User talk:Laser brain

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Mentoring proposal

I think we should now go live with the voluntary mentor scheme for FAC. This means I will transfer the instructions for the scheme from my sandbox to WP mainspace. There should then be a prominent link in the FAC instructions, directing mew nominators to the mentor page. I also hope to have a permanent note on the FAC talkpage performing two functions: advising novice nominees about the scheme, and encouraging experienced editors to sign up as mentors.

Ten have signed up so far, which isn't many, but I haven't begun my general recruitment drive yet; the early signers are mainly those who participated in the original talkpage discussion. I hope to double the numbers after my trawl, and perhaps take in more when the scheme is established and there are results to show. Of course, it's not necessary to sign up on this list to be a mentor, and I suspect some who support the scheme may prefer not to sign up formally.

If you have no further queries or reservations, I'll create the WP page approximately 24 hours from now, and will then begin my recruitment drive. (Copied to Ian). Brianboulton (talk) 19:03, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Just to advise you that I have now created Wikipedia: Mentoring for FAC. A link to this page within the FAC instructions will be important if this scheme is to reach its target clientele. I am currently sending out a note trawling for mentors to add to the list. Brianboulton (talk) 16:19, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

@Brianboulton: Thank you for taking on this initiative. Are you comfortable editing the FAC instructions or would you prefer Ian or I do that? --Laser brain (talk) 16:24, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

I'd rather you or Ian did. I will fashion a note for the talkpage, which could be kept at the top permanently, advertising the scheme and encouraging mentors to sign up. Brianboulton (talk) 16:42, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

@Brianboulton: Let me know what you think about the placement. Some of the other instructions are in need of updating and I had to resist the urge to make "while I'm in here" edits. I suppose that's a discussion for another time. --Laser brain (talk) 18:35, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Can you give me a link? I couldn't find anything on the FAC page. Brianboulton (talk) 18:40, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

@Brianboulton: A caching issue might be to blame for the FAC instructions template not showing the updated version on the main FAC page. The edit I made is here. --Laser brain (talk) 22:10, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Yes, got it now. Looks good, and we'll see in time what effect it has. Could you archive the long mentoring discussion on the FAC talk, which I will replace with a short statement that the scheme is under way. 21 mentors signed up so far, not bad for the first day's recruitment effort. Brianboulton (talk) 22:24, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Notification of ArbCom Amendment Request

You are involved in a recently-filed request for clarification or amendment from the Arbitration Committee. Please review the request at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment#Amendment_request:_Infoboxes and, if you wish to do so, enter your statement and any other material you wish to submit to the Arbitration Committee. Additionally, the Wikipedia:Arbitration guide may be of use.

Thanks, -- Dane2007 ^talk 06:42, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

reinstatement of deleted page

Hi I saw you had deleted a page gigrev after I put a link in a page Direct to Fan I'm trying to understand how the Gigrev page is not notible enough and think I can help add enough information to make you happy its not advertising.

Would you be able to undelete it for me, so I can do this?

Regards

Kzoo 14:43, 30 August 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tapfs (talk • contribs)

On leaving the project

Centralized message for Cassianto, SchroCat, and Tim riley: First off, I'm guilty of not doing enough to thank editors like you for your contributions. I suppose my way of saying thanks is to volunteer to be an FAC coordinator where I can facilitate content through the process with hopes of becoming Featured. But, I'll say that not a week goes by when I am not impressed and inspired by the quality of content you produce. To me, that's the entire reason to contribute to Wikipedia—inspiring a thousand moments of joy and discovery for readers when they encounter a product of your effort. The second part of my message is where I urge you to continue contributing and, in the words of Gold Five, "stay on target". Some of us are operating within the system to bring an end to these disruptions. I'm asking you to trust me when I say that it will work. Like other areas of sustained contention on Wikipedia, the underlying disagreement never really goes away but the disruptions can certainly go away. Once DS are authorized, editors learn quickly that if they can't operate in that domain without being disruptive, they are removed from that domain. Please stick around. --Laser brain (talk) 12:21, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Hi Laser brain, and thanks very much for your very kind comments. I obviously can't speak for the other two but, for my part, my leaving is not solely down to the IB matter (although the relentless ongoing grief has played a part), but a more general lack of enjoyment I now get from editing. There are too many tendentious individuals or small groups who want to force their way onto such minor matters without any grasp of a subject, that they slowly take their toll. I don't want anyone to think I am doing some sort of diva quit because of IBs (although if the IB 'wars' weren't there, the rest of the grind would just have taken a little longer to work its way through), but just because the enjoyment isn't there any more. I urge you to carry on pushing for some calmness around the IB matter—you've been making some very pertinent comments in the right places from what I've seen—because this sort of festering sore will only ever drive people away. Until there is some central agreement in IBs, we'll continue to have the problem. ArbCom say 'consensus on each article', and a proper consensus can only be reached by reference to guideline or policy: the guideline on IBs is that they are not compulsory, except by consensus, so there is a loop whereby consensus can never truly be reached in the status quo. Unless some form of guidelines are actually drawn up to say when we should or should not have an IB, or in what circumstances some group or sub groups of articles are exempt from the requirements of having them, this will continue. (Except if there is an RfC, in which case people don't bother to read the arguments, probably don't bother to actually look at the article in question and give a pre-conceived ILIKEIT/IDONTLIKEIT answer: the closing admin will then lazily vote count and add a 10% margin dependent on his or her own preference). Yes, all very cynical, but we've all seen it time and time again, and a little bit more enjoyment is removed from our connection to the project whenever it happens. Cheers – Gavin (talk) 13:14, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

I"m actually in total agreement with SchroCat for once about this "consensus loop" problem. That's a very good way to put the "article-by-article" ARBINFOBOX ruling.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  15:56, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

re:close

Hello, I apologise for brushing over your close at AN3. I didn't take in that you were recommending someone to create a BLP discussion on the noticeboard so just made the same edit at Jared Taylor as I still saw it as a BLPvio and hoped editors would wait until the talk page discussion was concluded before trying to re-add again. I didn't mean to create more work for you--judging by the fact that you were pinged into the subsequent discussion just to be insulted makes me think that being an admin is already a thankless job as is. Zaostao (talk) 03:20, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

TAGTEAM evidence at AE

Laser brain: You collapsed my section on WP:TAGTEAM at AE. I don't object, however I'd like to understand if you collapsed it because (a) it was irrelevant to the particular request or (b) it was irrelevant to the particular request and would be unconvincing in any future request.

I'm admittedly unfamiliar with TAGTEAM beyond what's specified in policy but this appeared to be arguably convincing evidence. It's also disconcerting that MVBW retired shortly after I posted my evidence then un-retired once it was collapsed. VM mentioned similar requests in the past which I'm unfamiliar with. If the same evidence has been presented and dismissed elsewhere I won't pursue it; if not, I'd ask you to direct me to the appropriate venue as I may. D.Creish (talk) 20:10, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

@D.Creish: I collapsed it only because it's not germane to that particular request. I'm not sure how much traction you'll get elsewhere trying to convince people of tag-team editing. It seems like this very concern was brought up some time in the recent past (Volunteer Marek and MVBW tag-teaming) and not much came out of the discussion. I can't remember if it was at a noticeboard or AE. I've lost track of how many times I've seen both users at AE, ANI, and other places. --Laser brain (talk) 13:47, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Sorry

That was me, sorry. I was probably trying to copy it. Bishonen | talk 16:09, 20 September 2016 (UTC).

No problem! --Laser brain (talk) 21:30, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Extended confirmed protection

Hello, Laser brain. This message is intended to notify administrators of important changes to the protection policy.

Extended confirmed protection (also known as "30/500 protection") is a new level of page protection that only allows edits from accounts at least 30 days old and with 500 edits. The automatically assigned "extended confirmed" user right was created for this purpose. The protection level was created following this community discussion with the primary intention of enforcing various arbitration remedies that prohibited editors under the "30 days/500 edits" threshold to edit certain topic areas.

In July and August 2016, a request for comment established consensus for community use of the new protection level. Administrators are authorized to apply extended confirmed protection to combat any form of disruption (e.g. vandalism, sock puppetry, edit warring, etc.) on any topic, subject to the following conditions:

• Extended confirmed protection may only be used in cases where semi-protection has proven ineffective. It should not be used as a first resort.
• A bot will post a notification at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard of each use. MusikBot currently does this by updating a report, which is transcluded onto the noticeboard.

Please review the protection policy carefully before using this new level of protection on pages. Thank you.
This message was sent to the administrators' mass message list. To opt-out of future messages, please remove yourself from the list. 17:47, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Infoboxes ARCA

The amendment request in which you were involved has been archived at WT:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Infoboxes#Amendment request (October 2016). The motion to open a case did not pass. For the Arbitration Committee, Miniapolis 19:59, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

Belgium national football team FAC2

Hi, the article Belgium national football team is under review as FAC again. At the first FA review you raised several issues regarding citations and sources that needed to be solved. It took some time to cope with these and other comments, yet I thank you for your critical input as it helped to get the article forward. You are warmly invited to have a second look now. Regards, Kareldorado (talk) 15:55, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

FAC

What would you consider to be the proper way to invite reviewers to take part in a FAC without appearing to be canvassing? TIA. —ATS 🖖 talk 20:37, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Just ensure the message is neutral and that you are asking for review against the FA criteria, not explicitly asking for support. Something like: "Since you are interested in this topic area, I invite you to review my nomination and leave comments about how it compares with the Featured article criteria." --Laser brain (talk) 21:10, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Much obliged. —ATS 🖖 talk 21:11, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

QPQ

Hi there! Is there any way to engage in quid pro quo in FAC without being accused of practicing canvassing? Liebe99 (talk) 08:41, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with asking someone for a review as long as the wording is neutral—see directly above. --Laser brain (talk) 11:07, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Closure

Hi, LB, I hope all's well at your end. I currently have an FAC, Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Taylor Swift/archive2, which is awaiting final judgement but the other coord has rescued from his duty on it. I'm looking forward to the final judgement you have to make that I think is due. Tks – FrB.TG (talk) 12:01, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

@FrB.TG: I've been a bit slammed with RL since I got back from traveling, but I will look at your nomination within the next 1–2 days. Sorry for the wait! --Laser brain (talk) 21:22, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Just a gentle reminder. :-) – 77.20.251.243 (talk) 07:25, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

DS at Political positions of Donald Trump

Hi Laser brain. You placed Political positions of Donald Trump under DS restrictions, but you forgot to log it here. Also, would you mind adding an edit notice to the article? Many thanks. - MrX 17:37, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

Hi MrX, the page falls under American politics DS regardless of the Talk page notice. The notice makes it more difficult to claim ignorance when they cause problems. We don't log individual articles unless we apply some restriction like 1RR under DS. I'll look into the edit notice. --Laser brain (talk) 23:15, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

I don't believe that's correct. The notice that you placed on the talk page states that the article is restricted (1RR, consensus required, etc.). Page restrictions have to be logged and American political articles are not automatically restricted; they are authorized to be restricted at the discretion of an uninvolved admin. Please see WP:AC/DS and WP:ARBAPDS. - MrX 23:23, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

@MrX: I'm sorry, you are correct of course. My memory was that I simply clarified that the page falls under DS, but I see that I actually placed restrictions. I will remedy the logging error when I'm home and not on mobile. --Laser brain (talk) 00:18, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Please increase blobk duration from 7 days to 9 days

First, let me assert that I admire you for your 3 FAs. Really, I do. But even though I voted for Hillary, oh, I am so glad that that bigotted, mysogonistic demagog will be POTUS. I am glad! Now please increase that duration pronto, Andy. Pronto.--172.56.1.155 (talk) 05:22, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

I remember the first time my parents let me on the internet unsupervised. --Laser brain (talk) 13:19, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

Related: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#De-linking Wikipedia. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:28, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

Two-Factor Authentication now available for admins

Hello,

Please note that TOTP based two-factor authentication is now available for all administrators. In light of the recent compromised accounts, you are encouraged to add this additional layer of security to your account. It may be enabled on your preferences page in the "User profile" tab under the "Basic information" section. For basic instructions on how to enable two-factor authentication, please see the developing help page for additional information. Important: Be sure to record the two-factor authentication key and the single use keys. If you lose your two factor authentication and do not have the keys, it's possible that your account will not be recoverable. Furthermore, you are encouraged to utilize a unique password and two-factor authentication for the email account associated with your Wikimedia account. This measure will assist in safeguarding your account from malicious password resets. Comments, questions, and concerns may be directed to the thread on the administrators' noticeboard. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:33, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

A new user right for New Page Patrollers

Hi Laser brain.

A new user group, New Page Reviewer, has been created in a move to greatly improve the standard of new page patrolling. The user right can be granted by any admin at PERM. It is highly recommended that admins look beyond the simple numerical threshold and satisfy themselves that the candidates have the required skills of communication and an advanced knowledge of notability and deletion. Admins are automatically included in this user right.

It is anticipated that this user right will significantly reduce the work load of admins who patrol the performance of the patrollers. However,due to the complexity of the rollout, some rights may have been accorded that may later need to be withdrawn, so some help will still be needed to some extent when discovering wrongly applied deletion tags or inappropriate pages that escape the attention of less experienced reviewers, and above all, hasty and bitey tagging for maintenance. User warnings are available here but very often a friendly custom message works best.

If you have any questions about this user right, don't hesitate to join us at WT:NPR. (Sent to all admins).MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:47, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

Elvis Presley religion in IB

First of all, you put a long URL in your ES without a link (which is very annoying). Infobox person (which I put in the note) says, "Per this RFC, this parameter should be included only where significant to the article subject..." That's what we go by. If (local) consensus is that it shouldn't be used, that's fine. As you know, there was a discussion about this, but it wasn't conclusive. —Musdan77 (talk) 20:59, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Sorry I annoyed you. You have to admit the parameter in this case is more hassle than it's probably worth. --Laser brain (talk) 22:56, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Probably so, but I'm sure someone (if not the same editor) will attempt to add it again. I guess just like they say to never discuss religion or politics because it'll bring conflicts, it's the same for infoboxes (or WP articles in general). —Musdan77 (talk) 18:49, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

Happy Saturnalia!

		Happy Saturnalia
		Wishing you and yours a Happy Holiday Season, from the horse and bishop person. May the year ahead be productive and troll-free. Ealdgyth - Talk 01:39, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Margaret (singer)

Hi, I've recently nominated this article to be reviewed for GA. I've noticed your contributions to the music-related topics, and therefore wanted to invite you to review it. ArturSik (talk) 16:42, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for your advice

Laser brain, thank you for your helpful advice. I've cleaned it up and removed a lot [1]. Look better ? Sagecandor (talk) 17:24, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes, thank you! --Laser brain (talk) 18:20, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks again for the input, I guess it made things clearer for you and another [2]. I agree with you the report looks much less confusing for the reader now. Sagecandor (talk) 18:21, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

FAC Prematurely Closed

Hi Laser, can you explain why you closed the FAC for the acne vulgaris page, please? This was actively being worked on and I'm rather unclear on where this perception of it being "stalled" came into play. I really would appreciate clarification here since issues were being actively discussed on this FAC page and actively being addressed (and were nearly complete). I think a bit of a heads up that you were concerned about it stalling might have also been a nice courtesy (perhaps a ping to the active users would have been inappropriate since I was at work and do need some time to respond). TylerDurden8823 (talk) 02:01, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

@TylerDurden8823: Thanks for the note. Once nominations pass the three week mark (and into the "Older nominations" section) we start taking a look at how long they should remain open and what kind of progress has been made toward consensus for promotion. If there have not been any declarations of support, the nomination is much more likely to be archived. This one had been open for well over a month, and we do tend to allow a bit more leeway considering the holidays but the support just wasn't there. My "stalled" remark was simply in reference to the fact that there hadn't been much participation from reviewers in the last week or so. Hope this helps! --Laser brain (talk) 02:30, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

I still say it would have been a nice courtesy to ping us before closing it. Seppi had said they're busy but a reminder note may have helped. Same with Opabinia. Now I have to start from scratch again and that's very frustrating. Please consider that before unilaterally making a decision like that. There was significant forward progress. Something like this is a good example of what I mean [3]. TylerDurden8823 (talk) 03:25, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

It's not a unilateral decision. I'm a coordinator at FAC which means the community has entrusted me with the responsibility of determining consensus for promoting or archiving nominations. In the example you noted, Seppi is not a coordinator nor is he correct about the "two month" statement. Coordinators may occasionally prod reviewers or nominators in cases where a single issue is holding up a nomination, but keeping a system going where we would warn nominators about pending closure is just too much overhead to keep fair and consistent. I definitely understand your frustration, but your nomination had not earned any support for promotion and it's better to get a fresh start in two weeks than have it languishing at the bottom of the list for weeks on end. You can always contact those who have commented thus far and ask them to revisit and consider making a declaration of support or opposition. --Laser brain (talk) 03:40, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

As a member of the Wikipedia coomunity, I maintain that's still very annoying and think it's more redundant to go through the whole process a second time. Besides, pinging people requires minimal effort. TylerDurden8823 (talk) 03:56, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

As one of the other FAC coords, I also understand the frustration but concur with the closure -- we try to maintain a reasonable throughput at FAC to help prevent noms becoming 'stale', and when one's been open almost six weeks without any clear support for promotion, a break (during which any outstanding comments can be actioned, possibly in collaboration with some of the original FAC reviewers) followed by a re-nom and pings to those earlier reviewers is generally the next step. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 07:25, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

writing skills

I asked TonyTheTiger who in Wikipedia is a good writer. One name he mentioned is currently ill and not active. Two former FAC are also not active. Current FAC's, like you, were deemed as good writers by Tony.

What I seek is merely an opinion for me to learn and confirmation that my judgement is intact. I seek to avoid redundancy in prose and want your opinion. Note that, although the topic is political, I have no political motivations and even have declared that I will not edit the particular political article except to correct the first 1-2 sentences.

The background is that I merely want to address redundany. Donald Trump has never held elected office and is not a career politician. I believe that if the term is used in the same sentence as President or President-elect, it is not optimal prose because of redundancy.

Base sentence, which I believe has redundant aspects:

1. Donald John Trump (1946- ) is an American real estate developer, television personality, politician, and President-elect of the United States. He is expected to take the presidential oath of office on January 20, 2017.

Instead, I believe that a second sentence should be used to expand on the first. This 2 sentence structure reduces the redundancy of the base sentence/sentence 1.

2. Donald John Trump (1946- ) is an American real estate developer, television personality, and politician. He is the President-elect of the United States. He is expected to take the presidential oath of office on January 20, 2017. (possible variations include, but are not limited to replacement of "businessman" with real estate developer or other ideas.)

Other examples of undesired redundancy are sample #3 and 4. This is redundant because the only wine that Trump sold was Trump Wine (just like the only political position he held is President-elect, never mayor or senator or a career politician):

3. Donald John Trump (1946- ) is an American real estate CEO, winemaker, and maker of Trump Wine. The only wine he has ever marketed was Trump Wine.

4. Donald John Trump (1946- ) is an American businessperson, businessman, politician, and President-elect of the United States.

Again, my focused question is that of redundancy and prose (if a 2 sentence structure with the 2nd sentence expanding on the first and not jammed together helps address the redundancy issue. No editor in the Donald Trump talk page has commented on redundancy and may not have the editorial expertise to make a judgement, unlike you. Thank you. Usernamen1 (talk) 04:33, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

@Usernamen1: I'm sorry but I have been involved as an administrator in the American Politics realm and therefore do not wish to get involved in editorial matters. I do advise you to centralize your discussion of the content of any article on the article Talk page. Posting on editor Talk pages about it makes tracking the discussion difficult for other interested editors. Good luck to you! --Laser brain (talk) 12:09, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm planning the merge the paragraphs with already existing information and just editing the announcement part with the release part, so I'm making the edit again and this time I'll add the edit summary to explain my edit better. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Orkunsoylu (talk • contribs) 12:13, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Precious anniversary

Three years ago ...

featured pet projects
... you were recipient no. 700 of Precious, a prize of QAI!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:24, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Pseudo-citation?

My edit for Kasparov.com (a website I very much support) was deleted for lack of citation but I found Russian sovereign territory as citation enough via an elite proxy server. You can go to Russia and check for me, but until then leave my work alone.

Common Sense as policy for those who can't read the cited source

Most Russian native speakers can read Russian. Are you one of them? Or are you a foreign Russian reader who can't make common sense out of Russian I will cite through the portal on the website for you verify by a scholarly cited source? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kylecrabtree (talk • contribs) 19:03, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Nine Inch Nails

Re [4]: Is there ever a reason we'd want to move this page? Retaining indefinite move protection for pages like this is commonplace, assuming there's no conceivable reason it'd ever need to be moved — MusikAnimal ^talk 01:41, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

@MusikAnimal: Not in the slightest! I suppose my reading of the protection policy is that we default to unprotected unless there is disruption. I don't mind if you want to reinstate the move protection. --Laser brain (talk) 15:30, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Changes to the entry on EU law

Hello Laser brain,

Thank you for your message. I don't know whether this is the right way to reply, as I have never received a wikipedia message before! Nor do I frequently edit articles.

In this case, I came across the article when searching for some information, and I noticed some inaccuracies and ommissions on matters I am familiar with (I have authored several text books on EU institutions), so took the liberty of editing a couple of sections of that article.

I am familiar with the subject matter and can assure you that what I wrote is accurate. I don't think I deleted much of what was there before, though I did re-organise the order of some paragraphs, which might make it look as though I was deleting whole sections, which was not the case.

I see that you or someone else has reverted to the previous version, thereby deleting ALL my changes, not even attempting to make adjustments where it is considered that I have gone wrong. I think that is a pity.

best regards

Richard