User talk:DGG

“ One person at a time, one article at a time ”

“ I am very gratified to have learned that so many people seem to like me, but even more gratified that they understand and like (or at least tolerate) the work I'm trying to do. ” —  at my RfA

/Archive 1 Sept-Dec. 2006 ,/Archive 2 Jan.-Feb. 2007, /Archive 3 Mar.-Apr. 2007, /Archive 4 May 2007 /Archive 5 June 2007; /Archive 6 July 2007; /Archive 7 Aug. 2007; /Archive 0.1 (Journal talk), /Archive 0.2 (Speedy talk), /Archive 0.3 (IPC talk),

(some still current material from these pages is below:) :

Please post messages at the bottom of the page

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WP:LOMJ

Hi, in regards to your interest in creating articles for journals, we are already working towards that goal over at Wikipedia:List of missing journals and WP:LOMJ/Queue. In light of your su

The category sggestion on Template talk:Infobox_Journal to "reward" the true OA journals, I would like to create a WP:LOMJ/OA that lists everything in DOAJ, in order that we can create articles for those first. It looks easy to screen scrape the DOAJ listings, but if there is another way to access their db, that would be better. John Vandenberg 20:06, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

initial decisions

There are basically 2 ways of doing this. big, and small.

• You (and the other editors doing it) have obviously chosen big. Between your list and DOAJ, I estimate there will be 13,000 titles.--that is currently published titles--if you add the changed and ceased titles, it will more than double. Harvard gets about 100,000 current journals.

• I like to start small.

In my view, it would be a much more useful thing to make good articles with accurate information for important journals, OA or not, than doing all the journals major and minor. Among the significant ones I would start with OA ones, which is what I suggested.

• In addition to your lists, we have Category:Open_access_journals at the moment a pitiful and incomplete list, and so is a previously started page List_of_journals_available_free_online. We also have the various subject lists in WP, some lists mostly black links, many mostly red.

• There are now several information sources t hat were not there six months ago. One is CrossRef[1] I just updated that article yesterday. Another is ISI, which has an openly available master journal list. [2] There is also the journal list in PubMed [3] which gives the following

1. Title: Comptes rendus biologies

$ISSN: 1631-0691 (Print)

1. Title Abbreviation: C R Biol
2. ISO Abbreviation: C. R. Biol.
3. Publication Start Year: 2002
4. Publisher: Elsevier
5. Continuation Notes: Continues: Comptes rendus de l'Académie des sciences. Série III, Sciences de la vie.
6. Language: English, French
7. Country: France
8. Subject Term(s): Biology
9. NLM ID: 101140040

• We obvious have slightly different things in mind, but it would make sense to merge the project ideas. With a project, it could, like most large projects, have several tracks.
  • Do you have a project name? I could not find one in the project list yesterday. but maybe I missed. it. It would make more sense to use an existing setup.

• • What I would propose starting with on one track, is to take that OA category, and make sure that all of other OA journals that have articles in WP are listed in it. and see that they are also in the list of OA journals. We need the list and the category because most of the titles will be in the list for a very long times. .as of Dec 15 there are 3200 journals in DOAJ. I frankly do not see a point of making a list of all of them, however minor--DOAJ does it fine (or more exactly, reasonable well). WP is not a list of links or a web directory, or so Im told. Google does very well in finding scientific journal titles.

• What I most want to avoid is duplicate work.
  • Before writing any more journal pages, I suggest we continue the discussion of the journal infobox -- where was that beng discussed--I already lost track. :)

(see my user page for some idea of my background. I think some of the people doing this have similar? I know it doesn't matter in terms of whose word goes, but I will do what I can to help with what I know. I've already started in on Comptes rendus. DGG 22:19, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

The WP:LOMJ was intended to be a list where each entry is crossed off, however DOAJ, WorldCat and other lists will always far exceed what we can achieve here at Wikipedia, at least in my lifetime, so I started the WP:LOMJ/Queue to bring some order and discussion to the process of prioritising which articles should be created. As you may have seen I have created a new list WP:LOMJ/DOAJ so we can see which open access journals already have articles created, so that we can add or augment an infobox on the article. This list currently contains false positives, because the journal name may already be used as a general topic name, but I intend to improve my scripts to fix that. I'll also take on board your suggestion of finding these articles and making sure they are in the OA category. I'll continue to automate this script with any suggestions people have.

btw, thanks for pointing me towards [4]; I've been looking for such a raw data dump for about a month now! John Vandenberg 23:29, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Merging journals list

I left a message here which may be of interest to you. EPM 18:58, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

reply, criteria for deletion

(re-posted here for convenience--answered at Forsfrom talk.) I did recheck the criterion on speedy, and I of course find it as you say, and, in my view, incompatible with every statement about notability everywhere else in WP. And I do check speedies, and for things I recognize as notable and think can be clearly demonstrated as notable I go to the trouble of putting in a appropriate statement in what seems to be the expected language, and often do some editing to the article as well (I make no attempt to do this systematically unless I recognize something & think it can be defended, which is about 1 per day.)

I do not always get all of the procedure right yet, but I try. I notice some of the others in the debate were also unfamiliar with the provision. Perhaps those who have been editing a very long while learn to accept the odd parts and even the incompatibilities as part of WP life. I hope you're glad that new people are becoming active. If you will look at my edits you will see that they tend to compromise. I dislike the intensity of many quarrels here & have no intention of getting involved in them unless I can help reach a solution.

I recognize the usefulness of speedy in obvious cases, but I see it also being applied to non-obvious cases, and I will perhaps make some comments on that. I also plan to collect & analyze some data about the consistency of deletion practice, but not for a month or two when I'll have the time. I know some others are also looking at how well the various procedures work from a variety of angles. I have some background at that sort of analysis. That will of course be OR, and treated as such.

I intend this as a start of a friendly discussion, and if you have any suggestions I will be interested,and I even hope perhaps that you'd feel like joining the analysis. Two judgments are better than one, especially from people of different backgrounds. I like doing this sort of thing as a group.. which is one reason I'm here. Which talk page should we continue at?DGG 16:15, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

DGG, btw Master of the Playing Cards was speedily deleted, after about 5 mins, by the over-enthusiatic User:Firefoxman, who in the same session had also managed to S-delete Rede Lecture by User:Charles Matthews which was already in a quite advanced form. Oddly enough, CM got an apology; I did not! Quite a few of his SD's around then were thwarted one way or another Johnbod 17:23, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi DGG!

Thanks for your note. I agree there are many Wikipedia policies and guidelines which seem to completely conflict with other policies and guidelines. Regarding your question, of course I am glad that new people become active. Even with 6,000,000 user accounts, most of the work is done by a few thousand people. As users go on Wikibreak or suffer from burnout, if these users weren't quickly replaced, Wikipedia would soon become a mess.

I agree SPEEDY has often been applied to articles which don't really apply. At the same time, I've speedy deleted hundreds of articles I felt didn't meet the assert notability criteria; most of these were just trash. We get a lot of people that add "articles" about themselves like "Trisha Smith is a girl at Jones High School and she is soooo sexayyy!" or "MySpace.com/ThatOneDude is a great web site. You should go there." Articles like this aren't only about non-notable subjects, they don't even assert notability, and thus meet the requirement for (A7). I'm not sure there's much consistency when it comes to deletion, because WikiPhilosophy varies from editor to editor. I'm not sure I have time to work on an analysis of the data, but would be interested in the results. Firsfron of Ronchester 20:27, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

==Speedy==

Speedy deletion means just that - it can be deleted at any time. Articles are always retrievable if there has been a mistake, or the creator can redraft to address the problem, if that is possible (notability issues might be insoluble for obvious reasons) jimfbleak 18:20, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Most speedies are obvious junk/copyright violations/nonsense, and genuine objections tend to come from the creators, who obviously know the content. I don't know if the list of deleted edits is accessible to non-admins. Any article in mind? jimfbleak 18:27, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I understand the point you are making - the flip side is that even with the present situation the list of articles tagged for speedy deletion is typically 200 items. Put a time limit on, even if it's restricted to sensible articles (and remember many junk articles are deleted before being tagged}, and I fear that admins will be overwhelmed. jimfbleak 20:14, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Re:overspeeding

I very much agree, DGG. Speedy delete should be within 24 hours, not a matter of minutes or an hour (since AFD is a week or two weeks, I think). Wikipedia policies are becoming way too serious and nuts and its literally ruining the place. — Wackymacs 18:32, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

It might be worth mentioning to Jimbo Wales. — Wackymacs 19:05, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I have the time to gather lots of stuff together - I think I might be spending too much time on WP to be honest... — Wackymacs 19:16, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

 ==N.H. Horowitz==

I am thinking about writing about Norman H. Horowitz, Caltech biology professor, previous department head etc. One can find some material about him:

• This piece on Norman H. Horowitz
• Horowitz oral history

And a huge number of publications. I do not want to have a deletion fight again, however. Suggestions?--Filll 21:54, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Re: usage of full journal names

Wondering if you had gotten a chance to look at some of the responses from science editors to your suggestion on the the FAC nomination for proteasome. In particular, it would be helpful to know how and where you are searching for articles or journals that the use of abbreviations is an impediment to successfully locating a reference. If you really think this is something that's worth pursuing as a proposed style standard for scientific articles, I believe a larger venue than an obscure FAC nomination is needed, as this would affect a large number of editors and articles; I'd suggest starting a thread on Wikipedia talk:Citing sources or Wikipedia talk:Scientific citation guidelines for wider visibility. Since the suggestion of using full journal names does not currently have the consensus of editors in the sciences, I'm going to leave it alone for now, and will make the changes later if it's agreed that this is a useful proposal. Opabinia regalis 01:20, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

(Speaking only about journals in the sciences), I think that full journal names are essential for WP users, particularly for older material. The abbreviations are enough for experts. WP articles are not written for experts. WP is written for a range of users, ranging from the beginner to the near expert; judging from user pages and user comments, this may correspond from junior high school students to graduate students in allied fields. Journal references serve several roles: even without looking them up, they give some idea of the nature of the evidence--and this is probably as far as many users get. To serve this function for new or for old, the title must be understood, and all users not graduate students in the field are more likely to make sense of the full title.

Or they serve as a route to further information. For material that is open access, the link (which should always be given in a WP article if there is an OA version) gives the access directly. For online material that is not, the link (which should be given even though not OA) will normally lead to at least the abstract of the article, which can be sufficient information in many cases.

For material that is not available online, all users must go through a library. Experts will recognize the journal, will usually have access to a research library, and will get the aticle if owned or ask for it if not, and any university library ILL department can deal with standard abbreviations. For all other users, they must look for the material in an online catalog. It is unfortunately not the practice in standard cataloging to make added entries for abbreviations as a routine practice, although they are sometimes made if they appear on the cover of a journal. It is not possible in many cases to guess the right title, especially if one is unfamiliar with the sort of titles that exist. The less experienced user will be much more likely to find the material by full title. If the user must go through an ILL service in a school or public library, the librarian there will probably be much more comfortable with the full title as well.

I say this on the basis of my experience. First, as a biology librarian at a major university. I know the mistakes that get made. They depend on subject; in biology--there are many standards, especially with older material, especially ewith UK and other European material. After 20 years of doing this, I know how to figure out anything in a latin or cyrillic alphabet, from 1800 on, and I know the places to check for anything older; as a beginner, with only a MLS and a molecular biology doctorate, I relied on persistence and study of journal lists, especially for anything out of the way to a molecular biologist. Second, as a teacher of librarianship. The ability of present-day incoming librarians, even science specialists, to find printed material is deplorable. For newer material, they can acquire the patience to keep trying things on Google until they find something. For print material, it will soon be a specialty, like manuscrip[t librarianship is now. Third, I have been responsible for organizing lists of print and then online journals; the peak was a computer-assisted but manually input list of 10,000 print titles. I and others always did these lists by full title. Although it startled some of the catalog librarians, we did add some abbreviations to help those who did know them.

There are 3 ways of doing this. One is to always use the full title. WP is not paper, but it does make for longer reference lists. The other is to have an abbreviation matching database and do a link. The third is to use ISSN's, the 8 digit serial code. This isn't as simple as it was last year, because there are now two codes for each journal, one for print and one for online--all the vendors are still rewriting their systems--I've advised some of them about it. The ISSN works in all online catalogs, but only if the user knows enough to enter it, which they don't until you teach them.

The simplest way to start is with full titles. The matching database is also underway, as something call the Missing Journals Wikiproject, aiming at entering all 12 or so titles into a WP article, complete with all codes. I'm in touch with the people doing it . They estimate 10 years, but if everyone listened to my instructions I think it could be done in a shorter time (smile). Using the entrez database would help in biomedicine, but not elsewhere.

• EdJohnston's experience with entrez is useful, but it doesn't work outside biomedicine. In biomed, a mass conversion could be done, but getting it entered from some of the nonstandard references people have used will require some work. If I had to sustitute full titles throughout the WP database by myself, I'd do them one at a time with a bot, and then look for non-matches. But it could be done more ambitiously, and if we ever want to undertake such a transformation I would help as well. There are some interface problems in the conversion--the length of articles and tables especially would be affected. I think we would want to try a number of careful trials and we would want help from some of the WP programmers.

For a particular article with say 100 or so refs, i would do them by hand. Since in any one article the journal titles will repeat, I'd copy and paste. I suppose if I had to do more than one article I'd copy the lists into BBEdit and use a grep search and replace, and then paste them back, for all the common titles. I am a great believer in patient manual entry.

Other comments

• I notice that O.r. has said she recognizes the abbreviations better, and so do I. But we are not the average users.
• &There's another problem, which is the use of full article titles. This really helps the beginner. In biomed, they could be linked through PubMed IDs, and some WP editors already use them. DGG 06:15, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

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Opabinia, where do you stand on that Object? If you need help converting them in order to address the Object, I can help. Am I missing something, or would we actually have to do every one by hand? I can't find a database that can be used to automate it - if you feel it has to be done, we can divide up the work. I still resist the idea, since it would take a lot of manual work, and the PMID should suffice, but if you need help, I'll dig in. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:14, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

In the short term, my plan is to do nothing, since Circeus hasn't responded to the subsequent comments on his suggestion. I left him a note about opening this for wider discussion; a substantial change in style recommendations affecting as many articles as this one would deserves a wider discussion than a thread in an obscure FAC nomination. IMO it would be a bad precedent for future science-related FACs to make that change in response to one user's opinion without collecting some wider input. I don't know of an intelligent automated way to get this information, other than clicking through PubMed's journals link and screen-scraping the equivalents of pages like http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=Journals&term=%22Dev+Cell%22[Title+Abbreviation] sorry, can't get the link with brackets to parse right. If there's a larger discussion I'll certainly oppose this on practicality and text-clutter grounds, unless someone finds a common way of searching for references that requires the full names. FAC doesn't need more shrubberies. Opabinia regalis 01:30, 9 January 2007 (UTC) Without raising the long-term policy question, I don't think it would be that hard to convert the journal names in Proteasome. Assuming the reference uses a journal in the NLM list, you should be able to look up its journal name at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=Journals. This screen has a search box, where you can type in the standard journal abbreviation, and hit 'Search'. You then get back the full name of the journal. I also managed to download (by ftp) a plain text file called J_Entrez.txt (4 megabytes in size) that has both the abbreviation and the full name for every journal I checked. You could do a 'Find' on the abbreviation, and get the answer. So if you need help converting those references, I'd be available. EdJohnston 02:26, 9 January 2007 (UTC) Don't you think our readers would put up with the 'clutter' that would be caused by spelling out these not totally self-explanatory abbreviations? EMBO J, Cell Death Differ (my favorite), Mol Cell, FEBS Lett, PLoS Biol. I know that 'J Biol Chem' looks easy but not all of them are. EdJohnston 02:50, 9 January 2007 (UTC) Thanks for the offer. I doubt it would take long to convert this article - anybody who's done biology work probably knows 80% of them anyway - but I'm strongly inclined not to set that as a standard for future articles, not least because there are screen-scraper scripts for importing PubMed references that would need to be extensively modified. I realize they're not all intuitive (my personal favorite official "abbreviation" is J Phys Chem B Condens Matter Mater Surf Interfaces Biophys) but as far as I've ever known, it's actually better for searching to have the abbreviation than the full name, because almost every database uses the abbreviations. Do you know of any common databases or search methods where that's not the case? I asked Circeus on the FAC page to elaborate why/where he had had trouble, but he hasn't responded yet. Opabinia regalis 03:49, 9 January 2007 (UTC) Right - the problem is not *this* article (which I'll help do, if that what it takes to get rid of the object) rather the sheer volume of manual work that would be required across all Wiki articles, with little benefit. I would also strenuously object to the change in policy, since it requires manual intervention for every journal, to replace the info PubMed provides. Just wanted you to know I could help if needed, but agree it should not be needed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:16, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Also: how about making the standard ISBN link produce a latent OpenURL like this: <a name='isbn=0-120345678-9' rel='alternate' title='OpenURL'>? Users with suitable browser plugins could then bypass the Wikipedia ISBN page and be directed to their home library's link resolver. --Helperzoom 17:23, 26 May 2005 (UTC).

Wikipedia:Book sources already has a latent OpenURL in the form of an ISBN COinS tag, right under the Notes heading. I've just added them to {{cite book}}: Empty citation (help), as well, so you can use OpenURL tools on the references section of articles. I'll expand it to other citation templates if it goes over well, and add it to the "Cite this article" page, too, as soon as they figure out which format would be appropriate for Wikipedia articles... — Omegatron 01:23, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Scientific Journal

Thanks for informing me. I had just finished adding a comment to an article about a completely non-notable (and no longer existent) website. I was patrollying the new pages list, which tends to be filled with non-notable articles. I came across the article in question, and saw it as non-notable(as it asserted NO notability), and possibly considered "little or no context", these categories being CSD:A7 and CSD A1,(as seen here). I tend to be a little on the deletionist side, mostly because I value the overall quality of Wikipedia. Thus I marked it for deletion, but it did not qualify for deletion after you merged it into an article worth saving.(have to leave now, on a schedule,

Blood libel

Thanks for your note. I think mentioning his name violates WP:UNDUE, particularly as he himself has recanted his previous views. What do you think? Jayjg ^(talk) 01:52, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

==Journals & Academic journals==

Hi. I see you started Category:Academic journals, which seems to cover much the same ground as Category:Journals. Do you agree they should be merged? Dsp13 12:35, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

You have found a real problem, where the terminology reflects the lack of consensus.

The basic problem is the confusion between the two uses of journal--a general meaning, including almost any periodical publication, used to distinguish journals from books,in which such publications as Scientific American are journals, and the use in the academic world to contrast peer-reviewed journals from (non peer-revieweed) magazines, with Scientific American being an example of the latter. Both meaning are in simultaneous use, and people are not usually clear about which they have in mind. :So if you look at the items in category journals, there are many which do indeed fall into the category of academic journals, but there are also some which don't. The actual terminology used in WP articles is similarly confusing--people have called the publications almost any of the various possibilities.

Furthermore, the general category for the group is Category:Serials, periodicals and journals, omitting magazines altogether. Journal, at present, is a redirect to Magazine.

Don't understand what you mean by saying journal redirects to magazine. Dsp13 12:13, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I've been a science librarian for over 20 years, and this has continually been a source of confusion If you look at what libraries actually call things, quite a variety of terms are used. I've taught the subject as well, and there is no real agreement in the textbooks, and the key term "serial" has never been really defined, and has now been abandoned in the cataloging rules in favor of "continuing publication".

so which way would you like to merge? In my personal opinion, "Academic journal" is a made-up term -- and i gather that is your opinion also--, but some of the other WP library science people disagree and want to keep using it, as they think "journal" non-specific. I added the cat to prevent people putting things in "Journal" which were clearly not academic journals. I think we would not get consensus on either, or for that matter on using both--it would by 1/3 1/3 1/3. When I came to WP I though it could be straightened out, but if you check the page history of the various terms, you will see that basically I and everyone else who has tried, all gave up.

Thanks for filling me in. I do recognise the distinction between peer-reviewed / not, and as you say there are distinct article pages for Journal and Academic journal at present. I've much less experience in thinking about these things than you, & no firm view on how to label the categories. I don't personally mind the made-up term Academic journals as long as it is consistently applied. What bothers me is the present haphazard duplication, which is a mess! As far as consensus having proved difficult to achieve, which page histories should I check out? Perhaps this is a discussion which should happen on Category talk:Journals or Category talk:Academic journals? Dsp13 12:13, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

In any case , I think the first step is to rename the broadest category, Category:Serials, periodicals and journals to Category:Serials, periodicals, journals, and magazines, and I am going to propose it. DGG 01:21, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Sounds sensible to me. Dsp13 12:13, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

deletion in general

In general (and thanks for encouraging me to write it out in full)

1. When I know or strongly believe something is notable (more exactly, encyclopedia worthy in general) then I don't put on a deletion tag, or if some one else has, I remove the tag altogether. If anyone really disagrees, they go to AfD.
2. When I know for sure something is not notable, and fits in a speedy, I speedy. If anyone disagrees, they can remove the tag or "holdon" if they're fast enough, or go to AfD or Deletion Review. I don't do this much, because I rarely do new page patrol, so the obvious stuff has already been deleted by others.
3. When I don't know for sure, which is pretty often, I usually put it for prod so other people can see for themselves. If nobody feels its worthy of keeping, it gets deleted and there's no fuss. If anybody wants to keep, they remove the tag, unless they wrote it, when they have to ask someone else to remove it. I see that on my watchlist, and depending on what they've said, I usually defer to them but sometimes send to AfD.
4. For shopping malls and schools, I never speedy, because I know that they will all be contested & I don't like to speedy in hope of avoiding a discussion. When a number of malls or schools are in question, I may well prod them all, and let other people decide what's worth saving.

• • But, as for Country Club Plaza (Arden-Arcade, California) I thought it an almost empty article, and probably not notable, but that it was possible you or another editor would know of something more to say. I hoped that you would either add enough to make it notable, or let the article get deleted. That's what prod is for. But of course if you think it is notable as it stands, just nominate it according to WP:AFD, and I will go by the consensus as always. I'll nominate it for you if you prefer. So it's up to you. (Some eds. I know would just have speedied and not even notified you, but I don't like to do things that way.) Further discussion welcome. DGG 05:03, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Journals from Emerald Group Publishing Limited

As a librarian, could you take a look at this deletion debate: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management. Several peer-reviewed journals from Emerald, which as far as I can tell is a reputable publisher (my university subscribes to it), have been nominated for deletion. The articles look a bit spammy, but I guess that this could be fixed. (It seems that an article on Emerald has already been speedily deleted as advertising.) Pharamond 06:46, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks as the nom for taking time to comment and take action on this. I'm always keen to see better content arise from an AfD and editors like yourself make this happen! --Steve _(Stephen) ^talk 01:44, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

And I found one more from the same publisher, if you have time to investigate... Thanks again --Steve _(Stephen) ^talk 01:53, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Don't worry, I wasn't going to dump 50 articles into your to do list! That last one was the only other one I found and it was an oversight that I didn't co-nom it at the time of the others. Thanks --Steve _(Stephen) ^talk 02:29, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

columns

Use

 {{Col-begin}}
 {{Col-1-of-2}}
 Column 1 here
 {{Col-2-of-2}}
 Column 2 here
 {{Col-end}}

Or

 {{Multicol}}
 This text appears in the first column.
 {{Multicol-break}}
 This text appears in the second column.
 {{Multicol-break}}
 This text appears in the third column.
 {{Multicol-end}}

The latter's obviously more flexible. Hope that helps, --Steve _(Stephen) ^talk 02:49, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

here's your emerald

Spammy, but workable(?) User:DGG/Emerald Group Publishing Limited. When you've got it in a state worth keeping, do a regular page move to Emerald Group Publishing Limited (or, perhaps, Emerald Group Publishing); that'll keep the page history intact. — coelacan — 03:57, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

SPARC

←I am a little confused by what happened to this page SPARC - Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Corporation you changed to a redirect yesterday --I see the speedy for the redirect but I did not notice the speedy or other deletion process for the original. In any case i want to recreate it as it is one of the things I know about & I'm sure i could do a proper article whatever may have been wrong with the first--If you're an admin could you restore it to my user space for the purpose? DGG 00:25, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

The SPARC mess was confusing, I'll give you that. :) Someone — I don't know who — moved the SPARC article to the silly title SPARC - Scalable Processor ARChitecture, and created the new silly-titled page SPARC - Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Corporation. Someone else sensibly requested that SPARC - Scalable Processor ARChitecture be moved back to SPARC. I'm not actually an admin, so my contribution to the mess was limited to moving SPARC - Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Corporation to Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Corporation, and proposing it for speedy deletion since its only content was a link to the organization's Web site. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log/delete&page=Scholarly_Publishing_and_Academic_Resources_Corporation for the entire text of the page.) Since then, somebody else has speedy-deleted Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Corporation (per my suggestion), and SPARC has been moved back to its rightful place.

If you would like to create an article about the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Corporation, then Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Corporation is the right place to do it. As long as you can find something encyclopedic to say about it, I wouldn't worry about the fact that a previous page on the topic has been deleted. --Quuxplusone 02:29, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Speedys and DRV

You may be right. I have discussed the over use of speedy delete (and A7 in particular) on the CSD talk page several times, as you may know if you follow that page. In the past such complaints have been not infrequently dismissed as theoretical in default of sufficeient examples, and when i did point to a particualr example i was told "That's what DRV is for". I am hoping to build up a list of several examples on which there is celar consensus that a speedy was not warrented, and then use them together in a discussion on the CSD talk page, or perhaps at the pump. Do you think this plan worth while?

But it is also true that I don't feel that it is proper (except in an emergency) to reverse another admin without some form of discussion, and FRV is the sanctioned palce for this particualr topic. DES ^(talk) 03:31, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Contextual information

I have noticed that essays, e.g. WP:LISTCRUFT, are often cited in deletion debates, such as the current Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Socialist Party of Great Britain debates. It might be worthwhile to jot down a concise essay on the value of contextual information, which one could cite so as not to repeat the contextual argument every time. One could argue that such an argument is a natural offspring of policies such as WP:NOT#PAPER and WP:SENSE. Then one could post it as WP:CONTEXT. I am interested in your opinion about this. Stammer 09:43, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Actual usage of the European Library by librarians?

Hello DGG. Please see my my question for you over on WP:COI/N, regarding the European Library. EdJohnston 21:07, 4 May 2007 (UTC). You asked me about it sometime back, and I've been noticing announcements that it is finally now becoming actually useful; union lists are not used until they have almost as much content as the national ones. It's like OSX, it was obviously going to be universal , but wise people didn't switch over for a while. I waited for 10.4. DGG 20:41, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations

I'm pleased to inform you that you are now an administrator. Please read all the material on the administrators' reading list before testing out your new privileges. For instructions, please see the administrators' how-to guide. Best of luck — Dan | talk 02:19, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Congrats. Well done. Do well with the mop :) -- Samir 02:20, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations. Your RfA reached WP:100 and is palindromic to boot. :) Cheers, Black Falcon ^(Talk) 03:35, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Wow congrats DGG! 111 supports, that's fantastic - if you ever need anything just give me a shout and I'll try my best to help. Good luck... Majorly (hot!) 09:32, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations. I'm glad I was one of those 11 extra to push you over the top at Wikipedia:Times that 100 Wikipedians supported something. You'll do a great job. Smee 11:58, 9 May 2007 (UTC).

Congratulations. Here are what pass for words of wisdom from the puppy:

Remember you will always protect the wrong version. Remember you must always follow the rules, except for when you ignore them. You will always pick the wrong one to do. (See #5) Remember to assume good faith and not bite. Remember that when you are applying these principles most diligently, you are probably dealing with a troll. Use the block ability sparingly. Enjoy the insults you receive when you do block. Remember when you make these errors, someone will be more than happy to point them out to you in dazzling clarity and descriptive terminology. and finally, Remember to contact me if you ever need assistance, and I will do what I am able. KillerChihuahua?!?

DISCLAIMER: This humor does not reflect the official humor of Wikipedia, the Wikimedia Foundation, or Jimbo Wales. All rights released under GFDL.

Notability of scientists vs their science

Hey DGG (first off, congratulations on adminship). In this AfD you write "I cannot imagine that a paper written by a scientist could possibly be notable more than the scientist himself" which seems diametrically opposed to my thinking, so I thought I'd invite you to try entertaining it. If a scientist is notable (in the sense of passing WP:PROF) I would assume it is because their work is notable. Surely then they must be at least a degree more trivial than their work. For example, the Hershey-Chase experiment is a very important piece of science, which definitely belongs in an encyclopedia, but I'm not sure that Alfred Hershey or even more so Martha Chase are of the same level of notability. Similarly, Milikan's Oil-drop experiment important in a way that I just don't think the details of Robert Andrews Millikan's life are. Ditto Stanley Milgram's Obedience to Authority Study and Philip Zimbardo's Stanford prison experiment. In all these cases, the experimenters are certainly notable, but I think they are all less encyclopedic than their work. I guess this is what bothers me about the majority of the stubby little wikipedia entries for assorted professors, that their inclusion makes WP look like a cheap Whos-who unless their work is also encyclopedic. The writers of these bios seem disinterested in writing encyclopedic articles about their research topic, the benefit to WP of these articles does not extend to dissemination of knowledge about science, just the vanity, or vanity by proxy, of a puff-biography. Anyway, best of luck with the mop pushing. I'm certain that you'll do fine. Regards, Pete.Hurd 05:54, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, & I went back & adjusted the AfD comment,because you are right that I overgeneralized. Fuller reply in the works. DGG 07:27, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

i'd appreciate your opinion on something

Have a look at Talk:Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society. Before I start an AFD, do you think this is below the cut? ··coelacan 07:50, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

That would be great; thanks. ··coelacan 00:19, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

What's your view?

You had some insightful observations along the way during the recent excitement at WP:N, so I was curious as to your thoughts on the developments.--Kubigula (talk) 03:44, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. We haven't hit an impasse recently - things seems to be moving along pretty constructively. In fact, it's been almost too collegial and constructive; I half expect villagers with torches at any moment.--Kubigula (talk) 04:03, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes please about citation count

Please yes a citation count would be good. I suspect the count will be high. Wenocur's major work includes the VC-paper, joint with Dudley which established values of VC-dimensions using hyperplanes and other techniques that were new. The paper with Salant is notable work. Her work on order statistics was new. in abstracting ideas of Einstein and Bose on gravitation as gravitation affecting numbers not particles. In other papers, the alternative proof techniques of identities were publically admired by H.S. Wilf. The indices of many books on neural nets contain references to her work with Dudley on VC-dimension. I personally have employed the order statitistic work and the VC work to analyze data and make predictions for clients. Currently, she is either self-employed or retired or semi-retired; she is not a young person, certainly over age 55. She corresponds with me, a humble consultant, but also with others who are noteable. I think she is tutoring now, also she mentioned, precocious children, and those who need to learn VC-theory for their work at universities or industry or consulting. I think she is also using mathematics for investment counseling in new ways. She won several awards from the U.S. Senate, the President of Temple University, New York City as a noteable woman of science and other awards. This is all I can think of, offhand, right now. Back to work now. Thank you. Alfred Legrand 16:08, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

AfDs/blogs

Hi, the assumption is that I'm "pro" the blogs I'm currently fighting to keep an entry for, but that is jumping to conclusions. I wrote many new entries on Muslims and Islam, and I would fight to keep them. They're there because I think it's important people have access to information about these issues. In any case, a pattern won't be seen since this user first did a "speedy delete" on several entries using an IP and only identified themselves when I argued that an anonymous user shouldn't be speedy deleteing (to point out that it's against wiki policy and an ip user shouldn't be discriminated). The reason I went out directly against him is because of his claim that he's being attacked for something he's only been doing for "two-three" days, and of course, looking at his "user contributions" that's what it looks like, so why accuse him? I am not accusing him that he's anti those blogs, I'm accusing him of abusing the system and I don't like it. As I wrote him directly, his only contributions are nitpicking those of others. I think that's anti-wikipedia behavior.

I think blogs are in a catch 22, since old style newspapers have no interest in writing about them, and at most they'll reach the editorial page. Most blogs are not worthy of an entry, but I just wonder how many entries are going to be deleted before the policy is changed.

About the Fjordman blogger, for example. When the original speedy delete came up I said that if you google, it comes up in amazing numbers. To which I was told by this user "it's a common name in Scandinavia". But then, why does the blogger get top billings on the first 3-4 pagse of Google (at which time I gave up looking). What do I need to do to prove that this guy is immensely popular? Misheu 06:11, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I am having comunications problems, so please do not expect regular answers until Wednsdday May 30. Thanks for your suggestions and input. I do need somebody with some common sense to tell me this :-) I'm not so anti what you say as you think. When I told this user that I actually appreciated his speedy delete since it caused me to look up sources he thought I was joking and took it as an insult. I wouldn't be so "up in arms" this time if it wouldn't be posed as "look up all sources now for all entries or else" and come as a 'second wave'. There are so many other ways to approach articles you think need sources. Again, some of the entries he brought for deletion, i agree with, but most of them he's going against established, well known, influential blogs. Misheu 06:41, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

DGG, thanks for your help in this recent mess. I appreciate the good words helping move this process forward. --Edwin Herdman 21:02, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Gordon MacPherson

Not sure how you did your article search, but I got >120 peer-reviewed articles. Which still doesn't make him notable. What is needed is an independant secondary source specifically referring to 'Gordon MacPherson's important scientific contribution to x'. -Rustavo^{Talk/Contribs} 03:16, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

There are a number of people by that name, even in medicine. I was being very conservative--clearly over-conservative. I re-did it in Scopus to get a citation count, and found 58 peer-reviewed papers. I agree that I would in general not automatically consider an associate professor notable (that's the equiv. rank), but to my surprise, I found 427, 279, 250, 176, 146 citations for the five top papers. I think it covers the notability question. (I haven't put it all in the article quite yet. I find it much easier to cut spam down to size than to build up these over-modest articles.) Fiction writers get shown notable by reviews, athletes by competitions, scientists by citations. I can expand on this. DGG 03:49, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

That's not the point. I strongly suspect that he is notable, but that is not the same thing as 1) knowing what he is notable for, 2) having an independant reference that establishes his notability, and c) having content in the article that discusses the thing he is notable for. Deleting an article doesn't prevent anyone from writing an article about that same subject in the future, it simply says that there's nothing in the current article that justifies having it. -Rustavo^{Talk/Contribs} 05:08, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I recognize you know the academic world, probably very well, so I don't have to explain why people there are important to start with (smile) (The next paragraph is what I have evolved as my standard reply-- it's addressed to people who do not know how scientists work, and I do not mean to sound as if you didn't know about this stuff--but it is better worded than what I can do on the spot)

• "We don't judge the work, even in subjects where some of us could, because this is an egalitarian place--we just show how other people have judged it. Notability for academics is typically established by their publications. People become professors by writing notable research papers. That the papers are notable is established by their being published in peer-reviewed journals. The review by two or more specialists in such peer review establishes those papers as evidence of N. For appointment, for promotion to associate professor of senior lecturer, they pass stringent reviews by peers, including particularly peers from other institutions.

this establishes notability much more strictly and reliably than we could here. The profession establishes notability; WP just records the fact.

In general, nobody writes magazine articles on professors, and they dont get a biography until they retire or die. Therefore, since notability in each field is judged by the standard of the field, and notability in this field is established by publications and positions, their publications and positions are always considered suffficient, as is explained more fully in WP:PROF., and consistently maintained at AfD."

"The standard there is more notable than the average." To be noticed by 400 peers is much more important that to be noticed by two book reviewers. To be noticed by more than 200 peers for several different publications is more notable than by being noticed by two book reviewers for several different novels.

Answers to specific objections: What he is notable for, is the subject of the papers. The abstracts are on PubMed for a description. There is no need to discuss the plot of a prize-winning movie to show it's notable. The recognition is sufficient. WP articles have to show their subjects are notable, by the standards of the field. They do not have to explain why the field holds them as notable; its best to get in some sort of orientation, but not essential.

The independent references are the papers themselves, and the are reliable because they have been published in peer-reviewed reliable journals. (in this case, of the very highest quality, and that can be shown too from Science Citation Reports). As a compromise rule of thumb, it seems to have been accepted that Full professors at research university are almost always notable, assistant professors rarely, associate, it depends. In this case, that many citation and papers would be enough even for an assistant professor, not that I can recall an assistant professor article here where he had such a strong record.

There is never much need to re-create an article about a scientist, since by the time enough people show up, it has become clear whether or not it's notable. If I can't get it rewritten or explained in 5 days I go on to the next. I do not defend the non-notable ones. (I do have a list of a few slip-ups when nobody noticed; when people write inadequate article that happens.) The article as it stands is sufficient, and these standards have been shown in multiple prior AfDs --I am not being idiosyncratic (actually, I should probably go back myself and make a list of informal precedents--there are no formal precedents here). DGG 06:06, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

re:ignoring the enemy

With the 'late at night' disclaimer, which article/discussion are we talking about?-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  07:39, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Update: ok, I've figured that out :) Note that I use 'crank' only because I am citing a guideline using it, it's not a word I'd chose myself otherwise (per WP:CIV issues). That said, if a minor scholar's work is mostly ignored and only severly criticized in the only two academic reviews that look at it, I fail to see how it can be considered reliable enough to cite anywhere but in article about that minor scholar or his views. A good analogy is: if I get a PhD from history, go to work at some minor NGO or governmental outlet, publish a book at a minor/unknown publisher with some controversial claims not confirmed by any other source and get heavily criticized in two academic reviews by more reliable scholars: are you saying my work can still be cited on Wikipedia?-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  07:51, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, yes, it can, and if the topic is discussed it should. But the articles by other people attacking the work should also been cited , and the arguments of both sides briefly presented. Since your work-- as postulated-- will have been erratic and incompetent, the arguments against it will be very strong, and the arguments for it, no matter how well presented, weak. the readers will realize it & judge for themselves.

This is not my original idea; I follow in this very closely the classic liberalism of J. S. Mill. Intellectual honesty, whether in academic writing or in public discourse, requires all arguments to be presented as well as they can be; otherwise it counts as propaganda. In most academic writing or public advocacy, one of course then draws a conclusion about the relative strength of the argument. In writing for a newspaper or an encyclopedia, one does not draw an opinion, but simply presents both sides. The only place a newspaper can express its opinion is in its editorials, which are mere arguments and carry no authority as evidence for anything. There is no place where an encyclopedia can properly express an opinion, thought it can and should honestly quote the opinions of others--all others.

I understand the provision to omit totally weird positions to mean that if nobody has noticed the author's theory but the author, then it need not & should not be presented--the usual WP standard of notability. DGG 15:26, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Librarian stuff

Hi DGG, I recognize your username from around the wiki (recently at some Afds I'm watching). I see you're an admin and a librarian, and that you've contributed to similar discussions in the past, so I'd like to point out the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam#Unusual university spam. I think it's about time we developed a clear policy about this sort of thing. As an established wikipedian and wannabe librarian, I've taken a great interest in this debate. Thanks for considering it! Latr, Katr 02:02, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for your thoughtful reply. There seems to be a lot of hostility and misunderstanding around this issue, so I hope we can reach a satisfactory conclusion. If I go for my MLIS, I'll do the UW's distance-learning program, since I don't really want to move to Seattle. It sounds like a lot of fun, but I have to do my research and determine if the extra money I would be making would be worth the extra debt I'd be taking on! Latr, Katr 16:21, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

P.S. There is a similar thread that I moved just below the one in which you responded that you might want to check out. I'm taking everything related to that off my watchlist, as I seem to have unknowingly created some hostility between myself and one of the editors involved. If you would, please keep me posted if any new policies or guidelines are developed out of this. Thanks! Latr, Katr 17:02, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

edit summaries

(comment from : User talk:Netkinetic Please be careful to maintain a neutral tone in edit summaries "sorry, John, you arent notable enough for wikipedia" -- even when people are not notable, that dismissive over-personal wording is not appropriate. And to actually use it as an edit summary on both the article and the talk p. of the editor, is, in my opinion, getting close to WP:BITE. (Anyway, that is not the standard for speedy--speedy is no assertion of notability. The statement that someone is a professor somewhere is a clear assertion. ) Before nominating people in unfmiliar fields for deleteion especially with speedy,it is considered to be a good idea to check at least google, and, for someone for whom it might be relevant, GoogleScholar. When I was new here, I sent some articles to AfD about people in sports I knew little about, and I learned a great deal from the reaction. Think for a minute whether a full professor at UC Santa Cruz who developed a notable theory is likely to non-notable. Your excellent vandal fightinng is muc appreciated by all us admins, but please don't make unnecessary work for us.

Actually it would be an even better idea of the editor himself added some more suitable content to his {{db-bio}} violating article. Self-promotion is not what Wikipedia is about and, as an administrator, I would think you would know this. The edit summary may have been a little bit over the top, but "over-personal"? Any objective editor coming across that article would surmise from the creation and verbage of that article that it was auto-biographical, even you admitted that in your response on both the registered and anon talk pages. Editors address each other by name frequently in edit summaries, and if they reveal their personal name, that is fair-game as well. Hopefully your break until July 4th will provide some sufficient time to allow for self-reflection on the principles and guidelines WP:RS, WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:POV before summarily dismissing an article deserving of speedy delete consideration. Regards and be well. Netkinetic ^(t/c/@) 17:36, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:Unreferenced_articles#verifiable

A couple days ago you made a suggestion at Wikipedia_talk:Unreferenced_articles#verifiable "There should be another project to examine the articles for which references can not be found", I suggested WP:AfD was that project. Now I have found Jian Yong and posted a comment at Wikipedia_talk:Unreferenced_articles#Challenging article to reference Take a look, is it a candidate to springboard a new not AfD project off of? Unless I missed something this one is looks like a notable historical person, with a fictional current character (minor?), and no reliable English language references. Jeepday (talk) 00:57, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Speedy and PROF

You are quite correct that the edit summary bordered on WP:BITE. However, allowing an article to not be considered under speedy deletion when it violates WP:RS, WP:V, WP:NOR (shall I continue?) is mystifying. A professor at a university is non-notable in and of itself. Please respect the process and allow the community to decide. Regards. Netkinetic ^(t/c/@) 04:03, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

please read WP:SPEEDY, at this time, RS, V and NOR are none of them reasons for speedy. I did not make this policy, but of course as an admin I follow it. If you want to change the policy, WP:VP is the place. DGG 00:13, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Per WP:SPEEDY, criteria exists i.e. "Blatant advertising. Pages which exclusively promote a company, product, group, service, or person and which would need to be fundamentally rewritten in order to become encyclopedic." Are you stating that the article in question was encylopedic. Because according to Wikipedia guidelines, which you are well aware (or should be), an article that violates WP:NOR, WP:V and WP:RS is not encylopedic. Unless we have different criteria in place for university professors, perhaps WP:UP? And even admin DGG states the following on an article s/he marked for speedy deletion: "some encyclopedic information and sources were needed". Glad we both agree after all. :)Netkinetic ^(t/c/@) 05:00, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

we are in total agreement that many articles should be deleted, and I do my share. The article for that comment was about a product with 1 sentence saying where it is made and another saying where it was sold. Clear advertisement. The one prev. discussed gave a sober description of the career and the chief accomplishments, and just needed proper references and the addition of supporting content. Clear not A7 or G11, and unref is not a speedy. Unencyclopedic articles should be deleted, but not all of them through speedy. Nominating that page for PROD or Afd would have been totally appropriate--I generally nominate such pages for prod myself. . Please recheck WP:DELETE. And before citing rules, read them: WP:UP is not the p. about University Professors. WP:PROF is, and it was asserted that he developed a notable theory. But there is no point in arguing further here about single articles--there are too many articles waiting that need deletion.DGG propriate for Wikipedia. That's all. Happy adminning! :D Tdmg 08:00, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Deletion vs Inclusion

Surprising, isn't it? You're a fervent inclusionist and I'm a rabid deletionist, and yet we almost always act in the same direction. I suppose your yin balances my yan and we end up somewhere in a fairly reasonable middle.

It still makes you think-- if we end up agreeing so often despite our fundamentally different approaches it probably means Sturgeon's Law is on the nose as always.  :-) — Coren ^(talk) 16:11, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh, on a semi-related note, I've closed Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Twyana Davis last night since you speedied it. I'm no expert, can you confirm I did it right? — Coren ^(talk) 16:31, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, personally, I'd be in favor of a policy that said that admins should not speedy article unless tagged by someone else. Checks and balances and all that. With reasonable exceptions, perhaps, for G10 and G12 since the very existence of those articles is damaging. — Coren ^(talk) 16:58, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Plot summaries

I have in the last couple of days called for keeping a plot summary for Les Miserables, Angel (TV series) and Buffy (TV series) because the Hugo novel is important in popular culture, and one hears references to it or to situations and characters in it, but no one should have to plow through the endless turgid prose and meandering plot. The TV series are quite different. The plot article provides an overview of the plot arc for the season, which is an emergent property not found in the extremely short capsule summaries for each episode. I am opposed to having detailed, scene by scene plot summaries of every comedy, drama, and cartoon, but a well written overview of series with season-long plot arcs seems quite encyclopedic. These do not relate every event from every episode. I know there is a bias against keeping an article because it is "useful" (heaven forbid anyone should ever find something "useful" in Wikipedia), but if I've heard about a TV show like "Lost" with a complex plot line, knowing the history of the show helps make the next episode comprehensible and entertaining. Seeing one sentence about each episode of a show which has been on several years does not give the reader/viewer the "big picture" like the 2 TV plot guides do. I feel that WP:NOT strongly needs a revision to this effect, but I am all too aware that a cabal will smite down anyone who tries to change a policy without "consensus" when it only takes one or two doctrinaire editors to object and deny that consensus and revert the change. Consensus can also be shown by a set of AFD outcomes. Other TV shows like this might be "The Sopranos," "X-Files" or any other long running series wherein there are plot arcs beyond the individual episode. In contrast, many comedies, cop shows, westerns like "Gunsmoke", and even juvie sci-fi series like "Lost in Space" had pretty much stand alone episodes, with little or no carryover of plot elements from one episode to the next. The fallback position is to call for the season-arc episode guides to replace the existing series-long episode guides in articles about such shows as "Buffy" or "Angel." Shows like these two have been the subject of reviews and conferences with scholarly papers read, and there have been books written about each season, so one could add as many references as necessary to satisfy any requirement that the content be reference based and not OR. Edison 16:26, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

There are 100 references for the main Buffy the Vampire Slayer article. Major references for the plot arcs would be the series of books called "The Watcher's Guide". These are reliable, but arguably not independent, since they have ties to 20th Century Fox. But there are lots of fully reliable and independent sources about the larger plot arcs, also listed as refs at the Buffy main article, such as DVD reviews at Rotten Tomatos, many of which are from legitimate sources such as Salon, which has editorial supervision and identified reviewers (as opposed to fan reviews)., for instance [5]. There is the whole Buffy studies which lists academic works on the series, for those who are more into it than casual watchers such as me. Edison 17:14, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

RE: Past Presidents

A valid point about the references. They were already in the article (but rather hidden)and now I've given them their own spot at the bottom of the page. As having members with WP articles, the pickings are slim. But where you might see an AFD, I see a small project of sorts. Many of the people on that list are notable professors/teachers/scientists in their own right. So, I was planning to Start writing articles on a few past presidents of interest, and give them overdue praise for their contributions to education and science. I'd be happy to discuss this further, but probably not tonight--I'm off to sleep. Violadamore

sampling deletions

I've replied on my talk page. SamBC 06:04, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Episode review TfD

I posted this on the TfD as well, but I really wanted to make sure you saw my reply:

DGG, I can't stress this enough, these tags were never meant to be used like this. They were never meant to be added in mass without the tagger looking at the articles and doing some initial evaluation. Abuse of the tool should be addressed, deleting the tool because one user over did it is not a good thing, and just screws everyone else over. The discussions themselves are now being held on individual "list of episodes" articles, instead of a centralized area, and these tags are a way to help more people collaborate with the process. By deleting these templates you are only making that small group stay small. A new idea will always start small, but on Wikipedia things like that grow extremely fast. If you snipe the process before it has a change to get off the ground, then people won't be able to find it. The first template was nominated for deletion before a single episode article even got reviewed. -- Ned Scott 05:36, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I have come to oppose the entire project, because of the demonstrated effect it has already had on articles. I think the reasonably extended presentation of content of a primary source is appropriate--though I agree that it should be accompanied by analysis. I particularly dislike the method that is being applied-- that the correct policy that there should be both presentation and analysis is being addressed not by adding content discussing the material, but by removing material presenting it. I do agree however, that some of the existing discussions were over-detailed. I agree with merging individual episode articles. I do not agree with deleting their basic content, and such is the practical effect of the tag. DGG (talk) 17:47, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I respect that and all, think about things like WP:NOT#PLOT and WP:WAF. It's not that, it would be nice to have real world information, but rather, we require real world information. This "project" was started as a way to find potential in episodes, rather than taking them to AfD. You seem to be blaming to the process because no one can find the potential, or even something to hint towards the potential.

You said: "that the correct policy that there should be both presentation and analysis is being addressed not by adding content discussing the material, but by removing material presenting it. "

Did you stop to think, maybe there wasn't anything to add? -- Ned Scott 03:56, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

And as far as merging goes, I haven't been watching the closure themselves that much, but stuff should be merged that can be merged. I'm sorry if anyone is not doing this, and if you have any specific review in mind I'll volunteer to clean up the mess myself. -- Ned Scott 04:05, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

fair enough, and I've had these discussions end up in joint projects before. Even afds sometimes end that way. its the way things should go.

(and I was about to send:

for video shows and the like, the question of finding material is relative tricky for me, because I myself am neither willing nor qualified to find the material, and it's uncomfortable making bare assertions of the existence of material. (though i think the plot of these shows does tend to be discussed in both specialist publications and often newspapers, for at least the most prominent--certainly for shows like the Sopranos. And they also are increasingly discussed in academic writing on popular culture--but the discussion inevitably comes several years behind. But in this part of the field I'm a consumer, not a producer--I want to read the material, not write it. The only area of pop culture where there is good material of this sort in the articles is rock music, where many easily available publication do analyze it, and the followers know about them.

However, for something where I know the research methods a little better, and where it was challenged, I did find it--Les miserables. There were at least a hundred articles in Google Scholar that clearly discussed the plot, and I was able to select 5 or 6 where the titles made it really evident.

Had i done a serious job with professional indexes and non-english sources, I could have found many more. And from these the critical material could be written. But WPedians are not that great on academic writing, as you know, and it will be a while until the work gets done. I would not remove the articles in the meantime. i would keep, and add.

had those challenging spent the time on adding material to the articles where possible, instead challenging them and removing them, it would have been a start. Of course, had those defending them spent half their arguing time on adding, it would have been better as well. The tendency at AfDs in general on all topics of people to say there is material, and cite it at length at at the Afd, but put off adding it to the article doesn't help. Anyone can edit, and most are lazy about it. I'd love to have a rule that one could not place an afd without documenting where one had looked. I wont delete a speedy or expired prod until i've confirmed the absence for myself. (I'm talking generally here, not this project in particular, and certainly not you in particular.) DGG (talk) 04:24, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

academics

Thanks for your navigation. I added something from GGC’s old resume, which I found on the Internet and books from WorldCat and Amazon. I’ll be trying to add some more substantial info on both academics’ work from other sources.

I translated a few US textbooks on writing and related subjects. If you need any help with Russian, feel free to contact me. My e-mail is anstan@bk.ru.

Anstan07 10:01, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Reed Business

As I'm sure you already know, I've been working on the Reed Business Information articles. I had a quick question for you, even though I'm sure I already know the answer. Would it be out of line to add a link on the each magazine article to a free subscription website? It seems silly to ask but before I do anything "bold" I want admin approval. Thanks again. Sean Montgomery 14:56, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your input, I thought a subscription link would be out of line, I noticed one on Industrial Distribution and removed it. I will remove any others I see. I came to you because another admin and user recommended you. As for adding so many small articles, I was trying to get many started and see if I couldn't get more help from the Wikiproject editors. Working by myself would be difficult, and I also feel control over these articles should not be left to one person, especially me (ha ha kidding). I'll try to build existing articles more, but my resources are limited. Thank you again for your help. Sean Montgomery 19:44, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Episodes

I saw your comment on the Notability page. So I take it you'd rather see something like this for television show episodes, rather than something like this?  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 00:22, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Printing

No, I think it was an honest mistake - my edit summary was meant to be taken literally, not as minatory (perhaps not the best phrasing). He is on the warpath again at Four Great Inventions of ancient China but I don't worry too much about that. There's absolutely no chance of me going for admin. Keep up the good work at AfD etc, & I'm still waiting for the Master of the Playing Cards expansion. Johnbod 03:06, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Requests for verification

Response at Wikipedia talk:Requests for verification#How long before delete unreferenced article?. We both know that there is some unreferenced content in Wikipedia that is not appropriate. I am asking you to help me build a tool that will address that problem. There are a thousand what if's and a million more discussion, but lets start someplace. We can build a tool that is an appropriate compromise between M:Inclusionism and M:Exclusionism. Jeepday (talk) 14:26, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd be delighted to work with you, because first of all in individual cases good people generally agree on most subjects, and also because I think cooperation including people known for different views of things will be more readily accepted--as it should, because there will be less individualistic bias. Also agreed that inclusionism and inclusionism are not the right terms for most things and people (the only real inclusionists in a pejorative sense are those who want an article on every human, & the only exclusionists in that sense are those who would confine us to the limits of paper.

I'm not sure we could build an inclusive tool: there are too many problems why they might be inappropriate--and the basic problem isn't in my opinion unreferenced--the reason unreferenced picks up so many problems, is that unreferenced articles are often defective in other ways.

There are also areas where there is no agreement on inclusions, and if there is to be a general effort it probably should stay clear of these, which should be discussed separately until there is some real continuing consensus: crimes, plots, for example. If we go too fast on these we may end up doing the work over as consensus changes.

As policy, I am only willing to cooperate on a project aimed at deletion if there is a genuine commitment to improvement when possible, or if there is a high bar to limit consideration to the articles almost certainly unimprovable. For example, many business articles as they stand are not adequate, but could be improved in knowledgeable people used the right sources, and for this example there's a shortage. We can still work cooperatively, but in perhaps different ways.

The only tools I know of are good objective human beings. Only humans can integrate disparate factors. But there can be technical helps. Personally, in my own opinion I think them secondary--my preferred approach to weeding--and as a librarian I have certainly done a lot of it, though to storage, not disposal--is repeated systematic passes through even the largest set, looking for particular criteria each time. WP has 2 million articles. I've worked with collections that size--though not doing it all myself. But I haven't done them all myself. There was a philosophy common to all, agreed to and applied over 40 years by over a hundred very individualistic professionals--get the obvious, leave the others for a subsequent round. This is the way to go fast. Our consistency was pretty good--the rate of restoration from storage to main collection has been well under 1%. But we had commitment to one common principle: the goal was to help the users, & anything the users had found useful in recent years was to be kept.

Since you started here, lets keep the general discussion here. I'll do a separate archive if appropriate. DGG (talk) 17:53, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

• Agreed, As you know I work towards inclusion and improvement. on questionable content I am more likely to suggest delete then you are, but I readily accept keeping with a less stringent verification requirement then you. Improvement is the primary goal. "high bar to limit consideration to the articles almost certainly unimprovable" I am not sure that you can dictate this in usage, I understand what you are saying, and I think I have addressed it by placing a very low threshold for removal (or nonplacement) of the template. Like anything there will be room to misuse it but, as proposed placing the template is only a suggestion for deletion. Even if absolutely no references are added to the article, before it can be deleted an adim has to come along and agree to remove the article by actually deleting it. Additionally it places articles in a category, that will be monitored (the same as Category:All articles proposed for deletion for much longer then a prods 5 days. I made some changes (earlier today) to Wikipedia:Requests for verification take a look and see what we need to address. Jeepday (talk) 18:13, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

the problem is that one person can place templates in one day that will take ten people a year to address. Thus the end result of such a process, however, well intended, will be destructive. I care for WP, and do not wish to sacrifice half of the potentially good articles.

You trust the accuracy of admins more than I do; I am one of them, and from doing the work, know how easy it is to make mistakes. DGG (talk) 19:23, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I think putting source tags on uncontroversial statements it diverts energy from challenging and sourcing the controversial ones, and is not a constructive way of improving the encyclopedia. DGG (talk) 21:48, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree that there is potential for worthwhile articles to be deleted with {{RfV}}. Keep in mind there is no original work in Wikipedia so no knowledge will be lost, articles may be temporarily not on Wikipedia, but someone will add them back. I try to focus more on the future, think of the benefits in 3 to 5 years, every article will be verified. Thanks for joining the team at Wikipedia talk:Unreferenced articles Jeepday (talk) 13:00, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

I am glad we agree on where we are going.But WP is also for today, and removing articles in the hope that someone will add back the notable ones is not in my opinion a reasonable approach.

Incidentally, I maintain some degree of sanity here by not getting over-involved in the fate of individual articles. I know I can't save them all, or, for that matter, delete them all. And certainly not get them all written right. DGG (talk) 16:44, 17

Peratt

Guess we just have different interpretations of notability, perhaps based on our personal experiences. I don't consider myself "notable" even though I have more pubs than Peratt and have served as Associate Editor for three different journals versus his one. Those are just the normal things that we do. (Mainstream versus non-mainstream is neither here nor there as far as I'm concerned.) It's a borderline case, as you say. Raymond Arritt 02:41, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

At some point the normal things one does become notable, if they are good enough. I will check the citation count for yours'. As for me, I'm safe: my citation counts are very low. (smile). DGG (talk) 02:50, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

heh, maybe I'll end up AfD'ing myself for lack of notability. That could be fun in a quasi-dadaist way. Cheers -Raymond Arritt 02:58, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually happened that way with a biologist around here- but he was held to be sufficiently important that he'd get the article anyway. He's gotten used to it. DGG (talk) 03:01, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Summer colony

Hi, I noticed you tagged this article... I have made some example improvements to it and left a note on the talk page, if you have any comment I'd be interested. This seems like as good a project as any to spend a few hours on JSTOR making some improvements. --W.marsh 00:25, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV only if less then a week

User:BirgitteSB made an interesting sugggestion at Wikipedia talk:Requests for verification#Not sure what I think about this proposal in short "{{RFV}} may only be used on articles articles less then a week old." It address many concerns of those opposed. It clarifies that this is tool for encouraging referencing and limits (severely) the potential for misuse. Think about it for a minute then please come and share your thoughts. Jeepday (talk) 13:34, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

replied, in brief, that it would violate WP:STUB as currently written. DGG (talk) 19:17, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

CSD A3

About a comment of yours while removing a Speedy Deletion tag, "lists of internal links are not among the things to which A3 applies": Actually, wiki links are not excluded and thus are included by CSD A3. Here is the text: "No content whatsoever. Any article consisting only of links elsewhere (including hyperlinks, category tags and "see also" sections), a rephrasing of the title, and/or attempts to correspond with the person or group named by its title. This does not include disambiguation pages." Note that the text has to explicitly mention hyperlinks because wiki links are the basic kind of "links elsewhere" and are implicit to the definition. Hu 23:52, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

I stand my my interpretation that the CSD criterion is not intended to eliminate an article which is a list composed of people or things, each linked to their individual WP pages. Such lists are a standard and well accepted part of WP, and using CSD to delete lists on this grounds is not reasonable. Indeed., list pages are frequently opposed on the opposite ground--that they include items that do not have a WP article & are therefore non-notable. You might want to propose at the VP the elimination of such articles from WP altogether, if you think that is what the community will want. DGG (talk) 00:00, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Your username

Hey, I noticed the note at the top of your userpage. Since User:David Goodman hasn't ever made any edits, I think you can have your username changed (and your edit attributions changed along with) here. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 00:28, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion. I think that may have been me, and I lost the password. But since I seem to be known around here as DGG by now, maybe it's simpler to stay put--though I could still use it in the sig. let me think about it. DGG (talk) 00:42, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Whatever you'd like to do. I just thought I'd bring it to your attention, after I saw you around AFD. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 00:54, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

RFC about multiple deletions?

Hi DGG, you had left me a note about opening a discussions on mass-noms at AfD, and I'd be happy to participate if you've created it, or aid in the creation if not yet. Just let me know what I can do. Thanks!! Eliz81^{(talk)(contribs)} 17:10, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Blogs etc as references

I am wondering about when blogs become useful as references. Some blogs are written by known figures who are notable already from their other writing, or from their qualifications or expertise. Some are associated with people who give their real names and professional positions and credentials. Some science blogs have been highly rated. For example, Nature magazine placed a "review of some of the best blogs written by working scientists" on its website in July 2006.[6][7].

Some examples:

• Pharyngula (weblog) by PZ Myers, a biologist from the University of Minnesota, science category winner in the 2006 Weblogs Awards
• Panda's Thumb (weblog), with many professional scientist posters, also highly rated (second place winner?). Almost every poster I have seen on there already has a WP article, and is noted for other writing already. Usually with good sources.
• talkorigins not a blog exactly, but with many articles written by well-known professional scientists and well-sourced
• RealClimate, a blog produced by "real climate scientists at the American Geophysical Union"
• Aetiology, found at [8], written by Tara C. Smith, Assistant Professor of Epidemiology in Iowa
• scienceblogs, a provider of science blogs includes many interesting and useful blogs [9]. Note that they are selective in who gets to blog, in fact.
• Nature itself hosts assorted science-related blogs [10]

Comments? Ideas? Suggestions?--Filll 04:20, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

essentially, i think a review like that of Nature gives authority to the blog. The best way of establishing the authority is to write an article about the blog for Wikipedia. I think this is true in general for any type of sources which not everyone will recognize as notable without an explanation, and I have done so for a few reference sources, and have always intending to do more, including some blogs. Blogs run by magazines are like letters to the editor. Some places screen them very very carefully, some don't. (remembering again to distinguish from the letter to the editor type of short article, as in Nature). Something published in a blog by a recognized authority is an easy case--regardless of where she publishes it, she gives it authority. But remember to be fair about this--some blogs by those with whom we do not agree are also responsible.

so I encourage you to write some articles about blogs. Let me know & I'll look at them. DGG (talk) 04:59, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

For your consideration: A description of a science blog

Please take a look at my draft of an article on the science blog Aetiology, which appears here. Thank you.--Filll 16:49, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I have slowly improved this draft a bit and also, at your suggestion, started a draft on the author of this blog at User talk:Filll/Tara C. Smith. I think I am getting close to showing she is notable, but you tell me what you think.--Filll 23:14, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Smith has published 3 books, and taught at 4 different Universities, and has several journal publications as well. Smith organized the Iowa Citizens for Science (with a few dozen members), and been engaged in lobbying and organizing public Darwn events (1 so far, another upcoming in 2008), and an article about her activities in this area has been in the Des Moines Register. I think she is well on her way to notability, if she is not there already.

Her blog is rated number 7 in science from Nature, out of 46 million blogs evaluated. I count 4 print mentions (including in Cell (journal) and 5 cyberspace media articles about Aetiology (in addition to just 1000s of general blogosphere discussions on other blogs). Notable?--Filll 16:09, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

An essay I've written

Hello. Though we are often on the opposite side of deletion debates, I thought you might want to read an essay I've written, found at User:Eyrian/IPC. I'd be interested to hear any feedback on its talk page. --Eyrian 15:15, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Lilly Arbor Project

I have helped the user who worked on this with a fresh draft, better sourced, composed in userspace and then moved to article space. This has effecivly removed your prod notice. I think you will find this sufficiently sourced now, but have a look for yourself. (independant sourcing is still thinner than i would like, but non-zero). DES ^(talk) 17:03, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you

		The Original Barnstar
		For all your unremitting efforts on my behalf, and drastically improving my feeble scratchings. Filll 18:54, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Primary source only articles

I would tend to agree that a teacher would and should insist on the student looking at the book itself. That's because any self-respecting teacher would have the student writing a secondary source—a research paper or the like.

On the other hand, this is intended to be a tertiary source. It's intended to be a collection of the reliable and verified research of others from looking at primary sources, not our own work in that vein. Sometimes, primary sources can be used for some supplemental material with secondary ones being used for the main bulk, if purely descriptive claims are made. But in everything, we should be mirroring secondary sources, not second-guessing them. If a reliable source says something I believe to be wrong, we go with the source, not me. By the same token, if secondary sources don't write about a given subject at all, or a given aspect of that subject, we should mirror that—by not writing about it at all. Students in class are intended to be the original author and first publisher of their work. (If they're not, they'd better hope to have a dumb teacher!) That's not the idea here at all. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 19:07, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not so sure there. I think it's good we tend to require secondary sources, just because of our nature as a tertiary source. I guess I just don't see "List of times X got mentioned somewhere" as of particular relevance to that, it seems to fail indiscriminate information collection. (I'm aware that's significantly overused, but here it really does seem to apply.) I think the cultural influences of works are better done by citing works that actually speak to how the work has influenced culture, rather than just saying "X seems to have been influenced by Y" with nothing to back that up. In some cases that is a purely descriptive statement which doesn't need secondary sourcing (for example, to state that Weird Al's "Like a Surgeon" is a parody of Madonna's "Like a Virgin"), but in a lot of cases it steps over the line into original synthesis if no one's actually studied it and come to that conclusion. I think what TV Guide or other secondary sources do there is allow more elaborate conclusions to be placed in and sourced, where it would be original research to draw them ourself. If that can't be done, and it's basically just a list of "Family Guy spoofed X one time, and so did The Simpsons", I guess I fail to see the value. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 00:43, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh no, I'm certainly not saying "never notable". (WP:IDONTLIKEIT is just as invalid as WP:ILIKEIT, and mirroring, not second-guessing, sources applies just as much in the other direction). There's tons of material, for instance, on the cultural impact of shows like The Simpsons, South Park, and even some soap operas. I'm sure articles could be written on those subjects and sourced perfectly well. But a good article on that subject would go far beyond "A was mentioned in X, Y, and Z." Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 01:10, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Lansbridge U.

Good ole Lansbridge U is back at Lansbridge University, so as not to "canvass you" - given that you're likely to !vote contrary to my position anyway :-) - I won't tell you about the AFD going on for that article. ;-) Carlossuarez46 21:23, 1 August 2007 (UTC) (discussed at the AfD-DGG)

Thank you

For your message[11] .You have contributed a lot .Have a lot to learn from you.Harlowraman 23:50, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Nathan Deeprose

You should probably review that one tagged speedy and either keep it or send it to afd, because there is a claim of having won an award that no individual should pass judgment upon. Carlossuarez46 02:45, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Claims to notability

I view that the burden is to assert notability. An award which is not obviously notable, like the grade 8 Canadian history award won by Mr. Deeprose, does not get you over that hurdle. For all the world knows this is the highest of the 8 levels of history award given by the Canadian government and personally awarded by the Queen. I doubt it, and unless it's obvious no one should have to assume it to say that there's an "assertion" there that merits avoidance of a7. You just need to get over that 1st hurdle, assertion, barring pure bollocks such as "king of the world", for once you've made it over that hurdle it's off to afd land or prod ville. As you may be able to tell from my edit history, many originally tagged speedies get sent by me there or I notify the tagger that speedy isn't right, maybe afd would be. As to trust, part of the trust is to prevent bollocks or non-notable articles from being on the site so that it remains an encyclopedia where people can trust the information, and doesn't become the yellow pages or myspace or youtube or ebay. When someone objects on my talk page, as you have seen, I am willing to restore or not object to restoration of the article, barring copyvio or attack situations. It doesn't mean that the article will or should survive an afd, because I will often send it there to find what the community thinks, as you might have also seen - not that I give you notice each time that I do it :-). Some of these issues really ought to be discussed at CSD page because there is a fundamental good-faith difference of opinion among editors, admins, and the community.

By the way, as an experiment, I made a little list of articles I looked at and wondered whether (sorry if I personalize this, I mean no disparagement) you would agree with my delete assessment. I put that little list in a word file, but did not act on any of the "closer" articles, but will check in a little bit. I'll be curious to see how many have not been deleted in the interim, how many have, and how many by you. Ultimately, I try to be fair - to the author but also the encyclopedia - when things are outside a7 land, I call it that way. I assume that you do the same. Carlossuarez46 03:22, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Everyone of us looks for something different, and there are 1200 of us. You have no need to convince me you do most things right. I am sure we each make mistakes, and I am sure there are places where we disagree. The choice in CSD patrol is not keep/delete--it's keep/afd/prod/leave for another admin/delete. Most people watch the articles they put speedies on, and if they disagree with me & want to pursue it, they can go to afd in a perfectly friendly way with my blessing. I notice at Deletion Review that I almost always disagree with the people who say to get the right result regardless of process.--I think following the rules is the way to minimize conflicts over their interpretation. If you want to see what I decline to delete, there's an easier way--just look at my contributions. I leave a clear summary. 04:20, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm still trying to learn and one way is to see what others with whom you don't always agree do and see if you can learn from that. There are a couple of inclusionist admins that I want to understand that philosophy better from them. I do note that I got overturned at a DRV for an article I on a personal level would have loved to delete, by calling a "no consensus" close. I was baffled that it was overturned but not deleted, as the editor bringing it to DRV sought. I suppose the closer relisted at afd despite no new arguments one way or another at DRV. My prediction is that it'll be deleted, without any new arguments presented. Sometimes you can't win for losing. :-) Carlossuarez46 04:47, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree; I realize that I'm in the minority more than not: see my user page and you'll see little majoritarian about me (but I do hope that being a Democrat in 2008 will be majoritarian :0). We should work together; I have utmost respect for people with whom I disagree when the disagreement is in good faith and civil - which this has been. I even offered to nominate for RFA one of the guys I can count on !voting to keep anything I'd like deleted because no matter how strongly we disagreed he always has a good faith argument (that I just disagree with, as he does mine) and is civil. Where do you suggest we cooperate. Carlossuarez46 05:09, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

• Slightly more "real" than Mr. Deeprose above, what do you think of Brendan J Smith? He does have awards. Carlossuarez46 05:21, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

• I haven't come across any deWP articles as you describe, but as you might expect I am sympathetic to articles that aren't in English - I moved one speedy tagged one to translation depot today because there was no obvious equivalent in Turkish, my best guess as to the language, I only have a tr-1 babelbox, and can't be entirely sure that it isn't Turkmeni or another related language in Turkish orthography (it certainly isn't Azeri), but I digress. There are lots of Catalan articles that ought to be translated into English about bios & ancient history (my favorite area). My reading of Catalan is probably 95% comprehension if done slowly - knowing Spanish gets one most of the way there and honestly it's much easier to read than to translate by hearing (ditto Portuguese but contra Italian which sounds much more like Spanish than it reads, go figure). My German, with a dictionary, can approach 90+% on non-technical subjects. The issue I have, which I raised but never got addressed at the requested translations pages, was how do translations comply with GFDL? Don't the original foreign editors whose work is being translated deserve history credit too. I'm not super hung up about my words but I wouldn't project that (probably nonmajoritarian) view onto others, particularly Europeans, as Europe has a strong ethic of protecting authors' rights. I have edited some but not substantively on de, ca, es, pt, it, scn, nl, a few others that escape me but I much prefer writing in English as I do most of my thinking and conversing in it nowadays - other than my family and few childhood friends - I can't remember the last time I had a long conversation in Spanish. So if you point me to some of the German ones, I'd be glad to help - even if only to find sources. Carlossuarez46 06:14, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

• Civil disagreement should not jeopardize rapport. I trust that works both ways. I have not noticed a strong "better as a cat" movement at the afd debates as you mention, but as a courtesy rather than question the observation or how strong such a position is (by numbers), I attempted to rebut what I worry would be the effects of these sorts of cats. No bashing, no accusations, just what'll we look like with hundreds of ...popular culture categories to either supplement or replace the articles. Carlossuarez46 17:01, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Notability question

Hi there. A quick question for you on notability - you declined to delete a village definition (Adamant, Vermont) as you said all villages (and presumably therefore by extension all towns, cities etc.) are notable in WP. Is this official policy ? Does this also apply to articles on schools, colleges etc. - whilst it's unlikely you could ever accuse someone of 'blatantly advertising' a town, it is possible to write an article about an educational establishment that's phrased in such a way as to attract positive attention. Are all educational establishments also notable, and if not, whats the 'notability criteria' ? CultureDrone 09:24, 2 August 2007 (UTC) Long response at your page -DGG

ExtraDry

Hi, I just thought I would draw to your attention the behaviour of editor Extradry in respect of multiple disruptive speedy deletions on Old Boys of Newington College. Following your comments on the multiple deletions of University VCs I thought you might like to look at taking some action. Tallum 13:30, 2 August 2007 (UTC) (List of Old Newingtonians) no serious recent disruptive edits. DGG (talk) 18:47, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Since that time ExtraDry has placed a speedy on the following:

• Frank Howarth - Geologist, Director Australian Museum and former Director Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney
• Hon Leycester Meares AC CMG QC - Former NSW Supreme Court Judge, Chairman NSW Law Reform Commission, Benefactor and Chairman of Kidsafe
• Judge Herbert Curlewis - Former NSW District Court Judge and husband of Ethel Turner (Author of Seven Little Australian
• Hon Justice Roger Gyles AO - Federal Court Judge, Royal Commissioner Building Industry in New South Wales and former President NSW Bar Association and Australian Bar Association
• Clive Ramaciotti - Philanthropist whose foundation has donated $50 million to biomedical research
• Frank Hinder AM - Artist renowned as a major force in Australian modernism
• Graham Davis - Walkley and Logie Award winning Investigative Journalist for BBC, ABC and Nine Network's Sunday
• Christopher Lee - AFI Award and AWGIE Award winning Screenwriter of Secret Life of Us
• Dr John Burton AM - Former Head Department of External Affairs, High Commissioner and Founder Centre for the Analysis of Conflict.

And the following have been deleted at his suggestion:

• Prof William Doe - Former Dean of Medicine University of Birmingham and Professor of Medicine at ANU and Sydney
• Rogey Foley (aka Ellis D Fogg) - Considered by the National Film & Sound Archive (ScreenSound Australia) to be Australia's most innovative lighting designer and lumino kinetic sculptor
• Darren Yap - Theatre Director, Actor and Associate Director Sydney 2000 Olympic Ceremonies

This seems to be a highly disruptive pattern of editing. Tallum 23:38, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

nealehs deleted article

Hi, I am a new user to wikipedia and I wrote an article on a company called Schultz Jeans. I thought that it would be of interest to people as they are a bit different and they have invented something unique. The delete tag says that it is blatant advertising and that certainly wasn't my intention. I have a background in sales so it's quite possible that I just write like that without noticing. Could you please give me some tips on how to rw-write the article to fit with policy. I read somewhere that I can take the article "back to my own area" for re-writing - how do I do this? As I said before I am new to wikipedia as an editor so I find it slightly confusing - so please be gentle. --Neale Hayward-Shott 08:12, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Aggressive user

Hi, DGG.
I've got a report for you.
An user reported me with this [12] the behaviour of user:Benkovac .
As I've seen, user Benkovac has registered solely for edit-warring with Croatian users and for vote-fixing (I d'n't know who's sockpuppet he is).
In fact, he should be banned. As I've seen his userpage, that's propaganda of Serbian territorial expansionism. Shall Wikipedia tolerate such things? Sincerely, Kubura 11:07, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Recently, he has also voted on a Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_July_29#Category:Former_Towns_of_RSK_1991-95. If you look better his contributions, these are only revert-wars and categorization with disputable category.
I don't know who's behind that sockpuppet, but there we have a case of vote-fixing (rigging, votestacking?, have I used the proper word). Kubura 11:12, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I am not all that skilled in these cases, and you would do better to call for the attention of those who are, on WP:AN/I or request for checkuser. AN/I are responded to within a few hours. DGG (talk) 19:49, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I hoped you'd be more familiar with that :) , I'm not don't usually report people to RfCU. BTW, in the meantime, while I write this, I see that user:Benkovac is a confirmed sockpuppet of user:Semberac (as well as user:Fkzeljo).[13] Kubura 10:06, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Invitation for comments

Dear DGG, at the suggestion of DES, I am extending an invitation for you to read and review a project I've been working on, under the guidance of, and suggestions from DES.

After posting my thoughts on the TTR talk page, and discussions with DES and Carcharoth, Carcharoth asked if I'd be willing to put my talk page thoughts into an essay, as mentioned on the DTTR talk page, and at DES's added suggestions, I decided to go ahead and take a stab at it. Here is the initial draft of the essay. As of now, the essay is not public, DES and Chrislk02 are the only ones who have taken a look at it during its initial creation. DES and I have a fairly lengthy discussion on the talk page, as well. However, now that I've taken his early suggestions, and have finished all the sections, I'm ready to move into further discussion of the essay, aimed towards any improvements in format, layout, content, etc. I have invited Until(1 == 2) and IPSOS to take a look as well. If your schedule allows you the time, any wisdom, insights, or suggestions you have would be greatly appreciated. ^Ariel♥Gold 17:12, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Dear DGG, I want to first of all, thank you so much for the time, and effort you took to put together your thoughts on the above. I've read through them, and I'll go through them several times to get more ideas and understanding. I'll add more on the essay's talk page, but just wanted to drop you a big thank you! ^Ariel♥Gold 23:48, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

AfDs

Thanks for your work on this AfD: Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Lansbridge_University#.5B.5BLansbridge_University.5D.5D and others. Bearian 21:26, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Jón Ólafur Eiríksson speedy deletion denial

I believe your decision of notability and removal of db-bio speedy deletion tag to be in error. The article contains several statements that do not stand up to casual scrutiny. Obvious jokes in it further support the entire joke/hoax/vandalism nature of the article.

The main notability issue, a claim of withdrawal from the national team (at the precocious age of 16 or 17), is belied by the statement that "the coaches never came to see him play". I read this as a clear joke, it seems obvious he was never on a national team with the coaches ignoring him. Google shows no hits for his name and a national team. There are no hits on the other competition title names he lists. He may have later led Bíldudalur to victory in football, but as it is a fishing village of 195 (per Wikipedia) in 3-club area of 965 (Wikipedia pop. for Vesturbyggð), the notability there seems minimal, likely deliberately so for humorous effect. Now, the 20-year-old is "retired" from a "long and remarkable career".

At best, I see this as a non-notable vanity article. At worst, it is pure hoax vandalism. I believe vandalism is most accurate as it fails the basic "smell test", but either reason should be sufficient for speedy deletion.

Your edit summary states an assertion of notability by the author of the article as a reason for removing the db-bio tag. Without support for notability claims, I do not agree that simple assertion of notability is grounds for keeping an article. I could, for example, falsely claim to be a former member of an Olympic team in an article about myself. This should not, and likely would not, inhibit an editor from successfully nominating my vanity article for speedy deletion after a quick search failed to verify my claim.

Of course, we can go through the harder and longer method of an Afd. I frankly think a decision to delete there is a foregone conclusion and nominating it be a waste of time for everyone involved; which is, after all, the fundamental reason for using speedy deletions instead. Still, if that is what you think most appropriate in this case, then that is the route I shall take. Michael Devore 04:29, 4 August 2007 (UTC) {replied explaining that suspected hoaxes should not be speedied, and that I disagreed that a speedy should be used for weak assertions of notability-DGG)

Follow-up in more detail in my talk that an edit summary denial is often insufficient and supporting your decision to take additional action in the future. Michael Devore 17:14, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Roots Music invitation

You are cordially invited to participate in WikiProject Roots music The goal of WikiProject Roots music is to improve the quality and quantity of information about Roots, Folk, and Traditional music available on Wikipedia. WikiProject Roots music as a group does not prefer any particular tradition of Roots, Folk, or Traditional music, but prefers that all traditions are fairly and accurately represented.

I thought you might be interested, especially because of the discussion of the Child Ballads on the talk page at the moment.

-- TimNelson 07:27, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi, and welcome to WikiProject Roots music! As you may have guessed, we're a group of editors working to improve Wikipedia's coverage of topics related to Roots, Folk, and Traditional music.

A few features that you might find helpful:

• Our navigation box points to most of the useful pages within the project.
• The News box will help to keep you up-to-date. You can watchlist it if you're interested; or, you can add it directly to your user page by including {{Wikipedia:WikiProject Roots music/News}} there.
• Most important discussions take place on the project's main discussion page; it is highly recommended that you watchlist it.
• The project has several departments, which handle article quality assessment and other tasks.
• For those who like userboxes, we have some available in the Outreach department

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask any experienced member of the project, and we'll be happy to help you. Again, welcome! We look forward to seeing you around! TimNelson 12:32, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Allegations of Chinese apartheid AfD

Following your recent participation in Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2007 July 30#Allegations of American apartheid, you may be interested to know that a related article, Allegations of Chinese apartheid, is currently being discussed on AfD. Comments can be left at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Allegations of Chinese apartheid. -- ChrisO 15:24, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Overuse of Speedy

The reason I tagged Young was that it appeared to be an article that had been finished writing at the time. Upon reflection, I acted prematurely, and will exercise more caution in applying SD templates on possible unfinished pages. I have read PROD, and the other material, and will continue to use them in making beneficial edits. Sorry about that. However, I intend to eventually become and admin, and assist in the SD and vandalism areas of Wikipedia, so rest assured, I'll be working harder to do better. Elenseel 16:38, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Eyrian

Very supportive of your view at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Eyrian.

Can you tell me if you're intending to set up a centralised discussion on the issue? If yes, I'm tempted to run through all the disputed AfDs with a...

Speedy Close (per WP:IAR) pending resolution of the issue at so-and-so centralised discussion in light of the comments of myself and others at this RfC.

...type of vote. AndyJones 17:06, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely. My suggestion was to suggest it, not to implement. My real question was whether you're intending to set up a centralised discussion? (If not, do you know if it's open to me to do so, and if yes would you support me?) AndyJones 17:25, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

I would, of course, support a centralized discussion on this topic. Bearian 17:45, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Good, but do any of us know how to actually set that up? Good idea though it is, my experience is mainly in editing in article space, not in adminstrative stuff. AndyJones 19:11, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Regarding James Dudley Fooshe

I know you are quite experienced. This is just the suggested boilerplate notification for what I've done and why. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 19:32, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

I have removed the {{prod}} tag from James Dudley Fooshe, which you proposed for deletion, because its deletion has previously been contested or viewed as controversial. Proposed deletion is not for controversial deletions. For this reason, it is best not to propose deletion of articles that have previously been de-{{prod}}ed, even by the article creator, or which have previously been listed on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. If you still think the article should be deleted, please don't add the {{prod}} template back to the article, but feel free to list it at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. Thanks! User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 19:32, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Grand Hyatt Hong Kong

Hi DGG. Please note that you have not signed your comment on that DRV, or actually you missed a ~ so only the date appears. I'm not a big fan of adding the unsigned template, especially for longtime editors so I'm writing this instead (and losing two minutes of my time and two minutes of yours in the process!) Cheers, Pascal.Tesson 01:25, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Robert C. Beck

Medicine is a field that changes all of the time. Many say that medicine is just a current POV. Many M.Ds. talk in terms of scientific facts, when actually they are talking about the currently widely held theories. A theory is a working opinion or POV.

Robert C. (Bob) Beck, DSc., wanted to give American medicine a push in what he considered the right direction. It is said that a Mexican hospital nominated him for a Nobel Prize. Because of Beck thousands of people have used his protocol to spontaneously go into remission for numerous types of 'incurable' deadly diseases. For example, the Jane Stilwell who operates http://www.bobbeck.com/ reports that her cancer has been gone for years now. On the basis that he saved many lives should be as important a contribution as having been in a Hollywood film.

In his field of alternative medicine he is considered a hero. That should serve as notability enough. The establishment is made up of people who have been educated in a system that has largely been influenced by the Foundations. The establishment has big money, big power, big momentum, big media presence/influence whereas Beck had very little or none. The POV of "the alternative medicine guru" will be suppressed by wiki medical interest group members based on the fact that he was not "one of them," he believed in strange things that skeptics do not, so many establishment people don't like him, and think that he is a flake, unworthy of an article--thereby suppressing knowledge of his contributions to healthcare (alternative or not).

My work on his article is on-going. I'll do some cutting out of stuff and re-organization. The article will be ready in a year or so. Oldspammer 04:10, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Foot, meet bullet

Heh. Silly mistake: as I was testing the user warning code, I've forgotten to prepent "User talk:" to the user name.  :-) Bang! — Coren ^(talk) 04:25, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Newspaper

That's the main reason I put db-empty on it. I suppose it was a lame excuse for an expand tag; a bad call on my part. If I had known that it was a big newspaper I'd have gone with an expand tag but I thought it was a minor one. Sorries and thanks for catching that! -WarthogDemon 04:36, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Elonka 2

Thank you for taking the time to participate at the discussion in my Request for Adminship. Unfortunately the nomination did not succeed, but please rest assured that I am still in full support of the Wikipedia project. I listened carefully to all concerns, and will do my best to incorporate all of the constructive advice that I received, into my future actions on Wikipedia. If you can think of any other ways that I can further improve, please let me know. Best wishes, Elonka 04:58, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

POV

Hi, Can you please explain why you added the POV at the top of the [[:Marilyn Carroll] page? You didn't post anything in the talk page.Carniv 17:06, 5 August 2007 (UTC) --I think it needs a fuller and more objective presentation of its research and the justifications given for it. By the use of one-sided quotations, it comes very close to being an attack page. DGG

Hey,

I have many articles that she has published and I plan on posting direct quotes from some of them. I'm really new to Wikipedia and my goal is really to make a balanced page. I'm really not trying to make an attack page. Could you give me some suggestions of where I should get somemore info from? Thank you! Carniv 10:12, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Request for comment

Bothering you again. I would really appreciate your comments at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard re Patryk Dole as a reference. Sincerely, Novickas 20:16, 5 August 2007 (UTC) Thanks for your input. Novickas 23:04, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Request for Clarification

I know this isn't your area of focus, but I'm interested in your thoughts regarding the Request for Clarification of the paranormal ArbCom decision if you have the time and interest. Thanks, Antelan ^talk 20:41, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your insight. I appreciate any conclusion that is informed by thoughtful, sound reasoning, such as yours. Antelan ^talk 22:47, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

'In popular culture' AfDs

DGG, you are a fantastic editor, and I (think I) understand where you are coming from in your passion in these AfDs. Regarding your comments on the one that I saw most recently (Eiffel Tower in pop culture), I decided I needed to tell you where I am coming from in these situations. I am not against pop culture. Far from it, I think that serious academic study does not pay due attention to certain things because they consider them 'pop culture'. It is not the pop culture element itself that I am against in these articles. What grates me how notable the topic actually is. Pac-man, for instance, is notable. But has Pac-man had a significant impact on pop culture? If so, we should write an article on that impact and how and why it has become an influence in movies, television, and (especially, I would imagine) video games. Paradise Lost is also notable, but every reference to it in pop culture is equally non-notable. There is certainly a well written prose article to be written on how that poem has influenced our culture, and there is definitely scholarship out there on it. A list is not only notoriously difficult to maintain, but it does not provide anything to the reader. An article like 'Paradise Lost in popular culture' should really be Miltonian tradition and talk about Milton and his influence, not a list of things that may or may not have been influenced by him. Please understand that my votes in these AfDs have nothing to do with wanting to banish popular culture from Wikipedia, just to write prosaic, well sourced, and informative articles on these topics. I believe the first step in doing this is to delete these articles that are lists of trivia. I hope you see where I'm coming from? CaveatLector^Talk 01:52, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your essay, which I think you should add to one of the debates. Let me respond briefly-- In the case of Pac-man and the like, a point could be made that that the page is not really necessary, for the entire discussion of pacman is about the subject IPC-- that's the inherent locus of the subject. For influence of X, then you are right that in general more academic titles are much better--and i would be suggesting them except the same parties have nominated several such articles and seemed it would just confuse the discussion. I'm not sure about Miltonic tradition--this is really over-formal and would sound strange to most WPedians. But there's a third point: the influence of Milton on literature, music, and so on, is a perfectly sound and delmited set of topics. But there is also the influence of Milton on non-literary things. The total sum of references and allusions in even the most trivial of places indicates the impact on the world as a whole, not just the literary or creative part, for it is assumed the viewer/reader will understand. And all of these allusions are related to each other--the set of them, how they are used, why people who have never read the works still use and understand them, is a topic, and the topic is best shown by the collocation of the findable references.

I'm not a specialist in this subject in the least, but I am a bibliographer. I once collected 18th and early 19th century references to Samuel Richardson's works--in the pre internet era, by systematic searching of likely places and by following leads, working in libraries which had perhaps 90% of the possible sources. I didn't work on visual references--I do not have the knowledge of the sources and the tools. And I could never work on 20th century media references at all, for the same reason. But for everything since about 1990, this is different now, and the place to do it is Wikipedia. There is a sense in which this is OR, but for the topics WP concentrates on, it's a logical extension. Gathering is not OR; only interpretation is. Even if WP is the not the place for the work, it's the place to collect the sources,. I don't want to do this work, but I don't want to destroy the sources for it. I am as a librarian horrified by the speed at which we are destroying access. I will still have access as an admin, and the material should certainly be transferred to another wiki--I can help with that but do not have the time to work on it or organize it-- and it is unnecessary--it could have been kept right here.

The question is how to build these up. The current way of deleting them first is so much the wrong way to go, that it is about this that I am fighting. I have things both at WP and in the RW I should be doing rather than defending or rewriting these, things I could do much better than this. So will you help preserve some of it? Will you, for example, help with the Eiffel Tower article, and categorize the ones you know. And then look for the sources for them individually? will you perhaps look at Irvine for a book discussing it to add to the references for the article? On a longer scale, will you rewrite at least the academic sections for some of the ones based on classical topics--your own field? Will you -- even -- be prepared to say at some of the AfDs, "keep, and edit." ? DGG (talk) 02:37, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I am still at Penn at the moment, but I'll see what I can do (time is tight and the library isn't open all hours now because it's summer). As for the AfD's, you've convinced me to be a bit more lenient in what to give the delete to. Perhaps a Project is in order to get these articles policed and compiled into good articles, with some set and agreed upon guidelines. You should, by the way, mention your profession and how it's influencing your decisions in the AfDs, as it helps me understand greatly how some of these topics can, indeed, be notable and useful in the realm of encyclopediahood. As for Eiffel Tower in pop culture, I'll userfy it and see if i can't get to categorizing or fixing it up. CaveatLector^Talk 02:46, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

• For the rename, are you thinking something along the lines of "Yale in culture" or "Yale's influence on culture" or something like that but better-phrased than what I can think of at the moment? (Antelan)

• Keep let's try to think of a good title, sure, and discuss it on the article talk page. I agree that "..in popular culture" is fairly lame, and does indicate an inclination to collection really trivial stuff. Yale's influence on culture is a different matter entirely--Yale's influence on culture is the influence of the work done at Yale and by Yale graduates in the arts and other fields of civilized endeavor. We don't have any real articles of this orientation for any university, besides what's implied in the unviersity articles, and lists of X university people, and it would be a good series--an excellent idea--but it's separate. This article is on the effect that popular knowledge of Yale has on cultural artifacts--things written about Yale, or using Yale as a symbol, or as a theme. It is by the total accumulation of these themes that popular culture--contemporary culture-- is built. The orientation of these articles in WP is almost exclusively on what form of association: the artists, with some attention to the genre. They're easy to write. But the subjects of popular culture are also important. The different subjects that popular music or fiction or film uses indicates what the nature of the films or books or music is--its as important as the people who wrote it, as important as the technical aspects of the genre. These articles are harder to write. The individual items are minor in themselves in most cases--but the assemblage of them is not. In most genres, artists usually work on subjects--not all genres-- Abstract Expressionism comes to mind as an exception. But nobody just writes a love story. they write a love story about people of certain types in a certain setting. That a story refers to Yale indicates something -- they think it indicative, or they think that it will prove interesting.

since when does WP not write about "culture junk"? The glory of WP is that it covers all of it. Notoriously, one persons junk is another's deeply meaningful art. We cover all of what people care about that way. Some people find baseball teams relevant, some people find pokemon relevant, some Opera, and for these and for everything else there are millions who think that such indication is a sign of immaturity or arrogance. Now, the things their works are about are relevant too. The allusions they make in their works are relevant too. that is what culture is about.

The place for accumulating knowledge about this is Wikipedia. Gathering is not OR; only interpretation is. Even if WP is the not the place for the work, it's the place to collect the sources. I don't want to do this work, but I don't want to destroy the sources for it. I am as a librarian horrified by the speed at which we are destroying access. I will still have access as an admin, and the material should certainly be transferred to another wiki--I can help with that but do not have the time to work on it or organize it-- and it is unnecessary--it could have been kept right here.

The question is how to build these up. The current way of deleting them first is so much the wrong way to go, that it is about this that I am arguing this. I have things both at WP and in the RW I should be doing rather than defending or rewriting these, things I could do much better than this. So let us preserve this, and then improve it. Let us see if every one of these trivial references can be sourced and integrated. If we care about WP, let us preserve the content, even if it takes more than 5 days to do so. Every argument here comes down to "keep, and edit." DGG (talk)

use of such material

Sorry if I sounded arrogant, but there have been altogether too many simultaneous discussions of this, and I'm getting a little tired , and yes, exasperated at needing to say it all in some many place to meet the simultaneous comments. Freak104 confirms my uninformed guess that WP is a prime source of comic book information, which I consider an excellent thing. Now it remains to make some use of this by organizing it. Listing things by series and creators and major characters is the obvious first step. Discussing it by themes and allusions is the next. Fully analyzing this is of course OR, but collecting the material already in WP and finding outside references to support it is not. this is what the so called trivia sections now do in a primitive way, and the job now is to do it better. By analogy with other genres I know, and using the basic ideas of organising information familiar to librarians and bibliographers, the first step is to make articles on the various themes and so forth, collect the instances, group them in what logical way the material suggests, reference them exactly to the primary sources from which they came, and then look for additional sources discussing them. Then one normally looks for analogs in other media and genres, and adds them, to show the significance of the material to those not primarily interested in the form, working n a similar fashion. simultaneously one connects the material used in this genre, to articles based on the other genres. Some think there is probably a level of use too minor to be accounted for, but I think the history of scholarship shows otherwise. Most notably, it is the study of the minutia in paintings, that they are ascribed to their proper artists and the historical development of each artists work discerned--this is the basic method of art history. Similarly in literature, there is no allusion in Shakespeare too minor to illuminate Shakespeare, and every trifle has been studied. The day will come for comics too. The material here will be the initial aid in research until more sophisticated work becomes general. I apologize that I have probably repeated all the cliches of such work, but I do not mean to condescend or imply that they are not well known to anyone--I think this a good place to set down a general indication what can be done with such material in general, and hope those knowing the various fields will elaborate and correct. (from WP:Trivia Cleanup). DGG

Two Articles

Should I set up Michael Kozlov and T. Cordelle Louis for afds then? I do hope my tagging hasn't gone downhill btw. I think I've made several mistags in a row these past few days. -WarthogDemon 03:52, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I have come to the conclusion I'm wikibonked. I really should distract myself with other things. (Yes that is a 3rr on my page; long story - you dont' want to know.) :P Thanks for the suggestions though. :) -WarthogDemon 06:28, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Disruption of RfCU work

Hi, DGG.
User:LAz17 has made a revert that disrupted RfCU procedure (on August 4th; the request was made July 30th, last contribution there before his vandalism was made August 3rd)). See this [14].
He deleted the whole paragraphs that described problematic behaviour of his suspected sockpuppets.
The fact that he's the "investigated party" (Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/LAz17), his action make things worse.
His revert is undone in the meantime, but this vandalistic untolerable behaviour has to be reported. Sincerely, Kubura 10:29, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, DGG, no problem, nobody's perfect. Neither I know everything. I hoped you'll know someone who'll know what to do. Thanks for all, Kubura 08:16, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much for helping me out. I work for IMPACT Coalition and the other two pages I made branched from IMPACT, so there's not much of an issue regarding copyright there. It all just needs to be verified and my boss plans to make sure of that. Thanks again. Citrific 16:57, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Verne F. Ray

Hi,

Not sure what you meant to do that article just now; you've removed the CSD tag, but with the edit summary "being stubbified to remove copyvio". Did you mean to remove the text instead?

Oli Filth 20:39, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

j. raymond jones

Thank you for your suggestion. Actually, I know the article is pretty awful and soooo incomplete. I've just read about J. Raymond Jones in Kenneth Clark's Dark Ghetto and I was surprised in not finding any reference to Jones on Wikipedia so I decided to start up an article, with the hope that someone more in touch with the topics would join in. That hasn't really happened so far but I'm sure it will soon. Again many thanks. All the best,

Fuck.org

Yeah, it was kept at an RFD, but it was a lightly trafficked RFD and nobody put forth a rational reason why we should be keeping redirects to an article where the redirected topic isn't mentioned (and there is no realistic chance it will be anytime soon due to notability and verifiability issues). I PROD'd because I figured it would be rather uncontentious to delete... but I'll just RFD it again when I get around to it. Regards,--Isotope23 ^talk 00:30, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

How do you know?

How do you know if a category has been empty for 4 days? Carlossuarez46 06:10, 7 August 2007 (UTC) About which category? Good question, though, there seems to be no way to track the history of the contents that I can see, except by looking at an empty one and waiting 4 days. 06:24, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

MRC article/Chemistry journals

Hi, is it OK if I start amending the Wiley Chemistry journals with the information you gave me for MRC now, the manager is starting to nag. I know it's not 100% perfect yet but I don't think there's any controversial information on there any more that would cause the pages to be taken down. Dchambers101 12:00, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Beauchamp

I added a secondary source, and there are sure to be others as the day progresses. - Crockspot 12:50, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Davina Kotulski

I ultimately decided to speedy keep this as another editor seemed to be helping to approve the article, yet was removing the afd tag. I decided to contact an admin about the possibility of closure, rather than getting an editor in trouble who seemed to be trying to do things in good faith. Just a question though, are the external links at Davina Kotulski okay? I'll still be watching this page for possible cleanup as such. Hope the speedy keep was a good idea. :) -WarthogDemon 20:23, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

It was the responsibility of the closing admin, who I think did it right. (Technically, one can not withdraw and speedy keep after someone else has said delete.) The references as it stands are marginal--sfgate is not wholly reliable to establish notability and some of the other stuff is her writings or general background or blogs. But real references are alluded to though not specified in the text--I haven't looked for them. If those refs are significant, then she's unquestionably notable. Personally, I would not have brought the AfD. I think the better practice is to give the benefit of the doubt on all such subjects, in order to avoid divisive debates, and to concentrate instead on keeping the articles NPOV. I respect KP Botany's subsequent involvement--an excellent editor. DGG (talk) 22:02, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Er wait, I'm slightly confused. I removed the speedy tags and placed the afd. Pardon? -WarthogDemon 22:35, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh nevermind, I got you confused. I meant THE ADMIN closed it as speedy keep -the afd withdrawn by nominator. Here's what I asked: User_talk:After_Midnight#Davina_Kotulski. -WarthogDemon 22:37, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, I see the confusion here. As i said, a reasonable close. DGG (talk)

Thanks. I do apologize for not wording that properly. I kind of did a rush explanation instead of a careful one. I'll be sure to avoid confusion in the future. -WarthogDemon 22:48, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

RfA?

I'd nominate you for Admin, if you were not already one! oops, waaay too late..... Anyway, just a cheerful note of appreciation for your good work! Mathmo ^Talk 21:36, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Kleb Intermediate School

You voted as a weak keep in the AfD under the condition of sourcing a statement about a girl's suicide. I have done so, along with cleaning up the article a tad. Thought you might want to comment or add to your vote. -- Naruttebayo 05:18, 7 August 2007 (UTC) Deleted anyway. DGG

How could they have deleted the article on a 4-3 "Delete" vote? That's by no means a consensus. -- Naruttebayo 18:29, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Notability clarification

A week or so ago I posted a follow-up question on an AfD discussion you commented on. If you missed it, I'm still interested in any clarification or elaboration you might have. On the other hand, if you saw it and chose not to respond, I apologize for re-opening the issue and I'll drop it. -- MarcoTolo 02:55, 8 August 2007 (UTC) Since this would likely fall under your userpage comment that you have "a very strong dislike for deciding matters by technicalities rather than the merits" (and, in retrospect, my question probably falls into the former), I withdraw the query. Thanks. -- MarcoTolo 02:59, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Hey, don't withdraw the question, I'm in the middle of answering it: as you guess, my view is that it does not depend on the wording, but the meaning. It depends on what is being asserted. The way I think of it is that if it is anything that the author of the page could reasonably have thought notable, it escapes speedy. For the article given, the person posting the article could and did reasonably believe that the position of Dean of that school was notable. It isn't, but that was another matter. Anyway, this is a matter that comes up from time to time at WP:CSD talk. My rationale for why it's better this way is that if there is any chance, it's better that the community look--it's more consistent, and it saves time in getting the junk removed fast without needing to discuss it or deal with appeals. DGG (talk) 03:24, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks much for the clarification - much appreciated. -- MarcoTolo 03:36, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Your work on IPC articles...

...is extremely commendable, but it is more accurately described as rewriting (if not writing something completely different), not fixing. What, if anything does this have in common with this? That is the fundamental issue that lies at the heart of what I am doing: Every article that I have nominated (under the IPC/trivia campaign) is unsalvageable. Yes, you can rewrite it, but that has nothing to do with the article as it stands. Did that fact that "The late rapper Ol' Dirty Bastard sometimes referred to himself as Osiris" help you find resources about Egyptian themed murals in Indiana? Best to tear down these monstrosities so that good articles can be built. --Eyrian 16:45, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't mean to butt into DGG's talk page here, but I disagree with you on this, Eyrian. Best to take the article to a forum of collaborative effort, where it can be renamed and rebuilt. Flat deletion will only encourage argument and recreation of these problematic articles. CaveatLector ^{Talk Contrib} 22:17, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Exercise Physiology

Exercise physiology (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) It seems that the American Society of Exercise Physiologists (or their marketing representatives) may be back, after a short break, attempting to use the above article as free advertising for their organisation. Here is an IP edit that added an introduction to the article (reduced to a stub recently to remove their publicity), the text of which was lifted straight from their website. (Needless to say I reverted that on copyright grounds.) Of course there is insufficient reason as yet to conclude that any COI editing is going on, but given the history of this article I would not be surprised if that occurs. I will be keeping an eye on the article; if anything happens that needs the authority of an admin, I may stop by and ask for help. Thanks for your time! Sheffield Steel^talkers_stalkers 20:34, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Lakelands Park Middle School

Hi, please take a look at User:TerriersFan/Lakelands Park Middle School. This page, in an earlier state was deleted in an AfD. Though improved, it probably still doesn't have the necessary secomdary references. Some time ago I merged it into Montgomery County Public Schools but the merge was smartly undone by the AfD nominator. Since then, a concensus has emerged that merging NN schools into their district is a good thing. I don't like edit warring, at least on my own(!), so if I merge again would you be prepared to watch Montgomery County Public Schools and help defend the merge, please? TerriersFan 22:47, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the notice

The article still has to be rewritten in English and wikistyle. Geeze, what is with this copy and paste rampage? Thanks. KP Botany 01:24, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I cleaned up the fairy shrimp articles marginally, added taxoboxes, and tagged them with a project and one of Wikipedia's better copyeditors, who works on Crustaceans, is working on them, so they're in good hands. They're important endangered species in my neck of the woods, so I like having articles about them, and will see if I get time to work them over a bit, also. I appreciate the notice about these articles. 19:19, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Slip Ups

Are things like Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization okay if it's from a government site? If so, sorry, I wasn't aware of that. I do hope, however, that my contributions have improved at the least... -WarthogDemon 01:53, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

If it's part of the US government, it's PD. If it comes via a state site, you should try to find the original. Some states are PD, notably Texas. Some quasi-governmental organisations however are not, and the place to ask is WP:Copyright. If in doubt, it's not a speedy. Use one of the WP:copyright tags. Note this does not apply to the UK-- Crown Copyright is not GFDL compatible. However, it is a rare US page that should be used without editing, and this one is no exception. DGG (talk)

Removing prods

Hi DGG, surprised to see no mention of your recent prod removals in edit summaries. Any reason for this? I appreciate you did more to the articles, but "cleanup, rm prod" would be fair. Deiz talk 04:49, 9 August 2007 (UTC) (my mistake--going too fast-DGG)

Discover

Hi, DGG. Please take a look at Talk:Discover Card, and please also compare the differences between Discover Card and Discover Financial. Two separate articles for company and product. I'm working in a sandbox in my user namespace to further improve both articles. Think, as kind of an example, American Express and ExpressPay. Thanks, take care, user:j 07:42, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually, they're already considerably different articles. Take a look at the two now. By and large, there is very little duplicate content at this point. But I do think there are a few more things that need to be moved from Discover Card to Discover Financial, I just haven't had a chance to yet. Maybe you're thinking of this revision? Take care, user:j 07:56, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Jónas Aðalsteinsson

Hey, thanks for taking an interest in the above article. Just to let you know I'm going to nominate it for AfD later today, I figured since you removed the wotsit you should be given the heads up. All the article really says is that he is a qualified lawyer, imho. Jdcooper 09:29, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

The Novels WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XV - August 2007

The August 2007 issue of the Novels WikiProject newsletter has been published. You may read the newsletter, change the format in which future issues will be delivered to you, or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Thank you.

This is an automated delivery by grafikbot 14:03, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Use of blog as source

At your suggestion, I have now built up Tara C. Smith's article to hopefully reach notability, as well as the article about her blog, Aetiology. Do you think these are now reasonable? Do they demonstrate notability? Can I now use them as sources at [15] ? If you think that this is a good source now, would you help me reinstate the citations on the article Physicians and Surgeons who Dissent from Darwinism for me? I have not found other sources, at least yet, because it is pretty obscure so far. If you know of other sources, I would welcome those as well. Thank you. --Filll 20:38, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Another editor has disagreed that the general audience, popular nature of the 3 books should be mentioned. They also disagree that the book reviews should be included. They also want to put personal information in the article, such as material about her d.o.b, ethnicity (???), family life, etc. I disagree with this, even though I can put it in there. Possibly the year she was born can be included, but I think the rest is sort of irrelevant. I want to concentrate on her professional career. Comments?--Filll 14:29, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Missed comment

I was reading through the RfAs and noticed you seem to have missed this comment on RockMFR's RfA. Lyrl^Talk _C 21:33, 9 August 2007 (UTC) (remarked on this new comment at the RfA)- DGG

Regarding your comment

I apologize if that is how what I was doing came off as. I was not contesting your job and your need to enforce copyrights (surely this is an essential duty). In fact, I agree with the assessment that his use of copyrighted material was inappropriate, and I think your leniency is admirable. I was most interested in you elaborating in specifics what the problems were. This way, they could be more easily resolved. As was, there was little way for user Commons@tiac.net to understand what exactly the problem was, and this is why I replied. Also, I do not think it is good to make edits without supplying the proof of the justification. An authority than maintains the necessary standards is indeed important; however, an authority also needs to be transparent and specific about the problem they are addressing. If not, not only does it seem like a personal attack (even if it is not), but it is frustrating and confusing. Also, please do not take this personally. I do not mean any of this by any means as a personal attack. I just mean these as suggestions.

I have read your profile and I understand that. I appreciate it very much. I think that that kind of openness is essential to intellectual advancement and beneficial to many people.

I understand WP:OWN and WP:COI, and acknowledge their importance and the significance of the issues at large in intellectual endeavors. I have been bedridden for most of the time in which this account has existed, so I have not edited other articles heavily. However, I am interested in doing so, and I think it is important to not restrict oneself just to an area of interest or just to assisting a colleague. I assure you that I will edit other topics and articles in the future. I will start doing so as soon as possible. However, I also believe it is important to act in a timely manner, especially when dealing with copyright issues, which are serious and sensitive issues. This is especially true on Wikipedia, where their resolution is extremely important in terms of the credibility of the medium. Though, regardless they are important. Intellectual property should not be infringed upon.

What else I have to say is that I do not think you should not act hastily in the present situation. You have indeed been patient so far, but I am afraid that with all the editing work you do you may be compelled to finish this sooner than is best in the name of efficiency (this is most likely just because of my prior experience on the internet. You seem to be very devoted though, so it is most likely a false fear). I have talked to user Commons@tiac.net, and it seems that he understands all the intellectual issues involved in why his postings are disputed, but is confused due to the the way the information way presented and some degree of difficultly in understanding how Wikipedia works. I believe he has said this himself in one of his posts (He is new to posting and has said so). Due to his current troubles with Wikipedia he has had some degree of difficultly understanding what to do, as well as trouble understanding literally where and how to place his edits. I think it would not be of benefit to Wikipedia and in the interests of anyone hoping to maintain the accuracy or appropriateness of information on Wikipedia (or in general) to censor him based on him not having perfect understanding of how Wikipedia works.

I am sure you will understand this and I know you understand the importance of working to include more. I have simply been hoping that you understand that I also am interested in this goal. I think in this case, it is important that you be patient and assist this user as much as you can. There is no reason that the worthy information he posts should be lost.

On that note, could you please continue to assist him, as well as assist him in other issues? For example, I believe he needs help regarding his article on Society for Quantitative Analysis of Behavior. His response is valid, but it is in the wrong place (actually, I see that good assistance has already come, but any further assistance would always be helpful).

I believe there was some degree of misunderstanding here, and while it is unfortunate, I believe we have made progress in resolving it through this communication.

Nikurasu (Nikurasu) 22:11, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

One addition: if I did not say it in there, I am also all for the heavy editing, of course. I was not taking exception to that.

Nikurasu (Nikurasu) 22:49, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

User talk:Commons@tiac.net

Just a quick note about this user, the account was created in 2006 and is therefore not blockable under WP:U, I looked it up when I saw the copyvios he was creating ;) -- lucasbfr ^talk 23:50, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

RfA

I was wondering how many total edits and how many name/mainspace edits you had when you applied for your RfA? I was thinking about pursuing one this coming year. Elenseel 02:10, 10 August 2007 (UTC) I never kept track, & I waited until someone nominated me. It's more the quality of work that matters: the extent to which it shows knowledge of policy, ability to discussion issues involving conflict calmly and productively, and in most people's opinion, enough contributions to mainspace to show what's involved in writing articles. Anti-vandal activity is important, but not by itself enough. If someone is going to be able to delete and block indepedently, they have to demonstrate they know when to do it. DGG (talk) 15:10, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Marduk AFD

I gather you think that mythological references indicate nothing much--this is a private value judgement of your own. I think that's what adds to the culture density and significance of games. The makers of the games certainly seem to agree with me, as do the players

In my case, I gather that you have an unfounded belief in your mind-reading skills and/or problems with reading the plain English of my statement. Please don't project your peculiar interpretations onto my actual words, please. --Calton | Talk 02:48, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

(My comment followed your "Hello, another useless and random collection of factoids, documenting where a bunch of unrelated writers drop in cheap pseudo-mythical references to prop up their stories. Whoop-de-do." I consider it fair comment on a somewhat scornful posting, well within the practice at AfD. You don't find me complaining on people's talk pages about the comments they make at AfD. DGG (talk) 03:03, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

unlinked

Hi DGG–is it a case of good-editor (Filll) and a bad-day? I got my 'apology'. Anyhow, regards Fred ☻ 16:14, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

• There is a stream of personal attack against me on the users page. Please address the thuggery displayed by the users. I don't think there is anything I can add at this point, my 15 words and a question has generated an archive full of tirade. Please help to make this a pleasant working environment. Thankyou. Fred ☻ 04:18, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Grieg's music in popular culture

I did a lot of work on this one. Hopefully I have saved it from the Visigoths, as per the Heymann standard. Bearian 20:45, 10 August 2007 (UTC). Good job - DGG

Vistas High School

The article has been renamed correctly as Vistas High School Program. There is a discussion on a possible merge to its parent article at Klein ISD Merge. Your input is welcome. – Dreadstar † 22:45, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the good faith comment, I'm not trying to kill the article - never was. Today, I actually took the time to call Peggy Ekster, the Director of the Vistas High School Program. I chatted with her about the article and she confirmed that there was no school named "Vistas High School", just as my research had shown. These snide little comments, like "nice try", are just bad faith..and don't reflect on the work I did to check all this out. Thanks! – Dreadstar † 23:12, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

just think of it as practice for the next time. My own batting average is about 0.250 :) DGG (talk) 23:18, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Crockspot Mistake

I was about to fix it myself but decided it might be nicer to let you know that you accidentally forgot to write out that this optional question: [16] is from you. :) -WarthogDemon 23:58, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Relevance proposal

Hi. Can I ask you to offer your thoughts on WP:RELEVANCE? It's a careful and ongoing attempt to cut a middle path on the subject of "trivia", among other things. Much obliged.--Father Goose 09:02, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Re:

I'll try to find some stuff thanks. --Vonones 17:53, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Grieg's music in popular culture

Thank you for your kind comments in this discussion. Bearian 01:51, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Ahiram (King of Byblos)

Well done! -- Avi 03:39, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Cat: P's from C

.. had 8 entries when I last checked it about 16 hours ago. Still not impressive, just in case you want to refactor your comment before someone says "Aha! It has 8 entries and is therefore essential to WP!". Deiz talk 07:03, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Arthur Marshman

Thank you for your "comment 2" at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Arthur Marshman. It was a very constructive way of pointing out that some of my comments were a bit personal, and you are entirely right in that. Thank you for not just "telling me off"! I appreciate your approach. BonzoBabe 10:48, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Input needed

Hi, DGG. Great to be able to call upon the expertise of a librarian. Someone added PLoS to WP:EXRS. I thought maybe it was a worthy addition, but tried to reword it so that it better suited the instructive nature of this guideline. It would be great if you could determine whether this statement is an acceptable addition to this guideline and whether PLoS is a good example. See [17]. Thanks. TimidGuy 16:32, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Input needed

I have written Earlbaum associates for permission. I do not understand what to do with it once I get it. How do use a GFDL license?

User:mlcommons 19:32, 12 August 2007 (UTC) What article are you asking about? As a general answer, see WP:Copyright. DGG (talk) 01:31, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment

Thank you for your comment on my RfA, which was successful. I have a lot of respect for you from encountering you at AfD, and it meant a lot to me to see your support. Lyrl^Talk _C 01:02, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

DGG by David Shankbone

NYC

Hi guy, it was great to meet one of my mentors. My brother and I both had a good time, although he think's I'm a Wikipediholic. Thanks again for answering my random questions. Bearian 15:06, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I've seen you around a bit, thought I'd say hello

For what it's worth, whenever I've seen your contributions in any of various places around WP, I've consistently considered your remarks to be well-considered, balanced, and reflective of some of the better aspects of WP in general. Best regards for your efforts. dr.ef.tymac 15:07, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Notification of proposal: Guideline/policy governing lists

Given your participation in recent AfDs involving lists, and given your track record for neutrality and diplomacy, I'd appreciate your input on the following:

Wikipedia: Village pump (policy)#Proposal to make a policy or guideline for lists

Thank you in advance for any thoughts you may have on the topic. Sidatio 16:18, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

FYI, this conversation has moved to User:Sidatio/Conversations/On list guidelines. I look forward to your continued input in order to reach a consensus on the issue! Sidatio 00:43, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

AfD notification proposal

Hi DGG. You do not need to change policy to have people notified about AfD. You might want to contact the developer of User:Android Mouse Bot 2 to see if s/he can create an Android Mouse Bot 3 to post the AfD notifications using stats from Wikipedia Page History Statistics. If you check out my contributions, you'll see that I am in the process of manually using Wikipedia Page History Statistics to add AfD warnings to those AfDs listed at the bottom of the August 13th AfD list. I also add {{Welcome!|-- [[User_talk:Jreferee|Jreferee]]}} to their talk page if they are new. I utilize Microsoft Word to assist me in all this. -- Jreferee ^(Talk) 16:25, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Another thing that happens is the article itself sometimes is not tag for deletion even though the article is listed at AfD. See this, for example. -- Jreferee ^(Talk) 17:48, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Speedies

Sorry, was probably going a bit too quickly with that one. I'd never heard of Lazard before and it looked like a standard vanity bio so assumed it was. I'll take more care in future. Readro 20:33, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

honors

SCPM08...also not sure where to post my message. not sure why the article i created, thematic option honors program, was deleted. i went through the program, so i feel a particular affinity for the article about it. it says copyright violation, but i wrote the article based on what i know about it, and using two sources (which were cited). thanks.

Wohl

tweety21 ...sorry not sure where to post my message..thanks for help regarding article: Arden Wohl...but how does this process work? how long before editors decide or not to restore..thanks

Oldbury College of Sport

I created the page whilst templating many other West Midlands school. The page is only a stub I agree and I obtained the directory information to start the article. I believe that it is just as notable as any other West Midlands secondary comprehensive, it just needs time to develop. CR7 (message me) 23:14, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I guess that point needs to be brought up at WikiProject Schools though. If some-one chooses to do a vast AfD on school pages I imagine it will be sorted then, but there are hundred that would need to be merged together or nominated for deletion. CR7 (message me) 00:24, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I've filled the article with more information and references, in your opinion will this save it from proposed deletion? Please take a look and drop me a line; thanks, CR7 (message me) 17:04, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Canvassing

RE WP:CANVASS...I didn't realize there was a no canvass rule on wikipedia, and that being excited about promoting an article was bad. I was just so excited about the potential of the article becoming better in a short time frame, that I thought those with an interest in Universities would also be excited about an anniversary year. Ah well. Also RE WP:MEATPUPPET, I have not asked folks to join any WP or wikipedia with the purpose of voting, if they want to join a WP becuase they like the subject as an interest of their own, then that is their decision. It doesn't do anyone any good for someone to join a WP if they have no excitement/interest/knowledge in that WP subject. Thanks for the heads up, there are so many rules on wikipedia, and I am still fairly new to all of this. Can't read all the rules, as there are so many, so diverse, and so many different places. SriMesh | talk 02:10, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

re:Miss Teen World United States Pageant

I nominated it for CSD, because this was the state that if found it in, [18], also the ip who made most of the edits has been linked to a sock, and doing a google search for this pageant and related news articles bought up around 1-2 results one being the website itself. anyway thanks and I will see if it will bite at AFD.--Kerotan^Talk Have a nice day :) 07:46, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

thanks

Thanks for your note about the Tanglewood Symposium. It is an important event in music education so I felt it deserved it's own article and I'll try and revise it.

I'm a music educator and fairly current in my profession in graduate level study and I've noticed that people are posting their own methodologies and approaches that may be self published or web published but really have no basis for inclusion in the 'music education' main article. I've tagged content only to have it removed. How do I best approach resolving this? The problem is with article content not the whole article, so I can't propose it for deletion to reach some consensus, or can I?Rickyar 11:34, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Crime Classification manual

I see you point about merging the articles. However I think the examples given in the crime are important because they allow the person to see the difference between the types of classifications of each crime. Either way the article is not totally finished. Do you have a copy of the CCM? If so some help finishing this article would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for taking an interest. Jmm6f488 16:51, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

The reason each link is there, is that the way the CCM works is it takes a crime that is an example of the classification and walks the reader (who would normally be a police detective) through the crime scene. The crimes themselves are the central part of each classification. The description of each crime is only secondary to the analysis of each crime. Jmm6f488 19:13, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok thanks, the problem I'm having is that I'm not really an expert on criminology, also I only have the CCM not the second version what the whole set of articles need is someone with both and that has a very good understanding of law enforcement profiling and protocol. Jmm6f488 19:21, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

You can go ahead and delete the article on the CCM 2nd edition and just mention that it has been revised if you want to I'm not going to remove the delete tag and I don't think anyone will care. Jmm6f488 19:39, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Working page

No problem, sorry about that. NawlinWiki 02:48, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you

Thanks for defending me(and the others) in ANI, was weird to see my name on there, kinda disheartening, but meh, all good, the comment was posted while I was home sleeping so glad someone else took the time to look into it and say something. Dureo 05:52, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Sandbox deletion

Hi, sorry for asking but I saw your comment on Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Childhoodsend/Balance check, which was seconded by the only other admin to vote on the issue. Radiant then came in and closed the debate with a deletion result. I am not familiar with these processes, but do you think it's fair? --Childhood's End 13:07, 15 August 2007 (UTC) replied with advice. DGG

Eric J. Dale

Yeah, I figured it was headed to that anyway, but thought I'd follow the "chain of deletion procedures" another step up the lasser first. I'll AfD it now. Thanks. Realkyhick 15:11, 15 August 2007 (UTC) Now at Afd, on its way out. - DGG

Re: speedy tag

I have declined to delete International Academy for the Promotion of Scientific Research as the article makes clear assertions of importance. Speedy is only when there is nothing said to indicate importance--if you think it insufficient, use WP:PROD or WP:AFD. DGG (talk) 16:40, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

If you say so, but I don't see any assertion of importance. The article doesn't even say what the group is or does! There's a list of seemingly notable members with fancy titles but that's about it. Precious Roy 16:58, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I have had some dealings with Mr Lindgren, who is the dominant individual in the group. As a lawyer I am particularly careful about saying - or writing - anything too contentious, but in my opinion the "International Academy for the Promotion of Scientific Research" has no real existence as a learned society and is little more than a device to publicise the founders' writings. I support deleting it, and the sooner the better.Ncox 01:34, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

you may quite possibly be correct, but then it should be via AfD. There is a difference between being notable and the mere assertion of notability. Any plausible assertion is enough, the classic examples that do not count being , "I am king of the world" or i won an Olympic medal at the age of 11, or He is the greatest guitar player ever. I'll look for it at Afd. That's where suspected hoaxes etc belong. DGG (talk) 01:39, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Hans Georg Herzog

Okay. - CobaltBlueTony 17:35, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Mustafa Kamil (academic)

I am not very knowledgeable about Admin procedures, but you removed my {{hangon}} from the above page with a comment that sounded like youw ere saying that page should ""NOT be a candidate for deletion? Or was it that it can be "speedily" decided that my request to take it off that list does not have merit...? --iFaqeer 20:16, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

He's saying that the request for speedy deletion was declined because of the asserted notability. If someone wants that article to be deleted, they will have to go through other channels, but speedy deletion is off the table. DGG, sorry for shamelessly watching your talk page. Antelan ^talk 04:27, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

(what actually happened is that 1/ someone placed a speedy 2/ the bot sent a notice 3/ I removed the speedy 4/the author responding to the notice placed a hangon without noticing that the speedy wasn't there any longer 5/ since the hangon put it back in Category:CSD for speediy I removed the hangon 6/ the author thought I was reinstating the speedy. Procedure conflict, due to the speed at which things happen. The reason hangon put it back in speedy is that authors often remove the speedy when they place the hangon--contrary to instructions--so the category is programmed to recognize hangon as well as speedy.) Anyone is welcome to watch here and comment here. I hope you'll see some interesting things. DGG (talk) 15:15, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks guys! As a first step, I am in the process of trying to get access to a full-length biography of Aga Khan IV, so we can have a reference from a published work.

--iFaqeer 05:20, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Asmik Macagee

It's more than a hoax, it's someone's joke that has somehow survived for more than half a year. Nothing on Google and I'm Bulgarian, I know something about our royal family — there's no Asmik Macagee. The name given in Bulgarian Cyrillic (just before the "birth date") means "Queen Sinister". Do we really have to wait 5 days? Todor→Bozhinov 15:45, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

WP:DRV

Hello. I saw your comments at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2007 August 15#Category:Converts from Judaism, and responded to them. May I trouble you to reply at your convenience? Thanks! -- Avi 18:29, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, I appreciate your comments, even if I do not agree with them. -- Avi 19:30, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Proposal

I assume you mean the Village Pump policy section? Or just write a new schools notability proposal? VanTucky ^(talk) 03:48, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

It needs wording tweaking, but I like the general idea. Requiring sources confirming its existence (we need to be clear, is it only public schools within a district?) and location prevents an apparent disregard for the core policies of WP:V and WP:RS. Again, I personally still don't think hs are considered even mostly notable, rather than completely. But this is a reasonable compromise that adheres to the spirit of policy, so we can see where it goes. I agree that a firm ruling on this is most important here. VanTucky ^(talk) 18:26, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

DRV: Crimson_Editor

Hi, I see that you also favor a relist of Crimson_Editor. I wonder if you would userfy the article to me, please? What I want to do is produce a clean, sourced version so that if it is relisted, it can be moved across so that editors comment on the sourced version, rather than the old one. Bridgeplayer 03:54, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for userfying. I see the problem; there is a lot of useful stuff there but it needs a good reworking. I'll produce a clean version tomorrow night and announce it, when ready, at the DRV. Bridgeplayer 04:22, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

User:Summit499's articles re. Summit Rock personnel

I have a few issues with these which is why I tagged them speedy:

• Possible copyvios from the company website; however since access is not available to the general public if you look, it leads me to suspect that the information is internal-access only (e.g. look at the username Summit499) or promotional in nature - look at how they are written up.
• Notability of the company (Summit Rock Advisors) hasn't been established yet (Google search only yields 9 hits); therefore, the bios on key personnel aren't notable either.

BrokenSphere^{Msg me} 16:46, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Welcome onboard !

Hello DGG and very welcome onboard the WikiProject True Origins. Very honored and pleased to get someone of your experience and a knowledgable articles SAR admin I have seen you are also in the WikiProjects Council which I recently joined, and you are also colleague of another participant of the WP:TORIG, I am sure Librarian2 will appreciate that. Nice to share Wikispace with you Daoken 18:42, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Dental software

Thanks; I didn't know that template existed. Maybe there should be a speedy-template for tables. --Orange Mike 20:09, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Prods

There is no clear notability std for British footballers, so rather than taking unilateral action and just say 5 days have passed and deleting them, it is better to bring them to afd and let those whose standards differ on their notability hash it out. Or would you support prod deletes in areas of questionable notability areas? Carlossuarez46 21:05, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

• Thanks, it's still a learning experience - and I do welcome your critiques and questions. Even though we often disagree I still admire you - your civility and willingness to discuss things constructively are rare indeed. For better and worse there are enough gray areas that if we put things into afd perhaps they'll become clearer. Still let me know if you find a German article wanting translation - I did a Spanish one recently incorrectly tagged A2 (it didn't have a counterpart on es.wiki). Carlossuarez46 21:44, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
• I'll keep that in mind next time, I also considered doing all of the football (soccer) people together but those group noms tend not to find consensus one way or another. You working your way through the speedies? Carlossuarez46 21:53, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Relevance mediation

If you'd like to join the mediation, I believe you should post a formal acceptance of the case's mediator at Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2007-08-16 Relevance of content#Mediator notes so that the case can get under way. Thanks.--Father Goose 04:31, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Spells in Harry potter

It is currently under a deletion review. Therequiembellishere 17:14, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Notability of schools

I should welcome your comments on User:TerriersFan/Schools that should be made on the talk page of that page. To start the ball rolling I'm alerting you and User:Alansohn but views from anyone else are, of course, welcome. TerriersFan 00:39, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

True origins

I made some clarification on the definition of the aims of the project after some good input from some editors passing by, I also added links to the banners and created a page of guidelines to reliable sources. I think that the aims are more clear now but I could really appreciate your opinion when you have the time, I am going now and come back tomorrow, no hurry. If you think it should be reverted to how it was before please let me know, you have abundant experience Thanks Jenny^Len 00:45, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Todd J. Henry

As an admin, you of all people should be aware that a person creating a page about himself and providing a link to his own website constitutes a pretty unarguable db-spam. So, despite the fact that you've removed it, I've reposted the speedy deletion template. Smashville 05:32, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Matthew Van Kretschmar

I did not write it, but why was this article deleted. I know personamlly that the information is true and correct. User:Valpam5 —The preceding signed but undated comment was added at 10:29:37, August 19, 2007 (UTC).

Blatent BLP violations. Unsourced. DGG (talk) 19:29, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Fictional Q-ships

Thanks for your support and encouragement, though I believe that deletion is a sure thing now. Playground politicking and lawyering isn't what attracts me to Wikipedia, so I've never had to face this clique of users before, I really don't know how anyone can convince them from their self appointed mission. Live and let live just doesn't seem to be in their nature.KTo288 14:21, 19 August 2007 (UTC) advice on your talk page. -DGG

what wikipedia is not

In response to your recent non-deletion of world's largest airlines I ask you, what's the point of having what wikipedia is not, if it doesn't define what wikipedia is not? Pdbailey 23:13, 19 August 2007 (UTC) Some lists are encyclopedic, some are not encyclopedic. We'll see what the community thinks on this one, that's what AfD is for. DGG.

could you help me reformat it and reopen it? I thought I had used the template right but was apparently unable to get it to work. I was looking to object based on, WP:NOT#STATS which reads, "Statistics. Long and sprawling lists of statistics may be confusing to readers and reduce the readibility and neatness of our articles. In addition, articles should contain sufficient explanatory text to put statistics within the article in their proper context for a general reader. Articles which are primarily comprised of statistical data may be better suited for inclusion in Wikisource as freely available reference material for the construction of related encyclopedic articles on that topic. Infoboxes or tables should also be considered to enhance the readability of lengthy data lists."Pdbailey 16:26, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I can repost it for you, but I urge to to reconsider. It did get listed at AfD, but without a reason given--and in consequence, it was speedy-kept. But it was kept not only because of that but because of the comments of several other editors besides myself--and good editors-- about the merit of the article. Consider that it was already in the form of several structured tables, and a key word in the paragraph you quote is "may". Many such tables should be and are deleted--and I have voted to delete in many instances-- but some are kept. This is, quite honestly, one of the better ones. Even if you disagree, it is not really that likely to get deleted. See the discussion.DGG (talk) 16:59, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I saw only two editors comment on the merits that I was criticizing, and I think the lack of reason was harmful. I just relisted it and BillCJ took it off claiming that you can't relist. I see no ground for not giving me 24 hours to give a reason since I'm not an anon editor and assume good faith would appear to suggest i be given a chance, but the good faith assumption appears to be out the window (I'm not trying to imply that you are not assuming good faith, you have been an exemplary editor on this topic). Pdbailey 17:14, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for all your help. Now I hope the process can run it's course and if it's a "keep," at least the nomination will have had a reason to consider and the discussion will have been allowed 5 days. Pdbailey 17:28, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I'm still having a hard time with this, and since your an admin, I figure you probably know what I should be doing. First, does it matter that it isn't listed on the page after it was removed? Second, did I list it right on it's page [19] and on the articles for deletion page [20]? Thanks for any help! Pdbailey 21:49, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I figured it out the linking amongst the deletion pages for myself, sorry to bother you. Pdbailey 22:20, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay, and now another editor re-added the link to the deletion discussion, so that's taken care of too. FYI, I asked you a question over at the deletion page Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/World's largest airlines (2nd nomination). I mention because I don't think it's typical, but I don't know. Pdbailey 13:00, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

re: Benoit

I did not put that tag or reason on the article - I just restored the existing proposed deletion tag because someone had simply removed it without explanation, in addition to turning the article into nonsense by messing with the formatting. Check out the version before my revert and you'll see what I mean. - Special-T 01:07, 20 August 2007 (UTC) Yes I see, the history got rather hard to decipher. Feel free to delete my comment. If you want it semi-protected from anons, let me know. DGG (talk) 01:36, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

• No, I have no opinion on that - I just stumbled on this mess of crazy editing and tried to untangle it the best I could. - Special-T 02:07, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

A question for you

This is not intended to be as nasty as it will sound, so please keep that disclaimer in mind when I ask you:

Have you ever voted to delete a user category?

As I said, I am not trying to attack you, or to impugn your motives, but I cannot ever recall you advocating the deletion of a user category in UCfD, and I have seen you support the retention of some categories that I simply cannot fathom any possible value in retaining (which speaks to a fundamental difference in our philosophies). Do you believe that there are user categories that should not exist, or are you of the belief that almost anything goes, short of outright attacks towards others? I really am curious, because while I generally believe in deletion of marginal cats, I sometimes vote to keep them, because I see collaborative potential in them. I'm curious if the reverse is true for you. Horologium t-c 03:22, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

• I accept your question as reasonable, and I never think it wrong for someone to ask me to justify what I do. Normally at UCfD there are almost unanimous votes for deletion of most of the categories. I don;t see the point of piling on. Nor do I vote to keep all or even most.--I vote on very few where there is in my opinion some chance of making a difference or at least a protest. For example, most of the language merges this weekend to group xxx-1,2,3,and 4 into xxx are very good ideas, but my support is hardly needed--they will go through if nobody objects.

If you will look at my user page, i list myself in very very few, and only those which I think necessary for the sort of work I do. For example, I know some foreign languages a bit, but anyone who relies on me for translation would not be well advised. Others can decide differently. The longer I'm here, the more tolerant of other people I become--I thought I was pretty much so before, but I have really had my eyes opened to my limitations, one of the great things about WP.

There is no easy way to see my contributions on specific topics--enWP hasnt activated that feature, so I can't check my record. I think I have said to delete in a few cases of really unpleasantly divisive politically nationalistic categories and the like, but there seem to be almost none of them left. There is a difference in our overall approach--I would only eliminate those that need to be eliminated, and keep all the others. I ask you, why not? There's more overhead in running UCfD than in having the excess categories.

this is very much of a side issue for me--my main concern is keeping article content of interest to small groups but not actually harmful. So it's sort of a by-product. At AfD also, my !votes are keep about 4 to 1, though perhaps 80% of the stuff that goes there needs deletion--it gets deleted perfectly well without me, and I'd rather work on the items that need work one way or another. DGG (talk) 03:43, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your response. I had noted your selective participation in discussions, but was not sure if there was a pattern, or if you only discussed categories for which you had strong feelings. I confine myself to UCfD (for the most part) because I find the other discussions to become deletionist/inclusionist wars; cleaning up user cats is far less binary than that, and improves the clarity and ease of navigation when trying to find appropriate categories. (It's a lot easier to find what one is looking for in a list of 20 appropriate categories, as opposed a list of 100—20 appropriate categories, 20 frivolous categories, 20 support/oppose categories, 20 categories that focus on a single subject or aspect of a subject, and 20 that belong elsewhere in the user cat tree.) That last is a big sticking point for me, as there are too many categories that are subcats of multiple parents, which is a good idea in article space, but less so in user space. The recent discussion about the programming categories is an example; those languages are in Category:Wikipedians by language, Category:Wikipedians by software and Category:Wikipedians by skill. I'll stop now, before this becomes an expository on your page. (smile) Horologium t-c 13:39, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Rationalizing category trees, in user space or mainspace, is one thing I very much support. The problem of organizing things here is substantial, and the current efforts inadequate. When I came here I thought that as a librarian I'd work on it a little, but my priorities developed differently. Your example is interesting--what I would do is put it into one of them with cross references from the other. I'll support moves like that. Frankly, I am in favor of support/oppose when it relates to WP questions, though I have been known to list myself on both sides. My views on politics and the like are changing--I think I'm getting more supportive of forthright declarations of biases and allegiances. DGG (talk) 22:17, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm all for disclosing biases; my userpage clearly spells out (both in prose and through a userbox) where my political views lie, and I also disclose (via prose and userboxen) where I live and have lived, where I have visited, what language I speak, a few of my views on grammar, and what job I held for 20 years. However, with the exception of the bare-bones language (not a regional cat, just "English") and location (nation and state) cats, I don't have user cats for all of that (and in fact I edited one of my userboxes to eliminate the cat, and nominated a group of cats associated with one of the other userboxes for deletion). Part of that is another personal trait: I prefer to be identified as an individual, not as a member of some larger group. If someone wants to contact me for editorial collaboration, I want it to be based on my contributions, not an arbitrary membership of a group. However, I am not hostile to the concept of others using such group identifications as they see fit; I just want to keep it manageable and rational. Horologium t-c 23:31, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

As mentioned above, I personally use almost none, except sometimes to highlight a particular WikiProject. My reasons are pretty much the same as yours. DGG (talk) 00:07, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Deleted Article

Is it possible to get a copy of the tect that was in the article "Rachel Murray" before it was deleted? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mlawrence 11 (talk • contribs) 06:12, August 20, 2007 (UTC).

Psychic Surgery article

Hello. I jsut want an opinion. In the Psychic surgery article on which we are working from the WP:TORIG and from the WP:MED, a sysop protected the page because the debate was too much. That is good because they were really exagerating, but the problem is that she freezed it in a point in which it has many and wide iaccuracies from the WP:TORIG scope, the med part is not so much problem. Now, I left that sysop a message explaining the situation and commenting which version could be reverted to for leaving protected until the end of dispute but with the less inaccuracies possible, it was a point at which everyone was collaborating before they started to go amok. Nevertheless, the sysop doesn't reply or so something, and the article is there boasting inacurracies and protected. How can I proceed without challenging the protection for the article is left in a less inaccurate previous version and then stay protected until they decide what they want ?Jenny^Len 15:12, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure the differences matter that much, since the article does need a more drastic rewriting & I see no really good previous version. The point of protection in an edit war is not to freeze it in a good state, but to stop the edit war by making everyone wait a few days. Why not try to write a good lede paragraph on the talk page, and then ask for unblocking? I'll make a comment there about what I think the paragraph should be like. It's better to ask admins to reverse themselves when there is something new to show. DGG (talk) 17:39, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, I appreciate your opinion and guidance Jenny^Len 09:26, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Hello colleague

Hello there ! I was away sorry for the delay in responding. Thanx for the welcoming message and information, glad to find another "filing sufferer" around . I have been around a bit and is fully comprehensible (the wiki environment I mean) You see many incidents though. But I think I manage myself. Tell me something, how I make a nice signature ? I mean nice but keeping the level, not toons kind , just code it up or ? Let me know if I can be of assistance at any time, I have some acces to real antiques (books not people) See ya around Librarian2 16:00, 20 August 2007 (UTC) See WP:User. (but you need to know some elementary html markup). or tell me what you want to do--I'm not an expert, but I can do simple things. Incidentally, I am really a filing sufferer--I am the last certified instructor at Princeton for the filing rules in the old AACR1 card catalog. DGG (talk) 16:45, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Gosh! You are really a filing-sufferer. (even if I love that feeling of paper more than the screens) (for the first 5 minutes that is). About the signature, whatever makes me find my postings fast in a chain, any ideas ? (Yeah, ctrl-f right ?) Librarian2 19:42, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, forgot you told me about the username similarity right? I have no problems with that but if you prefer I change it (I am the new one here I yield for the experienced elders) Just let me know how I do that Librarian2 20:25, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

CSA Trust and "2 users"

The "two users" remark was in response to the entry by User:Steinbeck, who said, "If only two people in the world want to learn about either the village festival or the CSA Trust through looking at their Wikipedia article, the existence of these articles is justified." Obviously, I don't agree. Realkyhick 17:36, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Re: TORIG

DGG, I'm not sure if you saw my reply to your question regarding the True Origins project; here's a link to it. I hope it at least speaks to the gist of your inquiry. Antelan ^talk 03:59, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Hello DGG, I accidentally saw your message to Antelan. She did not created the project, Daoken did and he is nothing of "Paranormal" he has to do with organizations mostly just that he probably has been so busy setting up the whole thing that is not editing for TORIG yet. Anyhow, your comment was a good call I think, I left the following message at TORIG:

I have seen a comment from a respected sysop that True Origins seems to be focusing in some areas. Obviously not, as I can see open tasks as far as "Road", "SpaceFlight", "Takemusu", "Water Memory", and medical articles. Perhaps because more resistance has been found on "paranormal" related articles, was more concentration on those ones or perhaps because many members have medical backgrounds there was some focus on medicine related articles. This is not abnormal at all and time must be given as obviously each member edits better in his/her own areas of expertise. Just an early warning call to open the targeting scope a bit more guys, this is a very important and interesting project and many will dislike us because we will challenge their legitimacy when not well referenced so be ready for some bad reactions and don't give any reason for been seen in any other way than neutral and multidisciplinary. Just wanted to say my opinion Jenny^Len 09:41, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Hello DGG. I am who created the True origins WikiProject, remember that I welcomed you ? The project is truly multidisciplinary, there is not a preference for any area. It may seem that "Paranormal" articles have more resistance to be challenged to provide accurate information and therefore those editions may call more attention. It also happens that a few of our members are of an specific background and have tendency to revise articles within their fields, that is a normal tendency but nothing that I can see it needs more addressing of what Jennylen has already done. I appreciate your opinion and hope you start to actively participate soon Daoken 14:58, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I am glad to see there are some more ambitious plans. I suggest you not use the word challenge in any context. You are simply out to improve the content of some complicated articles so it shows more accurately the history and nature of the topic discussed. BTW, I'm not sure you picked the best name. "true origins" is so non-descriptive that it might be thought to imply some sort of a hidden agenda. I'm trying to think of a better, but it will of course imply my own view of what 'sneeded. This should now be continued at the project talk page. DGG (talk) 19:52, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

There are not plans, but already realities :) Challenge is one of the many abused words unfortunately, what it means is not what you seem to understand, each time you ask for something, you are challenging for an answer, maybe my profession carries me to use words in another meaning than you are used to, anyhow, it is not a word I use at discretion and widely but only in conversation with whom I think is a friendly party.

I know perfectly what the project is about, it is simply about improving the accuracy of historical references and claims,and if possible to promote the use of such citations, simple and straight. True origins is so descriptive that scares some because they assume it is too penetrating, and they wonder why?

The true origin of something cannot be more direct and easy to understand, it is simply the true origin of something nothing too complicated or obscure.

I would like to know the reason why you joined, is it for a better look or for curiosity or for actively be involved? I was waiting for you become an active member but instead I see a different attitude, it sincerely surprises me.

I invite you to exchange ideas at the talk page of the project as you proposed, I replied here for the sake of continuance, now we can meet there when you may feel for visiting. Thank you for your opinion, it is always welcome. Daoken 20:17, 21 August 2007 (UTC) Afterthought: What you say seems to tell me that you have not been at the project for awhile, please do visit and read all the info.Daoken 20:24, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

comment--will comment there, but I think something is necessary here. I joined for two reasons--first, because I am very interested in improving the accuracy of the material on traditional academic subjects, including history. Second, because I often join maintenance projects to see what is going on--I have (like others) joined projects aimed at inclusionism and at deletionism, because both approaches have merit but can be taken too far. Sometime I can help coordinate the work with what is going on elsewhere. In practice the articles I work on are those immediately challenged at AfD--and the procedure there is unfortunately very much a challenge. If I have more time. I look at some newly submitted ones of interest to try to get a least minimal sourcing. And I try to work on a few where there are interesting discussions of he nature of sourcing, or where I otherwise can make some particular conribution. I do wish I had time to do much more actual writing in article space about the things that interest me, rather than rescue.And there are some specific things I can help with. But to some extent Im here to give advice, such as that your definition of primary and secondary sources is totally discordant with the one at WP:RS. Anyone who does not like my suggestions tis free to ignore them. My advice is that in general in pays to go very slowly and carefully with new projects. DGG (talk) 01:03, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

email

My email has now been added cheers

Mlawrence 11 13:28, 21 August 2007 (UTC) Sent. If re-added, you will be blocked. DGG (talk) 19:46, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Re: AfDs

The reason that I have icons on my AfD comments is because I use AfD Helper, and I have now turned off the icon feature. I'm sorry for any inconveniences, and thank you. Jonjonbt 21:22, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Name change

If we change the name of the project following your recommendation, do we need to create all from scratch again or there is any way to just substitute the name and get on with it? Please get back ASAP at the talk page, I am working on it now but not for long Daoken 23:23, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, better reply to my talk page so I get the popup 23:25, 21 August 2007 (UTC)Daoken

WP:TORIG is now WP:TIMETRACE

WikiProject True Origins WP:TORIG is now WikiProject Timeline Tracer WP:TIMETRACE also WP:TIMET. This follows many opinions that teh previous name of the project could confuse or provide negative feelings in some users. Daoken 02:02, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

good choice.DGG (talk) 02:19, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks hope it serves well Daoken 02:29, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Redirect of Maria montessori school of quezon city

Hello, this is a message from an automated bot. A tag has been placed on Maria montessori school of quezon city, by another Wikipedia user, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. The tag claims that it should be speedily deleted because Maria montessori school of quezon city is a redirect to a non-existent page (CSD R1).

To contest the tagging and request that administrators wait before possibly deleting Maria montessori school of quezon city, please affix the template {{hangon}} to the page, and put a note on its talk page. If the article has already been deleted, see the advice and instructions at WP:WMD. Feel free to contact the bot operator if you have any questions about this or any problems with this bot, bearing in mind that this bot is only informing you of the nomination for speedy deletion; it does not perform any nominations or deletions itself. CSDWarnBot 03:21, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

fring article

Hi There DGG,

Please could you let me know how to make the article that i am trying to add User:Goplett/fring so that it is not viewed as spam, i am not the original author of this article and i feel that although someone abused the wiki system it is not fair to never allow the article to come back in a good version, please look at the article i have made and let me know how i can edit it so it can work. regards simon pls reply in my talk page. Goplett 21:07, 23 August 2007 (UTC) (adequate reply there by another ed. --DGG)

non-refernced biographies

Please see my rationale here.

You stated: "Several other editors have noticed similar articles prodded without justification."

After reading my rationale above, could you please tell me how you can say that I don't have justification?

You also stated: "being the member of a national team in any sport is notable". Again, I'm not questioning notabilty. Anyone can put an article up here stating that "Joe Blow" is a member of the Antartic National Volleyball team. My issue is - if it's so - then prove it. Theoretically I could put up an article tomorrow claiming that I'm a member of the US National Ski team, unsourced, and that's OK? A person coming to Wikipedia for facts shouldn't have to be going to a dozen other sources to prove what's on a page here. The source should be in the article itself.

You stated: "Unreferenced is quite clearly not a reason for deletion, either by prof or afd or any other method."

This statement goes directly against Wikipedia:Citing sources, Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:Notability (people), and specifically Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons. "Unsourced' or poorly sourced contentious material — whether negative, positive, or just questionable — about living persons should be removed immediately and without discussion from Wikipedia articles." You may point out this is simply for "contentious" material, however "contentious" doensn't just mean controversial, it can also mean "contested", "the ability to being contested" (or in a broader sense,; litigated; litigious; having power to decide controversy).

You stated: The criterion is "unsourcable", not unsourced. Please see WP:Deletion policy.

If you're referring to "content not verifiable in a reliable source" I beleive that the others that refer specifically to biographical articles (as above) give more detailed and specific rationale that states quite clearly that for biographies the cirterion is "verifiable sources".

You stated: "the rationale for proposed deletion is an article which clearly would be deleted if taken to afd, but which you think nobody is working on or will defend."

WP:DP "An editor who believes a page obviously and uncontroversially doesn't belong in an encyclopedia can propose its deletion. These pages can be deleted by any administrator if, after five days, nobody objects to the proposed deletion." I do believe that these pages obviously voilate several policies & guidelines and should not be herein. The prod gives the author & others ample time to correct the lack of sources.

You stated: "The thing to do with articles lacking references is to try to find references for them..."

I again refer you here

Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons clearly states, "The burden of evidence for any edit on Wikipedia... rests firmly on the shoulders of the person who adds or restores the material." It's not the reader's responsibility (or mine) to go and research articles for verifiability and sources - it's the editor (or article creator). SkierRMH 19:49, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Remember that I deprodded only a few of your tags. For almost all, which were articles that I thought clearly would not make it, I left them--and would have tagged them myself. I also mention that I was by no means the only one disagreeing with some of those tags.

I doubt we will convince each other, so I'll save the detailed arguments for a more public place. But to put it simply, I do not think the consensus at WP agrees with your interpretations. And why should it? How does it improves the encyclopedia to delete instead of source when sourcing is trivial? Such tagging simply makes more work for everyone. Basic sourcing is usually rather quick for most contemporary subjects. I always thought it part of my obligation here as an editor is not to try to delete or to keep articles on the basis of formal details, but to see if the subject of the article was in fact likely to be notable and sourceable. Despite what some think, my aim is not to keep as much as possible, but to do in each case what was appropriate for the ultimate content of WP. My deletion log shows I am not the least reluctant to delete as an admin--I remove several hundred a month. Yes, the rules are sufficiently contradictory that one can play a Wizards' duel, otherwise known as wikilawyering, countering each rule with an opposite. There are after all a great many articles for which with ingenuity one could find an acceptable reason either to delete, or to keep. The main principle--more fundamental than any of the other policies-- is that we are here to build an encyclopedia. Often that means deleting clearly unencyclopedic material. But for subjects that might be acceptable, it means keeping the articles and adding sources. Deletion is the last resort. DGG (talk) 04:43, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Your message on the talk page for IP 75.5.237.217

Heloo DGG. I just thought that I would let you know that the message that you left on this anon IP talk page has been blanked. A quick look at this IP's edit history leads me to believe that it is a sockpuppet of User:Biggspowd who has been blocked before and also claims to have left wikipedia. The main clue that they are the same is their need to remove the fact that people were smokers from many biography pages. I am letting you and User:The Parsnip! (who has dealt with this editor before) know about this. If there is some other page that you would like me to post this info on please let me know. Thank you for your time. MarnetteD | Talk 22:51, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi again. I saw your message on User:The Parsnip! discussion page. I understand that many of this IP's edits are okay but my question is that if this is a sockpuppet of a user whose block has not yet expired shouldn't they be blocked no matter what their edit history is? The IP is from Grand Rapids MI, if you have the ability to check where User:Biggspowd edits from and it turns out to be the same city wouldn't that warrant a block per Parsnips posting here [21]. I will admit that when I get into the policy pages that my eyes sometimes blur over so if I am wrong in this assumption my apologies and thanks again for looking into this. MarnetteD | Talk 20:15, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I apologize right up front for anything that you might find offensive in this message. I too like the forgiving nature of wikiP. It is always a learning experience in what is and isn't going to be allowed and how what was allowed won't be depending on the set of editors and admins who are most active at a given time and place. It is wrong to allow a sockpuppet of a blocked editor to continue just because their ban is up in a day or so and in the case of this editor the original ban was for three months so, if it hadn't been changed, what would your attitude be? Again I am venting so many apologies. I admire your courage to be more open. It is funny that you can find where an anon IP is editing from but not a user name. Unless that program that was big in the news a week or so ago allows one to do it without needing to go through check user. Unfortunately I am not adept at computers or the internet or I would already have done this before leaving this message.

PS you did not sign your last message at The Parsnip!'s posting at the AN/I page so I had to do some searching to make sure it was you. I hope that this is just a learning message for you but I will also understand any resentment that comes out of it. That is another part of the wikiway and I hope that future editing or questions will not be too adversely affected by this message. MarnetteD | Talk 06:37, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

of course I do not take offense--it never occurred to me that I would. If you've looked above at my p. it would be clear that people may say unpleasant things to me as much as they please. But what you are saying is not the least unpleasant. The policy about privacy of user names is a long-established one here, and not likely to change. Personally, I would support a policy requiring people to use their true names, but I think I am in the small minority about this. Also, personally, I think admin action should be confined to ongoing problems, and checkuser reserved for major ongoing disruption. My practice, and that of many others, is not to interfere unless there is an ongoing problem. Otherwise things tend to spiral out of control. Some people here do it that way, some don't. I've learned it from others--not my original idea. Sorry I forgot to sign, but its always in the edit history. DGG (talk) 22:31, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Billy James

I checked for references before placing the prod, found some winners like this http://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/billy_james/. Did you check for references before removing the prod? Jeepday (talk) 03:05, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

yes, and it is a problem because there are a number of music performers/writers of the same name. I did manage to find one undoubted fixed point. Beyond there it's going to take print. (the guy you found does not seem to be the right one, and there's another who seemed right except for the date the British Library assigned him.) Dyland is about a contemporary as I'm comfortable with, anyway. DGG (talk) 04:27, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

WP:TIMETRACE has been enhanced, give a look

WikiProject Timeline Tracer has been greatly enhanced with Guidelines and Strategy as well as many alternatives which will make your editions more easy to target, easier to tag or comment and much more. Please go to WP:TIMETRACE, give a look in the new tools and get busy helping articles. Remember that this WikiProject is helping the backbone (beyond content) of all articles , Reliable Sources and Verification. Thank you for participating Daoken 11:13, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Ref:UNombud

Thanks for that, was a nice surprise. Sorry the delay in replying, was a little bit busy in real lifeJenny^Len 11:56, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Electrical quackery has been moved to Electrical devices in alternative medicine

I propose that this article, if not reasonably turned into a worthy content within a couple of weeks, it is considered for speedy deletion. As it is, cannot be taken seriously, it is just a propaganda against those devices and this is not the place for it. Serious medical articles must substitute these kind of fringe groups articles. Unfortunately I lack administrative powers, therefore I am requesting to you to consider the article for speedy deletion if not improved. ☤'ProfBrumby 15:16, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

A good & objective change of title, as a start. But none of this is a reason for speedy deletion, or even deletion. Please see WP:Deletion policy. Content disputes should be resolved by appropriate means of dispute resolution. But I personally am too involved otherwise to devote the necessary attention and time to mediate this. DGG (talk) 18:16, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Talk:Hamid Dabashi

Hello DGG, due to the personal attacks and the "edit wars" during my attempts at wikifying the article, by multiple "exclusive" users, I had taken a break from editing the article. I thank you for your efforts, which were also reverted, and would like to receive more feedback on the talk page with possible suggestions to its remaining issues (I had already transferred it from a quote collection into an article). Hamid Dabashi is a respected scholar and it is somewhat surprising and even troubling that there is so much vanity around him, which could hurt his reputation. Thank you and best regards, gidonb 15:28, 26 August 2007 (UTC) (responded on article talk page-DGG)

DGG, thank you very much for your feedback!!! gidonb 18:40, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Impact factors

Hopefully you're not going by our article on impact factors, since this article is being edited by the Elsevier socks.

They should have been deleted to discourage the practice of creating sock puppet accounts to create and complexly link articles on Wikipedia, as has been going on since 2004 (the earliest ones I found).

I suggested just making them redirects initially, but the adminstrator was hell bent on attacking me, rather than doing anything useful for Wikipedia, so I gladly followed suit--I've found taking the high road to be entirely useless on Wikipedia.

Not all of the journals are as high impact factor as others, but Trends in Plant Sciences is a leading journal in the field, as is Current Opinion in Immunology, I believe. Both of these journals could have their own articles, as they're certainly more notable than the average Pokeman card--as could quite a number of other science journals that aren't even mentioned on Wikipedia.

But unsourced, single purpose COI sock accounts need to stop creating articles on Wikipedia for commercial puproses, and if their articles are not simply deleted, but debated and kept, this is an incentive to Elsevier to continue producing crappy clone articles all over Wikipedia. No one blocked the socks, or even cared about them, it was all about me.

And, the more crappy clone articles, the more articles put up on AfD to be deleted because they're unsourced, and don't state their notability--these articles about perfectly notable journals are just crying out to be AfDed by anyone with the time. And this is more time I personally waste defending keeping articles about things that have been discussed for longer than cartoon trading cards existed. The deletion then creates an edit page that is a disincentive to recreating a good article, because it comes with the notice that the article has been deleted as non-notable or some other such thing.

There's no way to win at this--particularly when my reasonable suggestions are ignored, in fact, I'm ignored unless I go overboard. And the sock puppets are given carte blanche to continue, and it becomes about some administrator getting her feelings hurt rather than about what's really going on. I simply can't deal with it. Nothing I do is ever of any value, no matter how obvious is seems to me, and I have to assume I am simply out of step with Wiki reality. Sock puppetry is welcomed, commercial COI accounts are fine, all is as it should be, apparently, until I wasted everyone's time saying anything. I feel like an idiot in comparison, that I spend time reading and translating technical papers and picking and choosing and searching for references, when people are willing to fight tooth and nail to keep sock puppet generated crap.

And I've had it up to here with administrators calling me a troll because I question their actions--enough.

KP Botany 19:39, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

PS I did once offer to rewrite an article by the author of a book, and have been mercilessly hounded for it since then. The article is still a worthless piece of crap, but its author and owner is fine with that. Good luck. Here's the active sock account for communication User talk:222.67.188.123.

Frankly, I consider a subject notable no matter who writes it. Much of the important content of WP is from people with a very close relationship to the subject. The problem with COI is that they dont write very good articles, they write lousy undescriptive articles like these. My attitude to PR people is different from yours. I think they ought to be taught to write good articles, and then we ought to edit them carefully. I have worked with PR guys from several publishers, including this publisher, and gotten decent articles out of them. I've had them withdraw the articles, and get an ok from me off wiki before reinserting them. It can generally be made clear to someone what is needed, if the person is reasonable. I've rarely had trouble with guys from major companies--they know the importance of getting the material written so it stays, even if it means learning a completely different style. Where I have trouble with is amateurs, or sometimes guys who own the business or run the journal or the society, who have so much emotionally invested in it that they can;t see past the self-interest. And also PR guys from academic departments--I've succeeded with one, and failed with several. One of them refused to rewrite his series of articles after multiple appeals from various people, and they got deleted. Can't figure out why. I was tempted to email his boss. I'll give a try with your anon.

As for the impact factor article, thanks for the hint. I'll take a look. since i wrote a good deal of it in the first place, I should take another look. But if I know Elsevier, they're trying to explain why impact factors aren't that important (since their journals by & large don't do well by that measure). I've answered them on the professional lists, I can deal with them here. DGG (talk) 02:31, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I rewrite a lot of small biographies, some of physicians, and recently took a completely different tactic with a COI writer. I showed him an article before User:Acalamari and I got to it, and I showed him the article after we were done with it. His response was, wow, cool, you'd do that for my uncle's article? Yup, because his uncle, although poorly referenced on the web, is obviously an important and notable physician. I'll have to research him next time I go to UCSF, but the editor is fine with us taking whatever time we need to give the article a professional appearance. I think if you prepare a couple of before and afters it might be equally as effective with other COI editors.

Yes, Elsevier's journals are hit and miss, more miss largely since their prices went through the stratosphere; however, for some obscure areas and journals they have higher impact factors than for others, so it's not safe to assume all of their journals are anything. Every botanist I know reads their Trends in Plant Sciences, alongside only Taxon and American Journal of Botany--although I don't know why. (Oh, I see, it's a journal on biochemical plant genetics, kinda the area I work in. So, maybe my idea that it is a more important journal than the other Trends journals is skewed.)

I don't know enough about impact factors to edit that article at all, but there has been a lot of funky editing going on over there. You'll catch them if you go to the edit histories and run through the diffs of most of the red-linked editors, not the ips. Here's one of Thomson Scientific's editors.[22] This guy has a PageRank agenda.[23] This guy's pushing Seymour Melman and Economic Reconstruction.[24] Anyway, it was an interesting article to run through the red-linked authors on--they all seem to have agendas. There were also a couple of Springer clones doing the same thing the Elsevier socks are doing, but I don't know if I marked them. I will be glad to send them all your way, though, in the future. KP Botany 04:35, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

not only are some of their most outrageously priced journals the most notable, they're by far the easiest to document, since people have been loudly complaining for years. I'd expect on balance I'd want to keep 80-90% of the ES titles, but the subject people can decide. The Thomson guy isn't necessarily following company line--they don't like Page Rank particularly, except to the extent that its based on the citation index principle. And if he's been doing Economic Reconstruction, it's a personal hobby. Not every who edits out of a company office is doing it primarily for the company. But by all means, add to my collection as you see them. U Chicago Press is another problem, by the way. The priority for adding of course is the scientific societies, not the commercial publishers--would you like to do some botany journals? DGG (talk) 04:53, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I've never looked up botany journals on Wikipedia. What are we missing? You can toss them my way, I'm skewed towards the biochemistry, genetics and ecology, but I read 2 or 3 plant journal articles a day for my research which is mostly about systematics. I'm going to just start writing short bios of major scientists who are missing on Wikipedia, but not really using references--it's too much work, and not the least bit rewarding. I can't believe we didn't have a word about Daniel Axelrod on Wikipedia. At least let me know what's missing in botany journals. Oh, I see we have the American Journal of Botany but not the Botanical Society of America which is currently thickly in the midst of a scientific revolution--and the AJB is a crappy stub. No Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden which is in the same place. Oh, I found the list. But we have a pretty article for Curtis's Botanical Magazine, at least. KP Botany 05:05, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Wow, this is a great discussion! Some of the COI stuff you are uncovering is really good, KP. Please do keep an eye on that sort of things, and don't let the reaction to the Current Opinion epsiode put you off. DGG, you say "add to my collection as you see them. U Chicago Press is another problem, by the way" - would you be able to expand on that? Is this collection of stuff (COI stuff, or just 'journal contacts'?) online or something you maintain offline? And how are U Chicago Press a problem? More of the same? You'll notice that the Category:Journals by publisher category structure I started included three of the bigger companies I know of: Elsevier, Nature Publishing Group and University of Chicago Press. I don't know enough about journal publishing to say whether that list of three misses out any big publishing companies. My vision for that category structure would be to have the big ones having their own categories, and with the ones published by "the scientific societies" grouped in another category. Some, of course, appear in both, so before I go ahead with that, would you and KP be able to provide any guidance? Royal Society publications would be a good place to start. See Royal Society#Publications. Also Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society used to be published in-house, but is now done by Blackwell. I'm also wondering if we should have a more specific category for things like JSTOR and Astrophysics Data System. They are currently collected in Category:Digital libraries, but maybe the ones containing journals should be grouped apart from the ones containing books (and the ones containing both would go in both, obviously). Would that work, do you think? There are definitely enough digital libraries in that category now to justify subcategorising based on topic (arts and humanities, vs scientific, for example). Carcharoth 19:24, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

1. . Categories. dont go too fast--they are a real nuisance to change. Please first consider the problem already present with just journal publishers and scientific journal publishers. There's some discussion of this at the top of the page. Publisher names change. Most but not all Elsevier titles in WP are from what used to be Elsevier Science, and is now Elsevier Science+Business. A good many articles and links need fixing. I think the two KP mentioned below are good to add, though as a start.
2. . digital libraries. Dividing by subject is possible, though there are many multi-disciplinary ones that it might be necessary to list in more than one article. Dividing by type is more of a problem. Almost every one of the major ones is constructed differently: ADS is a complex multi-type information system: an free index, a set of links to outside articles at publishers and elsewhere, many of them toll access, a free preprint data base, and a few other parts also. JSTOR is a subscription-access database of scanned journal article backfiles licensed from various journal publishers, together with a freely-accessible OCR-based index, which is what one sees at google Scholar. Muse is a aggregator for current journal articles from several major non-profit publishers. Pubmed is a index, with online abstracts, but part of a remarkably complex system, & there's a whole wikiproject devoted to the various parts. and so on. There have been some serious disagreements about what to call the various types, and digital Libraries is nicely nonspecific. Similarly, what most university libraries do nowadays is just list everything as "Digital resources" or "electronic resources", without attempting to distinguish the journals from the indexes from the reference works.
3. What i think is needed more than organization is simply more articles, about as many journals and database systems as possible, done in groups if convenient. I think a good deal of Royal society is already in, but sure, add the others--there is the advantage of a long history to write about and many published sources. DGG (talk) 04:10, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you're missing quite a few, Springer, and Wiley for starters. It would be good of you to organize these, as you did a great job starting, and the stubs you wrote would be adequate for all jouranls for now. If you have the time could you possibly improve the American Journal of Botany article? I don't have much time for editing and research right now, but it, along with the Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden have been the leading publishers of information that has radically changed Angiosperm systematics since 1993, and they both should have articles that reflect the importance of the major articles. Also, the Linnean Society journals, now that I think of it. (I know I spell his name wrong.) KP Botany 03:30, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

what journal articles should have as content

My suggestion about suitable content in general, is:

• of course the infobox stuff: title, and publisher, and starting date, and frequency,
• An explicit statement that it's peer-reviewed, and whether its a review journal or an abstract journal or what. Publishers like to list all the sections. i don't think that's encyclopedic. Every scientific journal typically has articles and editorials and letters to the editor and occasional reviews.
• The subject field only if it isnt obvious. Publishers often try to say something like X journal of chemistry covers organic chemistry and inorganic chemistry and analytical chemistry and biochemistry, and will be of interest to research and development chemists in industry and the academic world, as well as related specialists. I think that's pure PR gibberish.
• and a thumbnail of the cover for identification purposes,
• availability of online version and coverage of backfiles
• changes in title and dates.
• The name & institution of the editor in chief, but usually just the editor in chief. Some publications with extremely notable past editors in chief should list them, but it's usually excessive. This information is used to establish the notability of the scientists concerned--any ed. in chief of a major journal will generally get a WP article. Not the whole board.
• Major indexing services.like ChemAbs, Web of Science, Scopus, Inspec, Compendex, Medline/PubMed, Biosis, Psych Info, or the analogous ones in other fields. This is a major factor in establishing notability for a journal. *You can and should give the impact factor. The current ones are 06. It can also give the JCR rank, but best as as 4th out of the 80 journals in ___. It means more than just 4th, because 4th could be 4th out of 8. s.
• Use the category for the publisher and the subject-journal categories--the higher level ones are filled automatically. Do not link to other journals the categories will do it.

and optional if convenient,

• The circulation, from Ulrich's if available, or from the USPO statement if there is one.
• the two or three most notable or highest citation papers ever published
• Whether its included in major 3rd party online services such as ebsco or proquest & if there is an embargo, as there usually is for journals like these, how long it is.
• sometimes, the number of libraries holding from WorldCat--that is basically the number of US+Canada libraries.

People sometimes want to see 3rd party references. i usually list JCR and Ulrichs. DGG (talk) 04:38, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I'll try and try my hand at expanding a few stubs and see how it goes. A similar conversation is taking place at User talk:Geogre#IRC and AfD, more focused on humanities journals. I'm going to cross-link the two threads. As for the categories, I will make some lists and play around with various groupings and run them past you and others before creating the categories. Carcharoth 13:01, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

ieee

Dont explain this to me. My post on WP:AN/I was to a request for somebody to explain this guy what he did wrong. Since I reverted his deletions, I was quite sure he would not listen to me. Ignorant people who are lazy to make a quick google search or even to read wikipedia are not people I want to talk to. `'Míkka 22:21, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry that my text leaves an impression I am angry "at people who are trying to help". In any case, you don't have to help *me*: you have to help wikipedia by talking reason to this guy, since, as you may have already guessed, I am emotionally incapable to do this. Exactly for this reason I asked to other people to step in, rather that to bicker with a smartaleck myself. `'Míkka 22:30, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Journals

I see from the above that there is more history to the Elsevier stuff than I had realised. I'm a bit puzzled by your reference to a "speedy" though. Are you referring to the Current Opinion stuff, or the Category:Journals by publisher (and related categories) that I created recently? Carcharoth 00:46, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

the Current opinion stuff, and the DRV this morning [25]. The categories of journal by publisher are the obvious way to go, though there are some questions about overlap. I don;'t see any attempt to delete them. As you said at the AfD on current Opinion in Immunology, [26], the job is to get in articles for all the other important journals. I'll help as I can, especially if my knowledge of the publishers can be of any use.DGG (talk) 00:59, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

BRFA

Please comment on the main BRFA page - thats what the discussion section is for. Also, could you clarify your comment? Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 05:56, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

The notability of Yoichi

I appreciate the revival of the article " Yoichi Masuzoe".He is konwn as the amiable presenter in owarai TV.

And British navy wikipedian is one of the friends with much homor.I hope his progresses in the sence of .... ----The DQN,macbeth 07:01, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Quackwatch

Hi, I would like your opinion about Quackwatch, it seems to be {{db-advert}} but is protected and who protected it seems to not want to the tag for {{db-advert}} be placed. Could you give a look? I came there from WP:ORGZ and that article seems writen by the organization itself .Daoken 10:34, 27 August 2007 (UTC) Protecting the article does not imply endorsement of the current content--it is just a temporary measure to prevent edit warring. It has at any rate been unprotected a little while ago. Frankly, I see no imperative reason to add an advertisement tag, and if a tag war starts again, the article will surely be protected again. It would be more productive to work on the contents of the article than quarrel over tagging. DGG (talk) 00:10, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Little Forest Hills, Dallas, Texas

I don't understand your objection to Little Forest Hills. Why is it any less important than Forest Hills? Or than any of the dozens of small areas under 'Lake Highlands'? The point of the neighborhoods section is to identify and describe the many areas of Dallas, by starting the page I was hoping to lay a basic ground work for others more knowledgeable than me to follow from. That being said, I will add something of 'importance,' but I think you're missing the concept. Noleman05 15:24, 27 August 2007 (UTC)Noleman05

Hello colleague

Do you feel like a Librarian today? If you do, give a look at WP:KIS and let me know if you have someone in mind who could have the time to code the most used labels (languages and most known projects). Also I have a problem with the box for the labels, I don't know what code to enter for the labels display horizontally inside the box instead of vertically. If you don't feel like a librarian today, that is fine also, we file it for another time ℒibrarian2 20:02, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

The box problem is solved, I made instead a rail kind of thing where the labels go (makes you remember something?) I like it better anyway. But the need of someone as I said above is still actual ℒibrarian2 21:16, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Arbeiter Zeitung

Hi thanks for editing the 1880 chicago version of the Arbeiter Zeitung but now i cant seem to find the fascist one ! do you know what the title of the article s? i want to link them all together, since these people and groups likely borrowed ideas from one another for decades in the German language. Interesting anyway. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Victorgrigas (talk • contribs) 01:36, August 28, 2007 (UTC)

The Chicago paper was published by anarchists, the kind of Germans that the fascists murdered. The fascists certainly did not borrow ideas from them just because they wrote in the same language. Are you thinking of the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung? --Orange Mike 01:43, 28 August 2007 (UTC) (hopes you realize "Zeitung" means "Times")

I see no evidence that there ever was a Fascist one by that title. The two principle ones are the Chicago one, which was anarchist, and important in american history primarily for the involvement in the notorious Haymarket riot investigation and the Vienna one, which was middle-of-the road socialist and important not just politically but culturally (and as the publisher of many important documents of record). I do not see any evidence at all for them being versions of each other or in any way related. It's a rather obvious German title for any left wing publication. The Fascists murdered anarchists, true, but also other left wing people of many different sorts--I have always understood that the Communists were their principal enemy, being the strongest. I don't think there is any basis for a general article, only for articles on the individual titles. Besides these two there are a number of others of various left-wing political tendencies, in the US and in Europe, listed in British Library and Library of Congress catalogs, mostly with very fragmentary files--so it would be hard to give starting of finishing dates. --I have not searched the German catalogs or bibliographies yet--I know what they are and how to use them but I'm not an expert in 19th century newspapers. The deWP is of only limited help, as their articles do not give sources. The one earlier claimed to be Fascist is a mistake for something by the anon. contributor back in 2005. [27], and I do not know what he had in mind. The DAZ was extreme right wing, but I think never an official party newspaper. From 1920 on, the Nazi official paper was the Völkischer Beobachter. DGG (talk) 02:27, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I think Victor misread "anti-fascist" as "fascist" at some point. --Orange Mike 12:59, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Elaine Kennedy

I still think a speedy would be appropriate, since she is a not-yet successful minor-party candidate, and the sources are level of awards are questionable in my opinion. But that's why I don't want to be an admin, because I want a second opinion on most of my speedy tags. Realkyhick 03:33, 28 August 2007 (UTC) (sure, but please remember: non-notable is not enough for speedy, it must also not even assert any notability--DGG)

Quackwatch

I want to let you know that there is now reason to charge against me in the AfD discussion. I would rather prefer a true comment than a characterization (wrong albeit) of who presented the article for deletion. The article is an old PR rag all bitten up by groups and nothing else, it had the chance to change and is still PR and largely selfreferenced and that is the only reason I nominated it. If a new article was written in a fully encyclopedic way I am sure it will stand firm. I will appreciate you don't characterize me freely at any time in the future. Jenny^Len☤ 07:41, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

shemale 2

As per previous discussion with you i have created page here: Talk:Shemale/DRV_proposal. This i created from afd article history, i changed only lead section. You can find innumerable ref's if you google search shemale+"secondary sex characteristics". But DRV looks imminent, since there seems to be opposition, since it is a derogatory term to some people, and i would love 5~ comments. Lara_bran 10:25, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

the requirements

Sangye Nyenpa Rinpoche : "It is not enough that it be licensed for wikipedia!! it must be released under a GFDL license, which permits the further use by anyone in the world for any purpose, even commercial, and modification by anyone in any manner. See WP:Copyright DGG (talk) 00:00, 28 August 2007 (UTC) Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:R%C3%A9dacteur_Tibet""

I indicated this and the exact web page correspondig to "the guide to requesting and formalizing" to the webmaster of www.benchen.org. He responded : "for me its ok to use the text of Sangye Nyenpa Rinpoche on wikipedia. But as they say on the page, it needs more introduction, because not everybody is so much into it" Therefore, it is clear that the text can be used for wikipedia. However, it needs clarification, and probably simplification. --Rédacteur Tibet 14:32, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

not yet sufficient, replied further on your talk page--DGG.

antiracist activists

Dear Administrator, I am interested in knowing how I can make my article more notable. Should I just include the activists who have published articles and books? And delete the others? I tried changing the name of the piece to be more inclusive as Iwould like to add more names as I research them. Does this sound do-able to you? I would like the entry to stand in some way; any help would be appreciated. Thanks. Sanlaw33 16:37, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I do not think it possible to have a good article on the current plan. There is no good way to includes relatively non-notable people in a portmanteau article of this sort--it will be seen as an attempt to bypass WP:N. You can write an article on individual people if there are third party published references in reliable sources dealing about them in a substantial way, and this is the preferred way to go. Web sites of their organizations are not such sources. Newspaper & magazine articles are, but again not those linked to their organizations. Of the sources in the existing articles, only the Boston Globe story fits. Articles in alumni magazines are very borderline--they do not have a very high reputation for objectivity.

(incidentally, Administrators here have no special power in matters like this--all editors have an equal voice in the consensus when it comes to deciding notability at AfD--all that administrators do there is decide what the consensus of the discussion actually is and delete or not accordingly. All we can do otherwise is delete articles that are altogether unquestionably unacceptable. There are many Wikipedians of great experience who choose not to become administrators, and are highly respected. What is true is that nobody is accepted as an administrator without a considerable degree of experience and community expression of confidence.)

more detailed discussion on your talk page. DGG (talk) 17:40, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

World's largest airlines

thanks for helping me with that 2nd nomination. I found reading the comments in the deletion proposal informative, and am glad the process was carried out completely. I'll try to add more text once it calms down from the merge. Pdbailey 17:16, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Marilyn Carroll

Hey, Would I add a section called "defense" or something? How do you recommend that I go about it?17:22, 28 August 2007 (UTC)Carniv

I would suggest continuing the section on animal rights campaign with an equal length discussion of her statements, those from the university, and those of her supporters. Don't give extensive quotes, but do give references. I would also add a section of Scientific Work, and discuss her actual scientific work and list major publications especially as referred to in the controversy. They should all be in PubMed, which also indicates other articles referring to them. Include a mention of her degrees and any awards--her official website is a suitable source for noncontroversial details like that. Let me know if you'd like me to take a look. DGG (talk) 17:36, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Nexus War Logo Usage

Hi. I am the copyright owner of the logo image currently being used on the Nexus War page. I notice that the previous time this image was uploaded, it was deleted due to a lack of copyright use.

I am perfectly willing to allow the graphic to stay on wikipedia, but I don't know how to go about indicating as such. Being as you appear to have some knowledge of wikipedia's inner workings, is there a way that I can assert that permission is given?--Jorm 18:15, 28 August 2007 (UTC) See WP:LOGOS--a little more detail on your talk page. DGG

antiracist activists

Thanks, DGG for your helpful advice. I am wondering how much time I have before the current Wikipedia entry is deleted? I will make the changes you suggest. Sanlaw33 22:42, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

how to communicate on the WP:Deletion Review

Thanks again, DGG, for the advice. I went to the deletion review page (WP: Deletion REview), but could not figure out where to communicate my intention and rationale for withdrawing the pages you mention. What and where should I click to add my suggestion? Can you help me out?Sanlaw33 23:56, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Bot articles

Hello I need a opinion. I find that several hundred or maybe a few thousand stub articles were built by Ganeshbot without a reference section and the only reference given on them is Template:GR (but some like Ghorawal did get a reference section). Many of them like Ghorabandha have not matured past stubs. Some like Kangeyam have matured into large unreferenced articles. Some like Mandi Gobindgarh have grown and captured a few references that could use {{citation style}}. I got in a fairly long discussion with the bot builder at User_talk:Jeepday#Re:_Kangeyam after posting a {{uw-unsor1}} to his talk page, suggesting he figure out how to add a reference section and list the reference instead of the wikilink on all those unreferenced articles. He responded that it was beyond his ability and that I make a request at WP:BOTREQ . I have not responded to this because I am not sure if my motivation is related to, my initial response to the complaint that I used a template message (WP:DTTR) to point to an issue in his bot article which was less then happy, or because it seems to conflict with Wikipedia policy. I think both play a part but my work in Wikipedia:Unreferenced articles also drives my motivation and I so I need an uninvolved perspective. Thoughts? Jeepday (talk) 03:02, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

vandalism

Hello, I'm [[User:{{subst:REVISIONUSER}}|{{subst:REVISIONUSER}}]]. An edit that you recently made seemed to be a test and has been reverted. If you want to practice editing, please use your sandbox. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on [[User talk:{{subst:REVISIONUSER}}|my talk page]]. Thanks!

you have vandalized the caitlin upton article. there was no BLP violation whatsoever. we didn't say her birthday, home address, make anything up about her, it was all cited material. this