User talk:SandyGeorgia

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Hallmark

Thanks for helping out with Hallmark of Hall of Fame movie Front of the Classs. I couldn't get the image to work for me, but it's there now and that's what counts. Also thanks for finding more sources and filling the blanks, such as summaries and plots. That's not my kind of thing. I was surprised no other user took the time to make a movie link, when Front of the Class was first announced. Especially since there's so much information out there now for Hallmark movies.

Your help is really appriciated. GiantTiger001 (talk) 07:47, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Ack! Thanks for the reminder that I was interrupted by Wikidrahmaz just as I was intending to expand that article from the sources. And thanks for getting the ball rolling. Regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:49, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Combine all WMF and Education program posts

Combining all of these under one header, since I haven't caught up on pending work and responses here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:27, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Medical sources handout/paragraph

Sandy, if/when you create the sentences or handout or whatever it's going to be on sourcing, could you ping me? The students on the course I am working with (Wikipedia:United States Education Program/Courses/Psychology of Language (Kyle Chambers)) are having some trouble with correctly identifying secondary sources, according to a more experienced editor I'm talking to. I think your notes would be helpful. On the plus side, they seem to have been instructed to post notes to the article talk page offering to fix problems -- I've seen this note on several talk pages, almost identically phrased: "If anyone has any comments on the material that I have added or any more material that they believe should be added please comment on the talk page and I will be more than glad to take into account any comments". Let's hope they are as good as their word. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:33, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Assessing psychology articles in the education program

Sandy, I don't know if you saw the note I posted to the education noticeboard about assessing student articles, but I thought I'd check to see if you would be interested in assessing a couple of articles in the psychology area that you've been dealing with. You expressed some concern about whether the metric we're using for quality is good enough, so you may not want to participate on that basis, but if you're interested, you'd be a big help, because you'd be a lot more accurate than I would in assessing the quality of the sources used for these articles. It's a fairly quick process to assess an article, especially if it's short. I know you've had trouble with the pscyhology classes and these metrics are intended to help answer the questions you've been raising about whether the EP is a net negative to Wikipedia. If you're interested, the relevant link is here; it should be self-explanatory but ask if you have questions. Thanks. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:22, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Mike, I cracked my elbow and the pain is keeping me from working ... what is your timing? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:14, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

There's no deadline, though it would be useful to have them done by mid-July, when the working group meets to talk about the education program. We have three volunteers working on it now, and I think we'll eventually get to all of them, so if you would like to reserve a couple for your assessment take a look at that page and just put your name after "Reviewer:" under "Reviewer 1" (or "2" or "3") with {{user|SandyGeorgia}} and they'll be there when your elbow recovers. (Sorry to hear you hurt it.) I think LiAnna is going to add two sample articles from every single class, and she hasn't done all of them yet, so the classes you've been working with may not yet be represented. We haven't created the "burden" assessment yet -- we're not really happy with any of the ideas we came up with for measuring negative impact, but we'll probably go with some form of questionnaire -- I'll ping you again when that goes up. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:02, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Ping

Sandy, I've emailed for advice on an interwiki matter. Tony (talk) 06:40, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

I haven't responded because I'm still gob-smacked, and don't like to comment privately on such matters. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:21, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Hi

Hi. Are you aware of this? I'd appreciate your thoughts, if you're interested. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 12:35, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Read the discussions with Iri ... concerned. Much goes wrong in here even with the best of intentions, and that one seems ripe for incidents. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 08:12, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

I couldn't agree more. That's why I'm spamming it everywhere. The intention is obviously benign – an entity with a cheque account that can pay the minimal expenses involved in outreach to professional and scholarly organisations, NGOs, etc. – but it needs concerned eyes on it to make sure it doesn't morph into something nobody intended. Nothing is cut in stone at the moment. The discussion on Iridescent's talk page is a fair summary but some points not raised there are being discussed at m:WT:MED and m:WT:MED/Bylaws. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 14:25, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Burden of education program

Sandy, I know you were concerned that some of the students editing under the education program were more trouble than they are worth. This is something it's been difficult to measure, so in response to some of the discussion at the recent education program RfC I created a burden analysis page. Would you be willing to cast a sceptical eye over it and let me know what you think?

Some of the results bear out your comments from this spring -- the worst performing class is a psychology class from Kentucky, which I believe is part of the Association for Psychological Science's Wikipedia Initiative, and I recall you being particularly critical of some of the medical article edits. For some of the edits I went to WP:MED to get a second opinion; you can see those discussions here. Any feedback you have time for would be very helpful.

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:53, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

There are only two things I know significantly more than squit about

One is computing and the other is psychology; pretty much everything else I've written about here I've learned about on the job so to speak. I've done a few early steam-driven computers and I might do more, perhaps even branch out into transistorised computers eventually, but I'd really like to tackle a serious psychology topic, and I keep coming back to cognitive dissonance. I just looked through the article again and it seemed full of the kind of stuff I might have written as an undergraduate, with references to individual papers that had caught my eye. One of my own favourite undergraduate essays was on the application of Fourier transformations to the understanding of brain waves, which now I look back on it I didn't even really understand myself, and my tutor certainly didn't. But I digress.

Do you think it would be possible to move an article like cognitive dissonance more towards what an encyclopedia article ought to look like without being blocked for 3RR/disruption/whatever? Perhaps even GA? Bearing in mind that my impatience with idiocy is legendary? What's held me back in the past is a lack of access to sources, but now that some who may be sympathetic to my cause are being offered free access to JStor things might become easier.

If you were to seriously look at working on cognitive dissonance where would you start? My initial impression is that I'd start by rewriting the whole fucking thing. But I know you to be more of a diplomat than I'll ever be, so perhaps you may have a better idea. Malleus Fatuorum 02:31, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

I looked at the contribs history; there is a student at work, so no doubt the entire thing needs rewriting. Whether you can get it done without interference depends on which psych editors are watching it-- there aren't many of them who know how Wikipedia articles are supposed to be rewritten, and some of them dig in to preserve their pet theories. Do you really want to spend your time on that? At best, you'd have to wait for the student to finish, because the entire WMF is behind allowing poor student edits to stand. By the way, I haven't heard back on my JSTOR email ... has anyone? We should follow up to find out if our emails were even received, and when we should expect an answer ... what if they were "lost in the mail"? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:37, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

That explains why it looks like an undergraduate essay then, so I suppose I'll have to leave it be, at least for now. BTW, I did myself down a little with my introduction; I know a hell of a lot about ferrets as well, another article I'd just love to take a scythe to, and 17th-century English witchcraft ... and I'm sure there must be other stuff I know about as well. :-) I'll look around for another psychology article in need of a little bit of TLC. Malleus Fatuorum 02:47, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with stepping back from articles where students are active. The WMF keep repeating the mantra that this is the "encyclopaedia anyone can edit" which is as much a lie as the "sum of all human knowledge" bullshit. They use that claim to explain their unwillingness to implement controls on profs using WP for homework assignments. This is an encyclopaedia, not homework. We've now got the ridiculous situation where one of our top article writers is prevented from writing a featured-quality psychology article, because it is currently someone's homework. The students are all over the popular psychology topics like cockroaches so it is impossible to avoid them. From the discussion on Malleus's talk page, it appears the student has been told to write an academic essay from primary sources. So the longer this student carries on doing this, the more it wastes their time and the less useful the article becomes to our readers. Does it surprise anyone to look at the prof's contribution history to realise the problem here. It would be wonderful if someone wrote a top quality popular psychology article because we could at least point the students at it and say "Look! This is how you do it." -- Colin°^Talk 09:28, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

If the professor has told them to write essays on Wikipedia, then she's not getting the point of how Wikipedia is supposed to present information. That's an entirely different issue than students editing for school or pleasure. I will take a look. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 14:03, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

You'll take a look? Fuchs it is WAAAAAYYYY too big of a problem for even a dozen editors to deal with, a group could spend their Wikicareers trying to address article damage done by student editing, the WMF employees (the truly guilty in all of this mess) will scream "BITE" if you deal with student articles in the same way we would deal with any other editor's articles, you can never tell which articles are student edited because they don't tag the talk pages, you'll spend hours dealing with plagiarism alone, you need journal access to correct their faulty text ... there is so much more ... I despair. I truly despair. Add to that the WMF funding and institutionalizing pro-Chavez editing, and there aren't many ways one can turn for enjoyable editing without encountering WMF incompetence leaving a truly negative impact on the quality of this website. Yes, if Malleus were to write one good psych article, it may show the way ... but no, it wouldn't, because the profs and students do not engage the encyclopedia in any way-- they don't look. And Malleus might get peeved and get blocked if he really got in there and saw how truly bad it is. I'm glad you'll take a look, but I have a sneaking suspicion that one of the few editors who has enough gravitas on this site to get WMF to pay attention to the problem is Raul654 (he got us JSTOR, he makes things happen). I don't think it's possible to move PAID employees off of the position of damage that has been done here ... they have access to millions of dollars of DONATED money, and that keeps them employed, keeps our psych articles underrepresented at WP:FA, and now, thanks to their use of our donated funds, will also guarantee that the entire suite of Chavez articles remain POV. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:06, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

"they don't look" -- that is indeed the problem and you will note I said that we'd point them at the example of how to do it. I repeatedly see students writing material on WP that we already have, but they write it in the wrong place because they've been told to expand a stub or a redirect into a GA. So yes, they don't look. But also, with psych articles, if they did look, it would set a very bad example to them. Perhaps that's because it isn't a hard science so the articles are littered with discussions of the crazy experiments psychologists think up rather than actualy explaining how our minds work with the same level of confidence we can explain how blood cells work. Colin°^Talk 15:40, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

My experience of class-assigned art history articles is that they are often pretty poor, and sometimes need wholesale reverting, but I have never experienced any resistance from the volunteer "Camus Diplomatic Corps" to me doing so, let alone from WMF employees. Students tend to do their diff & submit that, sometimes entirely removing the pre-existing content, but neither they nor anyone else seems much to care about what happens afterwards. Anyway, WMF are now "narrowing their focus" as you will have seen, which will I think mean leaving the college programme to shift for itself, with a little cash for expenses. The WMF staff stick pretty rigidly to the "section 230" policy of leaving content well alone in my experience. I don't say that's a good thing. Johnbod (talk) 15:24, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Actually, I'm not sure what you are referring to with "narrowing their focus", but I suspect it means they've realized that they aren't getting any editor retention from a program where students are only editing for a grade, and they can for sure get real editor retention by advancing programs that recruit folks with a committed political POV-- now those are the types of editors who will stick around to advance a cause (not just editing for a grade), and growing the ranks of editors is what WMF really wants. Maybe they realized they aren't getting that from student editing. I guess the real fools here aren't the WMF employees, but those who donate money to the WMF. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:29, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Ok, that is http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Sue_Gardner/Narrowing_focus, this year's big thing from WMF, board-driven I think. Specifically on the college programme, you may have missed this update. Johnbod (talk) 15:37, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, Johnbod, yes I had missed those. I find Sue Gardner's writing about as informative as The Signpost. But yes, it seems that my hunch about what was going on was correct-- they are now directing grant money towards areas that will increase editorship better than the education programs did (anything is better than nothing, and get some POV warriors on board, empower them with money and collaborative editing as a group, and they will stick around). It's possible that they are so incompetent that they don't even realize they are funding institutionalized POV. They will get committed editors this way, and dealing with the editors they are now recruiting will result in even more damage to content. Welcome institutionalized, funded POV (which is the same as we were getting from the education program, but now we are paying to get committed POV warriors instead of those editing only one article one term for a grade). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:48, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Her writing style really grates with me. What does "execute on" mean for instance? But I see she doesn't really accept the point you're making SandyG: "Aside from supporting Wikimedia's continuing growth in unique visitors and pageviews, we've achieved important successes through our work .... and a global education program with thousands of students contributing high-value content as course assignments." Malleus Fatuorum 15:55, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

That's a gem. I mean Really, Sue? Who are you kidding? Or, who are you ignoring? Or, how much are you getting paid to push this BS? Will Jimbo turn over in his virtual grave when he comes to and realizes where donated dollars went to institutionalize POV on Wikipedia? I will admit that as a strategy, the current focus on granting Wikimedia Chapters around the world is much more likely to keep WMF employees in their jobs-- it will increase editorship. And POV. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:30, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

←(ec) I've sent an email to the professor who was running the class. Finals are upon us so I don't think there's much concern about more issues there, but I recommended that she more clearly distinguish between essay and encyclopedia writing to her students and pointed out WP:PSTS and WP:MEDRS as useful links. Malleus, I can only beseech you to be patient in explaining things to such users in the future; it's unfortunate that a misunderstanding on the teacher's part can trickle down to the students (of course they're going to pay attention to the prof, they want a good grade.)

The matter of exposing new editors to featured content and the years of accumulated wisdom and grit from trying to create those articles, I think, is a more general problem that I have no idea how to solve in a world of 3+ million articles and people entering from every nook and cranny of a Google search. I know when I started editing I probably tried to reinvent the wheel on a couple of articles. It's mostly a matter of whether you wise up or get repulsed. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 15:32, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

BTW: you guys may not be aware of this piece of propaganda. And see the "Education program metrics" section on my talk page. It appears that the "Our data shows that students improve Wikipedia articles an average of 64 percent" statement is based on an analysis that didn't check for plagiarism nor specific guidelines like MEDRS. The plagiarism-detection and fixing-up-student-edits issues are absolutely huge. Because you can probably count on one hand the number of medical editors with decent access to a wide selection of sources. The best I have been able to do is use Google Scholar to find snippets of the inserted text inside paywalled journals, but I'm unable to read the journal articles as I have better things to spend $30 on than three sheets of A4 paper. And if they plagiarise their student textbook then essentially nobody other than the prof probably has the ability to check it. So these students expand unwatched stubs and redirects (how many folk watchlist a redirect) and the plagiarism and other issues go undetected and unfixed. We need to shift the burden of plagiarism-detection onto the profs and other teaching staff because we simply don't have the resources to do it, even if we had the inclination. Colin°^Talk 16:06, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, of course; we only have to consider SOPA to know that copyvio isn't one of WMF's concerns. And, we know that the WMF staff is replete with folks who don't know anything about actual editing. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:33, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Here's a doozie; find the hidden student gem, and save that one for the Annals of Student Editing. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:32, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Classroom

FYI, I have some good news about that neuroscience class and WP:MEDRS. I'm in contact, and I will be writing up some advice about how to do things next Fall term to make everyone happier. =) Biosthmors (talk) 19:51, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

That is most encouraging, Bio ... but what about the legions of other classes? I hope your info will address more than that one class (although it is particularly problematic, it is not unique). I had plans long ago to write something up, but instead I gave up in despair and went to my garden all spring, summer and fall. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:53, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, I do hope to scale up from one class to more than one for Spring semester, and I put any thing I see that comes up that is an eye-sore at User talk:Biosthmors/Intro Neuro to hopefully transmit to future "generations". Who knows, maybe it will become a Wikipedia guidance essay. Or used by me to lecture classes before, or assigned by professors as required reading (and quizzable). We'll see! Feel free to share any random points that pop up and frustrate you there in "What's missing?" Best. Biosthmors (talk) 20:32, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

I do already mention a lot about secondary sources, etc. at the main user course page. Biosthmors (talk) 20:33, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Note to self: five hours today on cleanup, and I have barely scratched the surface, and realize I won't be able to fix most of the problems without a whole lot of journal articles that I don't have. What's troubling is that I'm making these articles look good, and they look better than they did before, but before they were accurate-- now they are not. No information is better than wrong information in medicine. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:17, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

True... give me one to work on/tell me (hopefully without using too much more of your time) the main things you see that are wrong? Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) 18:22, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

I left lists at Talk:Palilalia and Talk:Echopraxia, but they are incomplete and working on them now may not be productive. Lots of missing info on sources, and I fear those students will never return to fill in the missing info. Completely wrong focus on both as they used old sources or sources not specific to the topics, resulting in just about no mention of main condition in which these occur (Tourette syndrome). Lots of queries about where they got some info that is wrong as far as I know. Much more to do, not sure if starting now is the best idea, maybe wait and see if they return to answer questions? I've got to run ... busy day now. I've not even started on Jumping Frenchmen of Maine, and I can't remember now the fourth article I need to fix. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:48, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Well I haven't made much headway in clean-up, but I did make a note of your recent post, FYI. Thanks for putting it there. Good idea. Biosthmors (talk) 16:59, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Psychology student edits

You and/or some of your talk page stalkers may be interested in yet another strand of discussion about edits made by psychology undergraduates as part of an education program, this time at Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)#New editors making huge edits. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 14:05, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

customized probation to deal with problematic classes?

Hi Sandy - this idea isn't entirely thought out yet, so I figured I would solicit your feedback here rather than bringing it to EN/B yet. How would you feel about a customized community probation that dealt with classroom assignments that worked on articles covered by WP:MEDRS that said something like "If more than XX% of student editors in a particular class make mainspace edits on articles that are covered by the aegis of WP:MEDRS that substantially fail to meet the requirements of WP:MEDRS, the edits from all students in that particular class will be forcibly sandboxed until they can be independently reviewed by Wikipedians experienced with applying WP:MEDRS?" I understand the significant problem that exists here, I just want to find a way to deal with it that fixes the problematic classes, without punishing the non-problematic ones. (I think a similar clause about "If more than XX% of student editors in a particular class violate our copyright policies, the entire classes edits will be rolled back" would also likely be a good idea.) Obviously we'd have to figure out exact wording of the terms of the probation and then get community agreement to it, but do you think this could be a viable compromise path forward? Kevin Gorman (talk) 01:19, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

I suppose it might help, but it still seems kind of backwards. First, there has been no class I've encountered that hasn't been problematic (to varying degrees), so the burden seems to be backwards (sandbox all of 'em, bring out what is salvageable). Second, it adds a whole 'nother dimension to the burden on established editors-- that is, we have to now check every article written by the class to see if the percentage that fail to meet requirements is met. So, instead of me having to fix two or three articles per problematic class, I would be tasked with checking up to 40 articles !!! So, I think Slim's proposal is more in the right direction-- sandbox them to begin with, bring out what is salvageable. Best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:36, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

How about a change to the text to make it clear that it's not placing any requirement on established editors to conduct such reviews, just requiring that the content stays sandboxed until such reviews are done? (Which may mean it's sandboxed indefinitely.) I'm just trying to come up with a mechanic that targets problematic classes, while allowing high performing classes to continue to function unimpeded. I haven't reviewed many medrs covered classes; if they are truly all bad, then I would consider supporting forcibly sandboxing all of 'em. I just know of a high enough number of non-medrs covered classes that perform at a high level that I don't want to support a general EP-wide forcible sandbox. Kevin Gorman (talk) 01:41, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

And I do see your point re: figuring out XX% being a pain in the ass for MEDRS covered classes. Kevin Gorman (talk) 01:41, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

What you're trying to accomplish is in the correct direction; the problems in medical articles are occurring because the profs are completely unaware of MEDRS, the sourcing is inadequate, and the undergrad students are simply not up to the task of writing medical content for an encyclopedia. Generally, a problematic class results in every article being problematic. So your intent/direction is right. Yes, if they were forcibly sandboxed it would help ... but no one but the medical editors would know which of these classes needed to be put on that probation, so the burden on medical editors to identify the problematic profs would still be there. What would help MUCH more are two things: 1) educate the profs on MEDRS, and 2) get the students to post to talk so we can guide their edits, point them to adequate sources, make sure the content they are adding belongs in the article they are editing, etc. They are students at universities, and so should have better access to sources than, for example, I do. If I knew someone wanted to write on topic X, I could say-- go get this source, which is high quality, recent, compliant with MEDRS, and from there, you can write an article. Instead, they're getting whatever (usually faulty) sources they can find, and trying to generate meaningful content from often bad sources.

On another matter, I had a friend look at the law articles you suggested. He found several grammatical errors-- not a big deal-- and generally felt that the articles were decent quality. He did comment two things, though: 1) he noticed that every article had a) an editor, b) a copyeditor, and c) a reviewer (a good setup), and 2) he said he couldn't address whether the articles were adequately writtten for a general audience. He understood them because he's a lawyer, but said there may be problems with general audience comprehension (that is, encyclopedic tone aimed at laypersons). He also added that he wasn't surprised that they were better than what I'm seeing in medical articles, since they are written after all by law students. And he said that one reason that class's choice of articles probably worked out well is that case reports follow an established structure which lends itself to an encyclopedic format. Hope that helps, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:19, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

They are written by students at the graduate school of information, generally people getting master's degrees in information science - not law students (and not always grad students - I've taken both his classes.) It is still definitely the case that they articles written by primarily graduate students are going to be better in quality than undergrad articles though, that's been a pretty consistent finding throughout the ed program, so it is still a point. Re: point (1) from your friend - they do indeed all have that, it's built in to his assignment design. I've somehow lost a link to his full instructional design, but you can get the gist of it from this page. I think it works quite well, and have been encouraging new professors I encounter to adopt it. And re: point (2) - he has a point there, too. Not all of the articles are written in a way that is as appropriate for a general audience as they should be. That said, I feel like they're certainly of a quality that is worthwhile for Wikipedia to have - they're not perfect, but pretty damn good, and I suspect better than an average Wikipedia article. (And his classes have produced a ton of content - I think at this point they've written a majority of case summaries about American internet law that exist on Wikipedia, or at least a huge chunk of them.) His class is definitely on the higher end of successful as far as GEP classes go, I just wanted to show it to y'all to make sure that it's clear to everyone that even though there are unsuccessful classes, there are highly successful ones too.

I'd like to come up with a solution that allows his class - and classes like his - to continue to function in the way they have been, that at the same time limits the harm caused by the subset of classes that do not represent a net benefit to Wikipedia. (I don't think slim's current proposal does this, which is why I can't agree with it.) I do agree with you that my idea in this section as I originally presented it is probably unworkable. Thanks for your feedback on it, and I'll try to come up with a more workable idea. Kevin Gorman (talk) 02:13, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Your response has me pondering ... I'm pretty sure some of my most problematic classes may also be grad students. I wonder if medical encyclopedic writing is just ... harder. Most interesting is how really poor their basic writing skills are ... anyway, nice ideas coming out! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:19, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Honestly, I do think that part of it is that it is just harder, partly because MEDRS is a standard that is both significantly more serious than RS, and significantly different than what students are used to, and partly because medical writing is just harder. I've been discouraging everyone in a medrs-covered area who has contacted me at Berkeley from participating in the program, because I think that their success rate is inevitably going to be significantly lower than the success rate of general classes, at least until we come up with a better approach to them. Re: general writing skills... I've had some term papers turned in to me that would make you cry :). Sometimes it seems like the average person is a way below average writer, heh. Kevin Gorman (talk) 02:30, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

If we could get one good medical class to do it right, it just might show the way. If the prof would engage, understand WP:MEDMOS (speaking of an established structure, like law case reports-- MEDMOS has an established structure that students rarely follow), choose appropriate topics for expansion, and use MEDRS-compliant sources ... we might show how it should be done. Were you and BIO going to do something in SF early next year? I was considering joining you depending on my travel plans ... although I'd have to give Berkeley the big axe :) :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:39, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm actually not sure who BIO is offhand, so I probably wasn't planning on it, but would be definitely up for something :) is BIO another bay area wikipedian involved in education issues who I haven't encountered yet? If so, it'd be greatly appreciated if you introduced the two of us. If you're ever in the bay area, let me know if you have some free time. I'd love to meet up with you for drinks or something, and brainstorm about some of this stuff in person. Kevin Gorman (talk) 07:58, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Ah, I got the wrong person then. I encountered a conversation somewhere recently where Biosthmors mentioned to another editor something about helping direct a class in the Bay Area ... I can't recall who the other editor was. BIO will surely pop in here (see his earlier posts in this section); if not, give him a ring! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:39, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Ooh, ooh, more bay area stuff I can help out with! If there's a medical class going on nearby, I'd love to help out with them. I'll poke Bio, thanks. And seriously, if you end up in the bay at some point, poke me on my talk and let's get drinks or something. Kevin Gorman (talk) 06:12, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

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

Kevin Gorman (talk) 03:00, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

WMF noticeboard

Weren't you instrumental in getting the Education noticeboard up and running? I think we should have a WMF noticeboard, that way users can express their desires for specific actions (non-Education program related) that could conceivably be addressed. I guess a central concern there will be whether or not certain things violate the WMF interpretation of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Best. Biosthmors (talk) 19:41, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

No, I wasn't involved in the set up oF ENB ... I was one of the first to find, need and post to the board, though. The initial reaction was to shut down anyone criticizing anything about the program. WMF staff pretty much silenced us and moved our posts to talk. I unwatched. Then months later, when I peeked in again, I found Slim raising exactly the same issues several of us had been raising for months, so I joined in again. I'm unclear on the focus of this new board you propose. Generally, I think there are too many dispute resolution boards, and that has stretched resources and has led to diluted resolution. I'm not sure anything can be done about the fact that WMF doesn't care about copyvio. There was only one thing that worked in the past, and her name was Moonriddengirl-- they hired away to a job unrelated to copyvio, and now copyvio gets little attention. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:02, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

I created Wikipedia:Visual editor the other day because it is a WMF activity. If someone wants an update on the Visual editor, or an update on RTCE, then I think they should be able to go to the WMF noticeboard to get a reply from either knowledgeable Wikipedians or WMF people about WMF activities. I imagine it should exist to serve as a place where Wikipedians could communicate to the WMF from a bottom-up approach. I think it would encourage effective understanding, transparency, and (I hope) positive results. Biosthmors (talk) 23:41, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

The tone-deafness of some WMF staff with respect to the problems in medical articles could lead bad places wrt Section 230; they've been notified repeatedly, but nothing is done. But if we raise that, someone will cry "legal threats". They really should be thinking not only about the legal, but also about the moral, repercussions of supporting a program that recruits unprepared and unqualified editors to add medical content to such a prominent website. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:01, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Done

Done with WP:AFSE now! Biosthmors (talk) 17:34, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

A question about a comment in your voter guide

User:SandyGeorgia/ArbVotes2012

I had a question about a comment you made in passing in your voter guide, but I decided to defer bringing it up until after the election. In your introduction, you wrote that you resigned as FA delegate "in February 2012 so I could focus more on my area of editing interest (medical articles) after Wikimedia Foundation efforts furthered programs that have caused deterioration in the quality of Wikipedia's medical content." Either I have forgotten, or I never knew, what your concern was in this regard. Could I ask you to briefly explain or let me have a link? Thanks, Newyorkbrad (talk) 05:27, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Not Sandy, but I suspect you'll find your answers in her recent comments here. Nikkimaria (talk) 05:35, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll take a look at that page tomorrow. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 05:38, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

There's more than that, NYB; I'll try to type up something later today that won't require 50 typo corrections. I bet you're glad those elections are over! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:15, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Please don't take this as a writing assignment or anything like that, especially since whatever you identify as a problem may not be something I can do anything about in any event, no matter how I might feel about it. But I do try to keep abreast of what editors perceive as serious problems on the project, and I could tell from your guide that you were troubled by this one, so I'd like to have at least a general idea of what it is, and perhaps your other watchers here might as well. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 03:07, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I haven't undertaken the "writing assignment" yet because the issues I saw with WMF and the Education Programs (that have negatively impacted my medical editing) have grown into now four related issues ... related in my mind, at least. Did you get the gist of the issues at WP:ENB? There's a lot to read there, but the dialogue is a worthwhile read; you can get a sense of the community divide. I'll write more tomorrow ... really wanted to finish my tree! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:21, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I found WP:ENB very illuminating. I have recently done some work at the metallocene article. After a while, I stepped back and asked how the article had come to be in its present state - my recollection of it was of a much better-written article. So, I looked in the history and found this edit. I posted a request at WT:CHEMISTRY for clean-up of the article, recognising from the user name that it was likely student work, but it wasn't until I read WP:ENB that everything crystallised in my mind. This set of student work was done in the sandbox, as some at ENB advocate, but then was dropped into article space in a huge slab, a problem that Sandy has been commenting on at length. The idea of wading through all of the new material and trying to make it encyclopaedic whilst also working on referencing, checking accuracy, etc., is more than I am up to doing at the moment. So, Sandy has an excellent point... here is an example of an article where a large amount of work in clean-up is needed and where there is a real question as to whether the new material is a net positive addition once the problems of poor writing, reorganisation, referencing and reference checking, editing out the WP:NOT material, fixing overlinking and MOS issues, etc. etc. are all addressed. This is an article that requires expertise to edit and fix, I know WP has little regard for experts, but I can think of much better uses for the time of those editors. Further, looking at the issue of helping develop the students as editors, I take much more satisfaction from my recent WP:FAC review of asymmetric hydrogenation where I see an editor who is likely to contribute positively and my investment of time is much more likely to pay off in ongoing quality contributions. Fixing the metallocene article, I see a lot of work cleaning up a mess that not only isn't my responsibility or problem but also is partly created by a WMF structure that (to me) reflects an attitude of underappreciation of the time and efforts of volunteers that actually build the 'pedia, and I resent the idea of spending my time on the article when it would have been better spent (and would have been more satisfying) developing the old version of the article. And, I'm annoyed about the time I spent before I realised what had actually happened here. Sandy, sorry for the rant, but I do feel better for saying this and in a place where someone like Brad might hear and be influenced in his thinking. Regards, EdChem (talk) 04:25, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Thank you muchly, Ed; you completed one part of my "writing assignment" quite nicely. Your post summarizes what is happening to me over and over and over. I'm not sure if the problem is more pronounced in medicine or if others just haven't spoken up yet, but when I was first raising the issues (several years ago), the problem was compounded by the wall I hit when speaking to staff. It was clear that established editors were undervalued. I had promised medical editors like Colin I would help, and I was watching article after article fall apart while there weren't enough editors to deal with the problem. Now that more people (like you and Slim and Melanie and Colin) are speaking up, at least we are being heard.

Now that you have summarized the Education Program portion to NYB, I can focus on describing the other, similar problems. The despair is that paid staff are taking over and undervaluing the efforts of the free volunteers, at the same time that the arbs aren't helping either-- so yes, there is a factor that NYB can influence. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:21, December 12, 2012‎ (UTC)

Ok, digging in:

In your introduction, you wrote that you resigned as FA delegate "in February 2012 so I could focus more on my area of editing interest (medical articles) after Wikimedia Foundation efforts furthered programs that have caused deterioration in the quality of Wikipedia's medical content." Either I have forgotten, or I never knew, what your concern was in this regard. Could I ask you to briefly explain or let me have a link? Thanks, Newyorkbrad (talk) 05:27, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for asking, NYB. My statement when I resigned is at Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/archive55#FAC delegate resignation. While I was speaking mainly then about the 1) problem with student editing of medical articles-- and that my FAC duties were preventing me from returning to article work and helping my colleagues deal with the onslaught as I had earlier promised I would-- in my resignation, I also touched on two other areas of concern. Just as the situation with article deterioration and demoralization of established editors due to student editing has worsened since I wrote that statement, so have two other areas I touched on in my resignation statement: 2) "That task is made much more difficult by the apparent intent of WMF to emphasize quantity over quality" and 3) "POV dominates almost every article in the Venezuelan suite of articles". A fourth concern encompasses these three: 4) a widening rift related to the value of "unpaid volunteers" who are increasingly at odds with paid staff or WMF-funded programs. On the ENB discussion board, both Malleus and Slim sum up the frustration well in what I see as the relationship between my first three concerns and the fourth: Malleus and Slim. Jbmurray (whose student FAs helped launch the Education program concept) added this (with an oopsie), which discusses the money factor, among others.

The four issues:

1. On the serious problems with the Educational program and student editing, there are any number of issues there that could end up in arbitration; I recommend reading the current page at WP:ENB. More editors are weighing in now than when I first encountered the same problems over the last few years. The discussion has been robust. Important concerns (rampant plagiarism, ethical, financial, article deterioration, students being coerced to publish under real names, and relating to Section 230) have been raised but not addressed adequately by the WMF, and there are more examples and eloquent descriptions of the problem there than I could summarize here. The medical editors that are left on Wikipedia (and several of our finest are gone, as you may know) are unable to keep up with the impact. One sample of what is hitting medical watchlists over and over is discussed here.
2. "That task is made much more difficult by the apparent intent of WMF to emphasize quantity over quality" ... this comment related not only to the Education Program debacle (that program promoted recruiting more editors at the expense of quality and retention of experienced editors), but also to Sue Gardner's off-the-cuff comments about Featured articles recorded and used against FAC in the attempt to change leadership that started last fall and lasted a year. Sue Gardener is not ... to use an unfortunate phrase ... a "real Wikipedian" in the sense of editing, adding and improving content, and dealing daily with articles on a watchlist. I imagine she was passing along something she heard, about which she knew little, when she should have kept quiet, and her dis of the FA process gave ammunition to the very small but vocal minority that wanted to unseat Raul654 as FA director. Here we have another instance of paid staff at odds with the unpaid volunteers, and in this case, one who probably didn't really even know what she was saying. Seeing that attitude reinforced my feeling that I would be better off getting back to medical content work, and reviewing articles at FAC, where I could make a bigger difference than I could as a delegate. She never fully retracted her statement: I don't think she could have because I don't think she understands what she said or how it was interpreted. Her comment (combined with the socks and a returning editor breaching CLEANSTART and RTV) gave fuel to and allowed the campaign against FAC to continue longer than need be. I had a very busy summer, but every time I found time to peek back in here, I found that in spite of four RFCs, and in spite of Raul and me both standing down (in my case, hoping the furor would die down in my absence, I can't speak for Raul, but likely the same), the same small group continued the issue, merely moving it from FAC to TFAR. Paid staff had a role in allowing that to continue by making ill-informed statements that fueled the fire. And when given a chance to address the battleground that continued even in my absence and Raul's absence, the arbs declined to do anything about the Merridew's taunting.
3. "POV dominates almost every article in the Venezuelan suite of articles"; yet another situation where WMF money and funding seems to be driving quality down. POV was an issue when I resigned, and I hoped by resigning I would have more free time to re-engage with Venezuelan topics. While I was busy over the summer, any possibility of engaging Venezuelan topics with the aim of NPOV was eliminated. The WMF funded a Wikimedia Chapter in Venezuela, and the editing histories of the editors staffing that chapter are no surprise. In Venezuela, if one criticizes Chavez or chavismo, one jeopardizes life and limb, livelihood and family. Period. You can be forced into exile, you or your children kidnapped and robbed; shot, knifed or murdered; lose your job, be persecuted by various authorities, tax, police, etc ... in short, no Venezuelan who might help neutralize the Venezuelan suite of articles would ever join a public chapter, and the chapter will only serve to allow editors who would further pro-Chavez POV to band together, courtesy of WMF. I've looked into the editing history of the editors staffing the chapter and have not been surprised by what I've found. So, the WMF has in effect funded POV editing on Wikipedia, and assured that editors attempting neutrality will be unable to gain consensus, overwhelmed by the volume of recruits on WMF's dime. This is another example of the WMF having more money than it knows what to do with, and passing it out without awareness or consideration of the consequences to article quality, and in a way that undermines the pillars of the project. Just after I resigned, Jimbo pinged my talk saying he was ready to work with me on reducing hagiography and increasing neutrality in Venezuelan articles: I would not even consider trying now to neutralize Venezuelan topics and I note that the POV tag is gone from the Hugo Chavez hagiography.
4. Which brings us to the fourth, summarizing point: a growing divide between we schmucks who are out here in the trenches as unpaid volunteers, and WMF-funded programs and paid employees who don't understand, value or respect content contributors or article creators. Another example of this is the loss of one of our finest editors working in the copyvio realm, Moonriddengirl (talk · contribs), when she was hired away to staff. WMF appears unconcerned with the seriousness of plagiarism and copyvio (re SOPA), and the loss of MRG in her regular editing duties (and what I perceive to be a softening of her stance since she became staff) is a big one. At some point, it began to feel like the staff (with the exception of MRG, generally not very knowledgeable about content) and various funded programs are going to outnumber the rest of us dummies who are toiling along in the trenches as free unpaid volunteers. What is emerging from the ENB is that no one is effectively running most parts of the WMF, and increasingly non-editors are trying to keep their jobs by spending donated funds on ill-advised programs that are spinning out of control in ways that are impacting us schmucks out here in the trenches.

All of this (what is the value of the unpaid volunteer) brings me to arb matters. I suppose we never will get an answer about what happened behind closed doors that allowed Merridew and Rlevse to taunt, poke, hound and bear out grudges on Raul for almost a full year (to the point that even when Merridew did that on arb pages, no one said a word). Different arbs have given different and contradictory accounts about was known when by whom, and whether they knew Alarbus was Merridew. I've never known either Kirill or Cas to lie or shade the truth, and we still don't know why Elen of the Roads did or said the things she did, seemed to try to bully me into silence, never did answer the questions (to this day), whether the arbs knew or not that Alarbus was Merridew, whether they were aware of the full extent of his taunting and hounding (even though some of it appeared on arbitration pages and it was all over FAC and TFAR, looking like breaching experiments to challenge the status quo), whether they cared that he was changing accounts to avoid detection each time he encountered resistance to installing his preferred citation style on different suites of FAs, why the arbs turned a blind eye when a known sockmaster who had previously been admonished to stick to one account with a finding that he had wikihounded continued to hound and taunt Raul (even under the arbs' noses), and why we were met with a wall of contradictory and incomplete answers from different arbs.

All in all, the bottom line is that there no longer seems to be any part of this project where one can expect quality in content to be upheld. Staff and funded programs are not advancing quality, and some of the arbs-- for reasons still unknown-- said they knew Alarbus was Merridew, but let him continue to taunt and hound to the point of chasing off many FAC participants-- an effect still felt today in the decline in quality reviews.

I think that's about it. Best regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:51, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

I can't work out how much, if anything, WMF has given Wikimedia Venezuela, but it won't I think be much. I don't believe they have any "staff", and whatever cash they get probably goes on travel and small expenses for events. The editing the 45 members do is volunteer editing just like yours. Johnbod (talk) 20:35, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Here you go: [1] That is a boatload of money in bolivares (even after Chavez gets his share if the $$ were not exchanged on the black market). Also, staff. Have a look at this quite fine FA on en.wiki: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (film). In the es.wiki (Spanish) article, one of those staff has maintained that article POV, and after reverting to his/her preferred POV version, protected the article (is that allowed on the Spanish wiki?) ... can't remember which. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:42, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks - as I said, no salaries, & apart from a pc & printer etc the biggest headings are travel & whatever you have in Venezuela for tea & biscuits. I see the revolution has not yet swept away Venezuelan notaries! They have no more "staff" than your local PTA. Johnbod (talk) 20:46, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Nixon

Sandy, you are just trying to provoke conflict with your edit. Please do not. There was consensus for the style of the images at the FAC, and on talk. There is no excuse not to respect it. However, I have made the change to the caption to cure the misidentification. No one will buy that you are acting in good faith, we've been fighting for five years. Let's just walk away, shall we?--Wehwalt (talk) 19:29, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Most Wikipedians I associate with have intact AGF-ometers; I hope yours isn't broken.

Given your announcement that you had unwatched, [2] (what did Raul and I do to you?) and noticing that you had not corrected the faulty image caption in spite of me advising you of it days ago, I did you the favor. [3] You did not, in fact, correct the faulty image caption at all, so after quite a long wait, I fixed it myself when you said you were unwatching; you are most welcome.

Now, I suggest it's time for you to stop personalizing issues, and focus on content, not editors. While you're focusing on content, there are still several outstanding issues that I identified on the Nixon article that will help prepare it for mainpage day. So, are you or are you not unwatching? It doesn't seem logical for you to complain about article improvements when you have not corrected inaccuracies so that others have to do it after you state you are unwatching.

You've been fighting with me for five years? I'm sorry to hear that; that's not my MO. I have noticed the repeated taunts, pokes and jabs all over the Wikipedia, but please don't assume everyone returns in kind. For most of the past five years, I was busy promoting your articles. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:47, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I suggest it's time for you to stop personalizing issues ... You do realize that this is the same Wehwalt you hounded for months with an entirely facetious 'Wehwalt for FA director' campaign, among other slights... right? While I'm all for the sentiment you express, and, speaking for myself, would be happy to move past our own recent kerfuffles, what you're saying here is entirely hypocritical. Wehwalt has absolutely no basis on which to assume good faith with you. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 20:04, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

You are entitled to your own opinions, but you are not entitled to your own facts; the "Wehwalt for FA director" campaign was Alarbus/Merridew's idea (surely you know where to find the diffs? if not I'll show you). The ed17, are you planning to show up every time, every place that Wehwalt pokes at me, and continue bringing up old grievances every time I correct an error in an article? If you can't let go of past issues, would you mind staying off my talk page then? If you're here for something constructive, perhaps you can deal with the edit summary of Wehwalt's linked above; the battleground needs to stop. I'm still wondering what Raul and I did; do you know? Thanks, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:10, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

While it may have been Jack's idea, you carried it far beyond its initial lifespan (read: dead on arrival) and attempted to tar him with it. Regarding his edit summary, I would assume the FA director fiasco is at least part of what Wehwalt is referring to. While I don't think your comments there are mean in any way, because they are negative, they can be interpreted as being influenced by your ... acrimonious past. Obviously Raul didn't comment at the TFAR, so that's really the only explanation I can think of. And no, I'm not planning to show up all over, and no, I'm certainly not doing this on behalf of Wehwalt, who I respect but have little interaction with. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 20:31, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I've removed a provocative and unhelpful taunt from Wehwalt; [4] The ed17, if you aren't here to be part of a solution, you shouldn't be here. You're entitled to your opinions regardless if they square with facts, but here on my talk page, if you can't deal in fact, please move along. I guess the answer is that you don't know what Wehwalt meant either, but you aren't going to take him to task for taunting and poking, here on my talk page, or anywhere else. So, move along; I've got work to do. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:44, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Removed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:06, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Which is why I decline invitations to come to your talk page, because you dish it out but can't take it. Next year, by the way, I intend to propose that "election guides" not be allowed in userspace, making it easier to dispose of attack pages. Exactly how many times did you mention me, TCO, Br'er Rabbit, and PumpkinSky in your batshelection guide? 48? 49?--Wehwalt (talk) 00:59, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps if some users only had one username, I wouldn't have to repeat the names of all of their socks so many times, no? I don't dish it out, Wehwalt; I focus on content and facts. You personalize. That watchers don't know what your removed commentary meant or was aimed at doesn't mean both you and I don't know what it was about. You continue taunting and poking here, those posts will be removed. You want to have a real discussion, do so. There is a legitimate question for you over at WT:TFAR; I still don't know what offends you so much about pointing out an error in right from left in an image caption, or why you think the instructions were "massively changed", or why removing overuse of "however" troubles you. Can you or Ed try to come to my talk page just once and act like grown men, and stay on topic, without digging up old grudges? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:05, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

"you personalize ... stay on topic, without digging up old grudges" And this from the author of the election guide where the sole issues were adherence to Raul, support for your friends, and confusion to PumpkinSky and anyone else you dislike, at great length, with considerable repetition and an apparent inability to let a point lie without taking it up again and again, thus the fifty-plus repetitions of those names. And you omitted any mention of any conflict by you with PumpkinSky, myself, TCO, and Br'er Rabbit, but deceptively set yourself up as a neutral arbiter. As usual, you are trying to rewrite history and fool some of the people all of the time by constant repetition to those who know no better.

PumpkinSky's fault was not plagiarism, despite your continued trashing of him in the section above, but a lack of understanding as to what was acceptable in paraphrasing under our "house style"; once corrected he did quite well with Kafka, in coordination with Gerda, and with Truman, in coordination with me. His scouting-related articles were pretty good, too, certainly above the average fare. And his sins were relatively minor by comparison with the hue and cry you led; God knows I've seen my own articles far more blatantly ripped off on the web and in news articles. It was your job as delegate to check and ensure that nominators were aware of and adhering to standards in that area. You were the last line of defense. You did not do that; you were too busy making sure the Raulz did not change, and indulging in drahmah, to catch them. Notably, Kafka and Truman both followed your departure as delegate.

Br'er Rabbit is a real person too. Despair over the unforgiving like yourself and some arbs caused his wikicide. You can rewrite history all you want regarding him, but he improved hundreds of FAs, and left a legacy of people using his techniques to correct and avoid referencing mistakes of the sort you didn't catch as delegate. If you combine the two, you wind up with hundreds of articles with improved formatting, thousands of referencing errors caught, and +2 FA for 2012, a real plus for the project because without him those mistakes would likely be seen only by the reader, and no one was going to do that work. If, on the other hand, you combine yourself and Raul, you get harshness, intimidation, abuse of tools followed by utter abandonment of his job until he saw his enemies had left, a continuum of shrieking conflict, an unexplained resignation which is now getting history rewritten (waves at Brad section above), -2 FA for 2012, and very few articles improved. Those you applaud the departure of improved the reader experience regarding articles important and other. And that's what it's all about.

You and Raul were given authority in the expectation that you would use it to further the project, the only reason we are all here (other than those who see Wikipedia as a multi-player online game and have goals other than building an encyclopedia). Eight years on with Raul, we have an absentee landlord, with processes adrift, and you his enforcer. I am not certain that was what the community desired. However, I am certain the situation does the community no benefit. If you and Raul would do a Kafka now and then, or even a coin, it would be something to place on the opposite side of the balance from things like PumpkinSky, Br'er Rabbit, Mattisse, TCO, and the poor guy you attacked this spring and you wound up at AN/I and it was closed as resolved when he said that you were so affecting his health that he had to withdraw. That was a real person, harmed by you as well. And don't let me start on you and Mattisse. That you applaud the departure of productive editors from Wikipedia, seek to do more of it (I am well aware you are trying to build skids under me, with your recent attempt to get me blocked) says to me that you do not truly seek to advance the project, but seek to advance goals that are personal to you, goals inconsistent with those of the project.

Sandy, it's all very well to trash your perceived enemies, after all, we're just names on the screen attached to automatic random text generators and lack feelings. I hope it gave you peace, though from the repeated need to do so I fear not. But when Party A in a conflict, time and again, is the same person, it's unlikely that the issue is the various Parties B failing to grow up, especially when the Parties B have very few other Parties A they are in conflict with. In my case, there are perhaps half a dozen people on Wikipedia I consciously avoid; only the FA leadership question is an active issue causing actual conflict. Can you say the same? Elen, for example, since you brought her up, was your friend once, but you threw her away to be your target. Do you feel good that that is so? I gift you a mirror, Sandy, spend some time away from the keyboard, gazing into it. Delete away, the only person who needs to read this is you. However, now I'll leave you ... alone.Wehwalt (talk) 09:31, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

I have to compliment you, Wehwalt, on having managed to get blatant inaccuracies (not to call them lies, but whatever) in every statement you've made here. In my house, it's Christmas, and I've got relatives arriving soon, and two parties to prepare for. Should I find the time over the holidays, I may address the falsehoods here. Or I may just archive this so I can bring it back in January for the factual analysis it deserves. Or by then I may decide to ignore it. I guess that all depends on my Christmas. At any rate, should I decide to address it, I advise you to be much more cautious in spreading ... falsehoods ... in your future writing. Happy holidays, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:26, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

The same.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:55, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

(Ignorant talk page stalker.) It pains me to see those who care deeply about the quality of articles here focus on past negatives instead of past positives. Here's to hoping we can continue to improve the quality of Wikipedia articles. Best wishes to all! Biosthmors (talk) 20:13, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Done with the rest of my work for the day, now for some facts:

1. There were 21 candidates in the ArbCom elections; 4 of my 21 vote discussions related to the Merridew/Rlevse assault on FAC. Your assertion that "the sole issues were adherence to Raul, support for your friends, and confusion to PumpkinSky and anyone else you dislike" is false. And, you know just how false it is, since I have for two years running supported candidates who mentored the last serial sockpuppeteer that you defended and who targeted me. It would be one thing if you just made a mistake, but this factual error looks rather hard for you to miss.
2. Why should you have any mention in an arb election guide? Or TCO? Or anyone else whose actions had nothing to do with any arb candidate? The arbs opined on issues relating to Rlevse/PumpkinSky and Alarbus/Merridew. I left more than ample links to all of those issues; I don't know why you think you (not a candidate, not part of an arbcase, not the subject of anything opined on by any arb) should be mentioned.
3. On Rlevse not understanding plagiarism, apparently you don't either. Did the ethics change in the last two years? That's a specious lawyer's argument; do you really believe plagiarism is a matter of house style? Plagiarism is plagiarism and ethical standards do not bend to the whims of Wikipedians. I do, though, agree with you that the Rlevse issues were not about his copyvio, and I said exactly that on my voting guide. The problem with Rlevse was his violation of WP:RTV and WP:CLEANSTART, returning deceptively to revisit old grudges.
4. The argument that I was "the last line of defense" at FAC is equally rubbish. First, I didn't promote the article. Second, even after Rlevse's plagiarism came to light, and I attempted to institute stronger checks, the "community" (ya know, that thing called consensus) rejected proposals to tighten copyvio checks at FAC, so I did what I had to do on my own: I just didn't promote until a reviewer checked. And you know all of this, which puts your post here not in a very good light: Wikipedia talk:Featured article criteria/Archive 10#Proposal for original content and Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/archive48#Plagiarism issue.
5. Merridew is a real person who systematically changed accounts to target different sets of FAs, altering citation style without consensus to conform to his preferred style, and making quite a few people miserable along the way. Then he began to taunt and hound-- a behavior for which he had been previously sanctioned. Maybe he shouldn't demean, degrade, and smear at others. But in the same paragraph I see you defending others who did same. Merridew's contribution seems to be imposing his own citation method on articles without seeking consensus, and overlooking prose and other issues while at it. So, while you were busy defending the actions of two now banned/indeff'd sockmasters (Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of Davenbelle and Category:Wikipedia sockpuppets of Mattisse), excuse me but I was busy trying to promote articles at FAC while working in the environment that was furthered by deceptive returning users.
6. On TCO, I welcome you to address the issue that he unfairly labeled hard-working editors who wrote what he perceived as "cookie cutter" FAs (hurricanes, ships, etc), yet while he was targeting and calling those editors names, mentioned that you specifically shouldn't be targeted for the same criticism of (your coin) cookie-cutter articles. It looked like he wanted to criticize an entire set of FA writers, which included you by his working definition, but exclude you because you were sympathetic to him. What was that about? I would have preferred he not target anyone's work in ways that would demotivate, but if he was going to do that, would not excluding a friend be hypocritical?
7. ... an unexplained resignation which is now getting history rewritten (waves at Brad section above) ... It was never unexplained. Now would be a good time to stop calling me a liar. That you are trying to imply that there is some secret to why I stepped down has now gone well beyond what AGF calls for, and you are looking foolish for continuing to push that story. The reasons I stepped down are at Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/archive55#FAC delegate resignation, and they are as true today as they were then. I can't say I enjoy working under the conditions that the WMF has created any more than I can say that you made FAC an enjoyable place to work.
8. Trying to blame me for the ongoing damage to FAC when Merridew/Rlevse et al continued the assault in spite of me being mostly absent all summer is lame. And you are (again) trying to have it both ways: supporting those who called Raul a dictator while asking that we dictate to fix problems when community consensus doesn't allow us to. Which is it? Dictator or consensus? I was busy almost all year, off-Wiki, yet every time I peeked in I found the same four or six users engaged in the same ole, same ole ... doesn't seem to have had anything to do with me.
9. Elen, for example, since you brought her up, was your friend once ... Really, is that so? According to whom? Thanks for sharing.
10. ... with your recent attempt to get me blocked ... What? Please fill me in; I missed that.

So, I can't find anything remotely accurate in your post, and the rub is that you know that most of it is false, so cease and desist. I do find just a lot more of you revisiting old grudges. Based on your really crude posts of yesteday (Aruba), which I removed, and your strange comment to the effect that we've been fighting for five years (speak fer yourself), it looks like you've still got unresolved issues about Natalee Holloway. You really shouldn't hang on to such old business. We know you're glad to refer to her and her mother in despicable terms; we know I'm uncomfortable when you do that. Stop doing that on my page; it's crass and it's offensive and it shows you in a poor light. You say you want to lay down arms, but you constantly come to my page to taunt and bring up long resolved business. Put your money where your mouth is: just stop it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:29, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Also, Wehwalt, you haven't answered this query or explained what you meant by this edit summary: [5] Whatever it is that is causing you to spread such ill will in so many places must be painful; moving beyond it would be good for all. If you truly desire to resolve matters, and come to my talk in good faith, then please answer the questions and stop putting out attacks in edit summaries. If you don't desire to resolve matters, then why do you continue to come here with the same years-old grievances? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:29, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Sandy, I've had my say and you've had yours. We can't divide the wiki. Let's move on.--Wehwalt (talk) 08:25, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough, with followup. 1) I have to occasionally come across in my routine editing and reading the crass comments you make about Natalee Holloway and her mother; I can't do anything about the fact that I can't avoid reading your comments at times. I do avoid responding. I can insist that you never again place taunting comments on my talk page or as off-topic commentary in discussions where we are mutually participating. I don't go around taunting you about your views on Holloway's mother; there's no humane reason for you to be doing the same to me, much less on my own talk page. 2) You have maligned both Raul and me on edit summaries and you have not yet answered or explained at WP:TFAR; I still do not know what your concerns are, and if concerns aren't explained, they can't be addressed. Please stop the ongoing battleground and taunting and hounding, particularly in snide unexplained edit summaries. 3) It is clear that Theed17 will come over here to wag his finger at me if I say so much as "tsk, tsk" after such occurrences, while you get away with clearly attacking, off-topic and battleground statements and edit summaries everywhere. Please stop; it is unbecoming in general, and unacceptable for admins. That means both you and Theed17 (who also goes off-topic to take difference with any input I add to WT:FAC). That is what "let's move on" involves; please do it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:53, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

I reserve the right to criticize Raul's job performance, so to speak. See the quote on my user page. Sandy, if you don't mention me, there's a lot less avenue to conflict. I would also like it if you could avoid mentioning the other editors I mentioned. But putting me in the election guide was no good. At one time we had a deal that neither of us would mention or allude to the other. That's still on if you want to have a go at it. I think you know that I have relatively few talk page contributions. If you don't give me cause to get angry, you can count on my ignoring you. One good way is not to mention me. I can't say anything about The Ed, I respect him but we move in different worlds. I've been thinking of asking him for a review on Oliver Bosbyshell if I sent it to PR because of the military connection, but I'm waiting until after I go to the ANA library next month. You'll have to talk with him yourself. Sound fair?--Wehwalt (talk) 20:16, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Anyone reserves the right to criticize Raul, or anyone else, as long as they don't taunt, hound, personalize, or engage in battleground. Can you say you haven't done that? I don't think so, based on the examples on this page alone, not to mention many others in the past. Criticize away, but try to use a level of constructive discourse and criticism that doesn't look like it came from a butt-hurt adolescent, and doesn't further the acrimony that was introduced around the FA process a year ago.

We've already talked at length elsewhere about the election guide; it would have been very simple to leave you out and use passive voice (RFCs were launched). It did not position you in a negative light. If you had requested, I would have done that; perhaps I still smart from Geogre's old complaints that I used passive voice too often, so I try to avoid it. I've already said this elsewhere, so I don't know why you keep mentioning it (or why you didn't ask sooner); is it because you want me to take your name out of the guide now? If that will help, I'll do that. Please just answer the question (something you're not doing in this discussion, which makes it harder to understand or resolve matters).

On Theed17, we'll see what happens there; it's up to him. He and I have been round the block before about the varying standards he applies to different editors. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:32, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Sandy, please do not set yourself up as victim. You are not more sinned against than sinning. I am not responding because I am avoiding expanding the areas of conflict. Neither of us is blameless. I'll agree to the deal, not the commentary.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:14, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Interesting, you express a desire to move on, then bring up ten-month-old incidents—which I apologized for, multiple times. I'll be beyond happy to move beyond our issues as soon as you start commenting on content, not contributors, like you did in the past. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 22:11, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Speaking of revisiting old grudges which you can't seem to let go of, the next time you appear on my talk page to reprimand me for a "tsk, tsk" or some other minor not even snarky response to a full-on attack, while overlooking the significant personalization and taunting and attacking that led to the "tsk, tsk", then we'll deal with that. A suggestion: if you find my commentary on FAC talk so egregious, why don't you keep your nose out of it and see if a neutral party sees the same problems you do? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:18, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

We, as I think we've both realized, apparently have different conceptions of 'minor' or 'snarky'. However, I graduated today and am in no mood for more kerfuffling (that really should be a real word), so I'm going to bow out for now. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 22:28, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Congratulations! Get off of Wikipedia, and enjoy your day! I'd do the same, except for a miserable chest cold. yes, you do seem to overlook most snark, attack, hound and personalize while you're rushing to reprimand me for saying "tsk, tsk" ... maybe that will change now that you're credentialed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:33, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I will be shortly. I had to recover after a massive attack of family. :-) Hope the cold goes away soon; I dealt with that at Thanksgiving. It's miserable. ... and I think you are too quick to call posts snarky, attacks, etc.; perhaps I take an overly liberal view of these posts, but I don't feel like I'm far off the mark. The personalization you notice is an unfortunate side effect of attempting to call someone out on their tone. :-) I suppose our wikihistory could possible be summed up at 'disagreeing interpretations'. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 22:44, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Fine toothed-comb

Thank you very much for poking through the article! Please, if you see any general types of errors that require repetitive work, like general formatting issues, just let me know and I'll take care of it. I don't want you giving up if you see I've done something that would require a lot of 'busy work' to fix, just show me how to do one or two. Appreciate it! Zad68 20:40, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm trying, I'm trying ... but the folks ahead of you in line don't seem to want to leave me to work. I saw your note at WT:MED and noticed your fine work on organic foods. I don't do GAs, but I thought I could at least have a look. So far, I'm seeing excellent sourcing! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:44, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Say, when you get a minute, can you please point me to like two or three of your favorite articles in the areas of refs formatting, MOS compliance, etc? I'd like a standard to consider working off of. Cheers... Zad68 01:45, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

In the realm of medical articles, there is autism and Asperger syndrome (which use vcite because it loads faster), Tourette syndrome (which I formatted manually, something different) ... but probably the best for you would be Ketogenic diet. Colin (talk · contribs) is one of Wikipedia's treasures, and his articles are perfect! I've been trying to do a bit here and there in between other things, but the other things are persistently obnoxious ! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:36, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Reminder to self

Periodic table for EdChem. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:06, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Ping 2

Sandy, I'm emailing you on a Signpost matter. Tony (talk) 03:08, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Now? It's bedtime, and I've got a cold! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:19, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Broken Sword 1 reminder No. 2

Another reminder. - Resolved the issues, and found a great copy-editor. He's not a non-gamer, but when it comes to CEs, he's good, real good. :) Best, --Khanassassin ☪ 15:36, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

• I'd like to add that I'm a bit rusty when it comes to copyediting, and that I didn't have time to do my standard two-pass process. If you still have 1a concerns, I'll see if I can adjust my schedule to do a second pass. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 20:58, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Sandy Creek - 20 and 6

Someone changed the opening sentence of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting to "On December 14, 2012, 26 people, including 20 children and six adult staff members..." from the correct 20 and 6. You can edit it. Just cite the "comparable quantities" portion of WP:NUMERAL: "Comparable quantities should be all spelled out or all figures". I also let 2001:db8 know. You can reply here; I'll follow this thread. ;) --76.189.123.142 (talk) 00:02, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Sandy Creek-- you mean Sandy Hook? It is much too hard to edit an article like that while events are developing and it's on the main page. Fighting with edit conflicts to change a six to a 6 just isn't worth it-- it will be fixed in due time. Best regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:11, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Obviously a typo; I linked to the article. Anyway, 2001 fixed it. --76.189.123.142 (talk) 00:53, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Circumcision

Hello SandyGeorgia ! Since the article "Circumcision" seems to be locked and controlled by You, at the religious part, I think that You should add "Christianity" there aswell. In the Acts of the Apostles is describen that on the Cyprys meeting , the deciples and other of the very early Chistians decided that "unjewish" followers of the new faith, did not need to became cicumcised. This is well as relevant as what jewesand muslims belive. I see no otherway than contact You about this issue. Best reguards Johnny Eriksson, Sweden 83.249.168.22 (talk) 02:29, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

The Circumcision article is locked and controlled by me? Who knew? Not me. From whence came such a notion. Gee, I don't even own one of those things, but I did edit the article once or twice. I will copy your post to Talk:Circumcision so the propah authorities with penii can deal with it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:39, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Nice! I'll respond there... Zad68 02:45, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Sandy, you were right to leave it to me to write the responses to the IP. The typing of those responses did indeed involve certain keyboard combinations that required, shall I say, superdigital dexterity, and I can't imagine how you might have managed to produce them yourself. Or, at least, unassisted. Your keeping your ego in check for the overall betterment of Wikipedia will not go unnoticed. Zad68 03:28, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Did you just say I have a big dick? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:33, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I had to re-parse what I wrote several times to figure out why you'd come back with that response, and I was going to explain what I meant (which I thought was really funny!), but then, as E. B. White said, "Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind." Zad68 03:51, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

SandyG must have one of those secret admin accounts that I've been accused of having if she can lock and control articles. Who'd have guessed. Malleus Fatuorum 03:53, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

No great surprise you showed up here so fast. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 04:04, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

You and your buddies ought to start listening, not hounding. Wasn't that the take-away from the recent ANI case you were involved in? Think on. Malleus Fatuorum 04:10, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Lovely. Nice to see you as always. Take care. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 04:11, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

You were very lucky to get away without an interaction ban, but if you really want one then just carry on. As a matter of interest, which IRC channel do you and your mates use to coordinate your vendettas? Malleus Fatuorum 04:10, 16 December 2012 (UTC)