

Chinmaya.328

Thanks for your comments on User talk:Chinmaya.328 (though I'm not certain the editor even knows of the existence of talk pages). The user's other article, Themis Medicare, reminded me exactly of your recent comments on Wales's talk page about identifying when a PR firm has written something...a list of milestones, reference to the company being first at numerous things, etc. As a side note, I don't know (and maybe you don't want to make public) how your conversations with NoRaft went, but I support the idea of working with paid editors, not just blanket forbidding them (since we can't even do that successfully anyway). I honestly don't get why Jimbo thinks that such involvement is now and has always been forbidden and everyone knows that and no one disagrees. I totally accept that he opposes it, and even accept the idea that he/WMF can make a fiat rule against it, just not his idea that there is an obvious and overwhelming consensus that agrees with him. Qwyrxian (talk) 02:35, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I saw that one--in fact, I would have listed it for deletion except that I saw you had worked on it. It's large enough that it might be notable, but whether I feel like doing the work for an article like that depends upon the factors of how important the company is & my opinion of the editor's good faith. I've had no conversations with NoRaft. I sent him an email, suggesting he privately & confidentially tell me who he is, & what articles he had written, but had no response. I will not do something potentially problematic with someone who hides his identity from me, any more than I go down dark alleys with masked strangers. I can see his problem, though--he's promised his clients confidentiality, and by our own rules I can't insist he tell me. Therefore, I shall do as always: any article he or anyone known or unknown asks me to look at on-wiki, I will look at and give my opinion and advice, on-wiki. I'll talk with even masked strangers in bright lit public places. I do not think Jimbo's ruling has literal consensus, but is rather one of the pious statements that nobody will openly challenge, but nobody will actually follow. It is even contradicted by his own statement of our basic policy, that anyone can edit. Anonymity has its benefits, but also its problems, and can lead to such paradoxes. DGG ( talk ) 04:02, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm sure I've seen you reference this essay

WP:TALKINGSOFASTNOBODYCANHEARYOU. Is my memory that faulty? I can't find it, and it's possible the syntax isn't precise. Did you use this a sort of irony? I seem to remember you used the link to represent bullying behaviors. I'm seeing one such user who seems to be wanting to turn the entire AfD process on its head by using such a technique. BusterD (talk) 11:48, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

I have sometimes used pseudo-links like these as a statement for their own sake, without writing an actual essay. I remember saying something like this, but I can't find it. I think this one was TALKINGSOMUCH... -- but I can't find it either. As for the problem, I've commented pretty extensively at AN/I: [1], and will comment at the RfC also, But please don't confuse the reasonable message, with which I am in agreement -- that Deletion Policy is overbalanced towards deletion, and one step towards rebalancing it would be to require some version of WP:BEFORE -- with the unreasonable way it is being over-expressed. DGG ( talk ) 23:23, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, David. I was a debater in school before "talking so fast" became the current style. I feel anything which games the system deserves appropriate response in order to keep the system sound. I appreciate your valid concern about deletion procedures being over-weighted toward one outcome. Thanks for your valuable comments in those forums. Be well. BusterD (talk) 23:37, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Ah yes, I had forgotten that context. And so was I,in college--a very valuable experience, especially in facilitating the sort of intercampus experiences only the athletic teams otherwise gave occasion for. But the stimulus is interesting: if I take a turn at NPP, the amount of junk turns me for a while into a deletionist before I catch myself and stop being so unfriendly to all the newcomers. If I take a look at AfD, the number of unwarranted nominations makes me want to give a similarly snappy and unjust response to all of them, with the less than rational thought that if I argue against all of them, maybe there's a chance the good ones will make it. Several good inclusionists have run into trouble here falling into such temptation. DGG ( talk ) 23:58, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

BLP Youtube personalities

Hey, am back with query once again, are youtube personalities notable enough to get on WP ? Please help me out over here GloZell_Green and check this message. Thanks. Rangilo Gujarati (talk) 18:12, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

it depends , as always, on references providing substantial coverage from 3rd party independent published reliable sources, print or online, but not blogs or press releases, or material derived from press releases. Almost always all material about them is on the internet in the form of blogs of some sort; the question is then what sort of blogs count as reliable for the purposes of notability. In the past, Wikipedia has been notably restrictive in this, but as more and more other responsible sources appear in this format, things are changing. There's a subsidiary question in each particular case of whether the coverage in the references is substantial, but that's essentially the same question as with references in any media, and amounts to a question of judgement. Such judgements can depend not on the merits but on what one wishes to prove, since often each position can be justified. The prevailing attitude, which to some measure I share, is extreme skepticism. I summarize it by saying that for someone to be notable, they have to have actually done something notable -- in the ordinary meaning of the word.

but this case is simple with respect to notability: the deleted article on Green had no third party sources whatsoever. I doubt anyone who understands Wikipedia would support it at an AfD unless better sources could be found. However, it was deleted via A7, and the criterion for A7 is not notability, nor is it whether the article would be accepted into Wikipedia, but some reasonable indication or claim of importance. The question is whether the claims there are such. I consider them borderline. The person certainly thinks what they've done is important. I do not, but I can recognize that a person might think so in good faith. Myself, I might or might not have A7'd. Given that I know I have a prejudice against such careers, I might have passed on it & let some other admin decide. In any case, I have a standard practice for a questioned A7 speedy like this: first I give the fairest advice I can, which in this case is that without real sources it will surely be rejected in its present form, so it would be best to submit it again once there are sources; and then, if the person still wants me to, I undelete and send it to AfD (they rarely do, if I give the advice clearly enough). It's easier than arguing. If I was right, it'll be deleted, and there will be grounds for a G4 in case of the almost inevitable re-creation. (The only problem is that sometimes it might not be a good faith article, in which case the subject deserves to be protected against the negative comments at AfD. That's not the case here--they want the publicity. The previous speedy of a much sketchier version was deleted on A7 and G11, something I also do a good deal. I might have done that here.)

The case is not helped , of course, by the comparison that's made to Jenna Marbles, which has several good third party sources, and would almost certainly pass AfD. When someone says , but X has an article, there are three possibilities. Most commonly, X is famous, and then almost always the proposed subject is hopelessly non-notable & the claim is absurd—naïve but well-meaning editors argue this a lot, often for self-published authors. Also common, is that X is in fact borderline notable at best, and quite possibly should be deleted also—spammers often use this argument & there's an obvious course to follow, which usually stops their questioning, though it will hardly satisfy them. But, rarely, it is a reasonable protest: either we are generally inconsistent in the area involved, in which case it should go to AfD, to take its chances in the coin toss, or there actually was an error in evaluating X. DGG ( talk ) 00:04, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

uw templates

FYI. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:21, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I think you and I with our combined experience could go a long way to help develop this. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:52, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Ping about Wikipedia talk:WikiProject user warnings/Testing

Hi! If you still have suggestions for any of the 9 listed as "in-progress" at WP:UWTEST, please drop a note on the talk page for that template. We're going to start the new test now and would rather not change the templates in the middle, but it's easy to do a new test or simply incorporate changes afterward, since all we need is a week or so of data. I'm interested to see what you'd like to do, because my feeling is "the shorter the better" on these warnings. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 18:21, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Clarence Ridgeby Greathouse

What we ought to be doing is completely rewriting all the old article content taken from all the pre-1923 PD sources--the old Brittanica and Catholic Ency and Jewish Ency the worst; the old DNB is a little better, depending on when the article was written. The tone is generally unsuitable and the facts and interpretation often unreliable. So I freely say, though I've almost never taken a hand in it myself.

In this case, the two attribution statements gave it away, for they were quite frank about it. I would probably have deleted it had I not noticed them, without investigation. DGG ( talk ) 04:20, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't have enough information to judge your assessment of the reliability of those old 19th and early 20th century encyclopedias, but since I know that you are a librarian, I will defer to your expertise. That being said, I think that we should keep articles referenced only to those sources, because there is a clear potential to expand and improve these articles. I spent some time a year or so ago working on an article about a real 19th century "character", Harry Yount. It took a lot of in-depth online searches, refining my search terms and developing techniques to separate the wheat from the chaff. But I was able to uncover lots of reliable source material in a week or two of effort. I think the same can be said of an article like this one. An editor could take this on as a personal project, as I did with Mr. Yount, and a much better article could result. If we delete the article, the chances for that outcome are greatly reduced. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 04:53, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

of course we should keep them--but we should rewrite them with modern sources added--just as you did. That one of these encyclopedias has an article is considered not just as an indication, but a definitive proof of notability , because we include everything in other general encyclopedias. It's just that they is essentially no subject whatsoever where additional knowledge, and very often more accurate knowledge, is not available--just as you found in the one you worked on. You're doing what we should all of us be doing. DGG ( talk ) 05:13, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks DGG. I'll try to be sharper about catching such attributions in the future. OlYeller21^Talktome 17:29, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Guide to information sources

This seems a bit strange to me. The one reference that I can access does not even mention the term "Guide to information sources". Perhaps it should be moved or redirected to a more suitable article? --Crusio (talk) 06:38, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

it's an appropriate article; I'm not sure there is a really standard term. The one I used in teaching was guides to the literature. The most common beginning words of the titles of such books is however, A guide to information sources in (subject), In any case, it can be much expanded, and I will do so: I know of over a hundred, many in multiple editions. Perhaps it should be List of guides to information sources, because dozens of them are notable individually--there will be substantial reviews for most of them; or perhaps not, because there are some that should be included but may not be, and, more important, I don't immediately want to write all the articles. DGG ( talk ) 16:06, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Testing those alternate templates you made

Hey, just a heads up we prepared the user warnings you made. See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject user warnings/Testing#Suggestions at the end. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 01:55, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Nomination of Charles Scriven for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Charles Scriven is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Charles Scriven until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on good quality evidence, and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. noq (talk) 01:12, 31 October 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eraoihp (talk • contribs)

WP:UWTEST members update

Hi, you're getting this message because you signed up to receive updates at WP:UWTEST, the task force on testing of user warnings and other notifications.

Here's what we're up to lately:

• Huggle: There are tests still running in Huggle of level 1 templates, including a new template written by DGG. A full list is available here
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Thanks for your help and support, Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 02:39, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Novelguide

I am reaching out for help to revive the article that I wrote some time ago about an educational website - Novelguide.com. As of today, there are 549 articles here on wikipedia that site this website for its content. I used the google search box under the wikipedia search results to find this number. Thank you. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Novelguide User:AbbyWaters —Preceding undated comment added 15:33, 13 November 2011 (UTC).

Do you have 3rd party substantial references? DGG ( talk ) 18:20, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

A tool for you!

Hi DGG! I've just come across one of your edits (or that you have been patrolling new pages), and noticed that you might appreciate some help with references.

I case you're not aware, you might consider using this tool – it makes your life a whole heap easier, by filling in complete citation templates for your links. All you do is install the script:

// Add [[WP:Reflinks]] launcher in the toolbox on left
addOnloadHook(function () {
 addPortletLink(
  "p-tb",     // toolbox portlet
  "http://toolserver.org/~dispenser/cgi-bin/webreflinks.py/" + wgPageName 
   + "?client=script&citeweb=on&overwrite=&limit=30&lang=" + wgContentLanguage,
  "Reflinks"  // link label
)});

onto Special:MyPage/skin.js, then paste the bare URL between your <ref></ref> tabs, and you'll find a clickable link called Reflinks in your toolbox section of the page (probably in the left hand column). Then click that tool. It does all the rest of the work (provided that you remember to save the page! It doesn't work for everything (particularly often not for PDF documents), but for pretty much anything ending in "htm" or "html" (and with a title) it will do really, really well. You may consider taking on Category:Articles needing link rot cleanup. So long! --Sp33dyphil © • © 07:24, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Hello, DGG. You have new messages at Moonriddengirl's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Quick question

I am getting the new Huggle test ready today, and I was wondering... some of the short versions have a link to the diff, while others do not. It might be interesting to test overall whether referring to the diff or pagename is better. Do you mind if I standardize them, and if I do, would rather they all include a reference to the diff or not? My instinct is to remove it and see if that has an effect. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 00:09, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree--omit the diff & we'll check that later; DGG ( talk ) 01:11, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Done. Thanks for the quick response. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 01:20, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Notability

Hi David. I seem to recall that we may once have possibly been in disagreement over the notability of schools. Without prejudice to you opinion (and I can't really remember exactly what it was), there is a discussion taking place at this project that may be of interest. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:22, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

I think I've been there. There's such a simple rule to follow: high schools yes, others no, that I can't see why anyone would bother except those who really want to argue the details of sourcing for 50,000 individual articles. I can see Wikipedia as a good place for those who like to argue, and sometimes I'm one of them, but there are more interesting things to argue about--some of which even have significant consequences, and a few of which represent the highest goal of human understanding, helping development of one's ethical principles. DGG ( talk ) 03:31, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Ah, we seem to have been in total agreement after all. I can't understand why anyone would want to drag this peren issue up again, especially so soon after the last one floundered. There is better work to be done than flushing out thousands of high school articles for deletion or even arguing about it. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:12, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

WP:UWTEST update

Hi DGG,

We're currently busy designing some new tests, and we need your feedback/input!

1. ImageTaggingBot - a bot that warns users who upload images but don't provide adequate source or license information (drafts here)
2. CorenSearchBot - a bot that warns users who copy-paste text from external websites or other Wikipedia articles (drafts here)

We also have a proposal to test new "accepted," "declined," and "on-hold" templates at Articles for Creation (drafts here). The discussion isn't closed yet, so please weigh in if you're interested.

Thanks for your help! Maryana (WMF) (talk) 01:25, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Talk:Scholar Indices and Impact

Could you perhaps have a look at this article and the remarks I made at this talk page and tell me what you think? Thanks! --Guillaume2303 (talk) 22:36, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

commented there. DGG ( talk ) 20:32, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Dan Littman

You know the guidelines better than anyone else I know when it comes to academics. Please take a looks when you can. I had just tagged for notability, original creator thinks it doesn't need it. Rather than debate, I would leave it in your experienced hands if you have the time. Dennis Brown (talk) 19:57, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

certainly notable, as is generally the case for full professors at a leading world-famous research university like NYU (I used the word "generally," which I think vague enough to accommodate the various views: there is considerable disagreement about whether it is "always the case,", ""almost always the case" or 'very often the case" -- my own view, as I think is well-known, is that it is always the case, and the problem is only in deciding which universities it applies to. However, not everyone working on these articles agrees with me, including some of my most trusted friends here, so I am not sure "always" would be the consensus position at this time. My argument is similar to that on many other topics--we have much to gain by not having debates about every one of the tens of thousands of articles involved. We hare more harmed by inappropriate promotional articles about academics --just as about everything else--than we are by slight variations in the standard of notability. Time spent at AfD on determining borderline notability is time that should be better spent in patrolling new articles (and re-patrolling the older ones). Much better to have a simple standard, and concern ourselves with content. But in any case, this particular full professor is notable, but, as is often the case, the article needs a little rewriting isn't done in quite the best way to show it, and I will either do some rewriting or at least offer some advice for doing it. I apologize for not going into the details here, but they'll be clear in the finished articles, where the citations will show him an expert in his subject. DGG ( talk ) 05:48, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

(and for over 100 earlier discussions on this & closely related issues from my talk p, see my topic archive, User talk:DGG/Academic Things and People talk ). DGG ( talk ) 05:50, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Academy of Achievement

Hi there DGG, you were recently involved, briefly, on the discussion page about an organization called Academy of Achievement. Prior to November, it was much too promotional; at present, I think the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction, as I've explained in a note on the article's discussion page—and as I see you warned in your previous note on the same page. I think I endorse your viewpoint that an EduCap article could be created to address its controversies, but the treatment it is given here represents a clear case of coatracking.

It's worth noting that I've been engaged by the Academy to help resolve the matter; in hopes of doing so efficiently, I've prepared a proposed replacement (in my user space here) that I hope presents an acceptable compromise, or a workable starting point. Hope you can join in discussion on that Talk page. Cheers, WWB Too (talk) 18:33, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

In popular culture

The ones I chainsawed were full of things like "[Name of show] has an episode [with very similar but not identical name], an obvious shout-out", which is original research, or "[Name of show] mentioned this in very faint passing". I fail to see how one line of throwaway dialogue in a 22-minute episode warrants a relevant mention. Something more obvious, like "The creator of [show Y] cites [show X] as a primary influence" is fine on both Show Y and Show X's articles, as long as the claim is verified. But I just don't think we need every tangential little mention, especially in list form, which looks ugly. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 16:11, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

first of all, I would never say that everything in these sections was good, but you deleted the entire sections, the good and bad indiscriminately. (What I consider bad is analogies that are not documented or obvious, and of uses in non-notable works or unimportant contexts.) So are you telling me you had examined every item there and found that there was nothing useable in them according to your standards? I don't think so, because you consistently cite the worst, and use it as the justification for everything.

Second, your standard is wrong--At the very least there's certainly a general consensus that it is fully sufficient for the item to be significant in the work, not only if it is the primary theme or influence of it. But below even being important, even the little details are significant, for they are what show the cultural influence of a prior work , or natural or human-made object, or theme. This is how the cultural network is built. The significance of something is that it becomes a standard example that others will recognize. Entire art forms are constructed around this principle: parody, mash-up, collage, sampling. But even in ordinary work, its important what is shown: this is the sort of thing people study in not just literature and cultural studies, but history. There are books and articles, both scholarly and popular, written on , for example, the specific naval references in Jane Austen. or the geographic elements used by Shakespeare,the drinks people drink in a fictional work, the legendary characters or historical events they assume the audience will know about. This sort of information should be part of the content of a comprehensive encyclopedia like ours, which is not limited except by what people want to include.

Third, with respect to documentation, that something is the main theme or important or occurs in a work can be sourced from the work itself. It's one of the standard exceptions for the use of primary sources.

Finally, the wholesale elimination of the dozens of sections , some of them from major articles, in the course of a few days, done without discussion--and especially the reverts when people restored them-- were unconstructive. Even from your point of view, indiscriminate over-hasty zeal diminishes the value of what you were doing. You use the word "chainsawed." It was an accurate description, but perhaps you didn't mean to use it, for that word has the implications of vandalism. Had you instead taken out the worst of the junk, it would have been a positive contribution. DGG ( talk ) 02:26, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Mechademia

If you have a moment, could you perhaps have a lok at this article? There are a few small problems here. There's a list of issues "sourced" to Amazon.com. There's also an extensive "reception" section with some cherry-picked quotes. And some editors (see talk) vehemently oppose inclusion of links to the journal page at Project MUSE (because that is apparently spam for a paysite, whereas the Amazon links are sources...) Thanks! --Guillaume2303 (talk) 08:26, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

I'll comment there. But it's good to see a journal article that does have reviews of the journal. DGG ( talk ) 01:53, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Mechademia edits

You made some comments about the scholarly journal Mechademia, which deals with manga and anime. The full text and all tables of contents for Mechademia are available for free at http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/mechademia/ and all articles can be downloaded for free. I added the link on the talk page, but not in the article itself. Check the link yourself and then, if you want, add it to the article. Timothy Perper (talk) 18:03, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

If you go to the page, you'll find vol 4 of Mechademia is available. That wasn't clear in what I just said -- sorry about that. Hope this is clearer. Timothy Perper (talk) 18:22, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

No, that is not the case. Only sample issues can--at present, vol.4. If you see more than that, you are working within the domain of a college or library that has a subscription. I'll forward you a screen shot if necessary. DGG ( talk ) 18:27, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

I can get the ToCs from the link I gave, not only for Vol. 4 but for the others too. Except for Vol. 4, downloading costs money, but the ToCs are on the link. Let me go back and check them all. I'll be right back. Timothy Perper (talk) 18:33, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, all the ToCs are available -- I just checked. Timothy Perper (talk) 18:36, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that is what most journals do: the TOCs at least are readable, and there is a sample issue or volume available free. A great many, including all or most of the journal backfiles at JSTOR, have abstracts free also. A very few don't even let you see the TOC, which is f rather silly--free TOCs and abstracts help sell article access. Usually we do not give the specifics of this in the article, because it;s fairly standard and subject to change. We certainly don't let any journal doing this imply they have free access. Now, if we could persuade the publishers to make everything free except the most recent issue or two, it would be a small step forward--though that of course is not open access, which requires the final version to be free to read and otherwise use upon publication, which, from the point of view of disseminating ideas, is the only acceptable solution. I sort of know this by heart, having spent the last 10 years of my professional career on negotiating and arranging for e-journal access for a university (and have kept up since then), and been since 1999 an active advocate of true open access. DGG ( talk ) 18:27, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

True, true... I too have spent many years on the editorial boards of several scholarly journals but have mixed feelings about open access. Until we can find free money to pay the printer, journals will not be free to readers. In an ideal world -- well, in an ideal world, there would be world peace, clean air, no crime -- we don't live in an ideal world. So we have paid subscribers, who provide the cash we need to pay the printer. But I agree that ideally open and free access would be wonderful. Timothy Perper (talk) 19:10, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm looking for your advice : Speedy

Hi, DGG. I came across a A7 speedy tag at James E. Wise, Jr. and declined it as the subject looked notable at a cursory glance. A7 makes no mention of notability and I don't understand why. Are we to ignore notability if the other conditions of A7 are met? I may be overlooking something basic, but I don't see the utility in deleting aticles about notable subjects because the creator requests deletion. (In this specific instance it wasn't a request so much as it was acquiescence). Anyway, thanks for your time...I hope things are well with you. Tiderolls 05:23, 13 January 2012 (UTC) I considered posting this at WT:CSD but was sure the subject had, most likely been discussed there previously and I was too lazy to search the archives. Mea culpa.

1. The rule for speedy is that the article will be deleted in the subject shows no indication of importance of significance, which I think of as meaning that nobody in good faith who understood the purpose of Wikipedia would think there should be an article. Notability is more than this. Any subject that is notable will certainly be important or significant, while a great many things that may have some good-faith importance will still not be notable. When I first came here, I asked the same question you are asking, and suggested clarifying this by saying importance or significance or notability. The answer I was given by those of more experience is that it is better to avoid using the word "notable" entirely in defining A7, because it will inevitably lead to people asking an article be deleted because of no demonstration of notability, which is asking too much--only the community can decide notability, whether passively at WP:PROD or actively at AfD. Admins have views on this that are too diverse for them alone to be trusted, and notability can in many cases be pretty nebulous. But if something is totally insignificant, we pretty much all agree, and speedy A7 is therefore limited to the types of things we all normally agree on.
2. Personally, I think we should never have ever adopted the word "notability". It operationally has a meaning peculiar to us, what is called a "term of art", meaning only the question whether there should be a separate Wikipedia article; I think we should be deciding how much coverage to give the subjects that are of different grades of importance: varying from none at all, to a complex set of related articles. But people here like what might appear to be simple yes-no distinctions——but then they find themselves quarreling endlessly about everything anywhere near what they thought was a clear the borderline.
3. As for deletion by request of the author of the article, although Wikipedia contributions are licensed irrevocably, sometime people change their mind, and it is good practice to show understanding.. Very often though it makes sense, and we don't want to embarrass people by a public discussion. If the reason is not immediately obvious to me, I ignore such requests or ask for a reason. Sometimes it's because the author realizes the difficulty of writing an adequate article, and doesn't want an inadequate one to stand. Sometimes, the author is not convinced it will hold up at AfD, and would rather avoid a very public process about it--our AfD process is apt to make a mountain out a a molehill. (In this case, guessing from the author's talk p., I think both reasons apply.)
4. As for the article in question, he's an author of multiple books that have been published by a reputable publisher and are fairly widely held in libraries-- see WorldCat Identities; if they have substantial reviews, he meets WP:AUTHOR. However, depending on the extent of the reviews, the books seem rather routine, and that publisher, while often publishing books of very high quality and significance, also sometimes publishes works of quite minor importance. If someone brought it to AfD, there are others things I'd think better worth the effort of defending. DGG ( talk ) 06:38, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

FYI: NPA

It may well be that someone has already had the courtesy of notifying you of this, but just in case. I've no idea what it is about, or whether it has significance, but I thought you ought to be aware of it.--Scott Mac 01:12, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) New link seems to be this. PamD 09:03, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

I saw it myself a little earlier this evening. KW seems to be doing his utmost to show himself in as bad a light as possible. It's perfectly consistent with his general behavior there that he didn't inform me. As far as I am concerned, I don't think what he said about me is significant enough to respond to. I took the same view as others did. If he holds a grudge, that's his lookout.

As for my position on NPA, it's been stated elsewhere: that people at a responsible public site behave like they do no longer amazes me; what continues to puzzle me is why the site tolerate them. Perhaps I have a responsibility to say this there, but people will see it here also. DGG ( talk ) 04:02, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

That, I think, is the nub of the whole arbcom case. We've managed to get some sort of American free-speech, citizen's-rights, ethos, which tolerates children being childish, and really has nothing to do with building an encyclopedia. Sadly, it is unlikely to change.--Scott Mac 04:16, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps it's better to avoid nationalities--to many Americans like myself the offensive style here is more like British pub speech, or more exactly, the constant back and forth of insult in British comedy sketches, rather than random use of occasional bad words that characterizes American adolescents. When people work together, deliberate and repeated use of what others in the group clearly consider insult always has the implication that the others do not matter. Whether everyone considers it insult is irrelevant. DGG ( talk ) 15:45, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I've not made myself clear (and foolishly appeared to insult Americans). The style here is certainly British (and the whole "cunt is not sexist in Britain" meme is slight of hand, because although not generally used to refer to women in the UK, it is not a term anyone would use in any open social space - because it is clearly anti-social pubic language, only tolerated in certain - generally male - in-groups). No, my reference to the US was not that Americans are less civil, it is that there seems to me a Wikipedian reluctance to clamp down on certain types of speech. Go into most British public spaces and use the word "cunt", and you'll soon be asked to shut-up or leave. Use it in the hearing of customers in most workplaces - you'll be fired. And if in any particular sub-culture that's not the case, you won't be able to operate within any wider culture unless you learn how to adapt. Wikipedia is a wider culture. I may, inadvertently, happen to use a word that's acceptable "where I come from" - but once I am made aware of the wider cultural sensitivities, I must surely desist. The idea those involved here don't realise this is, quite frankly, not tenable.--Scott Mac 16:16, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

(talk page stalker)Very eloquently put Scott. I concur with you both. Why the site tolerates it is an enigma to me too. But it does. That said, some of the worst insults do not need the use of expletives to be gravely insulting and demeaning - but in the current investigations, that aspect of PA and incivility seems to be unimportant. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:15, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

(talk page stalker)Interestingly the word "cunt" appears (final para) in today's Observer newspaper (a "respectable" paper, not a scandal sheet), albeit as a quote quoted from an article in Time Out and used to illustrate incivility woman to woman (and the original speaker was perhaps using it to emphasise her "working class" credentials?) While we wait for their inevitable degeneration, we should try to maintain an even temper, although that is not always possible or even desirable. After Helena Bonham Carter, the great-granddaughter of Herbert Asquith, complained that for all her advantages and beauty directors would not hire her because she was not "trendily working class", an exasperated Kathy Burke found the effort of keeping a civil tongue in her head too much to bear. "As a lifelong member of the non-pretty working classes," she told Time Out, "I would like to say to Helena Bonham Carter: shut up you stupid cunt." Not sure if this adds anything to any discussions, but thought it noteworthy when I saw it this morning. Perhaps it does tend to illustrate that it's not a misogynistically-offensive term over here (UK), just a stronger version of "stupid cow", ie rudeness applied exclusively to a female; male equivalent probably "Stupid prick". (But I spend most of my life in a quiet village looking after an aged Mother, so am no expert on what's said in pubs, on buses or in workplaces at present!) PamD 17:56, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

The quote says it all. Burke "found the effort of keeping a civil tongue in her head too much to bear". Were User:K.Burke on Wikipedia, she would, by definition, have breached WP:CIVIL - can could be blocked. Now she might argue that User:Posh-Helena had bated her, but would we buy it?--Scott Mac 18:08, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

I was at first surprised at our emphasis on the wording: I now appreciate it as a good opportunity for discussing bad language. I agree with Scott that the way "cunt" is used in the quote above shows that the use is normally considered offensive in the UK, and that this was newsworthy as an exceptionally crude statement. Its implication depends on the circumstances--it can be used in a positive sense between lovers. But even if the word were uniformly used in the UK as a strong compliment, even among strangers or people working together in offices, referring perhaps to the excellence of women as exemplified by their sexuality, and if nobody at all in the UK, even those of a previous generation, were ever offended, it still is offensive here, because we are not writing for a UK readership only, and it is obviously perceived by many people here as a crude insult. Even were all women uniformly in the English-speaking world to think it a friendly greeting, if any substantial number of men nonetheless considered it an insult to women, it would be offensive. All of these discussions about the intrinsic nature of this word or other words is entirely irrelevant to NPA. If words are perceived by at least some reasonable people here as offensive, that is what matters. I'm Jewish. If I'm called Jewish, I normally consider it a neutral descriptor, or sometimes a word of praise. If it's used to me as an insult, it's insulting because it considers my ethnicity a fit term to be used

Kudpung refers to insult expressed in polite terms. We need to recognize this as improper also--NPA means no personal attacks, not merely no personal attacks using conventional words of insult. When terms normally considered insulting are used, it aggravates the situation; when terms often used to indicate group membership are so used, it aggravates it further. It not the intrinsic use of any particular word that is crucial to NPA--it just makes NPA easier to prove.

There's even more serious aspect: when experienced people in a group can get away with behavior newcomers can not, it implies an hierarchy, a non-welcoming attitude. a sense of exclusiveness. It's a collective version of OWNERSHIP: the longer you're here, the more you own the encyclopedia. If we do welcome newcomers, the longer a person is here, the great should be their politeness. It's the same as an expert trying for OWNership of an article: for a true expert, their edits will prove it. If those of longer standing have the ability to determine our practice, it will be because their experience enables them to best explain it. DGG ( talk ) 22:00, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

I think the missing link here is not so much NPA as "don't needlessly disrupt Wikipedia". What is a personal attack may very well depend on the intention of the writer, and his expectation of how the recipient will understand it. Thus, if we assume good faith, lots of things can be excused as having "friendly" intention, or having been misunderstood. However, it is not enough to have good intention - one also needs not to use language that may predictably give the impression of an intent to give offence (even if none is intended). To give a concrete example: a number of years ago a user was accused of a racist post (I can't remember the details). Of course there was uproar. The user then protested he had no racist intent, and indeed was himself black (sorry if that's the wrong term). The defence was accepted. However, in a virtual community no one knows you are black - so don't use the language that requires that knowledge for context, because it is likely to be misunderstood by some and thus cause disruption. Same here: how one normally uses "cunt" is immaterial, that one doesn't intend a personal attack is good, but also insufficient. If you know that a form of words is likely to be seen as uncivil - just don't use it. We are trying to communicate in a multi-cultural, non-visual community. Sure, people should assume good faith, but you should not (as far as you are able) require them to understand your ethnicity, gender, culture, local linguistic practice, religion, or sexuality in order to understand your words. You should attempt (as you are able) to use language that transcends that - ans so deliberately using language that doesn't is disruption (or even trolling).--Scott Mac 22:54, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

One of the saddest aspects gained by a reputation of of being unpleasant is that it has deterred some people from wanting to submit articles for promotion to quality status. It's already driven most people away from wanting to help the project through promotion to the use of a set of tools. This is clearly not conducive to a healthy collaboration and growth of the project. In other words, it's disruptive. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:36, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

"Don't needlessly disrupt Wikipedia" can apply to a great many things. In a sense, it's the basis of all offenses--contributing or commenting in such a way as to make trouble for people. It includes persistently submitting unacceptable articles, or persistent attempts to remove acceptable ones. Or copyvio, edit-warrring, or promotionalism--especially non commercial promotion of a cause. All of these take effort to deal with, and interfere with work directed to building the encyclopedia.

Anything can upset people, especially if it's connected with rejecting their work. There is no intervention, however well meant and however careful, that is truly safe--I've had people upset with approaches that essentially amount to , "let me help you make a better article"--especially with autobio, where people tend to think they have written the obviously perfect article. Whatever people take offense with, I apologize for, and apology helps, if perceived as sincere, and if it's more than "I'm sorry it had a bad effect on you" but rather along the lines of "I made an error, and I will fix it."

But the best first line towards improvement is avoiding certain comments that are known to be especially dangerous.These are the expected--any reference to age, or race, or nationality, or sex, or religion; or using words some people thing are taboo. Reflections on people's education are tricky--much more than the others, they may be an actual problem, and, in this encyclopedia, they can be connected sometimes with age and first-language; I've learned to avoid these also. But the basic rule remains, that in a very public setting, where you are interacting with a range of individuals of unknown identity and background, with extremely variable preferences and expectations for formality, and a wide range of expectations, it is necessary to be extremely careful how you say and do things. It might sound like this is asking a lot: but we're all trained in language use and interpersonal interactions from infancy, and even children are aware of the concept of hurting other people's feelings.

(There are some people who unfortunately are not, and may indefinitely require guidance; one special aspect is that people with these difficulties are often attracted to our relatively impersonal setting; though we say WP is not therapy, it can be, or at least can be a safe environment--but just as in society generally, it is very difficult to encourage these individuals while also protecting the others, and we therefore will always need mechanisms of isolation. But never punishment--having social difficulties is not anyone's fault in a moral sense (or at least so I like to say, perhaps excusing those of my own). But we are justified in asking those who can control themselves to do so, and educating those who for whatever reason have not learned the expected standard——and gently removing the others.

The excuse of intellectual brilliance does not apply here: this is a communal setting, though some people may not at first realize that. Even the best of contributors, who can not or will not avoid offending other contributors will need to find a setting where they can work without doing harm. Even those who are most readily to hurt others can very readily take offense themselves——AN/I or RfC/U are good places to observe this; I rather doubt many of those who say it does not matter to them, and that this should be an environment where everyone is expected to be tough and impervious, both taking and giving. DGG ( talk ) 02:00, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Im confused. Accusation of rudeness may or may not be justified. Dont care. How did the "c" word come up? None of the linked diffs include it? Gaijin42 (talk) 19:25, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

the word came up because the use of it has been a prominent example in the manifold recent discussions. To say we should not insult other people by using the word does not mean we should avoid using it frankly when the word itself (or the subject) is the matter being discussed. Accusations of unjustified rudeness are rather common; I said I sometimes receive some after I've deleted an article, no matter what I've actually said. I would never support a rule that we act too strongly on even true rudeness if it's sporadic, but we should act firmly and consistently when it becomes habitual or defiant. DGG ( talk ) 01:27, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

FYI - Courtesy Notification

As a courtesy notification for your consideration, your name has been referenced by me in a recent post to User:Atama. Regards. JakeInJoisey (talk) 18:08, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

P.S. Thank you for electing to contribute your observations to the article talk page. I intend to fashion a rather in depth and carefully considered response to your observations as I believe it will be productive. However, due to time limitations and a personal desire to step back from this issue for a break and some reflective consideration, I may not post my response before the blackout. Regards. JakeInJoisey (talk) 19:18, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

FYI and consideration, I have replied to your observations posted to one of the "Swiftboating" RfCs. Regards. JakeInJoisey (talk) 16:38, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/PAGG stack

I've closed the AfD and redirected the article to The 4-Hour Body. You commented that there's a possibility for a content merge, feel free to go ahead now. Deryck C. 22:17, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

I'll take a look after the blackout. DGG ( talk ) 01:21, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

Internet service

I know you said back in December you were trying to get your Internet service worked out so you could restore User:Alden Loveshade/Anaphora Literary Press. Any luck with that? Alden Loveshade (talk) 06:05, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Update: new user warning test results available

Hi WP:UWTEST member, we wanted to share a quick update on the status of the project. Here's the skinny:

1. We're happy to say we have a new round of testing results available! Since there are tests on several Wikipedias, we're collecting all results at the project page on Meta. We've also now got some help from Wikimedia Foundation data analyst Ryan Faulkner, and should have more test results in the coming weeks.
2. Last but not least, check out the four tests currently running at the documentation page.

Thanks for your interest, and don't hesitate to drop by the talk page if you have a suggestion or question. Maryana (WMF) (talk) 19:17, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Obar

Dear DGG,

My name is Jonathan Obar user:Jaobar, I'm a professor in the College of Communication Arts and Sciences at Michigan State University and a Teaching Fellow with the Wikimedia Foundation's Education Program. This semester I've been running a little experiment at MSU, a class where we teach students about becoming Wikipedia administrators. Not a lot is known about your community, and our students (who are fascinated by wiki-culture by the way!) want to learn how you do what you do, and why you do it. A while back I proposed this idea (the class) to the community HERE, were it was met mainly with positive feedback. Anyhow, I'd like my students to speak with a few administrators to get a sense of admin experiences, training, motivations, likes, dislikes, etc. We were wondering if you'd be interested in speaking with one of our students.

So a few things about the interviews:

• Interviews will last between 15 and 30 minutes.
• Interviews can be conducted over skype (preferred), IRC or email. (You choose the form of communication based upon your comfort level, time, etc.)
• All interviews will be completely anonymous, meaning that you (real name and/or pseudonym) will never be identified in any of our materials, unless you give the interviewer permission to do so.
• All interviews will be completely voluntary. You are under no obligation to say yes to an interview, and can say no and stop or leave the interview at any time.
• The entire interview process is being overseen by MSU's institutional review board (ethics review). This means that all questions have been approved by the university and all students have been trained how to conduct interviews ethically and properly.

Bottom line is that we really need your help, and would really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. If interested, please send me an email at obar@msu.edu (to maintain anonymity) and I will add your name to my offline contact list. If you feel comfortable doing so, you can post your name HERE instead.
If you have questions or concerns at any time, feel free to email me at obar@msu.edu. I will be more than happy to speak with you.

Thanks in advance for your help. We have a lot to learn from you. Sincerely,

Jonathan Obar --Jaobar (talk) 05:42, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

of course I am willing to do it, and you may use my wikiname and my real name however you please, though if others are not giving their name likewise, I am sure you will do so in such a way as not to give my comments any greater implied emphasis. I should like to speak with you first about your project in general, and will email you. DGG ( talk ) 06:14, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Primary sources

I'm finding more and more that newbies are misunderstanding about when primary sources are acceptable, or even if they are acceptable at all.

I started a look at some policy and guideline pages, but through typical over editing (such pages are typically edited/developed due to some current event or other), the primary sources explanations seem a bit watered down and too vague.

If you wouldn't mind, would you a.) help me find any and all pages relating to primary sources, and b.) would you be willing to help write a stand alone guideline concerning them, to better help editors understand usage and so forth? - jc37 02:09, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

There is no simple guideline. partly because there is no definition of "primary sources" that applies to all types of subjects, and party because the possible uses of them in Wikipedia are very various. Attempts to write one are what have generated the present state of confusion. Just a few example example: to a historian, a newspaper is a primary source, because it is used as the data about which histories are written. To us it is a secondary source, because it's an professionally written and edited responsible covering of the events. To a biologist, a journal reporting research is a primary journal, as distinct from a journal that published review articles, but the actual primary source is the lab notebook. A historian of science studies both it and the publications as primary sources for the history. The same source can be both primary and secondary: an appellate court decision is both: it's the primary source for the wording of the decision, but it's a secondary source, and a highly reliable one, for the facts of the case and the appropriate precedents. In literature, the primary source is the work being discussed; the secondary source is the discussion, but the discussion is a primary source for the thoughts of the scholar in an biography of the scholar. For a fictional work, the work itself is, though primary, the best source for the facts of the plot, because it is more detailed and accurate than anything that may be based on it; for interpretation of motives, if not obvious, a wecondary source discussing the work must be used--but there is not clear distinction about what is sufficiently obvious. The practical distinction for Wikipedia is that primary sources which cannot be used as such except as illustrations are those that require interpretation, because we do not do interpretation, which is original research. A textbook is often given as an example of a tertiary source, being based mostly on review articles; but advanced textbooks usually discuss the actual research article themselves to a considerable extent. And some textbooks, like Knuth's books on TeX and Metafont, are actually the primary sources, because the material presented there was never discussed previously and is of his own invention--unless one wishes to consider the program coe as the primary source.

In any given situation at Wikipedia , the guideline however written will always require interpretation, and the authoritative place for interpretation is WP:RSN--even though the individual interpretations may be contradict each other; just as the authoritative determination of notability is Deletion Reviews, even though different discussions may contradict each other. An encyclopedia is not a machine-written summary, but a work of creative human judgment about what to include, how to source it, and how to present it. The concept that we just repeat what the sources say in a proportionate way is overly simplistic: it helps teach beginners the principles, but does not actually decide any non-trivial cases. The examples which makes that clearest are the unfortunate widespread use of selective quotation and cherry-icking in controversial articles. I'll get things started by copying this into an essay. DGG ( talk ) 02:39, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Looks like a very good start.

Due to some of the issues you note, I think I'm going to ask a few others to also help. (User:Black Falcon in particular I have found is great when it comes to policy/guideline page creation/editing, as well.) - jc37 02:47, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I suspect there will not be complete agreement; but since RS is a guideline explaining the details of the fundamental policy WP:V, the practical course will be to indicate the accepted range of variation rather than try to find an actual single wording--attempts at that are usually either vague, or do not actually have the claimed consensus, because different people go on to interpret it their own way regardless of what gets written. (yes, I propose that as a general approach to writing guidelines) DGG ( talk ) 04:20, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Ever get around to copying this into an essay yet? : ) - jc37 14:53, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

I have just seen your extremely helpful reply above and, as I was reading it, I thought it would be well worth making into an essay. I am glad you think so too! Coming from a scientific background I had no difficulty in understanding that WP "original research" was merely a term of wikispeak and that "verifiability" is such an odd word that it could have no obvious connotation. However, it took me a long time to realise that, when people were saying "primary", "secondary" or "tertiary", they were meaning something quite unlike anything I had understood. Thincat (talk) 19:35, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

OK, I will try this weekend. But "verifiability" is a relatively straightforward concept: it means the material in the article must be able to be shown accurate by published sources. We have no way of judging what is really true , because we have no research capability, and few editors with the recognized professional standing to check submissions by academic standards. We therefore rely on outsiders to do that, in publications that have editorial supervision. Whether we "should have such editors and give them authority is a rather complicated question & I'm going to incorporate some material I wrote for Foundation-L about this problem. (My view, briefly, is that we should not do so, but rather go as far as we can the way we have been working. There is a need for an comprehensive freely available encyclopedia with proper scholarly editing, but I don't think our methods can produce one. If it is tried, it should be as a separate project, but the experience at Citizendium has been very discouraging. The most problematic questions are: who will pick the experts?, and , what if they disagree?. DGG ( talk ) 19:39, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Open Biology

Hi

Thanks for your support on Open Biology. I have added some comments to the article's talk page and would be grateful if you could take a look and guide me. Thanks PointOfPresence (talk) 09:14, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I added some information to show it is already actually publishing articles. What is needed now is published comments from third parties about the jhournal

On newbies and deletion

Hey David. Just saw your comments on the Village Pump thread about AfD etc. and wanted to say:

1. Thank you for the thoughtful commentary
2. I agree with you about requiring more human communication. If you want to talk about actually making that happen, then let's talk. But in the meantime we're trying to slowly but surely improve those related notifications, and your feedback on the work so far would be welcome here (See "templates tested" for a look at the different messages).

We have some very clear recommendations for next tries at new notifications for both PROD and AFD, which we will be publishing in a more succinct list soon. (Notes are on Meta, if you're interested.)

Thanks again, Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 18:38, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

yes, I'll get back there. But as you can see from the item just above,I do not have the luxury of being able to concentrate on any one thing here. sometimes everything appears equally important. And, as you can also see from the line it italics there, everything seems inter-related. We can't improve articles without more people. We can't get more people unless we fix our processes of working with articles. We can't stop to fix our processes when there are so many urgently needed specific actions such as the flood of promotionalism. So I try to work by turns everywhere. DGG ( talk ) 22:21, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, it's our unique chicken and egg problem. :) Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 22:29, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Remarks about an -imho- overactive NewPagePatroller

Hi DGG,
I saw that you were involved in a Speedy Deletion Nomination (SDN) on the article about Csongor István Nagy from User Lovehongkong. The SDN came from User:DreamFieldArts, and he had also nominated my article on the former CEO of ABN AMRO where he was the main driver for the sell-off of the bank to a consortium of banks: Royal Bank of Scotland Group, Fortis and Banco Santander. This sale was one of the additional reasons why both RBS as well as Fortis collapsed at the beginning of the Banking problems - leading to the current economic downturn in the US and Europe. Although DFA did remove the SDN when I started a discussion with him I do have problems with his attitude.

I really don't think he is the right person for NPPer. In my initial mail to him (or her - didn't check) I made the comment that Rijkman Groenink might not be known in the US and he directly reacts as stung by a wasp with: The fact that you believe everyone in America is a 13 year-old girl is depressing. None the less he is on the Netherlands Wikipedia because he has some importance to it, while on the English he has none. Even if he does, (I have been proven wrong) have some significance, it is not needed. Many people have done what he has, but aren't on Wikipedia

Another problem that I do have is that he deletes comments made on his Talk page (I had to search really good to find back the Deletion request Rijman Groenink version where he made above comment, and also came later with an explination why Kevin O'Leary is notable and Rijkman Groenink wouldn't be (Kevin O'Leary is also Shark in TV program Shark Tank (see THIS version of his Talk page) (also note the difference in the entire Talk page taking into account that there are only 2 hours between those two pages)).

According to himself he hardly ever uses the SDN process, but when you look at his contributions many SDN's can be seen. And his Talk page only consists of SDN comments (there aren't that many on his Talk page as he deleted older/completed discussion threads on his Talk page. (and worse: he removes text in current threads). There is also a formal Mediation request from User: Bill shannon in regards to DFA. (ah: you are in on that as well)

But what struck me the most was his 'its my job and it will never change' statement (not sure if it is still at his current talk page - but if not you can find it HERE (comment: That's my job, and it will never change. DreamFieldArts 13:39, 26 February 2012 (UTC))

After that point in time I also can be blamed for coming close to personal attack: although I do think that it must be clear that I'm exaggerating and being sarcastic; but I started to loose my patience and could hardly believe what I was reading.

I do refer to the 5 pillars of Wiki, and especially Assume Good Faith: and also with DFA I do assume that he is just doing his best but if he truly thinks that his role as NPPer is the same as a teacher who rips up a paper made by one of his students because it is crap I really don't think he is fit for the job. If my first article had been controlled by DGA I probably would have stopped contributing anything to Wiki ever again. He even tells that he has experienced the same thing, so he knows the feeling, and in the same sentence he says it his his job to 'rip up a paper' and say that it 'is crap'.

I do appreciate that DGG is not the nicest job in the world; but I do think that a DGGer should be very aware about 'new users' (I'm not in that catagory: but as he doesn't seem to do much research when he nominates a SD - other then on articles about persons to check if they had a TV show on top of their 'main' job....); so I can hardly imagine that he checks if the user who wrote the article he norminates for SD is a new user or not.

Could you as (far more) experienced Wikipedian give him some good guidelines and tips: as said, I do assume that DGA handles in good faith: but the way he is working now is really not healthy. Thanks a lot, Tonkie (talk) 20:52, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
Ah: I see that you already contacted him and that he did extensively answered to your comments. Thanks :-)

While I was writing above letter to you I did see that you already contacted him on his role as DGGer but because above text was nearing completion I decided to post in anyway.' Tonkie (talk) 20:55, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

New role: Assistant NewPagePatroller

Hi DGG,
As a follow-up on my remarks I made about DFA: would it be a good idea if new NPPs would first become an 'assistant NPP' where he rates an article and if he thinks it is indeed a candidate for SpeedyDeletion that he uses a hidden version of the template Speedy Deletion Request.

What I envision is that in stead of placing the 'real' Speedy Deletion template on the page with all the consequences (a message on the Talk page of the contributer, a huge text at the top of the nominated article etc) it would just be visable to more experienced NPPers: they would then check if the assistant NPP / NPP in training has indeed spotted the correct articles for SD and if he uses the correct reasons for deletion. If not the experienced patroller explains to the assistant patroller what went wrong; give him feedback how to correctly recognize SD candidates etc. Once the aNPP reaches a consistant quality and a low rate of incorrect nominations he can then be promoted to a real patroller: in this way new NPP's can learn the job in a correct manner and safely make the errors evey new starting NPPer will make. Only if people who write the articles would specifically look for the hidden SD template would know that a NPP in training has analysed the page: when you are not looking for the hidden SD template you never know that it was considered as a SD candidate.

And you can extend this system to other markings as well: not only SD candidates but also the other ratings/tagging used by the NPPers could get a hidden version of them. Although this might seem as a lot of extra work for the mentor of the NPP in training; it does provide us (the entire Wikipedia community) a great service: well trained NPPers so that the amount of crap finding its way to the Encyclopedia while we prevent damages due to over-active (or the opposite: far to easy) NPPers that still need to find their way in analysing new articles in a corect and consistent way. It does ask a bit from the experienced NPPers as they will have to take a potential NPPer under his wings and be his mentor during his (or her) training period. But I do think that the pay-out is worth it: Wiki does need a fresh supply of volunteers who do some of the more unthankful jobs - but when you setup a good training and monitor/buddy program you will be rewarded by getting good NPPers on board. (And such a program where a NPP gets a good training and support at the start of his career might endorse people to volunteer for the job: I can imagine that some people are put off of being a NPP because they are afraid that they would make errors and then get blamed for it).

At the same time it might also put people off volunteering for the role: I have people in mind that don't want any monitoring from an experienced user because they know of themselves that their opinion is right in the first place - and that their rating if an aricle is Wiki-worthy or not is rule. (Those are the same people that want to be Wiki moderator as it gives them some extra "power buttons", not because they are really interested in improving Wiki according to the reached consencus on what is a good article but rated to their own view on whats good and what isnt. And imho: if such a buddy/training program for new NPPers would put of this catagory of people from even applying for the job it is another win !!

I hope I made my idea/proposal clear enough for you to understand: if not, I'd be happy to work it out in detail and then send it to you. But such a worked-out explination of the process would come in the form of a Word/OpenOffice document with embedded flow-charts. But if you would like to receive such a worked out process just let me know.

Hope to hear from you, Tonkie (talk) 21:30, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

There have been considerable discussions about how to do this, and , like your suggestion , most of the suggestions have been in the direction of requiring some qualification for NPP. Ideally, this would be without adding any additional bureaucracy to the already over-bureaucratic system. It is not just Prod: I think experience is showing that improper Prod and especially AfD templates are at least as much harm as speedy to the people who receive them. Not necessarily for over-deleting articles--in principle admins are supposed to be careful in what they speedy, check carefully all expired prods, and come to correct conclusions at AfD. Admins do not necessarily do any of these very well==the error rate is at least 5% and probably more like 10-15% in each direction for each process (5% might be the best we can do on average, 15% is much too high) And I am equally concerned about things that do not get caught by the inexperienced, especially copyvio.

We do not necessarily need a hidden speedy template nor would I advocate one: first, many improperly tagged articles get untagged by people simply noticing them--the cultural change to always check the edit page would not be easy, especially to newcomers (most inexperienced readers are not even aware there is a talk p.) Second, there are many grossly inappropriate articles and we need to be sure to catch them and not miss the notices. .

Most of the discussions are about having the equivalent of a special user right for marking Patrolled. For examp[le, a fairly restrictive condition might be Auto[patrolled status; a less restrictive one, 3 months and 1000 edits. Expdrience has shown that at the very least a full month and several hundred edits is necessary.

we already do have a way of dealing with people who do not want to be monitored: we monitor them. This is an open wiki, and people who edit inappropriately, whether at NPP or anywhere else, attract attention. When I do NPP, it is primarily to check on the work of other new page patrollers, as well as people with auto-confirmed who use that privilege improperly. When I became an administrator, it was for the stated primary reason of looking for deleted articles that could be rescued. We also already have a mentoring system, WP:MENTOR --anyone who wants can ask, and people do ask; I just added a mention there about the possibility.

As Wikipedia gets larger, change gets more difficult -- but also more necessary. DGG ( talk ) 04:10, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Maybe just to clarify my suggestions - in regards to the 'hidden' speedy-deltion' template: I used this term as I envisioned something similar as the 'hidden catagories': not anything to be done in secrecy and/or to avoid ir being visable; but as a means to 'tag' them by the aNPPer: he/she would tag an article of which he thinks it should be deleted by adding the 'hidden' template: and maybe you could use the existing technique of hidden catagory: just as a technical means of the mentor/buddy or (other) fully qualified DGG's to find the marked/tagged potential SD requests by sorting on this hidden catagory. So it was meant as using existing Wiki technology without having any direct visable impact on the page in question. But as often, there are more ways to Rome: the aDGG could also just keep record of the pages he checked and the articles he thinks should be tagged for SD or 'normal' deletion etc. This could be done on a special page. But using the existing technique of hidden catagory is imho a nice technical way of doing it which is relative easy to implement such a scheme without adding burocracy or demanding new processes/technology in the background.

Just as an afterthought you mention another important issue: people who don't want to be monitoe. I see often that there are people who claim/think that because WP is an open encyclopedia that also means that there are no rules (or to be more precise: there are no rules for them, while there are loads of rules for others (namely the rules these kind of people set out for the others). Out friend DGA -maybe with the best intentions- has some of the 'properties' of such a person: his rule is law and other rules do not apply to him. Witch such a wide userbase you will always have those people. They shout murder when you limit them (eg block etc) and claim that you are limiting their freedom of speech, but when give the chance they will block anyone who doesn't think the way he/she does (in the country I left we have a politician working that way: he claims that freedom of speech is limitless and that he is entitled to say anything he likes about other people and entire [foreign] communities - but when someone else tries to make a (very valid) comparisson between him and some guy from Austria who ruled Germany from 1932 onwards he runs to the judge to have such thoughts banned. And when he was proscuted he told (as member of parlement) that he didn't believe nor respect the law-system anymore if he wouldn't be aquited. And at the same time he calls the Islamic communities inferior to our society because our (western) society has such an independent and reliable rule of law. (And again: he want to end that independance of the judges by firing judge after 5 years if he doesn't hand out strict punishments; but those strict punishments should only be handed out to what he sees as crimes (and preferably give far stronger punishments to people from a Muslim background).... (If you can't follow it anymore - not your fault: I can't either)....

Anyway: I do fully understand that we do need NPPs, but we also need to make sure NPPs work according to a high standard: preventing good articles to be marked as SD candidates and at the same time preventing bad articles to be passed as checked. Even when an article 'only' being marked for SD (or even slow/normal deletion) is really very de-motivating and newcomers who find their very 1st article to be marked for deletion is a near guarentee to never see another article from that author again: even if the article never got deleted. I do think that we do need a quality control on NPPs : or a requirement in the sense of that a potential NPP has to have experience in writing (new) article himself or by being assistant NPPer first.

I'd be more then prepared to think along with you (as a group: not you as a person) how to build in checks and guarentees, but I don't have the time to become a NPPer myself: but I would be happy to help out in Q-control. I'm already a mentor on request" and was asked once to help a new author to find his way on Wiki - but there is not much demand for a voluntary mentor. I would however be prepared to be a mentor/help for a potential NPP.

But I think my best assistance I can offer is helping to work out a quality assurance protocol for NPPs or similar roles without adding extra burocracy to Wiki. If you want to change ideas/thought with you and/or a group of people that think about quality assurance for Wiki just contact me directly using email. Tonkie (talk) 07:25, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Not sure where I referred to me being a coach/mentor thinking that I was role/job as mentor/coach. But I do this on the Dutch Coaching program. Tonkie (talk) 20:02, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

New Page Triage engagement strategy released

Hey guys!

I'm dropping you a note because you filled out the New Page Patrol survey, and indicated you'd be interested in being contacted about follow-up work. This is to notify you that we've finally released both the initial documentation about the project and also the engagement strategy, which sets out how we plan to work with the community on this. Please give both a read, and leave any comments or suggestions you have on the talkpage, on my talkpage, or in my inbox - okeyeswikimedia.org.

It's awesome to finally get to start work on this! :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 02:35, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks...

...for your contribution to the article NXIVM!Chrisrus (talk) 17:10, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Page Triage newsletter

Hey guys!

Thanks to all of you who have commented on the New Page Triage talkpage. If you haven't had a chance yet, check it out; we're discussing some pretty interesting ideas, both from the Foundation and the community, and moving towards implementing quite a few of them :).

In addition, on Tuesday 13th March, we're holding an office hours session in #wikimedia-office on IRC at 19:00 UTC (11am Pacific time). If you can make it, please do; we'll have a lot of stuff to show you and talk about, including (hopefully) a timetable of when we're planning to do what. If you can't come, for whatever reason, let me know on my talkpage and I'm happy to send you the logs so you can get an idea of what happened :). Regards, Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 23:30, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks to everyone who attended our first office hours session; the logs can be found here, if you missed it, and we should be holding a second one on Thursday, 22 March 2012 at 18:00 UTC in #wikimedia-office. I hope to see you all there :).

In the meantime, I have greatly expanded the details available at Wikipedia:New Page Triage: there's a lot more info about precisely what we're planning. If you have ideas, and they aren't listed there, bring them up and I'll pass them on to the developers for consideration in the second sprint. And if you know anyone who might be interested in contributing, send them there too!

Regards, Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 00:17, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Colonel Warden

Apologies if you are already aware, but I though you would like to know that Colonel Warden is the victim of a highly unjustified and unreasonable indefinite block. There is a discussion about this on the ANI board: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Colonel Warden.Rangoon11 (talk) 15:02, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

he's now been unblocked by another ed., with essentially unanimous agreement; it now remains to deal with the admin doing the block. I am a little puzzled, because much though I disagree with that admin both in detail and general approach to Wikipedia, this is much weirder on several levels than anything I recall from any admin: blatant involvement; incident 8 days old; block for a reason given in deprodding when any deprod reason is acceptable; block for the reason being false when it was both technically correct and totally justified; continuing lack of understanding that it was wrong; intention of the admin to continue to pursue the grievance against the editor; continuing violation of NPA even in the discussion. DGG ( talk ) 22:10, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes all very odd. And the endless comments about "deceit" on the ANI have merely served to confirm beyond any possible doubt that there is a highly personal aspect to all of this. The individual in question has obviously never heard, or at least heeded, the phrase "when you're in a hole, stop digging". Rangoon11 (talk) 00:32, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

help triage some feedback

Hey guys.

I appreciate this isn't quite what you signed up for, but I figured as people who are already pretty good at evaluating whether material is useful or not useful through Special:NewPages, you might be interested :). Over the last few months we've been developing the new Article Feedback Tool, which features a free text box. it is imperative that we work out in advance what proportion of feedback is useful or not so we can adjust the design accordingly and not overwhelm you with nonsense.

This is being done through the Feedback Evaluation System (FES), a tool that lets editors run through a stream of comments, selecting their value and viability, so we know what type of design should be promoted or avoided. We're about to start a new round of evaluations, beginning with an office hours session tomorrow at 18:00 UTC. If you'd like to help preemptively kill poor feedback, come along to #wikimedia-office and we'll show you how to use the tool. If you can't make it, send me an email at okeyeswikimedia.org or drop a note on my talkpage, and I'm happy to give you a quick walkthrough in a one-on-one session :).

All the best, Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 21:29, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I am willing to do at least one batch, and I think I understand how to do it from the wikipage. But perhaps I need to know something that isn't obvious, so I am emailing you. I wish you hadn't tried to summarize things using graphics, but that doesn't affect the ability to do the rating, which works via checkboxes. DGG ( talk ) 21:53, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Please help out at the Paid Editor Help page

While not a huge backlog yet, we're getting to it on the Paid Editor Help page. The sections that need replies include Colin Digiaro, Guy Bavli, Strayer University, Stevens Institute of Technology, and a general backlog in the Request Edits category. If you could help in any of these sections (primarily the first four), I would be really grateful. This notification is going out to a number of Wikiproject Cooperation members in the hopes that we can clear out all of the noted sections. And feel free to respond to a section and help out even if someone else had already responded there. The more eyes we get on a specific request, the more sure we can be on the neutrality of implementing it. Thanks! Silverseren^C 03:25, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks so much for your help. We need more members to be involved on the Paid Editor Help page if we're ever going to get that process to work. Silverseren^C 01:20, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

New page patrolling; DreamFieldArts

As per your discussion with me at 01:29, on 9 March 2012 (UTC), you said, "I am giving you a two week ban, running through March 23, from new page patrol, from page moves without clear prior consensus, and from tagging articles for deletion except in cases of clear vandalism or copyvio." I took this very seriously, as I knew I was doing something extremely wrong. Knowing the only thing I could do was to just stop new page patrolling, as that seemed to be where the problem was diverting from. As I have read from some of your discussions^{1, 2, 3}, you say that I am doing much "better at my job," and Tonkie agreed with this statement, and I felt very complacent about it. Since I am becoming better at what I am doing on here, on 00:01, 23 March 2012 (UTC) I will reclaim my position as a new page patroller. Even though I am very avid about being able to be a new page patroller again, I know I need to be careful about what I do. Now for the first few days, I will patrol lightly, until I feel that by success rate is 95% or higher. Being a new page patroller on Wikipedia is a very important job, and should be taken seriously. With out new page patrollers, there would be havoc on here. (spam, hoaxs, etc.) If you believe that I have done one thing wrong, please do not hesitate to tell me, and to handle the situation appropriately. DreamFieldArts^Talk 21:57, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

I really appreciate that you let me know, and I'll keep in touch with what you do. Remember that part of the job is to not miss the really major problems. Many promotional articles are in fact copyvios, and that's always a sound reason for deletion. A page marked as patrolled without sufficient checking is worse than not patrolling it. DGG ( talk ) 22:12, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Education Under Fire

Hi. Is it time to reconsider a stand alone article? See Baha'i_Institute_for_Higher_Education#Education_Under_Fire probably from the "Developing a response" section. EUF is by far the primary response but there have been others. Smkolins (talk) 12:09, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

why ask for trouble? DGG ( talk ) 02:22, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

It seems to me there is an imbalance in the article - it's about BIHE yet a good half is about responding to the persecution about BIHE. And the content on the response is sufficient for it's own article. No? Smkolins (talk) 10:50, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

A.L.A. catalog

In case you didn't see this, a new article you might be interested in. --Guillaume2303 (talk) 11:06, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Stella Parton discography

Greetings! You have been randomly selected to receive an invitation to participate in the request for comment on Talk:Stella Parton discography. Should you wish to respond to the invitation, your contribution to this discussion will be very much appreciated! If in doubt, please see suggestions for responding. If you do not wish to receive these types of notices, please remove your name from Wikipedia:Feedback request service. — RFC bot (talk) 17:51, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Strayer University

On Talk:Strayer University, you mentioned that you wanted to make some edits to the draft version created by Hamilton83 found at User:Hamilton83/my sandbox. Were you still planning to make those changes? Would you like some time to do that, or is it okay if I move over draft into mainspace? Qwyrxian (talk) 13:17, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

I'll get there today. DGG ( talk ) 17:12, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Not yet ready--see my comments there. DGG ( talk ) 19:19, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

A big NPT update

Hey! Big update on what the developers have been working on, and what is coming up:

coding

• Fixes for the "moved pages do not show up in Special:NewPages" and "pages created from redirects do not show up in Special:NewPages" bugs have been completed and signed off on. Unfortunately we won't be able to integrate them into the existing version, but they will be worked into the Page Triage interface.
• Coding has been completed on three elements; the API for displaying metadata about the article in the "list view", the ability to keep the "patrol" button visible if you edit an article before patrolling it, and the automatic removal of deleted pages from the queue. All three are awaiting testing but otherwise complete.

All other elements are either undergoing research, or about to have development started. I appreciate this sounds like we've not got through much work, and truthfully we're a bit disappointed with it as well; we thought we'd be going at a faster pace :(. Unfortunately there seems to be some 24-72 hour bug sweeping the San Francisco office at the moment, and at one time or another we've had several devs out of it. It's kind of messed with workflow.

Stuff to look at

We've got a pair of new mockups to comment on that deal with the filtering mechanism; this is a slightly updated mockup of the list view, and this is what the filtering tab is going to look like. All thoughts, comments and suggestions welcome on the NPT talkpage :). I'd also like to thank the people who came to our last two office hours sessions; the logs will be shortly available here.

I've also just heard that the first functional prototype for enwiki will be deployed mid-April! Really, really stoked to see this happening :). We're finding out if we can stick something up a bit sooner on prototype.wiki or something.

I appreciate there may be questions or suggestions where I've said "I'll find out and get back to you" and then, uh. not ;p. I sincerely apologise for that: things have been a bit hectic at this end over the last few weeks. But if you've got anything I've missed, drop me a line and I'll deal with it! Further questions or issues to the usual address. Thanks, Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 17:02, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Strayer University

DGG, I saw your note last week that you intended to return to the Strayer University draft this weekend: have you had a chance to look yet at my response to your questions on the Strayer University Talk page? I have made some updates to the draft based on your feedback. Let me know what you think. --Hamilton83 (talk) 17:19, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

tonight. DGG ( talk ) 18:14, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Article Feedback Tool updates

Hey all. My regular(ish) update on what's been happening with the new Article Feedback Tool.

Hand-coding

As previously mentioned, we're doing a big round of hand-coding to finalise testing :). I've been completedly bowled over by the response: we have 20 editors participating, some old and some new, which is a new record for this activity. Many thanks to everyone who has volunteered so far!

Coding should actively start on Saturday, when I'll be distributing individualised usernames and passwords to everyone. If you haven't spoken to me but would be interested in participating, either drop me a note on my talkpage or email okeyeswikimedia.org. If you have spoken to me, I'm very sorry for the delay :(. There were some toolserver database issues beyond our control (which I think the Signpost discussed) that messed with the tool.

New designs and office hours

Our awesome designers have been making some new logos for the feedback page :) Check out the oversighter view and the monitor view to get complete coverage; all opinions, comments and suggestions are welcome on the talkpage :).

We've also been working on the Abuse Filter plugin for the tool; this will basically be the same as the existing system, only applied to comments. Because of that, we're obviously going to need slightly different filters, because different things will need to be blocked :). We're holding a special office hours session tomorrow at 22:00 UTC to discuss it. If you're a regex nut, existing abuse filter writer, or simply interested in the feedback tool and have suggestions, please do come along :).

I'm pretty sure that's it; if I've missed anything or you have any additional queries, don't hesitate to contact me! Thanks, Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 14:48, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

List of Golden Plate Awardees Article

Hi DGG. I received your message about recommending the Golden Plate list article for deletion. Please tell me what the G11 criterion is upon which you rely. Before posting the article, I researched Lists policies, which appeared consistent with this article. So I need to see specifically what you are referring to. ThanksCoaster92 (talk) 03:38, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I consider it promotional for the A of A. This is to some extent a holistic judgement, requiring looking at the overall effect of the article. Remember, I did not nominate it for speedy, but left it for the community. They will either agree with me, or they won't, and that will decide the issue. While we're talking about it , have you any COI with this organization? DGG ( talk ) 03:46, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

You were mentioned at WP:EAR regarding something to do with university professor notability

here, in fact. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 00:18, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for weighing in there and, frankly, I wish I had gone on to say what you ended up saying there. Interestingly, there is a dispute at DRN on which your comment that the "most troublesome tag-related problem is edit warring over NPOV tags" directly bears. Your input there might turn the trick like it did at EA. (And, BTW, I hope that I did not misattribute the idea that professors are inherently notable to you. If I did, I apologize.) Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 13:30, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

All full professors at major research universities have sufficiently demonstrated that they are recognized experts in their subject to meet WP:PROF,and that WP:PROF is an alternative to WP:GNG. This is not a formal rule, but almost all AfD have had this result, except in fields where people here have doubts about the rigor, such as Education. (Major: in the US, Research Extensive in the Carnegie Classification + schools of similar rank; elsewhere, similar level). The rationale for this is that this is the basis on which people are promoted to such rank at such universities, and their judgment is more reliable than ours.)

For those at lower level institutions, this is not automatic, and the judgment goes by individual cases; the rationale is that in such institutions people are often promoted to this rank based on lesser accomplishments or for other qualities than being a recognized expert in their subject.

For Associate professors, automatic notability is not generally accepted, but is determined case by case. AfD results vary, but imho are usually reasonable. Personally, I think it could be extended to them on similar grounds, but this has not had consensus. ("Associate" = the US rank, and corresponding ranks elsewhere)

For Assistant professors, and corresponding ranks outside the US, it similarly goes case by case, and almost all AfD results have been "not notable". I agree with this.

Additionally, in the humanities most full professors in the highest level universities-- ,-- have written two or more books that have reviews in RSs for notability, and thus meet WP:AUTHOR. In the very highest level universities, this applies to Associate professors also. In other fields, where tenure usually depends on articles, not books, this doesn't work as frequently, but it sometimes does. Similarly, in the fine arts, many people at various academic levels will qualify by WP:CREATIVE.

For that matter, if one argued on the basis of the GNG, we could find for almost anyone who has published one or more important papers that the 2 or more of the papers referencing them contain substantial discussions of their work. This would require examining the actual papers, as the mere fact of being cited does not necessarily or even usually mean there is substantial discussion of the work. If I really tried, I could probably find this for many people even at the post-doctoral level. As this result is contradictory to most people's intuitive feelings on the appropriate contents of an encyclopedia (as distinct from a faculty directory), it shows imo the uselessness of the GNG in this subject. Before the WP:PROF standard became accepted, I did use it when it matched my intuitive view. If we return to GNG-worship, I will go back to using it.

Where the GNG is used here appropriately , is for people at any level whose work happens to strike the fancy of newspaper writers. I don't consider most such people notable as academics, but since the public will read the news accounts and want some objective information, it's reasonable to have the articles here. (I have sometimes objected to isolated news accounts as being based on PR if it seems really counter-intuitive). DGG ( talk ) 17:39, Apr 24. 2012

Lists of self-publishing companies

Inan effort to improve sourcing in our articles, me and a couple other editors have created two lists of self-publishing companies:

• List of self-publishing companies in article space for notable self-publishing houses
• WP:List of self-publishing companies in Wikipedia space for notable and non-notable self-publishing houses

It's our hope that by maintaining such lists, it will be easier for editors to identify self-published books. In a discussion at the Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipedia reliability talk page, The Blade of the Northern Lights said that you and another editor know vanity publishers very well.[2] If you can provide any assistance with these two lists, it would be greatly appreciated. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:49, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

a very useful project--it makes sense to have both lists, & I will add to the WP list as I see them, I shall check them both; because these can be considered potentially derogatory listings, they must have good references. It may be necessary to qualify the statements in some cases. DGG ( talk ) 01:40, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Quest, that is an excellent idea; DGG, that is an excellent caveat. BTW, Cambridge Scholars Publishing wants to publish the proceedings of your last faculty meeting/conference/Jane Austen Book Club. You'll get a letter on really nice looking letterhead in the next week or two. Quest, this goes for you as well. And for everyone, really. Drmies (talk) 04:11, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

National Youth Strings Academy

COuld you look at the contributors to that article, and block or ask for name changes or protect or whatever? I'm plum out of time today but people editing the National Youth Strings Academy (NYSA) page with NYSA in their usernames seems like a problem. Note though, that i haven't looked closely enough to see if its good faith, bad result, or simply promotion. Also, if it's now good enough, feel free to take off my prod. TY. Qwyrxian (talk) 03:20, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't see they understand about usernames, so I tried to explain it to them--on the articvle talk p, & their individual ones also. There is currently no usable sources for notability in the article, but given the very distinguished sponsorship, it needs a further search. I'll look at it again tomorrow. DGG ( talk ) 03:33, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Article Feedback Tool office hours

Hey DGG; just a quick note to let you know that we'll be holding an Office Hours session at 18:00 UTC (don't worry, I got the time right ;p) on 4th May in #wikimedia-office. This is to show off the almost-finished feedback page and prep it for a more public release; I'm incredibly happy to have got to this point :). Hope to see you there! Regards, Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 03:58, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Tropes in Agatha Christie's novels

Hi. Glad the article has been, for now, restored to its former glory. I was thinking about AFDing it as it was worthless as a stub. Unfortunately, while I read almost all her mysteries I don't have most of the actual paperbacks I bought or collected aeons ago. I do have a couple or so paperbacks and I'll do my best. Yours, Quis separabit? 16:55, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

I finally found the old paperbacks; there were more than I thought. Is it ISBN#s and page numbers you're needing? Yours, Quis separabit? 20:07, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Thoughts

What do you think of this: User talk:Dennis Brown/Thoughts. Feel free to reply there if you choose. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 12:33, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

The actual danger from an admin is not article-writing but sanitizing; an admin who avoids editing an article can protect it in a preferred version, or chase away those who would change it.) Otherwise, the danger is from any editor using their prestige to influence the acceptance of content, and no editor who has prestige can avoid that. Therefore all paid editing by experienced people here is dangerous: the only safe way to use our skills is to teach the general public. I will no longer help paid editors with articles or approve it for them, because I would be using not only my skills, which is fair, but my prestige also. Rather, let them write as they see fit, and I shall comment as I see fit. As any teacher knows, while you cannot stop plagiarism, you can require quality. DGG ( talk ) 15:41, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

• Sanitizing is a tough one to enforce, as it isn't always obvious. We all have different thresholds for what is acceptable without references, for example. I'm not a fan of paid editing, but part of my concern is the perception of non-admins, who are more important than all the admins combined when it comes to content creation. If we don't draw clear lines, we lower the trust in the admin system overall. And there is no prestige like admin prestige when it comes to editing, in the eyes of the non-admin. Many non-admins are very much afraid to revert a bold edit of an admin, or even speak out about an admin, either assuming "they know best" or fear of retribution. I never was, but you always thought that I sought out trouble unnecessarily anyway ;) That we undermind trust even more, this is a great concern of mine. It is already bad enough. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 22:02, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

  and thus there is a problem for an admin who does paid editing at all--any of his work in the field will be under suspicion. As an arb said informally at a recent meeting, though probably an admin would not be demopped for doing paid editing, that admin would lose a lot of respect and effectiveness. DGG ( talk ) 22:50, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

• I would agree with "No admin can be a paid editor" in theory, but then it would just happen without disclosure. Really, an admin shouldn't, even if a non-admin does. Pick one, a paycheck or the mop. And while you and I will look down on admins taking money, the average editor would only see the "admin" button on their page, and would still hesitate to revert. Most editors don't know the reputation of any admin, and think of admins like they would in a forum: the guys that can block you. Most don't bother and are not interested in the political side of Wikipedia. I wasn't even recently, until I saw some of the side effects. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 00:18, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Self-publishing

Hi, we are still hoping you would make some suggestions on Talk:List_of_self-publishing_companies#evidence. Your help will be appreciated. History2007 (talk) 02:32, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

haven't forgotten: I will get there tomorrow or this weekend. DGG ( talk ) 05:19, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Stevens Institute of Technology page

Hi DGG, I saw that my original note on your talk page was archived, so I'm adding this to make sure it doesn't get lost from your radar as there is clearly a lot of incoming requests on your page! This is the link to the latest correspondence, ready for your review. Talk:Stevens Institute of Technology#Updating_page_along_guidelines_for_college_and_university_articles

Thank you! QueenCity11 (talk) 14:36, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

haven't forgotten: I will get there tomorrow or this weekend. DGG ( talk ) 05:18, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Great, thank you! QueenCity11 (talk) 21:51, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

"I haven't forgotten. I'll get there soon. DGG ( talk ) 19:18, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for the update - very much appreciated! QueenCity11 (talk) 20:00, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

I still haven't forgotten. Some discussions this last week were rather long to deal with, & I'm a little behind. DGG ( talk ) 03:48, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

No problem - I appreciate that you have been keeping me posted. Yesterday I spent some time updating dead reference links since Stevens switched over to a new website. Thank you again. QueenCity11 (talk) 13:15, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Hi DGG -- Just wanted to check if you have a sense of when you may be able to review. I am getting pressed for an update and want to report back with the latest. Thank you again! QueenCity11 (talk) 16:22, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

I shall try to get to it this evening. DGG ( talk ) 16:25, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Hi - Just wanted to check if you think you'll be able to review soon. I appreciate all the help and guidance you have provided thus far. If you would prefer that I look for help from another editor at this point, that is fine - please just let me know. Thank you! QueenCity11 (talk) 11:55, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

A cute kitten for you sir!

Just wanna thank you sir for being unbiased and allowing my page (List of telenovelas of GMA Network) to exist. Again, thank you, sir and God bless:)

Doubledutch781 (talk) 02:40, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Boundary 2

Hi, could you perhaps have a look at this article? Some editors are trying to insert what I think is unsourced and unwarranted assertions, but perhaps I'm wrong. The journal is also included in many databases that, I think, would not include it if it weren't peer-reviewed, although I admit that the journal website doesn't say so explicitly. Your opinion would be welcome. Thanks! --Guillaume2303 (talk) 13:33, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

A Duke University Press humanities journal of extremely high reputation, from the most important US publisher of such journals. As it contains invited manuscripts only, it does not do peer review of submissions. I do not know to what degree the invited material is reviewed and edited--I imagine by the editors themselves, rather than invited peers of the authors. Humanities journals have various variant of editorial control, and this is a not uncommon method . The proper term I think is "Peer review or the equivalent editorial control" DGG ( talk ) 18:12, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

But what do you think of the remark "It is thus a closed, in-house journal. The interests and networks of the editorial board determine what ends up in the issue." that several editors insist on including? That sounds rather negative to me, but each time that I remove it, somebody puts it back. --Guillaume2303 (talk) 18:53, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, just stumbling across this string. How about: "Article selections and other content choices are made by the editorial board." This reminds me of COI issues where bias content needs to be corrected rather than omitted. User:Corporate Minion 03:16, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

I know of no journal where "the interests and networks of the editorial board " or even just the editor in chief do not in considerable part determine the contents. The problem is that saying this so directly can easily be misinterpreted by those who have an overly simplistic view of the objectivity of academic journals & my preliminary thought is that King's wording is a good one. DGG ( talk ) 05:12, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Good point and good suggestion (thanks King!), I have made this change, let's hope it sticks. Thanks! --Guillaume2303 (talk) 16:45, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Articles for Deletion

Hi DGG. I just did a bunch of my first AfD discussions.

What I found was there were a lot of cruddy advert articles with no sources, yet sources were available. The articles technically could be made appropriate for Wikipedia, but in practice it's unlikely anyone will make the effort. It's more likely to create a headache for everyone edit-warring with a poor COI advert spammer for an article of only minor value to Wikipedia. Yet Wikipedia policy is to keep articles if reliable sources exist rather than if they are likely to ever be used.

I'm perplexed by how to handle the dynamic. I noticed a comment on one AfD suggesting your vote was motivated by a need to discourage poor-quality COI spam and I thought I would just ping you to get your response. Am I way off the mark here? I'm perplexed by what is the best practices, to punish COIs pushing advert or uphold policy to the letter. User:King4057 (COI Disclosure on User Page) 08:36, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) I would say that such articles, if the subject is notable, can just be stubbed to a sentence or a paragraph, with one or a few of the better references attached. Then it can be worked on from there, from scratch as it were. Silverseren^C 08:41, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm guessing it's one of those things different editors have different opinions on. I'm not sure what mine is. I would also like to discourage blatant advert and not have to police thousands of articles on barely notable organizations. However, if the COI editor leaves it alone after we stub it, it would be of some minor improvement to Wikipedia. User:King4057 (COI Disclosure on User Page) 14:30, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

There is nothing that a person may not want to write about, and a good predictor of what someone might be interested in is that someone else is interested also. Therefore every weak article are not just capable of improvement, but likely to be improved, and most articles get improved eventually. This is not a short-term project. Suppose something might be of interest to one person in a million: Wikipedia gets hundreds of million visitors a year, so the problem becomes getting them not only to read, but to improve, articles.

The world has realized that it is so desirable to have an article at Wikipedia, that there is no possible way we can avoid having to police not just thousands, but quite literally millions of weak articles. If we throw out the weak existing ones to avoid checking them, we'll be dealing with the same ones coming in back again.

The best way to focus attention on improving weak and outdated articles (and about 90% of our content has become outdated) is to avoid focusing energy on valueless activities here. Every trivial dispute that escalates because of the hostile nature of internet exchanges is harmful--harmful not just in the impression it gives but in the efforts of good people necessary to resolve it. Every debate about whether a borderline article is notable or not is detrimental--the effort would be better spent improving it, and on quickly removing the actually harmful. We have three rapidly achievable ways to improve here, if we have the will to do them: decrease in hostility and uncivil behavior by removing those who do it and by experienced people setting good examples, with emphasis on increasing cooperation and decreasing use of the inherently confrontational WP:BRD cycle; clear fixed subject-based inclusion criteria to decrease conflict over deletion by providing a clear basis for quickly deleting or keeping articles; definitively resolving conflict disputes with wide attention as we definitively resolve inclusion disputes--long AfDs are often really debates about appropriate content within articles .

there is nothing at Wikipedia that cannot be improved by wider participation of increasing numbers of new editors. We will get that by making it easier to edit and easier to start articles. People who have been here for a while lose the initial excitement at being personally able to affect the content of the only universally visible publication ever; it is the newcomers who will maintain our vigor. We are not making progress here: while dramatic improvements in the editing interface are forthcoming, it seems we are about to adopt a policy which will drastically decrease the ability for newcomers to write new articles. There is nothing more important than people. Content is relatively trivial: what we do not improve today we can improve tomorrow, but a person once discouraged almost never returns. We have projects to write better forms, but we will never write an adequate form--we need projects to educate people without them. We have excellent bots for routine tasks, and effective edit filters, but we seem unaware that this is a human enterprise requiring friendly personal spontaneous human communication. DGG ( talk ) 15:42, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks DGG. I'm trying to digest this. I think what you're saying is to just fix the articles instead of focus on the bureaucracy. So instead of focusing so much on the AfD process, maybe I should just improve the article. Am I on the mark there? I sort of wanted to make sure I was doing it right before doing too many AfDs. User:King4057 (COI Disclosure on User Page) 20:39, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes. In terms of direct effect, the best thing anyone can do here is improve quality of articles.

But there are indirect effects also: the most obvious is the need to keep articles here long enough that they can be fixed.

A much less direct one but I think the most important quantitatively in terms of the ultimate amount of improvement per effort expended, is the need to continue to attract new editors and get them involved. This requires both not discouraging them by rejecting their work, and not discouraging them by excessive bureaucratic or technical difficulties.

But what an individual should choose to do is affected by what the individual is best at, where the need is greatest. and what they enjoy doing. that last factor is perhaps the critical one, because we are all volunteers and will only be here if we get satisfaction from our work. DGG ( talk ) 16:19, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

To tell you the truth COI and company articles is what interests me the most, but after going through AfCs and request edits for just one day, the current state of affairs just makes me feel bitter and angry. To see someone submit a request edit, after overhauling their entire article, removing controversy and adding advert. Or donating my time to help a COI in AfC, who refuses to follow my very simple instructions and goes bat crazy over a peacock tag that he won't even leave up for 1 day while I ask the editor that posted it. I already feel like I hate COIs. I don't think it's good for my health. It sounds like a good idea to help people, but they use direct editing as a threat "if you don't XYZ, I'm going to remove it in two hours." They feel empowered in a way they would never behave if working with the New York Times. Even instances where COIs appear to be resolved and collaborative, three months later they come back and censor the entire section they had just collaborated on. No wonder the community feels how they do. I'm already growing bitter :-( User:King4057 (COI Disclosure on User Page) 16:54, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for all your helpful comments. Put me in a slightly better mood ;-) User:King4057 (COI Disclosure on User Page) 01:32, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

We need to re-evaluate how we do things there at afc. the standards for article approval seem to be very low. I myself would never approve an article of much lower quality than I would write myself, but many people accept articles that are at best barely possible. And it is much more difficult to guide someone to write a good article than to take over yourself and just fix it, but they learn more if you guide them, though as all teachers and students both know, it can be a very painful processs. Personally, I'm getting to think we might as well let them do manual direct editing, and just look at the results strictly. One process stream, through which everything passes. But the need to watch articles is a real problem, because we all of us who know how to do it have many more than we can effectively watch. I do go back over my deletion log every few months to see anything that turns black again--about half the time its OK, like a good redirect, and about half the time not. The problem of maintaining quality in a project this size was never realised 10 years ago. Elsewhere in the world too, I've seen so many project at all levels that start off great, but are difficult to maintain. Entropy never forgets, and maintenance always increases until its cost is more than the cost of construction. At some point in the future, WP, like any project, will get so top heavy we will need to start over on some better foundation that we do not yet envision. The published and social process people thought it would have happened already, and are still trying to figure out why it didn't collapse at 1 million articles and then 2 million (I think the answer in part is that we developed enclaves; you can fight entropy in an enclave by putting in work & letting things get even worse elsewhere) The other part is the continued ability to interest and attract very highly qualified people with great amounts of time to use, and willingness to use it here. I've done many times more for the diffusion of knowledge in 5 years here as a volunteer e than the previous 35 as a professional. I look on my training in science and librarianship and rteaching and administration and publishing as just the a preparation for this . DGG ( talk ) 04:51, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Someone at AfC was actually commenting their standards were too high, leading to a huge backlog, when the point is merely to publish articles that would survive an AfD. They also commented that 90% of submissions are never published, suggesting that blocking articles from creation was their mission as much as creating them. Do you think we should be AfDing this one? Or if not, what can we do to make it less advert? I've only done a dozen or two AfC submissions and I found the process extremely efficient. But I'm just learning, so humbly interested in your feedback. I noticed we consistently had different answers in AfDs and it's interesting to be on the other side.

On the other hand, the prevailing wisdom of pro-paid editing advocates is that the community has an obligation to help COIs and in a hurry, quick, before they edit themselves! As a result, many posts in the {{request edit}} queue or paid editor help board lead to volunteers swooping down and spawning vast discussions on content of relatively little value. This works to make a short-term point, but it's not scalable were the process done en-masse. I've been somewhat duplicating the AfC process like this[3][4] to clear out the queue. What do you think? User:King4057 (COI Disclosure on User Page) 07:57, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

That prevailing wisdom is exactly what I am disagreeing with. I think it produces very low quality barely possible articles. Letting them edit directly produces either acceptable articles if somebody helps them, or rejected articles from which they might learn something. I am faced with two choice: one is to spend my time u-grading this afc-passed articles, and thus single-handedly work indefinitely to restore credibility to a system ; or start looking for arguments for deletion of such articles, which means expanded the interpretation of what we consider promotional writing that is unimprovable and needs deletion, or narrow the limits of what sort of references we accept for articles on organizations & people connected with them, or possibly trying to change the deletion criteria otherwise. I have made comments at a few current AfDs that show my try at this approach. In other words, the flood of junk has done to me what similar things have turned to others, turned me into a deletionist. DGG ( talk ) 14:25, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

I would be interested in your opinion on the CREWE/paid editing/COI dynamic. I noticed I have a strong keep lean compared to others in the AfD discussion, which led to a couple being relisted. I guess WP:CORP is a higher bar than I realized. User:King4057 (COI Disclosure on User Page) 03:24, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

My solution is entirely orthoodox: to enforce high standards on articles. There are multiple ways of going about it, and the total independence of every individual editor here ensures that everything anyone thinks a good idea will go on simultaneously. I have no way of imposing higher standards on afc; there is no way of imposing on me to accept lower. If people do not agree on an article, the community decides at AfD, and the result will be unavoidable inconsistent. Such are the rules of play, & such they are likely to remain. Those who wish to engage here must work within them or they will fail in their purposes.

You are asking me what way I would recommend to you or marketing professionals generally? I give you the same advice I have always given: to learn to write articles that will be considered unquestionable acceptable. There may be no agreement on the boundary of what is just barely acceptable, but there is general agreement about what is absolutely not acceptable. For an editor to try to make their articles just passable is folly--there is almost a guarantee that they will often lose them. The only sure way to keep them is to make them good enough to resist challenge. All cut-rate paid editing is doomed whenever the standards rise. And there's an inherent difficulty to making them excellent: excellent articles here cannot be written by a single person. it requires not polished work, but work good enough and open enough to encourages others to polish it. Unless you write articles that disinterested people want to make even better, they will always be vulnerable.

But open editing and professional editing may be inherently incompatible. I have increasing doubts whether anyone in the PR profession can adjust to our manner of writing, and the discussions on and off wiki reinforce them daily. If I continue in the direction I am thinking, and others come to see things similarly, we may end by driving you away at whatever cost to our coverage. The only way you have of resisting it is to such good work that we can not plausibly object to it, and that mean meeting the expectations of an overwhelming consensus. In practice a few people here who persist in objecting can cause a stalemate. And this will affect not only the new articles; there are tens of thousands of old ones in equally poor condition. My comments at AfD and Deletion Review will show on a current basis how my thinking develops; it's there in the trenches that I do my work, though I may come here to summarize. DGG ( talk ) 03:25, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks DGG. In any hot-button issue those with the most extreme points of view are most vocal, so I'm glad I actively probed you for something more middled. I think this is similar to how I think of it. Just like any media, Wikipedia has content needs and we need to learn how to fulfill those needs with the same degree of professional expertise as we do in other mediums. Did you know we (as marketing professionals) have vast amounts of data on what makes the most viral tweet, the most compelling blog post and years of experience pitching timely stories to the media - yet we are lost on Wikipedia.

For years I was an expert among marketing professionals on Wikipedia. I did webinars, spoke at local events, consulted people routinely (for free), built a reputation (not intentionally) as the Wikipedia guy, when in fact I had only written a hand full of articles and knew very little. Now I am 10x the Wikipedian I once was, and still 10% of where I need to go, yet at 1% of where we should be (my target) I was an expert among my peers. We have a long way to go.

Appreciate the discussion. User:King4057 (COI Disclosure on User Page) 05:12, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Wikimania

Hi DGG. I'm going to try to make it to your session at Wikimania. If Jimmy sticks around after the plenary session and isn't barraged I might see if I can get his feedback on what a paid editor would need to do to not just be tolerated, but seen as an asset to Wikipedia. The unconference would be a good time to meet up. At some point much further down the line I would like to get some form of independent review/assessment on our McKinsey efforts from an uninvolved editor, just to make sure we've all done a great job serving the reader. User:King4057 (COI Disclosure on User Page) 17:49, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

There seems to be a trend

I'm not saying that you meant what you said, but there appears to be a trend. Northamerica basically said the same thing as you did at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gabriel Pizza which I didn't even nominate for deletion. Uncle G acted like I didn't follow WP:BEFORE at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Neurathian bootstrap just because I didn't know that it had other names. Kvng said at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Compojure that I didn't consider merging the non-notable article even though I did. Haus said at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/E&BV Subdivision that he found sources in the same amount of time that it took me to nominate the article for deletion. I said that I don't think those sources show notability and another editor agreed with me. So annoying. SL93 (talk) 14:59, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

I decide on the merits of an article by my own judgment. I then look at what other people said, to see if there is an argument that might convince me otherwise. Similarly, sometimes people who in a particular case think as I do use similar arguments as mine. (And why ever would I give an argument if I did not intend to convince others to agree with it?) Uncle G and I think alike for many articles, but not always, and I have differed from him at times in every possible direction. In that first article you mention my judgment was a little different from both of them. In the others I have not yet commented.

But both of us are of the opinion that some degree of consideration for the essential parts of WP:Before is part of WP:Deletion Policy. We've both been here long enough not to judge an article's possibilities on the basis of what is in the present version, and we both define "sourceable" as meaning able to be sourced, and "verifiable" as able to be verified. Both of us are know the limitations of the Googles well enough to be fairly sophisticated at searching them, & we are both aware there are other sources also. We don't expect others to be as thorough as we would--if everyone was, we'd have no need to even comment, because many articles would never get nominated for deletion. We do hope for a moderate degree of inventiveness & imagination, for most of the people here are rather good at those two mental characteristics. We do expect people will not try to judge notability in fields were they wouldn't be able to find sources if they existed.

Northamerica similarly, though he & I share the same view only sometimes, not all that often, and I have a good deal less experience and knowledge of his level of working. When multiple people say the same thing, they might even do so because it is the obviously correct answer.

Words like "substantial" in substantial coverage are not sharply true or false, and the interpretation depends on the circumstances. In fields or geographic areas where the press coverage of everyone of any degree of notability is extensive, it's reasonable to look for more substance than in those fields and places which attract much less attention. (I'm not sure how far Uncle G and Northamerica agree with me on that--I seem to feel much more strongly in requiring full coverage in some subject areas than they do.)

I see you say you follow WP:BEFORE--I am glad you accept that principle, and urge you to say explicitly what you have or have not searched, and what options you have considered. If I nominate or comment on an article & think that while merging or redirection might seem plausible they should not be so treated, I generally say so, and give the reason. DGG ( talk ) 16:25, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. I will do that so people don't start assuming things. SL93 (talk) 19:40, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

New Page Triage/New Pages Feed

Hey all :). A notification that the prototype for the New Pages Feed is now live on enwiki! We had to briefly take it down after an unfortunate bug started showing up, but it's now live and we will continue developing it on-site.

The page can be found at Special:NewPagesFeed. Please, please, please test it and tell us what you think! Note that as a prototype it will inevitably have bugs - if you find one not already mentioned at the talkpage, bring it up and I'm happy to carry it through to the devs. The same is true of any additions you can think of to the software, or any questions you might have - let me know and I'll respond.

Thanks! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 13:12, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

very nice for general purposes, and will certainly improve accuracy if inexperienced users get this by default. For quickly scanning to pick up problems, I find it unusable. The old format works very well for me when I use it for that purpose, & I hope we can figure out how to maintain both. DGG ( talk ) 21:12, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Metatextbook of Medicine‎‎

David, I should perhaps have noted this on the talk page, but there is something weird with the review in the Deutsches Ärtzeblatt: it is written by the person who set up this "metatextbook" (see bottom of the huge linked page). So I don't think that it is really a review and certainly not independent. Perhaps too complicated for CSD... Should I take it to AfD? --Guillaume2303 (talk) 16:29, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Proposal to stop placeholder stubs being created without a sourced fact

Please comment.♦ Dr. Blofeld 06:33, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Hello

I'm looking forward to seeing you at Wikimania Takes Manhattan - I will also be in DC. --David Shankbone 03:57, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Geo Swan's article

The point is that this article is a textbook BLP1E, and Geo Swan has gotten flak specifically for having this type of article in userspace and in mainspace; regardless of whether it belongs in userspace or not, I'm not going to enable someone to restore an article when I would immediately send it to AFD. "If I did that, and the article stays in the same form, it will be very rapidly deleted, which is not what you desire" — and this article cannot help being in the form of a BLP1E unless Geo Swan find persistent coverage, of which I've heard nothing from him/her. Nyttend (talk) 12:11, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Looking at a later comment on your talk p., it appears there was a misunderstanding. Geo asked you to at least mail it to him, & he (and I) thought you were refusing to do that also. But you explained you had not noticed that part, & would mail it. I think that resolves the immediate issue.

More generally, I am not sure of the advice I gave above, which you quoted. It is my intention if the person insists further to restore the article and fix it myself. In fact, when I re-read the source this morning, I may do that even if not requested. (This is part of the general problem more often seen at BLP PROD: if there is an unsatisfactory article, and we know we can fix it by a careful sourcing or rewrite,rather than delete it, should we do so? I think what we should best do in such circumstances is to try as much as reasonable to get the ed to do it themselves, and that is what I was trying to do above.)

the more general issue, that we may not use our authority to delete under the speedy criteria or after an explicit consensus, to delete otherwise, remains. I admit I have violated it on rare occasions, in the spirit of IAR. But using IAR for a single-handed deletion is a very dangerous thing, and perhaps we should all stop doing it. Otherwise it is all too easy for someone to make a case that we are acting on our own prejudices and private interpretations, and perhaps sometimes they will be right.

Additionally, I would never refuse to restore an article if another admin or equally trusted user asked me. Perhaps I defer to other admins too much, or you too little. After all, I could have said, you are being unreasonable, and restored it myself. The definition of wheel warring permits it. (Perhaps we define it incorrectly, and it gives an undue 2nd mover advantage, but that's a very complicated question.) DGG ( talk ) 20:22, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

This is an interesting discussion between two respected colleagues. Please understand the importance of common ground. While mostly we simply observe, without comment, we generally benefit by considering the agreement you reach. Best regards to you both. My76Strat (talk) 00:23, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

I think it goes without saying that most of the time admins will decide the same: if it were otherwise, we'd have immensely more conflict than now. There will also be a grey zone where doing a particular thing, is not clearly right or wrong. We say doubtful matters should involve the community, but then the question becomes which matters are doubtful enough to involve the community? In the boundary zone, the decisions are necessarily going to vary from one individual to another. This is beneficial, not harmful. An admin might choose to do only the utterly obvious, but the other matters need to be dealt with also. Discussing the items in the boundary zone is one of the ways by which consensus can change. DGG ( talk ) 00:45, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

WikiProject NIH

Greetings DGG. I was looking at WikiProject NIH and it appears to be pretty inactive. Since you and one other are the only apparently active members I wanted to ask. Kumioko (talk) 01:58, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

the articles there certainly still need work: classic promotional institutional pages, in many cases, (much probably copied, and needs ref to the sources, though it US-PD) and overly brief summaries in others. Perhaps if its just the two of us we could simply divide them up. DGG ( talk ) 02:27, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

I would certainly be glad to help out. I looked through some of them and your right theres definately some work to be done. I also noticed there seemed to be some that weren't tagged yet. I was also wondering if you think it would be ok if I did a couple things.

1. I would like to add the project to the Joint projects list of WPUS. The articles are already covered by both projects so it might help them a little and slightly increase the visibility of the NIH project.
2. I would like to expand the title on the template to spell out Institutes of Health. Of course I would leave the existing one as a redirect. I have had a couple folks ask me what it meant already (along with WikiProject SIA and AAA) so it might help a little.
3. There are several articles that aren't tagged yet that I would like to add to the project if you think that's ok. Kumioko (talk) 02:39, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

seems reasonable--just go ahead. I will look at some of the more extensive articles and do some trimming. (and some splitting--they include the bios of the Directors of the various institutes, but these people are sufficiently notable that they should be covered separately). I suggest you copy this discussion onto the talk p. of the project. I appreciate it very much that you're getting this re-started--I confess I had entirely forgotten that I meant to work on this. DGG ( talk ) 06:05, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

I moved the template to {{WikiProject National Institutes of Health}} and updated the template example on the project page. I will add it to the WPUS Joint prokects list shortly. Kumioko (talk) 15:25, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Donald Tsang

Greetings! You have been randomly selected to receive an invitation to participate in the request for comment on Talk:Donald Tsang. Should you wish to respond to the invitation, your contribution to this discussion will be very much appreciated! If in doubt, please see suggestions for responding. If you do not wish to receive these types of notices, please remove your name from Wikipedia:Feedback request service. — RFC bot (talk) 21:15, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Ambassadors

Could you show me where it says ambassadors are automatically notable because. Bgwhite (talk) 07:40, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

(talk page stalker)I'll be interested in that ... I PRODded someone recently who was ambassador to several countries but didn't seem to pass WP:DIPLOMAT,which seems to say that being an ambassador per se is not enough for notability. He was unPRODded after more content was added, don't know whether it's the person you're concerned with or not (current Thai ambassador to US I seem to remember). PamD 11:54, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Ah, found him, Chaiyong Satjipanon, and I see Bgwhite has been there recently too. PamD 12:04, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

All that is needed to remove a prod is a disagreement that it should be deleted without a community discussion. Prods are for deletions that nobody is expected to contest. The way I judge it, is that it's the highest level of the profession. If you want to go by GNG, I would not rule it out without looking for sources in the country the person is accredited to as well as that which he comes from. In the past we've made the distinction between ambassadors who are notable, and consuls, who are not usually. As always, the community will either agree with me, or not. DGG ( talk ) 16:12, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

I deProded Chaiyong Satjipanon because being the ambassador to six nations, including the United States, would appear to be notable. I also found some Thai refs.

The one I did prod was an ambassador to Uganda and was a career civil servant. I highly respect DGG's opinions and have many written down as reference. However, deProdding with the edit summary saying "Ambassadors are notable" is misleading. Ambassadors are not automatically notable, especially where the majority of ambassadors for the U.S are political appointments who donated the most to a campaign. I have no problem with stating in the edit summary that you believe this person is notable, but don't say "Ambassadors are notable" as it sounds like Wikipedia policy. Bgwhite (talk) 00:15, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

What I say in an edit summary when I deprod is the reason i deprodded. it is not intended as a statement of policy. I consider ambassadors notable; I can't say consensus would support this 100% of the time, for consensus at AfD can depend on how carefully the matter is researched & argued—and on who happens to show up. I see no reason why an ambassador to the US should be more notable than an ambassador from the US -- or indeed any pair of countries. Checking, it seems about half the US ambassadors are career civil servants; the others are political or civic or business figures who are often even more notable for their outside careers. DGG ( talk ) 00:39, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Taxatio Ecclesiastica

Thought you might want to expand Taxatio Ecclesiastica.♦ Dr. Blofeld 11:55, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

System of Systems Integration

DGG, I noticed that System of Systems Integration (talk · contribs) (the article creator) removed the prods you put on System of Systems Integration and Network Integration Evaluation, and thought you might like to know that I bundled them together and sent them over to AFD. Dori ☾Talk ⁘ Contribs☽ 04:42, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it will be better to discuss them together. I was perhaps too optimistic in thinking the prod would stick. New low in organizational gibberish. DGG ( talk ) 04:45, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

System of Systems Integration is cut and paste copy (down to the typo in "fi elding") of its cited source at http://www.bctmod.army.mil/SoSI/sosi.html. Possibly not copyvio as US army, but certainly plagiarism. PamD 07:21, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

certainly plagiarism, yes, but also certainly US-PD. Otherwise I would have simply speedy deleted it. I commend the US for its US-PD policy, but it does cause difficulties with material like this. Perhaps we should have a rule that copy of the official source for an organization whether or not PD & whether or not acceptable licensing permission is given is evidence of promotionalism sufficient for deletion. (As you can see, this sort of material is getting me rather frustrated.) DGG ( talk ) 07:54, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Possible misunderstanding

To clarify, it was said by implication that this book [5] is a reliable source that mentions The Body Electric. I think this book is clearly not reliable and thus has no bearing. My comment is not about The Body Electric itself. IRWolfie- (talk) 10:02, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

The question is not whether the book is scientifically reliable; the question is whether the cite in it that the b.e. is a " time-honored classic" shows notability; reliable in this sense means editorially discriminating in some sensible manner between different books, and it does: it is one of the 2 listed. The book is independent, published by a division of Harpers and is in 300 libraries. I agree it is fringe science at best, but it's notable fringe science. DGG ( talk ) 18:08, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Talk:List of professional sports leagues

An interesting question has been raised that you might be interested in. Since you have participated in similar discussions and arguably more experience in this particular policy question, you might have some insight that would be helpful. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 21:49, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Malls

Since you're in the malls wikiproject, I'd like you to weigh in here. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 11:23, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Article Feedback Tool, Version 5

Hey all :)

Just a quick update on what we've been working on:

• The centralised feedback page is now live! Feel free to use it and all other feedback pages; there's no prohibition on playing around, dealing with the comments or letting others know about it, although the full release comes much later. Let me know if you find any bugs; we know it's a bit odd in Monobook, but that should be fixed in our deployment this week.
• On Thursday, 7th June we'll be holding an office hours session at 20:00 UTC in #wikimedia-office. We'll be discussing all the latest developments, as well as what's coming up next; hope to see you all there!
• Those of you who hand-coded feedback; I believe I contacted you all about t-shirts. If I didn't, drop me a line and I'll get it sorted out :).

Thanks! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 22:53, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Nomination of Akhtaboot for deletion

Hi, you have nominated Akhtaboot article for deletion. We have previously worked together on improving the article so that it won't be deleted. Can you please let me know what I have done wrong and how can I improve it? --Article123456 (talk) 07:20, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

If there are any references from 2012, please add them. Then it's up to the community to make the decision DGG ( talk ) 18:02, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

As part of Akhtaboot's expansion, it has participated in many job fairs in Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates in 2012:

• Tawdheef Abu Dhabi Job Fair - United Arab Emirates(If you look at the bottom of the page, Akhtaboot has been their online recruitment partner): http://www.tawdheef.ae/
• Al Sharjah National Career Exhibition - United Arab Emirates (If you look at the bottom of the page, Akhtaboot has been their online recruitment partner): http://www.nationalcareer.ae/
• College of Business Job Fair - Jeddah, Saudi Arabia: http://www.ameinfo.com/294402.html
• AUD job fair (please search for the word "Akhtaboot" in the article: http://www.aud.edu/student_services/career_fair.asp

Many universities also chose Akhtaboot to power the career's section of their website with Akhtaboot Microsite solution (a whitelabel of Akhtaboot.com:

• King Fahd University for Petroleum and Minerals: http://kfupm.akhtaboot.com , http://www.menafn.com/menafn/1093487940/Akhtaboot-Cares-Initiative-Partners-with-Middlesex-University-Dubai
• Middlesex University Dubai: http://mdx.akhtaboot.com
• British Uni in Dubai: http://buid.akhtaboot.com , http://www.albawaba.com/business/pr/akhtaboot-career-buid-427030

And many others, do you think the above can be included in the article and is it worthy enough?--Article123456 (talk) 13:21, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Add these to the article, and see what people think. DGG ( talk ) 19:06, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Pusat Tingkatan Enam Meragang

Two years ago our school relocated to a new campus. We are a government school located in Brunei (SE Asia). As the person in charge of IT and all things online at our school I temporarily created a new wiki page for our new campus - a new name and location etc. - Shortly after this it was deleted by you and the reason A7 was given. I've been a little busy lately but others have since asked me why we no longer have a wikipedia presence. I would like to complete our wiki page and maintain it as we did our old one. Please tell me what I need to do to get off the restricted list and back up and running. I cannot create a new site because our name is now held in limbo. Your help is appreciated. Our old page was [Tingkatan Enam Berakas] and our new name is [Tingkatan Enam Meragang].Cikgubrian (talk) 12:45, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

This was back in 2009. The best way to deal with this is to move the old article, update it, and give a cross reference, all of which I can do. . But I cannot do this unless I have some actual information . The article said merely "Scheduled to open in March 2009, PTEM will accommodate staff and students from Pusat Tingkatan Enam Berakas as they make way for a new secondary school to take over their campus in Lambak Kiri. As details are finalised and made available more information will be posted."

Please provide some information on the talk page of the old article. Include the web site, etc., so I can verify. You also should provide references providing substantial coverage from 3rd party independent published reliable sources, print or online, but not blogs or press releases, or material derived from press releases. Any language will do. I will deal with inserting it correctly. I gather the old pictures are no longer applicable, so you will need to upload one or two new ones with a free license. And see WP:COI and WP:OWN--anyone can edit the p., not just you. DGG ( talk ) 17:34, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Congratulations

		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!

If you like you can add this userbox to your collection.

This user has been awarded with the 100000 Edits award.

```Buster Seven Talk 13:17, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

unfortunately, not as impressive as it might seem, considering that 10 or 20% of them are just to correct my own typos. DGG ( talk ) 03:43, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Something to look at.

I have created a rough draft of what could become WP:EASYMONEY at User:Dennis Brown/EASYMONEY for the purpose of helping COI editors actually understand what they are doing wrong, how to fix it, and how to actually become a contributor instead of a liability. I'm trying to avoid all the adhoc speeches given to the growing number of PR and marketing firms that are joining us, and at the same time avoid taking a stand on the policy or politics of the issue. I am interested in your opinion of the wisdom of this. If you like the concept, please feel free to participate or modify in any way you choose. I'm not married to any format or details in this, it is just a rough draft at this point. I will drop this same note to a few other editors whom I feel would be beneficial in considering this page. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 14:42, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

I was planning something with a roughly similar intent : "What is Promotionalism" It should complement what your've been doing. I want to keep it separate, because my part refers to much more than paid editing. The structural problem with yours is that you need early on to explain that there is a safe universally accepted way as specified at COI--asking for article creation or proposing a draft in userspace, and a less safe not universally accepted way, direct editing, which is what much of yours is directed to, though much applies to anyone. You also need to explain that policies and guidelines contain contradictions. And in the other direction, there are a few absolute NOs, such as don't remove uncomfortable facts, but use the talk page, & if necessary, OTRS. There's some wording changes needed; for example, the RS problem is as much pR-based sources as blogs, WP:N is not policy, but a guideline, and WP:BRD is an essay which not everyone agrees with--personally, I think it in practice a temptation to violate the policy WP:CIVIL--when I started I was astounded people were actually encouraged to work in that fashion. . A better title is also needed: "Editing for money" ? DGG ( talk ) 16:43, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

It was thrown together quickly this morning. If you are inclined, I would love to have your participation. I've asked only a few editors whom I know have different ideas about Wikipedia in general, as to get a balanced approach to it. It is targeted for PR/Marketing people who are new to Wikipedia, who very often get blocked right out of the gate, as you observe. This is one reason I invited Orangemike, as this might be a tool he would use via UAA concerns, Nobody Ent, Kim Dent-Brown, The Bushranger and others who have unique and valuable perspective and of course you, whose opinions I always appreciate. I'm hoping to get others to pitch in on the actual content, as I don't wish it to be solely my opinion and words, but clearly a community "help" guide. And I'm not married to the name either. Would like to hear other opinions on that at the talk page. With help, I don't think it would take a great deal of time to get this up to par since the scope is narrow enough. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 17:45, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

I followed a very similar vein as DGG describes above in my contributions to the essay, but I like his language more "universally acceptable." I could see that in the title somehow: "Universally acceptable marketing & public relations behavior on Wikipedia (too long). User:King4057 16:08, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Interview with Ragans

A PR publication called Ragans may be covering a report I'm publishing next week. The thesis of the report is that ethical Wikipedia engagement by companies is a form of content marketing. Just like any independent news and information source, Wikipedia has content needs. Companies can achieve mutual benefit by transparently offering content of value to the editorial community. The report shares statistical information from 2,500+ Wikipedia articles on companies to gleam insights into Wikipedia's content needs, so organizations can better align themselves.

What bothers me about media coverage on the topic is the lack of voice from the editorial community and the reporter expressed an interest in doing a Q&A with a volunteer editor. I was wondering if you were interested. It seems up your alley, since the focus is on quality content. User:King4057 21:34, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes. ask the reporter to email me. I would personally very much like to see good content from companies; the problem is getting content that meets the needs of the readers, not the needs of the companies. (And it is not really companies, it is organizations of any type--the problems are very similar), A reputable publisher knows how to accomplish this: it uses the company's PR as one source, in the light of other sources, and as filtered through the critical knowledge of experienced and independent editors, and rewriting it so it matches the expectations for newspaper or magazine articles. A less reputable publisher of course tends to present it much less carefully filtered & rewritten. The difficulty at Wikipedia is despite good intentions, we cannot count on having skillful editing of the material, and so we have had the policy of rejecting information from organizations, for fear we will be unable to evaluate it. But after 4 years here working with this material, I know it can be done; I'm currently trying to rewrite at least one promotional article a day, many of long standing--including some I accepted in past years when I had not yet developed a sufficiently skeptical eye.

There are two difficulties: one is that the content the company wants to contribute only has a partial overlap with what the reader needs. Readers do not want to hear why the company thinks it had good products, they want to hear facts about the products, including references to published independent opinions of them the company may have collected. From this they will make their own judgments of value. The other is that the style of presenting material is different when you're outside the material, and I am not sure how practical it is to expect most people whose professional careers have been within one framework, to adopt another. (There are analogous difficulties for people who have spent their career writing academic papers or computer manuals or music reviews.) DGG ( talk ) 03:46, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Oops, forget about my email. I have your email address and submitted it to the reporter. I agree with your assessment above. I'm using the term "ethical Wikipedia engagement," because "paid editing" entails writing the entire article, instead of using a collaborative process. On the other hand, for smaller yet notable companies, there is very little controversy and fewer interested editors. So I think the approach will vary, especially depending on the amount of controversy/negativity. The other issue is what I'll call the "ethics tax" - meaning it is much faster, cheaper and more effective to edit Wikipedia "less ethically" (but perhaps more risky). One of the reporter's questions were "what is the ROI of ethics?" I get this question a lot. User:King4057 01:18, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

If we at WP cannot get promotional editing under control, our response is likely to be more stringent standards for the notability of business and other organizations, & greater selectivity in the content of those we keep. There have already been such proposals, and even without a change in the formal guidelines, the interpretation can gradually change--and in fact is changing. For even myself, a supporter of inclusionism in business articles, the degree of my enthusiasm is much less than it used to be, & my likelihood of making drastic cuts in promotional content is much higher--so much higher, that these have become my principal activities here. Where I used to rewrite, I will often stubbify; where I used to stubbify, I will now delete or nominate for deletion. If the writing for smaller yet notable companies does not greatly improve, that level of company will soon no longer be considered notable. The obvious fact that nobody is in control here gives a false impression that one can try to get away with anything. But with enough eyes, no corner is too obscure to escape notice, and we have by now learned that maintaining a neutral encyclopedia requires standing up for it firmly. DGG ( talk ) 03:24, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

I use the following arguments:

• Avoid "vengeful editing" from editors frustrated with your behavior
• Avoid reputational risk from public humiliation
• Have a productive working relationship with editors, instead of edit-warring

These arguments are most relevant to major brands with reputations to protect, more community interest/activity and a legal department that understands risk management. These companies understand the need for ethical behavior generally.

But ethics is just an operational in-the-weeds piece of helping companies inform the world about topics they have a vested interest in through Wikipedia. I want companies to stop seeing Wikipedia as a liability and start seeing it as an asset. Wikipedia isn't just a place where an angry customer or special interest group weaponizes the site to attack companies they don't like; it's a free service to create credible corporate/executive/product profiles in the interest of free knowledge. User:King4057 23:57, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Maybe I am asking a lot of you, but if you were ever interested in doing a blog post or Q&A style article addressing the marketing community, I would be happy to set that up as well. From my perspective we should be listening to the community more, but the volunteer editorial community doesn't have an army of PR professionals giving them voice or an organized effort to educate marketing professionals. I would like to improve that when and how I can, like the article I did here with Robert Lawton. User:King4057 16:49, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm working on an essay: What is promotionalism. I do want to collect what I've said at various places. And I'm also thinking of a group like the Article Rescue Squadron, which I am tentatively naming Wikiproject Promotionalism Removal Unit. But I am concerned with the ideologues as much as the PR community. And remember that no one person can speak for the community, and we do not agree on the approach to this--we only go by formal guidelines to the extent we want to at the moment for each case separately, so everything here will always be erratic.

But a few specifics. first, We do not intend to be a friendly place for people expressing grudges. I remove or greatly condense such material when I see it, although it is necessary to separate the removal of over-emphasis from the attempt at a cover-up. I think the best approach for an individual PR person confronted with this is OTRS. The OTRS people are practiced at sounding as professional or bureaucratic as necessary to be convincing, while still maintaining our values.. (I do a little such work for schools complaints & i think I have always satisfied people that we're doing what we can, though not necessarily what they would like.) Second, the 4th reason for working by our accepted practices is that you will succeed in getting to say what can appropriately be said within our limits; it's not just risk management, but in a more positive sense effective working. Third, It helps to remind people that Commons is open to good photographs with a free license, & does not require immediate use in an article. & what is put there might end up being used quite widely. DGG ( talk ) 00:17, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

My opinions are still forming/changing as I become more experienced and based on what I observe, but I have observed that ethical community collaboration takes immense patience, extra work and lower "results" from the sense that most companies would prefer bias entries, which they could obtain through less ethical participation. The survival of EthicalWiki will depend on ethics actually being the most viable route, which means I rely on the community to do a good job screening out poor ethics - an impossible job. User:King4057 13:41, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Of course they would prefer entries that meet their immediate needs; such is the nature of capitalism, It is our obligation to do the work to see they can not get what they would prefer when it conflicts with the principle of providing encyclopedic information. Everything you say leads to the conclusion that promotionalism must be removed, I think in the end we will be able to do so only at the cost of abandoning the principle of anonymity. It is folly to think that we here now have constructed something that can not be improved upon. DGG ( talk ) 21:45, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

In any case, check out the news story and a similar story in PRWeek. I don't think the point of Wikipedia and great content really got across the way I'd like it too, but... User:King4057 13:41, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Also, within just a few hours of the articles being published, the discussion hit Jimbo's Talk page. User:King4057 23:48, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Thank you!

For cleaning up City University of Seattle! Your editing expertise is much appreciated and respected by this lowly Huggle jockey. Cheers! Jim1138 (talk) 00:12, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

I have just begun. DGG ( talk ) 03:43, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Nicely said...

Your comments in the AfD for Orville (cat). LadyofShalott 04:40, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

thanks. DGG ( talk ) 14:14, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

• I responded there with a question that is only partly rhetorical as it's really not clear to me what you're suggesting we do to decide such matters. You seem to be proposing that we restrict comment to editors who have some specific power of discernment but what does this mean in practise? Please elaborate. Warden (talk) 15:30, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

I am undecided about that we should do in such matters in general. There can be no fixed boundaries for this, as it is not quantifiable. It has to be by the general judgment of the people who care here, which in practice gives great weight to the opposite extremes of sensationalism and snobbery. My only real concern is that we seem to have a bias to including disgusting events, and excluding political ones--by own bias is just the opposite. I'd accept the disgusting if we could get the political. I'd accept any lower level, in fact, if we could get the political. DGG ( talk ) 16:55, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

• There seem to be lots of articles about political campaigns, elections and demonstrations - what is currently excluded? I would like to see much of that content excluded or constrained as, by its nature, it tends to be too provisional. There not much point in covering a campaign in a speculative way when the eventual result will make much of the speculation worthless. The case of Orville seems different in that its nature seems quite settled and so we are able to write in a reasonably factual way. Its disgusting nature is a matter of style and taste and I fancy I could cover it in a suitably po-faced way. Note that it was I that started the article about The Great Cat Massacre. My tongue was firmly in my cheek but it still seems good to include such topics. Warden (talk) 09:51, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

• I have always admired your great skill with these topics. People will always disagree about individual cases. To me, the GCM has clear very high notability because of the book, without any irony. I differentiate between history and current gossip. As for politics, tho it is not an exact analogy, I am thinking about the quite successful campaigns to remove articles related to Gitmo, and also articles about small splinter parties, left and right--not of trivial events in political campaigns, where I more or less agree with you about the tendency for overemphasis. DGG ( talk ) 23:56, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Notification of nomination for deletion of Night flight in the UK

This is to inform you that this article has been nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Night flight in the UK. - Ahunt (talk) 23:01, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Hundred Years' War Articles (four)

These articles have either NO references or very few. Much has gone completely unreferenced for YEARS. It looks like pure copyvio almost throughout the articles. Though tags have been placed on them, the tags are simply updated so they do not look as if the articles have been unreference for as long. Attempts to change material and/or add references based on citable material is vehemently fought by a few who, unfortunately do not use that same energy to comply with the guidelines. The template will, on a particular day have England the victor, on another, will have France the victor. Would you please look at these four articles? They need, I think, your unique expertise. Thank you. Hundred Years' War, Hundred Years' War (1337–1360), Hundred Years' War (1369–1389), Hundred Years' War (1415–1453).Mugginsx (talk) 16:24, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

I am making some comments on the general article. My interpretation of the writing is that if the material was plagiarized, it was plagiarized from some rather dull textbooks, and probably outdated ones at that. DGG ( talk ) 18:21, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for commenting there. I did want to correct the idea that I was advocating using old sources and chronicles exclusively. I am well aware of the problems inherent in using those sources. I do think they should be mentioned within the format you recommended as does Norman F. Cantor, Pulitzer Prize winner Barbara Tuchman and other well known authors. The fact is that the editors there have made absolutely no effort for years to use in-line citations and that is required on En-Wikipedia. Because I was and am presently committed to other articles and cannot spend the time on the Hundred Years War articles at this time, I thought perhaps I would give a suggestion for those resources on-line with the presumption that they knew what to do with them and how to use them. Another (minor) thing I wanted to correct was that I am a woman editor. Thankyou again. Mugginsx (talk) 11:25, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

commented again there. DGG ( talk ) 18:32, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Assistance with Bloomberg Law

Hi-there. Recently, I've been working to improve the Bloomberg Law article which currently lacks any citation or substantial information. I do some work for Bloomberg and don't want my conflict of interest to interfere with Wiki guidelines, so I have been in talks with Bearian about a draft of the article I proposed. Unfortunately, he doesn't have the bandwidth at this time to help implement that changes and recommended I talk with you. Would you mind taking a look and if seen as appropriate, implement the changes into the current article? My draft can be found here. I truly appreciate your help! --RivBitz (talk) 18:01, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Glad you asked. Your article is an improvement, though I would have used more of the existing comment and references. But it is promotional. You should replace most of the repeated mentions of the name with a phrase such as "the service' or "it". You use too much PR jargon, such as "real-time" and "all-inclusive predictable pricing model" You have an uncited, though certainly plausible, opinion about the motives of the company-- And it is not reasonable to end with a sentence praising the firm. You might in fact want to look for other opinions on that sponsorship--I would be surprised if someone didn't consider it a potential threat to a free resource, by making it dependent upon a commercial competitor. .

In the other direction, like the earlier article, it is insufficiently detailed. The service consists of a complex of components that needs fuller description--such as geographic and chronological scope. There is no information about financial results, or market share or penetrance. And it is usual to give some information about costs, though not of course detailed pricing. Is it in fact affordable for solo attorneys? Is it found in law schools? Are there academic rates? Is it intended ' exclusively for "lawyers and legal professionals." I am aware that comp-anies often consider some of this proprietary information, but the expectation of an encyclopedia is that it will provide whatever can be publicly sourced, and such things are probably mentioned in the articles about it. DGG ( talk ) 18:42, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Hi there, I've taken some time to work through the edits you gave me to the draft of Bloomberg Law. I tried to implement them all as you prescribed, but much of the proprietary information is not available through public source, so I was not able to add it. If you or anyone is able to find information to elaborate on these details such as academic rates, pricing details in public sources, I'd be happy to see them added. Let me know what you think of the new draft. Again, I really appreciate your help. User:RivBitz/Bloomberg_Law_Sandbox --RivBitz (talk) 19:01, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi. Was just checking in to see if you had a chance to read over the new version of the draft I shared. Thanks!--RivBitz (talk) 18:30, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Question about Wikimania Takes Manhattan

Hi DGG! Sorry if you're not the right guy to talk to, but you're one of only two–three people from the list of organizers that I recognized. I asked a question here but it doesn't seem like the page is updated often by organizers, but an answer would be great. Thanks in advance, Ynhockey <sup>(Talk)</sup> 00:49, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

the person to ask is User:Pharos. But as I understand it, the Wiki World's Fair on July 7th will be the principal event, as many people apparently will be there for that day only. DGG ( talk ) 01:12, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Journal titles

Hi, I got a question about journal titles for Russian journals that don't have an English edition (or an "official" English title on their homepage or cover or anything like that). I'm not really sure how to answer this and your input would be appreciated. The editor (Solus Ipse) had translated the titles themselves and I somehow think that this may not be the right way to go. Thanks! --Guillaume2303 (talk) 07:49, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

There's a general rule here: if there is no common english title for a subject we use the one in the language of the subject. But in this case there I see there in fact is an English title. DGG ( talk ) 18:20, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Authority Control Integration

Hi, I've been researching the intersection of Wikipedia and Authority Control, and have just recently made a Village Pump Proposal to create a bot to expand the usage of a template. I've identified you as someone in the sphere of interest to this project and would appreciate your input at the Village Pump. Thanks, Maximiliankleinoclc (talk) 18:38, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

commented at User talk:Maximiliankleinoclc/Authority control integration DGG ( talk ) 19:15, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Mail

Hi DGG

Not sure if you saw it, but I sent you an email. Spartaz <sup>Humbug!</sup> 15:20, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

AFT5 release coming up - help us design a banner!

Hey all :). First-off, thanks to everyone for all their help so far; we're coming up to a much wider deployment :). Starting at the end of this month, and scaling up until 3 July, AFT5 will begin appearing on 10 percent of articles. For this release we plan on sending out a CentralNotice that every editor will see - and for this, we need your help :). We've got plans, we know how long it's going to run for, where it's going to run...but not what it says. If you've got ideas for banners, give this page a read and submit your suggestion! Many thanks, Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:28, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

curiously enough, and rather to my surprise, at the last training session we held in NYC (for a group of junior college instructors), many of the participants were of the opinion that the presence of the article feedback request decreased the confidence they felt in the quality of Wikipedia. I am however not sure of which version they had in mind. DGG ( talk ) 00:04, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

User talk:Dennis Brown/EASYMONEY

Your name is being thrown about on this page, but in positive way. Perhaps it is time to join us? It is morphing quite a bit, but there are some good ideas being thrown around, and the essay has undergone a lot of changes, and more is yet to happen. Some of your insight would be helpful. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 17:35, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

I see the discussion on the name, but where is the essay? DGG ( talk ) 23:59, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

• • • User:Dennis Brown/EASYMONEY. It is still undergoing a lot of changes, and there is a pretty wide variety of people looking at it, including at least one who COI edits himself, which I think adds some balance. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 00:49, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

The COI contributing would be me. ;-)

Some of my contributions to the essay are influenced by DGG's perspective. User:King4057 21:12, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Hi DGG. Especially seeing that I just invited Ocaasi, who is sort of the champion (I think) of the PSCOI, to chime in, I toned down the See Also. My rational is that if the essay is to focus on being something both sides of the aisle can agree on, we can only confidently say that there is disagreement. Please feel free to revert if you disagree. User:King4057 01:13, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

We do not disagree. I was not satisfied with my wording in context, but neither am I satisfied with the previous wording, or the current. is a fundamental problem, and the page is being evasive about it. It is very difficult to give advice when practice deviates widely and inconsistently from the formal guideline. Though there is a formal guideline that COI editing is strongly discouraged, there are wide differences in its interpretation, with well-regarded people here taking completely opposite positions. Some would revert to the formal position when I joined: that a COI editor may not write an article ever or even suggest one, but wait until somebody uninvolved notices the topic is important. Others would actively encourage COI editing and concentrate on improving it, emphasizing that all guidelines inherently have exceptions. (And during the period where it was most strongly discouraged, the encyclopedia nonetheless became filled with it, and most of it remains.) Even the "safe" method (AfC) that we recommend is very inconsistent in application and results, whichI will discuss elsewhere.

I therefore think it necessary to highlight this at the very start--especially because people with outside experience expect some degree of stability in large organizations, which they will not find here. It's regrettable having to start off with a warning that nothing you do will necessarily keep you out of trouble, but such is the situation. In formal organizations there is authority to appeal to, when needed for bypassing obstructive people, but there is deliberately nobody here with authority over content. Nor in most places is there such a wide contrast between our theoretical very open acceptance of newcomers, and our apparently ineradicable suspicion of them. The apparent rule is not "everybody can edit, but "everybody can edit, unless it's about a subject your deeply care about--and even so you must learn our rules before starting, though there is no practical way to learn without extensive experience here." if you do things our way, but it is impossible to learn what it is without a few years of experience.I will try a rewrite based on putting this at the beginning, not the end.

The basic problem I have is that it is being approached from the paid editor perspective, not the COI perspective. It applies just as much to non-profit or even amateur organizations, as it does to companies, and it does not depend on whether one gets compensation. The only special problem with paid is the resentment people here feel at others getting paid for doing work poorly that they do better as volunteers. DGG ( talk ) 19:38, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Indeed. I find analogies with traditional publishing very effective here. Someone in my position is only a "paid" editor in comparison to those that contribute for free. In working with professional journalists, we would both be paid. It's largely a perception problem that my work is comparable to volunteer work. Only ~20% of my job is writing articles. The rest is education, consulting and content negotiation, with up to 50+ internal stakeholders at a single company(the record so far). Molding companies to work incrementally, voluntarily accept a lack of control and endorse extreme honesty and transparency is an intricate task. An article I could write in 8 hours as a volunteer would take 8 months as a consultant. It's hard work!!

Regarding experience, I think the community should be able to expect a professional-quality engagement and professional-quality content from companies, the same way journalists expect professionalism. I'm working on getting to that level that I think should be routine. Journalists don't typically have to do much with contributed articles we offer them. The obvious (yet unrealistic) feedback is to ask editors to do volunteer work first. I suppose you could say I'm working on the private-sector solution to the experience problem. Volunteers shouldn't have to drain the community's resources (except when they choose to voluntarily, because they enjoy it) to literally work for free FOR the paid editor. So someone like me gets the paycheck, by convincing someone like you to do the work for me. On the other hand, I hope many editors will collaborate with me, because they just enjoy doing so and see value in my contributions. What we can do though is provide better instructions (the best we can).

In any case, if you do find any notable non-profits attempting to write an article with a COI, I'm particularly interested in doing some pro-bono work helping worthy non-profits that can't afford me. User:King4057 23:52, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

BTW, something I learned from you was how policies and guidelines are just a North Star as it were, that rely on good judgement from impartial volunteers; how their interpretation can vary. I applied that principal in my volunteer work here[6], resolving a dispute through good judgement instead of policy citation wars. I could see us working something similar into the essay. I think requesting factual corrections, sharing sources, etc. is fairly straightforward and non-controversial, but making substantial content contributions is where we could take a more reserved stance, expressing that most companies can't meet Wikipedia's content needs and editors may or may not be helpful. User:King4057 00:22, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

CYGNSS

Hi DGG,

Thank you for reviewing my recent article stub with Nouniquenames. I've been trying to understand what the difference is between 3rd party coverage, and press releases. Could you point me to the Wikipedia guideline (if one exists) that explains this?

Thanks, DavidDavidch12 (talk) 02:35, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

I provided about 7 sources over on Noun's Talk page. Looks like most of them just came out over the last couple days. User:King4057 13:26, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) WP:RS is the guideline on reliable sources. That is likely the best place to start. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 20:50, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Talk:Hundred Years' War

I have answered you on Talk:Hundred Years' War. Mugginsx (talk) 18:16, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Regarding the Stevens Institute of Technology

Was this ever completed? Silverseren<sup>C</sup> 21:20, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

It will be this weekend. I know I've said it before two or three times, but I'm feeling embarrassed enough to actually do it, instead of trying to learn something I haven't done before (last week, the new version of the New Pages list, this week, AfC.) DGG ( talk ) 21:28, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Hey, i've been procrastinating plenty myself. How long has it been since I helped out at PAIDHELP? I spent yesterday working on Man With A Mission and trying to decipher horribly machine translated Japanese news sources. So, yeah. But i've pledged to work through the PAIDHELP page today and get everything done. Silverseren<sup>C</sup> 21:43, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Neocleous's introduction to Cyprus law

Do you think this can be salvaged? The article is written by an SPA and is horribly spammy, but that could be fixed if the book is notable. Worldcat shows only one library holding, but Dennis Campbell, Introduction to Cyprus Law ISBN 9783902046215, which is presumably the "widely acclaimed" first edition referred to, is in 33 libraries. How would you assess it against WP:BK? JohnCD (talk) 17:01, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

For a book on the law system of a very small European nation, I would not expect to find much in WorldCat. And it fact, it seems the only comprehensive substantial English language book on the general subject listed there. Books dealing with particular branches, have 19, 6, 2, and 1 copies in WorldCat DGG ( talk ) 17:21, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your help

DGG, thanks for your help on the McKinsey & Company page. I laughed in the talk page when I read your comment, " "a 1993 Fortune profile" -- surely there's something more recent. " -- in fact the firm goes to great lengths indeed to hide compensation, so these figures and citations had to be carefully sleuthed. :) My[2011] (talk) | 20:04, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

I sort of realized that, but someone should have commented in print on this in the last 20 years. I have seen similar situations here quite dificult to handle, because we can not editorially comment. If one knows that an article is well written and researched, missing information is significant; but for a WP article neither part of that can be assumed. DGG ( talk ) 21:40, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Personal life of Jennifer Lopez

Hey, could you do me a favor? Most of the information on Personal life of Jennifer Lopez, which was deleted a couple of days ago, was not present on the main article and I would like to restore it and userfy it into my userspace. Could you do that for me? I have no intentions in creating the article again, I just think some useful information may be put back into the main article. I'd really appreciate the help. Thanks. —Hahc21 03:53, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

It would be better if you asked BWilkins first--I suggest you tell him that you will keep it only for a week or two, and will get consensus for any additions. DGG ( talk ) 20:09, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Double AfD closures

Greetings DGG. Why are the following AfDs closed twice? [7][8][9]? Regards. – Kosm1fent 07:58, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

apparently I was working too late at night. I've removed my closes as redundant--and I note that I agreed completely with the other admin. DGG ( talk ) 17:43, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! :) – Kosm1fent 17:47, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Indexing of surnames beginning with "Mac" or "Mc"

Hi DGG, if you don't mind putting your librarian's hat on for a few minutes, I would welcome your thoughts at User talk:BrownHairedGirl#Mac.2FMc_curiosity, on the indexing of surnames beginning with "Mac" or "Mc". --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:26, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Your comment at WT:RFA

I've been piled up at work, and just now catching up on an excellent discussion at WT:RFA – far better than the usual "the sky is falling, what are we to do".

I did want to quibble with one observation you made; I'll do it here because no one seems to expand on your thought, so I don't see much need to insert it into the thread. Plus I'll use it as a point of departure to make another point, which I may add to the thread, after I've finished reading it.

You remarked, "I typically decline about 1/3 of the Speedy deletions I see, but some admins close essentially everything, Either I or they must be doing it wrong." I say, "not necessarily". To make an extreme example, suppose there are 1000 xSDs, with 100 of them badly tagged. If some new admins poke around, and delete 700 "easy" ones, that leaves 300 left of which 1/3 ought to be declined. So it is possible both can be right. Now, I'm not saying that 100% closers are always right, but we'd have to check some of the close lists to be sure. Which brings me to my pother point. When I was a new admin, I half expected someone would be assigned to follow me around for some time, just to make sure I was understanding the rules correctly. Either that didn't happen, or they were very, very quiet. (I'm even more surprised it isn't SOP at OTRS, but that’s a different issue.) I think we should have a more formal review system for new admins. I know there's the ability to check with someone else, but I'd like to see something more formal.

Having made my point, I'm not sure it belongs on the thread at this time, because my suggestion isn't going to help the problems that are being discussed at the moment, so maybe I'll think some more on it, and formalize a proposal later. Maybe after getting some thoughts from people like you.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 22:26, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

You are quite correct--I was oversimplifying. Sensible new admins do only the ones that are totally obvious while they are starting--it must be very discouraging to have people revert your first admin actions, and I've seen that happen. And it is true that I will make a point of checking speedy nominations others have thought it wise to pass by, and AfDs that people don't seem to want to close; I know some others do just the same, which is how we keep long lags from developing. But I had in mind also a few long term admins who actually do decide almost all equivocal cases as delete. To expand on what you have said , in a direction of my own,

I have occasionally checked a new admins deletions if I think from the RfA there is likely to be some problems, and I suppose others do similarly. But I do not know if any people systematically reviews the admin logs the way people do new pages--if anyone does, I've noticed no sign of it. The only thing I've seen checked systematically is the very long-standing page protections. It might be a good thing to do. The AfD closes are very visible, the prods have been checked by several people before they get to the top of the list, but speedies and blocks and unblocka and protections and unprotections don't get looked at, unless someone suspects a problem. I have sometimes thought of doing it, but I have always stopped, because, to be frank about it, I don't want to see the errors. I can't pass over a clear error I do see, and I am fully aware that some admins use the tools beyond the proper limits. Some of these are my friends, & I can mention it to them from time to time quietly. But for obvious reasons most of the ones I would disagree with are by people I often disagree with, with whom relations are often not all that friendly. I don't want to spend all my time quarreling and navigating sticky situations; though I may get the errors corrected, it is not likely to improve mutual relations. (I am also aware that I too make both errors and borderline interpretations, & I suppose I even sometimes interpret things the way I would like them to be, & if I have any enemies here, I do not really want to encourage them to audit me with the utmost possible rigidity. I expect I could be able to very well support my interpretations, but as Samuel Johnson put it, nobody however conscious of their innocence wants to every day have to defend themselves on a capital charge before a jury.

When I started here, I wondered how a system with a thousand equally powerful admins who could all revert each other could possibly exist. I soon learnt the subtleties of wheel warring--there were some major arb com cases on it during my first year here which pretty much defined the limits. But more important, I also learned that even the more quarrelsome spirits here understood the virtues of mutual forbearance--and that even the most self-sufficient people do not really want to look publicly foolish. Our balance is I think over-inclined to protecting the guilty if they are popular enough, but it is not as bad as it could be, or as it often is in human societies. DGG ( talk ) 03:25, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

I smiled at your closing comment. I had the same, thought, although for the project as a whole, rather than just the admin function. I'm more recent to the project because, when I first heard about it, a few years before actually joining, I thought about the model and decided it couldn't possibly work. Oddly, I still feel that way, intellectually. If there were no such thing as Wikipedia, and I heard a proposal to create, my instinct is that it will fail miserably. I actually can't quite put my finger on why it hasn't failed.SPhilbrick(Talk) 12:52, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

User talk:Dennis Brown/CSD

I know you didn't think it was necessary, but I did agree to it and will comply fully. In one month, I will be at 3 months and will have fulfilled my obligation, assuming my own criteria is met, that two admins sign off at that time (I would ask you and Boing! since you've been involved.) I have Sections 4, 5 and 6 ready to review, which should be easy and fast to do in the different format, where I give the opinion, then later on, I give the actual result below it. Only a cursory comment is required on each section if there aren't any errors noted. This assumes you have a little time (Boing has been tied). If you don't have the time, that is fine as well as this is a lower priority than your regular rounds, to be sure. It has been a burden, but a promise is a promise. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 15:48, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

done. DGG ( talk ) 00:16, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

I noticed your two notes. I've left responses there. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 02:01, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Level one user warnings

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authority control

• Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Authority Control Integration

I'm surprised that you didn't comment. Uncle G (talk) 00:32, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

• • I had done so, at Wikipedia talk:Authority control integration proposal. I didn't think I was needed beyond that, though I did just now add my name at the just-started RfC, Wikipedia:Authority control integration proposal/RFC DGG ( talk ) 00:42, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Illwinter Game Design speedy deletion question

Hi DGG,

I just proposed my first two speedy deletions this evening and I'm afraid I may have misunderstood the criteria. I had thought that notability of created works did not necessarily confer notability on the company that created them, and that since there didn't appear to be any reliable sources writing about the comapny (as opposed to their products), the article was ripe for deletion. Would wp:prod have be a more appropriate choice, or is the article sufficient as-is?

Thanks much,

GaramondLethe 03:53, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

The explanation of this is at WP:Deletion policy.

The criteria for keeping an article at speedy are deliberately set to be very undemanding. It's an "indication of importance or significance", which is much less rigorous than WP:N. The idea behind this is that anything that might possibly be notable--even if the article itself does not make much of a case for it-- should not be judged by an individual admin, but by the community. The only articles that an admin can delete via speedy are the ones that unquestionably can not possibly be considered to belong in an encyclopedia. In the absence of the production of the games, I would normally have considered that a very small company like that gave no indication of possible importance, and speedy deleted it. With that information, it needs to be properly considered to see whether references can be found that will more clearly show the notability. I remind you of the general notability standard, WP:GNG, which is a widely accepted guideline, under which it will depend upon what sources can be found. The extent to which the sources write about the company rather than the games is a matter for discussion--the decisions here are often very much disputed interpretations.

As for whether the company is actually notable, the community will decide. In practice, based on experience here, I think it will probably depend upon both the sourcing and on the importance of the games. After all, what makes a company notable except producing notable products? Authors are notable because of the importance of what they write, musicians by what the perform, companies by what they produce. Our practice for authors and painters are fairly clear: two notable works = notability; one work, even, if it is important enough. In practice, for companies we tend to be more restrictive. For companies of this sort, that make intellectual products, it is to some extent a matter of judgment. I don't do the judging. No admin has the right to. Only if we are certain the community would remove it can we act for them.

If something indicates possible good-faith significance and you think it not notable, nominate it for prod if you think nobody is likely to disagree. If the prod is challenged, or if disagreement is likely, then AfD is the way to go. For this one, Id use AfD-- after first looking for additional references. DGG ( talk ) 04:27, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

I really appreciate taking the time to give me such a complete response. I particularly take you point about judgement being reserved for the community. There are bits of nuance of editing practice that I'm only going to pick up by making mistakes, and I now have a much better idea where this particular line lies.

Thanks for treating a newbie gently.

Best,

GaramondLethe 05:33, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Mail

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Wikimedia New York City Annual Meeting Sat Jun 30

Join us at Jefferson Market Library on Saturday starting at 1pm for our annual meeting and elections, details at Wikipedia:Meetup/NYC!--Pharos (talk) 17:27, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

CSD film

I understand a film can not qualify for CSD, or a book or a school. It seems this area is grey because it is not about a film but instead the concept of a film. I don't see what the author can do in seven days that will change the fact the film is said to be scheduled for release in 2014. It seems a hoax could survive as long as the prankster fabled it around a book or a film, with a future release date no less. IMO StringdaBrokeda (talk) 23:02, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Even more than a film not qualifying for CSD, a concept for a film, or a concept of any sort, does not qualify for CSD--it's much too uncertain a thing to be unquestionable.. Nor does it qualify for an undoubted hoax, because an undoubted hoax is something that can be seen to be a hoax on the face of it. There have been enough disputes over the application of NOT CRYSTAL to keep that criterion out of CSD territory. If you really want to argue for this, draw up a proposal for WT:CSD, but I think you will find it difficult to word one that will unambiguously apply and not give false positives. And let's avoid WP:BEANS. I don't see that we need worry that something like this would survive, because 7 days will get rid of it. DGG ( talk ) 23:16, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

No I tend to agree with the clarification given. I simply needed the additional perspective. Thank you. StringdaBrokeda (talk) 23:34, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

User talk:Materialscientist#Impact factors and infoboxes

David, could you perhaps give your opinion on this issue? Thanks! --Guillaume2303 (talk) 09:58, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

• I moved this down, perhaps you didn't see it... :-) --Guillaume2303 (talk) 07:52, 1 July 2012 (UTC)
  • I have now commented. DGG ( talk ) 16:59, 1 July 2012 (UTC)
    • Thanks!! --Guillaume2303 (talk) 20:36, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Perth (disambiguation)

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Category:Sephardi Jews topics...

Hi DGG, could you please provide your expert opinion at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2012 June 30#Category:Sephardi Jews topics. Thank you, IZAK (talk) 20:00, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

I've given my opinion, though I do not consider myself an expert in this. DGG ( talk ) 01:10, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Q. E. the journal

Well here it is [10]]. Originally, I was intereted in the topic. Then I discovered that this journal is an English version of a Russian journal. I think journals like this are very intereting because there is a collaboration between publishers operating in different countries. In this case it is a collaboration between U.S., U.K., and Russian publishers. I'd say it is obviously an effort to disseminate the science available in a given country. In this case of course it is Russian science. But more than that it seems that maybe the science community in Russia is a close-knit community. For example, the editor in chief hails from the Lebedev Physics Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The Russian publisher is Turpion, a notable publisher in the science disciplines. In addition, this particular journal was founded by a Russian (Soviet) Nobel Prize laureate about 40 years ago. Also, two authors of the journal Physics Uspekhi (published by Turpion) are 2010 Nobel Prize winners (see web page] ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 03:33, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't think it could really be considered the English edition of the Russian journal, but rather the English translation' of the Russian journal. The entire responsibility for scientific content is in the hands of the Russian editorial board. Turpion is not a Russian company, but a UK company [11] formed in order to provide translated versions of Russian journals, or, more exactly,continue the English translations of Russian journals earlier translated by a number of different enterprises, commercial and non-commercial. These translations mostly began at the end of the 1950s and the early 60s (after Sputnik), when it was realized that Russian-language science in many fields in the physical sciences was fully competitive with science outside the USSR (and in some fields of applied mathematics arguably in advance), and the Soviet government had a policy of requiring all or most publications to be in Russian. They were of very great importance in the 60s, and published both by scientific societies, such as the AIP , and specialized branches of commercial publishers such as Consultants Bureau, I think independent at first but later an imprint of Plenum. Their importance gradually declined, both because it became more acceptable to publish in English and because the collapse of the USSR greatly impaired the financial condition of Russian science , but many are still published and in some fields still quite important.

I think the entry must be the Russian title--as with Physics Uspeki which is actually and correctly a redirect to Uspekhi Fizicheskikh Nauk, and the article should cover both the Russian original and the translation. DGG ( talk ) 20:11, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Jamie Comstock

Hey DGG, how do you think this person ranks in terms of notability? If one leaves out the scandal, is there enough left? The subject is not happy with how the article looks--see User talk:Academicjc. I was alerted (or re-alerted) to the matter by JohnCD; I don't think she passes PROF and an argument can be made for BLP1E, where the 1E is negative. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 04:36, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

commented on User talk:AcademicjcUser talk:Academicjc

Thanks DGG. You have given me food for thought, and I may disagree with you less than you might think. Drmies (talk) 12:53, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Op-ed for the Signpost

Dennis Brown suggested I get your feedback on a draft op-ed I'm writing for the Signpost. Would be curious what you think. I made some tweaks based on his response. User:King4057 16:19, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

• I will give King credit for getting me to more readily accept the inevitable, and for his sincere efforts to pave a road forward on this issue that you and I have talked about previously. I think you may have some ideas or insight that could help him, as you are more familiar than I am, even if I'm more vocal. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 17:40, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

I would word it as verbose, not vocal. (smile) DGG ( talk ) 17:43, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

I have this policy selection / approach chart that aligns companies with the best approach to Wikipedia based on "corporate attributes." The Signpost op-ed is somewhat loosely based on it. I've got:

• Hands-off policy
• Monitoring & response (vandalism, overt factual corrections, etc.)
• Public relations (being a resource as discussed in the op-ed)
• Content marketing (transparently offering valuable content to Wikipedia)
• Paid editing (direct editing)

My thinking is that almost all companies should be doing PR (offer sources, answer questions, donate images, and be a helpful resource from the Talk page). Wikipedia will benefit from pushing companies in this direction. Content marketing (where I fit in) is a niche. It requires too much consulting and expertise to do well in a matter that brings real value to Wikipedia. However it's the only way to truly resolve undue weight issues, it's easier for companies with an overwhelmingly positive reputation and it's the only way to get quality articles on subjects volunteers aren't interested in. (we also can't prevent it)

So my perspective is encourage public relations, tolerate content marketing (when it's actually good), make paid editing very difficult. The attitude of tolerating PR on Wikipedia comes from dealing with paid editing, but doing PR as I define it would actually be helpful, but is almost unheard of today. That's my rant anyway. ;-) User:King4057 19:30, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

I do think we have to be realistic and expect that many will want to put their own hands on the article itself, and will need to develop guidance there as well, some may be very good at writing and the key is getting them to learn a bit first. And DGG, you always make me smile, even when you are rightfully "setting me straight". Hopefully, I will require less of that as time goes on. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 01:35, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

The problem is not only or perhaps even primarily with companies, but with non profit organizations, and pressure groups of all sorts. The problem is not primarily with skilled PR professionals, but less skilled people assigned to it, or simply amateurs. There's a good deal of COI editing of companies and products done by fans of the products, not by the companies, and some degree of conflict of interest permeates most of Wikipedia. Almost everything I ever worked on is either because I am interested in it, or want to show off my virtuosity.

And I agree with Dennis that in most cases we might as well deal with COI on the article page directly, as with other edits. King4057, and others, have asked me at times to approve article drafts they have COI with --I have refused to do so, because I will not take the responsibility for something I have not written, beyond seeing it is not blatantly objectionable. Let COI editors declare the affiliations, and then their edits will be judged appropriately. The only time that an edit needs approval on a talk p. is when it is dealing with something that is obviously susceptible, such as removing inconvenient facts.

The true question is the same with this approach as with prohibiting direct COI editing: how do we deal with COI editing from people who do not declare it. I see only two approaches. One is to have an high index of suspicion for every edit that might be influenced by conflict of interest, in essence abandoning the principle of Assuming Good Faith. The difficulty here is that very few can write material that is truly at a standard of sourcing that is proof against the possibility of bad faith--it requires not only that statements be sourced, but being confident that all the sources have been examined and fairly considered and judge in context. Very little in enWP meets that standard. This would require actual research and fact checking at a degree which is beyond our capabilities, and amounting to what is done by the most careful editorial review. This is not work for amateurs. It is easy to say, that if our standards are sufficiently high COI will not matter, but this The other approach is to require all editors to be identified. The principle of permitting anonymous editing makes us vulnerable; it is necessary for those working on certain topics, but there it might have to be assured by some confidential mechanism for assigning names. Either approach means a radical change in Wikipedia.

The only simple approach is the same we have used for other problems: patiently remove the worst of it, and go from there. DGG ( talk ) 03:39, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

The more I think about it, "advocates" is actually a good bucket for marketing, non-profit advocacy groups and other COIs in a similar category. On the other hand, your typical PR professional doesn't know what a "paid editor" "advocate" or any of that means and I think we should shoot for instructions that speak to them. I'm not sure what the solution is.

In my view there are a lot of issues with direct editing. It puts a COI in the position of "what they can get away with" instead of what impartial editors feel are an improvement. I shared an example with BusterD at one point where I refused to do edits that obviously hijacked a subject-matter article to create a promotional plug. These edits were implemented without my knowledge, against my explicit instructions and they stuck. The person that posted them lied about it despite obvious and overwhelming evidence to the contrary. But if a COI is allowed to directly edit, these obviously poor edits would be fine as long as they have a disclosure on their user page.

In another case a Fortune 500 company created an obviously promotional article with enough sources to skate by. In another, direct editing achieved greater influence on controversial content than would be achieved from the Talk page.

Allowing direct edits would mean Wikipedia and CIPR have contradicting advice. It creates an "ethics tax" because it's substantially more work to follow the bright line than directly edit and direct edits can achieve more "results". It encourages marketing to swamp Wikipedia with spam, bias, etc. and let Wikipedians clean it up instead of blocking it at the door. It creates ethical ambiguity and complexity in the instructions we provide COIs and doesn't offer companies a way to contribute with greater confidence they're doing it right (many ethical companies wouldn't dare contribute to Wikipedia in a manner Jimbo doesn't support). I think the fact that an impartial editor accepts a certain degree of responsibility for the edits is rather the whole point rather than a crux.

I guess it's the nature of the beast for their to be different perspective, but I'll tweak the op-ed to address the fact that many readers may not agree with the bright line and maybe articulate better why I support it. ;-) User:King4057 04:52, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

to take your first example, if there is a disclosure, the page will be followed, especially by the people who are most critical of paid editing. The problem is when there is not a disclosure. To take the second, people paying attention to articles on companies would catch it. If we paid half as much attention to this as to technical issues of copyright and borderline porn actors, both problems are trivial. But the fundamental limitation of a crowd-sourced project is there is no way to get anybody to do anything unless they want to. We can often force people to stop doing harmful things; we can not force them to do good ones. The solution for this is the same as for all other problems in Wikipedia: more highly interested editors with a wider range of interests. But the secret of getting them is something which can do be done by tinkering with the interface: it has to be exciting to work here. The excitement in the beginning was we were doing something new in the world that might be important. We've done that--it has become important beyond all rational expectation--we just have to maintain & improve it. Most people find maintaining ongoing projects not particularly exciting. DGG ( talk ) 05:16, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

One of the key points here is disclosure. At the end of the day, we need to go the extra mile in being as flexible as possible to insure the highest compliance with disclosure. I agree with DGG that once we know someone has a COI, more eyes will be on them so their edits to articles will be held in higher scrutity and cleaned as needed. That is one thing that many volunteers DO want to do, watch COI editors, so there is likely sufficient manpower to do so if they are fully disclosed, then direct editing will be less of a concern. If we can start them at talk, move them into article space, all the better. And keep in mind, more than a few of these PR types will end up editing other articles as well and become worthwhile contributors outside their specialty, for both practice and the love of editing. My initial motivations to be here in 2006 were both curiosity and COI editing and I ended up a non-COI admin, after all. I can't be that unique. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 12:46, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

One last observation, we want to offer respect and a sense of belonging to those who do fully disclose their COI. If we treat them as second class citizens, this won't work. Many editors will "hate" them regardless, so over time we will have to work on changing the culture of Wikipedia to accept this as a subset (but fully equal) part of the community. Maybe they need their own portal. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 19:06, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

I have a very different way of looking at it. I don't see PR people as part of the community, but more like someone who (ethically) represents a company's interest on Wikipedia. However, it seems like we are at an impasse, which is to be expected in an area where there are so many different POVs. User:King4057 20:00, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Not an impasse, just different ideas. You are right that most won't become a real part of the community, but some (like myself and you) will. I'm not fixed in any opinion here, just sharing my own perspective. I'm just saying we have to invite them in, and encourage them where we can to become part of the community. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 22:29, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia has the same blurry line between readers and editors. I don't think it's necessarily confusing to adopt a similar blurriness between advocates and volunteers. Just as it's not unusual for journalists to come to "the dark side" and all kinds of incest in traditional PR/journalism relations. But even I find that my contributions as a volunteer are more neutral than those with a COI, so I humbly request review and collaboration from editors with nothing at stake, but the reader's interest. But I think what I'm taking away here is that it isn't the Bright Line specifically, but some genuine form of collaboration or oversight - where the Bright Line is merely a way to guarantee those characteristics. User:King4057 23:54, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Do you guys think something like this would be helpful as a better place for discussion to take place?

COI Task Force

COI Task Force Objectives Determine community consensus Improve instructions and guidelines Evaluate what can be done to best achieve Wikipedia's goals as it relates to COI Task list <insert> <insert> Consensus building I find that most content produced by paid advocates violates NPOV or has other issues support oppose other votes I am interested in quality, NPOV content, when produced, regardless of the source support I find that the quality of company articles gives corporations reason to complain I am open to paid advocates that improve an article, but primarily improve the positive aspects without addressing major controversies. I believe that paid advocates are part of the community and should be treated similarly to any volunteer editor.

further discussion

• The question: I find that most content produced by paid advocates violates NPOV or has other issues is pretty loaded and guaranteed to be all supports, btw. I only issue is that Wikipedia itself doesn't distinguish between COI editors and volunteers. Even IPs are given 99% of "rights", excepting where socking would be a concern, ie: RfA. But I'm not saying that encouraging limitations is a bad thing either, just that many can become quality contributors. Many are now. Most aren't, granted. I don't know. I think I would like to hear DGG on the issue. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 01:44, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

A great deal of the content contributed to wikipedia violates NPOV, or has other related issues, such as inadequate of non-independent sourcing. I see nothing worse about paid editors than unpaid POV editors We deal with this just the same, by having uninvolved editors review the edits. If anything , the paid editors are easier to deal with, for they will give up once it becomes not worth their while to continue.

I think by now we have said everything, so the topic is closed here for at least a few days. DGG ( talk ) 23:56, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Hello

Hi, DGG. I was just wondering if you ever saw this. It's from June 1st, and it's been over a month, so I thought I'd check up on it. =) - Zhou Yu (talk) 02:31, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

CityU of Seattle

Hi DGG, thank you for your message on my page. Sorry that I have corrected the article about CityU befor I've read your advice. I appreciate that you insist on beeing neutral in the tone of an article. But when the Swiss authorities have accused the headmaster of the CityU of fraud than I am not sure how you could say what happened without using the appropriate expressions, in this case "allegations" and "fraud". The article is (as I have written) not about a subsidiary. So for a reader it is of minor interest to read something about the Swiss branch, but if you want to inform you about the reputation of something or someone, than it's quite intersting to read about allegations of fraud. And I have of course read the Wikipedia policies about neutrality. They say that while neutral terms are generally preferable, this must be balanced against clarity. And ok, I don't think that the expression "allegations of fraud" is per se not neutral, but even if that should be the case and the term is not neutral, in my opinion it's the most clear description of what happened. This is, not just a university program that became unstable.Please tell me what you think about that, kind regards, saintcyr. PS: I think it doesn't matter whether someone has a personal involvement with the issue he's describing as long as his point of view is candid and based on facts. I think some of the best articles here are written by people with a personal involvement with the issue they are describing. But though you seem to think otherwise I can assure you I have no personal involvement in the CityU. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Saintcyr1 (talk • contribs) 22:51, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

The matter must be included, but it can be done a little more subtly than you did it, as I shall demonstrate there. Among the techniques for doing this is use the word once in the article as a quotation; it need not be repeated. (And we'd need the quote not just in English translation, but in the original language used.) And it certainly must not be used in the section heading.: we do not make moral judgements, and through things are reported as there are, summaries must ber as absolutely neutral as possible. that goes for edit summaries also: loaded words should never be used there. And we consider the very word "allegations" to be non-neutral. And the entire section should be summarized, to avoid disproportionate weight. If negative information is reported disproportionately or loaded words used more than necessary, it gives the impression of holding a grudge, not of NPOV writing. It is my responsibility to prevent anyone from using Wikipedia for such a purpose, just as it is to prevent it being used to cover-up serious matters. DGG ( talk ) 23:09, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for clarifying your point of view, but I still disagree with you on that. So I have opened a discussion on the matter on the CityU talk page. Saintcyr1 (talk —Preceding undated comment added 04:46, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

DGG's a tenured and well-respected administrator with a reputation for even-handedness and an excellent grasp of our policies. You would save everyone's time if you just took his advice on how to present such a controversy without disputing it. Jclemens (talk) 05:12, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

I've commenting further, on the article talk p., Talk:City University of Seattle. I've tried to explain the standard WP policy, and also my general approach to this particular type of problems. DGG ( talk ) 18:39, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Hello Again

I was wondering why you deleted my Appitalism article. What exactly does "an eligible subject" mean? --Ne0 (talk) 04:50, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Controversy over Parsha articles

Hi DGG: Could you please take a look at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Noach (parsha). Your expert input woul`d be greatly appreciated. Thanks a lot. IZAK (talk) 18:12, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

commented there.

Thank you, IZAK (talk) 07:30, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

"What DGG says"

David, that was great. Thanks! Drmies (talk) 20:03, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Republicanism and Communism

Translated Angelillo from Spanish wikipedia which says of him being a strong advocate of the Republic. However, the source says he was communist. Does this make sense or seem contradictory to you?♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:42, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

In the Spanish Civil War, the left wing parties, including the Communists, supported the Republic; the Fascists were the ones trying to overthrow it. DGG ( talk ) 13:16, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks.♦ Dr. Blofeld 14:12, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Georges Goyon. Born 1905. Can't find a death date. Still living? He appears to have published works in the 1980s and 1990s, might be possible.♦ Dr. Blofeld 14:23, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Cluj-Napoca

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An academic

• Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#Oktay Sinanoğlu
• Oktay Sinanoğlu (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

For you and your talk page watchers. Uncle G (talk) 11:23, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

• I can & will deal with this in the usual way, by writing a straightforward bio. I apologize for not getting to this earlier, but I still chasing all the threads here after being at Wikimania. Attendance there, as at any conference, inhibits for a short while the actual work at hand. It does, however, clarify many general matters. DGG ( talk ) 01:18, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Having more than one sentence would be good, and my offer on the noticeboard extends to your talk page stalkers too. [...] Uncle G (talk) 09:46, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
    • Just to clarify things, I intend to work on the article page, just as I have already corrected an error there. If you regard this as wrong, tell me, and I'll work on other topics. . I have never done article work on talk pages or told others to--I know it has become a frequent practice, but to me the spirit of Wikipedia is live editing. Those who can not be trusted to edit live should not be editing at all. DGG ( talk ) 15:45, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
      • I'm telling them that they aren't excluded if they want to help. Your talk page watchers cannot necessarily edit through full protection as you did. ☺ Uncle G (talk) 16:11, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
        • My misunderstanding. If nobody gets to it before me, I'll see what I can do. (Personally, some of the people you only warned I would have blocked, but it does no harm to wait until they continue. Another question: what's your opinion on revdel for many(most) of the existing edits? DGG ( talk ) 19:40, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
          • There are less problematic revisions in the history. This one may possibly have factual errors, but it isn't an attack piece. However, the very next edit is an editor in Istanbul reverting to a preferred version undoing two years' worth of edits including copyediting for correct English and insertion of source citations. As bobrayner noted on the BLP noticeboard, some of the problems in this article go back all of the way to the first revision. If you're willing to start from scratch, with none of the prior content used, as I suspect you are, I am happy to revision delete the whole history up to the 7 word stub under criterion #2 and exchange full protection for blocking of individuals. Let me know if the Istanbul IP addresses or Fightingagainstlies start edit warring with bad biographical content again. Uncle G (talk) 11:06, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Graduate Library School, University of Chicago, 1928-1989.

Hi David, this article could use some help from you. --Guillaume2303 (talk) 17:32, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

It will get it, but not immediately. DGG ( talk ) 01:19, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Wikimania

So good to see you, as always. But particularly at Wikimania - I hope you had as much fun as I did. --David Shankbone 01:40, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

I can't tell really how much fun you had, but I think I did also. DGG ( talk ) 03:41, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

User retention

FYI. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:12, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

commented there as boldly as i was able. DGG ( talk ) 04:37, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

WP:CP question

Hi, I didn't get a chance to say hello at Wikimania, but I did attend your interesting talk.

However, I'm writing about a different issue; I'm trying to help clean up WP:CP. I see Richard F. Edlich is listed, as a result of an edit you made in May. However, you didn't identify the possible source. I ran it through User:CorenSearchBot/manual, which isn't definitive, but it passed. I agree with you that the article needs cleanup, but at the moment, I'm narrowly focused on copyvio issues, so wondering if you recall which section troubled you, so I could zero in on it.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 14:15, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Well for starters, see [12]. I suspect this is one of those annoying cases, where bits are lifted from a variety of sources. This may also be a likely candidate for other bits, but it's behind a pay wall. Voceditenore (talk) 16:03, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm not yet seeing it. A Duplication Detector for the article, and the book turns up a couple four word phrases:

• cornstarch on medical gloves
• food and drug administration

but nothing longer. The word "potentiated " jumped out at me, but it isn't in the book. Maybe it is in the article behind the paywall. I'll see if I can get someone to check.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 18:57, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

As the result of talks with a number of paid editors at Wikimania, and exchanges of views with others working on the problem of promotionalism, I am increasingly paying attention to promotional editing. The entire article is written in the style of a press release, and that sort of thing is almost always copied or closely paraphrased from previous press releases. If not copyvio it needs almost as much rewriting as if it were, but finding copyvio is the convenient shortcut to deal with articles like this. Checking carefully the site of the university & affiliated organizations is a the way I usually go about it: much is often in non-googleable internal pages. But I think he is certainly notable, so it's worth some effort. I probably should have done it myself, but there is so much that the work needs to be distributed, What particularly struck me was such hyped phrases as "first physician to do gastroscopy at the University of Minnesota Hospitals." -- what would be notable, of course, would be "first physician to do gastroscopy" in the US. Or a instance where he was not the writer of the petition, but one of the 12 to sign a joint petition. The claims may be valid, or they may exaggerations. Such is the manner of press releases for physicians. The key reference, (1) refers to many of these as being collaborative efforts. I'll follow it up.

There's an interesting paradox. The easiest way for someone to get a good article is to have someone write a poor one, and have us fix it. DGG ( talk ) 19:48, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

  DGG ( talk ) 19:48, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm officially discouraged; no substantial overlap in may of the sources, but a fair amount with the one Voceditenore identified. And I agree with your paradox, one of my pet peeves is an editor who starts a piece of crap, then expects others to clean it up.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 20:01, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

What I am especially concerned by , are the paid editors who start a piece of crap which is nonetheless presumably the best they can do for the money and with their usually very limited experience, and then we volunteers rescue it. Especially if we entirely rewrite, they have been paid for bad work , but have caused us to do good unpaid work, often on something that might be technically notable , but would not otherwise have been covered. The only reason I am willing to work extensively on this is that he is quite notable, & we ought to cover him.

What you have found demonstrates the limit of the comparison approach to copyvio. I may not search further either--it needs so much rewriting that any copyvio will be removed in the process. I may get to it in the coming week. DGG ( talk ) 20:56, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Deletion review response thank you / Tutoring newbies on how to do online research

I left a thank you for your response — and unrelated question(s) — here. Another thing that maybe we agree on is the importance of knowing how to do research. I really like Wikipedia's Search Engine usage guidelines and tutorial, and have tried to link to them from Wikipedia:Article titles — because I think it's important to research usage when deciding the best article title, best category title, or the most appropriate term to use — but my attempts to link to this have been repeatedly reverted by people who think they own anything related to the MoS. Likewise, for the same reason, I have been unable to add links from Wikipedia:Article titles to the regional MoS guides. The article on category naming conventions also does not explain how to search existing categories or link to the above article on how to use search engines to research the best category title, either. Maybe you have some advice or ideas on this? LittleBen (talk) 13:51, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

I discovered in my first year here that there were some parts of Wikipedia where despite my interest in the subject, for one or another reason I was unlikely to be very effective. Prominent among these were the MOS and categorization. I am a little concerned with article titles, and in that field, fundamentally I disagree with you -- I think the best article title should be the clearest and fairest, and counting ghits or the equivalent is usually irrelevant. And to the extent I understand categorization debates the problem there is often finding a sufficiently clear wording to encompass the desired set of article. I think the MOS is a little more rational than it was 4 years ago; if I were doing it, I'd limit to to pure matters of style, which does not include choice between article titles, just such matters as whether to use singular or plurals. But in questions like this , your opinion is as valid as mine, and there is no point in arguing the issue here--neither of us is "right". DGG ( talk ) 23:56, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

My main question was aimed at getting your opinion on "Tutoring newbies on how to do online research". You don't seem to have answered this, but maybe this is something that Kudpung is more interested in than you are. My comment on article titles was related to this: there seem to be many people creating new articles without adequately researching if there is an existing article on the subject already. Part of the problem is that Wikipedia Search, by default, only shows if there is an article title that is an exact match to the search term; it does not show if there is a category that matches the search term. If it did, it would be far easier to find related material. It is difficult to work out how to search categories. Terminology (e.g. article titles and category titles) is often inconsistent for this reason. Just one example: There are Web browser engine and List of web browser engines articles, but there are nine Comparison of layout engines (XXX) articles, and the category is Category:Layout engines. I don't understand your reference to counting ghits, and don't understand how my viewpoint disagrees with yours. LittleBen (talk) 02:25, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Incidentally, I got another response on the Deletion review thread that pointed me to a discussion here that may interest you. LittleBen (talk) 02:23, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I apologize for not covering everything. The WP search function is not the problem; if it does not find an article, it suggests searching for the term. Perhaps the page could be revised to suggest that first, rather than as an alternative to making an article. I think there has been some previous debate on whether it should initially search for the term rather than the article. I also have seen it said that by the standards of other search engines, it could use some sophistication. About 1/3 of people come here from Google etc., and though those search engines rank article titles at the top, they also include articles with the term anywhere. But the Google search engine is, deliberately, getting dumber and dumber; it is no longer possible to use the "+" character as an intersection, and Google Scholar has removed the limit to subject field possibility in advanced search.

Many apparently duplicate articles are created deliberately as a POV fork, others in the mistaken belief that WP includes essays on very specific term-paper type topics. Many are simply naive, as when someone submits a two sentence article on something where we have extensive coverage.

I think teaching people to search properly is a part of research, but the main result of its failure is not the duplicate articles, but the unreferenced articles. Way back when Google was new and exciting, we librarians used to impress the students by showing we could use it more effectively than they could. (The secret is partially cleverness and experience in selecting search terms, but mainly just persistence--something like 90% of users stop at the first page of results--I will if necessary scan through even a few thousand. I have found that people learn by experience better than didactic instruction, provided they are alert enough to pay attention to what experience shows them. Certainly we should do a better job teaching beginners, but the way I think works best is to show them one at a time how to do better. A person learns best when one individual person shows them how to fix their errors and misconceptions, and this is not done by templates. Besides Kudpung & myself, very few NPPatrollers or even admins take the trouble and patience. It's too much for a few people--we need everyone who is able to do it. We progress not by discussing how to work, but by working. DGG ( talk ) 03:38, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I agree that we progress not by discussing how to work, but by working. You seem to be better at that (more productive) than I am ;-) But sometimes it's more scalable if we offer others the opportunity of learning how to do the work (not specifically thinking of Tom Sawyer ;-). Thanks and best regards. LittleBen (talk) 04:23, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks

I really appreciate your help and kind words about the edits going on at Bibi Aisha. I'd just gotten to that page on a Wikipedia ramble and knew it couldn't stand as it was. Anyway, it has been YEARS since I got involved in anything with Wikipedia in depth. You taking the time to give me an "atta girl/boy" has pushed me to get back at it under my actual username. Thanks so much. 98.94.58.75 (talk) 02:55, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

AFT5 newsletter

Hey again all :). So, some big news, some small news, some good news, some bad news!

On the "big news" front; we've now deployed AFT5 on to 10 percent of articles, This is pretty awesome :). On the "bad news", however, it looks like we're having to stop at 10 percent until around September - there are scaling issues that make it dangerous to deploy wider. Happily, our awesome features engineering team is looking into them as we speak, and I'm optimistic that the issues will be resolved.

For both "small" and "good" news; we've got another office hours session. This one is tomorrow, at 22:00 UTC in #wikimedia-office <sup>connect</sup> - I appreciate it's a bit late for Europeans, but I wanted to juggle it so US east coasters could attend if they wanted :). Hope to see you all there!

FYI

[13] As suggested. :) I think our next step is making sure that the code is correct, and then we can start implementing. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 17:48, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. It was suggested by several people at Wikimania that we quickly make similar changes in level 4 and 4im, and then consider whether to combine levels--that part would need an rfc. The easiest way to go now would probably be to go to three levels, by combining 2/3 , to avoid having to rewrite the level 1 warnings. DGG ( talk ) 21:54, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

COI+ certification proposal

I've thought of an idea that might break our current logjam with paid editing. I'd love your sincere feedback and opinion.

• WP:COI certification

Feel free to circulate this to anyone you think should know about it, but please recognize that it hasn't agreed upon by either PR organizations or WikiProjects or the wider community. It's also just a draft, so any/many changes can still be made. Thanks and cheers, Ocaasi EdwardsBot (talk) 15:00, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

I've commented there. I disagree with the key part of the approach. All editors should edit directly and take responsibility for their edits. Otherwise, the certification idea has some possibilities. DGG ( talk ) 19:22, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

MagLev (software)

It is recommended that you only use a wp:proposed deletion only if you believe no one will contest it. Probably should have used a wp:speedy deletion instead. Then the page creator should not remove the template. Cheers Jim1138 (talk) 06:42, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

There was no way I could have used a speedy: software does not fit into a7, and the article was not highly promotional. Prod is often worth a try, for while it might be contested, it sometimes encourages people to improve the article and may make AfD unnecessary. The more things that can be kept out of AfD , the better. DGG ( talk ) 07:18, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

I have come to the conclusion that if it has been edited in the last month, that a PROD is not a good idea. Wait until things quite down then sneak it in. Cheers Jim1138 (talk) 07:29, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

I am not happy with the concept of trying to wait until there is little activity from the original editor, and then trying to sneak it past Prod. This is unfair to the editors, & the article, for they may sometimes be able to meet the objections. About one-fourth of prodded articles get improved well enough to be kept. The original contributor is the most likely person to do it, and the main problem is in catching him while he is still paying attention. In this case, one of the most reliable editors in this subject worked on the article, and if he did not think it worth deletion, I accept his view of it. DGG ( talk ) 14:56, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Weekly Torah portion parsha discussions again

Hi DGG. Please see Talk:Chayei Sarah (parsha)#Discussion about sources for new discussions about the content and sources of the 54 weekly Torah portion articles. Please keep track of that discussion as it unfolds. Thank you, IZAK (talk) 07:12, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Regarding Rollback

Hi, DGG.

You told me to contact you after July passed regarding rollback, so here I am, contacting you. =) - Zhou Yu (talk) 18:17, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Page Triage newsletter

Hey all. Some quick but important updates on what we've been up to and what's coming up next :).

The curation toolbar, our Wikimedia-supported twinkle replacement. We're going to be deploying it, along with a pile of bugfixes, to wikipedia on 9 August. After a few days to check it doesn't make anything explode or die, we'll be sticking up a big notice and sending out an additional newsletter inviting people to test it out and give us feedback :). This will be followed by two office hours sessions - one on Tuesday the 14th of August at 19:00 UTC for all us Europeans, and one on Wednesday the 15th at 23:00 UTC for the East Coasters out there :). As always, these will be held in #wikimedia-office; drop me a note if you want to know how to easily get on IRC, or if you aren't able to attend but would like the logs.

I hope to see a lot of you there; it's going to be a big day for everyone involved, I think :). I'll have more notes after the deployment! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 19:52, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	Thank you for your help with the Stevens Institute of Technology article. Another editor came in at the end when you get tied up, but your feedback throughout was critical to the structuring of the page. I learned a lot about proper writing and editing from your feedback, and I really appreciate your help and guidance. QueenCity11 (talk) 21:15, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Defender of the Wiki Barnstar
	For your ongoing work at deleting spam and resumes. Bearian (talk) 18:57, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

New Pages newsletter

Hey all :)

A couple of new things.

First, you'll note that all the project titles have now changed to the Page Curation prefix, rather than having the New Pages Feed prefix. This is because the overarching project name has changed to Page Curation; the feed is still known as New Pages Feed, and the Curation Toolbar is still the Curation Toolbar. Hopefully this will be the last namechange ;p.

On the subject of the Curation Toolbar (nice segue, Oliver!) - it's now deployed on Wikipedia. Just open up any article in the New Pages Feed and it should appear on the right. It's still a beta version - bugs are expected - and we've got a lot more work to do. But if you see something going wrong, or a feature missing, drop me a note or post on the project talkpage and I'll be happy to help :). We'll be holding two office hours sessions to discuss the tool and improvements to it; the first is at 19:00 UTC on 14 August, and the second at 23:00 on the 15th. Both will be in #wikimedia-office as always. Thanks! Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:01, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

works, sort of. Long lag before it updates, and it managed to crash Safari DGG ( talk ) 02:14, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

micro RNAs -- Thanks!

Hi there!

Regarding the message you left on my talk page, I just wanted to say thanks for helping out there. As a relatively new editor, I'm still trying to figure things out; even though I've learned pretty quickly, I still make a lot of mistakes (see my talk page if you don't believe me....), and just wanted to say thank you for catching something that could have been bad.

How would I go about making such a list article, and then redirects, without destroying the ability to make the pages or cause loss of references? I'll be honest, part of the reason I suggested it in the manner I did was because I didn't know how to do it myself, and so couldn't be BOLD.

Thanks again for your help! (And for not biting...seriously, there's a lot of that on my talk page. :/ ) Cheers, Zaldax (talk) 13:31, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Special new pages

Hi David. I agree that the new feed still has a long way to go before it is perfect. I haven't seen CorenSearchBot very active lately - is it still running? I'm rather concerned that some users are developing a tutorial for it, especially as they have only recently discovered it and thier own patrolling may need some improvement. Do continue to post on Wikipedia talk:Page Curation as I'm not entirely confident that all the issues and/or user requests for features will be addressed; there is quite a long list now, and the devs' priorities may not match those of the patrollers. Your feedback especially, is extremely important. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:19, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

In my experience, developing a set of instructions for doing something is an excellent way of learning how to use it. The problem, and not just here, with help and tutorial and allied pages, is nobody ever bothers to change them. I'll be there--my concern is complementary to yours--they will spend their efforts on useless features. DGG ( talk ) 03:13, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

In my opinion, broadly construed, when the Foundation takes the initiative to develop something, while they are practically obliged to request feedback from the community, they are often are only paying lip service to the comments. Wikimania 2012 was my first one, and I was a little concerned with the emphasis on, and awards for, their work. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:39, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Considering the perfectly justifiable things people had been saying about them over the previous year, possibly they needed some encouragement--that was certainly in my mind when I talked to them or about them. The test will be whether they do better this year, which means not only doing more positive work but avoiding the actually harmful. Another test, in a different way, will be whether the developing semi-independent and allied programs trying to escape their bureaucratization merely copy it; this is the aspect that really has me worried. There's a tendency to think one is engaging in revolutionary overthrow of bureaucracy, when all that happens is an attempt to find better bureaucrats. As a very current example, I want to see if we actually remove all the apparatus at the Counter-Vandalism Unit. Then we can proceed to all similar.

We are destroying our own most important achievement: WP showed it was possible to do the highest level of work with minimal overhead. But the very people who have accomplished this are apparently so contaminated by the general world, that the only way they can think of making further improvements is to increase the administrative layers. We have a central admin that achieves too little; the response is to develop a chapters organization to supplement it. We have an education program that produces more apparatus than product; we replace it by a independent group working in the same fashion. We can't get people to instruct users, so the few of us who do instruct set up projects to recruit people at the cost of even what we have been doing. When we can't finish a job, we discuss how to divide it into multiple jobs that we equally will be unable to finish. And I sit here complaining about this, while I have actual users waiting for me to attend to them. DGG ( talk ) 04:10, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Civility Barnstar
	For your comments at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#User:Geo_Swan_and_AfDs. Bearian (talk) 00:20, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

City University of Seattle

This article has come up at OTRS and I'm trying to get a handle on its current state. I see that some sourced negative statements were removed (diff) and then some unsourced positive statements too. (diff). I trust that this article has gotten the attention it needed and is under watchful eyes, but could you help me to understand why it was appropriate to remove all of the negative content as well? I briefly looked at the [German] sources and 3 of them looked initially ok while 3 clearly did not. Just looking for a little guidance if you get a minute. Cheers! Ocaasi <sup>t | c</sup> 23:05, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

I've neglected following up this one. I'll email you about it in a few minutes, as some of it is indeed on OTRS, and I need to give an opinion about individual motives. DGG ( talk ) 23:28, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

tomorrow, actually--it's a little complicated. DGG ( talk ) 09:17, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Message left in your future archive

Visiting your talk page just now and admiring the layout of your archive list, I was surprised to see that the archive for August 2013 had become a bluelink. That is because Ariiise (talk) has left a message there asking how to get at his declined AfC submission to edit it. I have answered him on his talk page (copyvio so can't restore, will email if required) and thought about restoring the pattern by deleting your Aug 13 archive, but will leave you to do that if you choose.

It's a defect of the AfC system that where a submission is rejected, tagged as copyvio and deleted, the submitter is given the standard template that says "If you would like to continue working on the submission, you can find it at <redlink>." Also, if the AfC template is the first item on a new talk page, it should be preceded by {{welcome}} or some similar welcome message. I will suggest that, if I can find the right place.

My reason for visiting your archive was to look again at this, as I am drafting an AfD for that article. I will write about that separately. Regards, JohnCD (talk) 09:31, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

It is indeed a defect, one that shows the hasty and inadequate programming of the system. Once I realized it, I have been manually changing the notice on the user talk pages I deal with to eliminate that nonsensical advice, and to say directly why the article was unacceptable. I have earlier today left a long comment dealing with this and other defects in the AfC system at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation. The responses, as best I can make out, seem to indicate the maintainers are aware of the problem and intend to fix it. I;m not so sure they are aware of the importance other problems. DGG ( talk ) 09:40, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

User:Aaty87/MD Rabbi Alam=

I am a little puzzled at your having declined the AfC with the reason " The content of this submission includes material that meets Wikipedia's minimum standard for inline citations. Please cite your sources using footnotes. For instructions on how to do this, please see Referencing for beginners. Thank you." with the contradictory and incompatible edit summary "Declining submission: submission lacks inline citations " I can think of several reasons for declining this article, including the unlikelihood of encyclopedic notability , but I do not see how citation format is a reason for declining this or any other article, considering that except for special cases such as potentially negative BLP, there is no requirement for ay specific citation format. I agree the way the references are presented in this article is confusing and ought to be fixed--the references at the bottom are most of them not at all to the point in any case--but I dod not see this as a reason for declining the article.

I am concerned not about hte article per se, but in our giving correct advice to beginners. DGG ( talk ) 08:11, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

That is quite the old decline you dredged up there, seeing that the time stamp for it is roughly 3 months in the past. Roughly 3 months ago the AFC Helper script still contained a default decline reason for article's that didn't have any inline citations (Using that one automatically placed the quited template and edit summary). Between 3 months ago and now that reason was removed from the helper script for exactly the same reason as you state above - it isn't exactly a valid reason to decline a page in the first place.

Right now there shouldn't be any new AFC article's that have this decline reason unless someone manually places it or uses a very old script version, though you may still find it on some of the older pages. Excirial <sup>(Contact me,Contribs)</sup> 10:07, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Ah. That explains it. I will be making some suggestions about revising the reasons further at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation DGG ( talk ) 15:42, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Interesting

As per our conversation, I am not experienced enough for this one. Is this original research? the author states it is his thesis. What are the guidelines for this? I don't want to mark it ORIGINAL RESEARCH or WP:NOT until I am clear on how to handle. Please advise. Cheers! Stella <sup>BATPHONE</sup><sub>GROOVES</sub> 02:39, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

. I saw it yesterday, and I too have been trying to figure out what to do with it. It's a university essay, but might have potential as an article or articles, though not in its current form or under its current title. DGG ( talk ) 03:00, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

I saw Arthur Drews, and have also been trying to work out what to do, or who to ask. 2 month, 1000 edits, 200k of words... the author clearly has energy and passion... if it were written with NPOV then we'd deluge him/her in barnstars... but it appears not, and hence so complicated... >.< -- Quiddity (talk) 08:50, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

I do not think it is a violation of NPOV (it presents other people's POV on the Christ myth theory, not th article author's view--do not confuse it with the rather absurd discussion here on the article about that theory), but rather OR--extensive analysis of the sources and drawing conclusions considerably beyond what we usually do. See also Bruno Bauer, shorter but with similar references, and the German WP article from which it seems to have been carefully translated or perhaps written in parallel. i had not spotted the bio--the partial duplication is an anticipation of what I would have suggested--splitting it into articles on the key people, and perhaps one on the key book also. Since I have some interest in the subject, I'll discuss it with him. I agree he could be an extremely valuable contributor. DGG ( talk ) 19:18, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

No (word)

I'm looking at this old diff of No (word), and wondering if its worth trying to rescue (particularly sections 2/3/4), and how to best do so. (It was turned into a redirect to Yes and no in 2011). Thoughts? -- Quiddity (talk) 08:57, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

I think it has potential. Needs other examples, and probably removing the overlap with Just say No, and a section on No! as an expression of surprise; look also at No (symbol), which could use expansion for a wider range of cultural references as well. DGG ( talk ) 21:47, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

McKinsey

Hi DGG. I know you're not comfortable making proxy edits, however I submitted a {{request edit}} on the Talk page for the history section we've been working on and I would welcome your comment on whether the drafted content is an improvement. User:King4057 19:34, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

I'll get there tonight. DGG ( talk ) 21:51, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

The section looks good; I made some copyedits. I can't read an article without doing that in the background. Your restoration of the core principles was appropriate. Often this sort of thing is overemphasized, since they rarely say much beyond platitudes, but in an article of this importance those few sentence are suitable. Are there any particular other issues? point me to them a little more precisely. I am beginning to think that this article should try for at least GA, and possibly FA, but I don't have experience with getting articles through those processes. DGG ( talk ) 05:04, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

The HubSpot article I wrote was nominated for GA by another editor back in May, but not yet reviewed. A GA-quality McKinsey article would be a truly massive undertaking considering their notability and an impracticality at our current pace, but we'll see.

I think what is needed is to review the Talk page discussion and indicate whether there are any outstanding issues from prior discussion that would suggest fulfilling the request edit would be problematic. I noticed - for example - that User:DES has reviewed some of my request edits, and he relies on the assessment of editors involved in the article. You can see here that two editors provided positive feedback on the work of SAS Institute, however he is waiting for a less casual approval from editors who are subject-matter experts.

You may - at your discretion - choose to do any, none, or all of the following:

• Review the discussion and draft and indicate on the Talk page if you feel the request edit should be fulfilled
• Use the {{request edit | D | A}} template (which I helped create largely with you in mind) to request that I implement the edits myself.
• I have noticed sometimes it helps to have an impartial editor ask for any last comments, etc.

User:King4057 20:07, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Chunk! No, Captain Chunk!

Hello, the page title Chunk! No, Captain Chunk! is under some sort of protection which I cannot include the work I have done to it. I was wondering If you could help me in removing the protection so I can add my sandbox work to the article? Thank you in advance. Jonjonjohny (talk) 22:19, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

• The latest version was a pure advertisement and useless. The previous one was deleted at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chunk! No, Captain Chunk. I am not knowledgeable enough in the subject to tell if your version has sufficiently good referencing to meet the objections--I am unable to judge the reliability of most of your sources. The admin who closed the AfD deletion was Wifione--you should first ask him on his talk page. If he declines to do it, and you wish to ask for a community decision, the proper course is to ask at WP:Deletion Review. When I see it there, I will undelete the version deleted at AfD for comparison. DGG ( talk ) 00:36, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Need a second opinion

Hey, I have a question for you. I've been working on the article for Victoria Foyt after having seen the whole "Save the Pearls" debacle. I figured that if anyone was going to add this stuff, I probably should. I've been debating for a while about spinning the criticism section into a separate article, as there are a lot of sources out there about it. I'm just not entirely sure if I should or not. I could keep the article as it is on the author's page, but I think there's enough to justify a separate article. The controversy is a little 50/50, some complaining about the author but really only in relation to the book. I know that if I do create the article, it will be a magnet for people looking to score a few hits against the author via an article about her book as they did with the Foyt article. After the news got out about the book there were a few PRODs for Foyt's article that had no merit. So I'm a bit torn. I've made a quick and dirty version of the article, so if you want to look at it and see if there's enough there to justify an article, let me know. There's still a few reviews and stuff I have to put on here that I couldn't put onto the other article for reasons due to room. (User:Tokyogirl79/Save the Pearls: Revealing Eden) If not, I won't be terribly upset. I just think that it might be getting to the point where there's enough to spin off onto another article and make the section about the controversy in the author's article smaller since we'd have a separate article for the book. Tokyogirl 10:57, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

You have two good choices: either (1) give only a one or two sentence description of each of the books in the main article mentioning the controversy, and put all the details for STP including the controversy in the main article for the book, and when the series appears, rewrite that article on the book to be about the series, or (2) combine everything into one article. and, once the second book in the series appears, move the material on the first book into an article on the series. A single article on the author is not too large to include the necessary content--the question is rather of proportion. The advantage of making a separate article on the book is pre-empting someone less skilled doing it. I think you saw that yourself. When there are many similar comments, you do not have to put them all in the text--just quote the most important, and give references to all., e.g. "There were similar comments from other critics" -- and then the ref links. That way they can all be found, and the text remains more readable. The controversy is about the book, unless it also criticizes other works of hers. (It seems clear what happened: she though she was being subtle, but was too heavy-handed about it, and was widely misread--and the names were very unfortunate. She needed a better editor or agent.). btw, have your read the book?--I have always been reluctant to work on articles on works I have not seen, beyond the utterly obvious, or a quick rescue.

Incidentally, we don't usually include magazine articles in a bibliography unless the author is famous. Nor in the lede, unless they're very important: I've moved it to the main text. If they were to be in a bibliography, they would need to be specified exactly. And try to cite reviews of the films from something more impt than local journals if at all possible. DGG ( talk ) 21:21, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

• I have, actually. It's sort of an interesting read if you look at it from an experimental view point. It's not as awful as some make it out to be but it's still fairly bad as far as plot and such goes. Your opinion of the book is fairly accurate. A lot of reviews have been calling her naive over racial/social issues, so I think that played a part as well in how she depicted a lot of things. That's part of the reason I've been so careful to put her rebuttals in the page and to be neutral in how I wrote the plot. I think I'll incubate the book article in my userspace for the time being and see if anything else comes out about the book or if she does go through with any sequels. Right now I think that it's just easier and a little safer to have everything in the author's page for right now, plus I want to ensure that I get the page just right before launching it. As evidenced by the whole Emily Giffin thing, people tend to like to vandalize or add things that really don't belong on Wikipedia. I might put a separate page in a month or two, but the more I think about it the more I think that right now it'd be best to lie low for a while until the general public outcry against the book dies down. I've created redirects to the author's page that I've been watching, so hopefully nobody will create the book article any time soon. If they do, I'll put in what I've done but right now I think I'll sit on this for a while.

Thanks for the input about the sources! I'm still getting used to sifting through RS for the most part. I'm a lot better than I originally was when discerning sources but I'm still learning what is bonafide (a lengthy review in a big magazine), what's not (a blog review), and what falls in the middle (local reviews).Tokyogirl79 (talk) 04:05, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

David R. Hawkins

In the Deletion Review of David R. Hawkins There seems to be some contention over which arguments you felt were prejudiced. --Iconoclast.Horizon (talk) 16:57, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Is it possible to get the talk page up as well for this article, as a well or should that be requested else where? --Iconoclast.Horizon (talk) 03:19, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

done. DGG ( talk ) 05:17, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I wasn't able to look back at what happened back before AfD, I only caught it by happen chance the day before it was closing and didn't have time to review. But since you have chimed in on the article I will say this: What you actually have here is a case of "power-tripping" by admin JohnCarter and I don't say that lightly. I had never encountered him before this AfD and since then he has pursued this article, this author on German language project, threatened sanctions against me for contesting him on the issue and made numerous accusations about my honesty, integrity (and flat out called me a liar, with no cause) suggesting that I might possibly re-create this article under another name as well; consequently he has followed and pursued my past edits and sent another article to AfD, essentially out of spite over this issue, and this has all been in the last week. His behavior is not uncommon but it is still unbecoming of an administrator here. These are just heavy-handed tactics and bullying to get his point across. So his long discourses in that DRV are his way of "getting his way" so to speak. The other "endorsers" seem to associate with him regularly. As I have stated, I do not wish to have the article userfied, nor will I personally contribute to the article other than provide the information I have collected thus far in my files. I actually don't care for the author personally but from what I can see, just because he has very "fringe" qualities does not disqualify the rest of his notability, his more mainstream notoriety nor entirely all of the sources that deal in spiritual matters.--Iconoclast.Horizon (talk) 07:18, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

It is usual for me and I hope other admins to look at other article by someone I encounter. Sometimes the results are reassuring, sometimes not. People here tend to be very impatient The long arguments you have been giving are not as helpful as short compact statements would be.

I do see that you and he have gotten into a unfruitful conflict with each other. I suggest what I always do in such cases, that you avoid him and his articles in the future. I am about to say the same to him. It has nothing to do with the merits of the situation. We're trying to get on with the work of building an encyclopedia,not achieving justice. Inevitably in our system some notable subjects will be rejected, some non-notable ones included. The way to avoid being frustrated with that is to work on a variety of topics. DGG ( talk ) 23:27, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Slightly abridged comment of mine at the Hawkins AfD, explaining some general matters of sourcing and notability

There is a problem with articles where all the sources available are those in support of some weird idea, because nobody sensible would conceivably bothered to take it seriously. (this frequently is the situation for articles on paranormal phenomena) But we have no authority to decide on the weirdness of an idea. We can say something is self published, or published by a fringe press. We can add that it is held in very few libraries. But we can not judge on what is fringe and not fringe based on our own intellectual understanding unless there is a RS saying so. We cannot be concerned that, giving whatever factual information there may be, would mislead the reader & we therefore shouldn't publish it. We tend to solve the problem by using biased language and loaded words, but NPOV means Neutral wording. Anything else is an expression of our own OR and our own bias, however correct they may be.

And I accept there is a serious and general problem about local coverage of local authors, and PR-infuenced interviews. We're getting a lot of this, in all subjects. It has no particular relationship to pseudoscience or kookiness--it is even more frequent for poets and novelists and musicians. And businessmen and lawyers and doctors. And student athletes and performers, and town politicians. And not just people: restaurants, real estate brokerages, insurance agencies, merchandisers of all types of products and services. We try to deal with the problem with WP:LOCAL and NOT MEMORIAL. I have consistently argued and will continue to argue that local book reviews of a local author are meaningly indiscriminate, and routine interviews even in national media are essentially PR, with anything the interviewee says being just his autobio and any tributes or complements the interviewer pays him just conventional polite conversation to get him talking. This is one of the reasons I thing the N=2RS rule, the GNG, should be depreciated, and notability of a person or firm judged by whether they have done something important. The assumption that only notable people will get press coverage is amusingly naïve--I find it hard to believe that even 8 or 10 years ago we were quite that unsophisticated. DGG ( talk ) 23:27, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Policy on Books and Authors

In regards to the David R. Hawkins article, one editor, (who originally requested deletion) has taken it upon himself to remove the published works from the author based on what appears to be an misinterpretation of policy regarding authors who are both independently published and who also publish works through their own publishing company. Is there some way to get a consensus and clarification on this policy or someone who might have a third-party input on the policy as it is being used to delete the author's works? Discussion is also on the article talk as to why he claims to be doing so. --Iconoclast.Horizon (talk) 11:01, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

1. Self-published books have been included in bibliographies for some literary authors who have self-published some of their works. They can be listed here if sufficiently significant, possibly in a separate section--just as I would always separate peer-reviewed articles from non peer-reviewed publications for academics.
2. This is too important a change in an article to make during a deletion discussion. I shall probably revert it. DGG ( talk ) 17:31, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Butting in where I don't belong here. On the deletion review page, you made a good point regarding notability of well-known fringe theories. I added a couple of comments regarding specific application of that idea, and I think you, who are probably more involved in policies and guidelines than I am, would be a very good person to respond. Also, in addition to the specific indicated there, I remember a almost completely rejected Seventh-day Adventist archaeologist whose name I've forgotten who found, among other things, clear evidence in his travels in Israel that the Ark of the Covenant is buried under the Temple Mount, by, if I remember rightly, Mossad and the CIA. So far as I remember, some months or years ago, when this idea came up here, all I could find was independent reliably sourced coverage that said little more than "he's said this, but he's actually never been in Israel that anyone can prove and his opinion has never been given any weight by anyone who knows the subject" variety in a few media outlets. I obviously can't remember his name, unfortunately, but that is another specific case of a similar type which might arise again. John Carter (talk) 19:33, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

everyone with a good idea belongs here. Your comparison is illuminating--that would be a case where no serious attention has been paid (NOT TABLOID applies in this field also) ; this is one where some respectable attention has been paid. The reason for doubt here , is that it's a case where not a great deal of serious attention has been paid & is therefore subject to reasonable debate. Unfortunately, most of the debate has not been all the reasonable. My own view is that debates when they get that way are contaminated, and should be closed and restarted in the hope of more appropriate focus, but that is not the general practice here except in more extreme cases than this. DGG ( talk ) 19:41, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

==IPO Village==me?]] 05:59, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive766#Disruptive editing by User:Metalvayne

As the closer of Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive766#Disruptive editing by User:Metalvayne, would you add the restriction(s) imposed on Metalvayne (talk · contribs) to Wikipedia:Editing restrictions#Placed by the Wikipedia community? Thanks, Cunard (talk) 23:30, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi DGG. In regards to this, there has been another SPI on Metalvayne, here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Metalvayne - where he has both admitted that he has another sockpuppet, and he has used that sockpuppet to get around his topic ban. I was wondering if you could help with this. Thanks! Sergecross73 msg me 15:27, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Paid Advocate Stuff

Sorry it took me so long to respond on McKinsey above. I've been working almost non-stop over the last few days with Heritage Auctions. Your Talk page moves fast!

Although you're more of a direct-editing supporter, I thought you might be interested in the Bright Line essay I put together and a proposed Talk page template for Extant Organizations. For my part my efforts are to make the bright line more obvious and practical.

On the other hand, I'm also interested in your thoughts on the "go ahead" request edit template, where edits can be approved but the COI editor is asked to make the edits themselves. Do you think it improves the discomfort of proxy edits, or does it create the same problem. One editor I worked with recently seemed to like it, so I think it will work for some, but not all.

User:King4057 02:06, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

1. Such essays should make clear the diversity of opinion. There is no true Bright Line--there is nothing that is absolutely safe here, because there is no definitive authority (& it is necessary to make clear that while Jimbo is more authoritative than anyone else, his special role is that he will always be listened to, not that he makes the final decision) I think a key rule is that it is not necessarily the manner of the edit but the content: if you suggest something biased on the talk, no matter in how diffident a manner, you will lose significant credit. If the edit is impeccable, it can withstand criticism even by those who are most suspicious of the manner. Most people here have their eye fixed on the results, not the process.
2. I think that go ahead template is a good idea. I will look at the wording. I'd like it to say something like: I'm not saying this is necessarily right, but in my opinion it's reasonable & a justifiable edit. or what i sometimes tell people: I think this will be supported.
3. That article you mention is a new way to handle trivia. There are one or two sentences I may change, and a cut. (the soldier fee is I think tabloid emotion, but then I have an exceedingly low tolerance for faux human interest. )
4. "Extant" is a poor choice of word. "active"? but please, no garish colors. DGG ( talk ) 04:12, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Awesome. I shared your comment with BigNate RE the template; he has done much of the work there. I think wording along those lines would be great for the request edit. Whatever you're comfortable with would be a good representation of what most editors uncomfortable with proxy edits would concur with. I wasn't sure what article you meant RE a soldier fee. User:King4057 04:55, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

I changed the template to "The reviewer requests that the COI editor implement the proposed edits directly." I figure each review can - if they choose to - explain why they use the template, without any need for explanation within the template itself. User:King4057 19:00, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Even better, you can now use {{request edit | G}}, which is not an accept or decline (stands for "go-ahead"). And the language to {{request edit | R}} for substantial changes/additions only suggests the editor is asking for feedback, rather than approval. User:King4057 19:32, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

sounds promising, though i tend not to remember parameters unless they get coded in Huggle. I can keep track better of separate templates & I'd guess so do most people who only occasionally use one. DGG ( talk ) 02:05, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Borderline AfC draft

I recently reviewed and declined Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Theodore Michael Siegel. I know you fairly recently looked over the entire AfC process and had a number of criticisms of the quality of the review decisions, both of approvals and declines. In this case I thought the draft was near the border of acceptance, and if in its current sate it was moved to mainspace and AfD'd it might well pass. On the other hand, there are some significant problems IMO, and I thought this might be the best way to get the original drafter to help deal with them.

If you have time to give this a look, I would value your opinion. If you don't I will mentiojn it on the AfC reviewer talk page. DES <sup>(talk)</sup> 00:09, 4 September 2012 (UTC) Oh, do note that this is one of the few cases where an AfC draft has a proper talk page. DES <sup>(talk)</sup> 00:10, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

this is interesting in more ways than just AfC. As far as AfC goes, it might well pass a deletion discussion, and it would be fair to give it a chance. The article needs strengthening, with removal of low quality references, and copyediting for compactness and to give a smoother appearance,and less appearance of promotionalism, but these are things that I find quite hard to coach someone to do--if I think an article is worth it, I do it myself, and suggest they learn by seeing the changes I make. When I do it on AfCs, I have usually been doing it before accepting the article, to give a clearer idea of what I think acceptable, but in principle, I think this should be done in mainspace.

The AfC process is only a means to an end. Building a NPOV encyclopedia is the goal, and many ways will work. What really affects the quality of AfC is not the format or structure, but the knowledge and skill of the reviewer--just like NPP, It's a little freer from junk than NPP, because people with utter junk mostly know better than to use it. However, it's a lot slower. True, the more processes , the better different needs can be met if people are guided to choose rightly, but the problem in maintaining quality is that the more processes, the harder to monitor. I think we're increasing our problems in the usual WP way, by setting up something more elaborate than we have good people to manage.

I'm going to make a rather radical suggestion here that I've been thinking about for a few days. I suggest we revive the proposed policy I opposed 6 months ago, of requiring some editing experience before submitting articles. Kudpung was right. There are only two ways to get improvements: one is to require qualification for reviewers, whether at AfC or NPP or anywhere else; the other is to require some basic qualification for editors. (Actually, we probably need both--they're complementary) I failed to take adequate account of the growth of promotionalism that comes with our increased visibility. The Board was wrong as well as me--we have two basic principles in conflict: NPOV, and, Anyone can edit. We can no longer have what we hoped for, a NPOV encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Something has to be compromised. To the extent we're a site for personal growth, we want to keep Anyone can edit, and accept the decline in NPOV. To the extent we're an encyclopedia, it's the opposite.

as far as other issues, there is something much more important to me than AfC: promotionalism. I dislike this sort of promotional article, making use of PR-based human interest coverage and local awards and ratings to build up something that is the tabloid equivalent of notability. Our rules don't handle these well. The GNG is based on substantial coverage from 3rd party RSs but I do not consider press releases, or material derived from press releases, to be independent RSs, except to the extent they provide factual product information and the like. The sort of news articles based on them I regard as a perversion of journalism, lending false color to what would be more honestly presented as advertisements. People have to be notable for something, and I think its the actual notability that we need to focus on. All the GNG measures is whether the person has a good press agent. Local human interest journalism is not a RS, regardless of the prestige of the publisher.

How does one tell if an article is promotional? My basic guideline is that a non-promotional article includes only material that would be of interest to a general reader coming across the mention of the subject and wanting the sort of information that would be found in an encyclopedia, not material that would be of interest only to those associated with the subject, or ton prospective clients/purchasers/students. The principle on which I base the guideline is that those writing with a conflict of interest or as a paid press agent, are automatically thinking in terms of what the subject wishes to communicate to the public, but an uninvolved person will think in terms of what the public might wish to know.

In this case, nobody would have heard of the dentist without having seen the press releases, and there is no point reprinting them here. They're very good press releases for the purpose, and anyone searching the web for a dentist in Chicago will find them. No one else will care.

for some details as applied here, see the talk p. DGG ( talk ) 01:44, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Trinity-Antonian Cricket Encounter

As you may know, this submission was apparently copy and pasted to Trinity-Antonian Cricket Encounter by User:Cossde with no mention of the AfC user, User:Sajeewashaluka. I would like your advice to know what should happen as a result of this. At one side, I believe it may be useful to move the article to AfC space but I also believe it may be useful and possibly easier for the AfC user to continue his work at the current mainspace article. One of the causes of my leaning towards moving the article to AfC space is that the article continues to be insufficiently sourced, as you mentioned at my talk page two days ago. Any thoughts? SwisterTwister talk 18:48, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Personally, i find it increasingly difficult to decipher the histories of materials in AfC, & I think this will become increasingly a problem. Usually the situation is that someone gets impatient at afc, or doesn't really understand the need for improving the article according to the criticism, and prematurely moves it to mainspace. I agree with your interpretation of the history, but perhaps it is one of them trying to improve the work of the other? Once moved, I think it's usually better to work in mainspace if it seems that the article has a reasonable chance. The question is whether this does have a chance--afds have often not supported borderline articles on such athletic rivalries. But there is considerable general interest in cricket and the people who know the subject are more likely to work on it in mainspace. But there's another problem: fairly close parallelism between the first part of the main section and the Static.espncricinfo.com reference. It had better get fixed quickly, by whomever, wherever. So, hoping that what I am doing doesn't make things worse with a sport I do not understand, I'm doing some rewriting.

This highlights the real problem with AfC --every improvable but deficient article takes considerable work, and it is difficult to teach the original creator. In mainspace, there is cooperative editing and successive improvement--if AfC it all depends on the ability of whoever has seen it. It is seldom that several of us work on something at AfC like we are doing now, but it's routine in mainspace. DGG ( talk ) 01:55, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

The Olive Branch: A Dispute Resolution Newsletter (Issue #1)

Welcome to the first edition of The Olive Branch. This will be a place to semi-regularly update editors active in dispute resolution (DR) about some of the most important issues, advances, and challenges in the area. You were delivered this update because you are active in DR, but if you would prefer not to receive any future mailing, just add your name to this page.

Steven Zhang's Fellowship Slideshow

In this issue:

• Background: A brief overview of the DR ecosystem.
• Research: The most recent DR data
• Survey results: Highlights from Steven Zhang's April 2012 survey
• Activity analysis: Where DR happened, broken down by the top DR forums
• DR Noticeboard comparison: How the newest DR forum has progressed between May and August
• Discussion update: Checking up on the Wikiquette Assistance close debate
• Proposal: It's time to close the Geopolitical, ethnic, and religious conflicts noticeboard. Agree or disagree?

Read the entire first edition of The Olive Branch -->

--The Olive Branch 18:57, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

CBS Records

I wasn't sure which of the two outcomes you supported? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 01:39, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

right. I didn't say. I decided to limit myself to attempting to clarify the general considerations. Either way can work if done right. DGG ( talk ) 02:02, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

PC RFC

I don't want to get too "meta" in the RFC (i.e. whether it was premature, etc.) ... but at the moment, it looks like it paid off. In the last RfC, most of the comments on both sides give the impression that they read few of the comments on the other side, and a general sense of grouchiness and disbelief was in evidence. In this one, people are reading each other's comments, taking each other seriously, and agreeing on a course of action. Quite a change. So now we've got a wider spectrum of input than we've had so far at WT:PC2012, and higher expectations for the outcome of the tougher RfC to follow. - Dank (push to talk) 23:16, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Oops, same time stamp on our statements :) Okay your second statement is a little stronger, so I'll copy this over there. - Dank (push to talk) 23:24, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

David, per the paragraph I just posted at WP:PC2012/RfC_1#Another_argument, are there any ground rules for further discussion that would satisfy you enough to secure your participation in committee work? Btw, my reading is that at "Vote on closure", we're doing what I understand you to be asking for, which is to put off a decision pending further work, rather than asking for the question to be decided now. - Dank (push to talk) 19:00, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Self-published works

Can you explain how not including self-published works here [14] is probably a BLP violation. Not sure I follow. IRWolfie- (talk) 19:44, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

removing somebody's accomplishments is preferentially removing positive material about the person,and thus overbalancing the article in a negative direction. DGG ( talk ) 18:09, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for helping clear out the A7 CSD nominations for schools that Cossde placed. In all, there were about 85 schools with A7 tags. I often review the CSD tags to reduce the workload for administrators. I either leave the tag; remove it with a note; or cleanup, edit, and add citations to establish notability. Hopefully it helps reduce the load a bit. Again thanks with clearing out the A7 schools. I was feeling a bit swamped. Cindy(talk to me) 07:17, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

what you are doing is very helpful--I knew I could leave off without finishing because you'd take care of the left-overs. DGG ( talk ) 23:12, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Speedy deletion work

Hi, I have to agree with what you say. But it seems that all these articles contain no more information that their name and location and no RS could be found other than administrative lists. Cossde (talk) 09:03, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

There has been considerable discussion over whether it is wise to enter articles from such lists--most of it over lists of villages from government documentary sources. There was strong opposition, but the consensus has been that that it is OK to do them if you do them right (there are several cases where people have done large groups without due care & they've been a nuisance to fix.) I can see both sides of the question, but the consensus seems to be settled. DGG ( talk ) 18:18, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Punishing Non-AGF Astroturfing

You and I have gone back and forth a few places on how to "punish" non-AGF astroturfing as a means to deter bad behavior. This kind of public boasting about intentionally corrupting Wikipedia's neutrality shows there is not enough fear of the repercussions.

I have been thinking it is beyond Wikipedia's ability and charter to punish violations of US astroturfing laws. In particular, the project has no means to verify even the individual's identity, neither alone create punishments that don't entail collateral damage or punishments that are more meaningful than blocks.

Astroturfing has real-world consequences that goes beyond Wikipedia (it's illegal). In a recent COIN case, someone was paying $20 a pop for editors to create a false consensus on the Talk page. I cannot think of a more clear example of intentional and illegal astroturfing.

I am wondering (just brainstorming) if it is really the project that should be punishing unlawful astroturfing (when clearly intentional and non-AGF) on Wikipedia, or if that isn't more of a legal issue that is beyond our role as a community. Corporate Minion 18:36, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, one thing is certain--taking legal action is beyond our role as a community. Essentially the only thing the Foundation will take legal action about is copyvio of the trademark, for good reasons. And though any individual who wants to inform the FDC about anything is free to do so, but we have a very well established rule, WP:LEGAL, that anyone who takes or threatens legal action against a contributor on the basis of edits at Wikipedia is barred from Wikipedia until the action is determined. The rule has served us well in many different circumstances. You would then need to propose not applying it to legal actions based on accusations of accepting payment without disclosing it. I think making the exception would be a tactic used for bullying, and bullying is the reason we apply LEGAL very broadly.

So what practical step are you suggesting?

I don't want to punish anyone for anything. What I want to do is deny recognition, along the general lines of dealing with vandalism according to WP:DENY, a widely accepted essay. We can deny recognition to promotionalism by the same method that would improve Wikipedia from low quality good faith editing also: requiring higher standards.

Personally, I would support a WP rule that accepting payment without disclosing it is cause for rejecting an edit, even retrospectively, and banning from Wikipedia. Not just support: I have several times proposed it. As you say, the reason it has not been implemented is that we have no adequate way of detecting it or enforcing it, except for those foolish enough to boast about it. (& sometimes when someone does boast, it is concluded they are in fact making good articles on topics we ought to be covering.)

We are heading for an impasse between the principle of anonymity and the principle of NPOV. I think Wikipedia would be worthless without NPOV, but we could survive with limits on anonymity, using the same manner of making exceptions to real-name editing we use for permitting good faith editors who must use tor or other anonymous proxies. Our original principles, excellent as they were, may need modification now we've become such a desirable target. DGG ( talk ) 23:10, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree this is an extremely difficult area, speaking as one who's had to adjudicate on situations with elements of this. My initial approach as an arbitrator was to recommend examining the sources and how they relate to the edits, which is (relatively) easy with many types of subjects that are well covered such as medicine and science, but becomes much harder with topics less well covered. Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:37, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

And especially when all the available sources have some degree of dependence upon press releases. Yes, many things would be simpler if we wrote only on the traditional encyclopedic topics. DGG ( talk ) 00:58, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

I think WP:DENY is different, because it says the motivations for vandalism are "recognition and infamy," but this is only true in a very small number of COI cases. Based on my interpretation of the FTC's astroturfing laws, anonymous COI editors would not be punishable by law, unless they show an intentional effort to deceive Wikipedians into thinking the edits are volunteer-written. The $20 scheme, sockpuppets and Bell Pottinger are all good examples, since Pottinger created a false identity to make it appear as though they were a volunteer. Wikipedia's after-the-fact enforcement seems aligned with the law of astroturfing, but I think deterrence-based enforcement (before the fact) needs to take place in the real-world, off-Wiki in order to generate fear of the repercussions and establish a legal precedence. Corporate Minion 20:08, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

It's different, but perhaps even stronger: the motivation for writing for pay is getting paid. If the client pays only if the article is kept, then the de-motivating effect of deletion is immediately obvious; if the client pays in advance or pays a consulting fee regardless, a portfolio of rejected articles will not get many contracts or advance a career. This particular scheme is a little different, but effective follow up with checkuser will remove future work also. Agreed that if one disguises oneself sufficiently, one may get away with it. We sometimes say it is hard to accomplish a sufficiently effective disguise, but people have claimed to have disguises we have not caught, and we cannot prove them wrong. The end of the provision for anonymity make sockpuppeting almost impossible. Will it prove to take that? You seem to be giving an argument that the legal approach will not normally prevent this, either. So again I ask you , who do you propose will bring the legal actions? More important, who among us volunteers will be comfortable being here in atmosphere of legal actions? Normally, anyone not out for evil tries to get out of any such potential situation as soon as possible--for an evil person, its one of the risks of doing business. DGG ( talk ) 02:22, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

This makes sense. My reservation would be that it relies on detection instead of prevention. For example, the promotional article discussed below remained for 2.5 years. If I was a paid editor that wrote that, I would consider it a success and have run off with my money long ago. It is not healthy for Wikipedia to defend itself against a flood, when part of the solution should be educating them up-front. Corporate Minion 19:16, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

I hate to do this to you...

...but I have concerns that this might have worked its way from project to advocacy over the last while, putting it beyond the scope of what we do here. Your opinion is requested. There are many issues, linked at my talk page, that tie into this. Mediation is going to be needed, which I think we have covered, but your experience and guidance along the way is always appreciated in complicated situations like this. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 19:56, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

perhaps I can do something to focus the discussion. DGG ( talk ) 00:09, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Swatjester and I are taking a close look at several of the editors in question, and it looks like the three of us had already been observing the trends. At some point, a larger discussion may be needed, we will see. I notice Lionelt created the Conservatism portal and project, which actually would have great purpose and utility if properly focused. If you were inclined, a discussion with him may be helpful since he is the primary content creator for that project. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 12:33, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Is his content creation a problem. or are you hoping for his effect on the less reasonable.? DGG ( talk ) 12:40, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

My words failed me. I mean Lionelt started WikiProject Conservatism, the Portal, and is responsible for the majority of the content of the Project itself, including the newsletter. Literally over 90% of it. He has shown great skill at organizing and coordinating, and is responsible for the direction the project takes, for better or worse. If there are concerns about the direction, generally speaking, the buck stops with him. I haven't looked at his article content (and we both might take a peek), but I have seen him at ANI and other boards regularly during flare ups. He isn't always the most vocal, although usually visible. If you are working on the actual Project pages (an excellent use of your skills, I might add), he is the one to have in the loop so there is a full understanding on how to move forward. SWAT and I are currently working with the two more visible editors in these disputes on my and their talk pages, something I am more used to handling. I think dealing with these three concerns is the most effective way to find a neutral and peaceful resolution, end the constant stream of ANIs. Most of the other issues will take care of themselves along the way. Hopefully, this will allow us to avoid any RFC or drama filled board resolutions as well, since this is an election year and there is already enough drama in the political articles. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 17:47, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your help, it looks like there are plenty of admins on the scene to help explain the issues and work with the editors. I will let you get back to writing and fixing articles, a more important task, to be sure. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 17:41, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

About Breves, Pará

Hello, DGG, thank you for your help with Breves, Pará and Breves, Brazil. It's been taking me quite a lot of time to rename all those articles that'd been created as "NAMEOFTHECITY, Brazil" or "NAMEOFTHECITY (NAMEOFTHEBRAZILIANSTATE)", etc, so I'm pretty likely to CSD G6 some other pages within the next days. Now to the bad news: the content from Breves, Pará (originally found at Breves, Brazil) is gone and the page is redirecting to itself. Is there a way to fix it? Thank you, Victão Lopes <sup>I hear you...</sup> 01:52, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

I will deal with it. DGG ( talk ) 04:17, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

I restored the content at Breves, Pará. If you have a moment, please take a look and make sure things look okay. - Eureka Lott 02:21, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

seems OK. thanks. DGG ( talk ) 01:05, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

About the Deletion of James Cuff

on Sept 9th The James Cuff article I started got deleted, rather summarily. Admittedly the initial article (29 Aug 2012) was a cut and paste from http://scholar.harvard.edu/jcuff/ which I mistakenly assumed was published under GSS or Creative Commons, after getting an automated email/warning I update the content based on the scholar.harvard content in my own words and cited the source. The quality of the writing may have been poor, but I would have thought that that would have at least negated the copy write concern. At which point, other editors updated content and formated the page. It seems like even a quick google search returns results that I *think* accommodate the required standards... Please help me get this page restored I think it's actually a valulble page, and no less worthy of publication then many similar pages.

http://waesearch.kobv.de/authorSearch.do;jsessionid=247857EDC22ACE06E7EEC2334AA43ED0?query=James+Cuff&pageid=1344073624427-559370508735784 http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=fdEjP58AAAAJ&hl=en

Co-Author of Jauth https://github.com/mclamp/JAuth — Preceding unsigned comment added by Paxindustria (talk • contribs) 05:57, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

see my note at User talk:Paxindustria for how to best proceed. DGG ( talk ) 02:10, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

DGG Thanks for the help and feedback, I've put together a page in my sandbox which I think meets all the criteria, would you mind taking a look? - Pax — Preceding unsigned comment added by Paxindustria (talk • contribs) 17:52, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

DGG Thanks again for the help, I've made a couple more edits and posted to the main space. I think it should meet Wikipedia standards. Thanks again for your help!

Talkback

Hello, DGG. You have new messages at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jenna Marbles (2nd nomination).
Message added 03:11, 10 September 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

GregJackP Boomer! 03:11, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

AfD commenting

Would you comment at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Child Foundation and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Center for Medieval Studies (Pennsylvania State University)? The latter has been relisted because a redirect with parentheses is unlikely. As mentioned there, I am willing to merge the little content the article contains to the university's article. The question is, where would I place it? SwisterTwister talk 06:06, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

you may have to construct a section for miscellaneous academic units, and merge it there. DGG ( talk ) 07:22, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Mitt Romney

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Hello DCG, I created a Gregory Awards page (basically the Seattle regional theatre awards), which you deleted because you claimed it was a non-noteworthy award. Could you please explain your rationale? There are Wikipedia entries for other theatre awards: the Barrymores (Philadelphia), Helen Hayes (DC), Dora Awards (Toronto), Chapman Awards (Wellington, New Zealand), to name just a few.

Sincerely,
Frank Andrew Lawler
Seattle, WA

Page Curation update

Hey all :). We've just deployed another set of features for Page Curation. They include flyouts from the icons in Special:NewPagesFeed, showing who reviewed an article and when, a listing of this in the "info" flyout, and a general re-jigging of the info flyout - we've also fixed the weird bug with page_titles_having_underscores_instead_of_spaces in messages sent to talkpages, and introduced CSD logging! As always, these features will need some work - but any feedback would be most welcome.==

the early CSD logging was interesting, because of the high proportion of errors, a much higher proportion that I normally spot at NPP. This may be just my impression, because it put all of them in one place. If so, it will be very useful in following up the errors to teach the patrollers. The key need is not necessarily to make patrol easier, but to make finding errors at patrol easier, because new patrollers generally need educating. Do you think it would be possibleto get a list of those who patrol for the first time? DGG ( talk ) 23:14, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

We did this a couple of years ago (and repeatedly monitored it ever since) and at that time it clearly demonstrated that a vast amount of new page patrolling is being carried out by very young and/or very new, inexperienced users. Although this appears to still be very much the case, the Foundation appears to have ruled this out as a possible cause for low quality patrolling. Special:NewPagesFeed is an excellent piece of software but it's not going to be a silver bullet. That said, this tool may help. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 18:07, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

remind me, where did the WMF publish the analysis of NPP you refer to? Perhaps they mean that a great deal of bad patrolling is done by more experienced people also--which is certainly true. But i've found it easier to teach the new people, who are usually very glad to learn. DGG ( talk ) 19:34, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Apologies for the late reply. I can't remember where the report was published. The survey was launched as a community project but Foundation adopted it and published the report. If I remember rightly (maybe wrongly), it appeared that the majority of patrollers were in their 40s, had PhDs, and had been on Wiki for at least 6 years - or something vaguely to that effect. Oliver can give you a link to the report because I believe he wrote it himself. Perhaps the responses were inaccurate, because those of us who had done over a year of research found that like all other maintenance areas, NPP was a magnet to new and/or younger users. It seems to have improved lately, but I'm only working from the prototype and not from the old yellow highlighted page. I assume those who are working from the beta are more clued up with page patrolling. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:48, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

==Speedy Deletion

This page should not be speedily deleted because... (the exception to A7 is educational institutions which it is; also other language schools are listed in wikipedia such as Mackdonald Language Academy which has no content at all other than "Mackdonald Language Academy is a language school in Kilkenny, Ireland." ACUPARI also have no references and there are many schools like that and I can provide other examples as well. Moreover, unlike some language school it is not an orphan such as EasyMandarin or such as Empik, Emanci Language Institute, Keary Portuguese School, etc. Hong Kong Institute of Languages has a box saying it is an orphan and this article appears to be written like an advertisement. Please help to improve it by rewriting promotional content from a neutral point of view, so I would also like to be able to list the school and if there is some problem fix the content so that it is a neutral point of view. I would like some time to be able to create references, etc so please restore my page so I can do that such as for example the school has participated with the Russian government in programs in Italy and also as taking part in other government programs in foreign countries, and the school was involved in implementing government programs in countries in Europe. The school also regularly participates in seminars and conferences and has won the Dante Alighieri prize, etc. user jeonjubibimbap(talk)

whether institutions called schools that are not actually degree-granting or certificate-granting schools can be speedy deleted by a7 is a matter of some difficulty. The problem is determining exactly the nature of the institution, because names do not always clearly define this. I have speedy-deleted tutoring institutes via a7; some few of them are notable, but if there's no indication of this, the assumption is fairly safe that they are not. Something called a "language school" can be of many different types--in most cases it's primarily a tutoring institute.

The article in question here was Ruslanguage. From the article, it offers ""Intensive, part time, evening and individual courses are offered as well as corporate language training. " I do not consider this a school in the sense of a7, and iI deleted it according. Were it a school that primarily ran group classes or offered a certificate I would instead have used Prod. . If you think you can show it's notable, write an article with some references in user space, and I will move it back to mainspace. DGG ( talk ) 23:08, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

And I thank you for listing the other problems you found. If they are as weak articles as you indicate, they won't be here much longer. DGG ( talk ) 23:16, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for responding to my questions. I will write an article with some references and include notable people in my user space. My intention for pointing out other articles was not to criticize them but merely to find a good language school that I could model my page after as I thought since those schools were already on wikipedia and some for quite a while, it meant they had acceptable pages. Thanks again for your help in what makes an acceptable article and I appreciate the time you spent on my article as well as the time you spent on wikipedia. Now that I've starting creating and modifying articles, etc. I am starting to understand a bit of all the hard work that goes on to make wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jeonjubibimbap (talk • contribs) 06:29, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Barchester Healthcare

Hello David, I wish for your help with another article again. For the past hour, I have been reviewing this article to see if it meets the criteria for AfD. With Google News, I have found several sources but I believe all of them are either small mentions or advert-like:

http://www.homecare.co.uk/news/article.cfm/id/1557762/new-chair-in-dementia-at-the-institute-of-mental-health-in-nottingham

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/sep/09/care-homes-ratings-survey-watchdog

http://www.property-magazine.eu/healthcare-reit-acquires-sunrise-senior-living-22276.html

http://southdownsliving.blogspot.com/2012/08/hurstwood-view-care-home-opens-in-east_20.html

http://www.carehome.co.uk/news/article.cfm/id/1557765/awards-ceremony-celebrating-positive-media-contributions-on-older-peoples-issues-to-be-hosted-by-janet-street-porter

http://www.carehome.co.uk/news/article.cfm/id/1557781/new-care-home-opens-in-guildford

http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/news/all_the_fun_of_the_fair_as_hethersett_hall_care_home_marks_its_20th_birthday_1_1503943

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/gene-kerrigan/gene-kerrigan-heavy-consequences-of-the-light-touch-3196975.html

http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/05/08/2011/114837/barchester-healthcares-apprenticeships-scheme-for-care-workers.htm

http://www.personneltoday.com/Articles/16/05/2007/40635/private-care-home-operator-barchester-healthcare-fined-500000-for-sacking-lesbian-nurses-because-of-their-sexuality.htm

http://www.altassets.net/private-equity-news/barchester-beats-private-equity-firms-to-3is-uk-westminster-healthcare.html

http://www.carehome.co.uk/news/article.cfm/id/1553104/award-winning-care-at-barchester

Aside from these, a very large portion were affiliated with the company. The best sources that actually talk about the company and its history is this and this (scroll to the bottom, click "2008" and and go to "July 2008", it'll be July 9). At Google News, I stopped my search here.

I apologize if I have flooded your talk page with these links but I would like your advice. SwisterTwister talk 02:52, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

1. the links were convenient, no problem there. Very good and careful work of yours, more patient than I would have probably done.
2. As for the sources: (1) the sex discrimination case is the sort of thing we would never include in a blp, and there's a good case to be made for not including it with a company either, unless it becomes a national scandal. (2) That G news indexes their own company newsletter is unusually sloppy for G News--it usually only includes industry-wide pr sources. *=(3)the carehom.uk refs are just press releases. One of them is even on the firms own awards to their own staff! That belongs only in their own newsletter, not a industry publication. (4). The Irish times is about people and their hobs, not the firm, but it is the closest. (5) Which of the July 9 articles?
3. I consider businesses of this size notable; the main factors I go by is their relative position within the sector, or alternatively whether they have done anything particularly important individually. In this case, I don't see anything specifically important, but they are repeated cited by good sources as being a leading firm or the leading firm in their industry. This is however my criterion, not the WP criterion. As for the GNG, we would need to say that incidental or routine mentions that something is the leader is an indication of notability. My general position on this is clear: I think the GNG as written is primitive nonsense, and as long as we have it , it needs to be squared with reality by interpreting the language to give a reasonable result.
4. The article is pure PR, and low quality at that. Peacock language, repetitiveness, minor things made into significance, very few specifics. As usual with such, it's mostly copied from their website, which , again as usual, gives a good reason to delete it as G12, which I shall do tomorrow so you have a chance to see this.
5. I think however an article could be written, and this illustrates the dilemma of promotional editing: because whoever wrote this one is most unlikely to be able to do it right, and the only way there can be an acceptable article is if someone competent here writes it. The situation is developing that the best way a PR agent can get an article for a weakly notable firm is to write a bad one, and hope that someone here will bother rewriting it. I've done it many times, and I'm getting disgusted with doing it.

Some of my talk page stalkers from the pr industry will recognize this problem. DGG ( talk ) 03:59, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the swift response and comments, I have now reduced the article to a stub and removed certain sentences that appeared to be copied and pasted. I too am concerned with the mentality that companies appear to have, believing that Wikipedia is a social networking website or web host. As a result of this, nearly of all my recent AfD nominations have been from searching Category:Articles with a promotional tone. Also a result of this, I attempt my best to offer the user(s) advice especially at AfC. SwisterTwister talk 04:20, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that's one way to do it, and what I would have done in the past. But I'm now inclned to be more drastic. The best way to stop copyvio and promotionalism is not just to remove it, but to remove the article. The principle is WP:DENY. Not everyone agrees, and I myself do not do it consistently. (I tend to decide by how crucial i think is the subject & whether it is in my field of interest; though I have to admit that my current level of annoyance tends to affect it also.) part of it. What you did was fine.

But they do not exactly see us as a social networking service or a web host, though individuals often do. They see us as an advertising medium. DGG ( talk ) 04:54, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Question David: Wouldn't the same objective be reached not by changing notability, but by just establishing that "What Wikipedia is not" supersedes notability? We can admit that a company is notable, but still delete it - regardless of who wrote it or what size the organization is. Corporate Minion 20:54, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

so we do. WP:CSD#G11 provides for the speedy deletion of "Pages that are exclusively promotional, and would need to be fundamentally rewritten to become encyclopedic." I have deleted not just hundreds, but thousands of pages under that criterion. Whereas for notability, the parallel criterion A7 provides only for the speedy deletion of an article " that does not indicate why its subject is important or significant", which is much less than notability and avoid even using the term to prevent confusion. An article with inadequate evidence of notability may be shown to be so by finding additional references. and we encourage trying if there is any evidence it might be successful. The problem is articles which are not "exclusively" promotional, but somewhat informative, for they can be reduced to a stub that still shows the importance, and those which are exclusive promotional but can be fixed with sufficient rewriting. These are matters of interpretation. I and SwisterTwister were discussing a page that was almost exclusive promotional, but had could be considered to have some small amount of information, and which could arguably be fixed by reducing it to that small amount, and which she was prepared to do, but I was not.

You would be arguing that we should never try, but that runs against the accepted principle that we should always try to improve what is improvable if it can be reasonably accomplished--and many articles written with a promotional intend contain both a good deal of preservable information and a good deal of no-informative promotion. If you mean that we drew the line at rejecting articles with any degree of promotion, we would run across the problem that a perfectly straightforward informative balanced article about a worthy product or company or organization, fully referenced with substantial reviews and other significant references from reliable third party sources, will likely have a promotional effect, at least for those who might want the product or services or support the cause--and those are the people promotion is aimed at. As an example, a good article on a notable book describes the plot, says it was a best seller, and cites the reviews and the critical commentary. This is the most informative article, and also the most effective promotion. DGG ( talk ) 00:47, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

I think as my skills as an editor improve, I will find myself increasingly on the deletionist side of things. The task of actually performing the cleanup however seems impossibly large and uninteresting. I don't know that I had any arguments per se, except that I am thinking about the argument you've made about deleting content in response to poor COI work. Corporate Minion 03:15, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

One reason I do cleanup is because I know I am more of an editor in the RW sense than a writer, and I admit that I find it enjoyable to show my virtuosity. But the other reason is that we have found it is almost impossible to reform editors already established here. Much howe ver can sometimes be made of them, if we can catch them early. And if it cannot, early is the best time to stop them, before they learn how to effectively deceive here. . DGG ( talk ) 04:34, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

DRV question

Hi DGG, what is your opinion about this: Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2012 September 10#Category:Ancient Jewish Roman history? Thanks for your time, IZAK (talk) 07:25, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

On Deletion of Tim Miles Author

Tim Miles is a speaker and author.

He Spoke at Tedx Missouri event - video here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9_kvlOZYnA

Published his book Good Company: Making It - Keeping It - Being It. listed at http://www.amazon.com/Good-Company-Making-Keeping-Being/dp/061566511X/ref=sr_1_1

Featured in news sites

Missouri University student newspaper http://www.themaneater.com/stories/2012/4/17/students-collaborate-mu-bring-tedx-campus/

Columbia Tribune newspaper http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2012/apr/15/tedxmu-fosters-free-flow-of-ideas/

2012 Indiana Governor's Conference - Tim Miles was keynote address http://savi.org/savi/conference/2012/agenda.aspx

Biblio.com site http://www.biblio.com/books/527748720.html

Tower Books http://www.tower.com/good-company-making-it-keeping-being-tim-miles-paperback/wapi/123268805

Canada Post http://www.canadapost.ca/shopper/items/12522288/Good-Company-by-Tim-Miles-061566511X?locale=en

Clearly he's notable. I've read about creating articles and living person criteria.

I've seen your expertise. What do I need to do to make this page live?

Alexandermagic (talk) 01:22, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Status on this DGG?

Alexandermagic (talk) 20:17, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

The author has no plausible indication of any good faith notability. Asserting authorship of a book counts, except for self published books. But this this book is self-published by his private company. It is not even in WorldCat. which means no US library ever purchased it, and if it was sent to the library of congress, they thought it not worth cataloging. The references you give above are product advertisements or routine articles about speakers published in campus newspapers. According to his web p., which is much more informative than the article submitted, "he runs an odd little communications company that helps owner-operated companies do more with less" operating under a franchise arrangement called Wizard of Ads, started by Roy H. Williams (author), who is notable , and about whom we have an article. It's a promotional article, though, and it needs and will get some editing. The individual people operating under his brand are not, and are not even suitable for inclusion in the article about him. They are mentioned on the web page for his service, and that & their own blogs is where the information belongs. DGG ( talk ) 17:01, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

On Deletion of DMCI

This is in connection with the deletion tag for DMCI Project Developers, Inc.. Another article for the same subject has been created erroneously under its parent company which is a holding company. My article has been created to correct that error made by the other author. Having extensive research on local real estate companies in the Philippines, I believe that mine should be preserved. Thanks.

bedcrawl 06:57, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

There is an article about the parent company, which I moved to the name of the actual parent company, DMCI Holdings, Inc.. I redirected DMCI Holdings there--normally we make a single article, under the name of the overall firm. That article, by the way, has some major problems--it consists of too much content which is promotional, belonging only on their web page, and has been marked for improvement by another editor. I shall get to it in a few days. It might help if you went to it first and removed information praising it, rather than providing sourced encyclopedic information. As a start, try to remove as many adjectives as possible. I doubt a listing of all its projects is suitable, either--this normally is better on its website, except for those that might be notable enough to have individual WP articles. DGG ( talk ) 16:20, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Massimo Bacigalupo

I am considering whether or not I should accept Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Massimo Bacigalupo, I feel that the article may be cluttered with too many subsections...and possibly insufficient references? I think that all of the subsections aside from "growing up" could be renamed as simply "Career". Would you provide your perspective? SwisterTwister talk 06:17, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

An article having too many sections is never a reason for rejection at afc, because that can be edited. IU think the references are sufficient to show notability ; if they do not support all aspects of the article, the article can be edited to remove unsourced material. I therefore accepted it, and will do some editing. If all an article at AfC needs is some obvious editing, I have frequently done this either just before accepting them, or just after. If it needs radical revision, that's another matter. (Several good editors did some work on the article before I saw it, so it may have been substantially more problematic earlier.) DGG ( talk ) 21:46, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Any objection to boxing up the RfC?

You were one of two opposers at WP:PC2012/RfC 1#Vote on closure ... any objection to boxing this page up with a {{discussion top}} template while we wait for The Blade to close? The 11-2 vote suggests to me a consensus to move discussion over to committee work. - Dank (push to talk) 13:07, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

that consensus was one week ago, before most of the discussion. If you want to discuss closure, start a new discussion on it now that the matter has been debated. DGG ( talk ) 20:00, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

James Robinson (Manassas, Virginia)

Hey, DGG!

I was asked by another Wikipedia editor to create a page on James Robinson. I wanted to use a template for biographies, because I like the feel they give your articles. It said to select a link and paste it into a new page then hit return. That's what I did that triggered your speedy deletion. I had no idea that the deletion would happen so quickly, so I continued to edit the article to bring it up to snuff.

Meanwhile, you deleted the article, apparently. I noticed that, but did not worry about it, because I was continuing to edit the article. However, when I tried to repost, that's when I found out that it was now "blacklisted." What do I have to do to post this referenced, notable article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kkhemet (talk • contribs) 21:45, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

obviously I moved too quickly--I have restored and marked that it is underconstruction. DGG ( talk ) 23:33, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Library portal

I just accepted the AfC submission for the Library portal article now in mainspace. Since I noticed in the past that you're a librarian, posting this article here for your perusal, if you have the time or interest in checking it out, improving it, making any corrections, etc. Regards, Northamerica1000<sup>(talk)</sup> 05:17, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for referring this to me. As you realised, this required subject knowledge. It's a valid topic, but even after your cleanup, still needed extensive further editing for conciseness and removal or original research; there were obvious indications of the origin of this as an essay or term paper. I did one round; I will do another later. DGG ( talk ) 07:25, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for checking it out, and for the improvements. Northamerica1000<sup>(talk)</sup> 08:32, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Antonio Dennard

What a minute what do I do with this article now?, that somebody already created the same page I just did. How to deleted this page that got rejected? 24.227.93.118 (talk) 00:17, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Not to worry. The article will probably soon be deleted. American football players who sign with professional teams are not notable until they have have actually appeared on the field in a regular season game, unless their college football careers have been particularly important. If you have such information and references for it, add it to the article, and it might not be deleted. (the AfC submission need not be deleted; it can remain, to build on if he does become notable ). DGG ( talk ) 03:26, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Oh ok thanks. 24.227.93.118 (talk) 04:52, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Essay about Wikipedia

Hi DGG. I checked out your user page mini-essays - very interesting. Would you be available to talk about Wikipedia some time? I am writing about the philosophy and sociology of Wikipedia. 109.145.120.77 (talk) 07:22, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

certainly. Please make an account, activate yoiur email from preferences, and email me from the email user link in the toolbox on the right. DGG ( talk ) 15:00, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks - I created the account and set up email. I will mail shortly. Hestiaea (talk) 15:14, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Iwill get back to you, probably next week. things are a little busy. DGG ( talk ) 19:31, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Memento

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Imagniary Lines

Hello, DGG. I saw your comment on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Rock music. Since then, Imaginary Lines, as well as CygnusWave Music, have been put on AfD. Feel free to contribute to the discussion here. Happy editing. Backtable <sup>Speak to me</sup><sub>concerning my deeds.</sub> 20:32, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

AfD commenting again

Would you comment at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Beat Goes On (Cash Cash album) (2nd nomination), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Society for Companion Animal Studies, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tittsworth and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dimsum (organisation)? Thanks! SwisterTwister talk 22:54, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Would you also comment at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Etheric Networks? Thanks! SwisterTwister talk 19:10, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Michelle Chia

I was accepting this article when I received a notice that the page "Michelle Chia" had been protected from creation as a result of a copy violation from this. However, the AfC submission seems to differ from the link and appears to be properly sourced. Would you unprotect the page? Thanks! SwisterTwister talk 19:53, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

done. The reason for protection was spam; the repeatedly recreated article was spam, but the protection was set for infinite, and should have been set for a lesser time, so someone could eventually create an article. Infinite create protection would rarely be appropriate except on topics for which nobody but an troll would ever create an article. DGG ( talk ) 00:43, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Changemakrs stub

Hello, DGG. I recently got a "decline" from Wywin on my article stub . Based on your comments on his talk page here and here, and what I know as a long-time contributor and Articles for Creation participant, I am aware of what a proper Wikipedia article needs. Too, I understand Wywin was just "going through the motions" (not only with my article) without giving each article a thorough look.

I submitted the article again, in hopes that someone can get it another look. Of course, I'm also looking for your opinion on the article stub.--Joel Kirk (talk) 00:20, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

I reviewed it. Wynwin was completely right--just as they said, it does need better sources. I read the present sources in full, and I wrote on the AfC page an explanation in some detail about why the present sources are not adequate, and what you'll need to have. If you don't yet have them, wait till they are available. There is no point moving to mainspace an article that is likely to get deleted. DGG ( talk ) 05:31, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for the response.--Joel Kirk (talk) 08:00, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Daniel Smith (professor)

Do you have an opinion? Bearian (talk) 19:58, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for mopping up that spill. Bearian (talk) 19:45, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Bibliography of Encyclopedias

You are invited to join in a discussion at User talk:Dr. Blofeld#Bibliography of encyclopedias over my plans to develop a comprehensive set of bibliographies of encyclopedias and dictionaries by topic. I hope you see the potential of such a project and understand that while highly ambitious it will be drawn up gradually over time.♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:58, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Onrust project

DGG, I have declined your speedy deletion on Onrust project. I believe that the project does assert significance; the fact that Don Rittner was involved in founding and running it, for example. Ironholds (talk) 04:01, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

You have mail. K -150.135.210.76 (talk) 16:47, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

FWIW, a recently created Greta Wagle bio which was not a bio, but rather an article about the Onrust project, has been redirected to Onrust. This article was actually more informative thean the current Onrust project article. I would suggest merging the Onrust project with perhaps some of the Greta Wagle content to Onrust leaving a redirect. I see no need for separate articles. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:22, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

I've redirected Onrust project as well, as searching for books, news and other info came up rather thin. Perhaps in the future, but right now it is better served in the one article, which itself is fairly short and could use expanding. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 13:29, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style

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Supervote?

I see you closed the Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Scott G. Stewart as delete. Subject asked for deletion, then two editors asserted keep with reasons based on policy, then two SPAs with editing histories suspiciously connected to the subject show up and !voted delete. While I disagree with your close, obviously, I'm also disappointed with your rationale, as a classic supervote. I'm not going to take this further, but we disagree on this. As a two term national officer of a huge political machine (one according to sources connected to multiple cases of misbehavior), the subject is a public figure, IMHO, and can have little expectation of privacy. BusterD (talk) 20:42, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

I consider myself an appropriate admin to close this, because I take a very narrow view of blp, and I almost never support paying attention to the subject's request, and in fact ignored that aspect. The principle was WP:UNDUE. I only close disputed afds when against my general position. DGG ( talk ) 21:07, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

UNDUE is an editing matter, not a notability matter. In my opinion, a bad close — but close enough to the Keep/Delete border that an appeal isn't worth the time. Carrite (talk) 03:31, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

UNDUE is involved: if the incident were not discussed, there would have been no notability. thus they overlap. This sort of situation is not unique, and it is not always clear how to handle it. Includa similar situation ing the article is such cases has often resulted in an bio article that says essentially nothing. the argument would have to be that it would at least alert people & if they went back in the history they would find the material and could find the information. a similar situation also arises when all the material on something of any importance is inherently hopelessly promotional, and we end up saying that a hotel exists. I closed after a relisting--if any admin had thought it was a clear keep, they could have closed earlier. DGG ( talk ) 13:09, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

My feeling was that the discussion had inadequate participation. Other than the nominator (and his sock/meat puppets), the only !votes were keeps from two experienced wikipedians. The discussion had almost 60,000 edits (on the keep side) as opposed to a mere sixteen (on the delete side). Normally I wouldn't judge a discussion purely on these dubious merits, but in this case I would have rather seen a second relist so that people actually here to create an encyclopedia might have weighed in. BusterD (talk) 13:27, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for considering my point of view. BusterD (talk) 14:47, 23 September 2012 (UTC) (I relisted -- I don't usually insist on my own conclusions in something like this.) DGG ( talk ) 15:47, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

PC

FYI. And FWIW, on a slightly different note regarding NPP, although I am not entirely in favour of creating a right for NPP, I fear that the question may become inevitable when the NewPagesFeed is finally released for general use and has been monitored for a while. The reviewer right (whatever that will be) could be a possible guideline, and might incorporate both if need arises. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:32, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

As I expect and hope & will try to get such an interpretation of PC that the reviewer right will be almost unused because almost nothing will be subject to PC, one could argue that it might as well serve some potentially useful purpose. I agree that if it is based on mainspace edits it might serve for both. But I think the priority is to get AfC and moves from user or other space into a single queue along with New pages. At the moment I'm working mainly on the afc part because the majority of advice being given people is inadequate, when not plain wrong. I think that proportionately more errors are made there than at NPP. DGG ( talk ) 13:17, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

That's possible. I don't work at AfC but the articles I come across through other lonks demonstrate that a lot are not being accurately closed and/or with inadequate advice to the creators. I dn't know what kind of a percentage this represents. AfC seems to me to be a necessary process but unnecessarily complicated; I could well envisage a single queue where unpublished IP creations could pass through the same interface as the New Page Feed. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:29, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

AfD commenting again

Would you also comment at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Etheric Networks? The discussion has only received one vote despite that it has been relisted twice. Thanks! SwisterTwister talk 18:36, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Page Curation newsletter

Hey DGG. This will be, if not our final newsletter, one of the final ones :). After months of churning away at this project, our final version (apart from a few tweaks and bugfixes) is now live. Changes between this and the last release include deletion tag logging, a centralised log, and fixes to things like edit summaries.

Hopefully you like what we've done with the place; suggestions for future work on it, complaints and bugs to the usual address :). We'll be holding a couple of office hours sessions, which I hope you'll all attend. Many thanks, Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 10:54, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Etheric Networks

Hello and thanks for your comment, David, I have closed the debate as no consensus but I have plans to renominate the article after a few months have passed. Cheers! SwisterTwister talk 02:42, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Your decision to keep Animal conspiracy theories involving Israel

Has been described at ArbCom by one editor as the article passing with "flying colors" the Wikipedia <something> test. Perhaps you care to comment there? The thread is Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification_and_Amendment#Clarification_request:_Palestine-Israel_articles. Tijfo098 (talk) 06:35, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

It is now at AfD again at WP:Articles for deletion/Animal conspiracy theories involving Israel. I closed an earlier AfD, WP:Articles for deletion/Animal conspiracy theories involving Israel in Jan 2011, saying "The consensus is keep--whether to retitle or even divide needs to be discussed, but should be discussed on the talk p" The decision was not mine but the community's: 29 keep, 12 delete, 4 merge. 3 of the keeps may have been socks, giving 26:12:4. Several deletes had been changed to keeps after the renaming during the AfD discussion. I think any other close would have been challenged and overturned at deletion review. Rather, those who objected chose the better course, to wait a considerable time, and then renominate. The consensus was so clear it was not necessary to analyze the strength of arguments, but many of the delete arguments were irrelevant, being based on dislike of a portion of the current contents of the article, ignoring the possibility of improvement.

I see no need to comment at arb com, as it is unrelated to the issue raised there, and the arbs seem to be reasonably deciding what was asked of them on the basis of that issue. DGG ( talk ) 17:32, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

E-mail

Dropped you an e-mail, nothing important, just an idea I wouldn't mind some input on. John Carter (talk) 17:11, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, DGG. You have new messages at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Reforming dispute resolution.
Message added 23:32, 25 September 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Steven Zhang <sup>Help resolve disputes!</sup> 23:32, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I understand your position, that the Dispute Resolution wizard is an improvement over the present. So it can be, but I explain there the drawbacks also in making our processes seem even more mechanical and less human. And it tends to perpetuate the larger problem that we have too many places for dealing with this. DGG ( talk ) 15:42, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

The amount of dispute resolution forums that exist are definitely a problem, but I'm a realist. My fellowship (and therefore most of the logistical and technical support I have access to) would end well before any agreement is gained on cutting down the amount of dispute resolution forums, but the DR wizard that has been used at DRN has shown promise. A lot of thought has gone into this idea - simplicity of filing a request is easier on the end of a requestor if only free text is required, but then volunteers are less likely to read through an unstructured, unfocused thread - it's often too confusing or just TL;DR. And if there's no volunteers willing to resolve a dispute, then it will just go nowhere, so creating some structure (and in the process eliminating the need to decode complex templates) benefits both volunteers and editors in general. So my plan really is to get some agreement on a universal DR request system, and once implemented, work on simplifying the amount of dispute resolution forums. Regards, Szhang (WMF) (talk) 08:05, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Decision to delete USAgainstAlzheimer's

Hi DGG, just noticed you deleted the USAgainst'sAlzheimer's wikipedia page and I wanted to discuss how the article can be reformed for reposting. The organization is a legitimate player in the field of Alzheimer's advocacy and has had several legislative accomplishments and has been covered by major media outlets, both nationally and regionally. Look forward to learning more about how to get a more appropriate article on the organization approved. Thanks!! Saints1364 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 04:37, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

1. The general principle is to provide what someone seeing the name might want to know about the organization, not what you want to tell them.
   1. If they need to know why Alzheimer's is a problem, we have an article on it.
   2. they only need things said once
   3. some things--especially things that frequently change, or which the general reader is likely not to be interested in, such as lists of board members or featured speakers-- they expect to find on your web site, not an encyclopedia.
   4. They expect to find financial data showing the organizations significance, and also the % of internal & fundraising expenditures.
   5. They expect to see what it does , not just that it vaguely "supports" good things. If it just publishes advertisements and promotional websites and literature and endorses work done by others, why would anyone care about it?
2. In writing, the general guide is that if it sounds like a web page, it's wrong here.
   1. Avoid all adjectives of praise or importance
   2. Say everything once only.
   3. Avoid multiple references to your own site.
   4. Avoid multiple use of the full name of the organization. "The organization" or "It" makes a good substitute.
   5. Use only the necessary subheadings. Avoiud excessive typographic emphasis.
3. It is also necessary to show the notability, which requires third party substantial references. Not a single one of yours' meets this requirement:
   1. References that only mention your organization as having supported something, or someone as having supported your organization, are not substantial coverage.
   2. References your organization has published do not show notability
   3. The testimony of your president in congress does not show notability
4. Avoid duplicate articles. They will be removed also.
   1. The article on the founder mainly duplicates this one, discussing primarily his work related to Alzheimer's,
   2. It uses the same peripheral or non-independent references
   3. Like this, it repeats his name as many times as possible.
   4. Like this, it was written by an account that has written nothing else. Though the name is different, the close similarity of manner and references indicates that they are likely to be alternate accounts for the same PR firm.
   5. As this is only one of his projects, he is more notable than the organization, so his article is the one worth preserving. I did some editing to remove the promotional faults there.
5. There is another general principle: if your organization is notable, other people will know it, and write the article. That you have to write it yourself tends to show just the opposite.

Based on all this, I give you the advice that unless you do have better references, it may not be possible to write an article that will meet our notability requirements.

Normally, I explain this on the user talk page. I write it here, not because what you are doing is worse than others, but because it is not unique, and this may serve as a general guide to eliminating the sort of articles that threaten to collectively destroy the purpose of they encyclopedia. DGG ( talk ) 15:12, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Re Buick Excelle XT move

Please close the RM discussions when moving an article title subject to an RM discussion. When you make the move and don't close the discussion, it gets confusing as to why someone is asking for a move that has already be made. Someone has to come by a figure it out and close the discussion. Thanks. --Mike Cline (talk) 13:38, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

didn't realize. DGG ( talk ) 13:51, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Your thoughts

Hi.

Per my recent comments at user talk:Jimbo Wales, I'm considering starting a discussion to create a new Wikimedia Wiki solely for persons (BLPs). The basic definition would be that a person is included if they are/were a human being who was alive at some point upon the earth. This would also include categories and templates which specifically deal with persons.

Some things I've already considered:

• We'd need a follow up RfC to consider how to handle people of legend and/or antiquity.
• We'd need to define the difference between a group of individual persons and the group as an entity: e.g. Members of the Beatles. And the "entity" the Beatles.

What would you see as the negatives and positives of doing this? - jc37 00:02, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

---

there is no more reason for doing this for BLPs as for any other subject. If anything, there's less, because of the implication for fairness and undue weight & our other BLP considerations--and, carried to the extent you suggest, for privacy. (Though I suppose this could be alleviated by removing any article the subject objected to, or even requiring their consent--but this raises the problemsof NPOV, as subjects would only want to stay in if the article were favorable). I have supported a Wikipedia Two - an encyclopedia supplement where the standard of notability is much relaxed, but which will be different from Wikia by still requiring WP:Verifiability, and NPOV. It would include the lower levels of barely notable articles in Wikipedia, and the upper levels of a good deal of what we do not let in. But even notability would be relaxed, not eliminated. For people, since this is your example, it would include such as college athletes and political candidates and vice-presidents of notable companies. It would, in return, apply a higher standard for those in the main Wikipedia. DGG ( talk ) 00:14, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Motivations for doing this split aside, what would you see as the positive or negative effects if this was indeed implemented? - jc37 00:26, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

I thought it was clear from what I said. I used "reason" not to mean motivation but to mean rationale or justification. To expand, we did this , the negatives are so destructive that they overwhelm any positives: First, there is the opportunity for violations of privacy, undue emphasis on the negative, and unfairness--all of which can be counterbalanced only by abandoning NPOV and letting individuals approve their own articles. We would have either an attack site, or personal advertisements, not an encyclopedia. The justification for some standards of notability include having articles limited to what people are interested enough in to keep neutral. We have enough problems of this sort already, and extreme difficulty in handling them. We should not try to do what we cannot control. NPOV is more important than inclusiveness. The advantage for the existing encyclopedia would be having a place to put the barely notable, but there would be just as many arguments over whether people pass the line wherever it was located. The advantage for the world in general would be provision of information, counterbalanced by the fact that it would be unreliable. The additional argument is that there is no reason for doing this for people as distinct from other subjects--if we were to reduce the notability standard to zero it should be in another field where the loss of NPOV would not be as important to individuals. A much more rational approach is more realistic and more inclusive standards based on observable facts, not details of sourcing. And even for this, the limiting factor is RS and NPOV and V. Some think even our current standards so low they make these a danger; I don't agree that they have a general case, but they have had one in more than a few specific instances. DGG ( talk ) 01:22, 28 September 2012 (UTC) .

---

I think I may have miscommunicated something here. When I was speaking of the criteria, I meant criteria for what should be split from here, not what would be the criteria for inclusion of new information. Sorry for the confusion. Of course NPOV/V/NOR would apply. And also with BLP in place, the inclusion criteria of information would be at least as stringent as it is here on en.wp.

What I'm asking for are your thoughts on the effects of the split. Sorry for the confusion. - jc37 01:43, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes indeed, I totally misunderstood!

What you are suggesting is to remove BLPs from WP and move them to a co-ordinate project. I've read the relevant section of Jimbo's talk p., which is talking about the difficulty with admin and editor recruitment and retention. I do not see the connection with your proposal, and at that point you do not explain the suggested benefits. Myself, I see none at all. I don't even see the possibility of avoiding damage to individuals. I deal with school articles, where individuals can be damaged just as much on articles not avowedly about people. (and, as we know, therefore the special BLP guidelines apply to all articles whether or not primarily about an individual). and I deal with many promotional articles, where it;'s become routine for the PR editor to write an article about both the company and the person, sometimes with almost complete duplication of content. Remove the one on the person, and there is still the promotionalism. Or take articles on bands: though I do not work there, I know our current N:MUSIC rules says to cover the musician in the band article if they were only in one band, so with this as an example, I don't see the point about groups of people being any different from people. I can't say I see any specific harm, except the artificial split where people tend to look for both sorts of topic. I know I do, and I know that in working here i work on articles in the same way regardless of the type of subject. There is an advantage in having one big encyclopedia. DGG ( talk ) 03:01, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, I've done a fair amount of reading of the reasons behind SUL, and I think we may see more splitting, not less. Right now, the goals are to clean up the other projects (there's a lot of left over messes at meta, for example). But once that is done....

See, the idea is that all the same-language projects should be more interconnected. After all, all it takes to wikilink to en.wiki is wp:.

All the rest of your concerns can easily be dealt with in the new project's own policies/guidelines.

As for blp information that's in articles, I think much of that is due to mergist/notability sentiments ("the person isn't notable of their own accord, so let's put the info in another article" aka BHTT/BTTH). And with a separate wiki, I think we'll see more of that there, than here. And of course we would still have WP:BLP here.

As you may have guessed, I've literally spent years thinking about this. But I am just one person. And I'm a firm believer in many eyes. the more people looking over something, the better : ) - jc37 04:20, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

The reasons for SUL are pretty obvious, to encourage people to work cross project. (It had the downside of preventing us from requiring roman alphabet usernames, but that's a relatively minor consideration.) The other en projects are a problem. I agree they should be more connected, but what they need most is to be of higher quality. I have never understood the reason for the distinction between Wikibooks and Wikiversity--and to be the intuitive meaning of the names is the opposite of the actual only: to me __university implies the project with the more advanced material. Wikinews needs a clearer role--it is more of a newsmagazine than a newspaper, because for actually breaking events, Wikipedia does it better because of our much higher participation. Wikiquote has a special niche, but there is nothing there which could not be integrated here. The distinction between Wiktionary and Wikipedia strikes me as artificial: words have meanings, and meanings are suitable subjects for articles--we should be able to write a valid article for every word in Wiktionary. Wikisource has a role, overlapping non-WMF projects, but it needs to be integrated with discussions of the works included. If anyone wants to combine any of these, I'll support it.

But I still do not see the basic reason why you should want to separate the information on people: you have not yet given anything which I would consider a reason or an advantage. If we start doing that, perhaps we should separate the information on places, and the information of works of art, and the information on products, and the information on companies, and on sports, and on chemicals, and biological organisms, and medicine, & so on until we have an encyclopedia of only very general articles on very general topics -- which I suppose would amount to an encyclopedia on philosophy. I don't see a reason. It defies the very concept of an encyclopedia, to encompass all of knowledge.

---

(edit conflict)As a pure coincidence, schools, colleges, bios (especially the sport ones that are allowed to be 'notable' based on a single listing on a club website, where notable academics have to fight for their existence on Wikipedia), and rappers, are the bane of my work here too. My private thought for a long time has been that all those one-line, one-ref sport bios should be split off to a WikiSport site. Corporate spam masquerading as articles also makes me furious, especially when it written by paid-for PR people or even our own editors. We as volunteers should not be providing fee help for adverts.

However, such splits will never happen, and there is no technical argument for them. Moreover, keeping everything in one place will at least help ensure that whatever criteria we do have are upheld and maintained by a diversity of experienced editors and admins. What needs to be done are three things:

• Bring the different BLP notability standards into alignment.
• Insist that NPP is wholly carried out by suitably experienced editors.
• Provide a proper landing page for newly registered users that clearly and concisely tells them what we want or can accept here. Unfortunately, the Article creation Work Flow that was promised by the Foundation over a year ago has been shelved as being of little priority. The last news several weeks ago was that it is being 'revisited'. I can't really understand why such as project is of such low priority because it would largely resolve all these issues in one sweep - including editor retention..

The problem is that once the Foundation adopts (or even usurps) a community driven project, although the volunteers are allowed to voice their opinions, they have very little real say in how the program advances. This is particularly true with the issues surrounding the NewPagesFeed, and the community's NPP Survey that was designed to shed some light on the actual quality of page patrolling. Among the tens of thousands of regular editors are many competent professional computer programmers, and it does not help community relations when the Foundation claims, as it did yesterday, that the only 'proper' devs are those who are salaried by the WMF. IMHO, those paid individuals might well be highly skilled coders, but they may have very little actual experience of editing and policies and knowledge of the true needs of both editors and readers. We've seen this with all the fuss, time, and funds dedicated to AfT - the results of which have not in any way contributed to an improvement in the current issues. All it does is feed the minds of the stats obsessed. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:03, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

I have my own wishlist also. It is different from yours, though there are some overlaps. At this point, I'm concerned more about process than content. I would enforce WP:NPA as the first step: we need good people who combine writing and subject ability with the qualities necessary to work in our cooperative environment--the place for even the most knowledgable people if they want to work otherwise is elsewhere. . I would require notifying people of things that affect their work. I would require explanations. I would require personal messages, not templates. I would require if I could some way of showing that someone read an article before commenting on it. and, as something actually feasible, I would devote WMF funding to making all available sources available to Wikipedia editors in all languages, as the most critical use of their surpluses. (& as a practical matter, if the WMF won't do it--as I doubt they will, for they seem indifferent or unaware of the method of Wikipedia, which is to have sourced encyclopedic content--I intend to help raise the money elsewhere) Most radically, I would ban promotional editors even at the cost of giving up anonymity, for I se no other practical way for continuing to enforce NPOV. As that's not very likely, I'd instead enforce higher standards on the articles they are most likely to write about, standards that few of those currently here have any likelihood of meeting. And I'd no longer fix their articles, but treat them like we do copyvio & work of banned editors, as things to be done over by someone else.

In terms of content, most of the things I would improve coverage on are those in which I am interested, and most I would restrict those I do not care about. I can give good reasons, but such an exact match makes me aware of my need to examine my motivations. I would start, as I've often said, by discarding the GNG as obsolete, being suited only to the state of the internet 10 years ago & the limited research abilities of most of then active Wikipedians. I would then as much as possible establish abstract quantifiable standards. I've said enough elsewhere of what I would like them to be, but I'd accept almost everything as better than a process where the actual distinction depends upon quibbles of what we want to consider a RS.

Ideally, I'd rework the concept of "article" into re-assemblable chunks of information, thus eliminating the concept of notability entirely, for there would be no distinction between articles and subarticles. We have not yet realized the possibilities provided by our being hypertext, not paper. I'd see us expand into a fully semantic wiki, with multiple displayable versions (the problem here is that this requires a manner of writing that few here have mastered).

And I'd hold at all costs to our principles, such as freedom from censorship, and verifiability, and covering all of human knowledge. I wouldn't compromise these, any more than I would compromise the ultimate purpose of an educated public. I'd encourage derivatives, including peer-reviewed expert derivatives--I'd refound Citizendium the way it should have been done, as an expertly reviewed revision of Wikipedia articles. I see WP not as an end in itself, but a demonstration for what can be done by free culture. As the truly fundamental concept, I believe in developing human freedom and capabilities. DGG ( talk ) 08:14, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

and now it's time to go to bed again, but I'm glad I woke up to respond to this. I'm human, and if I do more, it will have to be tomorrow. ` DGG ( talk ) 08:14, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Presbyterian Medical Care Mission

Would you comment at my nomination? The debate is nearing a second relisting and I would like to establish a consensus. Thanks again! SwisterTwister talk 06:20, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

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Google scholar anomality

Hi DGG. In a past deletion debate one year ago which I found mightily suspicious (the submitter and the very last voter turned out to be single purpose-accounts in hindsight) you argued from your professional experience that worldcat holdings of about 100 and 2-3 reviews two years after publication would be normal. I took a look again and Duchesne's 2011 book "The uniqueness of Western civilization" has risen since from 60 to 160 university holdings and, according to his homepage, received 10 reviews by now (leaving out his reply to Elvin and amazon). I noticed Brill has published a paperback version this year, so they seem to consider the book a sales success. However, on Google Scholar the book still is listed as cited by none, even though many of the reviews can be retrieved via its database. Frankly, I cannot make sense of this. Do you have any idea and do you think his WP bio has reached the threshold of notability by now? Gun Powder Ma (talk) 10:26, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

GS citations are erratic, and their standards change, and nobody knows what they are. In the humanities, citations of a book are slow to develop as compared to journals. First, the book will only be cited by those at libraries who have the book, while a few of his articles are in widely held journals. Second, there is the time factor: a 2011 book will show up in a library about 2 - 12 months after publication, a journal shows up immediately after publication. And in the humanities, if someone reading a work decides to use it in an article, they would typically write the article in the next 2 - 12 months , and it would take in the humanities somewhere from 9 to 24 months before it was published. If the citation was to be in a book, of course it would take at least double that time at each stage and sometimes much longer.

Additionally, his writings are from a definite pov, not widely popular at present in the academic world. A very few people will write using his work to support theirs; more will use it as something to refute. But the key qy. is whether he is well known enough that anyone would want to specifically write to refute him, or whether they will just include him among the other theorists they are refuting the next time they write on the general subject. .

As for actual notability , you will have noticed that at the AfD I made no keep or delete comment. I limited myself to critiquing the bad arguments,particularly those from BG. I consider it borderline by my own standard for notability as an academic: whether a person is a full professor at a research university or of equivalent quality. The usual requirement for getting there in the humanities is at least two books from major scholarly presses. Brill is in most fields a minor press, except for near eastern studies, religion, and related subjects; and UNB is a good but not superlative university. Of his journal articles, some of them are in important journals--but most are in a few journals of a rather specialized nature. The publications list should have included only peer reviewed journal articles, not book chapters. What also influenced me is that the article was written in the typical way to make slightly important subjects look more so: material on the importance of his student work, on the importance of his advisors, of those he has debated with, of those who replied to him, What influences me now much more is that too much of the article is a close paraphrase of his web page, which I carelessly did not think to look at during the discussion. if I had, I would said delete.

If you want to try it again, rewrite it from scratch. But I do not think there is enough new information; even if BG stays away from WP the result might be the same, and another delete decision will make it much harder in the future. What is needed is another book--it would be much safer. DGG ( talk ) 18:29, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your opinion. Best Gun Powder Ma (talk) 20:02, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

COI and notability

At a current AfD, I made a suggestio [15]n that I would like to expand here:

A year ago my usual position on promotional articles about subjects of borderline notability was that I would want to accept the article, and then rewrite it to remove the irrelevant material, emphasize (or sometimes add) whatever was really important,& keep only the good references. I have come to feel differently. The reason is my increasing sense of desperation from working at AfC and NPP. When it was a trickle, we could deal with it, but not now. The greatly increased use of Wikipedia for PR, is of course due to the public perception of Wikipedia's significance. I don't see how we can avoid being a target, but we can alter our response.

I can not justify it by the formal WP rules, but the article on a person or firm of borderline notability that is here only as a result of a PR effort does not arouse my sympathies, and I judge it somewhat more strictly. I think many of us do. I now do pay attention to the origin and motivation of the article, & I also pay attention to the quality of the PR work--when it a great effort to magnify things, it increases my degree of skepticism. How we interpret our rules will always depend on common sense, otherwise known as IAR, and perhaps that informal interpretation is the best guide when the situation is otherwise ambiguous. We could think of it as self-defense. Because of the nature of the work I do here, I've thought about this for some months, and I've figured out how to express my feeling in an actual proposal:

I suggest a formal guideline that articles written with COI must show clear and unambiguous notability . (Because we cannot always tell whether something is PR, it would necessarily apply to those jobs of PR so poorly done that we could tell; this is most of them, and even forcing an improvement in quality would be of considerable help to the encyclopedia) I can see how it would be abused, by leading to an increased use of I Think It's Notable/Not Notable as an argument. I can see how it would be misused to delete articles by good-faith contributors who are merely copying what they think the correct style here. I can see the danger in discarding articles that are merely poorly written--unlike some other WPs that can require quality writing, we have an important role for editors with an imperfect knowledge of our language. We'd probably need some subtler wording, and it would fortunately all depend in practice on what people think at AfD, not the views of a single administrator. I've heard it suggested we counter promotionalism by omitting BLPs, and articles about companies & organizations, which is a throwing out the essential content along with the junk. More realistically, I've heard it suggested that we omit non-famous BLPs & companies & organizations. Mine is a lesser move in the same direction.

Opinions and suggested modification requested before I actually propose it. DGG ( talk ) 20:33, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

• I agree. A recent DRV (Bianca Jade) made me formulate the thought that one way to meet the flood of PR is to be much tougher-minded about the words significant and independent in the GNG; but I agree that, if the definitions can be got right, a higher formal notability standard for PR-driven efforts is desirable. I presume you are thinking of the AfD level: should there be a higher A7 bar for PR entries, as well? JohnCD (talk) 23:03, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it was that one which started me thinking. I think for a change like this, it would be better to trust the community, than individual administrators, since it's a matter of interpretation. . Since the community has gradually been using higher standards for these promotional articles at AfD, this will give a smooth transition. Perhaps the real value of my suggested change is to make it easier to explain and support the decisions that are already being made. At CSD, we already have G11, which gives a good deal of flexibility. (And in deciding whether to use G11, I do take into account to some degree the likelihood of rewriting into an article that would pass AfD--certainly I myself am not going to go to the trouble of rewriting one unless I'm very sure it will!) And opinion at WT:CSD has always been against linking A7 to "notability"--I questioned that when I first came here, but people with more experienced explained to me how any connection would cause confusion and erratic single-handed deletions. DGG ( talk ) 23:17, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Apart from the regular spam for sports people and garage bands, I take particular exception to the use of Wikipedia for promoting people, companies, and products. There is a core philosophy here that we are expected to to copyedit, improve, and find sources for every newly submitted article, but other than reaching for the delete button, I wouldn't lift a finger to edit a spam or vanity page. It's our own fault as a community that we too often allow such articles to stay, and a greater fault of the Foundation who firmly believes that greater controls are not necessary, and that a landing page that explains the rules to newly registered users is a low priority. We don't want to throw the babies out with the bathwater, but as such articles are almost always written by SPA/COI we should only allow admins, or at least established editors to vote on bio and corporate AfDs, but as long as the WMF decides what the community can decide, it will never happen of course. Even getting a new CSD criterion for SPAMBIO or CORPSPAM would be nigh on impossible. 00:06, 29 September 2012 (UTC)Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk)

I would encourage new people to participate as soon as they knew their way around--we need them, but to replace those leaving, and for fresh viewpoints. What we need to do is to find more effective ways to teach them, on the assumption that any teacher must make, that most of them really do want to learn. The troublesome or bigoted long term contributors are the more difficult problem. Commercial PR writers are bad enough, but the zealots are worse-- commercial writers, once they have lost, leave. A zealot never gets discouraged and I keep seeing those I first spotted 5 years ago. But WP is a communal project, and it is more important that it remain communal than that be a first-rate encyclopedia. The original intent was right: to recognize our unreliability, but strive for comprehensive coverage. And as I said, I would not establish new CSD criteria, basically because I do not trust individual admins to make judgments. DGG ( talk ) 01:44, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Friendly note

I have made an argument at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Interface: a journal for and about social movements (2nd nomination) which I base on my interpretation of a comment of yours (linked there). You may want to review it to see if you agree with how I use your comment :) --<sub>Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here</sub> 18:01, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

yes, that's what I mean, but unless there is some indexing, I doubt the article will be kept. But FWIW, it is an interesting journal, which I had not known about previously. DGG ( talk ) 19:58, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

TB

User_talk:Sitush#articles_for_creation,. Not sure if you are watching. - Sitush (talk) 02:08, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dimsum (organisation)

User:Stuartyeates has commented at my nomination suggesting that the article be merged and redirected to British Chinese. However, I'm curious where I should move the content to. Would you help me? Thanks! SwisterTwister talk 02:57, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Biography Model

My question concerns why the page was deleted Biography of Stefanie de Roux (Miss Panama), she was a remarkable host of Miss Universe 2003 and is a well-known TV presenter in the country besides walkways Supermodel in Panama and outside the Panama. Evanex ( talk ) 23:08, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

this was deleted because it was proposed for deletion for 10 days as not notable, and not challenged. In such circumstances, anyone may ask it to be restored, and I have therefore restored it. I suggest improving it quickly with some additional references and a clearer statement that she was in fact Miss Panama, before the article gets nominated for deletion by a regular deletion process. I am not sure just which contests in this field will be considered notable by the community, so the article should be as strong as possible. references in Spanish are just as good as in English. DGG ( talk ) 04:39, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Ok'll add some references of his life both as a model and Miss Panama for item not enter deletion process, thanks for your attention. Evanex ( talk ) 02:36, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Help with new user, please

We have a new user working at Addison's disease in canines. Have tried helping him re: adding links and directed him to the Teahouse. There seems to be a COI as he appears to be the owner of the website for the refs he's been adding. I've listed his site in EL, but the page has been broken quite a few times over the last 24 hours when he tries adding references. I have no intention of edit warring--just want to keep the page unbroken and avoid COI refs. Thanks, We hope (talk) 15:31, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

The article needs some extensive editing to remove duplication, which will also solve some of the formatting problems. I am now doing it. See the talk page for an explanation of my changes after I have finished. And then I'll check those COI references, and tell him the rule: he is supposed to suggest them on the talk page, for others to add. DGG ( talk ) 15:55, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

As always, Thanks!!! We hope (talk)

Manual Talkback

You have a message in my TP. Sorry, I don't know how to put the TB template. Thanks for your time. --E4024 (talk) 17:39, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Is there an "edit request" template? How can I use one? Could you be kind enough to place one on my "edit request" at the article under the provisional title Ceviche? Thanks in advance and all the best. --E4024 (talk) 11:17, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Extant Organization template

I would be curious as to your thoughts on the template now that it has been adjusted based on DES and your feedback. Corporate 00:10, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Avrom Lasarow Article

Hello DGG. Thank you very much for your message and advice. I had read the sections on BLPs and Referencing, and was convinced that was the policy but upon reading them for a second time I was clearly wrong. The policy does only apply to material that is challenged or likely to be challenged and all quotations. I sincerely apologize for my error. Fortunately, I don't believe I have used that comment very often and lately I have mostly been welcoming new users, declining only very obviously self-promotional or nonsense submission, fixing small format errors, and helping to create new articles. I will try to find any articles where I have placed that comment, though, and revert the comment and review the articles again.

With respect to Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Avrom Lasarow, I have tried to fix some format issues in the article. I changed the section "Personal Life" to "Personal Comments" because it appears to be just a series of quotes from Lasarow that have very little, if anything, to do with his personal life.

I also have some concerns about the lack of independence and promotional nature of quite a few of the references and want to seek your guidance. I would appreciate your consideration of the following issues:

1. All of the PRNewswire references. PRNewswire is a self-promotional site, "Press Release"(PR). Businesses or individuals pay the site to publish their article or press release and to post it on a whole bunch of free, questionable sites. If you scroll down to the bottom of this one, for instance, you see that the source is the company itself: http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/avi-lasarow---founder-amp-managing-director-of-dna-bioscience-is-shortlisted-for-entrepreneur-of-the-future-award-154792255.html and also this one:http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/trimegas-new-substance-abuse-testing-laboratory-in-manchester-to-alleviate-impact-of-forensic-science-service-closure-156254205.html If you review the information at the Products & Services Tab http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/products-services/ you will get a better idea of what PRNewswire is all about.

2. The only thing Rebecca Burn Calendar wrote at http://www.managementtoday.co.uk/features/1107499/week-avi-lasarow-trimega-laboratories is the byline: "The Trimega boss on being a drug testing pioneer, going global, and why running your own business is just like sport." The rest of it is written entirely by Avrom Lasarow. I checked the fine print at the very bottom of the page about the publication and although it contains some news, it also contains management tips and advice, blogs and insight from managers. That appears to be what this piece is - an article by the manager about the manager. The title of the article is actually: My Week: Avi Lasarow of Trimega Laboratories

3. The article atributed to "Africa, T.S." is actually a blog piece where Lasarow interviews himself, essentially. (I can only assume Africa, T.S. was thought to be a clever way of disguising that since the article appears in The South African.com.)The tipoff is the label "About the author" just to the left of his photograph. The content is entirely his own words and is promotional as are most of the articles the user has referenced.

4. The reference to the site about his having been named the Honourary Consul for South Africa in Birmingham is troubling as well. If you click on the "welcome" part of that site at http://www.honconsul.za.com/birmingham/, you find Lasarow's welcome. The site appears to be his own and the contents, therefore, written by him. I checked around to see if there was an independent and verifiable source for this information and found that while the same article that appears on his bio page on that site appears all over the place, it all originated from PRNewswire (http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/avi-lasarow-appointed-south-african-honorary-consul-of-the-midlands-133998843.html) which is the paid-for-self-promotional site I mentioned earlier. According to the Republic of South Africa, International Relations & Cooperation page at http://www.dirco.gov.za/foreign/sa_abroad/sau.htm#uk he truly is the Honourary Consul for Birmingham but the rest of the information in the sources he cites comes from him. Would it not be better and more neutral to simply refer to the Republic of South Africa page?

5. There is a second reference to author "Africa, T.S." which is again an article actually written by Lasarow in The South African.com. It is the same self promotional piece about his being appointed as Honourary Consul for Birmingham. This is a duplicate of the article discussed at the above paragraph.

6. A number of the references are to Lasarow's company website. If one follows the reference to the awards page, you will see that in fact the company won only two "Start-up" business awards - all the rest it was either a representative or a finalist but did not win the awards. The Awards and Honours section of the article reflects this for the most part, but also sites awards not listed on the company's website through PRNewswire and the Pitman article which I will address shortly. My two concerns are: a) is it noteworthy that the company didn't win several awards? and b)independence.

7. The S. Bartlett and J. Pitman articles are better, but only slightly. Both begin by providing unsourced information about Lasarow and the company, but then devolve into interviews with him. In all the circumstances, I can't help but suspect that their information came from Lasarow.

8. The reference to source "Unknown" at the Trimega Lab's website is entirely misleading. If one clicks on the link provided http://www.trimegalabs.co.uk/info/media-centre/downloads/110218-trimega-manchester-lab-launch-180211.pdf it takes you to a pdf's word document that is self-promotional. The exact same press release, which clearly indicates it comes from the company itself, appears in an earlier PRNewswire citation included by the user: http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/trimegas-new-substance-abuse-testing-laboratory-in-manchester-to-alleviate-impact-of-forensic-science-service-closure-156254205.html - it even bears the same date.

9. The BBC news article cited http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hereford-worcester-16743351 is really an article about Basil D'Oliveria (a cricketer) and the memorial service held for him. It mentions that Lasarow, as Honourary Consul for Birmingham was there and paid his tributes. I'm not sure that portion of the article adds anything of value about Lasarow, but at least the source is independent I guess.

10. The News24 article is again an article about his company being a finalist for an award.

11. The posted article at IVDTechnology.com is a direct, word for word, posting of press release put out by the company - it can be found at http://www.trimegalabs.co.uk/info/media-centre/downloads/110909-trimega-develops-worlde28099s-first-commercial-test-for-foetal-alcohol-syndrome-in-south-africa2.pdf which I retrieved from Trimega's press release page. The reference refers to Park, R. as though he were the author of the article when, in fact, he is merely the guy who posted it.

12. The Progressive Business Forum article is about a two day conference that was held in London. The only mention of Lasarow is in this one line: The South African Deputy High Commissioner, Mr Bongani Qwabe, also attended as did South Africa’s Honorary Consul for the Midlands, Mr Avi Lasarow.

13. External Links seem a bit excessive and self promotional to me. There are also some external links listed that are not links at all that I think should be removed.

The surviving, seemingly independent sources are either about Trimega or about the failed company DNA Bioscience. Any guidance you may be able to provide would be helpful.

Thanks again for your time and assistance. Snowysusan (talk) 11:10, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

good analysis. Your comment are generally correct, and I will deal with the problems they present. Some of these non-independent references are good for some purposes, for the routine facts of his life. Some are just fluff. There is also a problem with some wording which can be seen as OR unless fully sourced. And I apologize for not making myself the format fixes that you made there.

What happened with this article is that on seeing that the reason for non-aproval did not apply, and recognizing that his positions were /n, and there were among all the references a few good ones that confirmed it, I hurriedly & a little carelessly approved it, without considering carefully enough the other problems. What I should have done is dealt with them , either myself before I moved it to mainspace, or right afterwards, or by at least telling the author to make the needed corrections.

The article was excessively promotional in general, but fixable. What I do with such articles depends of the importance of the subject & my own interests. If they are borderline important & uninteresting to me, I tend not to accept them. If they're clearly notable, I fix them to the minimum extent & hope for further improvements. If I am really interested & think it's really notable, I sometimes rewrite, especially if the original author appears unlikely to learn enough to do it themselves--but nobody reviewing an article is obliged to do that.

It is my own fault I did not follow up--I've done some of it now, and I will do the rest later in the week. DGG ( talk ) 17:16, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, DGG. You have new messages at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Pontus_Schultz.
Message added 01:11, 1 October 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Go Phightins! (talk) 01:11, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, DGG. You have new messages at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Pontus_Schultz.
Message added 01:32, 1 October 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Go Phightins! (talk) 01:32, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Martin A. Nisenholtz Article

Hello DGG. Thank you for moving my first ever Wikipedia entry into the article space today. It was a thrill. However, somewhere along the line the subject's name got a typo in both the headline and the url. The article is about Martin A. Nisenholtz, with an "h." The headline and the url have omitted the "h" and list the subject as Martin A. Nisenoltz. I cannot figure out how to correct this so I'm hoping you can help. Thanks very much. Mzimbalist (talk) 02:49, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

This is done by the move page function under the page menu, but there can be complication, so I did it, moving it to Martin Nisenholtz -- it's not our style to use the middle initial unless needed to disambiguate; I made the necessary cross reference. While I was at it, I did what I should have done earlier , copy-editing for conciseness and our house style, and to ensure it did not duplicate any of a previous article on him, deleted in 2010 as copyvio from the NYT company site--a page I can no longer reach to check. You'll notice we use a down style for capitalization, and avoid repeating names of people and companies when not necessary for clarity. I added a few links also--we normally add more than you conservatively did. The article needs a cite for one value judgement--I marked it. It could also use a reference to a published review of his book. DGG ( talk ) 03:24, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Review for Veterinary clinical pathology page.

Hello DGG,

Thank you very much for your more detailed comments about my new page Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Veterinary Clinical Pathology and the American Society for Veterinary Clinical Pathology. I really appreciate more than just the canned auto comments that I had received from previous reviewers. As recommended I have shortened the title and completely reworked the article which is now listed as Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Veterinary Clinical Pathology. If you have a chance would you please take a second look and let me know if there is anything else I can do to improve its chances of being accepted. After acceptance I also plan to add a few photos. Thank you very much, Pennypatten (talk) 20:34, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

I took a look at a fee of the existing articles, and things are a bit more complicated. See your talk p. DGG ( talk ) 21:18, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

British Mauritius

hi, i wanted to move the article Dominion of Mauritius to British Mauritius, i nominated the page 'British Mauritius' for deletion as it was only a redirect to a section of an article, but my edit was reverted, i don't understand what you mean by Just make an additional redirect for the name you want, i want to know what should i do?Kingroyos (talk) 03:44, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

I see now what you are trying to do: you are trying to write a separate article to expand the "British Period" section of the Mauritius article., and name in dominion of Mauritius. That sees a perfectly good idea, except that so fat you have not added any content to it beyond what was in the overall article. When you do, I can make the necesary connections. but on the other hand, if you are not going to develop the article further, I do not see the point of it being there at all. DGG ( talk ) 23:49, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

PROD / Speedy / AfD

I have seen your comments on the, all too common, WP:SPIP WP:NOTABILITY articles.

Opinions on this:

John Styn PeterWesco (talk) 00:44, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

He did win two webbys, so there is an argument he might be notable. I find it very hard to judge careers like his. Send it to AfD, and others will come to a conclusion. DGG ( talk ) 18:11, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Help with monitoring a potential revert war

Hi DGG! I needed your help, or at least for you to keep an eye on a situation occurring at Seraphina (book). I'm sort of in the middle of a reversion war with another user and while it's not at the 3R point, I feel that it's coming to that. The latest point of contention is that the other user keeps trying to add the sentence "Seraphina achieved the extremely rare feat of receiving starred reviews from all six publishing trade journals that award them." My rationale behind removing it is that it's somewhat promotional, not very neutral, is rather redundant with the overflow of comments in the reception section (I admit that it probably needs to be trimmed), and sort of smacks of original research. I know that not every book ever made gets starred reviews from every journal, but I also know that it isn't as overwhelmingly rare as this sentence makes it out to be. When paired with phrases such as "overwhelmingly positive" (which I added because that's what the reviews are), I just feel that the sentence is an unnecessary addition to an article that had already been suffering from several neutrality issues when I first stumbled upon it. Tokyogirl79 (talk) 04:14, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

multiple awards are not independent events: obviously a good will be likely to get many. Because of the different standards used, starred books reviews are not necessarily significant, except to the publisher's advertising. However I do not know any relevant studies of this. More to the point is the use of derivative opinion like both the other editor's statement and your summary. If six reviews said it was excellent, cite all 6 and let it go at that.. There is no need to draw an overall conclusion. DGG ( talk ) 18:05, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Demons (novel)

Hello. Perhaps you can help me with a minor mystery. For some reason, the talk page for Demons (novel) redirects to Talk:The Possessed (novel). I can understand that there was a dispute about where the article should be, and it was moved more than once. But, why did the talk page not get moved at the same time as the article? I thought this happened automatically. At any rate, it's not where it should be, and ought to be fixed, yes? ---The Old Jacobite<sub>The '45</sub> 22:43, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it ought.  Done by passing (talk page stalker). Thanks for pointing it out. JohnCD (talk) 23:14, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! I am just baffled by why it was not moved when the article was moved. Such things never cease to amaze me. Cheers! ---The Old Jacobite<sub>The '45</sub> 01:17, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

semi-automatically, not automatically; there's a box to move the talk p also, selected by default. Someone must have accidentally unselected it. DGG ( talk ) 02:11, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

It's more complicated than that, and easy to make a mistake. If the target page exists, the "move" page asks you to confirm that you intend to delete it; but if the target talk page exists, you are not asked about that, and that move does not happen. There is a warning:

"This page has a talk page, which will be automatically moved along with it unless:

You are moving the page across namespaces,

A non-empty talk page already exists under the new name, or

You uncheck the box below."

but it's easy to miss. What you have to do is, either delete the target talk page in advance, or make a separate move of the talk page afterwards. I suppose the point is to avoid casually overwriting a talk page history which ought to be preserved, but it is not an intuitive way for the system to behave. JohnCD (talk) 10:34, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

how do i resubmit article on john f. mitchell

i have attempted to follow your instructions and have reduced the size significantly

Bias in Mental Testing

Hello DGG, I remembered your comment here that Wikipedia might deserve an article on Arthur Jensen's book Bias in Mental Testing. I recently created this article and I'd like it if you could have a look at it. Specifically I'm wondering about the single-source and notability tags, which were added before I had finished writing the article. I think I've now added enough sources that the article no longer relies on a single source, and enough to show the book is notable. But I'm not sure if I've satisfied the requirement for removing the tags, and also whether it would be bad etiquette for me to remove tags from an article I wrote myself. Zeromus1 (talk) 07:25, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Current Contents' "citation classics" are undoubted notability in science & I will so indicate. What you can do meanwhile, is to rewrite the bullet points into paragraphs. DGG ( talk ) 17:43, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Current Contests has a citation classic article about another of Jensen's books, Educability and Group Differences. Do you think that means this book also is notable enough to have its own Wikipedia article? Zeromus1 (talk) 04:07, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes. But I strongly advise you not to do it, at least not for another 10 or 12 months. To make multiple articles against anticipatable opposition is asking for trouble, no matter how misguided the opposition may be. Work it up as a section of the article on the author -- see WP:Summary Style. What you should instead do is add a list of every book review of BMT. A librarian can help you find them. Try for as wide a range of coverage as possible, --there should have been international attention. DGG ( talk ) 04:29, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't currently have access to an English-language library, but I'll try to find other way to improve the coverage of these books. Thanks for the advice. Zeromus1 (talk) 05:10, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Verifiability

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A kitten for you!

Great stuff on your user page! I've never really seen another user go so in-depth into his philosophies and thoughts on WP as yours does. :)

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Biographical question

Hi - I think I've seen you talk at a few wikipedia events and whatnot, and I know you're heavily involved in biographical entries. Given that, I seem to have gotten into some confusion about policy regarding primary sources. Can they be used to provide basic bibliographic information? Thanks! PermanentVacay (talk) 21:52, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

they can be used for routine uncontested facts not likely to be contested--a person place & date or birth, his education, his employment history. Even his awards, though they can usually be referenced to some 3rd party news source. His publications also, though these always can be sourced to a third party source like worldcat.

I chose these examples without knowing what you were editing, but now looking at the discussion at Talk:Larry Hama, I see the examples I picked are exactly the ones discussed by Nightscream, & I agree with his discussion. DGG ( talk ) 04:20, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Part of this is that I'm trying to understand what part of the policy suggests that this is to be the case. The other part of this is that I'm not sure why including primary sources in addition to other sources is a problem, and why the primary source would have to be removed just by virtue of being a primary source. Thanks for your impartial help - clearly I'm missing something and it's just a matter of explaining policy to me, not putting the references back in... but I'd like to understand the problem so I don't make similar mistakes in the future. PermanentVacay (talk) 05:12, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Dillard

I still think he is notable.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 03:31, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Eric Mika

Not a clear cut copyvio, but top right corner of this link. LegoK<sup>ontribs</sup>T<sup>alk</sup>M 04:25, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

• Also JamiQ, partial copyvio from linkedin. LegoK<sup>ontribs</sup>T<sup>alk</sup>M 04:33, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
• Meriem Maza is a clear cut copy-vio, so I've tagged it for G12. LegoK<sup>ontribs</sup>T<sup>alk</sup>M 04:42, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

yes. The common factor is the insufficiently suspicious person who accepted the AfCs. Ive explained it to him, to supplement your explanation. The hypothesis was the AfC would ease the burden on NPP &CSD and all other deletion processes, but the way its being done, it's making the problem worse. DGG ( talk ) 05:02, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for doing so. What should I do with the first two articles? Let the PRODs expire or tag for G11? LegoK<sup>ontribs</sup>T<sup>alk</sup>M 05:08, 6 October 2012 (UTC)