User talk:Rathfelder

Medical dictionary definition articles

Hi! I see you're marking a number of medical articles for deletion because they are only dictionary definition sub-stubs without any longer-term promise of becoming proper articles. While I don't have a problem with that, as Wikipedia is not a dictionary, could you please consider marking these pages with {{move to wiktionary}} instead, where dictionary definitions are welcomed? -- The Anome (talk) 22:33, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Certainly will. I didn't realise I could do that. Thank you very much.Rathfelder (talk) 22:37, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

WP:NOE

Edits to Northern Ireland Federation of Sub-Aqua Clubs and British Underwater Sports Association

Hi Rathfelder, I noticed that you removed the Category:Supraorganizations from both the above articles. Can you please advise why you have done particularly both organisations meet the description of a supraorganisation as per the category page, i.e. membership is made of organisations rather than individuals? Please reply here. Regards Cowdy001 (talk) 18:58, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

I dispute the definition, and I have altered the article. I can't see any sign of anyone outside wikipedia using it in this sense. I don't think that is how the word is used in the real world. In the real world the term Supraorganization seems to imply some sort of overarching function, such as regulation. There are immense numbers of organisations whose members are other organisations. All the football leagues in the world for a start, and many religious and academic organisations. I am trying to make some sense of the category. Specifically I don't see that being composed of other organisations is a defining characteristic of organisations of the kind you mention, or indeed of most sporting organisations. So I can't see that anyone looking for a sub-aqua organisation would be looking for it under this category. Do you think anyone would refer to either as a supraorganisation? But I think Sports governing bodies probably do fit here. I know nothing about underwater sports, and you are entirely free to disagree with me and revert. But perhaps you could tell me if there is any organisation in that area which fits my view of the definition? Is there a rule making or standard setting organisation body?Rathfelder (talk) 23:33, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for your insights in the word "Supraorganisation". A search online suggests that this could be an unintended WP by-product. A focused google search found the use of the word in texts concerned with international governance (i.e. treaties) and agencies within government. Generally, the word was spelt as supra-organization or supra organization. Also, none of the texts that I viewed were specifically concerned with supraorganizations. There may be some managerial texts that briefly discuss the concept. In response to your questions, I advise the following. Firstly, I think the term would only be used within academia; in other fields, terms such as peak bodies and umbrella organisations would probably prevail. Also, I think the prefix “supra” is not widely. Secondly, sports governing bodies do have a regulatory function in respect to sports rules. In respect to underwater sports, I think the best example of a supraorganisation would the Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques. Thirdly, a example of a standard setting organisation body would be the International Organization for Standardization. Regards Cowdy001 (talk) 09:30, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

Thank you very much. That is most helpful. I will continue my efforts to reduce inappropriate use of the category.Rathfelder (talk) 09:38, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

Stubs

Hello Rathfelder, you seems to be a destubator. Thank you for... just removing the stub tag in the articles and not assessing the respective talk. Wikiproject volleyball still have a quality scale and there is a policy for stubs that states that stub status usually depends on the length of prose text alone – lists, templates, images, and other such peripheral parts of an article are usually not considered when judging whether an article is a stub. Also it says for removing the stub template, that Once a stub has been properly expanded and becomes a larger article, any editor may remove its stub template and this article for example have not been expanded since the tag were put in place and by the way, it is just two sentences. You are not either completing the destub correctly because you have not done this in any article recently: When removing stub templates, users should also visit the talk page and update the WikiProject classifications as necessary and you have to.--Osplace 01:13, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

• The policy actually says " stub status usually depends on the length of prose text alone – lists, templates, images, and other such peripheral parts of an article are usually not considered when judging whether an article is a stub." I don't think it is appropriate in articles about sports teams to ignore the tabular information about their performance or the members of the squad. The same information could have been presented as prose. There is, in each of the volleyball articles, a lot of information. Far more than could be included in a dictionary article.

I don't see much correlation between the stub classification of articles and that on the talk pages. Many pages marked as stub are marked as start class on the talk page, if they are assessed at all, and many of the stub assessments are clearly outdated. I am working through the 1000 largest stubs. Most of them are clearly no longer stubs. These are all articles with more than 10,000 characters. There are screensful of useful information. I don't edit the assessments on the talk pages because I think they are performing a different function from the stub template on the article. Some articles are marked by several projects and are differently assessed by them. For example: Talk:Swansea District (UK Parliament constituency) is assessed differently by three different projects. Talk:Shamim Ara is Rated Start-class by 3 different projects, but had a stub template on the article itself. I don't feel competent to assess in terms of the projects.

If you disagree with my assessment that is fine, I'm not going to argue with you. It's a subjective decision. But the policy is quite clear:"Be bold in removing stub tags that are clearly no longer applicable." And I find it difficult to see what is achieved be leaving these substantial articles in the stub list.Rathfelder (talk) 10:37, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

You clearly have not read my comment. It does not matter if you do not see any relation between the stub classification of articles and that on the talk pages. The policy clearly says that When removing stub templates, users should also visit the talk page and update the WikiProject classifications as necessary.

An article should have prose. The prose section is the main reason to promote them in the quality scale. Forget about the size. Is not whatever you want, if every single editor should do whatever it wants taking no consideration to policies what would happen? Stick to the policy. If is a large size it should be a huge stub, nothing else. When removing the tag, update the talk page, you have to. No matter if there is something different, both should read the same, if not you should help correct it, but by the policy, not your own idea. According to your talk page, you have been warned for this before, take that into consideration.--Osplace 18:30, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

• I have read your comments. But I don't agree with you. I am not part of your project. A project can have its own criteria for the classification of articles which I am not party to. One article may be part of several projects, (Russia women's national under-18 volleyball team is part of 4) and they may all have different criteria. In the case of the articles you reverted most had not been rated at all by the projects they were part of, so there was nothing for me to update. Florida Launch, which I just destubbed was rated start class by the Lacrosse project, but left as a stub. The policies you complain I am not following are not consistent, nor practical, and there is a lot of evidence that they are not often followed. In fact, the reality is that only a small minority of projects are operating at all. If your project is working I will not interfere with it.

NB not every article has prose. Lists don't have prose, and the policy says that lists are not stubs. But I think an article should be judged as a whole. How much information does it contain? That is why the policy says "usually". Of course I could deconstruct the tables and turn them into prose, and I suppose you would then concede that the articles are not stubs. Rathfelder (talk) 18:41, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Removing stub templates

Hi, I came across your edits today with removing stub templates, thanks for trying to help out with stub management of pages, however, when you do remove a stub template, can you please also change the rating on the talk page too? Thanks, Flickerd (talk) 11:35, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

There doesn't seem to be any relationship between assessment of stubs from projects and the general criteria for stubs. Every project can set its own definition, and different projects can and do assess the same article differently. See discussion above on my page under the heading Stubs. Rathfelder (talk) 12:08, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure if you understood what I was asking, anyway, if you remove an AFL related stub, then can you please update the AFL rating on the talk page because they're directly related. I read the discussion above and I'm just reitirating what Osplace asked "when removing stub templates, users should also visit the talk page and update the WikiProject classifications as necessary." Flickerd (talk) 12:34, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

But they aren't related at all. Projects set their own definition of a stub which may be quite different from the definition used in the encyclopedia, which is exactly what has happened in the case of the Collingwood Football Club articles. They are clearly not stubs within the criteria of the encyclopedia. If WikiProject Australian rules football wants to have their own criteria that is a matter for them. I am afraid I am not going to investigate the criteria used by each project. Especially as the explanation you appear to be using is not what is described on the project page. The status given by the project to an article on its talk page and the status of the article in the encyclopedia are two different things.Rathfelder (talk) 19:41, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

I can't really be bothered with this, but continue to make your own rules which is evident in other conversations you've had on your talk page. Flickerd (talk) 11:59, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

If you can't be bothered why did you start a conversation? Rathfelder (talk) 22:30, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

I see that you've removed stub templates from a few New Zealand election articles. Those articles where that has happened that are on my watchlist have hardly any prose, but long lists of candidates. Therefore, the article cannot possibly be start class, but it's reasonable to assign list class status to them. Going forward, can you please re-rate those NZ election articles as list class when you remove stub tags? Schwede66 08:28, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

List status is particular to individual projects. Stub status is across the encyclopedia, and the policy, as I understand it, is that lists, however imperfect, are not stubs WP:STUB. I'm afraid I cannot investigate the policies of every project, so I do not interfere with the status assigned by the project (s) on the talk page. Different projects can, and do, assign different status to the same article and adopt different criteria for the same status. That is a matter for them. Rathfelder (talk) 09:38, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

I'm not asking you to investigate anything. What I'm asking you is to change class to "list" when you remove stub tags from New Zealand politics articles. Schwede66 09:49, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

You are asking me to remember a special procedure for those articles - of which I may see no more for months. I am working through the 1000 longest stubs. There may be no more New Zealand politics articles. I will try, but I may forget.Rathfelder (talk) 10:22, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

Good. Thanks! Schwede66 18:34, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

Combining CfD nominations

1. Start with one category.
2. For every next category, add an extra 'propose' line manually.
3. Copy the script of the CfD template from the page of the first nominated category to the pages of the other categories, but change |1= into |1=section title. Usually the section title on the CfD page is identical to the first nomination category. For example |1=Category:Malaysian obstetricians.

Hopefully this helps? It's not super user friendly, but it's not super complicated either. Marcocapelle (talk) 18:13, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

De-stubbing

Thank you for removing stub templates from articles that are no longer considered stubs. As an experienced editor, you ought to know that articles are marked as stubs both using stub templates in the article itself and with article assessments on the talk pages. When de-stubbing, you should also update the assessments on the talk page. WP:DESTUB – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 11:29, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

• Each project has its own criteria for article status, and I am not in a position to investigate them all. I have a week to work through the 1000 longest stubs. There is not much correlation between the status on the articles and those on the talk pages, and indeed it appears not many projects are actually active. It is quite possible for the same article to have a different status on different projects - like this one New Ross (UK Parliament constituency) - the last one I did. If someone on a project thinks I've got it wrong then please correct me. Rathfelder (talk) 11:34, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
  • I understand you position and, having read the discussion above (@Flickerd and Schwede66: courtesy ping), agree to a degree. In principle, each WP has its own assessment scale. In practice however, they seem to agree, especially in the low-end of the scale. I understand that you hesitate to update the ratings because doing so on a lot of pages means it's either prohibitively time consuming or leads to getting some assessments wrong. But what you're doing now is bound to end up with the wrong result every time. Stub templates and WP ratings are not supposed to disagree. While as a WP:VOLUNTEER you don't have to assess on the talk page, the guideline says you should. It's a bit like volunteering to add opening brackets of wls and transclusions but neverminding to close them, to be honest... a job half done that leaves behind a mess.

I'm not in a position to tell you what to do, other than follow our guidelines, but since this issue has been brought up a couple of times now, something should change. If I were you, I'd WP:BOLDly change each project's Stub rating to Start. If individual projects' members disagree with that assessment, then great, they can revise it to a more accurate one. But right now everyone including you agree that these are not stubs and should not be called Stubs in the assessment. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 12:03, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

This should be a two way process. The last article I did Nebraska gubernatorial election, 1924 was rated start class by the project, but left as a stub on the article. 1973 Philadelphia Eagles season was rated start class by three separate projects - all of which left the stub on the article. I think this is a bigger problem than me. I'd like to see the two linked together. But I also find the common criteria for start class "An article that is developing, but which is quite incomplete. It might or might not cite adequate reliable sources." completely subjective. I don't want to get into arguments with people from projects who will not a lot more about these subjects than I do. I'm using very simple criteria - any article in the top 1000 longest stubs is not a stub unless there is something unusual about it - like a big infobox or a blank table.Rathfelder (talk) 12:20, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

I absolutely agree: as long as we have two separate places for tagging article as stubs, there will be discrepancies and I've certainly seen them before. My gut instinct here is simply that if we don't think something is a stub, it's at minimum a start. It's expected that some project members will disagree, but my instinct is that in the vast majority of cases they won't. When they do, you too already agree that the project rating scale should take precedence, so it doesn't really sound like a particularly bitter fight. Personally I wish that ratings below GA will be handled by mw:ORES in the future. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 12:56, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Would you say that It's Like, You Know... is a stub? User:IJBall does - but he's using the project definition of a stub - which is not quite the same as WP:STUB Rathfelder (talk) 21:28, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

First, I would like to second Finnusertop, above – if you're going to remove stub tags then you also need to change the Talk page assessments at the same time. Second, in general, I find that you have been too aggressive in removing stub tags – you are removing them from articles that are just 1 or 2 sentences long (e.g. Jagger Eaton's Mega Life), or from articles that have just 1 real secondary source (e.g. It's Like, You Know...). Again, as per "all very-bad-quality articles will fall into this [stub] category" (which while not mentioned directly in WP:STUB, is mentioned in pretty much every WP assessment criteria I've ever seen...), we should only be removing 'stub' tags from articles that have 10 or more sentences and at least 2 or 3 good quality secondary sources. For an article like It's Like, You Know..., finding 1 or 2 additional sources shouldn't be that hard – in fact, that has been on my mental "To Do" list (I just haven't gotten around to it...). Just add 1 or 2 more sources to that one, and I agree that it will graduate to 'Start' class. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 21:35, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

• I don't think your approach is consistent with the policy outlined in WP:STUB, which says nothing about quality or references. It is true that that approach is taken by most projects - which is why I think it is right to treat the stub assessment at the bottom of the article as having different criteria from that applied by the projects. And it is quite common to be assessed differently by different projects. Rathfelder (talk) 21:42, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

No – the article assessment and the Talk page assessment should be in harmony. Further, the WP assessments on the Talk page should also be in harmony with each other – the only exception to that might be B-class vs. C-class assessments which might be different for different projects. But if an article is a 'Stub', it should be marked 'Stub' for all the listed WP's on the Talk page; ditto if 'Start' class. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 21:54, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

You can say that they should be, but they often aren't. And I take the WP:STUB policy as taking precedence over the policies of individual projects, each of which is at liberty to determine its own policies. Rathfelder (talk) 21:57, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

That's an WP:Other stuff exists argument – just because some people are removing stub-tags but not updating the Talk page assessment doesn't mean you should. Frankly, you are probably going to start getting reverted just on the basis of removing stub tags without updating the Talk page assessments. Bottom line: WP:STUB and the WP assessments are supposed to work together – you're not supposed to pay attention to one, while ignoring the other. If an editor changes the WP assessments from 'Stub' to 'Start' on the Talk page, then they're supposed to remove the 'Stub'-tag from the article itself, and visa versa. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 22:07, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

I think you want to shoot the messenger. I would say that in a very substantial minority of the stub articles I deal with - and I only deal systematically with the 1000 longest stubs - there are discrepancies between the stub categories on the article and those applied by the various projects. I haven't caused those discrepancies. And I don't actually see any policy which says they should work together, nor any harm if they don't. Each project is free to set its own policies. They are not forced to adopt the WP:STUB policy. Rathfelder (talk) 22:17, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

• Sadly, I think most of these projects are inactive. I have destubbed at least 10,000 articles and only half a dozen people from projects have ever raised this as an issue. Rathfelder (talk) 09:46, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

• Articles may be stubs for any of several reasons. Those include both a stub tag on the mainspace page, or a project rating on the talk: page. The overall assessment "Is this a stub?" is subjective, contextual, and depends on whether it's pessimistic or optimistic (can any one of these indicate stubs, or must all indicate stubs?) and also on which projects are seen as both in scope and reasonably up to date. As project ratings are almost never updated, I would place a very low weight on them. There's also the aspect that some projects might have different criteria or rating levels - "unsourced" varies a lot between BLP and others, or the quality of a source is regarded differently between contemporary politics and early medieval politics.

This issue is utterly trivial and a serious waste of time. If Rathfelder is removing stub tags from articles where they meet some basic level of sourcing, then thankyou for that. If you want to still see these as "only stubs" because you apply your own subjective rating to them based on more particular tests, or just because they have a project rating on the talk: page too, then feel free to judge them how you wish. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:59, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

• The point of marking articles as stubs is presumeably to help editors prioritise their work. In active projects that seems to work well. But I can't see what is achieved by marking articles with pages of information - however poor - as stubs. But if anyone wants to revert what I do that is up to them. I am not going to fight about it. Rathfelder (talk) 10:07, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Community consensus

I think we have reached a consensus along the following line: when a stub tag is removed from an article, any stub assessment on the talk page should at least be upgraded to start class. That would mirror the expectation of those editors who have commented above. If an article is of a higher class than start, that should be attended to by members of the respective Wikiproject. If anyone gives Rathfelder grief about updating an assessment to start class in line with this consensus, this discussion can be referred to. I suggest that captures the essence of what has been discussed.

• Support as nominator. Schwede66 19:10, 4 April 2018 (UTC)
• Well that's fine. But does this policy only apply to me? I'd say at least 100 of the 1000 stubs I just worked through had been upgraded to Start status on the talk page, but the article was still marked as a stub. Unless we find a way of tying the two together there is not much point worrying about it. Rathfelder (talk) 10:27, 5 April 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose Of course there's no such consensus.

An editor removing the stub tag(s) might remove such a rating as outdated, they might choose to re-evaluate the article entirely, but stubbiness for either reason is independent. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:26, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

• I dont think my talk page is the place to establish a community concensus. Rathfelder (talk) 16:45, 5 April 2018 (UTC)
• Absolutely support that. (Note: This is independent of whether I agree with Rathfelder's opinion on upgrading from 'Stub' to 'Start' – but if you're going to remove the stub tag, the Talk page also needs to be updated.) The other option, of course, is for Rathfelder to drop this particular line of editing on their part, and perhaps actually try to tackle some genuine article improvement (e.g. adding sourcing) instead. There are plenty of us that are also keeping an eye on article assessment for various reasons, and we are certainly able to tackle this particular task ourselves. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 17:16, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

Some tips for contributing to CfD

I noticed that User:BrownHairedGirl is becoming a bit desperate about your nominations, and presumably this is not a fun situation for you either. Here are some tips which might help preventing clashes between the two of you:

• If you see something that you think is wrong, avoid proposing deletion as much as possible. Renaming or merging is often more appropriate and helpful than deletion.
• If you think something needs to be merged, propose upmerging rather than downmerging. With downmerge, nearly always there will be content for which the downmerge would be inappropriate. With upmerge you will not have that problem.
• If you think something needs to be upmerged, make sure that all parent categories are included in the nomination as merge targets (or make sure you have a good reason not to include all of the parents).
• Check siblings in all parent categories to see if they need to be co-nominated.
• Indent your contributions to discussions properly. If you react on someone's contribution in particular, start with the same amount of colons as their contribution + 1.

Hopefully this helps. If you have any further questions, just contact me on my talk page. Marcocapelle (talk) 06:49, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

All good advice, @Marcocapelle

I would also add to Rathfelder:

• Do the prep work. Read relevant articles, ask at talk pages, do google searches, ask at WikiProjects. Your own assessments are repeatedly deficient, so you need to do a lot more prep and a lot more pre-CFD discussion.
• study the WP:CFDS criteria and how to make valid CFDS nominations, so that you don't clutter the full CFD discussions with stuff which does not need to be there
• When you do a full CfD, notify relevant WikiProjects. (e.g. I notified WP:MILHIST about CfD 2018 April 10#Category:Irregular_units_and_formations, which brought several knowledgeable replies

Please remember that a full CFD imposes a burden on the community. If the idea is ill-considered (or just plain daft), then other editors need to take time to explain why, to avoid the CFD proceeding by default. And someone then has to close the discussion, untag the categories, etc etc. All of this is a drain on the time and energies of a dwindling community of editors.

I do have to say that there is a long-term pattern noted by several others that you repeatedly convey little or no comprehension of the issues involved in the topics you nominate, or convey a serious miscomprehension. I'm sorry to have to be blunt, but this looks to me like a WP:COMPETENCE issue. I have no doubt that you mean well, and you are commendably civil even when under pressure, but your ability to make well-founded CFDs nominations does not seem to be improving. Sure you do some good simpler noms, but far too many are v poor. I hope that I am wrong about WP:COMPETENCE, and that you are simply working too fast.

This has happened before at both CfD and AfD. In several cases the community has said to such editors "enough": the signal-to-noise ratio here is too low. My latest round of CFD backlog clearance has brought me close to the point of investing the time to make that case here. I really wouldn't like doing that, so I hope you do take on board Marcocapelle's suggestions and his kind offer of help.

Best wishes, --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:05, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

BrownHairedGirl, just a note to say that Rathfelder's talk page is on my watchlist as I also have competence concerns. Schwede66 21:09, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, @Schwede66. You were not one of the editors who I had in mind when I noted above that others shared my concerns about competence, so it's interesting to see that the disquiet is more widespread.

Similar concerns eventually led to Stephanomione being indefinitely topic banned from participation at WP:CFD and from creating or changing categories and to Johnpacklambert being indefinitely banned from nominating any articles at WP:AFD to a maximum of ONE article in any given calendar day. (The latter was a compromise proposal by me when a complete AFD ban for JPL seemed possible, but to my eyes a bit too harsh). I hope that what has been posted here, esp Marcocapelle's offer of assistance, will help avert similar escalation here. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:09, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

• I just spotted Rathfelder's latest reply[1] to me at CfD 2018 April 10#Category:Irregular_units_and_formations. I have responded there [2], but in this more private venue I'll note that it raises 5 related competence issues:
  1. not knowing how to post a WP:DIFF. After 13 years and 145K edits, the lack of that skill that is v surprising
  2. asking at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 145#Categorisation_of_informal_military_organisations questions which are far too broad and open to allow easy reply.
  3. When there was no reply after a few days, not formulating a more focused followup before the section was archived
  4. Citing that as prep work for the nomination to place all irregular units and formations under militias, an idea which is not even hinted at in your unanswered post
  5. Not mentioning the unanswered MILHIST post until your 3rd response to the discussion on your nom. If it was genuinely intended as prep work for the nom, it should have been linked from the nominator's rationale.

I can see once again how you meant well ... and once again how the way this was done was so multiply flawed that it was not going to work.

I'm sorry, Rathfelder, that this probably feels like a pile-on. I really do not want to be mean; I just hope it is better to raise these points here than to wait until someone brings it to ANI, and that you will be able to take this on board. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:22, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

• I thought Categories for discussion was for discussing categories. Clearly I was wrong and I will stop trying to discuss them. Rathfelder (talk) 22:21, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

Notes on copyright and autopatrolled

@Diannaa:, you posted a note about copyright on this user's talk page the other day (linked to below to keep things in chronological order). There's a few things that you should know:

• Rathfelder has been around for 11 years.
• One of the first notices on his talk page was about a copyviolation (turns out that he held the copyright for the content copied from an external website so it was rather a COI situation)
• Rathfelder deletes talk page items rather than archives them, which makes it more difficult to trace past behaviour or warnings
• Here's a list of prior copyright notices (no guarantees that it's complete):

• November 2014
• December 2014
• August 2015
• April 2017 (you posted that warning)
• August 2018 (you posted that warning)
• 15 November 2018
• 20 November 2018 (your recent warning)

With such a string of warnings about copyright, it is inappropriate for Rathfelder to be autopatrolled and I shall remove that flag. You might want to have a closer look at the underlying pattern of copyright infringements. Schwede66 18:19, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

• This item::*15 November 2018 was nothing to do with me. I just moved this text from the article about Rwanda into its own article. The first warning first notices was text I had written on my own personal website which I transferred into the article. There was no conflict of interest nor any copyright problem.Rathfelder (talk) 19:32, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

  There's two recent violations of the copyright policy for which I issued warnings: 10 August 2018 and 20 November 2018. Rathfelder, you are aware that unattributed copying or moving content within Wikipedia is not okay, and you have been working on that. If you need more info on that topic please have a look at WP:Copying within Wikipedia. I remind you that we have an automated system in place that helps us detect copyright issues, so if you continue violating the copyright policy it will likely get detected, and unfortunately a block will be the result. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 20:51, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

• I understand that. But I would point out that the warning you issued in August was in respect of something I posted in 2014. So I have made one mistake this year and one last year.

When I move material, as I have been doing recently, from one Wikipedia page to another I always leave a note on both pages, as I just did with List of hospitals in the Federated States of Micronesia. Is that OK? Rathfelder (talk) 22:03, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

You are correct – the August warning was for an edit performed back in 2014 that was discovered while investigating another matter. So my note was recent, but the edit itself was not. Regarding attribution: posting on the talk pages is okay, but optional. An edit summary that provides attribution is the part that's mandatory. Here is an example edit summary. If you can't do it (or forget to do it) at the time you add the content, make a small but useful edit and do it in the edit summary for that edit. That's what I do when I discover these when patrolling. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 23:01, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

• It now appears that there was no copyright issue with the Rwanda article. So may I have my autopatrol status restored?Rathfelder (talk) 14:11, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

• Yes, I think that would be appropriate. I'll restore it. Schwede66 17:29, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

• Thank you very much. I can't guarantee that I will never breach the rule, but I do try quite hard not to. Rathfelder (talk) 18:10, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

DYK for Ospedale degli Incurabili, Venice

On 3 January 2019, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Ospedale degli Incurabili, Venice, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that the Ospedale degli Incurabili in Venice, where Johann Adolph Hasse was maestro di cappella, was founded as a hospice for sufferers from syphilis and other incurable diseases of the time? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Ospedale degli Incurabili, Venice. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Ospedale degli Incurabili, Venice), 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.

— Maile (talk) 00:01, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	Good work on spotting and nominating the articles which fail our guidelines. It improves WP. Störm (talk) 16:26, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Community health NHS trusts

Hi, Rathfelder, I notice that you've been changing the tagging of some community health NHS trusts. As you know this isn't a separate legal form - there are only NHS trusts. My main concern is that of how we're defining community trusts. Is it those that provide exclusively community services or those that hold community services contracts (which number a great deal more)? I'm just not sure it's a helpful category! With very best wishes, Millstream3 (talk) 10:49, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

• There aren't, legally, mental health trusts either. I'm not sure the best way to do it, but I dont think its very helpful either to just call them all NHS trusts. I suppose we could have overlapping categories. We could set up categories like "organisations with NHS mental health contracts" which would include private providers. And integration makes it all more complicated. What do you think? It's a pity the NHS project seems to have died. Rathfelder (talk) 11:02, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

• On reflection, I think "organisations with XX contract" would be too much of a job to keep up to date. "Organisations, the majority of whose activity is XX" is probably what we're aiming for, and I think that's what you've done, isn't it? (I'll get my coat.) Millstream3 (talk) 17:46, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
• I'm expecting some NHS reforms this year. I thought of revisiting this when we know what will happen next. Rathfelder (talk) 18:44, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for being one of Wikipedia's top medical contributors!

please help translate this message into your local language via meta

The 2019 Cure Award

In 2019 you were one of the top ~300 medical editors across any language of Wikipedia. Thank you from Wiki Project Med for helping bring free, complete, accurate, up-to-date health information to the public. We really appreciate you and the vital work you do! Wiki Project Med Foundation is a thematic organization whose mission is to improve our health content. Consider joining here, there are no associated costs.

Thanks again :-) -- Doc James along with the rest of the team at Wiki Project Med Foundation 18:35, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Joseph Beverly Fenby not a "writer from Liverpool"

Hi Rathfelder, I see that you updated Joseph Beverley Fenby to indicate he was a writer from Liverpool. He was, however, an engineer / inventor / designer, who had many patents for engineering mechanisms / furniture / valves / lamps / locks / etc. While he did write a few journal articles on the social conditions of the working class in the Midlands and newspaper articles on water/road infrastructure (and a (commissioned) report on the mechanisms in a particular rifle), these were in the context of his role as an mechanical engineer (with a strong interest in civil engineering). He was not a "writer" in the normal sense of the word — he would still be described as an "engineer", not a "writer".

I've undone the edit. Let me know if you feel I shouldn't have and you have some more evidence for categorising him as a "writer". I'm (very slowly) writing a book on Fenby and have a lot of info on his background and works, so I would be genuinely interested in hearing anything of a writing career (other than the articles I already know about and mentioned above).

ElectricFeet (talk) 13:12, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Apologies. I think I was pasting in categories and got the wrong one. Do you know which part of Liverpool he came from? Rathfelder (talk) 15:40, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks Rathfelder. On the baptism record, it says Field Street, Everton. But the family had moved away from Liverpool by the time of the 1851 Census and he doesn't seem to have gone back. His father (Joseph Fenby Sr) was a teacher — and a pretty bad one, by all accounts, so they moved around a lot. The family seems more attached to Beverley, where his father was born and whose name Joseph Fenby Jr added to his own, presumably to distinguish himself from another Joseph Fenby who was around at the time (and is to be found in the records). He spent most of his life and raised a family in the Midlands. ElectricFeet (talk) 20:11, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

William Weston Edits

Cheers Rathfielder. you recently made some edits to William Weston and deleted some categories while adding some others. However, you deleted the American civil engineer's category. I have no qualm with the other edits but given his work in the United States during that period, I would like to recognize him as an American civil engineer and restore the category. Cheers Risk Engineer (talk) 15:01, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

These categories generally are supposed to relate to the nationality of the subject - Category:Engineers by nationality - but I'm inclined to think that the place where they do the work for which they are notable is just as defining, and sometimes more so. Rathfelder (talk) 15:45, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Category:Phang Nga F.C. has been nominated for deletion

Category:Phang Nga F.C., which you created, has been nominated for deletion. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Oculi (talk) 17:54, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Query about deleted categories

Dear Rathfelder, I noticed that in the article about Richard Peacock, you added two new categories -- "People from Richmondshire (district)"‎ and "Engineers from Yorkshire" -- which seems fine to me -- but you also deleted their predecessor categories, "People from North Yorkshire" and "English engineers", which I would have thought worthy of retention. Could you please let me know your thinking on this, for my learning? Cheers, SCHolar44 (talk) 04:01, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

• What I added are subcategories of what I deleted. Generally you put articles only in the most exact category you can. Otherwise top level categories, like Category:People, would be immense. But you also need to know about Categorization#Non-diffusing_subcategories. Rathfelder (talk) 10:35, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

• That topic is no longer there. Do you have another link?SCHolar44 (talk) 12:05, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Sorry. Try this WP:DUPCAT But be warned. Categorisation is not an exact science. Rathfelder (talk) 12:08, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Category:United Kingdom business law has been nominated for renaming

Category:United Kingdom business law, which you created, has been nominated for renaming. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:41, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Johnny Maxted

I live in the area, I know where they are, thanks. And Boston Spa Academy is unreferened and also WP:WIKIPEDIAISNOTARELIABLESOURCE. GiantSnowman 17:56, 6 April 2020 (UTC) So why do you think he is not from Tadcaster? Rathfelder (talk) 17:57, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Re: Elon Musk

Thanks, you're absolutely right – I must have been tired and thought it was an inclusion, not a removal of content. BeŻet (talk) 16:14, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Category:Schoolteachers from Dublin

Have you been changing Letterpress font foundries to Letterpress font foundries of the United States as if, just because a foundry is in the US it isn't a foundry? --Dutchman Schultz (talk) 10 April 2020 (UTC)

• Its a basic principle of the categorisation system that articles ar put in the most exact category, and not, normally, in superior categories. Category:Letterpress font foundries, like most similar categories, is subdivided by country. Rathfelder (talk) 14:52, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Category:Record labels of Burundi

A tag has been placed on Category:Record labels of Burundi requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the category has been empty for seven days or more and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. UnitedStatesian (talk) 02:43, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Dublin categories

Hi Rathfelder

Thank you for eventually withdrawing Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2020 April 8#Category:People_by_city_or_town_in_County_Dublin.

I then took a look at your latest edits[3], and spot-checked them. I see lots of problems:

1. [4] to -William Edward Hartpole Lecky -- wrong. He is not from Dublin city.
2. [5] to Alicia Sheridan Le Fanu -- wrong. Nothing to say she was from the city rather than the county.
3. [6] to Richard Leech -- wrong. Article does not say specifically that he was from the city.
4. [7] to William Leet -- wrong. Article is explicit that he is from Dalkey, not from the city.
5. [8] to Dionysius Lardner-- wrong. Article does not say specifically that he was from the city.
6. [9] to Suzy Lawlor -- wrong. Article does not say specifically that she was from the city.

And so on. Those 5 examples are only from spot checks of the the first 20 edits. That is a 30% error rate, without even checking the full set.

It is abundantly clear that you simply do not understand what you are doing here. Please revert your edits, and assure me that you will stop any further categorisation of Irish topics ... or I will take this to ANI to seek a topic ban.

Pinging @Oculi and Marcocapelle, who were party to the CFD discussion. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:06, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

• Before 1994 there was no distinction between the city and the county, as I understand it, so the sources almost all say they came from the County of Dublin. but I saw nothing in those articles to suggest that the people came from the places which are now in distinct counties. It appeared much more likely that they came from what is now the city. But if I'm wrong I will change them. But to say they are from somewhere may not mean that they were born there.

Lecky appears to have published his works in Dublin. We dont have an article on "Newtown Park, near Dublin", but there is now a park of that name near Dún Laoghaire, so perhaps that is where he was born.

William Leet is categorised as from Dalkey already. Perhaps we should alter Category:Military personnel from Dublin (city)‎ to County Dublin?

There is nothing in the article about Alicia Sheridan Le Fanu to say where she is from at all, but her parents appear to have been living in the city when she was born.

The article on Dionysius Lardner says " Whilst in Dublin, Lardner began to write and lecture on scientific and mathematical matters, and to contribute articles for publication by the Irish Academy"

The article on Suzy Lawlor again says nothing about where she lived or was born, but she made her theatre debut for Semper Fi Theatre Company at the Dublin Theatre. Rathfelder (talk) 15:11, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Rathfelder, it would have been helpful if you had pinged me in your reply.

Before I go any further, let me just just take your statement Before 1994 there was no distinction between the city and the county. That is absolutely complete and utter nonsense, and a brief study of the relevant Wikipedia articles would have shown you that it is nonsense.

• Dublin city has a history going back to at least the 10th century, and the city boundaries were first defined in about 1171. See Dublin#Middle_Ages: " King Henry II of England affirmed his ultimate sovereignty by mounting a larger invasion in 1171 and pronounced himself Lord of Ireland.[31] Around this time, the county of the City of Dublin was established along with certain liberties adjacent to the city proper. "
• County Dublin was established in the 1190s. It's in the infobox.

So you launched into a long bout of major categorisation on the basis of an assumption which was basically 800 years out of date, and which a minute or two of reading would have shown you is false. That is appallingly poor editing. So I repeat: It is abundantly clear that you simply do not understand what you are doing here. Please revert your edits, and assure me that you will stop any further categorisation of Irish topics ... or I will take this to ANI to seek a topic ban. That is the last time I will make the request. If this continues, I will take this further.

Now, to the examples.

One point which you repeatedly miss is that the phrase "from Dublin" is a ambiguous: it can refer to either the city, or to the much wider area of the county. You are clearly unaware of this ... which is one of the many reasons why you should not be categorising articles in relation to a geography which you clearly know nothing about.

Many of the sources are imprecise about this, and the articles often reflect that ambiguity. So when an article says "She was from Dublin", you cannot assume that this means the city. So unless there is clarity in the sources, use the broader county.

• Lecky appears to have published his works in Dublin. Publishers cluster in cities. They don';t publish only people from that precise local govt area.
  We don't have an article on 'Newtown Park, near Dublin', but there is now a park of that name near Dún Laoghaire, so perhaps that is where he was born.. Exactly: Newtown park was within the boundaries of what is now Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown. But you didn't check that before categorising.
• William Leet: you write William leet is categorised as from Dalkey already. Perhaps we should alter Category:Military personnel from Dublin (city)‎. Dalkeyt is nt in Dublin city. It is about 7 miles away. So why on earth did you categorise him as being from the city?
• There is nothing in the article about Alicia Sheridan Le Fanu to say where she is from at all, but her parents appear to have been living in the city when she was born. Per WP:CATVER, if it's not in the article and backed by sources, you should not be categorising by it. That is a is very very basic principle of Wikipedia categorisation, and it's shocking that you are doing so much categorisation without being aware of that.
• The article on Dionysius Lardner says " Whilst in Dublin, Lardner began to write and lecture on scientific and mathematical matters, and to contribute articles for publication by the Irish Academy". Again, the phrase "in Dublin" is ambiguous.
• The article on Suzy Lawlor again says nothing about where she lived or was born, but she made her theatre debut for Semper Fi Theatre Company at the Dublin Theatre. Lemme unpick that:
  1. The article on Suzy Lawlor again says nothing about where she lived or was born ... but you categorised her despite that lack of info. For goodness sake, that's no way to categorise.
  2. she made her theatre debut for Semper Fi Theatre Company at the Dublin Theatre. The article also says that she was born in 1984 and graduated in 2005, so she's not some medieval character; she reached adulthood in the 21st-century.. Ireland is not in the stone age: we have roads, cars, bicycles, buses, trains (including one of the world's first railway lines), and people commute daily to Dublin from over a dozen counties. So the fact that her stage debut was in Dublin tells us only that she was capable of travelling there. (I live over 100 miles from Dublin in a county which borders the west coast, and I have to cross 4 other counties to get to Dublin on east coast, but I can still get there in under 2 hours if I choose my timing).

Enough already. It is abundantly clear that you simply do not understand what you are doing here. Please revert your edits, and assure me that you will stop any further categorisation of Irish topics ... or I will take this to ANI to seek a topic ban. --BrownHairedGirl "from Dublin" is a ambiguous • (contribs) 17:06, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

• I entirely accept that "from Dublin" is ambiguous. I've done my best to put people into the most appropriate categories, but it is not unusual that many articles say little precise about geography. You dont seem to take into account that all these articles were already categorised, and for some of them there was nothing in the article to support the category they were already in. As far as I was concerned this was a large project, and not finished at all. However I will now regretfully abandon it. Rathfelder (talk) 18:46, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Again, its a pity that you didn't have the courtesy to ping me in your reply.
    I am well aware that some of those articles were categorised in ways which failed WP:CATVER. But that is no excuse for you inventing your own facts to pile new breaches of policy on top of the existing failures. And I am very sad to see that you don't even acknowledge that the entire basis of your efforts was patent nonsense. Everyone screws up sometimes, but failure to acknowledge that is a bad sign.
    I welcome your assurance that you will abandon this, but I am sad to see that you don't make any commitment to undo the damage which you have already done. Cleaning up after your errors is a very basic indication of good fath, and the lack of that cleanup is bad news. It means that other editors have to devote their time to cleaning up after you.
    since you have agreed to stop messing around with the Dublin categories, I will not take this to ANI at this time. But as noted above, this is far from the first time that your work on categories has been so grossly deficient as to be disruptive. If there is a recurrence, I may take that to ANI, and cite this sorry saga as part of the long trail of evidence of how the problems are long-standing. i urge you to reconsider your whole involvement with categories. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:28, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
• I dont feel confident that I could do any more work cleaning up in this area without annoying you more. BrownHairedGirl Rathfelder (talk) 20:38, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
  • As already requested, a slew of self-reverts would be a massive help. And BTW, your mangled copy-paste[10] of my sig didn't work as a ping, because a ping has to be in a new post. See WP:PING for how to do a ping. Note that I removed[11] the unclosed <small> tag which you inserted into your post. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:50, 11 April 2020 (UTC)