User talk:Gigs/Archive 15

To contact me, write here. I will reply on this page.

3O

G'day Gigs, thanks for your 3O at Pavle Djurisic. It's always hard to get wider editors to dip their oar in the turbulent waters of the Balkans. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (talk) 00:27, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

The real thanks goes to the editors who are willing to work in contentious areas on a regular basis. I just pop in and try to help when I can, but as a tourist, I have the luxury of backing out. Gigs (talk) 13:37, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 01 October 2012

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The Signpost: 08 October 2012

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 20:19, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

It's not for improving

See Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/User:Lucy_Skywalker/Marcel_Leroux where the owner of the sandbox seems to acknowledge that it was a soapbox (and has now voted delete as having achieved her aims). IRWolfie- (talk) 15:40, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Opinion on RFC/AAMC timeframe change?

Hey. Would you do me a favor and register an opinion on extending AAMC's timeframe? Last I knew you supported that in general, but there's been a lot of activity since then. —chaos5023 (talk) 22:36, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Never mind, I went ahead and pushed out the timeframe. We're pretty clearly not done. —chaos5023 (talk) 22:52, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 15 October 2012

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Added a question

Thanks for your answers to my questions so far. After going through your contributions, I found that I wanted to ask another question concerning notablity. Thank you for your patience with these. - jc37 18:23, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I do realize that some of my personal opinions on notability standards should be are out of line with current practice. But I guess if everyone always agreed with the status quo, consensus could never change. I have no intentions of enforcing my opinions that I know go against current practices and consensus through administrative actions. Gigs (talk) 18:38, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Pseudonym confusion

Hi Gigs,

I've seen you around for years, but for those years, I have been mistakenly assuming that you were User:Giggy. I never looked carefully until seeing you submit an RfA. Good luck. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:32, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

You aren't the first to make that mistake. I've been here since before Giggy was a user, but he was much more active than I was in my early years. From what I saw of him, we had very different opinions on many matters. Gigs (talk) 17:54, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

RFA

Thanks for putting yourself up for RFA. After your explanation to the question for which I initially was neutral, you won me over. I would definitely support you in the future. Happy editing. Go Phightins! 18:15, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your careful consideration. I don't think the Kyrsten Sinema hiccup would prevent me from supporting you at some point in the future as well. Gigs (talk) 18:26, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

A suggestion from someone who's been there: walk out in the sunshine, and look at the vistas for a few days. The annoyances do honestly pass. I wish you well : ) - jc37 18:28, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Hi Gigs, I've just closed your RFA. I'm sorry it did not succeed; I still think you'd have made a fine admin... I hope this experience did not dishearten you and that you'll keep editing Wikipedia. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 19:08, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Yep. I wasn't just blowing smoke about the no big deal thing. It is a little disheartening to see some of the careless opposes, but as I said in my nomination, getting the bit has never been a big goal of mine. It would be nice to have some day just to be able to help in in more areas. Thanks for closing it. I didn't want to mess up the templates and look silly. Gigs (talk) 19:10, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Gigs, I just was headed over to your RfA to cast a !vote of Support. I don't agree with everything the candidate has written (about GLAM in particular), but he is a qualified candidate, and I was impressed by his role recently in helping to address a significant BLP issue. Since I see that the RfA has been closed, I've posted my comment here instead. Good luck with your future editing. Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:09, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. My opinion of GLAM has softened considerably since I have engaged more with some of the organizers. There's some imprecision in our COI guidelines and terminology that I think exasperated the misunderstanding on both sides. That was combined with a hasty generalization on my part of the city GLAM behavior to the more conservative GLAM projects and a little ignorance on my part of the internals of GLAM leading to my rash MfD vote and subsequent discussion. I'll probably do RfA again in a few months if I can sustain a higher activity level so as to satisfy those who want to see big monthly edit counts. Gigs (talk) 01:58, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Sorry to read of your decision to withdraw - although I think I can probably understand how you arrived there. And thanks for your response to my expanded comment, which I've only just read because I was away. All the best for next time. Cheers. -- Trevj (talk) 13:24, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

WP:VP

Any problem with moving Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#User page global edit notice proposal to Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)? I do not see it as a change to policy, but instead it seems more like a proposal? Apteva (talk) 23:36, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

I put it there because it's going to take a policy (well, a guideline) and summarize it in a place that a lot of people are going to see. If you think it would be better to put on proposals, go ahead and move it. Gigs (talk) 01:40, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Deleted Wikiproject

A few times you've referred to WikiProject Nortel as a "sham" project. I did not make any comments on this in the deletion discussion, as since the project pages were mostly moribund, I didn't see much point in arguing about semantics. However, I don't believe it was created to be a front for Avaya pushing, and so don't believe this characterization is accurate. I suspect that although the creator was predominantly interested in Nortel's enterprise portfolio, the editor did have a general interest in Nortel, as other pages not directly related to the enterprise business had also been listed on the WikiProject Nortel page, and originally interest had been expressed in expanding the history section of the Nortel article. I believe the sale of the enterprise line to Avaya came after the project's creation, at which point the editor focused primarily on expanding coverage for Avaya products. The underlying motivations of course make no difference to the net effect, if indeed there was a push to eliminate coverage of competing products, but I think the project was more of a stillborn one (with no real discussion or co-ordination occurring on the project pages) than a sham. isaacl (talk) 20:03, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

The reason I characterize it as a sham is because the founder had one blocked sockpuppet and others suspected but not blocked due to staleness, and all the members save one or two seem to be SPAs, sock, or meat puppets. I do not believe that the project was created in good faith, but rather as a front to add legitimacy to apparently coordinated promotion of Avaya and Nortel and deletion of competitors. If the founder had not been investigated previously as a sockpuppeteer with suspected socks blocked that exhibited much the same behavior as many of the Wikiproject members, then I would be less likely to call it a "sham". You are free to disagree with my conclusion, but I think the evidence here strongly points to a bad faith motivation for its creation. The fact that none of the active accounts involved have made any effort to challenge these assertions, while circumstantial and possibly coincidental, seems to indicate that he/she/they don't believe their actions were defensible. Gigs (talk) 20:20, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

As I recall, creation of the project predates the sale of Nortel's enterprise business to Avaya, and my interactions with the creator at the start of his editing career did not lead me to the conclusion that he started purely as a promoter of Nortel's enterprise products. Of course, it is quite possible intentions changed later on; I just wouldn't characterize the project's initial creation as having a bad faith motivation. isaacl (talk) 20:28, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I will concede that it may have turned into something different from the original intention. Gigs (talk) 20:30, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I was a member of WikiProject Nortel and received no notification regarding the deletion. I have absolutely no connection to Avaya and have made numerous edits on various pages where Avaya was incorrectly asserted as being the purchaser of Nortel in its entirety. If anything, I'm with you in trying to eliminate the spread of the Avaya infection. My main motivation behind joining WikiProject Nortel was to clean up the flow of the main Nortel page and make it more of an objective narrative of Nortel and its long, storied history. I find it questionable when a user comes out of the woodwork and deletes a project they weren't even a member of. The project was not a sham and I find it offensive that you've placed stereotypical labels on people you've had zero interaction with. There was a lot of good discussion on this project. Yes, some of it old, but some of us had genuine interest in cleaning up the Nortel page - something that's still required. The Avaya issue is separate and is not a Nortel issue, so why delete the Nortel project? Pjhansen (talk) 02:40, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

I noted on the evidence page that your editing patterns seemed normal and that you only had a few edits to Nortel articles. I don't think you were involved with any promotional activity related to Avaya. I will rename the page to something that does not imply the names listed there are guilty of anything. Gigs (talk) 02:55, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Move is done. The unusual Avaya/Nortel activity came to my attention after I participated in an AfD for the article for "Cisco ASA". Something weird seemed to be happening and the more I dug the worse it looked. I thank you for your constructive edits. Gigs (talk) 02:57, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I did not answer your final question. The Nortel wikiproject seemed to be acting as a sort of coordination hub for much of the Avaya promotional activity, such as the "hit counter" charts tracking the viewership of Avaya articles. Gigs (talk) 03:06, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

In case you came here straight from the MfD, the evidence page I'm talking about is at User:Gigs/Avaya. If you are interested in monitoring for problematic edits related to Nortel/Avaya in the future, it will probably be of interest to you. Gigs (talk) 03:13, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Appreciate the clarifications, thank you. I did not realize how far-reaching the Avaya issue was and appreciate you taking steps to ensure the Avaya promotional activity stops. I will certainly monitor the evidence page moving forward. Pjhansen (talk) 16:34, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

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

BTW, I think I will take a back-seat to the effort (even from the Talk page), but instead I would encourage you to ping me in any particular area that needs my input and I will only comment "per request" to avoid the appearance of lobbying or being overbearing. Best of luck - it really does need some clarity. Corporate 20:28, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

WT:COI+

Hi Gigs, I want to make sure that you're aware of the discussion here. Ocassi is intending to propose this via an article in the Signpost and an RfC. He said he has invited 20 editors with an interest in the COI issue to review it, and as you've expressed an interest I want to make sure that includes you.

When I first encountered the proposal, it encouraged paid advocates to edit articles directly. I've edited it to remove that suggestion and bring it in line with the COI guideline. It has now been suggested that he should move it to his userspace to prevent edits he disagrees with (I don't know whether he intends to do this; it was a suggestion made on the talk page). I am finding that suggestion (and the whole approach) a little concerning, so I want to make sure there are fresh eyes from experienced Wikipedians on that page. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:03, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 22 October 2012

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 10:45, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Please see ...

WT:Paid advocacy. I think this is a big mistake. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 04:43, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Responded on the paid advocacy page and on my Talk page. RE the request for comment. Corporate 17:02, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Question

Are you aware that the proponents of the Gibraltarpedia moratorium also wish to ban articles about Spain and Morocco? Do you support that? You might wish to consider this in relation to your vote to support a moratorium. Prioryman (talk) 20:20, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

This sort of biased canvassing is improper. Gigs (talk) 20:23, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

It's a straightforward question. Are you aware of the scope, which wasn't fully disclosed by the RfC's author? Do you support that scope? Now that you are aware, does it make any difference to your vote? Prioryman (talk) 20:27, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

The scope is Gibraltarpedia, not just the rock. I get it. Gigs (talk) 20:31, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Good, as long as you're fully informed. Prioryman (talk) 20:37, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

After reading the thread I guess I can see your point in canvassing the supporters. I don't think anyone will change their mind though. The problem isn't the geographical area, it's the contest generating such a large number of DYKs which makes it look like we care less about the damaging media coverage on the topic. My concern is damage control, which is why I suggested such a short moratorium, just long enough to avoid the huge flurry of the contest submissions so close to the negative coverage. Gigs (talk) 20:46, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Pardon me, but what "huge flurry"? We've got a small number of articles awaiting review, and we've had just two articles on the Main Page in the last week. How is two articles in a week a "huge flurry"? Prioryman (talk) 20:53, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

"I would expect probably one or two nominations a day for a few weeks", you said this. We can quibble over how many of those might make it to the main page, but I think that around 100 nominations constitutes a "flurry". Gigs (talk) 21:25, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

So far the rate seems to be quite a lot lower than I'd expected. There have been four nominations in the last week - say one every 2 days, roughly. Assuming they're being stimulated by the contest, which closes 8 weeks from today, that implies around 30 more nominations over the next 2 months if the current rate is sustained (which again is just an assumption). Is that really likely to overwhelm DYK? (Compare the mushroom articles; they've been running at up to 3 per day over the last month). Prioryman (talk) 21:41, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm not going to be too upset if there's no consensus for the moratorium, which is the way it looks like it's heading. I warned them that it appeared community consensus was against a moratorium judging by the earlier discussions, and that a wider RfC would likely be a waste of time. I only revisited the issue because I saw that they were holding the RfC against my advisement. I fully expect it's going to take an "act of Jimbo" if he really wants to stop them, since it doesn't appear that the community has the will. Gigs (talk) 21:49, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Jimbo's comments have descended into idiocity on this issue, frankly, and his interventions have been unhelpful all round. It would be much better if he dedicated himself to schmoozing on the celebrity circuit and let those of us who are actually writing content get on with it. Prioryman (talk) 21:52, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Monmouth

Hi Gigs - the 2 million (c.) is about the newspaper coverage that Monmouth generated. No value was placed on the DYKs at all by the people who made the assessment. I agree that the media is a big issue. Some of this has come from describing the number people who see DYKs as millions and not the thousand who typically click on the average hook. You do realise that the £2m figure is a guess at the value of advertising. There was no millions to "trickle down" - the advertising wasn't done by wikipedia editors, but a specialist team of volunteers. There is a guide to the project if youre interested. Victuallers (talk) 21:12, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't really care how they are using Wikipedia for marketing. The fact that they are using Wikipedia for marketing is a problem to me. When a Wikiproject is getting an "excellence in marketing" award, that's likewise a problem. The town then bragging about the great "financial return" they are getting is just icing on the cake. You can talk about media distortions and things we can all agree with, but it doesn't change the fundamental fact that we allowed two towns to use Wikipedia for marketing purposes, and we have wound up with egg on our face as a result.

If the media is slamming us for something core to our mission like our belief in free content and open access, we should stand united against it. When the media is criticizing us for abandoning our mission to provide unbiased coverage, then we should act to remedy it. Gigs (talk) 21:25, 25 October 2012 (UTC)