User talk:Vanamonde93

WikiCup 2019 March newsletter

And so ends the first round of the competition. Everyone with a positive score moves on to Round 2. With 56 contestants qualifying, each group in Round 2 contains seven contestants, with the two leaders from each group due to qualify for Round 3 as well as the top sixteen remaining contestants.

Our top scorers in Round 1 were:

• L293D, a WikiCup newcomer, led the field with ten good articles on submarines for a total of 357 points.
• Adam Cuerden, a WikiCup veteran, came next with 274 points, mostly from eight featured pictures, restorations of artwork.
• MPJ-DK, a wrestling enthusiast, was in third place with 263 points, garnered from a featured list, five good articles, two DYKs and four GARs.
• Usernameunique came next at 243, with a featured article and a good article, both on ancient helmets.
• Squeamish Ossifrage was in joint fifth place with 224 points, mostly garnered from bringing the 1937 Fox vault fire to featured article status.
• Ed! was also on 224, with an amazing number of good article reviews (56 actually).

These contestants, like all the others, now have to start scoring points again from scratch. Between them, contestants completed reviews on 143 good articles, one hundred more than the number of good articles they claimed for, thus making a substantial dent in the review backlog. Well done all!

Remember that any content promoted after the end of Round 1 but before the start of Round 2 can be claimed in Round 2. Invitations for collaborative writing efforts or any other discussion of potentially interesting work is always welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Remember, if two or more WikiCup competitors have done significant work on an article, all can claim points. If you are concerned that your nomination—whether it is at good article candidates, a featured process, or anywhere else—will not receive the necessary reviews, please list it on Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews.

If you want to help out with the WikiCup, please do your bit to keep down the review backlogs! Questions are welcome on Wikipedia talk:WikiCup, and the judges are reachable on their talk pages or by email. Good luck! If you wish to start or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. Godot13 (talk), Sturmvogel 66 (talk), Vanamonde (talk) and Cwmhiraeth (talk).

A barnstar for you!

	The Writer's Barnstar
	For your enormous contributions to science fiction fantasy authors and novels. Politics-related articles make a close second. THE NEW ImmortalWizard(chat) 19:32, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

@ImmortalWizard: Thank you, much appreciated. Vanamonde (Talk) 02:39, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Better here. Finer policy-attuned minds than I are more focused than I manage to be. TLDR, so no need to reply

In reply to your request for clarification.

Sorry about that opacity. I meant that in drafting measures to deal with the class of behaviours in (b), we should be careful not to frame it so broadly that the definitions spill over to affect the class of behavior in (a). I can wear being called a 'poseur', 'arsehole', 'fraudulent', 'reactionary' and so on, as recently. It has no effect on my humour. This is not a good argument, admittedly, because in our community, there are lot of people who've never grown up in an ambiance where real aggressiveness, verbal or otherwise, was fairly common, and one learnt to read it, and cope with it.In virtual-cyber terms, there seems to be a cultural shift underway, where young people invest a huge amount of their energy in seeking endorsements of their ionsecure self-esteem, by trying to get the best out of sparring on social media with unknown voices from beyond. I would hope Wikipedia, whatever culture it develops, persists in drawing a sharp line between its practices, and those regulatory practices on social media which have no other purpose than to connect people, and provide them with an identity and pastime. Here, we work, for a common good -precise, informed, global knowledge, nothing else.

So for me, to cop snarky language just tells me someone out there is getting angry to no end, and, anyway, it's merely a comment on a talk page. Real life's full of that. I find reading even mainstream newspaper reports on the world more unnerving (for what they report, or fail to report in their coverage) than perusing animated and somewhat aggressive talk page comments on wiki. If the editor who keeps that up were to begin to trsnsfer what, to me, is innocuousfatuous and rather pathetic hostility into actually reverting article contributions with inadequate, non-policy based edit summaries, well that, in the long term, would wear one out. So, in sum, I have a fair tolerance of people who are upset at people like myself, and work off steam on a talk page. If they transfer that animosity to articles, damaging their construction, then 'that' is wearying. Because it would mean, to cite one case, that several hours reading and synthesizing abstruse articles on the chert-quartz transition in paleolithic flints, Mineng dialect terminology for the seasons in an 1831 source, and an Heideggerian reading of the 'phenomenology' of time to cast light on an ethnographic issue, would be squashed out like bug from the said article simply out of antipathy, by an editor who probably knows nothing of the topic. That is the kind of behavior that has nagged me for 13 years. (b) refers to acts by editors that damage the construction of articles according to RS and NPOV, not to acts of hostility that never translate into harm to articles.

If I made a list of (b) it would be something like this:-

The problems that wear me one out are (i) reverting with false edit summaries (ii) reverting sequentially at sight, by editors with no talk page justification (iii)WP:IDIDNOTHEARTHAT attitudes by those who engage on the talk page, but refuse to focus closely on the on the issues under contention; (iv) falsifying sources (v) reverting while not even glancing at the sources; (vi) taking out a source, against the RSN board evidence, which contains facts/material one dislikes, justifying the removal as 'not RS', while on the same page, leaving in sources favourable to your POV whose status as RS is equally questionable; (vii) continual recourse to the drama boards even when on several occasions, the plaintiff's evidence has been dismissed as inadequate; (viii) preemptively excising any academic book by a qualified specialist on the topic an article deals with without prior talk page discussion (ix) removing 149,000 bytes of text citing Wikipedia:Article size, thus 'disappearing' 150 footnotes and a 100 odd academic sources out of sheer civil POV pushing distaste. (rather than considering that, when you see a deep mass of carefully constructed, optimally sourced material, with encyclopedic value, you should realize that erasing it erases someone's several days of hard work, and simply roll up your sleeves and resolve the perceived length problem by transferring the contested material into sister articles).I could think of a score of others were it not for a certain fatigue at an off-wiki strenuous day. As long as whatever policy we have is drawn up by our representatives here, and reflects the complexities of various inputs, I don't think I would worry about whatever result is forthcoming.Keep up the good work

Best regards. Nishidani (talk) 19:45, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

I should add, on reading your remark about how frequently at the drama boards, cases of abuse have been passed over because the editor in question is considered too valuable, I realize that I simply don't know this area. I almost never read those pages except when compelled to in personal defense. So my input is pointless. My impression was that arbcom generally gets things right, that peons like myself are let off, or sanctioned, without visible favour or prejudice. Errors are made, but a good wikipedian should accept sanctions as part of the cost of working here, and not appeal them if 'convicted', but just sit them out. Arbitration is the most onerous, unremittingly hard task of all in this weird area and whatever the failings, nowhere else in the world will one get people volunteering long hours to work through endless partisan screeds and diffs in order to ensure that the project stays afloat.Nishidani (talk) 20:07, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

@Nishidani: Some replies, since it seems we're not disagreeing much. The problems you outline in category (b) are those that bother me too, both as an editor and as an admin trying to resolve conflict in topics I don't write about. What is especially bothersome is when bad language on the part of editor X allows editor Y to get away with the problems in category (b); this is really quite common, and is probably something you're familiar with. A related phenomenon is that of editors with an axe to grind being rude with the obvious intent of provoking a good and neutral content writer into saying something sanctionable, or at the very least tarnishing their reputation. While I have lots of respect for people who continue to be civil in the face of unremitting hostility, I think it's not always a reasonable expectation; and if we are concerned with the civility of content writers in difficult topics, we need to be equally concerned with the hostility they face.

Finally, since you mention that you are unfamiliar with it; discussions about civility typically founder on the question of what to do with a handful of editors who are a) good content writers and b) notoriously hostile and contemptuous in their attitudes to most people most of the time. These are the difficult cases I refer to (Eric Corbett is the best example, but there are others) wherein ARBCOM usually does the right thing, but at enormous cost in terms of editor time and effort, and for a problem that is patently obvious to many people concerned. Even after ARBCOM steps in, we often have reams of discussion that follow when admins attempt to enforce ARBCOM remedies. Although these cases represent a handful of editors (with substantial differences between them, too) they represent a wildly disproportionate level of community involved, and are in my opinion the cases on which the WMF is most likely to intervene; which is why we need to discuss them, too. Regards, Vanamonde (Talk) 20:44, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Yes. I should have been briefer. In summary style my concern is simply that, in drawing up better policy instruments to regulate the incivility in (b) situations, things are not so worded that we end up inadvertently straightjacketing the kind of fresh vernacular exchanges most of us use, moodily but not aggresively (a). Most cases I remember involve diffs that contain an unkind or questionable word in an otherwise straightforward attempt to argue a position. Look at several diffs and an admin might be tempted to say, 'ha. He used, an exasperated, 'for fuck's sake' one week; asked an editor to look up what 'prevarication' means; implied an interlocutor should 'focus' a day later, implying he's distracted (something he denies); said, some weeks later, 'this is silly', implying some other editor is stupid; used 'rubbish' dismissively a few days later. Ergo, he hasn't mastered wiki civility. Sanction. But, if instead of running through the diffs, one opens the section in which each diff is embedded, and sees the context, and the way both parties are arguing, much of that evidence will, as often as not, seem, if not justified, then perhaps no worse by any means than the obstructive attitude of the people whose edits those phrases refer to, people engaged in civil POV pushing. I know admins who only read the given diff. I know of admins who, for each diff, read back, and then forward, to capture the context. The results of the final call often differ. I don't blame the former, and I don't think the latter should be obliged to work that extra unasked for mile. Sorry, it's late. I've overstayed my welcome. Best Nishidani (talk) 22:46, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Arbitration and Enforcement

What specifically got me banned from editing all US politics after 1932? My recent edits on the AOC article were true and reliably sourced. I did not violate 1RR as far as I know. Please let me know. Thanks. -JohnTopShelf (talk) 03:03, 14 July 2019 (UTC) Also - how do I initiate an arbitration and enforcement against Snooganssnoogans? -JohnTopShelf (talk) 03:03, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

The edits that got you banned are all listed at the discussion at AE. I will not list them again; but fundamentally, this was about a battleground attitude and a failure to comply with WP:NPOV, not a 1RR violation as such. Please note that per WP:BANEX, the only real exceptions to your topic ban are for clarifying the scope of the ban, appealing the ban, or reverting obvious vandalism and BLP violations. Defending your previous edits isn't permitted; nor is requesting arbitration enforcement under the same set of discretionary sanctions. So, requesting enforcement against Snooganssnoogans under American Politics discretionary sanctions is not something you can do while your ban is in place. Vanamonde (Talk) 03:29, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Thanks - I appreciate the explanation.-JohnTopShelf (talk) 13:40, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

By the way - I think I requested that AE be initiated against Snooganssnoogans in my explanation on the AE case prior to my ban being in place.-JohnTopShelf (talk) 13:44, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Tuo Chiang-class corvette

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Tuo Chiang-class corvette. Legobot (talk) 04:26, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

DYK for Bramble Cay melomys

On 20 July 2019, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Bramble Cay melomys, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that the extinction of the Bramble Cay melomys was described as the first for a mammal species due to anthropogenic climate change? You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Bramble Cay melomys), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

valereee (talk) 00:03, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

New WikiProject Socialism membership system

Hello! I'm in the process of introducing a new membership system to WikiProject Socialism (designed as part of WikiProject X and adopted by a few other projects). The new system works by filling a form which creates a WikiProject Card. I'm manually creating WikiProject cards for current members. You can find and edit yours here. Any change to your WikiProject card will be automaticalle updated at Wikipedia:WikiProject Socialism/Members. If you have any doubt, please, feel free to contact me by replying here using the {{re}} template. Best, --MarioGom (talk) 01:18, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:2019 Venezuelan presidential crisis

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:2019 Venezuelan presidential crisis. Legobot (talk) 04:27, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

TBAN location

Thanks for the reminder. In all the Framgate bollocks, I forgot. Hopefully remedied now. Much appreciated. The Rambling Man (REJOICE!) 18:30, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

@The Rambling Man: No problem. Vanamonde (Talk) 18:17, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Ilhan Omar

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Please comment on Talk:Antisemitism in the UK Labour Party

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Antisemitism in the UK Labour Party. Legobot (talk) 04:30, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

Mass MOS:IS violations

Hi Vanamonde93, I'm writing to you as an admin with an interest in India-related articles. this IP has been systematically adding native names in an Indic script (Tamil?) to Indian locality articles. I've left a message on their talk page which they don't appear to have taken note of. Could you – or a helpful talk-page watcher – take appropriate action? The thought of going through and reverting all their edits with Twinkle does not fill me with joy, and I'm unsure that it would be the most productive action in any case. Thank-you in advance :) Wham2001 (talk) 15:01, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

I see that Serols and Fylindfotberserk have rolled the offending edits back, and Ad Orientem has blocked. Thank-you all. Wham2001 (talk) 17:59, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

Wham2001, Thank you and welcome. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 09:07, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Apologies for not responding sooner; I have been inactive for close to a week. Thanks to those who took care of this. Vanamonde (Talk) 23:53, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

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Please comment on Talk:Antifa (United States)

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Article 35A

Oh hello, did you even bother to read the article of rising kashmir. The article itself has given all references regarding the arguments. Don't remove now my changes now.

I have read that source several times. It does not comply with our guideline on reliable sources, and needs to be removed. If the website provides good sources for that content, then use those sources. Vanamonde (Talk) 03:18, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

Listen you Indian, are you going to teach the developer of the product guidelines now? What you know about Kashmir and autonomy? who are you to remove my edits? DONT REMOVE MY CHANGES. OK

I am an administrator on the English Wikipedia; explaining our guidelines to new users is one of the things administrators are meant to do. Also, you have no basis on which to determine my nationality, my nationality is irrelevant here anyway, and my knowledge of recent Kashmiri history is probably superior to that of most editors of that page; so for the last time, please read the links I posted to your talk page, and make edits of a sort that won't have to be removed by someone else. Vanamonde (Talk) 03:48, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

Akhil Bharatiya Ram Ram Rajya Parishad.

This has reference to the removal of my edit.

1. Please note that ' The party eventually merged with Jan Sangh........' is without any proper reference this must be removed.

2. I quoted the reference for the edit I made. It is only an extract from the book I cited, which speaks that the founder's values are different from the values of Jan Sangh.

3. Hence please remove that edit which I have pointed out at point 1 above. Then there is no need to reactivate the edit I made.

--Ramesam54 (talk) 03:17, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

@Ramesam54: Please read a little more carefully. The statement in the article is sourced to the Bell article, which explicitly supports the information in question. Vanamonde (Talk) 03:20, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

Article 35A

I responded to your note on my talk page. I thought I would add that I wrote a paper about Kashmir when I was in college, in the 1960s. I have added that here because I try not to disclose anything about myself even though this bit of information is probably not very informative. In any event, I thought information about me would be less likely noticed here and that you might find it of some interest. Donner60 (talk) 05:17, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

@Donner60: Many thanks. I do indeed find it of interest; the Kashmir conflict is a long and sad story, but also one that is very instructive; or I find it to be, anyhow. Vanamonde (Talk) 14:31, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

Hi. I was offline for a few days. The Kashmir story was already a long, sad story more than 50 years ago. I wish I still had the paper. It was supposed to be a neutral history paper but I can't remember the details from so long ago. At that time, of course, if one did not make a carbon paper copy of a typewritten paper, or have the paper returned after grading, one did not have a copy. Copy machines were still rather new and there was no such thing as a home copier. Donner60 (talk) 01:13, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – August 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2019).

Administrator changes

Johnuniq • Kosack • Valereee

Ad Orientem • Ched • Gadfium • Jonathunder • Nick • Yelyos

Bald Zebra • Beetstra • Doug Bell • Journalist • Ruud Koot • Splash • Voice of Clam

Interface administrator changes

Dinoguy1000

CheckUser changes

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Oversight changes

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Guideline and policy news

• Following a request for comment, the page Wikipedia:Office actions has been changed from a policy page to an information page.
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Arbitration

• Editors may now use the template {{Ds/aware}} to indicate that they are aware that discretionary sanctions are in force for a topic area, so it is unnecessary to alert them.

Miscellaneous

• Following a research project on masking IP addresses, the Foundation is starting a new project to improve the privacy of IP editors. The result of this project may significantly change administrative and counter-vandalism workflows. The project is in the very early stages of discussions and there is no concrete plan yet. Admins and the broader community are encouraged to leave feedback on the talk page.
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Please comment on Talk:Great Famine of 1876–1878

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Great Famine of 1876–1878. Legobot (talk) 04:28, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

If it were up to me...

I would make it so the community elected new admins once every 6 months, and then I'd pay you and 2 other highly qualified admins to be Admin trainers. The position would entail teaching the new plebes (1) what they need to know about admin etiquette (which you have exhibited so eloquently), (2) what is expected of them as admins, (3) how to use the tools, and (4) ?? etc. At the end of each 6 mos training interval, the plebes will be evaluated by all 3 admin trainers, and will either pass or fail. And then it starts all over again with the next batch of newly elected plebes. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 20:38, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

@Atsme: Well that's very kind of you. Indeed the idea of admin mentors in general is a good one, because otherwise there's a bit of a catch-22; you can't be good at many of the things admins need to do without doing them, and to do them you need the tools, so you'll never be good at them as long as you're not an admin. But it's a struggle even to make minor tweaks at the moment, so...Vanamonde (Talk) 22:22, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

Marriage certificate of Jinnah

Greetings,
I feel this photo might be a copyright violation File:Nikahnama-jinah.png. I do not understand how a marriage certificate becomes "own work". Opinion? Should we nominate the photo for deletion? Or it comes under some PD act, such as PD-text? Thanks and regards in advance. --Titodutta (talk) 14:37, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

@Titodutta: What the author probably means is that they took a photograph of the certificate, but you're right of course, it's the copyright status of the certificate itself that matters. Which would require knowledge of the applicable Pakistani and US laws; that knowledge I don't have. I wonder if our resident expert would be willing to help. Vanamonde (Talk) 17:10, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

Assuming this is the original certificate from the 1918 wedding, it would almost certainly be out of copyright in both Pakistan and the US. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:18, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

@Titodutta: Nikkimaria makes a good point; pd-1923 should apply, and given that it's highly unlikely for there to be a public display of a copyrighted more recent reproduction, I suppose there's no harm in placing that tag. Vanamonde (Talk) 22:36, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

Excellent, many thanks. Glad to know possibly we can save this photo. Once we get to know the "Source" (if not "own work", we need to mention the source), we can fix it. If it is ok for you, we can ask a Commons admin such as Yann (not linking right now) to check and fix it. Regards. --Titodutta (talk) 09:40, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Sure, but since it's not getting deleted, anyone should be able to fix it - it doesn't require admin rights. Nikkimaria (talk) 10:24, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:SNC-Lavalin affair

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:SNC-Lavalin affair. Legobot (talk) 04:27, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Draft:David Spanbauer

I'm surprised you characterized this as an attack page when it's an referenced article about a serial killer. It's hard to see any factual article about a murderer and rapist as being anything but a negative article. I think the draft needs work and I think it should be deleted as a copyright violation but it will never be a positive article. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 01:52, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

@Liz: I don't expect or want a positive page; but I would characterize any page using sentences like "His mental issue drove him to carry out his first wrongdoing" and "The judge named him a"sexual go astray" and condemned him to seventy years in jail", sourced to blogs and/or unreliable sources, an attack page. Even if he is a notable serial killer, we're doing a disservice to our readers with a page like that. Vanamonde (Talk) 01:57, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

I suppose. I appreciate you explaining your reasons. Some of the writing was pretty glib but I was surprised to read the sources which supported the basics facts of his life story. But some of the copy was directly lifted from them so I will delete for both reasons. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 02:04, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

@Liz: Much appreciated. Perhaps you noticed already, but it was tagged as a G11(!) before I got there, which is how I came across it in the first place...Vanamonde (Talk) 02:06, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Next United Kingdom general election

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