User talk:SandyGeorgia

On calling it like you see it

Hi Sandy, just a note (without commenting on others feelings), that you telling my way back when that one of my articles "needed serious literary intervention" was something I needed to hear and probably the most useful feedback I have gotten here. Thanks for not being afraid to speak your mind. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 21:40, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I seem to separate the lamb from the sheep, and reveal the pure-hearted and worthy of keeping as friends; I enjoy your articles, and glad my non-invective was of some service. Bst, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:43, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Checking in

Hello again. Apologies for leaving yet another random message on your talk page. I just wanted to pop in to say that I hope everything is going well with you both on- and off-Wiki. I have noticed all of the discussions taking place on the WP:FAC talk page, but I honestly just do not have the capacity to really wade into any of that.

I know that it can be tricky to have discussions about how to improve the FAC process and space, and I wish you the best of luck with it. Apologies for not being any real help with that. I am currently taking somewhat of a break from Wikipedia and limiting my activity to working on projects in my sandbox (so mostly taking a step back from reviewing and such).

On a super random note, I am thinking of picking up Spanish again. I only mention it because I believe you are a Spanish speaker (and if I am wrong, then apologies for that). I have a decent grasp on it from a few years of classes in high school and college, but it would be fun (and very useful in general) to get back into it. Anyway, rambling aside, I hope you have a great rest of your weekend! Aoba47 (talk) 02:27, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Aoba! It's always nice to hear from you. Yes, I learned Spanish as an adult, and speak it today at an almost native level (I am usually asked if I am Cuban by native Spanish speakers, probably because my secretary in Venezuela, while I was learning, was Cuban, and I took a lot from her). It's a very easy language to learn; it's all in the attitude (just dig in and go for it)! One thing that I did while learning was to play the radio and television non-stop in the background, which tuned up my ear and jogged me to look up phrases I didn't know. Of course, these days, you have wonderful other options, like YouTube! Bst, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:01, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the response. I completely agree that positive attitude is always best when learning a new language (and really anything in general). It is fun to use music, television, and different forms of media in general with language learning. It just makes it feel more alive and interactive. There are so many resources. I am not too worried about it. Just have to fit into my schedule lol. Aoba47 (talk) 02:15, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

FAC history and culture

Posting here to encourage discussion on a safe page; I am contemplating whether to work this in to an Essay page, or accept the inevitable decline. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:58, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

At FAC, the objection to "Done" tick marks came before the transclusion limits problem impacting FAC archive pages was discovered. On the template limits problem, when I was doing a month-end tally, I couldn't figure out why the total nominations listed in a file were off, until I realized the last FACs on the archive pages were dropping off, so the number of FACs promoted and archived didn't match what showed on the page. After I went through and deleted some of the tick marks, they dropped nominations re-appeared.

But before that, there was a problem with the "done" tickmarks, because they rendered the pages a) too long, and b) meaningless and jumbled for me (the only closer at the time) in terms of knowing what was actually done. For a nominator to take space on a FAC page to state that something is done isn't helpful; it's not "done" until the reviewer indicates they are satisfied. And back then, the way a reviewer indicated "done" was by striking the objection. So we were getting unhelpful and unnecessary "done" tickmarks, followed by reviewers striking, resulting in lengthy FACs and impossible-to-read jumbles. That's the background on the tickmarks.

The entirely separate, and cultural, issue leading to impossible-to-sort FACs also has several different components (and I suspect that Mike Christie and I define "regulars" on the page differently, as my list includes those who have been so alienated they won't return until the problems are addressed, and most of these problems are unknown to newer "regulars", who know nothing else but the system now on the page).

One component is that new participants, when first approaching FAC, wlll today find an over-complicated, indecipherable and at times unloadable page, and be put off. Reviews have declined; the off-puttting page doesn't help. Compare any FAC page today with, for example, a page at AFD, DYK, GAN-- any other forum-- and it becomes clearer why editors may avoid engaging. Page functioning and instructions are unclear, and the entry barrier is high. So a walled garden effect predominates, and those who have the long-standing presence or prominence in the process to attract their own reviewers are happy with the system because their articles are getting promoted, while overall the page is stalled and clogged. Current "regulars" have no reason to object to this dysfunction, because they are getting their bronze stars. So we are left with a self-perpetuating dysfunctional process, in decline. As one indication of the content areas in decline, the (FAC stats tool, Long and short FACs, sort by supports) shows that three biomedical FACs historically had the most and fastest unopposed support (Tim Vickers and SandyGeorgia, see Tourette syndrome, DNA, Bacteria, and by the way, the top support count at Samuel Johnson). In my last medical FAC, I had to bring my own reviewers. Never mind that I spent years selflessly reviewing the most boring MilHist, ship, hurricane, pop culture, or any other kind of article possible; a MilHist regular declined to review a medical article because it was outside of their area. A medical article today can't buy a review. And yet, there was resistance when I suggested the process has become too MilHist oriented, and that once thriving areas of FA growth have gone completely missing.

Another cultural issue is the old mantra that "FAC is not peer review", has been replaced by the new culture, where FAC most clearly is functioning as peer review (to the detriment of the actual Peer review process, as "old-timers" used to go there, and they no longer do, as PR has moved to FAC). The FAC pages were simpler in the past (see my previous point) because you either Supported, Opposed, or entered limited commentary. If you had to engage the extended PR that is now happening on FAC, the convention instead was that you gave only a few examples of the deficiencies, suggested what was needed (a copyedit, better sourcing, whatever), and Opposed. Under that scheme, the process worked MUCH faster than it does today, as sub-standard FACs were moved quickly off the page (under two weeks was my goal), which allowed them to return faster and be promoted quicker than today. You can poke around in the FAC stats tool (eg, year summaries, average durations) that Mike developed (I believe partly in response to my long-standing concerns in this area), and you can see the evidence for these concerning trends. (I used to be attacked for "no evidence" for these statements I knew very well to be true, having read FAC top-to-bottom near daily for seven years-- Mike's stats show them clearly.) For ten years, we've had longer (but not necessarily better) FACs, of longer duration, with a higher promotion rate (ie, more sub-standard promotions being pulled through by brute force). "Old-timers" aren't going to engage a page where they are forced to return over and over again to address comments on sub-standard article nominations that should be archived with content re-worked via the peer review process.

An entirely separate cultural matter is the leadership role, somewhat related to institutional memory (moi). The archiveN issue has surfaced several times over the years (mostly at FAR), and needed to be addressed. I am perhaps the only institutional memory who could have answered those questions, and the discussion needed to happen at FAC (rather than on a subpage) precisely for the reasons of institutional memory (keep it in FAC archives-- I'm not getting any younger, and that institutional memory needs to be preserved). Unfortunately, that long discussion happened to coincide with several others, and 60% of my posts over four days were dealing with deferred housekeeping, including discovering that no one was watching the page archivals and important threads had even disappeared from the archive search tool. Perhaps in hindsight, we might have moved that discussion to a subpage, but there's already a problem of institutional memory, so it's just unfortunate that Mathglot's query contributed to a perfect storm of page overload. (One of the Coord roles is to keep an eye on overall page functioning, and if that is done, we wouldn't have to overwork to catch up on problems.)

And then another cultural issue is that many "old-timers" did not pick and choose which FAC to review based on their personal topic preferences; they chose based on a desire to preserve the overall status of the bronze star overall (many also active at WP:FAR, doing selfless work, rather than reward-culture seeking via new personal stars at FAC only). To best help the process overall, they engaged the entire FAC page; they/we have no interest in viewing the page via a nomination viewer, whereby they can pick one FAC to review. They/we WANT to be able to read the entire page, see trends, spot problems, decide then where their engagement is most needed.

So, all of that combines to show how the dysfunction has accumulated towards the overall decline in the FA process, which has real consequences-- what brought me back temporarily to the page. We have excellent editors and reviewers, like Vaticidalprophet, caught in this "cultural war" and completely unaware of what other-functioning of FAC looked like. Vaticidalprophet says here, that they'd likely have no FACs if we went back to more expedient archivals. That they would have more FAs, better review, and quicker FAs if the page were functioning properly is something completely unknown to newer participants, as they have no experience of the page as it was before, with more engaged reviewers, and quicker turnaround.

The number of FAs has now declined to the point that FAC can't feed the needs of TFA, so saving older stars via FAR and URFA/2020 has had to fill the gap. Re-runs at TFA were once extremely rare; now they are essential, as there aren't regularly enough FAs to feed 365 annual TFAs without them. The overall process is failing, but the "currents" are happy as they are getting their stars, and critics are shunned.

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:03, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I will say that outside of PMC, who I review because I know her work is high-quality and fashion is an underrepresented topic, I do source reviews at whichever article seems interesting to me. -- Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 20:52, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed (Ealdgyth and I thank you :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:55, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Meanwhile, I tend to review whatever shows up in the box above the talk page at a moment where I have plenty of free time. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 09:25, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

At FAR, I am far more likely to invest time in saving an article about a topic I have familiarity with and offline sources about. I was hoping to save Pioneer Zephyr but ran into another editor actively obstructing my improvements to the point I gave up and allowed the article to be delisted. I think this is a problem across FAR - you or I can fix weak prose on any topic assuming we have the sources, but when you need really niche in-depth (and usually offline) sourcing about something obscure, it's a significant challenge. I had enough offline sources I might have been able to make that save work, that is, before I got so frustrated I walked away. Two of my FAs are heavily reliant on offline sources, so in a hypothetical scenario where Providence and Worcester Railroad ended up at FAR and I wasn't around for whatever reason, someone trying to save the article at FAR would be working with one hand behind their back if they didn't have access to the offline-only Edward A. Lewis and Ronald Dale Karr books heavily used for sources, or the Trains Magazine articles. You could apply this to many topic areas. If you asked me to do an FAR at Autism, I would hardly know where to start when it comes to sources. If you asked me to help at say an FAR of a British admiral from the 1700s, I'd be nearly useless because I wouldn't have access to the required sources.

Outside of the dedicated community at MILHIST and a few similar isolated examples, there's not really much of a sense of community in many topic areas; with one exception, nobody else at WP:TRAINS was interested in any of my FACs. Just as Sandy mentions needing to actively recruit reviewers, I have experienced the same necessity to avoid nominations being archived, not because anyone has opposed, but simply because of too few reviewers. Quite frankly, I don't know if I would have been able to get any FACs passed if Guerillero hadn't taken the time to provide a source review on my first nomination, where I was able to learn from my mistakes and come back a second time with an article that sailed through FAC smoothly.

I can't speak to if it has always been this way, but at least in my time here FAC has been an extremely time-consuming process; each FA I have represents dozens of hours of research, writing, and proofreading, and that's before responding to concerns raised by reviewers. Then, I typically spend several months at FAC before attracting enough reviewers to get a promotion. I don't have that level of time available to me anymore (and have lost a lot of interest in editing lately), and so I have stopped participating at FAC for the time being. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 21:17, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I am noting I've seen this and will try to organize my thoughts in the next few days. Bear in mind I no longer have the time for wiki I once did - or rather, I use the time I once spent on wiki on other more productive pastimes. I miss the community and the research but... with more limited time, I have to prioritize on what makes me happy and/or makes me money. Ealdgyth (talk) 23:48, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ealdgyth, I'd be most interested, when you have time, on hearing of any important items related to functioning of the process overall that I may have left out. There's so much more, but I wanted to get a start ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:53, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

One thing that has come up, which I didn't want (yet) to get into, is the relative recent absence of a female presence, compared to the last decade when the very frequent regulars and delegates and reviewers besides me were Karanacs, Dana boomer, Maralia, Nikkimaria, Ealdgyth, Awadewit, Slim Virgin, Moni3, TK ... ok, who'd I leave out ... Raul was certainly a supporter of the women in the process. What became of the gender diversity, along with the topic diversity ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:56, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I am disappointed at our difficulty in recruiting a more balanced editor population, and I wish I had the answers. I have tried to encourage women I know irl to try editing but have had no success. Annie's work with Depths of Wikipedia gives me some hope, however. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 14:24, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That is such a strange thing for FAC old-timers, as there was no doubt that women kept FAC going for years :) For years, I scoffed at the gender idea, thinking others just didn't realize how many we were. Lately, I'm not so sure, but then lately, my bigger concern is the lack of Spanish speakers. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:27, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This is an interesting perspective. It hadn't occurred to me, but it makes sense when you put it like this. I don't have the depth of knowledge on FA that other commenters do, but I would be interested if you did a more detailed write-up of the issues. It sounds like they are a mix of technical and cultural issues? I've found that documenting and suggesting small ways to get started in a process helps with recruitment and retention. That essay is geared towards academics, but some of these ideas have been added to the growth team extension for new users. This is to say: if you have ideas for how to address the problem, I think it would be good to put them down in a central place (or maybe you do and I'm just underinformed) so that others can point to it in the next brainstorming session or as part of training. An essay laying out the problem to be solved is a good place for that! Even if you decide against writing more on this, thanks for the interesting read and new perspective. — Wug·a·po·des 07:53, 18 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Wugapodes; thanks for the feedback and thoughts, but mostly for taking the time to give encouragement. I've had a tough year with my husband's health, and encouragement to bring me back to a happy, optimistic place is appreciated.

Yes, I have tried writing up my thoughts. And tried. And tried.

I wrote User:SandyGeorgia/Achieving excellence through featured content; it was intended to mostly encourage medical writers to come back, but the advice at the bottom applies to all. And to put my money where my mouth is, I spent months getting {{FAC peer review sidebar}} up and running, and responded to every PR there. I gave up; it was making no difference in the FAC problem.
Z1720, Buidhe, Hog Farm and I pushed forward Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2022-01-30/WikiProject report; this was intended to help engage more people in the FA process and remind that the value of the FA star is only as good as the entire pool. FAR operates at a deliberatively slower pace than FAC, and the stakes aren't as high in terms of criticism offending a nominator; we hoped to bring in more people via the backdoor and reinstate the collaboration that once existed across all FA process pages.
User:SandyGeorgia/sandbox4 was my attempt to help make the FAC page move faster; it was ignored (well, that's a mild description of how process change proposals are received at WT:FAC). If people didn't know a time when the process functioned better, they can't appreciate the need to try something new. The FAR page functions smoothly as a deliberative two-phase process; an article doesn't move to the second phase until conditions have been met in the first; the proposal was to move FAC similarly to a two-phase process, where an article doesn't advance until sourcing and copyright status have been vetted, thereby conserving FAC resources devoted to copyedit and other matters until the basics are in place.
I floated User:SandyGeorgia/sandbox11 up to all the FA process Coords, hoping to encourage more diversity and transparency in the Coord selection process; it received less than tepid response. There's no motivation for process change.

I think I've run out of instruments in the box of tools for trying to reinvigorate the process and get it back on track. When the regulars are regularly getting their stars, there's no reason for them to listen or care. And it was that AN thread that you read that prompted me into my last foray into FAC. It's disconcerting that canvassing is no longer canvassing; coordinated editing is no longer a thing; those with a certain POV or personal preference can impose them even upon Featured articles via methods that once would have been shut down as canvassing or coordinated editing, all while the FA process regulars are ensconced in their walled garden, not even realizing that no one cares about their bronze stars anymore.

What was once a beacon towards best practice, exemplifying Wikipedia at its finest, has become a closed, little known or visited corner of Wikipedia where few dare to or care to enter. And if one tries to communicate these issues, the latest trend is to shut down critique via the all-the-latest-rage charge of bludgeoning. S Marshall's response to that charge was one of the best things I've read all year, so at least there's some good news in the overall bleak picture. With increasing needs to focus on health issues at home, I find retirement more and more appealing. I don't know if I have any ummmmph left in me, and find my disappointment coming through in the tone of my posts, so it's probably approaching time for me to move along. Seeing that canvassing is no longer canvassing has made me realize that my views on Wikipedia are probably dated. I appreciate your thorough read and attention to my thoughts. Bst, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:48, 18 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Whatever happened with the proposal at sandbox4? (rhetorical, I know it was never acted upon). I would have been then and am now in favor of trialing something like that. I've had several instances where I do a first time nom spotcheck after the article has a number of supports on prose, and end up checking the whole article, because it's already gone so far in the process. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 15:15, 18 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I also think that something along the lines of sandbox11 would more likely than not be approved if put to the community as an rfc. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 15:17, 18 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

<sigh> ... two valid options I've sandboxed, waiting for the community to work up together a fresh look at FAC functioning ... but now we've got another premature RFC, with vague and piecemeal solutions to long-festering problems. The retire button beckons; I don't know if I have this in me anymore. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:25, 18 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Well, thanks for those kind words!
As far as I can recall, in my seventeen years and a little change as a Wikipedian, I've interacted with FAC on one (1) single solitary occasion. So basically I know nothing about FAC at all, but let me take you through my experience, because it was pretty troubling.
On 23rd March 2020, I closed this RfC. It contained credible allegations that Renamed user df576567etesddf, formerly Cliftonian, had submitted Ian Smith to FAC, and that it had passed despite being a whitewash and an NPOV failure. Ian Smith was subsequently delisted at FAR, and then a bunch of Cliftonian's other FAs were also delisted, in my view rightly.
On the basis of this experience, I've come to think that there's nothing preventing articles that fail core content policies from getting promoted to FA. Is that so?—S Marshall T/C 15:36, 18 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If reviewers don't notice or don't care about the POV, that is. Now my articles (volcanoes, mainly) don't get many questions about NPOV and due weight; whether this reflects the topic or is a problem I'll leave to others to comment on. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 15:41, 18 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. It has always happened (I've got some bad passes from my tenure, eg ANAK Society), but now it's more likely than ever, because those who understand and acknowledge the problems have given up (or died) or completely left the page in disgust, and criticism is stifled by those who are happy with the status quo. The bronze star has lost all meaning, and in my FAC history and culture draft, I've barely scratched the surface of why that has happened. I dare not press too far, as simply stated, no one wants to hear how pervasive the problems are. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:42, 18 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
... right. I'm now trying to think of a proposed solution that isn't extremely drastic and drama-genic.—S Marshall T/C 15:57, 18 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think there is one. I think the inevitable is now ... inevitable. Continued decline into obsolescence. Hopefully I'll be dead or demented by the time it reaches that, so I won't have to see the end. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:05, 18 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yannow, I am not sure that folks no longer care about POV issues in FAC. I note the discussion in the Philosophy FA about how much due weight to assign to certain aspects, for example. On the other side, a number of POV FAs like Ian Smith and Barack Obama were delisted. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 16:21, 18 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Misti isn't quite ready for FAC but when it goes, it might become a case study on source reviewing - there are a few sources that IMO are justifiable but an eagle-eyed source reviewer would remark upon. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 16:27, 19 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

PS, I'm hounded out of the room every time I raise concerns at FAC that there are editors who have strings of FAs that aren't. If I raise that problem, "evidence" is demanded, which would mean pointing fingers at certain editors with deficient sourcing, or deficient prose, or getting their FACs promoted on regular support from their Wikifriends, and so on. I've occasionally tackled a situation where the evidence is obvious (Socrates Nelson, John Wick), but it's dangerous territory, and concerns fall on deaf ears. Simply because those who are getting their stars want to continue getting them, and concern for overall functioning of the process has been lost since the process was split into three separate kingdoms. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:14, 18 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I am contemplating whether to work this in to an Essay page, or accept the inevitable decline.
We preserve thought and knowledge by distilling them into essays. If you choose not to write the essay, nobody will criticise you for deciding not to, but then all this thought and knowledge you have are tears in rain. If you do choose to write it, then a non-zero possibility of change exists.—S Marshall T/C 16:19, 18 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I seriously don't think I have anything left to give. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:51, 18 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I've thought about this all week, and I think it's all come down to ... too much time and effort is spent dealing with prose and not enough on the actual content. The fact that sourcing isn't dealt with by most of the reviewers at FAC is just one symptom of the problem. And I've come to the conclusion that the source reviews I used to do ... contributed to the current problem. When I used to do source reviews, I had the luxury of doing them early in the reviews, so other reviewers got used to not having to engage with the sourcing (and by extension the actual content of the article) because I was there and dealt with it. But when my life changed with mom's increasing dementia and then her death-combined-with-move ... reviewers kept on not-engaging-with-the-sourcing-and-content even though the source reviews now tended to come later and later in the process. So many reviewers got into the habit of not thinking about anything but the styling of the prose that they can't imagine that they need to engage with the content/sourcing/NPOV/etc. So now we get reviews that never really engage with the content itself but just polish the prose... which leads to more reviews that are really just examples of copyediting the article to make it look like the particular pet-writing-style of the reviewers and isn't really making the content better. Looking through the current candidates, I see many examples of very nitpicky changes to wording that are pure style and not necessarily any improvement to the text of the article. This has led to folks outside the FAC bubble considering FAC to be just a bunch of folks who polish words without actually worrying about the actual content of an article. It's always had that reputation.

The couple of times I've tried to reengage with FAC it's been an uphill battle to get folks to even see that sourcing and content are important. It wasn't a "fun" process for me, and frankly, my energies for wikipedia didn't need it. Once I thought it was worthwhile to have a process like FAC, but frankly, lately, I've not missed it.

To some degree, this is a problem with much of wikipedia, and it derives from the very thing that makes wikipedia strong - the decentralized nature of its processes. It's hard to get a process that enforces standards when there is no "authority" to make those standards in the first place. Although I'm not impressed with FAC recently, I remain positive about wikipedia as a whole. I just don't have the time to engage in a fight with a windmill right now and am not sure I ever will again. Ealdgyth (talk) 16:25, 18 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes to all, but ... If you look at the issues at the AN that led to my recent foray back into FAC, and combine those with the tendentious editing I'm dealing with elsewhere, the whole outlook is not promising. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:53, 18 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

WP:WBFAN

This is the ongoing problem of people racing each other on Wikipedia.
Consider Lugnuts, who is Wikipedia's most prolific article-starter ever, and now site-banned by Arbcom following this Arbcom case. Lugnuts started 94,367 articles.
His method was to visit databases about sportspeople, such as olympedia.com; find someone without an article; cut and paste the database information into a standard article template; publish it; and then do it again. During his sprees he often created articles at the rate of one a minute. Lugnuts had the autopatrolled user-right, so we've still got nearly 90,000 "articles" that are (a) biographies and often BLPs, (b) not watchlisted by anyone, and (c) of immensely low quality. The cleanup operation is positively Augean and there's significant opposition to the idea of mass-draftifying them.
I can see a clear parallel with WP:WBFAN. People are racing. But I want to draw your attention to the discussions at WP:LUGSTUBS and WP:LUGSTUBS2 in which the community does get behind drastic and drama-genic ideas to solve the problem.
Wikipedians are often skeptical, critical thinkers who have the encyclopaedia's best interests at heart. Those discussions are painful, bruising experiences full of accusations of bad faith -- but they succeeded. And I think it's entirely possible that your proposals might go the same way.—S Marshall T/C 16:39, 18 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes (it's what some call the reward culture). We once could proudly say that WBFAN wasn't like DYK, or WikiCup, or any other place that rewarded bling over quality. No longer true by a long stretch. To such an extent that I'm unsure why I am still working at WP:FAR and WP:URFA/2020; why are we delisting older FAs that are often still closer to fulfilling WP:WIAFA than some of the newer ones are? What game are we playing here? Part of my FAC resignation (besides my promise to Colin years before to return to medical editing) was that I was sick and tired of "working" up to eight hours daily to feed prima donna egos, and realizing that those who gave back were few and far between; has that changed? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:58, 18 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
To be blunt, the answer to "has that changed?" is no. Ealdgyth (talk) 17:21, 18 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think it has changed; for the worse. There's only one Nikkimaria. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:24, 18 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

S Marshall I went back and looked at your Lugstubs links, and yes, when you give them something concrete (like I gave them WP:DCGAR) people get behind cleanup. I spent a good chunk of this year on DCGAR, and am grateful for the community effort, but it was demoralizing work (when you factor in that it included copyvio, non-notability, text-to-source integrity, and GA process failures, and all those problems had gone on for years). I have no reason to think such an effort will yield anything wrt FAC (other than the bit we're already doing at URFA, knowing that there are hundreds to thousands more down the line). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:35, 18 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Where to ask questions about German-language sources

Greetings, do you know anyone (or any venue where) who to ask about a German language source? I and Yngvadottir are deadlocked at Talk:Rupperswil murder case#On the use of the mobile phone data about how to interpret this German-language source. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 09:50, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

How about if you a) make a post at WP:RSN, and then b) go here and ask there for them to c) come to the en.wiki to respond to you RSN post ? Another option is to post at WT:GERMANY. Bst, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:27, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Having been pinged to Sandy's talk page, I found this discussion, and weighed in with my understanding of the German.—S Marshall T/C 15:05, 18 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thx (and for the befuddled, the conversation has stayed at Talk:Rupperswil murder case, rather than at RSN. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:10, 18 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A barnstar for you!

The Barnstar of Diplomacy

I found the time to read through your comments at the close review at AN and wanted to thank you for stepping in. Managing conflicts can be hard: looking at the context of the dispute, identifying issues, and raising them politely but firmly with colleagues is not easy work, so it's nice when people step up to ensure a healthy community. Thanks for setting a good example! — Wug·a·po·des 07:37, 18 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A barnstar for you,

The Special Barnstar

Thank you for all you have done.

--Dustfreeworld (talk) 03:38, 19 November 2023 (UTC) [reply]

Especially for your first-rate work at WP:FAR and WP:MED :) --Dustfreeworld (talk) 06:35, 19 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Dustfreeworld most kind of you! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:12, 20 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm happy to see you are still going strong, and remain focussed on what matters: improving articles! Geometry guy 22:39, 19 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Geometry guy what a real pleasure to see you! It's such a different place here now, in so many ways; I often wonder how your absence affected the trajectory of top content work on Wikipedia, and whether the decline we see today would have happened if we had maintained the consistent shepherding evidenced in your work. In other words ... miss you, hope you are well, and it's bittersweet to see you again !!! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:15, 20 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

And your reply was a pleasure for me also, Sandy! I think it was inevitable that as wikipedia and its articles matured, general editors would lose interest in favour of topic editors, increasing bias and eroding npov. Also, I think there is a broadly left-leaning bias in wikipedia anyway. I could never have fought these trends, and I don't want to spend my free time getting into stressful conflicts anyway. But I like to learn stuff, and there are many substandard articles on things I am interested in, so perhaps I will spend a bit of time on that. In some ways, being insignificant again makes it easier. I am well, and if you want to tell me more about the changes that I have missed, please do. I hope you are well also. Geometry guy 22:33, 20 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]