User talk:DGG

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

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

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

where is the "like" button? RobLab (talk) 01:42, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

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

items from 2015 and 2016 removed for archiving--a few will be replaced here

Your talk at 16 Years of Wikipedia

Heard your lightning talk just now. I support both the "Radical solutions to promotional paid editing" proposals you announced on notability and restrictions on anon editors around companies newer than 1999 foundation. Are there some written proposals to refer to? - Brianhe (talk) 20:43, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

there will be--one of the reasons I gave the talk was to get some feedback about just what to propose, and I am already getting some. Watch this space tomorrow. DGG ( talk ) 20:55, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Sounds good. I will evangelize to the communities I'm part of, as soon as there's something to show them. - Brianhe (talk) 20:57, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

(talk page watcher)Hi, DGG! I'd like to hear that too. Link? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 22:07, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Video from the lightning talks is now available via Commons. DGG's lightning talk is the first one, proposal #1 is detailed at 2:15 and #2 at 3:00. - Brianhe (talk) 06:31, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Combative deletion rebuttals

Hi DGG, I noticed a wave of combative deletion rebuttals on your page lately and wondered if this is a new phenomenon. Would you like me to answer them as able, or just leave them alone? - Brianhe (talk) 18:17, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

detailed discussion forthcoming tomorrow. DGG ( talk ) 04:45, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

In the past, most paid or other promotional editors, when their articles have been deleted, have simply gone away and tried again, generally under another username. For a while now, an increasing number of them have been adopting the practice of arguing. Many admins ignore them; my response unless they are ridiculous altogether is to explain why, sometimes in detail. If they are a good faith but promotional editor who simply has not realized, they usually understand, though it sometimes take a second round of explanation. . If they are professional paid editor with any sense, they realise they;re not going to get anywhere, and go away--and try again usually under another name. Zealots with a unpaid COI have very often continued to argue, sometimes indefinitely. The best thing for us to do here is the traditional remedy, to ignore them. Some paid editors are now doing the same, hoping to wear people down. The best technique here is to block them. If they show up for the same purpose again, they can and should be summarily blocked as behavioral meatpuppets--though we usually run a checkuser for possibly helpful additional information. The danger, as has become clear, is catching a good faith but imitative editor. There are only 3 solutions: accept promotionalism , be able to investigate who people actually are, or accept there will be occasional injustice. I will oppose the first as long as I work here, I will continue trying to change consensus to permit the second, and , alas, be forced to accept the third.

There are of course other factors. I have lately been taking a larger role at AfD, and as I didbefore, I tend to close the ones that nobody is eager to close and present some possible ambiguities. It is therefore natural that there should be exceptions taken to them. ,Unless I were to do only the obvious, it's part of the structure, and I will make an effort to address what I think are reasonable objections. And, unlike some admins who just refer people to DelRev hoping few will brave that extremely specialized process, I will revert a close if I think it may have been in error.,

There is also of course the possibility that I may have been making more errors. DGG ( talk ) 03:56, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

James Omura

Back in the day (Nov. 2013), you stated in an AfC comment that the subject is notable and that the page needed cleanup (diff). So, I cleaned it up and published it in main namespace just now. Feel free to improve the article further. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 16:19, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

all it needs now is 1/removal of some adjectives and phrases that constitute puffery, 2/or that could be seen as espousing a political view, 3/removing inserting some links to relevant WP articles, 4/Clarifying 4.1, which implies but does not say that the first generation parents resisted or wanted to resist, 5/ clarifying section 4.2 by saying in the text as coming from the California oral history project & making it an indented quote, 6/ removing or sourcing multiple sentences of opinion and 7/Finding some references that come from other sources than Omura and Toland.

It makes no difference how strongly you or I agree with the his political viewpoint. If we used WP to advocate our own beliefs, we'd end up the same as Conservapedia. You may possibly think that in the current political situation in the US and some other countries, all honest citizens should feel themselves called upon to undertake action, or at least write polemics. I would probably support this as a valid position, but the advocacy does not belong on WP. The role of WP in fighting actual or potential tyranny is now and always to write objective articles in purely dispassionate language. At WP we present the facts, trusting the readers to themselves draw the proper conclusions, not to tell the reader what conclusions they ought to draw.

To avoid misunderstanding, I think the WMF, as distinct from the encyclopedia, can appropriately play a political role in defense of its values, and I support its past and present actions and statements. And, also to avoid misunderstanding, there may indeed come a time when dispassionate reporting is hopeless, and direct opposition is the only possible course. But the two should not be confused. DGG ( talk ) 21:24, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the detailed reply. I cannot guarantee that I will improve the article more; perhaps you could post the content of your first paragraph above on the article's talk page so others will see your suggestions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 03:23, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Addition of un-redirected pages to Special:NewPages and Special:NewPagesFeed

I'm contacting you because you participated in this proposal discussion. While the proposal was approved, it has not received developer action. The request is now under consideration as part of the 2017 Developer Wishlist, with voting open through the end of day on Tuesday (23:59 UTC). The latter link describes the voting process, if you are interested. —swpb^T 18:02, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

I will comment there, but I think this require WMF action independent of that process. DGG ( talk ) 18:17, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ali Montazeri (WP:PROF)

Am interested in your thoughts on this AfD, and specifically on the issue I have raised. I have no idea how you are going to !vote on this, and am curious. Jytdog (talk) 19:44, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Lots of naive discussions of citations from others, but the actual analysis speaks for itself. You did of very good job of editing, btw. For someone of his importance I would have done if it needed, but its great to have such competent help. DGG ( talk ) 04:36, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your kind words but all I did was clear away the most fetid of the promotionalism. The remaining directory entry ( i will not it an "article") is promotional; this person cannot have an actual WP article as there no sources from which to write one. The directory entry exists because someone is trying to promote this guy. So I have just polished a turd. It should not exist in WP per NOTDIRECTORY and PROMO.

I am going to try to raise N standards around WP. I am trying because a bunch of people seem to think we should and more importantly they undercut efforts to make meaningful changes by pointing to things like changing N.

But everybody has pet projects and is willing to fight to the death to protect notability guidelines and essays that allow fake "articles" to exist in WP, that are really directory entries or worse. The journals people do it, the academic people do it, the radio people do it, the music people do it, etc. It will be a waste of time, but I will try. So it goes. Jytdog (talk) 05:27, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I'm willing to go to some trouble to maintain proper standards of notability based upon objective evidence that shows someone is a leader in their field. WP:PROF is one of the very few guidelines we have that follows a rational approach to inclusion policy. I fell so strongly about objective guidelines that I support them even when I think them overly broad (as for sports) or much too narrow (as for politicians).

I can and will argue as I think appropriate & necessary using the GNG in either direction, but it's a totally useless intellectual activity that I think detracts from the encyclopedia . You may possibly have a case about directory entries (though we have about 2 million directory articles), ut I don't see how the article is PROMO. Anyway, looking at it from your direction, even so you're attacking articles that we do have in a field where we do not have anywhere near enough coverage--if you want to attack directory entries--why not do it a field where e have overcoverage. Or do you really think academics unimportant?

Of course we have information to write an article we have what's important about academics: their position and their published work. In each case that's third party information based on the university authorities and the editor of the journals and the citing authors. The decisions of peer reviewers and peer authors in the aggregate are much sounder basis for an article than the uninformed comments of journalists in most current day newspapers.

one of the differences in what I and most others do here, is that I'm willing to fight even for what other people consider important. Tolerating and supporting each other is the basis of a cooperative encyclopedia. There's real promotionalism in WP that's much more dangerous and compromising than even the original version of this article. You're losing perspective. DGG ( talk ) 05:58, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughts. I know that lots of people have identified various fields in WP that they think are particularly .... bad. Some people focus on where they believe there is lots of "paid editing", some people focus on where there is lots of COI, other people on various forms of POV or bias, systemic and otherwise. I know people think that what I care about is COI/paid editing. They are wrong but I let myself get trapped too often in that box.

My work is primarily about NPOV - ensuring that articles summarize high quality sources.

NPOV is what my entire Userpage is focused on, and has been focused on, for a long time. (it comes down to finding high quality sources and accurately summarizing them)

Lots of people have said we should address the paid editing problem at least in part (and in some quarters, primarily) by raising N standards.

I agree with that. It would solve lots of other problems too.

I don't understand -- at all -- how anybody can support raising N standards, and at the same time support any guideline that allows automatic green-lighting, even when we cannot actually write a WP article about something because there are not multiple independent sources with significant discussion of it. (In other words, it isn't possible to write an NPOV article about it)

I mean it - this completely baffles me and in my view comes down to special pleading. And each Wikiproject points to the special pleading that other Wikiprojects do. Which means we will never succeed in raising N standards for any field in WP.

If, on the other hand, Guy is correct and NOTDIRECTORY has been effectively abandoned, I need to rethink what a "WP article" is and my approach to NPOV.

But as it stands, in my view, the approach to N that allows PROF and JOURNALs and RADIO to create and keep directory entries, is what allows crap articles about business executives to exist.

(and what is promotional about the article about the guy who is subject of the AfD, is its very existence in WP. It was created as part of a promotional campaign, and upon examination it fails GNG and should not exist in WP at all. It is no different than artIcle about some business executive that gets created, gets looked at, and should get deleted.)

So what do people mean when they say "raise N standards"? How is it coherent and consistent? I really don't understand (obviously). Please explain how this makes sense to you. Please. Jytdog (talk) 22:05, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

I should acknowledge that I made a mess of the discussion at PROF. I did that badly. Jytdog (talk) 23:00, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Btw, i just read your userpage, and see that your thoughts about GNG and N are completely different. Hm. Jytdog (talk) 06:11, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

yes, they are, and I've made no secret about it. Besides what I do on wiki, I've talked about this at many events. This has been my general approach for about 7 years now--the main difference from then is that 7 years ago the problem of using WP to advertise was not as widespread, and I was much more willing to rewrite such articles than I am now. Under current conditions, I'm very much more concerned about fighting promotional editing than about disagreements on the level or criteria of notability. DGG ( talk ) 04:43, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

But in making arguments in actual cases here I always give an argument based on the conventional rules. I will then sometimes supplement it with additional reasons. I use my own concepts in deciding which articles I'm going to argue about. I will not personally defend an article that clearly meets WP:N and which I do not think appropriate unless I can find some other policy-based reason. DGG ( talk ) 08:21, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Anthony Gill

Hi DGG. Is Anthony Gill (professor) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) notable? You're better than I at accessing the notability of academics. The article was created by HM8383, a member of this undisclosed paid editing sockfarm. — JJMC89 (T·C) 22:46, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Definitely notable, but see my comment at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Arunkapadia/Archive [2]:

My view is that all articles written by this group should be deleted regardless of notability. The TOU are foundation policy. Our COI policy is based both on that and WP:NOT, which supersedes all consideration of notability. Attempting to advertise someone highly notable, is still advertising, just as advocating the worthiest of causes is still advocacy. Some of the people being written about are so notable, however, that an article ought to be written. I considered whether to rewrite the existing articles, but decided not to, because it would take rewriting from scratch. I think the only way we can enforce our rules and deter promotionalism is to first delete, and then wait a bit and communicate with the subjects to make sure the lesson is learned, and then rewrite. DGG ( talk ) 01:55, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Talk page stalker here, with a minor point. The PROD template might benefit from a special-purpose parameter. As it is now, the wording is unfortunate. I quote: "If you created the article, please don't be offended. Instead, consider improving the article so that it is acceptable according to the deletion policy." Of course contradicting the reason for deletion. (And of course I have no objection to the idea of deleting this article or those like it. Just a matter of wording.) -- Hoary (talk) 02:04, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Well, there is a way a undeclared paid editor can actually save the article, which is by declaring and then rewriting. I do not think there's an actual guideline, but so far we have generally granted amnesty retrospectively, in order to encourage people to do things properly. Of course, it a situation like this there would be considerable explanation needed. Anyway, I was thinking of using speedy in analogy with G12. I know it would be to IAR, and IAR is rarely used in connection with speedy. We could have another speedy criterion, but I don't want to propose it until consensus about the tou is more firmly established. It's cases like this which will show the need for it. DGG ( talk ) 03:58, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. I am in favor of nuking the articles created by this group. There is a list of remaining articles at WP:COIN#Arunkapadia. An IP has heavily trimmed this one. — JJMC89 (T·C) 21:10, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

considering the extent of work on this particular article, I am not going to list it for deletion. But anyone else can do so. DGG ( talk ) 18:54, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

COI/BLP issues

I came across 501 7th Avenue, SeaRise Office Tower, and 111 West 33rd Street and originally thought that it was a paid promotional editor and so put a paid editing notice on the creator's user talk page. Looking a bit closer at the user's created articles, it seems that they might actually be trying to spread information about Qatari owned businesses that have terrorist funding connections, and have created several BLPs/recent deaths that make terrorist funding/terrorism claims too: Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, Ismail al-Salabi, Mohammed bin Hashim al-Awadhy. I'm not sure how great the sourcing is on the BLPs, but given the sensitive nature of the topic and a near laser focus on it, it raised my eyebrows. You deleted Pamodzi Sports Marketing as G11, and since that was the last deletion on the talk page, and I know you have experience with COI type subjects, I thought I would get your thoughts. TonyBallioni (talk) 23:45, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

I have generally thought most large buildings in major cities notable, though it is difficult to say an exact size, and t will depend on the city.

Searise & W33rd St are I thing large enough; 7th Ave isn't but it was built by a famous architect. But what we really need is an article for the company that owns them (and the Empire State Building), Empire State Partners (formerly Empire State Realty Trust), which is mentioned in the Empire State building article); it is a NUYSE company and has an interesting history. None of this of course answers the question of whether we should keep articles on notable subjects by undeclared paid promotional editors. I've been arguing that we should not--for those that are so notable as to be essential, someone else can rewrite them -- after a gap, because there is no other way to convince people that it is not helpful to pay for an article. If your suggestion is correct, it's still by a promotional editor, because it's advocacy which is considered as promotionalism , but that isn't considered nough reason for deletion, if the subject is notable just for revision unless it's so bad that revision is hopeless and it falls under G11.

I'll look at the BLPs tomorrow. The sourcing is,as you say, not great, but I think they would pass AfD DGG ( talk ) 18:54, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

Review some JzG deletions

Hi, JzG's talk page notice suggested contacting you for review of deletions. He also seems to be on a wikibreak. Please have a look at my query at User talk:JzG#Deletion of long-standing articles without review, which came about from a request at Wikipedia:Requests for undeletion#Timeline of Facebook. Thanks. ~Anachronist (talk) 05:02, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

fwiw, those deletions stem from this ANI thread, Vipul's paid editing enterprise, where there have been some calls to delete company timeline articles created by the group under discussion there. Jytdog (talk) 05:33, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Oh and i just saw this: User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#A_Wikipedia_wide_new_policy_is_needed_to_ban_.22paid_for.22_editing. oy. Jytdog (talk) 05:37, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

I would probably support a CSD criterion modeled after G5, for undeclared paid editing, but we do not currently have one, and using G11 for the purpose is stretching it very far. This is especially true when the actual article was probably not written as promotionalism or advocacy, but as a unfortunately misguided good faith approach to improving WP. JzG is very much around, and I do not intend to do this without notifying him, especially because I entirely respect and totally agree with his desire to rid WP of blatantly improper editing. I consider the speedies to be misjudgment, not absolute error. I will undelete them tomorrow unless there are arguments otherwise., and they can then be taken to AfD I fully understand why the deleting admin did this, and I totally sympathize with his views on this sort of editing. But G11 is really not the appropriate method. These need to be taken to Afd if they are to be deleted, because this is a disputed situation and requies explicit consensus. Speedy is not appropriate when the consensus will be debated, only when the deleting admin can be reasonably sure that the consensus would certainly support him. I do not think there's the case here. and the best course would be for JzG to do that himself. My own suggestion would instead be a merge, and therefore I will not personally take it to afd after it has been restored, for AfD is not needed to do a merge.. DGG ( talk ) 07:49, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

• So, first of all, I already proposed a speedy criterion for material created in violation of the terms of use, and it was rejected. Getting any kind of broad community consensus on what to do with paid advertorial is difficult, not least because there is a group of people who for whatever reason seek to make it impossible. Not all of these are associated with the Sangerites and their fawning over Kohs. Some have a genuine, if in my view misguided, belief, that Wikipedia's need for articles overwhelms the problems of people subverting Wikipedia for profit.

That's why I only removed a small number of articles. There are several medical timelines, for example, all paid for by the same pyramid scheme, which I did not touch.

The articles I did remove are promotional in intent and designed, in my view, purely for SEO. They are timelines of commercial entities, paid for by Vipul (who engages in SEO as well as his Wikipedia editing pyramid scheme), replete with numerous links to other commercial entities, several of which are owned by Vipul. And that's what pushes them over the line. Guy (Help!) 09:02, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

JzG, You may be right, but you shouldn't be making this decision by yourself, especially because there is disagreement about the nature of Vipul's motivations. Please undelete and send them to AfD. This particular case very much needs discussion, and preferably not just between the two of us. . As for the speedy criterion, the main problem I see is exactly what is presented here--the difficulty in determining motivations (and identity, usually, though not in this case). DGG ( talk ) 15:01, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

I don't think there's any disagreement about Vipul's motivation by now, but whatever. Guy (Help!) 16:11, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

JzG is free to hold whatever views they want to hold about paid editors. They shouldn't be calling all of them as "vermin", "dogs" and "parasites" - that is at least a gross violation of WP:NPA, and a BLP violation as well, if anyone cares. But, the least they can do is not to delete stuff bypassing consensus. Feel free to AfD the articles, but don't act unilaterally. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 19:02, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Read again for comprehension. I did not call them dogs. Parasites, of course, is entirely accurate according to the definition of the term. Guy (Help!) 00:18, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

@JzG: I am not that interested in the dehumanizing language you use for people you don't like. But is someone (you or anyone else) going to undelete the "Timeline of..." pages? The deletion under CSD deletion G11 is clearly not applicable because it is not an unambiguous case of blatant advertising; indeed DGG agrees on that point. The CSD process is meant to deal with clear-cut cases with minimum of WP:BURO, not a method to shortcut consensus on an issue on which reasonable people may differ. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 02:26, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

@JzG: You also keep repeating that Vipul is running an SEO spamming operation (despite them denying it) and a pyramid scheme. Might I remind you that pyramid schemes are illegal in the US? This is as blatant a personal attack as can be imagined. Just because you think you're right doesn't mean that you can go around flouting rules with impunity. If you can't keep your head while dealing with the subject, let other people deal with it. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 02:38, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

See WP:COIN. They were offering to pay people, and allow those people to recruit downline and pass the money on. That's a pyramid scheme. The SEO is also proven to my satisfaction, people have checked the records of sites he admits to operating. I actually think he did not consider how this would be perceived. I originally offered him some advice on how to support Wikipedia articles in his area of interest without these problems, but it's since become apparent that this has been going on for a long time and his responses do not look to be entirely straight. I've not been involved in much of the cleanup, I mainly reviewed sourcing on a series of articles on immigration-related topics where Vipul and his paid editors had added large numbers of links to sites selling visa services. Again, I am not sure this was intentional spamming, but there is a conflict between the claim that they are experienced editors and the use of poor quality promotional sources.

You also appear to be under a misapprehension about my views on spammers. They are not people I dislike. I dislike the behaviour, not the people. I strongly suspect that Vipul and I would share broad agreement on a number of issues, and several of his paid editors seem to be nice people caught up in a nasty situation. Paid editing is predatory, a parasitic abuse of a charitable project for personal gain. It is reprehensible and, I would argue, morally indefensible. But you can see why Vipul did this. The critical point is what happens when the user is confronted. In this case the response was obfuscation. That is not cool. There have been many cases where the response is genuine remorse, the user not having even considered how the community might view paid editing. I can write that down to mistakes born of ignorance. That certainly applies to a lot of Vipul's paid editors. But not, I think, to Vipul himself, based on current evidence. Guy (Help!) 10:14, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

JzG You are accusing someone on Wikipedia of doing something illegal. And just because you think you're right and you have the correct opinions about paid editing, that makes it ok. Even if you were right (and you aren't), this kind of behaviour would be wildly out of line. Referrals are not necessarily pyramid schemes; they need to have a structure where people get most of their income through referrals and not through direct work. There are many other factors which go into pyramid schemes (see this page, for instance). You are totally incompetent to make such a determination (as am I), but you go around making these outrageous accusations. I would suggest that you're unable to think rationally about this topic. Please get some outside advice on this matter (from someone on WP) you trust. Preferably in private. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 15:27, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

You are engaging in hyperbole. Up to a point, so am I. I think there's nothing more to be said here. Guy (Help!) 23:16, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

@JzG: Are you going to undelete the "Timeline of ..." articles? DGG says clearly above that G11 doesn't apply and you shouldn't be making this decision by yourself. Your failure to answer this question is rather annoying. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 23:33, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

I am not good at answering questions when they are framed as overblown rhetorical statements, Am I goin to u delete the paid-for SEO adverts? Um, I will leave that to DRV because I remain convinced they are spam. Guy (Help!) 09:40, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

I'm not going to comment on this further, since at least some aspects of this might be headed for arb com. DGG ( talk ) 03:47, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Touche!

Hi DGG, I just wanted to thank you for having a spirited but civil discussion at AfD. Your points are good, as I believe are mine. Your good demeanor is refreshing. I didn't want to clutter the AfD page up with this, but wanted to say "Thanks!" Jacona (talk) 02:26, 21 March 2017 (UTC) (re: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Brandon Mendelson )

Commenting on Vipul/Riceissa related matters

Hi DGG, do you think I should refrain from commenting on Vipul/Riceissa related matters? I decided to leave the following note on Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Riceissa/Spokes (replication system): "Note: I was a part of the same paid editing ring as User:Riceissa, so that is a COI I hold; I am not getting paid for any of my comments related to the Vipul/Riceissa ordeal, they are of my own accord. I was not asked by Vipul or Riceissa or anyone else to make any of the comments below." If you think I should stop, I'll stop; I don't want to get blocked for paid MEATing or whatnot. Sincerely, Ethanbas ^(talk) 07:25, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

• (talk page stalker) You're skating on pretty thin ice already, so I would strongly recommend you keep well clear of anything even tangentially related to this mess. Guy (Help!) 09:55, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
• I agree with Guy/JzG. Softlavender (talk) 10:09, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

I will not comment on any thread any longer; however, I reserve the right to comment on talk pages of users involved in this mess (making sure they know I was part of Vipul's project) Ethanbas ^(talk) 02:48, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

Indexing

Here, you say "About reusing drafts: the unlikelihood of anyone else reusing a draft is one of the faults of our current system. I think there are at most 4 people (including myself) who rescue old drafts. I generally only do them in my primary field of interest (academic faculty and related), but even so I have a very long list, and very rarely have time to do one. We do not even have a system where when someone starts an article, it shows whether there is a pre-existing draft on the topic. The default Wikipedia search does not pick them up, and even if set to Everything only finds them if spelled the same way. Kudpung, you know this system best--is there any reasonable solution?". Maybe INDEXing the drafts is the solution? Ethanbas ^(talk) 02:41, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

this has been proposed, and decisively rejected. Drafts contain unverified material, including copyvios and advertising nd possible BLP violations. The whole idea for drafts is that they are not yet reasd to have a prominent position in external indexes. They do show up in our internal search, if one knows the title and specifies a customs search.T

the solution that has been suggested several times and could have been adopted years ago, is to categorize them in at least rough categories, so people could at least scan them. The objection has been raised that there are not people willing to do this manually, but there are two other methods: a simple weighted keyword approach, which, however inexact, is at least a start, and more recently an AI system. There has historically been a dichotomy--at least a perceived dichotomy--between the people who work with the WP infrastructure and the people who work with articles. Fortunately, under the current Executive Director, there seems to be a possibility of some improvement. DGG ( talk ) 02:52, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

Bryan Caplan

You have an interest in professors, so this may be of interest to you: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bryan Caplan (2nd nomination) Ethanbas ^(talk) 20:17, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

It's interesting that Vipul did not mention he is associated with Caplan when he added so many primary-sourced references to Caplan's blogging into articles. Funny how that goes, eh? Guy (Help!) 00:03, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

JzG, there are two alternative approaches to COI problems: one is to simply judge the subject for notability in the usual way; the other, for which you have been arguing, is to judge the intent. I certainly understand the point of your way of doing it: I would support a rule that undeclared paid editing be deleted rather than fixed on the same principle as we delete articles from banned editors (otherwise the prohibition is toothless), and I would probably also support a rule that grossly COI articles also be deleted rather than fixed unless someone actually rewrites them, as we do for copyvio. There are also arguments against either proposition, and I think the strongest two are that usually we cannot tell, so it will remain toothless, and that is that paid editors can be persuaded to declare, and COI editors taught to write properly (though both seem to be quite rare occurrences).

But at present the community supports neither rule. I doubt we could get the necessary support to explicitly change either of them, and I am very reluctant to propose that until there is some chance ofsucceeding in the argument Another way to change the rule is to change what we actually do at AfD, because the rules here are what we actually do, rather than just what we say; this is the method you;ve been pursuing. I've been doing the same thing, but I am trying to concentrate on the individuals without significant notability, not clearly notable people like him DGG ( talk ) 04:03, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Wikimedian in Residence BoF at Wikimania 2017

Hello!

My name is David Alves (User:Horadrim~usurped), and I'm an Wikipedian in Residence at RIDC NeuroMat (User:Horadrim). I've reach your contact through the == Wikimedian in Residence BoF at Wikimania 2017 ==outreach:WIR|Wikimedian in residence page]] in Outreach. As you may know, Wikimania 2017 is coming! I am here because, as a fellow WiR, I believe this would be a great opportunity for us to share experiences, discuss difficulties and exchange solutions, creating a community among us capable of supporting in other projects that would benefit from residents. In that sense, I have submitted a proposal of a Birds of a Feather activity to Wikimania that you can check out here. I hope to count with your support in this project and would like to invite you to join us if you participate in Wikimania. In case of any doubts, please feel free to contact me, either in my talk pages or by e-mail at david.alvesoutlook.com.

Thank you very much! ‎Horadrim~usurped (talk) 00:33, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Comment

I just wanted to comment and say I really appreciate your User page. Thanks for writing that up because I have always felt the same way and couldn't say it better myself. SEMMENDINGER (talk) 04:00, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Andrew Radford draft

hi DGG. you mentioned that you would like to see <andrew radford> draft before i submit and that you would accept it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Josephgalasso/sandbox

photo is a family photo and i have permission from radford to use it freely. thanks so much for any feedback. i could submit next week if it looks ok. josephJosephgalasso (talk) 20:48, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

even if you have permission, you need to follow the formal procedures at WP:DCM. The copyright permission must be made by the copyright owner, and it must be for CC-BY, which permits use not just in WP, but use anywhere by anyone for any purpose, even commercial. And we normally list doctoral students only if they are notable themselves. We usually don't mention editorial board membership, only editor-in chief. Otherwise it seems OK. DGG ( talk ) 08:41, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

to check

Talk page size

Wikipedia editing guild

Pardon, can I ask you to archive a bit more of this talk page? My browser is hanging when I try to post here. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 18:33, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

I keep intending to. thanks for reminding me. DGG ( talk ) 19:55, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

Which browser and OS, Jo-Jo? Given a lengthy talk page here, with Safari on an iPad I have no problems reading or posting here. With Windows 10 and IE 11 attempting to go directly to a section from my watchlist hangs—but going to User talk:DGG works OK. Surely there should be a computer based solution. Fifty years ago (when I started programming) maybe no, but now? — Neonorange (Phil) 20:42, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

If I may butt in; I'm using Safari on iPhone, and when I first tried to load this page I got an error message saying something like "An error occurred. Attempting to reload page." I've never gotten that message before. This is quite possibly the most popular talk page on Wikipedia. Lizard (talk) 20:51, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

actually, it's slowing down even for me, with Safari and 16GB memory. It's my own fault, because I ambitiously set up a system of subject archives instead of doing like everyone else. I will make another try this weekend. DGG ( talk ) 21:23, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

The Windows 10 64-bit system and the 80 Mbit/sec Internet connection I use is way overkill for editing and browsing. Your talk page, as it is the moment of my sig time stamp, loads in less than a second when I go to User talk:DGG. When I go to a specific section of the page (from my watchlist) the browser busy pointer appears and after five minutes is still busy. I must reload Wikipedia in the browser to continue, as the page cannot be recovered. Computers should allow a person to be as productive as that person wishes, not the reverse. — — Neonorange (Phil) 00:02, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

the section editing for me works in just the opposite way--much faster. Anyway, expect some improvements here. DGG ( talk ) 02:26, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Thank you!

Thank you for all you do to help keep Wikipedia collaborative. It's a thankless task, on the ANI board.auntieruth (talk) 14:55, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Notability and GNG

Summary, modified from my comment elsewhere,

The policy on whether we keep an article is not WP:N. The policy is WP:NOT. The guideline WP:N is the explanation for how we decide on one part of that policy, NOT INDISCRIMINATE. An article might meet that, but fail other parts of NOT. If something is effectually promotion, it fails NOTADVOCACY, and that's enough to rule it out as encyclopedia content, because we do not advertise anything, no matter how notable. There's no justification for keeping advertising in Wikipedia any more than there is copyvio. Unless there is a NPOV version to revert to, or unless it is immediately fixed, it should be deleted, whether by speedy G11 or at AfD. It shouldn't be moved to draft or userified in the hope of improvement, as we might for something lacking in sources for notability but where there's a good chance of finding them. We wouldn't do that for copyvio. We wouldn't do that for BLP violations. Using WP for advertising is just as harmful. "fixable" applies in many circumstances, but not for any of these. DGG ( talk ) 20:27, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

HM. Hm. Set brain to churning with all kinds of things clicking. Two questions:

• Is that true, historically? I mean, was N created to flesh out NOT, explicitly?
• Is this widely seen as true in your view? (I have never heard of it or thought about it this way.... it makes total sense however) Jytdog (talk) 19:57, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

(1) See this very early version of WP:N from Sept 2006:

Based on several sections What Wikipedia Is Not, it is generally agreed that topics in most areas must have a certain notability in order to have an article in Wikipedia. Several guidelines have been created, or are under discussion, to indicate what is and is not notable by {{|Radiant!}}. (but at that point several of the proposed specific guidelines had developed to approximately their present form, with varying degrees of acceptance). The first appearance of a GNG was in Nov, 2006. by UncleG

(2) This my understand of the necessary implications of WP:NOT. It is my interpretation, & I think reflects the trend of decisions at AfD. It is not universally accepted; the alternate interpretation is for keeping promotional articles even if borderline notable, if it is at all possible to fix the promotionalism. In choosing how to interpret, we should follow logic & consistency, but also practical considerations. My view is that accepting even temporarily promotionalism plays into the hands of paid editors and other spammers, and that such editing has the real potential to destroy the usefulness of WP as an encyclopedia. DGG ( talk ) 03:47, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

I meant mostly the "this guideline fleshes out NOT" thing. Thanks for the history link! Jytdog (talk) 11:59, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

another restatement of notabilty SNG vs GNG

(my argument at a recent deletion review in popular music) Consistent practice at WP has been that meeting the SNG is enough in this field. Guidelines are what we do, not just what we say, and if there is conflict between the two, it's what we do that matters. WP is not run primarily by rules, but primarily by consensus--rules are attempts to codify the usual consensus, and are valid only to the extent the community in practice supports them. re ambiguous, The rule on charting has an enormous advantage: it produces unambiguous results. Except for the need to define just what charts it is that count, there's not much room for dispute and decisions can be easily made,. Following the GNG is another matter entirely:the specifications that coverage by ""reliable"", significant coverage, independent and secondary and in sufficient number, can be endlessly debated, and in all fields where we rely on the GNG they are endlessly debated-in most cases that reach AfD they can be plausibly debated in every direction, and people in practice pick what side to argue by some sort of global judgement about whether the article should belong in WP. Thus our hundred or so FaDs a day where the main discussion is the opportunity to show skill in quibbling, and the result depends on just which skilled quibblers appear at the discussion. I don't care about the individual results in this subject field, but I do care they our decisions be consistent and rational. The SNG does that--the GNG guarantees the opposite.

Perhaps it's odd that with some degree of reputation as a skilled quibbler, and years of experience quibbling on both sides of AfDs, I want to do away with those discussions. I've experience in a lot of unnecessary things, and I'd much rather use my skills at something substantial at RSN or the like, and in figuring how to fix articles. I came here because I thought I could use quite different skills in finding refs to fix articles, but I've never had a chance to use them much. Debating as we do it is just a game. Sourcing is real. DGG ( talk ) 22:32, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Eliyahu Leon Levi

Hi DGG, I noticed you struck the listing for Eliyahu Leon Levi at WP:AN/CXT No. 9 with the comment that it is in adequate English; but how's the translation? The quality of English in the article isn't really that important; any copyeditor can do that. What we are mostly concerned with, is the accuracy of the translation, as most of the pages in this list were script-generated due to a misconfig in ContentTranslation and are either pure MT, or MT+monolingual copyedit, so don't worry too much about the English quality.

If you can vouch for accuracy of articles translated from Hebrew, the following ones in the list could use your help, if you have the time: #106, 197, 1627, 1680, and 1907. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 02:04, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

I agree that this is a questionable reach for me , as I do not read the language at all. I cannot vouch for accuracy; I can vouch for the English making sense and being consistent and the facts reported being likely. Like most bios, the article is extremely straightforward and leaves little to be misinterpreted. I know the cultural significance of what's reported, and it makes sense. I would not have looked at anything more complex or where I understood nothing of the subject. It's no worse that way than were it to have been written directly into the enWP using Hebrew sources, and certainly had it been an unacknowledged machine translation. The only reason these articles are any different is we know instead of guess that they used machine translation. So I shall ask a wikifriend to verify.

And I did likewise with a Chinese article on a straightforward political career. Again, it makes sense, but it is a language where machine translation to English is notable awful. It could be imaginary, but so could any article using Chinese sources. I'll ask for verification.

The other languages I've worked with I do know how to read at least somewhat, best for French and German. How well I can deal with them depends upon how simple they are. I've done translations in both from scratch, but I do not attempt deWP articles on history with their usual complicated German syntax--this is one case where it is easily possible to get mixed up. However, some types of articles are extremely formulaic. I'm most likely to run into an uncertainty regarding the equivalence of positions in different countries, tho as a librarian I know a lot of organizational equivalents. (There's a very nice large book A manual of European languages for librarians by CG Allen. Invaluable for the Soviet era in particular.) And if I come across anything I'm unsure about, or where I do not know the cultural equivalent, or where the original seems confused, I leave that part out. I see from the comments that other do similarly.

But this raises some more general questions. I was going to post on the project talk p.and I will in some more detail tomorrow:

How many of the articles I accept at NPP or AfC can I really vouch for the accuracy? That's an unrealistically high standard for any new page patroller--all we really check is basic verifiability. That a translation is not quite accurate is no worse than in the English from a non-native speaker is not quite accurate, or if the sources don't actually verify what they say they do, or are unavailable. The only time we really check an article in depth is when an article is challenged at AfD or analyzed for GA or FA. What we're looking for is basic correctness, not detail.

of the first 100 articles, we're accepting or redirecting almost all of them that are worth working on. Some that I could read perfectly well I am not marking for acceptance because I do not consider it worth the work, and I see others are deciding similarly. My intent is to rescue everything worth rescuing if I can do enough work. The project would be enormously simplifyied if we simply accepted translations from the Scandinavian languages. The machine translation does very well with them, because the syntax is almost identical. It also does very well with straightforward German.(as distinct from the professional level German in their longer articles) In other languages , the most serious inaccuracy is the sequence of events because of the difference in tense use which are very often messed up by the machine translation, and the original is often a little unclear here also. But I'm particularly concerned the project did not screen out those articles that used the machine translation as a base, and then edited manually by the contributor or a good editor. There's no reason to assume they're incompetent.

Our role should be to screen out the ones that are incapably done, and not worth fixing. There are fewer than I anticipated--perhaps 25% not 50%. I also consider it our role to produce readable though not necessarily high quality English. :::I am not going to let something that can barely be deciphered pass no matter where I see it. How far it's worth fixing depends on how easy it is to fix, and it's importance.

If this standard is not acceptable, I might challenge the entire project using the experience I now have as the basis. The goal of all we do here is, after all, to get articles worth keeping, not to reject all problematic ones out of hand. But in any case I do understand your advice, and will work more conservatively. DGG ( talk ) 04:31, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for this very thoughtful and detailed response. You raise a lot of interesting issues regarding translation, verifiability, accuracy, quality, and others that go beyond the narrow issue here that sparked the original comment. I hang out at WP:PNT and think about translation there and in other venues (both on, and off-wiki) and I've been thinking about how to better organize this in a way to improve the encyclopedia generally, and capitalize on all the talent and interested people we have here and assemble a group of those who are interested to discuss that. I know there's a WikiProject Translation, but for what I have in mind, I'm not sure if that's the right place for it, as I think this is something else, but anyway (sorry, I'm rambling; it's late!) let's keep in touch about this, if you would like to.

Back to the original topic: I understand your PoV, and in a pool of 3600 articles, it's not so important if one article more or less gets kept or not (with the exception that I hate to nuke ones that editors have worked long and hard on, unless policy really requires it) so if you want to restrike to keep this one it's fine by me, or tell me and I'll do it. Cordially, Mathglot (talk) 08:19, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

My confusion; no need to restrike E L Levi, it's still struck as you left it; I've been doing so many of these lately, can't remember which way is up! Mathglot (talk) 08:29, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

Librarians -- especially academic librarians -- have the distinctive requirement to be able to deal with material about which they have only the scantiest knowledge--there were about 100 professional librarians at my university, and we were expected to be able to understand the requirements of about 1000 faculty, all of whom had a world-class specialized knowledge that we could not hope to match--even those of us who became librarians after a research career had only mastered one special field, not 10 of them. This is obviously a good background for working at WP. Publishers have a similar skill, and so do reporters. This included the need to work with a range of languages--some of the faculty had an extremely impressive range indeed, but still we collected in more languages than was presently represented. But librarians do not have to truly understand the details of a book in order to catalog it, just understand it well enough to figure out what it is about and the level of the analysis. I've taught librarians also, and though no one can actually teach these abilities, I did explain to my students that if they were to win the respect of faculty, they had to at least know how to pronounce properly the words of their various specialties. (Thus I can spell and pronounce chemical and biological names much better than I can ordinary English) The same is of course true of many non-academic fields--you have to at least know the talk. So I will boldly attempt anything unless I know by experience I will make a fool of myself.

There's a difference among the various WPs. deWP is known for insisting on a solid university level of German, and we don't expect anything more than high school level literacy. We deal more than any other WP with people who cannot really write the language, and within limits, we encourage them. Fortunately, we have a very wide range of language and other specialists, and there is very little we cannot find someone to deal with. (The problem in that in some fields and languages there are very few of them, and they may not be representative of the range of POVs) By experience, I've learned some fields where I can , and cannot, trust the available WPedians, both here and at their own language WPs. I am very reluctant to delete anything the de or fr WPs consider notable --but this does not hold at all for some of the other European language WPs.

Anyway, that's where I come from intellectually. I see you understand, and I appreciate it. DGG ( talk ) 09:29, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

(talk page watcher) David, that's an interesting analysis, thanks. I'd noticed that there are many of us librarians or retired librarians editing Wikipedia, and had thought it was connected with our urge to make knowledge accessible, along with an interest in cross-references etc, but you've reminded me of our professional ability to deal with sources of information in subjects we don't understand, and up to a point in languages we don't understand. One of my first tasks as a graduate trainee librarian, many years ago, was to catalogue and classify a couple of shelves-full of books in Macedonian, with some highschool knowledge of Russian and a Macedonian-English dictionary: they'd been donated from Skopje and the chap on whose office shelves they were waiting needed the space. I've set myself the challenge of creating an article for every editathon of WP:Women in Red, whether or not it's an area I know (or care!) much about: it's an interesting exercise! PamD 21:20, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

Robichaux

DGG,

I see the Chad Robichaux page has been nominated for deletion. You stated that, "promotional bio. full of puffery and uncited praise. The athletic career does not seem to meet the requirements,and there is nothing else substantial. I would not have accepted this from AfC."

Thank you for your feedback on the article. I made some edits to the page to remove any puffery. It don't understand, however, your other reasons for this being deleted. Can you help me? As I read the biography for living person page this seems to fall in line with the requirements and the coverage doesn't fall under "routine coverage" as described.

You are the expert, so however I can learn and make this page better I will gladly hear.

TO REPLY

A cup of coffee for you!

Thanks for reviewing my article. Yavarai (talk) 12:38, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

On this day, 10 years ago...

Wishing DGG a very happy adminship anniversary on behalf of the Wikipedia Birthday Committee! Have a great day! Lepricavark (talk) 13:22, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Beer and bread fueling your labors. Hyperbolick (talk) 13:31, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Your user page

I was just looking at your user page and I must say, you have some interesting reading on there. Thank you for sharing! --TheSandDoctor (talk) 17:23, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

We've got a problem

OK. I looked at the famous February 2017 RFC on SCHOOLOUTCOMES, analyzed it some also did some thinking on my own dime. My full unfinished take is here, but don't click that link, it's long. In summary:

• FWIW WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES is indeed accurate. Of 35 randomly sampled the result was 34-1 Keep (or maybe 34-0, 29-1, 29-0 depending on how you count).
• FWIW there are valid reasons to cite WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES I think. 1) it's valid to say "this works, let's keep doing it", 2) it's valid to say "not this shit again, its a timesink, let's not do it" 3) the community has consistently expressed its opinion on the general question for 15 years, and that counts. 4) maybe others I didn't think of. It's a matter of opinion, but reasonable opinion that one can disagree with but not just blow off, I would say.
• Examining the February 2017 RFC, I found that the closers made a mistake -- a bad one. They said "Citing SCHOOLOUTCOME... has been rejected by the community", but that's not actually true; it wasn't (I'm pretty sure; I'm still working on analyzing this, and it will take some hours; but it appears so at this point).
• Therefore people are being given a bum steer, I would say. The poor admin over at the Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2017 May 10#DRV for Kent School is having do deal with a shitshorm, and its not his fault. He followed what is written: "Firstly, I think the new language at WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES is unequivocal: Secondary schools are not presumed to be notable simply because they exist"

This is a problem IMO.

I didn't say this in public, but I have dark suspicions about the people who closed the February 17 RfC. Be that as it may, we can at least say that they demonstrated lack of acuity and diligence. As someone who has closed a couple RfC where I took a week (not 40 full hours, but still), I was appalled to see statements like "many arguments didn't make sense and were ignored". Man, that is not how you adjudicate a hugely visible and important RfC! I mean at least don't say that out loud. If you're too busy do to it right don't do it.

The key point is that the closer said "Citing SCHOOLOUTCOME... has been rejected by the community", but that isn't true, apparently (still working on this, but pretty sure it is not true). Mendacity or... lacking acuity... doesn't matter. They used this (untrue ) statement to make or authorize significant changes to a couple of pages, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Common outcomes and Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions.

My inclination is to roll back these changes and cite User:Herostratus/Understanding SCHOOLOUTCOMES as justification. Whether WP:BRD applies after three months, I don't know... doubt it. My inclination could also get me in a heap of trouble. I'd rather let jack do it. If I'm going to do it, I need cover. I have enough enemies already.

But it's important enough to not just shrug off IMO. As a matter of principle the whole affair frosts me, for one thing. Four guys supervoting on a highly visible RfC is toxic to community feeling. As a matter of practice, leaving this alone will probably result (after much wasteful drama, and admins being caught in the middle) with a blow to our coverage of high schools outside the first world.

So what to do next? Herostratus (talk) 01:55, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

What to do next is to vigorously defend all plausible articles, while letting the very weakest go. I'm willing to accept literally that "citing SA doesn't have consensus" Focus on the rest of the RfC, that in practice we do always keep them. Since nothing in that whole section of common outcomes is policy or even guideline, just advice. I wouldn't bother trying to upset or reconsider the RfC=, no matter how aelf-contradictory its conclusion. Policy & guidelines are important concepts in hierarchical organizations, but at WP, policy is what we do unless there's a very good reason otherwise, and a guideline is what we usually do., unless we decide not to. Usage makes the policies sand the guidelines. Even so , notability isn't even a policy, but a guideline for one part of the real policy, WP:NOT INDISCRIMINATE, and the so-called GNG is just one possible way to apply WP:N. We can use it if it helps. I don't thing it often does, because experience shows how easy it is to manipulate the details to get whatever result is desired. It's a way of arguing, not a useful guide. If I were more cynical, I'd support it, because it would serve my interests, as I have considerable skill and experience in arguments using it in both directions. NOT INDISCRIMINATE is an important and in my opinion necessary policy, but the details of how we choose to apply it it are what affects the results. Just don't cite it. Cite the facts, as you just did in the first sentence above: We always keep them, unless there are unusual circumstances. It's a convention justified by its utility. Remember, as WP idiosyncratically uses the term, "notability " says nothing about actual merit. It's a term of art, meaning only "worth keeping in the encyclopedia".I wish we had never started using it, but instead, said what we meant.

I cannot explain the existence of the current push against high schools. It has the effect of clogging up AfD and preventing proper consideration of the real problems here, which are promotionalism and fan support of the transiently popular. I hope that isn't the intent, but rather am misguided faith in ideological purity. WP is not the place for ideological purity. WP is driven by consensus, and the essence of consensus is compromise, not rigour. Those wh owant rigour wshould go elsewhere.

But consensus has a weakness--it an be defeated by zealots. The only defense is for sensible people to stay with their purpose, and argue each dispute as it comes up. At WP, success goes to the most persevering, Think of it as those who care the most, not those who are most stubborn. who are assumed to care the most. I was raised in a tradition of political activism, and what I was taught was: always appear at every opportunity. Let's see who has the real majority. Otherwise the minority of zealots rule, as they currently do in what I still think to be my country. DGG ( talk ) 07:35, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

Collaboration products newsletter: 2017-05

Latest news from the Wikimedia Collaboration team, about Notifications, Flow and Edit Review Improvements. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you.

What's new?

• “New Filters for Edit Review” beta released: As of May 9, the New Filters for Edit Review beta has been released to all wikis. The beta lets users review edits on Recent Changes using an easier and more powerful interface and many new tools, including user-defined highlighting and, on some wikis, predictive filters powered by ORES, a machine-learning program. You must opt in to the beta to try it out.
• More features coming soon: The New Filters are still very much in development. In addition to fixing bugs and making adjustments (here’s our current to-do list), we’re actively adding new features, many at users’ request. A few notable additions you can look for this month: A cool tool for saving filter settings; a “Watchlisted pages” filter; a “Flagged Revisions” filter (for some wikis only); a “Last revision” filter.

• In the medium-term: By the end of summer, we plan to complete a suite of improvements that will, among other things: incorporate all the remaining Recent Changes tools into the new filtering interface; create new ways for reviewers to move back and forth through the filter queue; implement a “Reverted” filter; and, finally, bring the New Filters UI and tools to Watchlist.
• Have time for a talk? We're looking for people we can interview about their experiences with the new beta. If you’re a regular user of Recent Changes and have tried the new features—and if you can spare an hour to chat in English with our design researcher—please email dchenwikimedia.org with the subject line “user interview.” Let us know how to get in touch with you and what time zone (city, country...) you’re in.
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15:19, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

American Jewish Anti-Bolshevism

Can you take a look at this please. I've prodded it because I'm sure it's an amalgam of chunks of text text copied from the one source that's used but I don't have the book. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 21:13, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Kudpung, did you notice there's a snippet view of the book on Google Books? It's not great but maybe good enough to scan for copyvio.

(later) Oops, maybe not - it's volume 1 and the article uses volume 2 or 3. Anyway here's the link [3]. - Bri (talk) 23:33, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Kudpng, it cannot simultaneously be OR and copyvio. And if it is not copyvio, then I do not see it as OR, but the summary of information based on a book with other sources used as well.Thestyle, with the long quotations, and the manner of referencing, suggests that it's a term paper. The snippet view is useless, it's from a quotation in the book. I tried other phrases, only ones from the quotation bring up the book. I suspect its in part a paraphrase., at least as far as organization goes. It covers a narrower scope than the current title; I moved it to American Jewish Anti-Bolshevism during the Russian Revolution. I think the way to proceed is to list it at Copyright problems DGG ( talk ) 00:47, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

contemporary artists articles still unassessed as keep

I've been avoiding these as likely lost causes but we may as well deal with whatever we've got. Not sure what the agenda is tomorrow for you but here are some of my current art articles, in addition to that one about the guy who cast bronzes. Oh and a librarian for you: Ana_Santos_Aramburo. And also Dolors_Lamarca

Keep?

• Venecia, Puente de Rialto (Giorgio de Chirico) - es - painting `1950, needs an editor for flowery language if kept
• Inmaculada_Concepción_(Murillo,_1670) - I did some work on this, but is the Fundation Carlos Slim proof of notability? --- translation looking uglier than I thought
• Alsatian Orphan - Rodin, I cleaned up the english
• Marcela_Cernadas - never heard of her but she looks notable; at least has content
• Jacqueline_Lacasa - runs a national art museum in Uruguay; english was horrifying and is now just bad. Read everything twice, found some cognates
• Regina Aprijaskis - as above
• André Dekeijser Belgian-Congolese sculptor
• Marie Helene Aarestrup-esp please check titles of works and exhibitions
• Lot_and_his_Daughters,_with_Sodom_and_Gomorrah_Burning what's the name of the museum? I don't think that's the official translation

Yes I do realize that 1670 is not contemporary and neither is Rodin, but hey if you're going to be in an art museum -- any suggestions on any of these will be great. I will add to these as I go tonight.

leaning meh unless much improved

• Faunesa_de_pie - rodin but I dont trust it
• Venecia,_Puente_de_Rialto_(Giorgio_de_Chirico) - another one that seems to be another bad translation of a museum catalog; 1950 Chirico
• Hafshejan_Elamite_brick - no doubt notable but I can't figure out how to fix, maybe you?
• Pietro Bazzanti e Figlio Art Gallery - I find it interesting but you know someone will say it's promo, and it doesn't seem to be that well-written
• The_Queuing_Continues

already struck but possibly of interest depending on who you are talking to

• Mexico and the Mexicans
• Wing_of_a_European_Roller
• Alberto da Veiga Guignard
• Night Travellers at a Cross

just baffling

• Aurelio_Gonzato patented phallic device which did something or other, sounds like knxt toys I used to buy for my son
• Evgeny_Ksenevich - definitely needs editing but I don't speak those languages or know that art, either one
• Altar_Wings_of_Roudníky--looks important but much is mysterious

kind of rough but possibly worth an effort

• Pablo_Zelaya_Sierra
• Jorge_Riveros ---very long, probably too long and in the name of god isn't there a less depressing picture?
• Apollo_(System_Copernicus)

OK so. That's enough for anyone even given superb powers of delegation. This is not homework, btw, just what I am working on, so if you have other stuff to do then fine. For all I know you are giving the keynote and were thinking along the lines of picking someone's brain for ten minutes. The art stuff is however to say the least extremely uneven and This is where I am with it. Some of the articles probably cannot be saved and also the stuff out of Carlos Slim foundation is sounding kind of sloppy. Or maybe someone just translated a lot of their catalogue? Anyway, there's that. I would like to keep the Rodin but it's where I am seeing this. Elinruby (talk) 14:47, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

(talk page watcher) I don't know the background to this but had a look at a couple out of curiosity:

Faunesa_de_pie - looks as if Standing female faun and Kneeling female faun should get a mention in The Gates of Hell: lots of ghits for various versions of this sculpture. The Spanish wikipedia article is longer than this English stub.

Aurelio Gonzato - looks like an exact translation of the Italian wikipedia article. Don't see any sign of phallic device - but perhaps that's in some other context I don't know about. PamD 07:46, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

@PamD: First of all, pleased to meet you. And, you are right about phallic, thank you. I apparently looked at "metallic planes" way way way too fast. I still can't figure out what it did though, and he patented it? was it like a transformer? Became different things? Any thoughts welcome. Do you speak Italian? Meanwhile the context to this is that DGG told me on a different earlier talk page that he is going to an edit-a-thon at the Metropolitan museum tomorrow and it so happens that I have a bunch of art articles in this list of bad machine translations scheduled for deletion, except get this, some of them are fairly excellent articles... and then there is the stuff totally beyond my own horizons where I can't tell if it's too technical or too finnish, etc. So. what I have been doing is going down the list to make sure nobody tosses the astrophysics and cryptology articles, then I took some French under my wing, then nobody was doing Portuguese so....Please feel free to jump in. The key question is whether it would be easier to fix a given article or to start over. This is of course subjective but over a couple of iterations we have identified a lot stuff that is fine, other stuff not worth the headaches, or a whole lot more stuff somewhere in between, as with the articles above, where at least two editors appear to have machine translated museum catalogs or something possibly copyvio. And there are weirdnesses that often a sign of something wrong that someone made wronger trying to fix it. Anyway I have talked to DGG about some of these articles and hey if he is going to be at an editathon....if he potentially can enlist some editors at the editathon I thought I would share some of my bemusements. The Rodin piece is definitely worth an article but I am not sure I believe what this one says right now. Anyway, we have entire languages and fields of study that aren't being looked at much right now... we got Tang poets and Roman fortifications and WW2 missiles, origin of life, Chinese warlords, holocaust massacres in lithuania... need arabic, gujarati, chinese. Bulgarian and Portugese would also be very nice. Even if you only speak english you could still fish the Women in Red Articles out of there and that would help a bunch too. Elinruby (talk) 09:10, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Elinruby: Unfortunately i was too much involved in other thing at the museum editathon to work on any of this. I still would like to, and I will be going back there in a few weeks. There's a NYC chapter meeting Wednesday, and I will mention the project if there's times.

However , I do not think it essential to decide whether or not to keep these translated articles. The purpose of the verification is to see if the basic facts are correctly translated, and whether the article is either OK as is, or worth working on further. Some of the participants in this project are of the opinion that all machine translations are hopelessly unreliable, and I think they're wrong . Certainly they are almost always in need of some degree of rewriting (more or less, depending on the language=-the Scandinavian ones are usually very close, and the ones from the languages of India very rough indeed.) A few disastrous problems in meaning have been demonstrated, so they all do do need checking. The problems are not just linguistic but cultural--not knowing the corresponding titles or special meanings in other countries. An interesting example is the very different meaning someone in the US, Russia, or even England is likely to think of first for the term "Civil War"--or what someone in a particular country thinks is met by "War of Independence", (Such problems turn up not only in machine translation, but manual translation by those whose knowledge of one of the two languages ins adequate , and even original writing by someone with inadequate command of English--or indeed even a native speaker working a a field where they do not know the specialist terminology. Our Wikipedia has had probably hundreds of thousands of such articles submitted, and probably a few thousand serious problems remain. Very few articles here have been meticulously checked against the sources by someone expert in the field, and this is why we say that nobody should use WP for serious research.

But those who are expert in both languages--a few of them quite specifically professional translators--want to use their professional standards , just as many of us want to have perfect English grammar in articles, or perfectly formatted citations. But WP is the encyclopedia written by amateurs, not experts. We want to be as good as we reasonably can, but the standard is not academic perfection.

the usual errors in machine translation can be dealt with by amateurs and the level of knowledge of the source knowledge necessary for this depends on the subject. I can translate basic geographical articles from a number of languages, but I don't think there's any where I would be fully capable of doing justice to a complex philosophical or historical article. We o need our language experts, but not for everything. Anyone working with machine translations of say, the Spanish WP, knows the likely errors in tense and gender--but also should know the somewhat lower standards of notability and citation in that WP, and the vagueness of some articles written there by those who may know the language, but not the subject. Even a WP of the very highest standards, such as the deWP, whichI think in general quite superior to ours', uses general references in cases where we would insist on specifics (and in many case I think they it is they who are right about that, not the enWP, but still we must add referencing to satisfy our own expectations, whatever we think of them.

There's a sort of panic when people here come upon a set of particularly weak or problematic articles, leading to an over-hasty decision to delete all of them, such as attempt at the WP:AN to delete one particular editor's very brief but almost always accurate one or two sentence stubs about clearly notable scientists. The people advocating mass deletion can easily find a few conspicuously awful problems, but they're usually just a few % (there have been mass deletions that have been fully justified, such as a large group of articles on slime molds using obsolete taxonomy where most would have to be rewritten from scratch, or a group of geographical stubs using a incorrect procedure for getting material from a census. There's a saying here, better no article at all than a bad one. This is rational, if "" is used to mean awful in one sense or another. It is not rational if "bad" is used to mean inadequate. This is a place where inadequate article get fixed slowly over time. There are a great many editors here who want to improve a small part of an article , but not write an entire article. And an inadequate article on a place or non-living person can still give enough identification to help the user who knows nothing at all. DGG ( talk ) 13:25, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

@DGG: it's ok, I knew you might and the sorting process was actually somewhat helpful in itself. And Pam came by to look at a few for me so overall it was a win. I do have some specific questions about that list if you have a moment. But I'll mention first that yes, I agree with you, but nonetheless if wp is getting crap articles because a software tool allows someone to make them faster than they can be fixed, it might be an idea to improve the process so the articles need less fixing whether they come fast or slow. I do have some thoughts about that since I have been doing some of that cleaning for a long time, but for now I am just trying to get some articles adopted before we blow up the others and I start asking you what I need to do to get rid of X2. So, in the goal of getting some articles adopted let me come back to that lost for a moment. I made some posts on the talk page last night and would especially like to know what you think of the one about Tunis. I would also like to know what you suggest about the Olympic athletes and the 18th century mathematicians? Thanks for all you do. Elinruby (talk) 13:52, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

X2 was in my opinion a major error, and what we need to do is not delete the articles, but delete X2, and reject the approach to WP on which X2 is based. Given that we're stuck with it, as we are with all of our over-hasty ill-informed decisions based on inadequate evidence. There will be more--our manner of decision making is subject to such decisions unless they are immediately and vigorously opposed, and get widespread attention. Whether every verifiable Olympic athlete should be notable is an open question, but WP at this time treats them as such. If the original language source or the translation appears to verify, the article must be kept. The articles on 18th century mathematicians follow the same rules as later ones: if they held a major university appointment, or had notable disciples, or published important works, or have something named after them, they will meet WP:PROF.

Unfortunately, there are at least two other situations where I need to do similar rescue: the attempt at WP:AN to remove all the 1000 or so subs by a particular contributor on the basis that 1% of them are inaccurate, and the attempt to delete G13 without looking at the drafts to see whether any are salvageable or even ready for mainspace. I feel overwhelmed to the extent that I am almost unable to work on any of them, and need to force myself to work here at all. DGG ( talk ) 17:06, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

I hear you I hear you Elinruby (talk) 03:37, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Help with my St. Vincent (musician) edit and breakdown in getting it to stick Comment

Hi David! It's SheridanFord from the Wikimedia NYC chapter. Last month you offered to help me problem-solve around this edit from way back in January. I got stuck with the edit-war around it and haven't come back to it. I want to finish adding to this article. I spent 2 hours while recovering from foot surgery doing this work. Here's the old version that was reverted. SummerPhD2.0 and her bots kept reverting me. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=St._Vincent_(musician)&oldid=762400209.

Any insights would be greatly appreciated. I showed my edit to several academics who thought it was neutral in perspective given the sources I used. I am still learning the norms and values of the crowd around here. Thanks in advance for your help. Best --sheridanford (talk) 22:09, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

I've started, but it will take a while.First step: are there 2007 sources? - DGG ( talk ) 23:55, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

Things like this are what I find confusing...

A philanthropist who donates millions to research isn't worthy of inclusion in WP, but a film that hasn't been distributed yet, such as Bank Chor, is worthy. I don't get it. ^{Atsme📞📧} 03:13, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Our notability guidelines for pop culture subjects (celebs, film, sport) are very gameable, especially so when the local media are – ahem – particularly friendly towards the pop culture subjects. Because of the futility, and general ennui, I don't usually try to fix those articles anymore. - Bri (talk) 03:21, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

I still support articles on billionaires, but anything less does not much impress me unless they've accomplished something. "philanthropist" is a very easy claim--as I see it, it requires active participation, not just money. DGG ( talk ) 03:47, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

I understand, DGG - but the point of my question was about a film that was produced, not yet distributed to the public or seen, and is considered worthy of inclusion in our encyclopedia. Do you support that? If so, why, because that's the part I'm not understanding. ^{Atsme📞📧} 09:59, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

Films from India are a problem, because the article written here are usually inadequate, even for important films, the sources are hopelessly contaminated by advertising, and there is generally no practical way to search for additional sources. In consequence, I no longer attempt to work with them. The film was discussed a few days ago at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bank Chor, A rational case was made for the importance of the film, even if the author of the article was unaware that he should have shown it was in principal photography. The film is supposed to open next month. There were 2 keep comments and no delete comments; the experienced admin, Jo-Jo Eumerus, quite reasonably closed keep. On the basis of the material presented, I would have closed the same way. If you disagree, you can file another AfD in a month or so; there is no point going to Del Rev, because the consensus there will almost certainly say just what I did, that no other close was plausible.

If you think particular films are not notable, use deletion processes, If you think the standards are too low, try to get them raised. If you think (as I do) that the sources are unreliable, try to get consensus for that--but be aware they are generally the only practical sources we have for material from that country. If you think you can find better, that would be a major step forward, and a very helpful thing for WP.

My own view of the relative importance of different topic fields has been stated many times: we are a collection of smaller communities, and the basic rule for coexistence is to tolerate each other. My own view of the usefulness of the GNG as a standard for inclusion has also been stated many times: utterly worthless except perhaps as a last resort. DGG ( talk ) 16:51, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

Userspace drafts

Hi there, DGG. I understand that you feel strongly that "We can and should delete drafts when there is no hope of an article", but you do realize that the outcome of last year's WP:CONSENSUS, reflected in WP:STALE, is something different, right? That WP:GNG do not apply in user- and draft- space and that neglect of a draft wasn't grounds for deletion, etc.... Do you think it might be better to change the policy, rather than going around it? Because that's how the SD requests look to me. I'm not being tendentious, either; just trying to have good faith dialogue. Newimpartial (talk) 06:07, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

I do not mention the GNG in these arguments; I agree it does not apply outside article space, and I have in fact argued that it should not apply. As for speedy, I have never listed a speedy for a draft or users space except for the reasons that are appropriate there, which include G11. It is true I think we should use G11 much more energetically. I remind you that while the RfCs said that G13 does not apply except in draft space, they did say that "For userspace drafts where notability is unlikely to be achieved, consensus is that they should not be kept indefinitely. However, the community did not arrive at a specified time duration." and, for userspace drafts, " They can be deleted, but it should be done on grounds different than solely the age of the draft or the period the draft has not been edited." Therefore, the outcome for individual items is subject to consensus at the MfD. That's always been the case for deletion process. The two fundamental principles involved are WP is an encyclopedia , and IAR.

Simultaneous, I very strong disapprove of the use of G13 for improvable drafts, and most especially for drafts that are already good enough for article space but where inappropriately declined. We need to find a workable system for proper notification and working on them.It and everything else about AfC would be helped by clearing out the hopeless. DGG ( talk ) 06:20, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

OK; I can see where you're coming from. And I agree that MfD is the place to adjudicate these deletion requests. But that is why I have the problem I do with speedy G11s - it seems to me that many of them aren't G11 at all, but just wimpy early drafts; in cases where they really are WP:SPAM I have no problem seeing them deleted by consensus. But in my deletion review, you say that User:BucaFan3/Shy Kidx "would be a good Speedy anywhere" - but I don't see how it is WP:SPAM at all. It's just a baby article lol. Newimpartial (talk) 06:29, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

On a related note, can I just say that it is difficult for me to find you so insightful here <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Maureen_Seaton>, and not just because you agree with me :), but so cavalier about userspace deletion here <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2017_May_28>. I get whiplash. lol. Newimpartial (talk) 13:16, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

I have a high regard for keeping anything that might be a promising article, and a low tolerance for anything that's going to remain useless. Obviously, views on what falls into these categories will differ. G11 is a criterion which is not as obvious as it claims to be, but it's our best defense against those who would debase the encyclopedia. My priorities vary with time as our needs differ. Ten years ago it was critical to supportg broad inclusiveness, now to resist promotionalism. But I shall look again at the del rev. DGG ( talk ) 16:14, 28 May 2017 (UTC) and I did. your argument did have some merit. DGG ( talk ) 17:14, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

More generally, as with most guidelines and policies in WP, the meaning of the deletion criteria depends a great deal on how they are interpreted. The interpretation is done by the accumulated and sometimes changing consensus the talk pages of the noticeboards and policy/guideline pages, and by the very variable decisions at individual instances. The result is sometimes a considerable gap between the formal wording and the effectual applications of it. Some things are interpreted very narrowly, some very broadly; some very strictly, and some very permissively.. Individual people differ, and the consensus is affect by which individual show up at a given argument. Every one of us who participates in these arguments has a different view of it. That said, there are some constants: the clearest example is that BLP tends to be interpreted strictly and broadly (more broadly than I really think justified); copyvio also strictly (and again more broadly than I think necessary--we are much less permissive than USLaw about fair use); most speedy criteria somewhat more broadly than they are written; WP:V is often disregarded unless someone protests,

The result, of course, is an encyclopedia full of inconsistencies, with consequent difficult for new users in figuring out just what is permitted. But this is inherent in the underlying working method of the encyclopedia -- we make our own rules, we make what exceptions we please, and there is no person or group that who can definitively settle disputes about content. The only reason this works is because of mutual tolerance, including the rule that admins must follow the consensus interpretation whether or not they like it. There is consequently a strong feeling against individual who try too insistently to make a point overemphasizing any one thing--they disturb what little equilibrium we have. Working with deletion processes involves tolerating an especially large amount of ambiguity and stupid decisions. Those who want a more predictable environment, would do better to work on vandalism or copyvio. DGG ( talk ) 16:53, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

This discussion has been very cordial. Do you have any thoughts about my new ANI? Newimpartial (talk) 17:35, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Commented,. I think at this you will learn more by just watching some AFD discussion than by asking questions. atching is safe, but watch a good while before you start to comment there. The best course for you at the moment, however, is just to do something else for a while, like write or improve some articles. DGG ( talk ) 18:17, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. I will be back editing and writing draft articles forthwith, but I won't put any new articles into userspace until I feel that I can stop looking over my shoulder for deletionists. You know, I lurked at MfD for about a week, on and off, without commenting, and really felt that I grasped the letter of the policies. Now I understand the letter plays into my own idiosyncrasies, and isn't the main thing that counts. But my reason for lurking in the first place? Fear of deletion lol. Newimpartial (talk) 18:26, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Barnstar of Diligence
	Thanks for reviewing my newly created article and encouraging a new editor like me. Regards Yavarai (talk) 10:52, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

CVs

What is the preferred format to reference CVs? I would think external link rather than in line citation, but thought I would ask. Article in question is Robert R. Caldwell. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:50, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

I usually add both. It's both a RS for most purposes, and a proper external link. I also of course add an EL to their web page at the university, but often the CB is not linked from there. I consider the formal CV a much more authoritative source than the university website. The formal DV id sn officisal document, and people get hired on the basis of it. In 11 years here there has only been one case of a false (or even misleading) cv for an actual academic. (politicians are another matter). For the university website, department PR staff sometimes have a role in it. DGG ( talk ) 04:27, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Hello

You stood out as the sole user who I thought may be possibly amendable on this whole draft article ordeal. Part of the reason I've chosen to not continue it is a belief that nothing I produce, at least by myself, will be satisfactory to the detractors and cynics who have opposed some of my past additions and for whom I was confident would resume this pattern. I did want to ask what qualifies a person to receive a sub article; do the Early life of Frank Sinatra and Early life of Joseph Stalin exist because the main articles are long? I've found myself perplexed by that question since that happen, and I'm seeing fit to live with the mystery. Informant16 June 2, 2017 'still needs reply

A cup of coffee for you!

Thanks for reviewing my article about Sukhdev Rajbhar. Regards Yavarai (talk) 10:06, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

A quick note on patrolling

Hello! I saw your post here wishing that some kind of keyword sorting might be imposed upon unpatrolled pages to help us patrol pages in our realm of interest. I just wanted to leave a quick note here in case you missed the recent conversation at Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Noticeboard where someone pointed out that you can use User:AlexNewArtBot to do exactly that. For example, here are the search results for the New Jersey keyword search. It'd be nice if this functionality was integrated into the NewPagesFeed interface, but in the meantime it definitely helps me to be more efficient with patrolling. Happy editing! Ajpolino (talk) 19:51, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

yes,I'm aware of that, and a simplified version oft he bot was more or less what I have in mind. . Unfortunately, very few workgroups aare actually active, and fewer actually use i; locating the results within the workgroups is not very efficient for anyone else, as most of us interested in deletion process have altogether too many workgroups to follow.. The bot needs to be used to provide a more systematic approach,with the material in one place.

What I had in mind was either a collection of pages covering all, after the model of categorized AfD discussions, the articles , using the bot , or simply using the bot to add subject keywords to the new article list. I'll comment further. I apologize for not having had the time yesterday--but I've also found that sometimes just suggesting an idea and letting others develop it to be a very effective way of getting interest. DGG ( talk ) 00:12, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

Do you think a tool that did something like this would be of any practical use? I haven't done any serious NPP myself for about a decade, and it was pretty rare back then for pages to hang around unreviewed long enough for someone to categorize them. —Cryptic 01:03, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

comment needed DGG ( talk ) 04:08, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

The New Page Patrol backlog

Your speech here was a masterpiece. A shame it was only on a user's talk page. Relax for 15 minutes and read WP:KNPP. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:16, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

I will copy over a revised version somewhere. I think of it as a rough draft, and I was very tired when I did it. I has not followed the previous ANI stuff.

A cookie for you!

Thank you for editing with Black Lunch Table at Wiki Loves Pride! Heathart (talk) 02:35, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Collaboration products newsletter: 2017-06

What's new?

Integrated Filters

• The team is moving full speed ahead on a follow-up project to the New Filters for Edit Review beta dubbed "Integrated Filters." The name refers to the fact that we are integrating the Recent Changes tools that currently remain in the old user interface (like Namespace and Tag filters), along with some tools and capabilities from Watchlist and elsewhere, into the new Recent Changes interface.
• You can get an overview of the Integrated Filters projects, and the general release strategy, on the description page of the project Phabricator board. Among the more interesting new capabilities:
  • Category filters: We'll be adding the ability to filter by category. This is a little tricky, since wiki categories often work in a somewhat counter-intuitive way, with the broadest categories returning the fewest results—because categories like "Science" or "Art" tend to contain not articles but other categories. So we're exploring solutions where a category search will crawl at least a layer or two down the category treat to, hopefully, bring back more useful results. [4]
  • User filters: We're adding the ability to filter by any username, similar to what's available already on the the User Contributions page. [5]
  • Live update: Users will have the ability to look at a more or less continuous flow of changes. This is a much requested feature that we expect will open up new possibilities for Recent Changes, especially for patrollers who want to see vandalism or other changes as they happen. While the updates won't truly be "live," the page updates will be frequent, similar to the way real-time tools (like RTRC or LiveRC) works. [6]

Edit Review Improvements [More information • Help pages]

Recent changes

• It is now possible to save your favorite filters sets by using bookmarks. [7]
  • This feature documentation can be translated.
• It is possible to filter only the last edits done on a page on the Recent Changes page. [8]

• A "Watchlisted pages" filter group now lets reviewers use Recent Changes, and all its tools, to patrol changes to pages they've Watchlisted. If you have any feedback about how useful this is nor isn't—especially given that we plan to add the new filtering interface to the Watchlist page — let us know.
• There were issues with the tools still in the older filtering UI — like the Namespace filter and the number of results selectors. These have been fixed. [9]

Future changes

• On the Beta feature page, the activation message has been review to emphase the fact that the unstructured wikitext page will be archived. [10]

Collaboration team's newsletter prepared by the Collaboration team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

08:41, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Opinion...

...

My caution about bands, record labels, fan pages, music, celebrity spin-offs, etc. can be summed up in this diff which resulted in a bit of a rollback'' but it's mainstream thinking nonetheless. ^{Atsme📞📧} 15:46, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

I try to not get involved in fan areas. WP has always been very intensive in a few fields, and I think it best to leave them alone, on the basis that others may think the stuff I am interested in to be just as intrinsically unimportant. DGG ( talk ) 17:18, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

I am deeply disturbed by your apparent admission of moral cowardice, DGG. Chris Troutman (talk) 17:40, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

If you mean I do not go around here looking for fights, I admit the charge. If you mean that I am prepared to admit that other's views on importance or anything else may be valid although different from my own, I think any other attitude arrogant. If you mean that I do not seek to eliminate articles on let's say wrestling or tv serial episodes or individual pop songs because I do not like the genre, I think my view coincides with the principles of WP. DGG ( talk ) 18:00, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Penny for your thoughts

Slightly related to your comment at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of participants at the Second Extraordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, but do you have thoughts on listing of electors at papal conclaves. As I mentioned in another thread above I've been working through the 17th century ones, which were largely lists based on self-published sources of the electors. My current technique has been removing the lists because they are overwhelming and not from RS. I'd been planning on going back through when I was done with that century and seeing if I can reconstruct the lists as articles from reliable sourcing, but your !vote there has given me second thoughts. Input is welcome. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:57, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

uncertain--but in any case they would be part of the article. They must also have sources in Catholic encyclopedia, histories of the papacy, etc. I'd expect everyone who participated was usually the subject of at least one biography, and in the 17th & 18th century I would expect almost all of the sources to be in Italian. DGG ( talk ) 02:44, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the thoughts. I asked because more recent ones have it as separate list articles (see Category:Lists of Papal conclaves). I personally side against the inclusion in the article because naming 50-70 individuals with half of them being red links is less than ideal. I am also just generally list averse in articles, which is why I like checking myself on such things. TonyBallioni (talk) 04:29, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

But should they be redlinks? It seems to me that this makes it obvious that there should be articles. I recognize your greater expertise in the area, butsince all bishops even are considered notable here .... DGG ( talk ) 04:08, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

Oh, most certainly none of them should be red links, though all cardinals being bishops or even all being priests is a 20th century innovation, being a cardinal is notable independent of episcopal status. When there has been a runner-up that doesn't have an article, I've been creating it. I'd do it for all the red links, except I don't have the language skills to do more than the more notable runners-up. I believe the 20th century model we have of not listing all of the individual electors in articles is probably ideal stylistically, but your comment at the AfD above made me reconsider whether the 20th century model of listing them separately was ideal. Following this conversation I think what I would probably settle on as the ideal is mentioning within individual biographies what elections the subject was a part of. TonyBallioni (talk) 04:29, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

I was thinking exactly the same. DGG ( talk ) 04:56, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/PayU India

• I have highest of regards on your knowledge of Wikipedia. I am highly participative in your AfD. But this one i do not agree on various grounds.

• You have deleted the One of the Biggest Fintech startup in India. Its like deleting PayPal or Ebay from Wikipedia. There might be article quality issue, but this is no PR stunts, if you even know India, this is by every means follow standards to Encyclopedia or Wikipedia. It is Textbook notable, I will not be surprised if students are being taught in schools taking examples of PayU.
• I know you are very senior and not biased. But are you see every Indian startup or company as advertising. I can show to over 1000 Americans companies here with baseless, blatant promotions, and ridiculous Press coverage being protected in the name of GNC or some other Wikipedia policies.
• Even you have protected many American articles which I have AfD, on what grounds, just because they are covered in Media? or they are American?
• You are an Admin, and this decision does not make any sense. By every means there are some Startups in India which deserves the place here. Else i will be first one to nominate them.
• I am not advocate of any articles here, not for Indian neither for American, but it should be treated similar, if its Indian startup or an Indian Entrepreneurs does not make them automatically non-notable by their place.
• I can give you list of Ridiculous US startups you have protected without any significance as they have, PayU and few others are not promotions, It is a history of Payment.
• You are very intelligent making decision, i will still be participating removing the spam as you tag them. No offence just my view, you are biased in many places, no one can be perfect, neither you are. Sorry If i offended you, but I can not agree on few decision of yours. Light2021 (talk) 20:39, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Light2021, It is always appropriate to challenge me to explain myself. True, some people here don't like it, but that's a little silly, because this is a place where it is expected and a necessary part of our manner of working. I will always take something like this seriously and give the best answer I can. What's more, sometimes I'm just plain wrong!

I must follow consensus when I close. My role in closing is merely to judge what the consensus of reasonable arguments is, and state it. I may not instead close according to my own opinion. No admin may do that. (Some have been known to do so nonetheless, but it's quite wrong, it is called here a Supervote, and such decisions are usually reversed at Deletion Review)

If I disagree with the consensus, I have 4 choices only: instead of closing, I may give my own opinion, or I may pass it by and let someone else close, or I may list for further discussion, or, if the consensus is clear enough, I may close it according to the consensus as expressed.

the consensus here was clear. Most of the experienced users thought the references insufficiently independent or insubstantial. If that's what they think, rightly or wrongly, that's still the consensus. It had already been relisted once, and it is rarely useful to relist again.

I do not see Indian companies as likely to be non-notable. I do see them as relatively difficult to prove notability by the standards we use, because I consider articles on companies in Indian newspapers as very likely to be PR. I also see most articles on American companies or organizations of any sort in most newspapers as likely to be PR, and I have so argued when relevant. There are more Indian companies with promotional articles being submitted these days, in part because more American companies have learned not to try for articles here. But , as you observe, there are a great many that got into WP in earlier years, and we have not yet removed all of them.

In both cases, I judge by the content. If several articles repeat the same words, they're almost certainly copying it from the press release. If they interview the CEO, and let him say whatever he chooses about the origin and accomplishments of the company, they're an organ for his PR. If they use terms of praise without analysis, they're PR. If the overemphasize minor accomplishments, they're PR. NGOs and similar organizations are even worse in general, because they use cheaper and therefore less skilled press relations people.

But this is irrelevant in this instance. I did not go back to the original sources here, because I was not trying to evaluate the article and decide what I thought about it. I was evaluating the discussion, which is all I'm supposed to do. Unless the discussion looks really weird, I assume the arguments are made in good faith.

If there are any particular keep closes you think I did wrong, let me know--but remember, I must follow the consensus, not the merits. If you think I've argued wrong in any particular case, that's another matter, because most articles I argue are somewhat equivocal. I try to concentrate on the more difficult decisions, and therefore the consensus will not always be with me.

If there are any particular horrible examples from anywhere, that you think I might want to nominate, just tell me.

But let me give my opinion on the actual notability of this company: I think it might well be notable, but I do not think the article shows it. But I see it's an international company and I think it would be much better to write the article about that company first, with a section on hte Indian company. I see that the entire company (I think) of Naspers, which is notable, and so at least a redirect there would be appropriate. It's already mentioned in the article. a redirect would be appropriate. I will make it for both the international company and the Indian one. . Perhaps I should have seen that originally. But then, perhaps someone could have mentioned it in the discussion. DGG ( talk ) 01:01, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for writing and truly appreciate & understand your point. Light2021 (talk) 18:52, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

I looked up some of Mr Magoos' sources and the company does seem notable, although it wasn't clear at first that there was a PayU that was the parent of PayU India. Two things struck me with the voting - not everyone seemed to take the time to read his sources, and of course I'm sure you noticed that TwisterSister voted delete twice, although that didn't affect the final tally. I do notice two biases in Wikipedia - one against Indian companies, which as you pointed out is a function of the press being a bit fawning, but also the fact that some of the articles are written with poor grammar. The other is against businesses - I've taken articles that were tagged for notability and added sources and almost verbatim info from the coverage, and seen the articles subsequently tagged for advertising. Nonetheless, are you able to email me the deleted PayU India text so I can see if it can be fixed? TimTempleton ^{(talk) (cont)} 15:30, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Reposting in cased you missed my request. Do you have access to the PayU India text, and if so, can you email it to me? I'll take a shot at fixing it and will submit it to AfC, and will let you know here when it's up. TimTempleton ^{(talk) (cont)} 18:24, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
	for the work and contribution. Light2021 (talk) 12:39, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Nader El-Bizri AfD

Considering your experience, your input is welcome at (the very messy AfD page) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nader El-Bizri. Thank you, —PaleoNeonate - 20:11, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Hello DGG. I understand your concerns and the reasons for placing warning tags. I also believe you are willing to hear my clarifications. I was not aware that in the course of a discussion I should not make edits. I did this in good faith to improve the article and bring more references. Being new to the Wikipedia protocols and technicalities might have resulted in what messily appears as “disruptive edits”. In real-life I am an academic specializing in philosophy. I do not have a connection with the subject of the article, but I am intellectually interested in his research and of other academics in the field. I used to make occasional edits in philosophy on Wikipedia without adopting a name. I had a bit of time after the end of the semester this summer to contribute to Wikipedia. One of my motives was an incident with a graduate student who used Wikipedia as reference and resulted in negative evaluations of the thesis as per the criteria of reputable universities. Given that I occasionally follow the news of the Wikipedia article being discussed, and those of other academics in related fields, I was concerned about a deletion request being made by a user who did not specialize in academia. I hence became engaged in the process. Given that I am new to this, I tried to find ways to bring this to the attention of experienced Wikipedia editors to serve as independent objective referees/assessors. It became clearer to me as the process was unfolding that it has its internal self-corrective integrity - You are clearly an experienced editor, with sound knowledge as librarian. One side-comment to consider (generally and independently form the article being discussed) is that: “chapters” in anonymously-peer-refereed edited volumes (published by Cambridge, Oxford, Routledge, Brill, etc.) are nearly equivalent to anonymously-peer-refereed “journal articles”, this is the case in the humanities, unlike the criteria of the natural, applied, and social sciences) - I was hesitant at first to write this whole clarification, but I then felt it is vital to do so given the integrity editors like you are bringing to the process, and that clarifying my actions ultimately serves the same purpose, although my contribution to Wikipedia will remain minimal given the limited time I am able to dedicate to it. Thanks anyway (AcademeEditorial (talk) 09:00, 11 July 2017 (UTC))

Based on my career talking to academics, publishers, and specialist librarians in all fields of knowledge, such chapters are in general not the equivalent, even in the humanities-- except in a few very specialized fields, or if the chapter is in something really important, and I consequently left one in. But I was exceptionally conservative in removing material--normally we do not even include any journal articles for people in fields where the notability and the academic advancement is primarily by published books, and even in the fields where articles are the most important forms of presentation we normally include only the two or three most cited--and there are some editors here who challenge even that. Taking you at your word, there may be no direct coi, but there is such rampant promotionalism in all areas of the world , including the academics, that even good faith editors tend to write promotional articles as that;s what they've always seen, and unfortunately even in WP. It will be years until we have removed half million or so promotional articles from earlier years when standards were lower, but at least we do not want to add to them.

If you do have time for WP,I urge you to write brief bios of leading people in your subject area. The easiest criterion to meet to show notability is holding a named distinguished professorship. DGG ( talk ) 09:17, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

Thank you DGG for your response. I began now a User-Page and will see how things progress. The summer is easier than later in the year in terms of having some time to making contributions to WP. I prefer to improve existing articles than start from scratch since I am new to the WP technicalities. However, given the tags under my userpage, I will steer away from the article being discussed and leave its handling to experienced editors (AcademeEditorial (talk) 21:08, 11 July 2017 (UTC))

Speedy deletion declined: Colette Mazzucelli

Hello DGG. I am just letting you know that I declined the speedy deletion of Colette Mazzucelli, a page you tagged for speedy deletion, because of the following concern: Not unambiguously promotional. Thank you. GorillaWarfare (talk) 02:20, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

GorillaWarfare , you are aware that almost all of these two articles were written by one or more now-banned undeclared paid editors and their multiple socks? DGG ( talk ) 05:22, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

(talk page watcher) As Colette Mazzucelli's article has been around since 2005, edited incrementally over the years, perhaps it should be reverted to the version of 22 March 2016 before the banned editor's major contributions, and their contributions hidden? PamD 07:21, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

(talk page watcher)On the other hand, perhaps the edit history of Oren Alexander suggests that perhaps there's another sockpuppet/paid editor to add to the list (it was created by an editor who has made no other edits before or since)? PamD 07:26, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

If that's the case, they should be tagged with G5. But when I reviewed them, I disagreed that they were so promotional as to be unsalvageable. GorillaWarfare (talk) 15:56, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

(talk page watcher) How would that work, GorillaWarfare? Criterion G5 is absolutely specific that "To qualify, the edit or article must have been made while the user was actually banned or blocked". We're just shooting ourselves in the foot here. We know that undeclared paid editing sockpuppet rings exist and that they need to be stopped, yet we can't organise ourselves enough to have any procedure for dealing with them. What's the way forward? Because I think it's time to look for one. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 17:05, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

And G11 is absolutely specific that it applies to pages that are "exclusively promotional and would need to be fundamentally rewritten to conform with Wikipedia:NOTFORPROMOTION". Perhaps you should start a discussion to amend the CSD criteria, if you think articles like these should qualify? Otherwise take them to AfD. GorillaWarfare (talk) 17:42, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) I agree with GorillaWarfare: I always thought that G11 was about the article's content, not who created it. {{db-g11}} does say in its current form. Adam9007 (talk) 17:50, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

Well, actually so do I – G11 does indeed say those things. But I don't see how G5 could be any more likely to be accepted. Do you? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 18:24, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) I think Doc James has discussed in the past (at some page I lurk at) trying to clarify G5. Currently it is very narrowly construed. For now, I think the best option is simply to keep pointing out in AfDs that WP:N has two components, and that promotion is a valid reason to delete something per WP:NOT, WP:DEL4, and per WP:DEL14. As someone who is a regular at the NPP conversations, I do think the Sheryl Nields AfD, and the controversy around Marcomgirl in general did a lot to raise the awareness of the issue of promotional editing even within a group that isn't keen on promotionalism to begin with. I continue to think the best way forward at this point is through the AfD process: it is sometimes flawed, but it is a way we can achieve a practical consensus over hundreds of cases rather than a drawn out RfC. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:37, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

@Justlettersandnumbers: No, I suggested it just based off of what DGG said above. I didn't look at the editors involved. GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:12, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

just reminding people that "once an article is nominated for CSD, it can be deleted under any applicable criterion" DGG ( talk ) 21:19, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

OK. We're still just floundering round in circles here without a proper criterion or policy for dealing with TOU violations. Doc James has reverted to an earlier version of this particular page, as PamD suggested above. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 20:22, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

• Comment So the question how do we interpret "while the user was actually banned or blocked" in the G% criteria? As I have said previously in this case User:Susana Hodge is not the master it is just the oldest account we have found to date. Just look at their first edit. They will have prior blocked accounts and just because we only get CU data for the last 3 months does not mean they do not exist. We can come to obvious conclusion and for these types of cases I occasionally do. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:49, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

The way forward is to hold to the principles, not to the often contradictory guidelines that have developed around them. To start with, WP is an encyclopedia in contrast to a medium for advocacy. The two are incompatible. The best practical approach to this is what I've been saying explicitly at AfDs, and what I've actually been doing for the last ten years: either immediately rewrite the article or delete it. Anyone who argues that an article can be fixed, needs to prove it by fixing it, not just by hoping somebody will eventually.

G11 is necessarily somewhat subjective, and two experienced people (such as GW and myself) can still differ in whether an article falls under it. That's why no admins delete G11 single-handed. I make 5% errors, let's say for argument's sake even 10% on the more difficult cases; let's say another more conservative admin makes 2%. Having both of us do it, gives 0.2%, 1 in 500 , which is an error rate as good as we can hope for.

But since it is to some extent subjective, we have to take into account everything that affects how we look on it, and that does include the purpose of writing, which can often be implied by who it is who has worked on it. I think it is a reasonable assumption that articles by paid editors will almost always be promotional , because that's what people pay for. (Not 100% of the time, so some will need a discussion.) I also think it a reasonable assumption that people caught socking will have been socking earlier, and likely to have been banned for it, even if we haven't spotted it. More generally, I think that the terms of use means that articles by undeclared paid editors have no justification for being in WP. In removing them, we should use all applicable processes (fairly and properly and transparently and with checks from those who disagree, as always; we can interpret, we shouldn't distort). DGG ( talk ) 21:19, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

Debórah Dwork

I thought I would put in a little time reverting vandalism this evening and found a rewrite you did. I use 'Hatnote', an audio representation of content changes and it flagged this big change of yours. You are well-respected (by me anyway) and I couldn't tell from the edit summary what the problem was in the first place. Reply or not.

Best Regards,

  Bfpage  _{let's talk...}  01:36, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

User:Bfpage, the article was nominated for deletion as promotional and non-notable by another editor. She is an academic, and academic biographies are my main area of interest. I immediately recognized that she was very clearly notable by the relevant guideline WP:PROF, but the article was indeed very promotional. I therefore rewrote it removing the promotionalism and summarizing the detail, as I explained at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Debórah Dwork. You can tell from the previous version in the history what the problem was.

Hatnote [11] seems--and sounds-- interesting. Since the term is used in WP in a different sense, perhaps you could describe it for a page like WP:Hatnote (program) or even an article about it. and possibly mention it at meta:Help:Recent changes DGG ( talk ) 04:02, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

AfC / Draft article copied into mainspace

Hallo David, Could you have a look at Joyce Stevens and Draft:Joyce Stevens? She seems clearly notable (Member of Order of Australia, subject of several articles and obits), and a lot of changes have been made since the draft was last rejected as "appears to read more like an advertisement " and as lacking sources.

The mainspace article appeared fully-formed today with edit summary "(Created new page entry for Joyce Stevens based on a draft made by another editor.) " That obviously isn't right - copying within Wikipedia without real acknowledgement to the editor who's done all the work. But I'm not sure what the protocol is when the copying is also bypassing the (horrible) AfC process. I hope you can do something to help! Thanks. (Incidentally, if the Submission Declined message of 28 June is from a template then the template needs to be fixed as it doesn't seem to make sense: "...should refer to a range of independent, reliable, published sources, not just to materials produced by the creator of the subject being discussed."??? If the subject being discussed is anything other than a fictional character, who's "the creator of the subject..."?) PamD 15:25, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

anyone can move a draft . Sometimes a move without using the AfCH process is necessary--I do it when the AfCH macro doesn't work, which for me is about half the time. But this was done by copypaste, which is almost never necessary, and we normally try to fix copypaste moves by redoing them properly. I will take care of that. For copying within WP we normally just correct the attribution; in this instance, doing the move properly will take care of that. She is clearly notable. The article does have a promotional done, but it seems to be based upon the tone of the tributes to her after her death, and seems fixable. I've revised the draft & moved it to mainspace.

the wording is the wording of the template. It obviously needs some adjustment. The AfC templates are in general terrible, but my efforts to try to get the fixed within the Afc process over the last few years have consistently failed--there has always been some excuse for not doing them. I will make another try at it. The real solution is to redo the entire AfC and NPP process, as Kudpung has been trying to do for several years. The problem is that it seems to require assistance from the WMF programmers, who have their own ideas about how we should do things. Some of the people involved have sometimes not been very willing to actually cooperate. At one point I was thinking of listing the AfC pages at MfD. In the past, before the RfC system was fully developed, that method was sometimes used effectively.

But for any system, we depend on the quality of the participants, & the quality of one of of the reviewers of this article is known to be a problem. I'm trying to deal with it without banning him from afc altogether.

and thanks for your further fix-up. As is obvious, I was trying to get this quickly to avoid confusion, but i see from the eds talk p. I wasn't quite quick enough. I left a comment there that I hope will be encouraging. DGG ( talk ) 22:54, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

Thanks - but you left your comment on my talk page accidentally, not her's! PamD 22:57, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

PamD, although it can't happen fast enough for me, I think we've achieved a lot (by Wikipedia standards) since I started the ball rolling in Esino a year ago. I am convinced that merging AfC and NPP is the way to go because with a few tweaks the Page Curation system software can easily do both tasks. This would be a 'soft' deprecation of AfC because the Drafts would appear as such in the feed and the AfC team would simply migrate to using a the NPP GUI. There are half a dozen other advantages that I won't go into here, although I have had to temporarily full protect the AfC user list again.

Due to the pressure I and now other editors have exerted recently, the WMF has now done volte-face on some of its ideology based arguments, now accepting a more pragmatic approach instead, which leads me to assume that when we ask for Curation to combine the relatively simple elements of the AfC helper script, the devs will probably do it. The only real resistance is from the AfC users who have no better argument than simply wanting to keep their independence. Once we have the results of the upcoming ACtrial, we'll know more because it directly affects both systems of new article quality control. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:24, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) I haven't been involved in AfC for ages now (aside from just bouncing stuff in their direction when a creator gets upset that their company / band / friend / autobiography was deleted) - are there really individual fiefdoms? I've never been comfortable with the whole idea of AfC as a project in the first place, it's a process that complements NPP as one whole workflow for new topics (or if it doesn't, it should). Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 13:21, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Collaboration products newsletter: 2017-07

Latest news from the Wikimedia Collaboration team, about Notifications, Flow and Edit Review Improvements.

The team is currently working on three main goals, which we expect to complete this summer or in September:

1. Graduate New Filters for Edit Review core features out of beta:
   • The core New Filters features slated to become standard parts of Recent Changes are the ones that have been out in beta for a while and fully road-tested by the community.
   • These include the new filtering interface, the machine-learning filter groups “User Intent Predictions” and “Quality Predictions,” the highlighting tools, the ability to save your filter settings for later use, and the new filter groups: “Watchlisted pages,” “Last revision” and "User registration and experience."

1. • We expect to release those features by default in September. A more precise message will be sent to communities. If you have questions about it, you can write a message on Mediawiki.org, in any language.
2. Extend the New Filters to Watchlist: The Watchlists of very active editors can include thousands of pages. To help these busy folks keep up with their work, we’re adding the New Filters UX and tools to Watchlist. The Watchlist and Recent Changes pages are similar, but there is some work involved in adapting the tools to their new setting. That work should be ready some time in late summer or early fall. Stay tuned for an announcement!
3. Continuing work on “Integrated Filters”:
   • While the New Filters for Edit Review beta brought probably 70% of the old-style Recent Changes features into the new user interface, it left some behind—like the Tag and Namespace filters and the controls for the number of days searched and number of results presented. As the name is meant to suggest, “Integrated filters” integrates those old-style tools into the new UI.
   • It also adds some new tools users have asked for, such as:
     • “Live updates” which provides a near real-time automatic refresh of the Recent Changes page.
     • Category filters, which enable users to search by category.
     • User filters, which let you define searches that include or exclude edits by particular users.
   • We will put the community-defined related links that cluster at the top of most Recent Changes pages into a collapsible panel, in order to clarify the Recent Changes page.

We should note that it’s not certain these last two additions will make the cut for inclusion this year. If you want a make the case for either one, we want to hear from you.

Edit Review Improvements [More information • Help pages]

Recent changes

• In the Beta feature, you can try the Live Updates feature. Just add &liveupdate=1 at the end of the URL in Recent Changes page. [12]

...

16:43, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

Articles about academics

In section '"Articles" about academics' in Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not you wrote an elaborated treatise on WP:NPROF. IMO it is quite useful. Why don't you put it in an essay? Staszek Lem (talk) 18:41, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

I will work on it -- it needs some supplementation. DGG ( talk ) 23:34, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Touching base

Hi DGG: Just letting you know, despite some disagreements we have in AfD discussions, I never take matters personally, and view AfD discussion simply as what they are, a forum for debate about Wikipedia articles. My stance is typically to be as objective and fair as possible, to ensure the highest standards of accuracy. In part, this is a reason why I provide sources in AfD discussions, rather than simply stating "keep - meets gng" or "delete - fails N", etc. This serves to provide an accurate overview regarding a topic's potential notability, or lack thereof. Ultimately, I base my commentary at AfD upon research and facts, avoiding conjecture and subjective rationales. When I walk away from a debate, and when a discussion is eventually closed, I move on, with no hard feelings whatsoever at any time. I wanted to let you know this because the mode of communicating on Wikipedia via typing can be impersonal, whereby one's intentions are not always easy to express or convey.

After seeing you at AfD for some time now, I understand your stance about some company articles, that some of them are not needed in the encyclopedia. I have no problem with your stance, even though I don't always agree with it, but this is relative to each individual article for me, rather than as a macro-level philosophy. In other words, I assess each topic individually, per the merits of that particular topic relative to notability, whether or not an article is promotional, and if so, to what degree (e.g. fixable or a WP:G11 situation), etc. I am also aware that some news sources are derived from press releases, just so you know. You'd be surprised at how many news articles from my searches that I don't provide in AfD discussions, per obvious PR ties. I find myself continuously skipping over articles from internet searches that are not appropriate to establish notability. Sometimes, one has to go through ten or more Google search pages to find one or two usable sources. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 16:30, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Small differences (or even fairly large differences) in the notability standard do not greatly harm the basic usefulness and values of the encyclopedia. Almost any general position on notability can be justified. Most disputed articles can be reasonably argued in either direction, and the actual question is which articles are worth defending--and which are most in need of removing.

But with respect to promotionalism, any compromise here will tend to destroy not just the usefulness but the basic values of the encyclopedia; if we become a vehicle of promotional content we have no purpose--Google does it better. And there's no reason volunteers would be interested in doing for free what they might get paid for. The essential group of articles that should not be improved or defended are those that are of a basically promotional purpose--especially those likely to have been written by undeclared paid editors. The people who write such articles should if misguided volunteers be educated and if paid, removed from WP. The only possible exception is if an article is so essential that the encyclopedia would be defective without it, and if it would be much easier to rewrite than to start over. Even here I am undecided whether it would be always best to first delete the history and then eventually rewrite.

To the extent your work--however skillful-- is helping such articles remain, you are acting against the principles of WP. Your view undoubtedly differs, but I'm using my priviledge on my own talk p. to close the topic here. We've both plenty of opportunities to say it elsewhere, and neither of us is shy about using them. DGG ( talk ) 03:55, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for replying. In closing, I'll just say that what is considered promotional is in the eye of the beholder. As an editor and WP:COMPANIES member, I pay close attention to maintaining neutral pov and prose when contributing to company-related articles. I'm definitely not here to promote anything. Regards, North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 04:14, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

the actual last post on this thread: you are not editing for promotional purposes, but you are helping the people who are accomplish their goals of getting an article in wp. Even if the article at the end is not promotional, you are helping people editing against the terms of use not get their article deleted. And you are helping companies get an article who would not otherwise be noticed here. I consider such editing a danger to the encyclopedia, and I will try to diminish the effects when I can. DGG ( talk ) 14:50, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Notability question

Hello. I came across this article, Social Bite. It appears to be a notable non-profit and some of its claim to notability is this has garnered notice from some A-list Hollywood celebrities. However, after I stopped being enamoured for a bit, I noticed the coverage seems to be based on recycled press releases that have made their way into the Scottish newspapers. My own research led me to a group of articles that seem to be recycling the same press release (see this).

So my question is how best to deal with this? Maybe this is not a notable topic, because, in essence, the topic lacks independent coverage. Or maybe it is notable? I am also pinging @SwisterTwister: to hopefully also offer an opinion. Thanks in advance to both of you. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 02:25, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

I wasn't asked but I will answer briefly anyway. Looks notable IMO, regional (not local) importance with RS coverage. ☆ Bri (talk) 02:35, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

• Steve Quinn, I'm usually very wary of such enterprises, but in this case the sourcing seems to be decent enough. Press release-based/inspired or not, they've gained coverage in reliable and notable papers, and that is what matters. My 2 cents. Drmies (talk) 02:38, 10 August 2017 (UTC)
• I'm not quite so sure--organizations like this live by publicity. This is a press release, not an NPOV article. But it's a high-quality sensible press release--much more apppropriate than the usual stuff thaat gets written here for organizations of this nature. But consider the same contributor's Draft:Josh Littlejohn -- the 2 articles are part of the same press campaign -- and the bio one is nowhere near as good because it's less focussed, and falls into the common PR style of using a string of very short paragraphs--which is at WP diagnostic of either a press release or an inexperienced good faith contributor naive writer who doesnt yet understand how to write an encyclopedia article. DGG ( talk ) 03:26, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

• Oh sure it's definitely a publicity campaign. But it appears to have become a notable publicity campaign. The Sun for instance has slightly different coverage of the celebs involved and doesn't use the founders quotes in the press releases at all. So it's not straight up churnalism. I actually based my quick judgement mainly on the names of the sources, and on the award issued by The Guardian; our convention is that if the issuer of the award is notable, then the award probably is too. If I'm reading DGG's tone accurately, then neither of us is fond of the article, but chances are it would survive AfD easily. ☆ Bri (talk) 03:42, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

yes, that's what I was trying to say: there are so many worse ones to work on removing. But I will probably nominate the bio on Littljohn for deletion if it reaches mainspace in its current condition. DGG ( talk ) 03:48, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

Not trying to be a jerk, but doesn't an MBE satisfy WP:ANYBIO criterion #1? ☆ Bri (talk) 03:58, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

While MBEs are handed out as long-service awards to middle ranking civil servants, No. For other recipients like Olympic medallists, the MBE is a consequence of being notable rather than the cause of their notability. Cabayi (talk) 05:37, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

in more detail, I think we always recognize the rank of CBE (Commander) -- and higher-- as notable; there are according to Order of the British Empire only 6980 Commandeers. The next lower, the OBE (Officer) has 858 appointments each year; the MBE (Member) 1484 peer year. MBE , at the bottom, we include in the article, but it doesn't contribute much to notability; OBE contributes to notability but doesn't amount to presumptive notability. DGG ( talk ) 09:17, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

Greetings in Montreal

Hi DGG, thanks for coming to chat after the Undisclosed Paid Editing meetup yesterday. The person who had been sitting next to me was, I think, User:Rachel Helps (BYU). We didn't have our badges on so I didn't realize it was you. I've always admired your perspectives and I hope to see you again at the conference. Take care, Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 13:45, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

by that time of day, many of us didn't. I'll me here all the way to the end--and if you don't see me otherwise, look for me at lunch. Today I'm also clear the end of the afternoon. DGG ( talk ) 14:25, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

I was there but I left early. I have circular glasses if that helps. It was an interesting discussion! Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 02:53, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Sorting by size of edit - not exactly, but maybe close enough?

In one of our many hallway discussions, you mentioned the desire to see edits sorted by size of edits. While you have copied the edit history into a spreadsheet to do this sort, that's pretty cumbersome. I wondered if the revision history statistics were sortable and it turns out they are. This isn't exactly what you wanted because it gives you the total added bytes by user as opposed to by individual edit but it might be close enough for you purposes.

Example: https://tools.wmflabs.org/xtools-articleinfo/?article=Eugene_Gu&project=en.wikipedia.org

The link doesn't seem to save the sorting but if you go down to the top editor section you can sort on "added (bytes)"--S Philbrick(Talk) 13:57, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

Yes, it's a start. Thanks for the help. (Soritng in an external spreadsheet is for anythign substantial avery cumbersome solution, it is a backup for missing features in many places, on and off WP.) DGG ( talk ) 05:47, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

A goat for you!

Thank you for looking out for people, not the software.

Bearian (talk) 16:34, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

Seconded; we need more leaders like you who prioritize community, healthy and functional process, and integrity. Here's a basket of bedding for your new goat. ☆ Bri (talk) 18:47, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

== A Little Help from my Friends @WikimediaNYC ==

Hey User:DGG, Thanks for continuing to offer your help as a senior contributor to WP. I have not been diligent about rewriting my significant edit here. Here was the last difference between my edit and the revert: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:St._Vincent_(musician)&diff=prev&oldid=762490952

Any suggestions for tactics in my expository writing style or my persuasive writing in negotiation with admins would be appreciated. sheridanford (talk) 14:02, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

sheridanford (talk) 13:58, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

this will need a relatively complicated response. It will take me a day or two. DGG ( talk ) 04:10, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

still to do

Essay on Userpage

I like your essay, but noticed one point about people not declining based on lack of inline citations. In the last 6 months there have been over 700 such AfC declines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:AfC_submissions_declined_as_needing_footnotes Can we eliminate that as a reason to decline? I believe AfC is far too tough to pass, forcing the new editor with a notable topic to fully develop and format it, when they are a newbie without the skills and maybe not the interest. Legacypac (talk) 05:49, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

all or almost all of them are BLPs, which really do need them to survive. It is our policy that they must be supplied. I can understand using it as a reason for these, if the only source is a very general one, or if most of the article seems to be unsourced entirely. Many of the ones where it is used wrongly are older ones--the list includes those where it was ever used as a reason to decline, not just the ones where it is latest reason. , Checking a few, most of them should just be given another reason, some should be removed entirely, and a very few accepted to mainspace. or removed entirely. I don't think we should remove the reason, but we should modify the wording to specify it applies to biBLPs only. Has anyone figured out where the text for the template is stored? It used to be hard-coded. DGG ( talk ) 21:12, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

Here, I believe. jcc (tea and biscuits) 17:31, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Ishall be proposing an umber of changes, some to reduce hostile wording, a few to align with actual policy, and one additional category: nn-spam. DGG ( talk ) 20:44, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Good. Quite a few pages come through as Blank. I consider them test edits and nominate them for deletion G2. The Blank and Test reasons should reflect the idea they are tests and will be deleted. Shorter and less redundant wording would be great too. Legacypac (talk) 20:51, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

I suppose you mean removing redundant wording? Then we're talking about a complete rewrite almost from scratch. I can do that, but it might be better to fix a few obvious problems first. DGG ( talk ) 21:44, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

At least on the ones you are rewording. I'll look into these too. Legacypac (talk) 22:21, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

Didn't realize you were still around good to see a username I recognize still after my self imposed wiki break.

Whispering 22:02, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

Centre for the Mind

This Wikipedia article, Centre for the Mind does not qualify for notability based on news sources - see Google News. Then I noticed on its web page it claims scientific accomplishments and works published in academic journals [13]. There are a number of hits on Google Scholar, but only one with the exact nomenclature [14].

There are some works authored by the center's founder, Professor Allan Snyder. I don't know whether to credit these toward "Centre for the Mind". Then there are these specific journal articles, [15], [16], [17] and [18]. Then there is this page on their website which lists a bunch of journal articles [19].

I have no idea how to gauge this for the notability of this topic. Maybe you and some others who visit this talk page can take a look at this and tell me what you think. It looks they have been publishing since 1997 [20]. Any thoughts would be appreciated. I will leave a similar post over at Academic Journals project. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 03:32, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

the obvious solution is to merge to the article on Snyder. The tone of their web page is such that I do not consider it a reliable source about itself or anything else, even for basic facts, but the publications referred to are ones that he has written or edited. DGG ( talk ) 04:49, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks @DGG: ---Steve Quinn (talk) 05:31, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

Where I run into trouble getting my sea legs

Ernst-Georg Drünkler - clearly controversial but I would think encyclopedic because we do have List of German World War II night fighter aces. Who on earth would want to memorialize this person considering the cause? At the same time, when I login, my biases are left behind, and my thought process is focused on NPOV as an editor of an encyclopedia. Were it not for 30 years experience honing a NPOV, I probably would have moved on and left this bio in the NPP queue (where it's been since 2011) for someone else to deal with, but that's not me so here I am, again looking to you for guidance. A GF editor redirected the article but the redirect was reverted. On the TP, there is a response to the redirect. My question is, as a NPR do I mark it as reviewed? It appears to me that it may have escalated beyond NPP, and now requires admin attention. ^{Atsme📞📧} 03:10, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

There have been some long discussions about articles like these, and the article talk page reflects it. The article may have remained in the NP queue, but it has been worked on; various people have tried to deal with it before you, and are trying now. There is no reason not to mark it as reviewed--we mark as reviewed wen we have tried to deal with the problems, not waiting until we have been successful.

The general way to look at this is promotionalism. The problem is that we have no enforceable standards for article content; all our processes can enforce is whether or not there will be an article. Thus we have been successful only in removing the fluff and promotionalism in those fields that few here care about--while leaving it in for popular celebrities. We are also susceptible to pressure groups--even one or two really determined people can get their way until the clash head-on with other equally determined opposition. In this case, there is effective opposition, from most of the members of the MILHIS Wikiproject, who are very effective in enforcing their standards.

After trying to cut excessive articles in various fields if I keep getting reverted, I have sometimes taken them to AfD, saying : promotional, and cannot be fixed by normal editing because efforts to remove the promotionalism have consistently been reverted. This argument has sometimes worked. DGG ( talk ) 05:22, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Thx, DGG - very helpful. ^{Atsme📞📧} 19:07, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

When does "affiliated" morph into "paid"?

Hi DGG. I've received no answer to my query to this user about potential paid editing on behalf of BrandTotal. However, she later stated at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dark marketing, that she is "affiliated" with the company in question. My strong impression from the nature of the edits and her previous usernames is that she is not simply "affiliated" but an employee of the company and may well work in the marketing department. The slick jargon in the article in its original form (especially the "Origins" section) is pure PR-speak. Before I pursue this with her, and as a question in general, if she were indeed an employee holding that position, does it count as "paid editing"? Judging from the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Paid-contribution disclosure, it seems a bit of a grey area. The article may well be deleted in which case I won't bother pursuing it, but it would be useful to know for the future. Paging also Doc James. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 15:39, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

User:Voceditenore If one's job at a company is marketing than ones work on WP with respect to that company is paid editing. I will block those in the marketing departments of companies who do not disclose based on the TOU. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:42, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

Wow! That's fast service, Doc. Thanks. I'll keep that in mind for future encounters and for this case if the article is kept (unlikely) or moved back into draft space (possible). Best, Voceditenore (talk) 15:47, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

I consider that it is also paid editing if it is part of a person's job, or assigned to a person as part of their employment, regardless of what the position is called; but with someone in the marketing dept it will always be assumed to be that person's job. DGG ( talk ) 23:52, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

Bittencourt

I think that this comment of yours on a user page was instead intended for the corresponding talk page. However, I suggest that you skimread the depths of this user talk page before moving it there. -- Hoary (talk) 12:46, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

I think he was trying to make a good faith effort to contribute. Though we of course do not like autobios, they are not prohibited, and his was very close to appropriate; Google Scholar shows him highly notable, both for the papers and the major textbook. The block seems an over-reaction to a new ed. who makes mistakes, and whose initial effort was given an altogether incorrect AFC review. I will just write the article myself based on the official CV etc DGG ( talk ) 22:09, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

'not yet done

Question about references

Hi, DGG - with regards to a list of monuments and memorials, I have a few questions:

1. Statues: how does one verify whether or not a statue was created in honor of someone for a single notable event, or for their life's history or for service to their country, etc.? I realize the plaques should provide details of the memoriam but what if there's just a name? Is there a way to look up the dedication and if so, what references would one look up? Example: A statue of Sam Houston in the Statutory Hall in Austin, TX. The memorial honoring his birthplace says noted soldier and statesman, so would it be appropriate to use that memorial in an article titled Monuments and Memorials of the Battle of San Jacinto?
2. Naval ships: when a ship is christened and named in honor of a notable person, is there a reference to look up the reason the ship was named in that person's honor - such as a heroic deed, or a long career, etc.?
3. If a plaque, statue, national park, battleship, street, etc. is named after a notable person, shouldn't that memorial only be included in whatever WP list corresponds to the honor? For example, a memorial was constructed and named in honor of an Admiral who served courageously for 45 years in the US Navy. That memorial would properly be included in List of US Navy Admirals. But what if he also served 4 years in the Foreign Legion and no memorial was created in honor of his service there. Should that same memorial be included in Lists of Monuments and Memorials of the French Foreign Legion?
4. What if there is no plaque or other identifying feature on a statue that defines the honor and gives only the person's name - is there a way to look up why the statue memorialized him?
5. Would it be considered WP:OR to include a statue in a list article for a specific cause without verifying the honor was actually for that cause?
6. Should the statues, ships, memorials, monuments, etc. be cited to a RS to verify that it belongs in the respective list?

Thanks in advance, ^{Atsme📞📧} 05:07, 5 October 2017 (UTC) to respond

You were right

Your comments regarding paid editing are quite interesting - especially since I am applying for a WMF grant to fund a Wikimedian in Residence at Pitt. On the project grant page, an editor told me that I was asking for funding so that I would be be a 'paid' editor. I am still trying to figure out this point of view. I can see that creating content related to the University may be considered paid editing, but is creating content on user pages, talk pages, template pages, category pages and topics unrelated to the University considered paid editing? Barbara (WVS) ✐ ✉ 18:50, 5 October 2017 (UTC) Best Regards, Barbara (WVS) ✐ ✉ 18:50, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

it's a special form of paid editing which we usually consider benign,and is exempt from the usual rules unless it's abused. It can be abused--for example, by making references only or predominantly to university sources for material which is not unique there. There is no reason not to declare it as if it were ordinary paid editing, on both the article talk p and on your user p. Doing so has no down side. DGG ( talk ) 19:00, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Admin's Barnstar
	Thanks for all your work as an admin and an ArbCom member. Ⓩⓟⓟⓘⓧ Talk 20:41, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

Request on 19:32:53, 16 October 2017 for assistance on AfC submission...

{...

But let me ask you, why do you "need" an article? The only reason a person would need an article is in order to promote themselves or their activities--and that sort of promotion is not permitted in WP; it s a violation of our basic policy WP:NOTADVERTISING. I see nothing in the existing draft to indicate that the person isa major government official whp would generally be considered appropriate for an article.

I must also alert you that there are people who write articles in what they claim to be a professional manner, but almost all of them do not follow our terms of use because they do not disclose their conflict of interest, and most of them are in reality incapable of writing an acceptable non-promotional article. Either reason alone would be sufficient cause for the articles they submit to be immediately deleted as soon as they can be identified--we delete dozens of such articles every day. If you use such a service you need to determine that actually follow our terms of use. Any service that claims special access or permission or administrator assistance is not following our rules, because no administrator or person with special permissions is permitted to use those facilities for paid work at WP. And as if this were not bad enough, be aware that some services have the despicable practice of accepting payment and writing the article, but will then challenge the article using another name, and ask additional payment for defending it. DGG ( talk ) 00:50, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

>Facto Post – Issue 5 – 17 October 2017

...

Editorial: Annotations

... ContentMine operates in the field of text and data mining (TDM), where annotation, simply put, can add value to mined text. It now sees annotation as a possible advance in semi-automation, the use of human judgement assisted by bot editing, which now plays a large part in Wikidata tools. While a human judgement call of yes/no, on the addition of a statement to Wikidata, is usually taken as decisive, it need not be. The human assent may be passed into an annotation system, and stored: this idea is standard on Wikisource, for example, where text is considered "validated" only when two different accounts have stated that the proof-reading is correct. A typical application would be to require more than one person to agree that what is said in the reference translates correctly into the formal Wikidata statement. Rejections are also potentially useful to record, for machine learning.

As a contribution to data integrity on Wikidata, annotation has much to offer. Some "hard cases" on importing data are much more difficult than average. There are for example biographical puzzles: whether person A in one context is really identical with person B, of the same name, in another context. In science, clinical medicine require special attention to sourcing (WP:MEDRS), and is challenging in terms of connecting findings with the methodology employed. Currently decisions in areas such as these, on Wikipedia and Wikidata, are often made ad hoc. In particular there may be no audit trail for those who want to check what is decided.

Annotations are subject to a World Wide Web Consortium standard, and behind the terminology constitute a simple JSON data structure. What WikiFactMine proposes to do with them is to implement the MEDRS guideline, as a formal algorithm, on bibliographical and methodological data. The structure will integrate with those inputs the human decisions on the interpretation of scientific papers that underlie claims on Wikidata. What is added to Wikidata will therefore be supported by a transparent and rigorous system that documents decisions.

An example of the possible future scope of annotation, for medical content, is in the first link below. That sort of detailed abstract of a publication can be a target for TDM, adds great value, and could be presented in machine-readable form. You are invited to discuss the detailed proposal on Wikidata, via its talk page.

Links

• Jon Udell, blogpost Annotating to extract findings from scientific papers, 15 December 2015
• TDM and Libraries, Virginia Tech report
• Magnus Manske, The Whelming: Scaling up Wikidata editing
• OCLC and Internet Archive collaborate to expand library access to digital collections, metadata and linking exchange
• GLOW week in November: Wikidata workshops on politician info

Sullivan on Comp draft rejected due to notability

Thanks for the feedback, DGG. I sent an e-mail to someone I know who works at the law firm that produces Sullivan on Comp and asked about the frequency it's cited in appellate decisions. I'll let you know if/when I hear back. I'd like your opinion if the citation frequency is significant enough to warrant resubmitting the article for approval. Thanks again for your help! Angsthead (talk) 23:09, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

Thank you

Hello. Thank you for your response in Wikipedia:Teahouse. Unfortunately, you did not answer my questions. As such I have removed your response from my query in hopes that someone else may be able to assist me.

Kind regards KaiRAWR (talk) 06:43, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

Metropolitan Museum of Art Edit-a-thon (Nov 19) and global online Wikipedia Asian Art Month (Nov 1-30)

Sunday November 19, 10:30 am - 4:00pm: Metropolitan Museum of Art Edit-a-thon

The Wikipedia Asian Month Edit-a-thon @ The Met will be the Metropolitan Museum of Art's second edit-a-thon, hosted on Sunday November 19, 2017 in the Bonnie Sacerdote Classroom, Ruth and Harold D. Uris Center for Education (81st Street entrance) at The Met Fifth Avenue in New York City. Following the first Met edit-a-thon in May 2017, the museum is excited to work with Wikipedia Asian Month for the potential to seed new articles about Asian artworks, artwork types, and art traditions, from any part of Asia. These can be illustrated with thousands of its recently-released images of public domain artworks available for Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons from the museum’s collection spanning 5,000 years of art. The event is an opportunity for Wikimedia communities to engage The Met's diverse Asian collections onsite and remotely. Sunday November 19 Wikipedia Asian Month Edit-a-thon @ The Met (RSVP on-wiki or at meetup.com). 10:30 am - 4:00 pm in Bonnie Sacerdote Classroom, Uris Center for Education 81st Street entrance, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue We also welcome remote participation for the global online Wikipedia Asian Art Month, running November 1-30. Thanks, and hope to see you at the museum, and/or as part of the online Wikipedia Asian Month contest!--Pharos (talk) 16:36, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)

Sonne der Gerechtigkeit

Sonne der Gerechtigkeit, sun of justice in our time. I had some hopes that you wanted to restore the article history of the other hymn, bringing back the 2005 beginning and the history, no? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:13, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Demoralized...

Hi DGG. So you rejected also my Draft about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Catherine_(Juliette_Benzoni) I must say I am speechless. The other moderator said I did not have enough sources and "Catherine (Juliette Benzoni)" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · HighBeam · JSTOR · free images · free news sources · The Wikipedia Library · NYT · WP reference.

Then you copied that again and deleted the issues from above on the draft from August 30 ! Splendid.

I get this message from you why you rejected it: you need to first clarify if you are writing about the particular book, or the series. If about the series, name the article appropriately and discuss as a series, giving the overall plot in one paragraph. After that, about one paragraph per book might be sufficient. It would clarify matters not to call them book 1 [etc] but to use the actual titles.

Did you really read my article? Are you sure? I wrote on the article underneath the title This page is about the Catherine Novels. For the television series, see Catherine (1986 TV series). So I made it clear what it was about.

Let me say this, when I started to correct the Draft, I went to see many other articles about famous authors. I took them as example's - just as I took the French Wikipedia for example when I wrote this article the first time. It was rejected because the other moderator said it did not have enough material and sources! I even agree nowadays with that.

My article is about the seven books concerning CATHERINE by Juliette Benzoni. Each book had another title. I thought it was easier to understand if I wrote book 1, book 2 and so on... This author sold over 300'000 books in the whole wide world. The Catherine series (7 books!) was the authors first Bestseller, not just in France as can be read on the Juliette Benzoni Wikipedia page. I have no idea what to do now. If rejecting this article again and again means to demoralize me, it starts to succeed... but first please be so kind and give me an example how I would have to introduce book by book.. because I am afraid that should I really use only one sentence for each book, the next moderator will tell me it is not enough... Yours friendy Laramie1960 (talk) 13:16, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

When reviewing AfC, we judge by only one criterion: is it likely to pass AfD. In my opinion, it was not likely to pass in the form submitted. This is based not on my own feelings about what an article on literature should be, but my experience with what happens at AfD, where it is much easier maintaining extensive articles on currently popular game universes than on serious contemporary or classical fiction.

I found your draft confusing, and I think others would have reacted similarly. Rereading yesterdays version, even in view of your explanation, I still think i twas confusing. When an article begins "Catherine: One Love is Enough, first published in France as Il suffit d'un amour,[1] is the first of a series of seven historical romance novels " the expectation is that this book only will be discussed. For a general discussion of the technique, see WP:Summary Style.

But I realize there was a better way to handle this particular article, which is to have avoided actually reviewing it, but instead write a comment suggesting the changes. I sometimes do it, and I should have done it here. I give you my apologies.

The French (and German) Wikipedia accept much longer and more detailed articles of serious subjects than the enWP. Among the reasons is the relative shortage of contributors at enWP who can write high quality long articles.

I've accepted it as is. the earlier review should have specified: details of plot can & should be taken from the work itself -- but anything in the way of opinion requires a citation. What it mainly needs now is a copyedit for sentence fragments and word choice. I fixed a few of them. DGG ( talk ) 06:57, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

G5

I'm mystified by these taggings. I thought G5 only applied to pages created by banned or blocked users in violation of their ban or block (i.e. after they were blocked, not before). This article wasn't even started by the user in question, and I would say it has substantial edits by others. Note that Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Wikieditions isn't even closed yet, and from what I can tell, Richardaldinho was blocked for logged-out editing that's unrelated to that SPI. Sro23 (talk) 02:21, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Sro23, I've deleted the second article you linked to under CSD G5. I also would have deleted the first article under G5 if you had not removed it. There is an emerging consensus that large sock farms/UPE operations where it is clear they are connected and impossible to find an original named master, it is within the discretion of an administrator to delete the article if it is tagged for G5 because we can have moral certainty that the master has been blocked in the past or that the accounts are proxying. This has been reaffirmed in multiple deletion reviews. John McPhee (Ret. Special Forces) also has the complicating factor of being a BLP, which makes me even more confident in that deletion.

David, I did remove the G5 on Waterlogic per Sro23's statement above. It is obvious UPE, but the original account isn't blocked and is stale, so I think it is stretching G5 a bit too far given recent discussion surrounding G14 for UPE. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:57, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

If the interpretation you and I and many other admins have been increasingly using for G5 is not as fully accepted as we have been thinking, perhaps we do need to revise the policy behind G5, that any article ever written by anyone shown to an editor blocked for undeclared paid editing must be deleted. The prior interpretation was based on the assumption that banned editors would be blocked for specific misbehavior, and that what they had written before that misbehavior was not necessarily affected. But now we're dealing with cases where the more recently discovered information casts very strong doubt on all previous work. DGG ( talk ) 03:05, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Very confused right now. As best I can tell, Richardaldinho was blocked (temporarily, not even indefinitely) for vote stacking (via IP, no account) on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Oliver Isaacs. The block has nothing to do with the SPI or undisclosed paid editing or whatever. Sro23 (talk) 03:13, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Sro23, that is a fair point, and I can see how this would be controversial so I've restored the article and PROD'd it because of your concerns. I typically agree with DGG on things such as this, and given the history here of obvious undeclared paid editing over the past few months, and the intersection at that AfD, I think DGG's taggings were within reason.

David, I agree we need clarification here, but I am not hopeful that we can achieve much more in terms of CSD criteria at this time. I think G5 works in the vast majority of these cases, but I get the concerns on this specific one at this time. TonyBallioni (talk) 03:32, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

November 15: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC @ NYU ITP

Wednesday November 15, 7pm: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC @ NYU ITP

You are invited to join the Wikimedia NYC community for our monthly "WikiWednesday" evening salon (7-9pm) and knowledge-sharing workshop at NYU ITP Tisch School of the Arts (4th floor) at 721 Broadway in Manhattan. We will include a look at the organization and planning for our chapter, and expanding volunteer roles for both regular Wikipedia editors and new participants. We will also follow up on plans for recent and upcoming edit-a-thons, museum and library projects, education initiatives, and other outreach activities. We welcome the participation of our friends from the Free Culture movement and from all educational and cultural institutions interested in developing free knowledge projects. After the main meeting, pizza/chicken/vegetables and refreshments and video games in the gallery! Wednesday November 15 WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC (RSVP on-wiki or at meetup.com). 7:00pm - 9:00 pm at NYU ITP Tisch School of the Arts (4th floor), 721 Broadway (note that we are not at Babycastles this month) We especially encourage folks to add your 5-minute lightning talks to our roster, and otherwise join in the "open space" experience! Newcomers are very welcome! Bring your friends and colleagues! --Pharos (talk) ~~~~~ P.S. You are also invited to Wikipedia Asian Month Edit-a-thon @ Metropolitan Museum of Art on Sunday November 19!

(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)

Suspicious users/possible socks

It's a little hard to tell... I think these two accounts could be WP:SOCKs but I don't think there's enough evidence to open anything at SPI. Suggestions?

• User:TORaptor - falsely identifies as an administrator on his userpage
• User:SwarmZone - on User:SwarmZone/sandbox, says "OUR TORaptor's Puppet"

--Drm310 🍁 (talk) 05:43, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

if they declare it, it'san alternative account, not a sock. DGG ( talk ) 07:14, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Steve Collins (nutritionist)

Alas, 2017-11-10T15:20:45‎ Atlantic306‎ . . (deprod- not an uncontroversial deletion as was approved at AFC). Surprised/not surprised this made it out of AfC. ack, -- Dlohcierekim (talk) 16:57, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Well, you can't win 'em all. Hopefully any negative trends as far as reviewing (or reviewers) goes can be reversed before we start accepting real junk. Primefac (talk) 17:10, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

We will never get things 100% correct at AfC any more than we do at NPP or AfD. But certainly the error rate at AfC remains higher than elsewhere, and the only way to improve it means following up editors who consistently make wrong decisions there to remind them of the standards. I have actually received negative criticism for checking up on people's accepts and declines, but I think people who concentrate of checking up are necessary at all decision points--and that is in fact the primary reason I gave in asking to be an admin. (One thing that can help is a quick screening of drafts the first day they are entered to remove obvious copyvio and promotionalism before they get any further. I've started doing this for G11, and I see others are also, especially for G12.) DGG ( talk ) 17:57, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Hear, hear! (The page in question went the way of all good spam.) If there is a tool/method to help me screen drafts the same day as they are entered, I would enjoy using it. And screening is needed to assure quality. -- Dlohcierekim (talk) 18:03, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

DGG, to continue on from a thread in another location (and to ping off your "higher error rate" comment) - is your comment based on statistics or just "I see a lot of AFC-accepted pages at AFD"? It seems like everyone except me (who is the one tracking all of these stats) thinks that AFC has this huge error rate in acceptances, and I cannot figure out why. I haven't run the numbers, so I cannot comment on how accurate we are as a group. Primefac (talk) 18:18, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

I haven't tried tp collect figures for many years now, because there is too much ambiguity in what to measure. There are 3 ways to define error-- a/ a decision which is reversed at a later stage, b/ a decision which is hopelessly wrong, and c/ a decision which I think should have been otherwise. I usually mean by error a mix of criteria b & c, thinking of c as violating the consensus, not just disagreeing with what I think the consensus ought to be. There are also Type I and Type II errors--in this context, I think of a type I error as an incorrect rejection of an article, Type II as an incorrect acceptance. Going by impressions, I consider the rate of errors at AfD to be between 5 and 10 % in each direction. At NPP, probably about 10% incorrect acceptance and 5% incorrect rejection, as Speedy is applied very conservatively; At AfC. I think there's about 5 to 10% incorrect acceptance, and about 10 to 20% incorrect declines, as the unfortunate practice has been to decline for trivial reasons. The prevailing type of error there is the opposite of NPP, because NPP besides being conservative, are systematically reviewed by an admin. But no, I do not have numbers.

The real problem is not the error rate, but the disagreement on whether to fix or delete promotional articles. Before paid editing became so conspicuous, I always tried to err on the side of fixing, and now I do just the opposite. Bad articles are less of a danger than paid editing, which corrupts the entire process of building an encyclopedia, and trying to decrease it is a greater priority. DGG ( talk ) 19:17, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Daffodils English School, Sanjaynagar

I'm interested in your take on this deletion discussion. You stated when endorsing the 'Keep' at deletion review that "All comments except one were keep". I don't believe that is accurate, since neither Cordless Larry, nor Pburka – nor I for that matter – made comments that could possibly be interpreted as "keep". In any case, I thought that AfD was decided on the strength of the arguments, not the number of votes.

You also claimed that "all the arguments were sufficiently policy based", and yet every single keep vote was a variation on the theme "the school exists therefore it's notable" or "we always have kept secondary schools in the past, so we should keep this one". Are you aware that the February 2017 RfC specifically discredited both of those arguments? In addition, the keep arguments were based on an earlier version of WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES which is not even a guideline, let alone policy. Even being charitable, WP:NPOSSIBLE is a guideline, not policy. And yet the 'delete' arguments were firmly based on policy: "If no reliable third-party sources can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article about it." and "Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources ... Secondary or tertiary sources are needed to establish the topic's notability." The article was written by a serial adspammer using only the school's own website to create the content. Since then, there has been found nothing more than the entries for the school in a couple of directories and a two brief sentences in The Hindu noting their exam results one year. That is nowhere near enough third-party sourcing to base an article on.

If you feel able to, I'd be interested on how you feel you can refute (i) the strength of argument where policy disagrees with an essay; (ii) the results of an RfC; and (iii) the policy requirements that all articles must be based on reliable, published secondary sources. --RexxS (talk) 18:31, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

(1)The effectual policies and guideline are the way we agree to interpret them, not what is written. What is written is not system, sand there are many contradictions. Given these, and given also the differences in how people interpret, at any AfD except the most obvious it is possible to construct a decent argument in any direction. I think people generally make a global opinion on whether WP should or should not have the article, and then look for the appropriate arguments.

(2) The RfA, as I said , did not say what you assert it said. It said there was no consensus to change the practice of keeping school articles. It also said there was no consensus that commonoutcomes was a sufficient argument. I do not know of any way to really harmonize these two conclusions, so confusion about them is not just understandable but inevitable.

(3) My view that we should continue the practice of keeping articles on secondary schools articles is an empirical compromise with not keeping primary school articles. It needs no other defense than being a workable way of avoiding spending most of our AfD energy on the the disagreements. The goal is to build an encyclopedia, and sometimes that means not focussing on issues that we cannot settle. The secondary reason is that some degree of consistency is a virtue, and back when I first came here and we did debate every primary and secondary school, the results were not much better than random. You will notice I am not arguing that either primary or secondary schools do or do not meet the standard of GNG--back when I did, the argument was that if we had sufficient access to local sources, we could show notability, but that the effort in obtaining them was not worth it in either case.

(4)It comes down to a choice--either accept the compromise or debate not just every secondary school in the world, but every primary school in the world also.

Further discussion should go elsewhere. But I don't really see the point of it--we are both going to repeat what what we have already said.We are not goign to convince each other, and anyone coming to this question for the first time already has available many full arguments in each direction. DGG ( talk ) 19:17, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

I was interested in what you've said here and also what I found on your userpage about counting !votes in AfD discussions. Taken together you seem to be arguing that (for example) this AfD should have been closed as "keep" because more people !voted keep citing policy arguments than those who !voted delete. Whilst I kind-of see the logic of this position, it doesn't seem to be one shared by the majority of people who close AfD discussions. And I don't know how it would work in practice: surely it is then just a popularity contest. On the other hand, I think this whole idea of "consensus" is problematic. The vast majority of people who edit do not !vote or engage in these debates, so any RfC or AfD is (obviously) going to be a fight between those who turn up. When those parties get into a rut on how to decide between the merits of keep/delete, I can't see how there can ever be consensus. Simply saying that the consensus is that people disagree doesn't seem to adequately address the problem - particularly when closers seem to apply the supposed consensus in different ways. JMWt (talk) 09:33, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

Yes, people can judge consensus in different ways--it is to some extent subjective. But the rule is to go by the consensus of the policy-based arguments, and that is almost always followed, though there is also some subjectivity in judging what is a sufficiently policy-based argument. There is no way in any system to avoid person judgment in decisions, except by strict vote counting , which we do in only special situations--elections for arb com and a few other groups . DGG ( talk ) 13:45, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

Deletion Review

Hello there! I would like to see if I can appeal for this page to be reinstated as I believe I can prove and give the sufficient and amount of sources. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Oliver Isaacs Thank you! FiendYT ★

You can use [[WP:Deletion Review[[, but I would not advise it. There was no other way I could have closed the AfD, given the comments, so the deletion is not likely to be reversed. You've done paid editing, and I assume that this was a paid article, so in any case you must use Draft space. I did not block re-creation, so if you write an article that gets approved at AfC, if it is different enough to pass speedy, it can be considered again--it will almost certainly be nominated for another AfD discussion. It was not not weakness of sources that was the problem, but promotional content, and I am not quite sure a nonpromotional article on this subject could be written. DGG ( talk ) 00:08, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

G13 Eligibility Notice

The following pages will become eligible for CSD:G13 shortly.

• Draft:Amit Goswami

Thanks, HasteurBot (talk) 03:01, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

Noteable Faculty and Biomedical Engineering Page JHU

DGG, I am a little confused. Can I add references to Nitish Thakor page for example, and is it ok for me to update with more references the JHU BME page? I am currently the Director of Biomedical Engineering and wanted to do for BME what Stanford Computer Science has done and Oxford Computer Science, both have wiki pages and are demonstrating very coherent easy ways to have undergrads and high schoolers just find them easily through Wikipedia.

I dont think I have added anything to date that is not accurate. It isn't our business in the Academy to speak about things we don't have published. Anyway I appreciate reading your notes about "Noteable faculty"; that was very helpful. My criteria which was in error was National Academy. I think essentially it is suggesting the Associate Professors and Full Professors will all likely be noteable because all of them in our department have H-indices that are very high and many publications. Thank-you in advance. Mim.cis (talk) 03:29, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

You do have an obvious conflict of interest; according to common sense you are not the best person to evaluate the appropriateness and balance of the content in the articles about your own organization. According to our rules in WP:COI, you may only make suggestions of the article talkpage, except for fixing obvious errors or updating. Adding the references for the plain facts of Thakor's career is the sort of thing you can do directly; adding references for judgements about him, do on the talk page. ( Be careful about adding content--we give only a brief description of the research and list only the 2 or 3 most cited papers. We regard Research Career Development Awards and the like as grants, not awards, and we do not include them; we also do not include alumni awards from his university. There's no need to pad the CV--Fellow IEEE is sufficient proof of notability.

As for the Department article, I started by restoring some refs to the Department articlefrom earlier versions of the article) Since member National Academy is notable, I found the proper way to add some additional names, even though the articles have not yet been written. However, the history section is still a little heavy with internal detail. It could use some copyediting for compactness. I'll give it a try if I can. You might note the extreme plainness of the other articles you mention.

when you proceed to write articles on the other faculty, do it in Draft Space using the WP:Article Wizard, Make sure you declare your conflict of interest. And I strongly recommend that you do them very cautiously, one at a time, starting from the most notable, and seeing if you run into opposition before you start the nest one.. In judging citations, the key factor is not the h factor by itself-- person A with 50 papers each with 50 citations has h=50; so does person B with 20 papers with 200 citations and 30 with 50, but only person B is likely to be notable. I give you advice to the best of my ability about what is acceptable, but I cannot make final judgments. Anyone who wishes can bring an article deletion request at WP:AFD , and the community consensus makes the decision. Do not be surprised if some people oppose.

I hope this helps. DGG ( talk ) 13:34, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

Facto Post – Issue 6 – 15 November 2017

Facto Post – Issue 6 – 15 November 2017 WikidataCon Berlin 28–9 October 2017 WikidataCon 2017 group photo Under the heading rerum causas cognescere, the first ever Wikidata conference got under way in the Tagesspiegel building with two keynotes, One was on YAGO, about how a knowledge base conceived ten years ago if you assume automatic compilation from Wikipedia. The other was from manager Lydia Pintscher, on the "state of the data". Interesting rumours flourished: the mix'n'match tool and its 600+ datasets, mostly in digital humanities, to be taken off the hands of its author Magnus Manske by the WMF; a Wikibase incubator site is on its way. Announcements came in talks: structured data on Wikimedia Commons is scheduled to make substantive progress by 2019. The lexeme development on Wikidata is now not expected to make the Wiktionary sites redundant, but may facilitate automated compilation of dictionaries. WD-FIST explained And so it went, with five strands of talks and workshops, through to 11 pm on Saturday. Wikidata applies to GLAM work via metadata. It may be used in education, raises issues such as author disambiguation, and lends itself to different types of graphical display and reuse. Many millions of SPARQL queries are run on the site every day. Over the summer a large open science bibliography has come into existence there. Wikidata's fifth birthday party on the Sunday brought matters to a close. See a dozen and more reports by other hands. Links Wikidata statistics I4OC progress in its first year, with 47% of scientific citation data now open (announced two days ago) The flowering ORCID, Magnus Manske blogpost on identifying authors of scientific papers @querybook, a Twitter feed devoted to SPARQL queries Massive progress on Wikidata coverage of the UK parliament Reminder: WikiFactMine pages on Wikidata are at WD:WFM Editor Charles Matthews. Please leave feedback for him. If you wish to receive no further issues of Facto Post, please remove your name from our mailing list. Alternatively, to opt out of all massmessage mailings, you may add Category:Wikipedians who opt out of message delivery to your user talk page. Newsletter delivered by MediaWiki message delivery

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:02, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

Deletion of Islam and Christianity in Balance

I have realised that you were the deleting administrator of the page I created 2 days ago on accounts of promotion of the product and it benefiting a single person/company. Sir, the reason I had created the page is that the book, about which the article was written, has been listed as a "treatise" in the domain of inter-religious dialogue and the reason I aspire to have this article retrieved is that it was not done for advertisement or promotion because the book hasn't been issued to any library or bookstore for the people to buy. Therefore, even if readers want to buy it, they can't. Hence I don't think it comes under section G11 of the criteria for speedy deletion, and should be re-instated as soon as possible. I can use your guidance to balance the article if it seems more one-sided. Stjt (talk) 02:04 November 16, 2017 IST.

"A galaxy of intellectuals and scholars from academics, civil society, government services and the media attended the event." and about half the article is devoted to the various tributes given at the reception for the book.

The remainder of the article is just the table of contents.

The references are some press releases published in GreaterKashmir, bu they do not really represent independent reviews.

There is already a section on the book in the article on the author, a section which is also quite promotional

And looking at that article, the various quotes, which seem mostly derived from letters of various notable people to him, are not encyclopedic content.

The article itself is full of praise for him in a very similar style, much of it cited to similarly non-independent sources. "Iqbal's contributions in upgrading Education in Kashmir drew admiration but while serving his mission he did not wait for any award or reward. Instead, he had to proceed on voluntary retirement in a atmosphere of ungratefulness" is actually referenced to his own book!.

Nor do we list booklets and similar minor publications.

What you need to do is to revise the main article. I've placed the necessary notices. DGG ( talk ) 20:59, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

Dear DGG, thank you for your valuable guiding remarks. I have already made some corrections and modifications to the article. Rest controversial portions shall be settled in due course. It would be appreciated if you also help in improving the article. Stjt (talk) 01:46 November 17, 2017 IST. —Preceding undated comment added 20:16, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

Was it a source issue, or....

..BLP issue being the reason you rmvd this as inappropriate? I'm assuming BLP vio? ^{Atsme📞📧} 1:53 pm, Today (UTC−6)

BLP. In such situations I think best to leave a minimal edit summary. DGG ( talk ) 01:15, 17 November 2017 (UTC) .

G13 Eligibility Notice

The following pages will become eligible for CSD:G13 shortly.

• Draft:Chris Malone
• Draft:Hallorans Hill Conservation Park
• Draft:Shude International Department

Thanks, HasteurBot (talk) 03:00, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

G13 Eligibility Notice

The following pages will become eligible for CSD:G13 shortly.

• Draft:International Prevention Research Institute
• Draft:Kayyali Edge Detection

Thanks, HasteurBot (talk) 03:01, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Fair Use

Hello DGG -

I hope you are having a wonderful weekend. I love it in America - so rich life here! I think I will rent a car and go buy things at walmart this weekend.

I appreciate your comments and support. You seem like a very established editor who seems to care about other editors. I am considering creating Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Fair Use and I was interested in suggestions on how to go about this, and editors who I can talk to about building this page before it goes live. Any suggestions would be most helpful.

Moscowamerican (talk) 16:02, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

G13 Eligibility Notice

The following pages will become eligible for CSD:G13 shortly.

• Draft:John J. Vincent (theologian)

Thanks, HasteurBot (talk) 03:00, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/RfC: Should the Reference Desks be closed

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/RfC: Should the Reference Desks be closed. Legobot (talk) 04:31, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

hello

It appears that most long term administrators do not share the same views that you do on treating new editors contributions with the same respect that you mention on your other personal page.

I was interested if there are other administrators like you? If so, who? Thank you in advance. I appreciate all your time and all you do. How can i give you an award? Moscowamerican (talk) 05:44, 19 November 2017 (UTC)