User talk:Alan Liefting

If you leave a new message on this page, I will reply on this page unless you ask me to reply elsewhere.

It is
The Reader
that we should consider on each and every edit we make to Wikipedia..

About Modification in my Home Town.

Respected sir,

              Why Are you Removed my Town which was Added by me on Annur block Image ,Annur Busstand Image in Annur wiki.

also you are changed the route compos in downstairs. Why are you doing like this kind of work what is the problem in there. how to rectify this problem.

with Regards,
Mymelody143(Prakash)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mymelody143 (talk • contribs) 09:54, 27 December 2012 (UTC) 

• The edits that I have made were to remove redlinked images (those that don't exist) and to fix the broken interlanguage links. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 17:57, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Strange new-article phenomenon

Based on our interaction on several recent Afd's, I thought you might be able to give me some insight into this.

I've noticed a surge of unattributed poorly-translated pages arriving here from the Hebrew Wikipedia: some machine-translated, some not; some almost perfect but with odd formatting issues—but all by different editors. Have you noticed> Do you have any idea what might be behind it?

הסרפד (Hasirpad) [formerly Ratz...bo] 19:35, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

I did not think anything of it but now that you mention it I guess something may be happening. Is there a promotion of article creation by a group of people who speak Hebrew? Are the accounts sock or meatpuppets? Is it worthy of a deeper investigation?

• A case of sockpuppetry is not likely; there is a very broad range of English proficiency among the various article creators:

• Herzl family by Gigi2002 (talk · contribs) was, before retranslation, a terrible machine translation whose quality completely escaped its creator's notice. Besides for the unsightly translations of template code, Herzl's daughter Trude's name was consistently translated as "busy". Even the lead was completely unparsable.
  • Gigi2002 has just machine-translated another Hebrew Wikipedia article he:מבשרי הציונות to Precursors of Zionism. As it happens, there is already a high-quality translation of the same at Heralds of Zionism, so I {{db-a10}}'ed it.
• Pinhas Kopel's creator, פארוק (talk · contribs), probably knows English as well as Gigi2002, but seems to have had better luck with Google Translate—only one sentence and a phrase or two are badly mangled.
  • Have a look at User talk:פארוק, especially User talk:פארוק#Please stop your editing in other language wikipedia.; he/she has been reprimanded for mass machine-translation already.
• Amram Aburabia's creator, Carmel avivi-green (talk · contribs) has a reasonable command of English, if my impression is correct.

(IP-user/Carmel Avivi-Green above mentions the "original Wikipedia value". This is a common error among Hebrew speakers, even among those with a good working knowledge of English, that often perplexes native English speakers. ערך, Hebrew for "[encyclopedia/dictionary] entry", is also the Hebrew for "worth" or "value".)

From the general editorial behavior in each case, I think meatpuppets are also unlikely.

I do think Articles for Creation needs closer attention—on more than one occasion recently, an AfC article was nominated for deletion with obvious problems that should have kept it in incubation until they were resolved.

• I have another particular concern here: almost all of these articles are unattributed translations of the corresponding Hebrew articles.

הסרפד (Hasirpad) [formerly Ratz...bo] 04:25, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

I am getting worried about Wikipedia as a whole. There is so much work to be done and at the same time we are loosing a lot of experienced editors. Have a read of Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Editor_Retention#Guys_won.27t_be_seeing_much_of_me_around.2C_either... for example. It seem Wikipedia is falling apart at the seams. This should not happen. We are all working to build a valuable resource. Or am I getting jaundiced by the stuff that I am working on at Category:Articles with missing files? -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 04:47, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Here is another Hebrew language related editor: Hadassah.web (talk · contribs). This person has only recently created an account. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 04:53, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

First of all—please cheer up! I think the 2012 phenomenon has gotten to you...

Second of all—here comes another one! Menny Rabinovich, by Jacobrubinovitz (talk · contribs), found at AfD. Most of the article is comprehensible, but the section on his work in writing encyclopedia "values" (i.e. entries) has a sentence turned to gibberish: the original listed the volumes in said encyclopedia in which his contributions appear, numbered in Hebrew numerals which are well known to bamboozle machine translation.

הסרפד (Hasirpad) [formerly Ratz...bo] 05:02, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

So we have at least five editors, all who have created an account recently, that are related by language and are causing disruptive editing. I think it needs a wider investigation but I am not sure how or where. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 05:24, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Bicholim conflict

I apologize for not informing you about the AfD for Bicholim conflict. Because your only edit was a relatively minor one, I didn't expect you would have particular interest in the article. But yours was the most recent edit, so I should have included you in my notifications. Best, --ShelfSkewed Talk 05:08, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

No sweat. I think my only edit was to try and get it speedily deleted as a hoax page. Cheers. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 06:47, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Michael Kelso

I've done some work improving Michael Kelso. If you put the article against WP:FICT / WP:MOSFICT and take a look at other fictional character articles you may see that the article is notable enough for inclusion albeit in bad shape as far as format. Mkdw^talk 21:20, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Great work. Good to see all the new refs. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 06:44, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Do not remove the paper

Hi! Do not remove the nosratollah khakian paper. The paper is reliable and well-known and reputable sources and references. Thanks2.185.199.212 (talk) 09:06, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 December 2012

• From the editor: Wikipedia, our Colosseum

• In the media: Is the Wikimedia movement too 'cash rich'?

• News and notes: Wikimedia Foundation fundraiser a success; Czech parliament releases photographs to chapter

• Technology report: Looking back on a year of incremental changes

• Discussion report: Image policy and guidelines; resysopping policy

• Interview: Interview with Brion Vibber, the WMF's first employee

• Featured content: Whoa Nelly! Featured content in review

• WikiProject report: New Year, New York

• Recent research: Wikipedia and Sandy Hook; SOPA blackout reexamined

• Read this Signpost in full
• Single-page
• Unsubscribe
• EdwardsBot (talk) 07:50, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Redlinked images

Hello, Alan Liefting. Regarding your removal of redlinked images from articles I have been working on, please see my comments here and here. Thank you. Polisher of Cobwebs (talk) 22:23, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Yep. Got it. I guess I am being overly enthusiastic in clearing the backlog at Category:Articles with missing files! -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 22:25, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi Alan. Regarding the additional information I added today on Terrance Clark - references now added. Thank you also for your offer of any help. I'm new, so will read tutorials and help pages suggested. Cheers Sarah Sarah Delatour (talk) 09:27, 4 January 2013 (UTC)